#to insisting on more than just the corresponding spoken language

[yarnings]

Do government sign language translators need to know all four languages? Or, I guess, three, since they can only sign in one at a time. Or do they get to sign from the spoken translation?

[sailboatdreamer]

Back to the Night We Met

Hello! I'm Arcadia (she/her) and this is my first fic <3 i loved the holdovers so much it actually drove me to writing especially because of the lack of Angus fics rn :) Ill definitely continue it if people are interested, i have a pretty good idea of where to take it, this is just setup.

-You are a female student from a sister school who has to board over at Barton for the holidays, Mary comes to pick you up, and you have a first impression of all the boys- 859 words - slight blood mention.-

Angus reminded me of many men i had known, in various ways, throughout my life. Cold at first, brash, defensive- but equally in need of a love that was not easily accessible.

The first time i had ever met Angus, it was Christmas of 1970. The corresponding sister-school to Barton, Ada’s School for Girls, had just let out all the girls for winter break, except of course myself, who was doomed to two weeks of almost complete solitude. My only recompense being the books in the library, and my carefully hidden ration of cigarettes given to me by a friend as a Christmas gift.

I’d assumed that my stay at Ada would be chaperoned by one of the sisters from the convent, as they lived on campus and were usually the go-to call for holdover students, however when it came time to say goodbye, an unfamiliar face was awaiting me outside the aching, old oak doors.

“Hello young lady, I believe you’re staying with us this time.” Boston accent.

A beautiful woman, with a soft spoken voice, stood up against a powder-blue Impala, cigarette between her fingers. I came to learn that this lady was Mary Lamb. She was a cook from Barton, who’d elected to stay over the holidays due to the untimely and tragic death of her young boy, Curtis, a student. In her words, she felt going home would’ve abandoned his memory during this time that meant so much to both of them. As she drove me to Barton she explained i’d be staying with the other male holdovers due to ‘administrative difficulties’ whatever that meant

Quickly sensing my discomfort with this idea she said “Listen, you let me know if those little shitheads give you a hard time okay? My quarters are just past the dorms, near the garden.” i nodded appreciatively, smiling at her choice of language. It was surprising to hear it from such a demure lady, but Mary’s streak of subtle rebellion ultimately made her one of my favourite people i ever got to know through my school years.

When we arrived to Barton, Mary directed me towards the infirmary, as it was the last room in the entire building that had any heating, as i approached the door there was a clear noise of a scuffle going on inside. I gently pressed the door open, beat-up suitcase in my hand, glasses pushed to my nose. Two of the older boys were hitting each-other wildly, although it really seemed more girlish than i assumed boys fought. The minute they saw me, they got up and hastily tried to straighten out their shirts.

“Who are you!? The fuck-a girl?” A blonde boy, blue eyes, very irritating.

A rally of small, meek, lower-year boys stood around the room, just watching. The other boy who i’d seen flinging punches on the blonde was seething, he had a little blood running down his cheek, and he didn’t really acknowledge me, he seemed too focused on whatever his next chance was to knock the blonde’s lights out.

“Hello…..” i wave shyly, putting my suitcase by a free bed.

”hi, hello,- um-hi” the room grumbles back at me.

The air in the room is thick, and tense. Worried, nervous glances are passed between myself and the rest of the room for what feels like endless minutes before someone breaks the silence. “Do…. do you need help with your bags.” a nervous mutter from the boy who’d previously not acknowledged my arrival. And i actually did. Some of my books i insisted on bringing, assuming i’d have a boring two weeks had been a weight on my luggage. “Yeah… yeah i’d appreciate that. Thank you.” He follows me out, leaving the other boys to debrief among themselves. As we wander down the long, aging halls, and the noise of the infirmary grows quieter, i try to break the tension. “so….I’m (y/n).. i go to Ada,and uh- our nuns, shacked up for the winter apparently so that’s why i’m here. I met Mary, she’s… she’s really sweet” As i speak he nods gently, listening before speaking. “I’m Angus. And that (he points back at the infirmary) was Teddy Koutnze. Resident dickhead. The other kids i don’t know so well, they’re first years but-… they’re not too bad.” It was my turn to listen this time, as we walk i study the features on his face. Strong, angular features and deep, brown eyes, nearly carvaggian. He helps me with my other bags, opting to take the heavier one for me kindly, but as he’s picking it up, i again notice the blood on the side of his face. Without a second thought, i reach out to touch it, as i would’ve for any of the girls back at Ada. “You’re bleeding….”

His hand immediately rushes to his cheek, and i notice as his cheeks flush red, i recognise my mistake and apologize hurriedly “Oh-sorry, i-uh…” i try to brush off the blood on my skirt, and i we struggle to meet eyes “its… its okay” He grumbles, not meeting my eyes, we both walk back awkwardly, i know my face is flushed and i internally curse myself for doing something so careless. We share in the silence and a little smeared blood on our fingertips.

[mariacallous]

The explosive device that went off in the St. Petersburg establishment Street Food Bar № 1 injured more than 30 visitors and killed the host of the Sunday event, Russian propagandist and self-styled “war correspondent” Vladlen Tatarsky. The prime suspect in the murder is St. Petersburg resident Daria Trepova, who had come to Tatarsky’s reading at the cafe with a plaster statuette, which she then gave to the blogger. Meduza has surveyed Tatarsky’s past publications and spoken with Kremlin insiders about the likely political consequences of his assassination.

Personally, I experienced a slight fragmentation of personality. Part of me wants to live in comfort, spend quiet evenings with my family, and work in an office; but when I hear the cannons rumbling outside my window (my home is just 14 kilometers away from the front), I realize I could drop everything and rush over there, to be at the center of the events. I’m not crazy. My problem is that I was born a Russian. And the Russian idea is war.

The man who wrote these words in 2017 was Maxim Fomin, who was by then signing his comments on the Donbas war with a nom de plume borrowed from a novel by Victor Pelevin, one of whose characters was called Vladlen Tatarsky. Six years later, Fomin (now better known as Tatarsky) was blown up in a St. Petersburg cafe while hosting a conversation on how the self-styled pro-Kremlin “war correspondents” should present Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in their writing.

‘If you want power, be ready to kill’

Fomin was born in Donetsk in 1982, in a miners’ family. He would later call his father a “Russian patriot,” insisting that he had a patriotic upbringing. “Even as a child, I was conducting little dissident shenanigans in Ukrainian language class: I always tried to disrupt the classes, arguing with teachers and trying to prove that we didn’t need this. In short, I was ideologically engaged.”

He used broad brushstrokes when writing about his life prior to 2014: “I worked in a mine; I did business, some of it illicit; I served time.” When the Donbas conflict broke out, Fomin was in prison: in 2011, he’d been sentenced to 12 years for a bank robbery. He escaped from the penitentiary, hoping to join the separatist militia as a volunteer, but instead got arrested and returned to the “zone.” Later, the head of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk republic” Alexander Zakharchenko pardoned Fomin, and he signed up for a “tour of duty.” (Zakharchenko himself was assassinated in 2018.)

While serving in the military, Fomin (the future Tatarsky) went by the code name “Professor,” supposedly because of his bookishness. In 2016–2017, he decided to reinvent himself as a “war correspondent.” He started blogging and writing for small pro-Russian groups on the social media. As a blogger, he interviewed Donbas separatists and reported on combat events. His hallmark was to write about his milieu without idealizing the combatants, and he may have pioneered the use of J.R.R. Tolkien’s noun “Orcs” when writing about fighters on both sides:

These primitive Orcs are happy with far simpler things than modern weapons. A good-looking uniform… combat boots and tactical gloves, which an Orc never takes off, berets in every imaginable color, with all kinds of badges… bandanas, balaclavas, durags, combat amulets, shaved heads, phallic symbols shaped like knives and bayonets, and iron-on patches — all of this was cause for pride! And, once in possession of this stuff, an Orc had to be drunk! Then he was happiest.

Similarly, the field commander Givi, a “hero” of Russian propaganda, was just a “methhead” in Tatarsky’s writing. The blogger admitted that he’d never seen the kind of “rabble” that he saw gravitating to military operations in the Donbas, not even in prison. In 2017, he wrote:

There’s godless drinking in the trenches. There’s drinking in the headquarters. Combat vehicle crews and artillerists drink. This often has tragic consequences: not just trivial self-shoots, but also loss of positions and failure in meeting goals. I don’t know about Afghanistan and Syria, but in Chechnya and the Donbas both sides were dealing with internal conflicts.

Tatarsky wasn’t sentimental about the so-called “volunteers” and their motives. All of them, he thought, “banded together around newfangled princes, combining warfare with looting.” “All the tales like ‘I came to the Donbas from Irkutsk to protect the children and keep NATO out of Snizhne’ are nothing more than the official line. Tales like ‘I’m going to the Donbas because Ukraine’s constitution doesn’t permit cessation’ is even funnier nonsense,” Tatarsky wrote.

In his blog, the self-styled “correspondent” warned the potential combatants: “Before you go to war, ask yourself if you really want to look into that abyss. Be honest with yourself! Maybe what you really need is to take up strikeball or wrestling.” At the same time, he justified the ruthlessness of the Russian regime: “If you want lasting state power in our parts, be ready to kill those who are close to you.”

‘Hardly a Dugina’

In 2017, Tatarsky moved his blog from LiveJournal to the rapidly developing Telegram, where his audience nevertheless remained a niche one: by February 23, 2022, he had about 30,000 subscribers. Within a year, though, that number was multiplied by a factor of 19.

In spring 2022, Tatarsky claimed that he’d known about the impending invasion since November 2021. This couldn’t have been the case, given how abruptly even members of the Russian Security Council realized that Putin had made up his mind to invade Ukraine. Still, according to Tatarsky himself, on February 2, 2022, he was back in the Donbas in full knowledge of what was to come. As for his own part in the warfare, he wouldn’t just write, but also fight on the frontline.

As a war blogger with a rapidly growing audience, Tatarsky got invited to write for RT. He became a co-host of Vladimir Solovyov’s analytical show initially hosted by the popular blogger Mikhail Zvinchuk, the man behind the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Rybar.

Tatarsky’s interests shifted from “Orc” culture and drunkenness on the frontline to larger subjects. He began talking about items from the Kremlin agenda, like the “complete liquidation of the Ukrainian state.” Calling Ukraine in its “present form” an “anti-Russia,” Tatarsky wrote: “In order for this state to exist in some other form, Ukrainians should be cured of their Russophobia and nationalism, as our own forefathers once cured the excellent country called Germany of its mad führer and his ideas.”

On September 30, 2022, Vladlen Tatarsky found himself an invited guest at the Kremlin, at the annexation ceremony that proclaimed four Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine to be Russia’s new territories. “We’ll triumph over everyone, kill everyone, loot everything we want,” said the elated blogger in a video. “Everything will be the way we like it. Let’s go, and God bless,” he concluded.

Unlike many other pro-Kremlin writers on Telegram, Tatarsky remained optimistic about the situation at the front, even in recent months. In the fall of 2022, he was skeptical about Ukraine’s ability to take back the Kherson region. Later, he believed that the situation in Kherson could still be salvaged for Russia. Around the same time, he began to criticize the Russian Defense Ministry, which led some to link him with Evgeny Prigozhin’s propaganda efforts. When Tatarsky was killed on April 2, Prigozhin himself had been expected to stop by the event.

In conversations with Meduza, a Kremlin insider and a personal acquaintance of Prigozhin’s both agreed that Tatarsky wasn’t exactly “close” to Prigozhin. The latter knew Tatarsky as someone who wrote favorably about Wagner Group, and that’s that, says a source acquainted with the paramilitary entrepreneur. Still, hours after the assassination, Prigozhin announced that a Russian flag had been raised over Bakhmut in Tatarsky’s honor.

Pro-Kremlin propaganda reacted to Tatarsky’s death by instantly blaming Ukraine: “When is this country going to respond?” wrote on Telegram Tina Kandelaki, deputy director of Gazprom-Media. “The terrorists have electricity, water, working railways, restaurants, Internet,” she went on, implying where action should be taken. “Well, then?” echoed RT’s CEO Margarita Simonyan, asking sarcastically: “Are we just going to forgive and forget?” Other propagandists demanded the return of capital punishment as an answer to the death of the “proselytizing warrior.”

Although Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the murder a terrorist act, he said nothing about Vladimir Putin’s reaction to Tatarsky’s death. Two Kremlin insiders who spoke with Meduza doubt the administration will take any harsh measures in response to the killing. As one of them put it, “this is hardly another [Daria] Dugina murder.”

[stillbandofbrothersthirsty]

As Far As Friends Go

Chapter 5 (Chapter 1; Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4; Chapter 6; ... Chapter 18)

Summary: Emily Rooney has always wanted more than what her family wanted for her; to get married to a nice, wealthy young man and have lots of well-raised Catholic babies. So when her fiancee enlists with the marines she decides this is her chance to have an adventure before she has to get married. She finds herself outfitted with the 506th working alongside a flippant intelligence officer.

Emily - November 1943

Emily and Luz beat their final opponents by 50. She walked home that night with a new sense of pride bolstered by her new soldier friends’ praise.

Their first opponents had been Joe Liebgott and Moe Alley. Their speedy victory had been chalked up to beginners luck on Emily’s part. So, she graciously accepted a second invitation to play, this time against Donald Malarkey and Skip Muck. After another inevitable win the men grew rowdy with the idea that Emily Rooney was seemingly unbeatable.

After another three games in a row Nixon had come over to let Emily know that he and Welsh were headed back to base, if she wanted to walk back with them. Luz and the other soldiers around her whined for her to stay. After their time together, Emily felt she could trust the men. She at least felt she could trust Luz so she told Nixon to go on without her.

“How’d you get so good?” Luz asked as they walked back.

“Played a lot in college.”

“How was college?”

“College was,” Emily hesitated, “fine.”

“Just fine?” Luz’s figure was barely visible in the darkness. A few paces ahead of them walked Joe Toye and Frank Perconte.

“I really enjoyed learning!”

“Oh yeah? What’d you study?” George sounded genuinely interested.

“Geography and History.”

“Smart girl, eh?” Emily thought she could make out the flash of George’s smile.

“I love those subjects, it’s easy when you love it,” she said.

“That makes sense why you’re here then! Teaching us common soldiers all about maps and such,” George said, “so why just fine then? Since you got to study what you love?”

Emily focused on the gravel crunching beneath their steps as she tried to formulate the best way to explain herself. She didn’t know why she felt so comfortable being vulnerable with George right now, but she did. Maybe it was the alcohol or maybe it was just because he was being so friendly. “I don’t think anyone wanted me there, not to learn at least.”

“Whaddya mean?” George’s warm shoulder brushed hers briefly as he moved closer to listen.

Emily exhaled, “I was so excited to learn and to get to go to college! But when I got there I quickly realized that it was just one giant pantomime.” She paused. George remained silent, waiting for her to continue. “We were encouraged to spend time with the Notre Dame boys, and it wasn’t subtle. I didn’t really feel challenged academically or that my scores or assignments mattered. All my classmates were consumed with the latest hair styles, their boyfriends, dances, and as far as academics went,” Emily scoffed, “they didn’t really care about learning or thinking critically,” she was ranting now, “as long as they appeared to be a ‘successful’ student, that’s as far as it mattered. A respectable young woman with a formal education. That moves you up in life. But no one actually cares if you learn anything or have any thoughts of your own!”

George was quiet and Emily felt a flush taking over her cheeks. She was grateful for the shield of darkness.

“Well, good thing you didn’t listen to them,” George finally said.

“What?” Emily turned to look at him, despite the low visibility.

“Well, you’re here aren’t ya. You’re actually doing something with your education. You’re doing everything they didn’t want you too and that’s gutsy.”

Emily allowed herself to smile slightly, “yeah, I guess so.”

“Not a lot of dames would leave everything behind to join the European front. I mean, how many women do you see around you right now?” Emily chuckled, “there’s plenty of other brave women here.”

“Yeah, and you’re one of them.” They were approaching base at this point and the few dim lamps that hung on the front of the buildings illuminated George’s face slightly.

“Thank you, George,” Emily smiled softly at him.

“Anytime.” He bumped her gently with his shoulder. “You want me to walk you back to HQ?”

“That’s okay, we’re fifty feet away,” she gestured, “though I appreciate the offer.”

“Sure, see you later.” George disappeared into the darkness with Joe and Frank.

The next morning Emily felt more exhausted than she had in a long time. She wasn’t hungover - or at least she thought. To be fair she hadn’t experienced that sensation before.

“Alright kid?” Nixon asked as he trudged into the intelligence room.

“Kid?” she asked dryly. He shot her a look that said, yeah and? 
“Yeah I’m good, thanks. You alright?”

“I’m up aren’t I.”

“Indeed,” Emily chuckled, “coffee?”

“Sure,” he accepted the drink, “is this..?”

“Regular,” Emily didn’t have the energy to elaborate until she had consumed her own cup of coffee. Luckily, her and Nixon’s shorthand had evolved into a clear language.

After a few quiet minutes of mutual existence Nixon finally said, “we’re getting you on the rifle range today.”

“Okay,” Emily said dully.

Nixon squinted at her, “okay?”

“Yeah, okay, just tell me what time so I can change into my pants.”

“Okay,” Nixon drawled suspiciously.

“What?”

“I was expecting a little more pushback or more questions.”

“What’s there to ask?”
 “I don’t know, you always seem to come up with something!”

“Well I just said let me know so I can change.”

“Right, well are you nervous?”

Emily raised her eyebrows at him, “I’ve shot a gun before, Captain.”

Nixon winced into his coffee.

“What?” Emily asked, “don’t like women shooting guns?” 
“No,” Nixon said defensively, “god, you make me sound like a misogynist. I don’t like that title.” 
“Captain?” Emily was confused.

Nixon waived his hand is disgust, “yeah that.”

“Why?”

“I just don’t care for it. I don’t care for the frou-frou and fanfare of it all.”

“This is coming from a man who has an exclusive drink preference?”

Nixon gave her a cool look which caved into a little chuckle. “I’m here to do a job, a job I don’t particularly want to do, and that’s it,” he said with finality.

His attitude came as a surprise to Emily. Her impression of Lewis Nixon thus far had been that of an out of touch but clever and capable officer. She never had any sense that he took his military career seriously, like Winters for example; Nixon’s flippant attitude made that clear. But before now she would’ve guessed that title and rank meant something to him. Their conversation revealed a surprising humility Emily hadn’t expected to find in him. He was here out of duty to his nation just as much as any other foot soldier who had enlisted, not for glory. Guilt tugged slightly in Emily’s stomach. What was she here for? Not glory, but if she was being honest, not in humble service of her country either. Between the two of them, she was the opportunistic one using the events of war to seek adventure.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Nixon interrupted her introspection.

“Sorry,” Emily shook her head to clear the fog of her mind, “I’m tired.”

“Wild night?”

“Not really,” she said innocently.

“Really? I’m disappointed in George Luz.” Nixon smiled devilishly.

Emily couldn’t help the red flush that crept up her cheeks. There was nothing to be embarrassed about but Emily was Irish, so her blushes were frequent and beyond her control.

Nixon clocked it immediately and wasn’t about to be gracious enough to let it go ignored, “what?” he demanded with a half-smile, “what are you keeping from me?”

“Nothing!” Emily insisted.

“Aw come on, you know I’ll find out.”

“There’s nothing to find out!”

“There isn’t? Why are you so red then?” Nixon was unrelenting.

“I don’t know! I can’t help it!” Emily pressed her hands against her cheeks, desperately trying to cool her face, “I’m not hiding anything!”
 Nixon raised his eyebrows in doubt. Quickly, Emily collected herself and straightened, determined to get her power back from him, “There’s nothing to hide. Besides, I am spoken for, Captain,” she said haughtily.

Nixon wrinkled his nose in distaste at her pointed use of the title he had just admitted he hated.  Emily smiled smugly back at him and the conversation was put to rest. The pair ditched their empty mugs and were about to start out for their morning duties when Private Allen Vest stopped them in the doorway.

“A letter for Miss Rooney,” he said holding out an envelope.

“Thank you,” Emily took it and Vest was gone as quickly as he arrived.

“Finally a letter from that boyfriend of yours?”

“Fiancee,” Emily corrected, opening the letter.

“Hey ask him if he’s had a chance to try the local cuisine yet. If he’s anywhere close to Turin, I know this lovely little hilltop place I’d love to recommend.”

Emily looked up from the letter to shoot Nixon a disgusted look. He raised his eyebrows in mock offense, “at least say hi for me!”, then he swaggered out leaving Emily shaking her head and smiling. She had barely comprehended the few words she had already read, having been distracted by Nixon. She began again,

Dearest Emily,

I’m glad to hear you’ve settled in England easily. I apologize for the time since my last letter. I can’t begin to describe to you how difficult things are over here and frankly, I’ve had more to worry about than our correspondence. I do appreciate each of your letters, and your enduring loyalty to me…

A slight pang of guilt hit Emily at those words. Why though? She asked herself, had she been unfaithful? Not in the slightest. She had done nothing wrong or untoward since she’d been separated from John. But, though not explicitly wrong, she had done things she knew he wouldn’t approve of. She had played darts and cards, she’d drank and socialized with men without a female companion. She had been alone in a room with who John would consider a strange man on more than one occasion. This was on top of the liberties he had already been a good sport about; her working, shooting, and potentially being sent to the continent. These were all things that were acceptable from women who were single and not from her class, especially when there was plenty of dignified work to do on the home-front. And so Emily had omitted the details of her relationships and aspirations in her letters to John. She most definitely would not be conveying a hello to him from Nixon.

Emily finished the letter, folded it up, and stuffed it in her breast pocket. From her desk on the far left of the room she collected a box of maps and hurried out of the room. She was running late. Emily walked as quickly along the pebbled road as she could while still maintaining her poise. The box hadn’t seemed to weigh much when she first picked it up but it grew heavier in her arms with every step. The edge of the cardboard dug into her stomach, pulling on her skirt. A sudden anxiety of how her skirt may be twisted around when she entered the classroom came over her. She bounced the box on her hip which provided some momentary respite and room to desperately pull at her skirt in an effort to straighten it. She was roughly twenty-five yards away when two hands reached out for the box, accompanied by a friendly voice

“Em, let me take that for you,” George Luz said.

Emily’s initial instinct was to protest the help. She was more than capable but George was already taking the box from her and she couldn’t deny her relief.

She straightened and smoothed her skirt before she looked up at her rescuer, “thank you, George. You sure it’s not too much? You’ve got a lot on you right now.”

“Another couple pounds won’t hurt, whoa!” George feigned dropping the box and laughed when Emily lunged to support him. “Seriously, no sweat. Where are we going?”

Emily pointed straight ahead to the building they were approaching. “Perfect, that’s where I’m supposed to be anyways,” George said.

Emily grinned at the trouble maker, “you running late too?”

George smiled crookedly back at her, “I left for the bathroom while we were getting settled in. I don’t think they got up to much without me if we were waiting on these.” George lifted the box in indication.

Emily flushed, “I know, I know, I got distracted and lost track of time.”

“By anything good?” George’s question was innocent but there was something about it that felt probative.

“Letter from John,” Emily patted her breast pocket, doing her best to keep her voice nonchalant. She noticed that George took the opportunity to glance at her chest and redness flared in her cheeks again. George quickly looked away and said, “nice, how’s he doing? Remind me, brother or boyfriend?”

“Fiancee, and he’s doing well.”

“Nice,” George stepped aside to let Emily enter first through the already open doorway. Inside, Welsh was already lecturing.

“Yesterday we talked about magnetic declination and the left add right subtract rule,” Welsh noticed her enter with George close behind, “today,” he continued, “we’re gonna put it into practice.”

“Thanks George,” Emily whispered her thanks and took the box from him. Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, Emily walked around the soldiers, occasionally having to step over a canteen or helmet, until she reached the front of the classroom. As Welsh continued to speak, Emily took out gridded maps from her box and began to distribute them to the soldiers.

“Glad you could join us,” Welsh grinned a gapped tooth smile at her once the lesson was ended. His hands were stuffed deep into his pants pockets and he rocked back and forth on his heels as Emily re-organized the maps in her box.

“I’m so sorry I was late,” she grimaced, “I - I don’t have any excuse just lost track of time.”

Welsh gave a shrug that told her it wasn’t a big deal. He didn’t say anything more but remained standing only feet from her, watching her work.

“That was a good lesson,” she said to break the silence, “they seemed to really get it.”

“Yeah, it always makes more sense when once can practice it on their own,” Welsh said.

“Agreed, best way to learn is by doing.”

“I’m relieved to think you went well though,” Welsh said settling himself on the edge of the table. He folded his arms across his chest and looked at her with those disarming blue eyes, “I only learned all of this a couple days ago. It really should’ve been you teaching them.”

Emily smiled at the ground in response to his slight compliment, “you did a fine job. Besides, you’re their leader. It’s important to establish that you’re the one they should go to for information and support.”

“Pfft,” Welsh scoffed, “I’m sure that’s true, but no one wants to look at my ugly mug at the front of a classroom. All of those guys would have paid better attention to a beautiful lady like you.”

Emily fully flushed at this blatant compliment.

Welsh bit at his bottom lip, “anyways, time to get on to the next thing,” he stood, “want to leave that there for this afternoon?”

Emily nodded, “that was the plan. Just tidying things up a bit so you can easily find everything you need later.”

“Thanks,” Welsh said. Emily watched his lean figure walk out the door, silhouetted by the mid-morning sun streaming in. A little shiver ran through her body. Thoughts were creeping up in her mind that she was afraid to touch. If she acknowledged them there would be no denying them. She refused to be distracted from her plan; make the most of her career now before she had to return home and settle down. She couldn’t give anyone an excuse to send her home, not her parents or John or Nixon or any of the soldiers she worked alongside. Any acknowledgement of her growing crush would only lead to trouble.

[theheartsmistakes]

The Last Night Part XXI

A/N at the End:

Parts I-XIX:

Here is Part I

Here is Part II

Here is Part III

Here is Part IV

Here is Part V

Here is Part VI

Here is Part VII

Here is Part VIII

Here is Part IX

Here is Part X

Here is Part XI

Here is Part XII

Part XIII

Part XIV

Part XV

Part XVI

Part XVII

Part XVIII

Part XIX

Part XX

.XXI.

The cluster of ewes kept a respectful distance on their side of the fence, heads lifted now and then to watch the pair walking along the empty country road. Cordelia avoided a rather large puddle, filled over with dark murky water, and resumed her step with James on the other side. They were losing the light, and the setting sun had tinged the clouds a golden rose that glowed against the cold flat blue of the dusk.

James, tucked his hands into his pockets and resumed his guided tour. “I’m terribly sorry about having to abandon the carriage. It’s never clear how the wheels are going to weather the roads after a storm.”

“Another added to perk to Algernon,” said Cordelia.

“I’ll pretend you never said that and that you didn’t just use its given name. Matthew needs no further encouragement” said James and nudged her with his shoulder. “You know, Magnus owns this whole estate?”

“Really?” Cordelia looked across the narrow, feudal fields of rich red earth and verdant pasture sloping gently down from either side to form the shallow valley of the village, thinking how furious her father would have been to know that a Downworlder owned all of this. He hated the concept of massive estates. “That’s quite impressive.”

“He inherited it apparently. He owns everything— the pastures, the village, everything. Has done for nearly two centuries. Although he’s sold a lot of it in the past century or given it away, but he insists that the architecture be kept the same. That’s why some of the houses look sprung up from the colonies. Neo-Natalian, they call it, that flat-topped design. And that small cottage with the blue smoke coming out of the shoot”— he pointed down into the valley— “that’s his. Not too far to go. Are you alright?”

Cordelia tucked her hands into her coat pockets. “A little walking never bothered me. I would wonder around all over Tehran when I was a child. Alastair would grovel while I dragged him through the streets from one street merchant to the next.”

Squinting a little, Cordelia studied the westernmost end of the road, mentally comparing the earthy tones of England to the desert warmth of her homeland.

“I imagine it was beautiful,” said James.

“It was,” she said with a nod. “Though a different kind of beautiful than I imagine you’re accustomed to. The beauty lies inside of the city, with the people, the culture. It’s like every sense you have comes to life and you come to life. The air is so filled with spices and burning incense that you can taste it in your mouth. The language being spoken by neighbors sounded more like water trickling in a brook then the clumsy verbiage of English. Some streets were covered in rugs being woven and silks being beaded. It is its own piece of the world and could never be replicated.”

“You miss it.”

It wasn’t a question, but she answered as if it were. “Almost everyday.”

“Almost?”

Cordelia carefully avoided another puddle. “As I’ve told you before,” she started as they merged back together. “I grew up very much alone. I didn’t speak the language well— English being my first language, and the children often poked fun at my clothes or the way that I spoke. I had Alastair, but well, we both know how he can be.”

They began the slow descent now into the valley, not more than ten yards distant from the small cottage with the blue smoke chimney. If she was going to have this conversation with James, then she needed to start it now. She cleared her throat. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about what happened the other night. You have to understand that, there was once a time when Alastair and I— we were all each had in the world. And in that time, he protected me from a lot more than I realized and I don’t think he ever learned how to stop.”

“You don’t need to apologize for him, Cordelia,” said James. “As a brother myself, I understand perfectly well what he was doing and if a man had treated my sister the way that I treated you—even unknowingly— I would have flattened him to the gravel before he had a chance to speak. At least Alastair gave me a chance to explain myself before threatening to brazen me.”

Cordelia smiled. “He’ll probably never like you.”

James laughed and Cordelia’s heart responded to the sound. They’d come to the edge of the cottage’s property now, and the cottage seemed to be waiting for them.

“Then it’s a fine thing that it’s not his approval I seek,” said James, an eyebrow arched. “But I know he means a great deal to you.”

“He does,” she answered quietly.

She felt small in the shadow of the old cottage. The stone walls rose covered in a thin veil of moss and bright colored mushrooms. It was a narrow structure, hard and angular, save for the turret-like structure at one corner that probably sheltered a stairwell inside.

Reaching out, Cordelia ran her hand caressingly over the cold stones as they walked past. “Should we knock?” She asked, unsure how to approach the home of a high warlock— much less one with Magnus Bane’s social standing in the Shadowhunter community.

“Yes, I think so. He left specific instructions not to step on his azaleas,” said James, giving a flower bed full of the illusive purple flowers a wide berth.

He walked ahead of her towards the door tucked into the shadows of the wide porch. Cordelia’s trailing fingers snagged on something sharp, and she pulled her hand back, breaking contact with the stone wall.

“Curious,” said Cordelia, examining her finger tip where a small bead of blood now bloomed. “How does he get azaleas to grow this time of year.”

“I plant the bulbs in early winter,” said a voice from the porch, followed by a curl of smoke that drifted away into the air in the shape of a small white rabbit. “They freeze in the earth, then thaw in the summer, just in time for the rains to make everything moist. They’ll bloom until January.”

Magnus Bane emerged, resting his patched elbows on the porch banister. His eyes flickered, cat-like between the two shadow hunters on his lawn, and as a feline grin changed his face. “Come in,” he said, “it’s getting cold. And these hills are notorious gossips.”

Cordelia stepped through the front door, through the white-painted foray with the checkerboard floor. It smelled sharply of cut wood and coal dust and damp quarry tile.

“When I sent the letter, I expected to be invited back to your flat in London,” said James as he started unbuttoning his coat. “I hadn’t expected to be invited to the cottage. I haven’t been here since New Years of 99’ when you hosted that party.”

Magnus chuckled. “Yes, I faintly remember you and Matthew getting merry on spiced rum. One of you fell asleep in the antlers of my stag wall ornament.”

James blushed. “I have no recollection of that.”

“You wouldn’t, would you?” said Magnus. “It was very good spiced rum.”

James cleared his throat and quickly went to help Cordelia with her coat.

“Speaking of drinks, can I offer either of you something?” asked Magnus, lifting his hands towards the arched passageway into the kitchen. “I have fresh coffee, tea, biscuits, or a plate of chutney if you’re feeling peckish.”

Cordelia shrugged off her coat, and handed it off to James to hang beside his own. “I’ll take tea, if it’s not too much trouble.”

Magnus’s eyes flickered. “It’s not too much trouble at all.” Faint blue smoke curled from his fingertips as he snapped them. Cordelia heard the shuffling of glassware in the kitchen, but could not see who might be inside. “Follow me, we can sit in the front room with the fire so you can warm yourself.”

They followed the warlock through the arched walkway into the adjacent room. The large fireplace stacked with a glowing wood pile that crackled but didn’t seem to burn stood center against the forest green papered wall. A mural of Magnus sitting on a sofa with his ankles crossed and a gray cat in his lap hung over the gold painted mantle lined with fresh garland. Cordelia felt the texture of the floor change under her boots and looked down to notice the grand Persian rug underneath her feet. The style and design must have been over a hundred years old. She wanted to place her hands on it, to smell it, and see if there was anything left of its original home left on it, but resisted the strange urge by taking her seat in one of the wingback chairs that faced the fire.

James took his seat in the couple of her chair.

Magnus chose to stand beside the fireplace. “Your choice in correspondence has left me quite intrigued. It’s not often that one of your kind asks my permission before showing up at my doorstep. You either don’t want anyone to know you’re here or one of you has been raised with manners.”

“When have I ever just shown up at your doorstep?” asked James.

“Who said I was referring to you?” said Magnus, his eyes flickered to James’s wrist. “Aw, broken free from the manacle, I see. How did you manage it? Is that what this is about then?”

James gripped his wrist with his other hand. He glanced to Cordelia, probably weighing her reaction, and then back to Magnus. “We’re not here for me. It’s Cordelia.”

Magnus crossed his arms over his chest. “Aw, the young miss Carstairs. You look much better since I last saw you. You seem to have recovered nicely since your rendezvous with the prince of hell.”

“I wouldn’t call it a rendezvous as much as an unsuccessful kidnapping,” said Cordelia and allowed the comfort of Cortana strapped to her back to fight off the memory of being held against her will. Perhaps it was best that she didn’t remember any of it. What if he’d done something unspeakable to her.

“Tell me what ails you and I will see if I can help,” said Magnus.

“When I woke from my coma,” said Cordelia, taking a deep breath, “its seems that I have forgotten everything after the moment I got into the carriage with my brother to go to Alicante. I don’t remember being attacked, I don’t remember Belial, and I don’t remember how I got back except for what Lucie and James have told me. We were hoping that you would be able to gain access to my memories to hopefully learn what we can about Belial and his plan.”

“Curious.” Magnus tipped his head and thought for a moment, seeking a reply. “But you did hit your head rather hard in the attack, did you not? It could just be that your brain became scrambled just a bit and you’ve only temporarily forgotten.”

Cordelia and James glanced at each other. “That might be so,” said James, “but if Belial disclosed any information about his plan on how to capture me as his host to Cordelia and erased her memories as she was escaping, then perhaps her memories are key to his defeat.”

“Perhaps.” He looked between the two of them. “Unfortunately for you, your very concerned parents have requested that if you were to come to me, I not assist you.”

Cordelia and James both dropped their shoulders in dejection.

“Fortunately for them,” started Magnus, “in assisting you, I am actually assisting them, which they also asked me to do.” He examined some dust on the mantle. “This is a tough decision.”

A silver tray topped with a simple white teapot and three cups drifted into the room and gently bumped into Magnus’s shoulder. Without looking, he waved it away. “None for me, thank you.”

Cordelia watched as the tray floated over to the elegant wooden table and sank down with a delicate rattle.

“Cream or sugar?” Magnus asked.

“Just cream,” requested Cordelia.

The pot and the milk jar lifted and poured simultaneously into an awaiting tea cup. Cordelia’s mouth gaped as she watched.

“You never fail to dazzle,” said James.

“I invented the word, boy,” grinned Magnus as the tea and cup soared to Cordelia’s awaiting hands. “And don’t you forget it. But, now, back to our predicament. No one else has tried to access these lost memories?”

Cordelia swallowed a mouthful of hot earl grey tea. “The Silent Brothers refused as my mind was still healing from the trauma. They fear it might cause irreversible damage.”

Magnus frowned. “They’re right. Playing with magic in someone’s mind is incredibly dangerous. Especially when it comes to memories. Just the slightest wrong touch and you could forget entirely who you are.”

The teacup rattled on the saucer in Cordelia’s hand. James reached over and placed a hand on her knee.

“You needn’t go through with it, Cordelia,” he said gently. “We’ll wait for the memories to return.”

“What if they don’t?” She reached forward to set her tea back on the table lest she spill it all over Magnus’s gorgeous rug or plush velvet arm chair. “Can you do it? Do you think you can access them without—“

Magnus studied his polished fingernails. “I can try, but despite what some might believe, there are no guarantees when it comes to magic.”

Cordelia glanced over at James beside her. He was already studying her face; his expression was gentle and considering. They’d come all this way and they’d gone through all of the trouble to lie to everyone and she had promised to help in any way that she could to defeat Belial. Still, she knew that if she decided she didn’t want to go through with it, he’d leave this cottage with her and they’d find another way.

But there was always a trust in everyone’s voices when they talked about the infamous Magnus Bane. She’d heard stories of his camaraderie and bravery with the Shadowhunter community for years. The other thing that could possibly match his style and class would be his power.  

“Let’s try,” she said with as much confidence as she could bear to muster.

“Cordelia,” James started. “Are you absolutely certain?”

“No,” said Cordelia, “but you trust him, do you not?”

“With my life,” said James.

Magnus grinned down at his suede boots, pretending not to be listening, or at least not to have any interest in the exchange.

“Then I trust him too. Besides,” she said as she leaned forward to pick up her teacup. “His magic makes a delicious cup of tea and if that’s any indication of his abilities, then I feel completely safe.”

Magnus snapped his fingers and the tray of tea disappeared from the table. He pointed to James next. “James, you lay that blanket over the table. Cordelia, lay on top.”

They did as they were instructed. James removed the tightly knit afghan from the back of the chair and over the coffee table with it. Cordelia sat and swung her legs over until she could recline back in a position that made her feel entirely too vulnerable.

Magnus rolled up his sleeves to his elbows and rubbed his hands together creating sparks between his palms. He came around the table and kneeled down behind Cordelia’s head.

James knelt beside her and offered her his hand. “Perhaps you’d rather wait in the library? This could take some time and may not be pleasant.”

James brushed a strand of hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. “I don’t have to go anywhere if you’d prefer me here.”

“Actually, it might be better if you left the room,” said Magnus. “It will give Cordelia a chance to speak more freely and I don’t need the concerned significant other hovering over my shoulder while I am trying to work in the delicate details of the human consciousness.”

Cordelia took his hand and squeezed it. “He’s right.”

James leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I won’t be far.”

She nodded and reluctantly let his hand go as he stood.

Once James left the room, Cordelia felt the cool press of Magnus’s fingertips against her temple. “When you’re comfortable, close your eyes for me, Cordelia.”

After several deep breaths, Cordelia let her eyes close and focused her attention on the gentle rush of Magnus’s breath through his nose and the crackling of the fire wood.

“What’s the first thing that you remember from that night?”

Cordelia let the memories rush past her strangely warped and out of order. The first thing that came to mind was standing before James. “I said goodbye to James. I’d broken our engagement and was leaving London for Alicante with my brother.”

The warmth of the tears on her cheeks, the weight in her chest, the ache in her throat, she recalled all of it as if it were happening again. “I remember leaving James. I climbed into the carriage with Alastair. We started arguing. I told him of my plans to join the Iron Sisters when we returned to Alicante. He was so angry with me. He forbade me from doing it. He nearly turned the carriage around when we felt a jolt, as if we lost a wheel, and the carriage stopped.”

The picture in her mind started to become disfigured. Alastair stood in the darkness, a spear in his hands as he yelled something out to her.

“What was that?” Cordelia asked, pushing herself up to her knees.

“I’m not sure.” Alastair reached for the door. “Stay here. I’ll see what’s going on.”

“I’m coming with you.”

The memory started rippling apart like a stone thrown into still waters.

“Hold onto it, Cordelia,” said Magnus. “There’s a block on your memories, but fight through it.”

“Cyril!”

“Run, Miss Carstairs, run.”

The memory shuddered again.

Alastair stood in front of her with a spear in his right hand, held out in front of them ready to empale whatever or whomever came near. At some point, he had abandoned his waist coat and tie. His eyes danced sharply around them. “Draw Cortana, I believe we’re under—“

Then, there was blood everywhere, more blood than she thought she’d ever seen in her life. Head wounds bleed the worst, she told herself. It was fine. He would be fine.

“Cordelia.” More blood seeped from between Alastair’s lips, staining his teeth. “You— It wants—“

A sharp pain lanced through her ribcage, stealing her breath.

“It’s not real, Cordelia,” said Magnus. “It’s just a memory. Keep going.”

It was dark, that much Cordelia could tell, and it was cold. So cold the tips of her fingers ached. She was flat on her stomach, laying on something hard- stone possibly— that chilled her to her core. A dull, but intensifying pain, ached on the right side of her ribcage with every breath that she took. It was also the only part of her that felt inflamed with heat. Her lungs felt too full, the air scratched against the back of her throat as though she’d inhaled a mouth full of soot. She tried to cough, but nearly cried out from the pain in her ribcage.

Laughter echoed around her as she walked forward through the hazy dream. A figure stood in the distance. He was dressed much the same as the last time she’d seen him, in an all white tailored suit complete with black buttons that glistened like eyes- perhaps they were eyes. His pale gray hair swept across his face; in much the same way as James’s, but she would not allow herself to think about that.

Belial.

“What is it that you want from me?” asked Cordelia, the words shook on her lips.

Belial chucked, it echoed around them. “Nothing from you.”

“James.”

No. No that wasn’t right.

The memory focused on her Lucie, standing before her grandfather in full fighting gear.

Belial’s smile glowed in her memory.

Cordelia’s eyes flew open and she blinked up at Magnus and James starting down above her.

“Lucie,” said Cordelia as fresh tears spilled from her eyes. “He wants Lucie.”

A/N: Thanks for waiting on the updates. I hope you guys enjoy this update. Magnus has always (and will always) be one of my favorite characters. I always have so much fun writing him. I hope I did him justice. Sorry if the ending feels a bit rushed (it was), but it was a lot of things we already know and Cordelia is just relearning. Leave me a comment, a like, and please reblog if you’re so inclined. Also, follow along for the next update coming on December 6. Stay safe and stay healthy!

[unicornbitchface]

Raat ki Rani

Pairing: Henry Cavill x OFC

Background: A story set in the colonial past of India.

Beta’d by my lovely friend @madbaddic7ed​​ !

Warnings: harsh languange

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Chapter 3

The hall looked magnificent as if the ghosts of the past had brought them back to the days of glory. The chandelier was lit up, its jewels reflecting light upon every nook and corner.

The musicians played with vigor, expecting a heavy reward for their best efforts and the sweet-scented welcome of every guest added to the pomp.

Every high born around the state was to be present in the feast, and there they were, happy to make the acquaintance of the new British resident. The only glitch was that the said officer was nowhere to be seen, making the Maharaja jittery and a little annoyed.

Soon everyone would start asking questions, for how long was he supposed to distract guests with starters? With this thought, Ganga nodded at Kulwant, asking him to get an update.

*******

Late again! But the blame was on the delay with the dress they insisted to be worn. What was wrong with the old ones? Nothing when I see them!

Who in their right minds would wear these? UGH. I will have to talk to the culprits after this goddamn feast for that buffoon!

As Damini walked through the seemingly deserted halls of the palace, fixing her stubborn hair, adding a gajra and cursing the dressmaker, she did not realise that she took a wrong turn.

Distressed by her woes of fashion and etiquette that mandated her presence in that debauchery, she walked in a jiffy towards her dear friend, Ashwanth.

The gajra, long forgotten, embraced the side of the marble tile near a very special room. Only the melody of her heavy gold trinkets echoed in the air paired with a certain gift, attracting the attention of a handsome blue-eyed devil who was switching to his suits after giving the Indian kurta a chance.

The sound made him curious like the first night, and his feet dragged him to the halls. Only half dressed, shirt unbuttoned, he looked around and tried to trace the echo. All that he could concur, was a moving shadow with the curves of silk, the bells moving in sync with those voluptuous hips. Coming back to his allotted room, the only remnant of that siren laid across the floor.

The gift.

That smell.

His hand snatched the bunched flowers, as if the grounds would swallow them if he wasn’t quick enough. One whiff and he knew he needed it in his life more than the opium his friends favoured.

So, it belonged to a person after all, and by the accompanying silhouette, a woman.

His woman.

A sudden realization had his pupil dilated, as he went back to the room. She might be at the feast.

If he heard them right, everyone significant would be present in that hall, and she was the most significant.

He chuckled at his poetry, what is wrong with me, he thought. He moved around the room with swiftness but also a renewed interest, humming tunes while he applied a dash of cologne and adjusted his jacket to perfection.

He passed the mirror one last time, stopping to fix his hair. He had to look perfect for his sweet maiden. His brows furrowed, a troubling thought flashing his mind. What if she was spoken for? What if she was claimed already, her heart in someone else’s hands?

Blue eyes turned colder than a foot of ice.

Hands on the desk,

He looked at himself,

A crooked smile gracing, 

Then what?

Then,

A war like no other.

A war that would put Trojan and Mahabharata to shame.

A knock at the door tamed the raging storm in his eyes. Lord Cavill looked up, frowning at the distasteful intrusion upon his whims and fancies.

Ah, the big bad boulder.

“Come in, General! I assume you are here to escort me to the venue?”

“Khamba Ghani Cavill Saab. I heard that the British people are always on time, and yet here I find you, barely dressed for the occasion.”

A smirk laced the British resident’s face as he retorted, “Well you’re not wrong, but I happen to be the guest of honour and I may arrive whenever I may please. In fact, just for that comment, I would like to take a few more minutes before I leave.” And he turned towards his desk and picked up a recent correspondence from the Crown. 

Kulwant couldn’t help but roll his eyes, a movement instantly caught by the blue-eyed man. 

“Keep going! I will take an extra minute for each time you roll your eyes, kind sir.”

It was beyond the General’s comprehension that a man as petulant as this entitled bleached monkey, could even hold the post of a hawaldar in court, let alone be a Lord of some sort. Nevertheless, he was a guest, and of honour at that.

Thus, the loyal servant of the court stood tall and quiet while the firang made his point, albeit unnecessarily.

Once he was done having fun at the General’s expense, Cavill agreed to be escorted to the event. He reached the hall, and couldn’t believe his eyes for a minute. 

The hall looked straight out of a fairytale, and the worth of the mere jewels studded on the walls could help him buy a couple of kingdoms.

He reigns in his musings, and walks toward Maharaja Ganga Singh. 

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

“We don’t have time! Baba will decorate his court with my head! Let’s go!”

“Damu! Come on, wait! You don’t even have flowers in your hair.”

“You think I care, Ashwanth!? I can barely move in this outfit! It’s so heavy and so unnecessary! All for that invader and his honour! What can be more honourable than stealing lands you have no business with, right?”

“Damu, don’t be silly! You’re a princess, and you cannot just march into the hall like a maid! Here, let me put these roses and..Can you just.. oho! THERE.”

“That’s right! I am a princess and this is my palace! Watch me..”

The two friends kept bickering along the way. Anyone who had seen these two would mistake them for longtime lovers, and yet things remained strictly platonic, at least from Damini’s end. 

For someone with an expertise in strategising, warcraft and literature, the princess often missed the veiled looks Prince Ashwanth threw at her. How he always brought gifts, only in exchange for her ruthless company and how he bowed down to all her incessant demands, all for her pleasure.

To Ashwanth, she was the key to his future and beyond. To Damu, he was the ever constant confidant, seemingly balanced and loyal to a fault.

As they moved towards the hall, she made eye contact with her father and naturally started walking to him, just like she has been trained to, her seat to his left calling out to its rightful master. What she didn’t realise was a figure moving in the same direction.

Lost in conversation and the pull of the decorum, she collided with a commoner, which only fueled her frustration.

“Dekh ke nahi chala jata kya? Humare raste aane ki himmat kaise hui?” (Can't you see where you're going? How dare you get in my way?)

“What did you just say?! How dare you use that tone with me?

“Poore mahal mein yeh gorey deemak ke bhaanti badhte hi ja rahe hain! Ek din ka bhi chain nahi hai!”(These white people are everywhere, like pests! Give me a break)

“Damu yeh..”(Damu this is….)

“Honge apne desh mein nawab, yahaan pe inki aukaat humaare naakhoon baraabar bhi na hain! Aur aise kya ghoor rahe hain yeh, laaj lajja kuch hai inko?” (He might be a Lord in his country, but here he isn't worth my toenail! And why are you staring at me like that? Have you any shame?)

Lord Cavill fumed at this disgrace of a woman, one who dared to look him in the eye and dared to speak while addressing him directly. Although he could not understand her words, her tone and posture were enough to get her backhanded, had they not been in the presence of company.  

This unruly child must be taught a lesson.

If anyone asked Lord Cavill, a woman’s tongue is only good for two things, sewing her mouth shut and on his cock whenever he pleased. If he didn’t expect the siren of his dreams to be in attendance, he would have put her in her place. Even if he could not punish this puny, dusky troll, he still had a reputation to defend.

“You listen to me carefully woman! You are messing with the wrong man, and spewing gibberish in some primitive language is not going to save you! Do you even know who I am? You are in MY bloody court and if I please, I can rip that serpentine tongue out of that pretty little hole! So you better apologise!”

“Cavill Saab.. please.. that’s my..”

“APOLOGISE? For what? Standing on my own soil? Or comparing you to a termite? None of which are false in my eyes. So get out of my way and know your place or you know what, go cry to your incompetent Lord!”

A storm raged in their eyes, wrath of all oceans combined in his and a black blizzard stirred concurrently in hers.

“Eyes down now, foreigner. ” The Tigress growled in warning.

The entire hall was suddenly quiet at the outburst. The musicians had stopped playing, and by the look of amusement on their faces, this was not the first time Damini Bai Sa had been the centre of attention.

Ashwanth tried pulling her back, her father was shooting daggers at her, while her siblings stood with aggravated expressions, exasperated by this wild child. It was Ganga Singh, who walked towards the ruckus and roared, which broke the deadly silence that had thickly draped the occasion.

“DAMINI! Are you out of your mind?! Do you even know WHO that is? Forgive me my Lord! This is my youngest child, Rajkumari Damini Bai, and I do not know what got into her, she is nothing like this!”

Renu and Revati Bai snickered at this comment and tried to hide their glee when they could see their father’s plan failing. No way will Lord Cavill bed this wild boar! They were preparing themselves for saving the kingdom, all the while reaping the seeds of pleasure from it.

“Damu, this is Lord Cavill himself. What is wrong with you, my child? Apologise, right now!”

“I would rather do Jauhar..” (light a pyre)

“DAMI..”

“It’s alright, Mr. Singh! I cannot expect common courtesy from uncultured brats like her. It just saddens me that you bear this burden on your shoulders! She certainly must have brought tremendous shame to the title of a Princess!”

Damini was about to give him a piece of her mind when Ashwanth pulled her back and gave her a solid glare.

Lord Cavill continued, “ Forgive me, but Maan Singh and your daughters seem like true blue-blooded beings. Has she been adopted from the streets?” His condescending tone should have had all the swords in the realm drawn up, but the language barrier and a father’s resolution to shove his daughter at him, saved the British neck.

Damini could not tolerate the insult and charged at him, “ Oh this is it! You goddamn plague sore! I will..” but was blocked by Ashwanth who was done watching her embarrass the Rajputana pride like a common whore.

“THAT IS ENOUGH DAMINI! Go take a seat!” The Maharaja ordered. But when she moved to her designated seat, her father grabbed her by the arm and lashed out with gritted teeth, “Sit with the guests. That seat belongs to your Master now. And don’t you dare embarrass me further. You are to serve him, and make sure he is left wanting for nothing. Nothing.”

Tears threatened to fall as the Tigress straightened her back, the princess coming to the fore, taking her position in the room, finding her place in the oppressive hierarchy.

Cavill watched her change her stance, a subtle nod to whatever her father threatened her with and for a second, he was impressed by the precise mutation. That is when he noticed the princess for the first time. Not so bad for a desert kingdom, blooming in all the right places. 

Back home, feisty women were his speciality, and he would often tame the likes of this woman, ploughing through their virgin lands.

His eyes wandered to her navel, as she walked to the guy who took her away earlier. Must be fucking her, and not enough at that! If she were in the right bed, she would be blissed out and her tongue tired. He could see her under him, screaming for an entirely different reason.

As the lust awoke, the mere thought of breaking this ballsy female had blood rushing to his groin, steeling his resolve as well as his cock. He had never bedded a princess, and was primed to claim her body for one night.

If that man could have her, she was fair game to all.

He strode towards the prize, steps decisive and eyes frigid. That is when he heard her voice, lowered but not discouraged by any means.

“Ashwanth, they let him take my seat, MY seat! And how could he say that about my lineage!? It was my seat!”

Ashwanth patiently replied, “ Don’t create a scene Damu, a chair does not define your position in the house, neither does some outsider! And can you please stop talking in English? You know how our people feel about it!”

Damini was feeling suffocated and needed to take a breath, but her luck soured the moment she felt thick fingers grabbing her arm, and felt his breath at the nape of her neck.

“You don’t need to get so riled up, princess. You know you can always sit on my lap like the little bitch you are.”

Damini looked at him with such fire in her eyes that it would have put Hestia to shame.

"Take. Your. Hands. Off. Me."

Taken aback, Cavill's grip loosened and she jerked out of his grasp with a rippling force. Much to the astonishment of the onlookers, she turned on her heel and stormed off.

The pride of her tears matched with the stride of the Tigress, refusing to fall before anyone.

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

Hindi Terms:

Khamba Ghani: Rajasthani salutation and a way to say hello. 

Firang: A derogatory term used for Europeans/ Colonisers, loosely translating to outsider.

Saab: Sir

Maharaja: King

Gajra: A traditional weave of scented flowers used as hair accessory by women.

Chapter 2

Tags:

@madbaddic7ed @henrythickcavill @toomanyfandomsshreya @inana999 @maximumninjavoid @mistress-of-ward

[task-of-the-burdened-one]

Can we mayhaps have a little taste of what our noble parents' relationship is like with each other? They care for each other, if not romantically then platonically? There's gotta be something there

This one is long folks. Buckle in.

---

“Have you picked a bride yet?” Masserson asks him. Jason looks up from the documents he’s been reading, squinting at his cousin. He dips his quill in the inkwell at his elbow and folds his arms over themselves on the desk. 

“You know I have no patience for the simpering women who come pleading at my door.” He remarks, irritable. They come for the eyes, they say, every last one of them. Golden eyes, so unusual, so unique. 

Jason prides himself on his eyes, of course, who wouldn’t? But the endless ad nauseam of compliments grates when it comes from the mouths of bottom-feeders wishing to scrape their way to the top by clinging to his fortune.  

Masserson smirks and flicks a parchment at Jason’s head. He snatches it from the air, frowning at the scribbled ink of his cousin’s abysmal handwriting. “I knew you would say something like that, so I went ahead and found one for you.” 

Jason opens his mouth to retort but Masserson raises his hand. “Just read it, cousin.” 

Jason does, reluctantly curious, perusing the names on the list, most crossed out, before pausing over the circled one at the bottom of the page. He taps it. “What’s this then?” 

Masserson grins and leans over the desk. “That, cousin, is a fortune in the making. I knew you didn’t want to settle for someone too common, so I found an heiress with a sum to her name, and a stake in a bustling company already rising through the ranks.” 

Intrigued, Jason inspects the name. Noverstruum. Unknown. Jason prides himself on knowing names. This one he does not. “Care to explain how you know this?” 

Masserson’s grin widens, making the dimples in the side of his face stand out stark. “It’s a family in Sanua, they’ve recently become a part of the Kingdom’s Three Families, well, four now.” 

Jason sits up immediately. “They’re influential enough to become a fourth family when there have been three families for generations?” 

Masserson nods. “I knew you’d be interested.” 

And he was. Very interested. 

---

The wedding ceremony was held in Sanua, as requested by Evangeline’s father. Jason had agreed, of course, because he would have to be remarkably stupid to cross the Head of one of the Three Four Families of Sanua before the marriage.

Now, back at Rochwel Estate, with his newly wedded bride, he is able to unwind his groom’s robes in peace, and let the tension seep from his back. 

Evangeline has said not a word since their first meeting, other than a rushed, quiet conversation with her father in the Sanua tongue. She has spoken nothing to Jason himself, and he eyes her where she sits, dress carefully patterned in silk, wrapped under her as she stares at him from across the room.

He waves his hand. “Your room is upstairs. One of the servants can show you where it is; I’m not going to cruelly insist we share a bed without getting to know one another first.” 

She says nothing, only stares with a tight, displeased mouth at him. He frowns back. 

“Nothing to say? Still?” He grounds out, tightly. 

She doesn’t respond and he turns his back on her, frustrated with her silence. “Fine. Call for a servant and we shall speak of our arrangement in the morning.” 

---

It’s been over a month and still not a word. 

Jason has become frustrated with the silence. Yes, the accolades from the arrangement far outweighs the unpleasantness, but Jason would prefer a wife who actually spoke to him rather than stare. 

He’s been patient, waiting for her to come to him, but he can only hold on to his temper for so long before he approaches her and opens the door to her room without knocking. 

She is sitting at her desk by the window, looking out with an emotionless expression. She doesn’t even turn her head when he strides into the room. 

“We need to have a discussion.” He begins, irritated, and she finally spares him a glance with that same expressionless stare. 

“Goddess, do you hate me this much that you can’t even speak a word to me!?” He shouts. 

A flicker of something, just then, a shift of surprise, maybe at hearing him raise his voice. It makes him feel triumphant, for a fleeting moment, to make something appear on her face. 

One of the servants, Nina, enters at hearing his voice, startling at the door before pushing her way in. “Sir, I-I heard shouting, is the Missus...?” 

He waves her off. “She’s fine. We’re fine. We’re just talking.” 

Nina looks surprised. “You can... you can understand her?” 

His scowls shifts to the woman, who shrinks under his gaze. “I-I only meant, that she’s only spoken to me in her mother tongue. I-I had no idea you could speak Sanua--”

“I can’t.” He cuts her off, turning a sharp gaze on his wife at the window, who watches the discussion with a blank expression, though now that he looks closer, he can see the flash of curiosity in her eyes. 

I see. He realizes. 

---

He begins to bring her letters, his correspondence with Masserson. He takes the time to rewrite them in his much more legible handwriting, and to exclude the... raunchier passages of Masseron’s frequent boasting over his conquests.

Evangeline takes them, giving him an unimpressed look every time, but Jason only continues to set them down on her desk and instruct her through her letters. 

It is slow going, and he can never quite tell if anything is landing because she never speaks it back to him when he reads them aloud and sounds them out for her. 

Though he has noticed the servants seem less stressed or frazzled when they leave Evangeline’s room. 

---

The first time she ever speaks to him, it’s when he’s found her barefoot, half-naked in the rain, mud on her legs, in the gardens, half-tangled in one of the hedges. 

“Surely.” He begins, after he is done gawking and she is still glaring at him. “Surely,” he repeats. “You didn’t believe climbing through it was a good idea.”

Her glare remains, and he certainly can’t leave her here looking like... that in the middle of a storm. She’d get herself sick, or worse yet, someone might see her in such disrepair, unkempt, and make a comment over Jason’s wild, exotic bride. 

His nose wrinkles as he pulls her out and gets mud on his slacks and sleeves, but when she winces as she tries to walk, he grinds his teeth and picks her up in his arms and brings her back inside. 

He warms his bath, depositing her in the basin and derobing what is left of her outfit, the dress in tears. She is quite beautiful, but Jason has no interest in bedding a wife who refuses to speak to him. He wets a rag, waving the servants away, and runs it through the warm water as he starts with her feet and ankles first. They are bruised and red from the thorns on the hedge, and he tsks as he runs the rag over them, pausing as she flinches. 

“You shouldn’t have traipsed about barefoot then.” He admonishes sharply as he cleans her up. She says nothing as he continues up, going to her thighs, her belly, her chest and arms, then getting the bits of drying mud in her hair. 

He tsks again. “How in the Goddess’s name did you get mud all over yourself? Were you rolling in it?”

He doesn’t expect a response, so when the soft “No.” answers him, he startles enough that he accidentally submerges his entire arm in the bathwater. 

“What?” 

Her throat works, and then her lips part. “No.... was....” she seems to think for a moment, trying to determine the correct word, “mistake.” 

“It was a mistake.” He corrects, automatically, still stunned. She only nods, regarding him coolly before extending her hand for the rag. He hands it to her as she finishes up wiping herself down of mud and dirt, before standing, bathwater sliding down her naked form. 

He stands immediately, extending his hand to help her out of the tub. 

“Thank you.” She says, stooping to wrap the towel around herself from where he’d left it on the floor. He nods and she leaves the room, returning to her own. 

---

From then on, Evangeline spoke, in halting passages of slowly learning words: consonants and vowels scrambled together from overhearing conversations and from the letters Jason provides her. 

He continues the lessons with her, and she seems to pick up the language remarkably quickly. She responds when he goes over the words with her, like a student with their teacher, and the pride that whirls in his chest at her progress is a new, terrifying feeling. 

He had not expected to enjoy the short, stilted conversations they share, to the extent that he does. Masserson even picks up on his improved mood through their letters. 

You finally get your wife into your bed then, cousin? One letter signs off with. 

Jason can only respond with a short. You are a disgrace, cousin. 

---

It is a year later of this arrangement, when the other families begin to comment on their relationship. 

It seems the fact they still sleep in separate chambers has slipped from the servant’s waggling mouths. 

Lord Jason, is your marriage not as cordial as it appears?

Jason, when will you have an heir of your own. Your parents had you within their first year of marriage!

Lord Jason, if you can’t get it up for your wife, why not try with me~

Disgusting, irritating talk, inconsequential, unimportant. 

Except not, because he always knew he would need an heir, it was why he had married. The who to become his wife had mattered, the when did not. Though it seems the circles he walks in would prefer he have a child sooner rather than later. 

“Evangeline.” He calls her name as he enters her room. She is at the window again, her hair piled across her shoulder in a familiar braid, the one from their first meetings before their marriage. It usually means she is reminiscing when she unconsciously ties her hair up that way. 

“What is it?” She asks, turning slightly in her chair to regard him. Over a year later, and her grasp of their language has taken leaps and bounds. She can have full conversations with the servants and Jason himself. He enjoys their conversations, in fact, and she grows better and better every day. 

“It seems our duty as husband and wife must be fulfilled sooner than I’d rather like.” Jason admits, frowning at the tenseness that slides into her shoulders. “What?” 

Evangeline doesn’t answer right away, turning back to the window and pressing a fingertip to the cool edge of the glass. He watches, taking in her stiff, but elegant posture. It has become easier to tell when she is uncomfortable now that he knows her as well as he does. 

“How many?” She asks, suddenly. 

He pauses, scrutinizing her. “What do you mean?”

“Children.” She continues, still watching the glass. “How many?” 

He thinks for a moment. He only needs one to secure an heir, though he’d always been fond of the idea of having two or three. He’d not had siblings, and he’d grown used to the idea of wanting to have children of his own. 

“One.” She answers for him, after he doesn’t. 

His eyes take in her stiff posture and he agrees, despite himself, nodding, “One.”  

---

Kissing her, under these circumstances, had been what he had expected. 

And yet, her mouth tastes bitter against his. Unhappily, he leaves her mouth and drags his across her jawline as they continue. He keeps his movements sure and gentle, not wanting to be too rough on her when she’s agreed to this arrangement until they succeed in pregnancy. 

Her eyes are tightly shut, her gasps nearly silent, and Jason drags his eyes across her throat before cupping a bare breast and kissing the beauty mark peeking out from under her chin. 

---

When she announces she is pregnant, with a dry twist to her mouth, the disappointment that Jason feels surprises him more than the quick assurance of their success. 

He sequesters himself in his study, fist to his mouth, as he tries to understand the complicated swirl of emotions in his chest. It takes penning a letter to his cousin to understand them. 

Masserson’s cocky, amused tone, bold-faced and mocking, Never thought I’d see the day when my cousin admitted he has feelings.

Jason stares at the letter far longer than he cares to admit. 

---

Two years after their marriage, Evangeline and Jason become parents. Jason holds their child in his arms, and looks up at the quiet, emotionless face of his beautiful wife. The midwife coos over his shoulder as the baby babbles, and Jason’s eyes are fixed on the pain in his wife’s eyes. 

He feels he has failed, somehow, though he doesn’t know why. 

[dawnwave16]

Resonance

Ok so I wrote this and had NO idea what to call it.  Um enjoy? *Throws story at you and runs away to hide*

Story:

When Tom and Sabine had started dating he had been surprised to find that he wasn't the only one with Italian blood. Despite her looks, Sabine was only half Chinese. She had been born in France because her mother was French, however, Sabine was the result of a sperm donation. While her mother had never looked into it Sabine had met the doctor when she was a teenager and he had admitted that she was the result of a prank he had pulled on two of his friends while drunk. Her embryo had been made by mixing her mother's egg with the DNA of two men who went by the names Reborn and Fon. Apparently, he had thrown in a little of a man called Colonnello but it hadn't been enough to make any impact on her.

Verde, for that was the doctor's name, had vanished soon after that conversation and she hadn't been able to find out any more information on what he had done. Sabine didn't understand how he had managed to mix the DNA of four different people, nor did she want to if she was honest. All he had told her was that Reborn and Colonnello were Italian and Fon was Chinese. With her mother being a Chinese woman who lived in France Sabine felt like she didn't know how she would identify her heritage anymore. In the end, she had decided to say she was French – Chinese and leave the Italian as a secret from everyone except whomever she married. With Tom being French- Italian it made sense that they would visit Italy every so often. They kept up this habit even after the birth of their daughter, Marinette. Marinette loved the visits to Italy and would run all over chasing pigeons when she was young. By the time she was six, she had fallen in love with designing and would often run off to sketch whatever had caught her attention at that moment. It was on one of those little escapes of hers that Tom and Sabine managed to lose sight of her as she ran past a slow-moving tourist group. By the time the group had passed, Marinette was nowhere to be seen. Unknown to them a little boy with blood-red eyes and black hair was what had caught her attention. By the time Marinette realised that her parents would be frantic with worry, she and Xanus were firm friends. She told him how often they visited Italy and they promised they would meet up again the next time that she visited. Despite the scolding Marinette got when she met up with her parents again, she couldn't wait to see her new friend the next day. She warned them that she had made a friend and that he was shy. He was only a year older than her but from their conversation, she understood he had good reason to not trust adults so she lied and just said he was shy to her parents. They didn't push for any further details as at least they knew she was safe and Marinette was able to spend the rest of her holiday with him. When it came time for them to head back to Paris Marinette had her parents write out their address so that they could try to write to each other. They didn't write to each other that year, nor the following one as at the ages of eight and nine, they couldn't really write too well. Something had changed for Xanus by the time he turned ten though. He had apparently been found by his biological father and taken to live with him. He hated the man and those who worked for him but he did like his Nonna, so there was that at least. His Nonna was working on his reading and writing skills, as well as starting to teach him some more languages. His Nonna had been stunned when he had slipped into French for the first time around her and when he had reluctantly explained how he knew the small amount of French that he did, she had encouraged him to learn more and to keep up the friendship. By the time Marinette was thirteen, the month-long Italian holiday was the highlight of her year. The two of them were still firm friends and Xanus had taken to couching her in hand to hand fighting. He had also kick-started her drive to learn more languages and they often bounced between them as they spoke, which had become much easier once they both had cellphones. She knew he was often busy so they had set up a system where a coded text was sent and the other answered with the corresponding code as to whether they were able to talk at the time or not. When Marinette took on the role of Ladybug, she had those texts, and those texts alone forwarded to her yo-yo. It was during a fight that Marinette noticed that her yo-yo seemed to gain a pale orange glow on occasion, almost as though it was on fire. She also noticed that the orange was streaked with yellow oddly enough blue. She spoke to Xanus about the flames and he made her promise to not tell anyone else about them. As he was extremely insistent about her staying quiet she did as he asked and kept it a secret. Sadly they didn't get to see each other that year as, thanks to Hawkmoth, her family didn't make their annual trip to Italy. When Lila first joined Marinette's class she had looked at everyone in the class and decided that her target would be Marinette. She tried to act nice and friendly but Marinette had seen through her act and called out her lies as though they were obvious. If Lila had thought Marinette would fall in line after she threatened her though, she was wrong. It soon became clear that Marinette would fight her every step of the way, refusing to bow to Lila's lies and not willing to let everyone else believe them without thinking about what was being said. She had no idea that Marinette secretly recorded every single one of their interactions with Tikki's help. Still, it had been two years since she had joined the class and Marinette was sick and tired of having to fight every day. She had the verbal and mental battles at school with Lila, she had more physical battles against the Akumas as Ladybug and the worst fight in Marinette's opinion was the constant fight against Chat Noir. Although the public didn't know it Chat Noir was worse in private then he was when there were Akuma attacks. He only flirted, made stupid puns and threw the occasional temper tantrum when he knew the world was watching. In private though, that was another story, he would usually start by practically demanding that she kiss him and when she refused he got downright violent. He had tried to use 'Cataclysm' on her once but Plagg had intervened and blocked his ability to use any of the Black Cat's abilities out of battle. She had gone to Master Fu to try to get him to change who had the ring but he had refused to help her. Tikki and the other Kwamis had been furious but there was nothing they could do until Fu had taught Marinette absolutely everything he could about being a guardian. She had been the one to insist they use a password to protect the scans of the grimoire that she had found. She had also insisted that the scans and translations be stored not on the tablet itself but on an SD card that was easy to remove and hide. Thanks to these protections being in place Marinette didn't feel guilty when she slipped up and led Hawkmoth to Master Fu, nor when it resulted in 'Miricle Queen' and her becoming the guardian properly. With Marinette as the guardian things became more complicated yet simpler at the same time. Simpler as she didn't have to run to Master Fu whenever she needed back up, yet simpler because she could share her secret if she wished too. So share it she did, with the one person she shared everything with, Xanus, her long-time friend from Italy. It turned out to be a good thing that she chose to share the knowledge with her now feather bedecked friend as it stopped him from making the mistake of faking an attack against his adoptive father, turning it into a prank war as an exercise for his mooks instead. Marinette was willing to admit she did quite a few jumps between Italy and France with Kaalki's full support when she heard what had happened to him. It turned out that be revealing her secret to him when combined with her flames gave him just the right amount of leeway to tell her his own secrets without getting into trouble. She now had a name for her flames as well as proper training for them. Marinette had thought that Tikki would have been upset by the fact that her closest friend was part of the mafia but Tikki had been fine with it. It turned out that one of her past holders had been part of the mafia too, in fact, she was the very woman that Xanus called Nonna. Now that Xanus knew that Marinette was constantly in danger he had upped her training so that she could defend herself from just about anything that came her way. Marinette had spoken to Tikki after one such training lesson about whether or not Xanus was her true black cat and was unsurprised that he was despite the fact that he was basically a dragon in human form. On the evening of Marinette's sixteenth birthday, Tom and Sabine called her down to the lounge. At first, Marinette had thought that she was in trouble as they looked uncommonly serious but then they started to explain Sabine's heritage. How she only knew the names of her fathers but had no idea as to what they were like, nor what they looked like. Like her parents, Marinette was confused as to how Sabine basically had three father's but what set off alarm bells in Marinette's mind was when Sabine mentioned the name of the doctor followed by the names of the three men that the doctor had used. Marinette recognised the names from taking to Xanus, Squalo, Mammon and Luss. After all, how could one forget the names of four of the Arcobaleno? Marinette's parents had been shocked when she had gone pale at the names given but Marinette had refused to answer their questions as to why. Later that evening Marinette ported over to the Varia headquarters and stalked to the Mist Officers room. Xanus and Mammon looked up in alarm as she shut the door behind her and in a voice that she was clearly trying very hard to control asked Mammon if it was possible for them to use a mist corridor to bring Luss into the room before she started speaking. Once Luss joined them Marinette let out a big sigh and repeated what her parents had just told her before asking for the appropriate DNA tests to be done to check if it was true. While they were all understandably shocked, they agreed that this was the best course of action. Luss ran a quick version through the Varia systems while Mammon organised for the tests to be done at the three companies that the Varia always used when this type of thing happened. Xanus simply wrapped his arms around his friend and secret crush, holding her to give her the reassurance she seemed to want. She had had to leave in the morning but the once bi-weekly encoded skype call was now a daily occurrence unless she was in the middle of an Akuma fight. A month later and Marinette was ready to scream. It seemed like Chat Noir had decided to stop worrying if his actions towards Ladybug were seen by the public or not and worst of all the public seemed to openly support his sexual harassment of Ladybug. Marinette had set up several talks about sexual harassment at school over the past few years but it seemed like no one cared that what he was doing fit all of the red-flag categories. Alya was openly criticising Ladybug on the Ladyblog, saying she should stop being so cold to chat and just accept his advances. Marinette had been so upset by that, that she had snapped. “And why should she, Alya? If Chat were treating you that way would you 'just accept him'? Or would you give your sisters the same advice?” Alya looked stunned. While she and Marinette were no longer as close as they once were, they were still fairly good friends. Sure she had often argued with Marinette about 'LadyNoir' as Alya had dubbed the couple but she hadn't thought Marinette would ever snap at her like that. “Marinette, the two of them have been a couple for years! You can't tell me that she doesn't like the fact that he wants to show the world how he feels about her. It's so sweet!” Alya argued. “Besides, you know I'm her bestie. She'd have told me if they weren't a couple.” Lila pipped up from her seat at the back. “So the fact that Ladybug has denied that they are a couple in every single interview means nothing to you? Her feeling should just be pushed aside?” Marinette's voice was coloured by total disbelief as she spoke. “Oh, come on Marinette.” Adrien interjected suddenly “Ladybug knows she and Chat Noir are soul mates, she's just being stubborn.” Marinette froze. She had heard that argument way too many times from Chat Noir, both as Ladybug and as Marinette when he stopped on her balcony to moan. Adrien was Chat Noir. Suddenly she was very glad that she had never allowed anyone to know about the tiny crush she'd had on Adrien all that time ago. She took a deep breath then slowly let it out, looking at all of her classmates in turn. “I'm glad I wasted my time organising all the talks we've had on harassment over the last two years. I know you might judge me negatively but if you say that the way Chat Noir is behaving is appropriate then I hope that you are on the receiving end of it from whoever you least want it from. Maybe if you experienced that fear for yourself while everyone else condemns you for not wanting to return their feelings, you might feel a fraction of what Ladybug feels every time Chat Noir treats her that way.” Marinette fell silent as the class stared at her in horror. “Voi! I've seen the video's of what that idiot cat is doing to your city's hero and every single male I work with would happily skin him alive for his actions!” A loud voice exclaimed from behind Marinette all of a sudden. It said a lot about Marinette that she didn't jump. Instead, she threw her pen as hard as she could at where the voice came from. “VOI! You've been hanging around the boss for too long, little Cielo.” Marinette turned to face the man that she had just thrown a pen at, a small smirk on her face when she saw Xanus behind him. “What was that, shitty shark?” Xanus growled making Squalo jump as he hadn't remembered that his Sky was behind him. Thankfully Xanus had spoken in Japanese when he swore, as had Squalo when he spoke directly to Marinette, as Marinette didn't feel like dealing with the fallout from Mlle Bustier about his language. Not that anyone could do anything about it as Xanus didn't care what anyone except his Nonna thought of him. He cared for people in his own way but when it came to people he just didn't care. Mlle Bustier frowned at the two boys standing in the doorway of her classroom. She didn't like the look of them. One had long silver hair and only one had, the other looking like it was a prosthetic of some sort. The other had longish black hair with feathers of all things braided into it, as well as red eyes that made her shudder. It seemed like both of them had scars but to Caline Bustier's instincts, they both screamed danger and made her want to get as far away from them as possible. “Who might you be and why are you standing in the doorway to my classroom?” She asked with a frown. “Oh they friends of mine from when I-” Lila started, causing Marinette to roll her eyes. She could see the class start to frown at her but it seemed that hearing Lila try to lie about them had flipped a switch that Xanus had been keeping tight control of. He stalked into the classroom and, giving Marinette ample opportunity to move away if she wanted to, kissed her firmly. “Dammit Boss! You couldn't have waited another month before you did that? Or better yet, done that a month ago on her birthday?” Squalo squawked in complaint. The problem was this time he spoke in French and the whole class understood him. “But-” “Oh shut up, trash!” Xanus snapped at her. “If you hadn't tried to lie like you just did you wouldn't have been left with egg on your shitty face!” Marinette laid a hand on his arm making him look down at her with tender eyes. “Language, young man.” Mlle Bustier reprimanded. “French, or would you prefer I speak in another language to get it through this Trash's head that I am not here for her? Either way, I have written permission to take La Mia Coccinella here out of school for the rest of the day. And there's nothing anyone in this shitty school can do about it.” Marinette stood and got her things together before handing them to Squalo, who took them without complaint as he didn't want to deal with a grumpy Xanus. As she turned to leave, however, Adrien grabbed her arm. “Mari, wait. Are you sure you trust these guys? I mean they could have forged your parents signature for all you know. They look the type!” Marinette raised an eyebrow at him. While it was true that they would forge her parents signature, she still trusted Xanus and Squalo way more then she trusted anybody else in the classroom. “I trust them. I've known Xanus since I was six when my family visited Italy for our annual holiday there.” As Marinette spoke she calmly removed Adrien's hand from her arm. Without him noticing, she also removed his Miraculous. She did that so skillfully that nobody in the class noticed what she was doing and as she had stood in a way that blocked all the camera's and reflections, she knew they wouldn't be able to pin anything on her. Tikki had thoughtfully created a false ring and had quickly planted it in his bag so he couldn't even say he lost it if and when he noticed that it was gone. The three of them left the classroom and snuck into the bakery then up into her room with no difficulty, relaxing only when they reached her room. “So, I'm guessing you are here because of the DNA results?” Marinette started. “Partly. I also missed you as you haven't had much time to come visit recently. Anyway, DNA came back as a match for all three which explains some of your abilities, though not where your Sky flames come from. The Sun and Rain in your flames are pretty clear though it's weird that you got those two but not the Storm.” Xanus admitted softly. “I think I know why I don't have Storm Flames.” Marinette mused then continued when they looked at her curiously. “You both already know I'm Ladybug. Now the Ladybug represents yin energy so traditionally it's more feminine. In term of its powers, it's creation or good luck. If you then look at Flames and the human traits that stereotypically go with them then Sky, Rain and Sun fit best for a ladybug. They are, after all, leaders, diplomates and healers. You then have the Black Cat which represents yang energy, which is the more masculine side of the energy spectrum traditionally. Power-wise it's destruction and bad luck. Again if you look at flame types that fit you'd probably look for a Lightning or more preferably a Storm as while it would be beneficial if the holder had Sky flames as well the Black Cat doesn't necessarily need to lead.” Marinette suddenly held out her hand to Xanus, dropping a black ring into it when he held out his hand to take whatever she was trying to hand him. “Is this...” Xanus couldn't continue his question. Marinette nodded and Xanus quickly slipped the ring onto his finger. A black cat version of Tikki appeared with a yawn, then it looked at Marinette. “Really Spots? You couldn't let me sleep a little longer? Dealing with your previous partner was draining!” “Plagg!” Tikki flew across the room tackling the cat as she did so. The two spun around slightly much to the amusement of the three humans in the room. Marinette simply disappeared downstairs for a minute then came back with two wheels of camembert and several chocolate chip cookies. “I'm guessing transforming somebody who is a bad match takes more energy from you which is why you need to eat more.” Marinette mused as she looked at Plagg who just nodded as he practically inhaled the first wheel of cheese. He looked at the second wheel and started pulling it apart to eat it more slowly. “Why did you give me this? Not that I'm not grateful, mind you.” Xanus asked quietly. Marinette sighed then leaned back. “Part of why I cut down on my visits and calls is I've been following a lead about who Hawkmoth is. I wanted to get a little bit more evidence, then I was planning on asking you for help. If you want to bring in anybody you trust we can, but I knew that Chat Noir, or as I now know him to be Adrien Agreste, Hawkmoth's son, wouldn't be the back up I needed for this battle. I have a month left of this school term and then I want to move to Italy but to do that I need Hawkmoth and Mayura out of the way. I'm good but I'm not strong enough to face them both at the same time. You trained me so you know that what I'm saying is true. I don't care if they end up dead or not, nor do I want it to be linked back to me but needs must.” Xanus was quiet for a moment then he looked at Squalo who nodded and pulled out his phone, dialled a number and spoke rapidly to someone on the other end. Within minutes a shark-like grin had spread across his face. He soon hung up and looked at them again, his voice quiet for once as he didn't want to attract Marinette's parents' attention. “Mammon is on board. As usual, they had all the information we needed. By this time tomorrow, all of Gabriel will belong to you. Their only condition is that you let him run the books. Voi! Gabriel Agreste has all sorts of illegal activities that we can plant evidence to cover our involvement.” “What's in this for Mammon? There is no way they did this without thinking of a benefit either to them or the Varia. You don't call them Miser Brat for nothing” Marinette said perceptively. Xanus and Squalo exchanged bloodthirsty grins. “Simple. Mammon knows that with you running a fashion company, the Varia will have a cover as to why they are in any country so long as there are fabrics or dyes etc available there. They also know that you won't have an issue with helping to design new uniforms etc for the Varia and that while we will still have to pay for them, you wouldn't charge us nearly as much as what we are currently being charged.” Marinette laughed and nodded. She couldn't fault that logic at all. Soon a mist corridor opened into her bedroom and they watched as Mammon joined them. “Mu, that man has made the worst choices when he chose his business partners but that works in our favour. Here's the evidence you'll need when you go in. You'll find the body of his wife in a cryo chamber but I'm not sure if she's alive or not. Either way, I suggest pulling the plug on the machine it's a waste of time. Here are the building plans and here is where each person will be at exactly 02H00 which will be the best time to do this.” Having said their piece, Mammon turned round to head back to whatever they were doing originally. Marinette scrambled but managed to hand Mammon the three strawberry macarons that she had been keeping for them. Mammon nodded to her in thanks, then vanished. The three of them and the two Kwamis spent the rest of the afternoon planning what needed to be done. They traded ideas of how they could get in and out. Eventually, they decided the easiest way was to lend Squalo of his own. The question was then, which miraculous would be best. In the end, Marinette got fed up with all the back and forth and opened the miracle box, getting all the Kwami's to come out and let them choose among them who would work with him. Eventually, it was Long who chose to work with the loud Rain and the two withdrew a little so that they could get to know one another. “Since the plan is pretty much set, do you want to get to know Plagg a little before you transform?” Marinette asked Xanus with a small smile. “Sure but first I want to make sure that you are ok with what I did in front of your class. I didn't give you any warning so...” Xanus trailed off in uncertainty. Marinette smiled at him, she had never seen him so unsure of anything and he seemed so uncomfortable and dare she say nervous? It was very out of character for him. “Xanus, you gave me a chance to avoid your kiss but I didn't. I wanted you to kiss me, I have for a while now. I don't care that you normally have a gutter mouth and that you never watch what you say. I don't care about who your parents are either. Hell, you could still live in the same circumstances that you did when I first met you and I'd still accept you for you. Plagg accepted you as fast as he did because he realised that you are my true equal yet opposite.” Marinette walked forward and kneeled in front of Xanus before reaching up to cup his scarred cheek, which he half leaned into. “Xan we've known each other for ten years give or take a few months. You know how to read what I want, don't start doubting yourself now.” Xanus smiled at her and leaned forward to kiss her. Unfortunately, the kiss didn't happen as a voice rang out from the trap door that leads into Marinette's room. “Marinette! There are some people here to see you.” Marinette looked at her mother, then sighed and stood up and walked over to see who it was. Just as she was about to tell Xanus what was going on the voices from below floated up the stairs and he nodded in understanding. He signed that he would keep an ear on the situation in case but that he wouldn't come down and this time it was Marinette who nodded in agreement before walking down the stairs. “Well, I'm here what's up?” She asked in a cool voice, showing that she hadn't forgiven them for what they had said in the classroom. “A couple of things,” Alya said tensely. “Adrien says you stole his ring.” “Why would I do that? If I wanted a signet ring I would buy one, or better yet have one made.” “Well, he's saying it was on his hand and now it isn't.” “Did he check his bag properly? Or maybe it's still on his bedside table and he just forgot to put it on this morning. Or is this going to be another situation where I'm accused without evidence, or worse planted evidence again? I know you were on my side last time Alya but considering your attitude about what I said in class today I wouldn't be surprised if you think I'd do what you are accusing me of.” “Well considering your crush on Adrien-” Marinette cut Alya off by bursting into gales of laughter. “You think... A crush... On Adrien?” Marinette gasped out between peels of laughter. “Girl... Have you seen the gorgeous man that kissed me in class today? You know Tall, dark and broody with red eyes? That's who I have the crush on. Not Adrien.” Marinette was still laughing but she had managed to pull herself together enough to talk. Sabine paused as she was walking passed. “Tall, dark and broody with red eyes? Do you mean Xanus? Well, I suppose you could do worse than him, at least he can protect himself and those around him. I don't like his swearing but it's consistent so there's that. I'm guessing he's finally confessed that the feeling is mutual and that's why you were talking about moving to Italy?” “Wait, what?” Alya, Nino and the others who had tagged along chorused. “Well, I've been wanting to move there for a while as we are part Italian and I have lots of friends there already. Luss was talking about joining me with sorting out my own fashion line as she's such a fashionista anyway so why not? Besides I want a break from having to keep my emotions under control at all times.” Marinette said with a shrug. “I'll finish up the school year here then head over to Italy to complete the rest of my education. My housing has already been sorted as has where I will be getting my education and how it will be paid for.” Everyone in the room stared at Marinette, some in horror others in surprise. Eventually, Sabine nodded, “This is something you've been thinking about since we told you about my birth isn't it?” “Nope. I've been wanting to move to Italy for years as I've always felt happiest when we were there. I won't lie and say your story didn't help cement the decision but it was not a factor when I started planning the move. I'm sure you've noticed that I've been packing most of my things into boxes and that it's mostly just the stuff that I need for commissions that's still out.” Sabine nodded slowly and the class could see that she was thinking about something. “I'll talk to your father, even if you won't be staying with us I think we will move too. Hawkmoth has spoiled Paris for us and you're right our whole family is generally happier in Italy.” Marinette smiled and handed her mother a card. Sabine looked at what was on it and nodded then walked away. Marinette's class, on the other hand, was stunned. Marinette was planning on moving to Italy? Did she even speak the language? Adrien spoke the question out loud when it became clear that no-one else was going to speak up. “Yes, I do speak Italian, along with quite a few others too. I'm still learning a few but I'm fluent in all the ones that are special to me. I won't answer which those are other than Italian and French, so don't ask.” The class was so thrown by everything they had just learned that they didn't even think of continuing what they had originally come to the Bakery to do. They also didn't notice the envelope that had been sitting on the table the whole time that was marked as coming from the Department of Education. She swiped it and padded back up to her room, smiling as she entered and saw Squlo deep in conversation with Longg still and Xanus just as deep in a conversation with Plagg. Shrugging she walked over the blueprints of the Agreste household and memorised them, as well as all the notes Mammon had left for them. Half an hour later there was a knock at her trap door and Sabine poked her head through. “Marinette?” “Yes, Maman?” “What was that letter from the Department of Education about?” “Oh! I forgot you didn't know. I paid to take my school leavers exams early and had Mlle. Mendeleiev watch me take them while we were in classes. She made sure that it looked like I was taking notes at the back as punishment and any practices were done after school. She made them really fun, unlike the class ones, too! Anyway, the letter was my results as well as a letter saying they would be launching an investigation into the school and staff. They also offered their congratulation for some of the highest marks they have ever seen.” When the kwamis had dropped down to hide from view Squlo and Xanus had looked towards the trapdoor as well as staring to listen in, however when Sabine hadn't noticed them they had relaxed a little. As soon as Sabine vanished again they looked at Marinette before Squalo spoke. “Voi! Why didn't she see us sitting here? It's not like we hid!” As Xanus looked just as confused Marinette gave a small giggle before explaining. “Trixx is the Fox Kwami and one of his special abilities is to cast illusions much like a Mist would. Maman didn't see you because Trixx hid you.” “Makes sense,” was all Xanus said before leaning back slightly. “Congrats on your exam results, what made you take them here verses at the academy?” “I don't know what name I'll be enrolled under while there so I will probably fudge my results for any test I take there. I don't want anyone looking at me too hard as it could lead to questions about my bloodlines. It's bad enough that I'm going to have to hide my flame type as much as possible. I refuse to let the idiots there think that I'm a broodmare!” The two males thought back to their experiences at the academy and nodded. That is what would happen if she let her flame slip. Xanus almost growled as he pulled her into his arms and held her possessively. Marinette smiled while Squalo just rolled his eyes, grateful that he'd been quick enough to record the conversation to show Donna Daniela when they got home! Heck, none of Xanus's brothers would believe that he was acting like this. Xanus and Marinette spent the rest of the time before they launched the assault on Hawkmoth and Mayura ironing out the details of who would do what and cuddling with each other. Xanus was of the opinion that since Marinette was going to be living at the Varia headquarters, she needed to be blooded. She was reluctant but knew that she had the best person with her when she had the inevitable reaction as well as the best people with her to pull this mission off. All too soon it was 01H45 and they decided to transform and get into position. Squalo had brought thermal vision goggles with him so that they could confirm everyone's positions. Tikki had recommended that in order to be more stealthy Marinette should use a unified transformation of Trixx and herself, with Trixx using a black fox as inspiration instead of an orange one. Xanus would go in with a unified version of Pollon and Plagg as well so that they had as many bases and contingencies covered as possible. They moved as stealthily as possible without sacrificing too much speed and soon the deed was done. Marinette kept hold of her reactions until they had finished everything they needed to finish. All of the scrolls had been collected, as had the Miraculous Grimoire. They had also found several journals and flash drives with everything backed upon them which they took as well. Finally, with Nathalie and Mr Agreste dead, the peacock and butterfly pins retrieved and all the evidence that Mammon had found about Mr Agreste dirty deads planted the three of them slipped out of the house and went back to Marinette's room. It didn't take long for Marinette to start trembling and soon she had emptied her stomach into a bucket that Squalo had managed to track down. She knew that she wasn't cut out for doing that more often and she said as much as soon as she had gained enough control of herself to be able to speak again. Squalo and Xanus had assured her that she wouldn't have to unless it was to protect herself or her family which made Marinette nod. Eventually, she fell asleep in Xanus's arms, no match for the exhaustion that she was feeling despite everything. By the time Monday morning arrived, the news of Mr Agreste and his assistant Nathalie being assassinated was all over the news. Adrien had been pulled out of school by the police and CPS as he was being interviewed to see how much he knew about his father's dealings. As the staff had been the ones to find Mr Agreste and Nathalie, it had caused multiple red flags to show for the investigators. So far he was in the clear for that but Adrien's attitude was not making things easy. The whole school was gossiping about what could have happened and what it would mean for Adrien as well as for anyone who worked for Gabriel, the brand. Despite the class trying to push Marinette for an opinion about what had happened, she stayed quiet. Marinette had spoken to her parents the previous day and they had agreed that that Monday could be her last day, so while everyone else was gossiping, Marinette had been making sure that she had packed away everything that she owned that she had brought to school. This included all of her things from the art room, though she had very little there due to her worrying about her designs being vandalised. Eventually, her class had remembered about Adrien's ring going missing but according to Nino, he had been in the park with Adrien and had seen the ring in Adrien's bag so they dropped the topic fairly quickly. When they had walked into science, Marinette had handed Mlle. Mendeleiev a copy of her test results and had watched as the stern teacher's face had split into a broad grin. This, of course, had made the class demand to know what was on the sheet of paper that she was holding but Mlle. Mendeleiev had stayed quiet as had Marinette when they tried asking her. By the time the end of the day arrived Marinette was exhausted from dodging her classmates and Lila however just before the bell rang, Marinette decided to be particularly vindictive. Mlle Bustier had chosen that moment to ask her to give the class a pep talk of sorts for the upcoming exam and had been nice enough to say that Marinette could leave straight after she'd had her say. Marinette hid a smirk that wouldn't have looked out of place on Xanus's face as she grabbed her bag that was full to bursting and walked to the front of the class. “I know many of you have studied hard and will doubtless do your best on these tests so to those who actually have put the effort in 'Good Luck.' For those of you that haven't studied, I hope you get a wake-up call. You can't coast through life on the coattails of anyone else nor should you try using someone else's supposed connections to famous people in the field you want to work in. To believe everything you are told without double-checking your facts is a surefire way to fail. Wake-up and realise that the world doesn't owe you anything and that your actions are your own. If you make a mistake, own up and move on. Over the past two years, I have watched as you have all become more and more reliant on one person for everything to the detriment of everything else. I hope you wake up before it's too late for you.” The class' jaw's dropped as Marinette spoke and Mlle Bustier looked just as horrified, however, Marinette took no notice of the anger on her ex-classmates faces. She turned and walked out the door for the last time and ignored the chaos behind her. She had a new life to look forward to in Italy and while she hadn't been pushed out in the way Lila wanted she firmly felt that she had outgrown her classmates and their treatment of her. She truly did wish them well but they were no longer her problem and she intended to keep them where they belonged: In her past! * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Marinette had been in Italy for a year when she met Reborn for the first time. He had arrived at Varia headquarters to visit Mammon and she had been visiting Mammon to go over the books for Miracle Fashions, the rebranded version of Gabriel. She had noticed a couple of inconsistencies when she had tried to order certain fabrics and wanted Mammon to check if there was anything there that shouldn't be. Reborn had walked in without knocking or even announcing himself much to Mammon's disgust. However, that disgust had soon turned to amusement as Reborn had frozen in his tracks at the familiar feeling of the flames in the room. He knew he hadn't visited in over three years so any flames that had escaped his firm control should be long gone, yet he could feel an echo of them in the room. He slowly looked around and eventually, his eyes landed on the young woman that was sitting opposite of his friend and realised that she was where he could feel his flames coming from. “Explain,” Reborn demanded tersely. Mammon was glad he had cameras in his office as he handed Reborn the DNA test that they had ordered over a year ago. Reborn's eyes had widened and he had looked from the sheets in his hands to the young woman and back again repeatedly. “How?” He even croaked out. “Verde.” The young woman said softly as though it explained everything and truth be told it did. Reborn nodded. “Your name is Marinette?” She nodded and he sighed, “how long have you known?” “Mom told me about the unique circumstances of her birth on the evening of my sixteenth birthday which was just over a year ago. I called Xanus and he got Luss and Mammon to run my DNA to confirm everything. So um, congrats it's a girl and she gave you a grandchild already, I guess.” Reborn remained silent, unable to remember what he was visiting Mammon for. When he spoke again there was a slight tremor in his voice. “Do Fon and Colonnello know yet?” Both Mammon and Marinette shook their heads before Mammon got a wicked gleam in their eyes and they opened two mist corridors. One under each of the other unknowing grandfathers. When Colonnello's corridor spat him out he landed in a slight heap Fon, however, landed neatly on his feet. They both turned to look at Mammon after taking a quick look around the room. “What the hell, kora?” Colonnello yelled even as he registered his own eyes looking at him curiously out of a female's face. Fon didn't say anything but he did raise an eyebrow in agreement. Mammon looked at Reborn who handed the DNA test result over to Fon who read them quickly and handed them to Colonnello in turn. Colonnello was quiet as he read the results then he sighed. “I want to ask how, kora, but I know I probably won't like the answer.” He turned and faced Marinette, looking at her properly this time instead of doing a threat assessment. “You have my eyes and I can sense Reborns and my own flames in you. I can also tell you are flame active and are trying to keep a firm hold of your flames out of respect for us. I would like to feel them properly though, kora.” “Are you absolutely sure?” Marinette asked cautiously, looking at all four people in the room and receiving nods in return. She sighed and closed her eyes then as she released her breath, she loosened her control of her flames enough for everyone to be able to feel them properly, but not enough to make them uncomfortable. All three stared at her in shock. “You're a Sky, Kora?” “Yes,” Marinette replied simply before reigning in her flames. Suddenly she froze “What-?” “Oh!” came three gasps from her grandfathers. “You had openings for Guardians?” Fon asked calmly even as he checked his flames to confirm the completely unexpected harmonisation. “I left France a year ago without any guardians and it hasn't been my main priority to have those positions filled if I'm honest,” Marinette explained quietly, still in awe of what she was feeling. The three of them nodded. “Tell us everything you feel comfortable telling us, kora.” So she did. They relocated to a different room so that Mammon could get back to work, then they spent the rest of the day swapping stories about what they had done, where they had been and what they hoped for. Generally getting to know one another. It would take time for them to share some of the more personal stories but it was a start and that's all they could ask for. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * On Marinette's twenty-first Birthday Xanus finally proposed. The ring was something that he had taken a lot of time choosing as he'd wanted it to be perfect. He had several criteria that the ring had to fit and nothing that was commercially available had met all of them. Eventually, he had caved and spoken to his Nonna who had taken him to visit Tabalt. The end result was a platinum ring inlaid with a princess cut Argyl pink diamond flanked by two stunning dark blue tanzanites. The band itself was engraved with vines that seemed to twist and grow around the ring as the angle of the light changed. Most importantly for Xanus, however, was the fact that any edge that would normally cause a ring inlaid with stones to catch or snag on fabric was missing, meaning that Marinette didn't have to take it off when she was sowing a design. The wedding had been as private as they could make it when they took into account all the different people that needed to be invited and the reception was as lavish as could be with Xanus going all out to make sure his new bride had everything she had always dream about. Her dress had made his jaw hit the floor both with its simplicity and its beauty. She had paid tribute to her Chinese heritage by wearing red however the dress itself had a simple sheath rounded neck in the front that plunged to a beautiful cowl at the back. Marinette's veil was ivory coloured and was edged in gold Venetian lace that complimented the dress perfectly. Xanus hadn't been able to keep his eyes off of her from the second he saw her and the pair of them couldn't have been happier. As far as they were concerned, they were the luckiest people alive. After all, how could they not be when the kwami of creation blessed your wedding?

@ash-amg-blog,

[harringtonheartache]

Call It Fate, Call It Karma | Part One

Part Two

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Reader

Summary: Y/n is one of the Scoops Troop who finds herself in the underground Russian base, and ultimately ends up strapped to the back of Steve Harrington whilst facing imminent death. (Essentially Steve & Robin’s interrogation but the reader is in Robin’s place). 

Warning(s): Stranger Things 3 spoilers, descriptions of blood and violence, cussing

Word Count: 1,951

A/N: I am 100% in fucking love with Steve Harrington. The title is taken from a song by the same name by The Strokes, it’s cute, maybe give it a listen. Request more ST fics if ya want, Steve prompts in particular are appreciated :-). I love my chaos boyfriend. This is a part one! If you bitches want a second part tell me, although I will probably do it anyway because I feel weird leaving this story without a true conclusion. Okay enjoy. 

The next punch to her face hit the air with the sound of a popping balloon. Her hand gripped the underside of the cold metal bench, the cool surface stimulating a sense of relief against her warm palms. This was not the first blow she has received in the past hour, as her expression was painted with reds and blues to match the Fourth of July festivities going on elsewhere. She closed her eyes, tired of fighting a battle with the fluorescent lights that seemed to hang from the ceiling just to cause her discomfort. This was taken as an act of insubordination to the Russian man who crouched before her. He took her whole face in one of his large hands, insistent on holding her full attention. His finger pushed aggravatingly on her swollen eye, an action that heightened the pain in her face. He spoke to her in English, but not even the removal of the language barrier would allow her drained mind to understand what was said to her so sternly. 

Apparently whatever was spoken acted as a preface to a change of location. As her body began being dragged out of the small room, she felt a strange alleviation of fear. While she made sure to remember that they could very well be taking her into a kill room to rid themselves of her as a liability, she took comfort in knowing that one phase of her torture interrogation was over. Her legs followed her upper body limply, her front side facing the ceiling as a large man pulled her like a wagon by the arm. She pulled once against his grip, as if this feeble attempt would grant her an upper hand in anyway. As if it was nothing to him (because it wasn’t), he slung her across the floor in front of him. She slid a good amount, smashing into Steve like two children at the bottom of a sledding hill. 

Their bodies laid there for a second, like two corpses awaiting disposal. Exhausted and half-conscious, Y/n used her knees to turn herself around to face Steve. “St- Steve? Hey, can you hear me?” He was with matching bodily damage, although it was safe to say that he had it a little worse than her during the interrogation phase. Her fingers met his shirt for a second, and she got one tug in before she herself was pulled from the floor and sat in a chair. Her shouts of disapproval were ignored as if they went unheard. Steve was removed from the ground as well, and placed in a chair that met the back of Y/n’s. Being the only one of the two imprisoned who remained conscious, she yelled profusely in displeasure. Much to her dismay, the men funneled out of the room like penguins, leaving them alone for the first time since their abduction. 

“Steve, wake up. Steve please fucking wake up, please. For fucks sake! Steve wake up.” Her voice was strained and weak, matching her worn appearance. She had endured her share of beatings without any urge to cry, but it was in this moment she felt that straining in the back of her throat that was usually followed by tears. “Steve fucking wake up,” the volume of her own voice added slightly to her increasing panic. She stirred indignantly in her chair, hoping that her movement -in addition to her rasping voice- would be enough to steal Steve from his unconscious state. After a few minutes of this, she was rewarded with a sound from him. “Hmm? Y/n?” 

“Steve! Oh fuck, thank you. Steve? Wake up. Are you awake?”

 “Uhhhh uh huh,” he dragged out the “h’s” of his speech, still struggling significantly with being awake. She let out a relieved laugh, but still worried for his physical state. “Are you okay?” She asked. “My ears are ringing, and I can’t really breathe. My eye feels like it’s about to pop out of my skull, but you know, apart from that I’m doing pretty good.” Although laced with sarcasm, the exchange of full sentence-length speech was reassuring. 

She closed her eyes again, this time able to do so without being met with an angry hand to her face. An almost content sigh left her bruised body. “What about you?” He asked. “I’m, uh.. bleeding. But okay,” she told him. Now that he was awake, her mind calmed, and she gave herself a moment to take in the room and weigh their options. There were a few drops of blood notable against the pale tile, a detail that some might overlook. Despite the contrast of the deep red and polished blue, the blood did not look abnormal splashed against the floor. The nature of the room invited spilled blood as a decoration. She leaned her head backwards to rest on Steve’s shoulder, physical contact that was comforting to the both of them. In a moment of dumb concern, she worried about bloodying his work uniform with her face. This maybe a thoughtful fear, had the interrogators been just as considerate in preserving his clothing during his own beating. 

She lifted her head after a minute or so, recognizing that she’d better use her time wisely. While the situation was very much real, she could not picture herself meeting her end in the minute room she sat in, strapped to the back of Steve Harrington. Looking to her left, she counted six metal tools spread out on a tray, like something you would see at the dentist’s office. The first of those six items was a pair of shining scissors. An excited huff of air left her nose as a smile spread across her mouth. “Hey, look to your right. There's a pair of scissors. If we hop together, maybe we can reach them.” It seemed like a solid plan, and Steve was enthused to follow her direction. “Oh shit, yeah let’s try that.”

Two hops in and perhaps feeling a little too confident, a third jump knocked them from their triumphant state and landed them on that pale blue floor. Despite their situation, the cool tile felt nice on their burning faces once they were down there. A drop of blood that had been making it’s way down Steve’s neck had it’s path redirected, and now moved horizontally, painting him a necklace of red. When it reached the floor, it added another splash to the already bloodied tile, looking just as natural as the others had. 

Given the circumstance, cuss words were the only vocabulary Y/n felt were appropriate to spill. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” A fitting trilogy of words. She started off her next sentence with another word from her list of obscenities. “Shit, we’re really dead, huh?”

 “No, no, no, we’re not dying here. We will not die in an underground Russian base that we didn’t know existed twenty-four hours ago,” he told her in a manner that he hoped would convince both of them that it was the truth. Y/n longed to blindly believe him; to be able to take his word for it that they would survive the rabbit hole their curiosity damned them down would be paradisaical. How polite of childish wonder to dig a grave for you (and a friend!). 

“I admire your optimism,” she spoke to him slowly. She felt defeated in every sense of the word. A brief silence fell over the two, but didn’t last as Steve spoke again. “I am optimistic that we will get out of here, but while it still looks like we are facing inevitable doom, can I say something?” He wished that he could read her face, but he remained incapable of doing so whilst strapped to the fallen chair. His hands laid in tight correspondence with one another, although the wraps that held them together with his legs were a sub-concern in comparison to the hurt he felt in his face. His hair had dried significantly since it had stuck to the back of his neck with sweat in the room that he was beaten. It had still managed to frame his face without flaw, although a tad messier than before; it worked for him. Not even a severe assault hindered his hairstyle. He laid stiffly on the floor, still forced into sitting posture from the chair he was tied to. With his head against the floor, his side profile emulated an artistically tragic painting, one that used watercolors to detail the bruises and blood.

Y/n, with her back to him, felt the slight shift in conversational atmosphere with her entire body. “Sure,” she didn’t leave him in much anticipation. An aimless memory had risen to the top of Steve’s consciousness, like bubbles appearing at the surface of a boiling water pot. “Do you remember when you helped me pass senior year English?” Truly a bizarre event to summon to mind when faced with death. Nonetheless, she did remember this. She remembered in great detail. While many found their newly developed friendship a curious occurrence, their personal progression from demodog mercenaries to honest friends was a comfort to both participants. “Yeah,” she reassured him, prompting him to continue. “I would come home actually excited to study, because with you it was fun. I mean, we became friends because all of the end-of-world demodog bullshit, but it was nice to do something normal with you. And you know we’ve hung out a lot since then, and now we are back to our more life-threatening pastimes, but I guess I just wanted to tell you how much fun I had while it lasted,” he said, his voice honeyed. “I know I am totally throwing a wrench in my optimism facade but I had to say it because to be honest, I am not completely sure Dustin isn’t utterly lost in the vents right now,” Steve finished, returning to a more light-hearted way of talking.  

This monologue flared a laugh from Y/n, and one that actually wasn’t tinctured with delusion. “Thanks, Steve. Me too. I agree, it was fun while it lasted. It is weird that it took the end of the world to bring us together.” Another chuckle left her and spread to Steve as well. “Is that pitiful or just fate?” she posed a question. “I’m just going to call it fate,” he said, his voice airy and amused. Perhaps it was fate, or perhaps karma was instead more suiting a word. If they were in all actuality saving the world, maybe becoming close with one another was their compensation. To draw a line between inevitable outcome and simple cause and effect seemed unnecessary, though. “If it is at all a comfort, I have a little more faith in Dustin’s navigation skills than you,” she added, her tone conciliatory. 

Their wild cachinnation grew, but was cut short when the Russian men returned to the room. The two were pulled from the ground just as harshly as they had been thrown down. It was then that a syringe was presented to the two of them. The needle sticking out of the top end took the hostages right back down to reality; pulled them from their previous conversation that had acted as a rather effective distraction. It was that needle that put a new, sick thought in Y/n’s head: was it good karma they had acquired, or bad? Maybe they saved Hawkins, or maybe they messed with an entity they were to leave alone. Perhaps their relationship was a reward, or perhaps it was a punishment, for it would end cruelty in torment and death in this small doctor’s office of a room.

[taeyongtime]

finale of the longing heart

genre: rich kid!au x model!reader ⎮ angst ⎮ bittersweet fluff

group & member: NCT’s Taeyong

word count: ~18,500 words

↳ 🚨: alcohol-mention, mature theme, explicit language, slow burn, tons of pining. read at own discretion. 

brief synopsis: 

↳ “Why can’t you see that you’ve always had a piece of my heart from the very beginning?”

“He’s late.”

You look up from fiddling with the edge of the tablecloth and cough to ease the prickling tension at the dining table.

“Maybe he’s busy.”

“Sure, he is.” The following scoff is unrelenting, accompanied with a roll of the eyes at the empty seat to your left. “Every day he comes home drunk to no end and with a new girl hanging off his arms like a newly bought accessory from the jeweler’s down the street.

“You’ve barely touched any of your food. Not hungry?”

“I… I thought to wait for him first,” you answer, smiling weakly. “It’s what we do at home.”

“Just eat first, Y/N. Who cares if that loser brother of mine doesn’t come back for dinner?” A manicured finger taps against the table top, two more joining the impatient rhythm drumming onward. “It’s not the first time he’s called a no-show anyway.”

The doorbell rings the very moment the sharp words are spoken, and one of the maids on standby hurries to answer the door while you watch to see who had arrived.

“Eat,” comes the ushering again. “We’re way pass a suitable time to eat and you’ve been here since our afternoon tea at three.”

“If… If you insist.”

Silver fork in hand, you get ready to dig into the cooled carbonara pasta on your plate when a hiccup catches your attention.

“God, you look terrible,” laments the woman sitting at the head of the table upon hearing the impending footsteps. “And what a surprise. No accessory this time, little brother?”

The slump in the middle of the two maids who had carried him in shakes his head and giggles, a bubbling sound that offsets the flushed red of his cheeks and glazed look in his eyes.

You put down the utensil in your hand and nod in greeting, startled when he wiggles away from the maids and tumbles straight onto you.

“Cute!” He presses his face against yours and rubs aggressively, smiling as an arm loops around your shoulders.

“So cute!”

“Taeyong, you little…” His sister snaps her fingers at the two maids. “Get him upstairs and make sure he’s somewhat more sober before coming back down.”

“I’m sorry,” she turns to you with an exasperated sigh, “It’s rare enough that he comes home without any plus ones, but to return smelling of booze and…”

You shake your head before she could finish, waving it off with a light smile.

“I don’t mind.”

Midway through the second round of tea and light snacks after the dinner, one of the maids enters the parlor to inform your host that the Young Master has sobered up somewhat, but will be having dinner up in his room rather that in the company of his sister’s good friend. The excuse of ‘not wanting her to see me looking like shit’ is all too familiar to your ears as you stand up from your seat on the couch. Here it was, the signal for you to leave, and you weren’t ignorant enough to insist on staying when you had spent a large portion of your day in their family home already.

“I should be getting home now,” you say politely. “Thank you for having me over.”

“The pleasure is ours. And I’ll see you next week for Seoul Fashion Week?”

“… No guarantees, but I’ll let you know if I do end up going.”

—

“How was the dinner?”

You look up from your book and nod.

“Okay, I guess.”

“Did he even show up?”

Closing the book, you adjust the covers and extra cushion against your back, pausing before answering your brother.

“He was drunk as usual.”

“I really don’t understand why you still like him,” he scowls. “At this rate you’re not much different from an old toy that’s been tossed aside because the baby’s gone bored of it.”

“Sicheng, I’m trying to read.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” your brother adds before dropping the subject, not in the mood to continue when past arguments have always ended in the silent treatment. “When it all falls apart, you can’t say I didn’t try to convince you beforehand.”

“Okay, you little know-it-all. Have you decided what to wear for next week?”

“I have a set of clothes prepared already,” Sicheng says haughtily, unfazed by the change of subject. “You?”

“I’m not sure if I’ll even go. Maybe I’ll ask Ten to borrow some of his clothes if I do end up going.”

“You’re going to ask Ten for clothes? He’s notorious for not liking it when people ask to borrow his clothes.”

“Why not? In fact, I’ll ask him now.”

“God, you’re so…” Sicheng studies you closely as you reach for your phone and tap along the screen, putting it away after a mere thirty seconds of tapping and clicking.

“Well?”

“He’s grumpy but willing to lend me some clothes,” you say with a grin, “Heh.”

Sicheng rolls his eyes before tossing a thinning grin your way. “We have work tomorrow, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“When?”

“8am,” he says sharply, knuckles rapping against your bedroom door. “Not 9:00, not 8:30, but 8 sharp.”

“Okay,” you grumble, detesting early work calls. “I hear you.”

“I’ve already told your makeup and hair stylists about it, so you can’t use your staff as an excuse to sleep in.”

“Jeez, okay.”

“Also, I hear Ten’s going to be using that same set later, so you can ask him to confirm if he’ll even go to fashion week when you see him.”

“Since when did you become such a nagger? Doyoung must be rubbing off on you.”

Sicheng gives you his signature look of open-mouth, half-glowering glare of disbelief mixed with an awe at hearing what he deemed as the stupidest thing he’d ever heard.

“I am nothing like Doyoung.”

“One overbearing adult in this household is enough, and that adult is not going to be you or me.”

“Mom’s going to riot if she heard you comparing her to an amateur like Doyoung.”

“Oh sure,” you drawl. “As if the standards of an ex-supermodel are all that matter when even she can have her moments of being incorrect.”

“You know what I mean,” your brother finishes. “It’s both due to her influence and our own talent that we’re still employed and favored by designers and the public themselves. She gets more credit than you think.”

“Yeah, yeah. This is precisely why you’re the favorite in this family, Sicheng.”

Confirming the time of work with your brother one last time, the door swings shut again and you sigh deeply while running a hand through your uncombed hair. Clearly the world wasn’t sick of you just yet, the demand for your face in magazine spreads still as strong as ever even when you’d already been under the watch of the camera lens for the past six years and counting.

—

Traffic had been worse than usual, and now the two of you were nearly three hours late, frantic footsteps hurriedly making their way down the hall once you enter the front door to find the photographer who was to take your photos.

“I told you yesterday 8am.”

“My phone didn’t ring,” you hiss, the straps of your sandals biting into the space between your toes as you pick up the pace. “I had an alarm set for at least 7:30, I swear.”

The bickering halts as Sicheng nudges your elbow, bringing your attention to the head photographer clicking through his computer on set. Eyebrows furrowed and mouth tightened to a scowl… there was no getting out easy for this one with a three-hour tardy slip on the line.

“Finally,” he drawls, turning around to face you and Sicheng after taking a sip from the coffee cup next to the mousepad. “The wonder duo shows up right before we call for lunch.”

“There was traffic,” you explain, dipping your head low in apology. “We—”

“Enough, just get to hair and makeup. If I reprimand you two with anything more than a warning, your mother would certainly come for my head to be served on a plate, garnish and all.”

You quickly follow your manager to hair and makeup while Sicheng goes straight to the stylists for a fitting after the quick dismissal. Sometimes it worked in your advantage after all to be the daughter of an ex-supermodel who still had significant influence on the fashion industry.

Hair done and makeup complete, any lingering thoughts fade as you begin making your way out to the cameras, bumping into a figure you hadn’t been expecting to see this early in the day.

“Ten!” you exclaim in surprise, shooting him a warm smile when his eyes meet yours. “I wasn’t expecting to see you until later in the evening.”

“They moved me up when you and your brother were still missing,” Ten laughs, eyes curving to warm crescents. “I’m free now.”

Your lips purse to a pout and he snickers.

“I’ll talk to you later, sweetie. We have to set some ground rules if you’re going to borrow some of my clothes.”

“Alright. See you then.”

Sicheng meets with you ten minutes later and you eye the oversized tan coat he was wearing, not quite understanding why there was also a baseball cap sitting atop his head, hair slightly tousled underneath the headwear.

“A bit big, isn’t it?”

“That’s what I was given,” he retorts, sizing up the white crop top and corresponding tan wide leg pants on you. “And honestly I can say the same about your pants.”

“It’s what I was given.”

Rolling his eyes at you recycling his words, Sicheng pulls you after him and you nearly stumble from the wedge sandals on your feet failing to keep up with the hurried pace of his black sneakers.

“Stop walking so fast!”

“I have long legs and so do you. Keep up.”

The shoot goes by rather quickly, or at least it feels like it didn’t last very long as you face the camera with an arm on your brother’s shoulder. The natural chemistry between family is clear; you readjust your position to match with his in the next few shots, readily tilting your head when directed to and jumping on his back without further thought. Any other male model would have been scared off immediately, but this was your brother after all. The tightly closed eyes, open-mouthed grins and loud laughter echoing around the set all captured on the reel of film, you nearly didn’t hear the final “Cut!” before one of the photographer’s assistants holds up an okay sign to let you know the photoshoot had ended.

“Was… Was it okay?” you ask the photographer, leaning against Sicheng and still wheezing after an intense tickle session. Hopefully your performance had been more than enough to make up for missing the scheduled time to start the shoot.

“Sometimes I fail to believe you two are just siblings,” he comments, clicking through the photos on his computer and zooming in on a shot of Sicheng carrying you on his back. He then switches to one of you and your brother sitting side by side on the floor like dolls on display, gazes alluring at the overseeing lens of the flashing cameras. “Natural talent is something you both exhibited beautifully and now I see why word in the studios claims that your mother actually hadn’t left the industry at all.”

Sicheng mumbles a “thank you” at the elevated compliment and nudges your side, smiling slightly as you give him a thumbs-up in return. Having entered the fashion industry with your brother at the ripe age of fifteen, you certainly didn’t have fame and fortune handed to you right off the bat. Being children of a woman who had walked more catwalks than there were dresses designed per fashion season, the silver spoon that was your supermodel mother only raised expectations from the press and other notable figures in the industry, already labeling you and Sicheng as successors to your mother’s legacy in the fashion world the moment you had started walking on two feet rather than all fours. The lens became a common part of your childhood and even now at age 21 it was still everywhere, capturing moments of you frozen frame by frame to be edited and inserted into the next fashion magazine for the upcoming season’s new collections.

A few more comments are made before the two of you are released, your managers stepping up to discuss any lingering schedules while you grab onto Sicheng’s arm for extra support as you ease out of the wedge sandals constraining your aching feet. Taking them off, you hold the sandals by the straps and hum in delight, your toes cool on the floor’s hardwood tiles.

“If Mom were here she’d scold you until tomorrow for walking around barefoot,” Sicheng scoffs, already switching back to his usual prickliness. “Put the sandals back on.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” you tell him, nose high in the air as your managers return, not paying attention to the conversation until feeling the nudge from your brother.

“Let’s go, we’re done here.”

“Wait, I was supposed to meet Ten!”

Grumbling, he follows you around to look for the model in question, and you spot Ten sitting down in front of the camera, head tilted at the prompting from the photographer before the camera begins to flash. You make a mental note of your colleague’s poses, taking in the way he held the bottle of cologne in his hands and the single spray at his long neck. Knowing better than to interrupt, you stand quietly but he gets up midway through a photo anyway, greeting you and Sicheng with a hearty wave.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” you begin sheepishly, bowing to the photographer who had called a five-minute break because of Ten. “I can just text you later instead?”

“Nah,” he smirks. “I’d rather talk to you in person, it’s been a while since we last saw each other.”

“Ten, only you have the nerve to get up in the middle of a shoot and the staff would still be okay with it.”

Ten laughs at Sicheng’s comment and brief catching up between the three of you takes place before one of the staff approaches with a black cat in his hands.

“A cat!” Your eyes shine in excitement. “I haven’t done a shoot with animals in forever!”

“It wasn’t warming up to me at first,” Ten explains. “Hopefully it’s feeling better after I did my other batch of photos earlier in the morning when you two weren’t here yet.”

Five minutes already up, the model excuses himself from the conversation as he returns to the set, lying still for the staff member to gently place the cat down by Ten’s left shoulder. The feline turns its head at the sound of the clicker behind the photographer and Ten’s eyes soften as he pets the animal’s head. Another quick pause and the cat is moved from the floor to a surface on higher ground, the model following suit. The slight tilt of his face, chin resting comfortably on the cat’s lithe body, even simple nods to the music playing in the background while gazing into the cameras leave you absolutely enamored at the entire process of the photoshoot. You still had so much to learn and improve on even though you were already not that bad yourself.

“And that’s a wrap, thank you!”

Ten thanks the photographer and the rest of the staff for their hard work, and he mouths for you to wait. Approaching the staff member in charge of the cat, he returns after a moment’s pause holding the feline, and you gasp as he gently places it into your arms.

“I figured you’d want to play with it after we were done.”

“I’ve always wanted a pet,” you say after holding it for a full fifteen minutes. “Figured it’d be nice to have another companion at home besides Sicheng.”

“Get one,” Ten encourages, offering the returned cat to your brother and shrugging when the latter politely shakes his head. “I think a cat suits you.”

“I don’t know if my mother would be open to the idea of—”

“Oh, it’s Taeyong!”

You turn abruptly at hearing the name, nervous as said person walks towards Ten. Sicheng tugs on your arm to go but you stand firm, wanting to at least say hi to Taeyong since he was here and all.

“Work?” Taeyong asks Ten, noticing your presence but forgoing the hello for the cat in Ten’s arms.

“Cute cat.”

“Work with the cat,” Ten corrects him, scratching the feline behind its ears. “Want to pet him?”

“Yes, please.”

“I have to get going,” you speak up, a sense of unease prickling down your back. “See you later, Ten.”

“Are you still borrowing some of my clothes?” Ten asks.

Taeyong finally looks at you and you find yourself tongue-tied, stammering a reply that sounds like a yes in your brain before nodding your head in confirmation.

“My sister wanted to know if you would be attending Seoul Fashion Week,” he begins, quirking an eyebrow in question. “Sounds like you’re going with Ten?”

The insinuation easy to pick up on, you shake your head before Ten can even speak and Sicheng interjects with a taut smile at Taeyong before pulling you aside and away from the fray.

“Sicheng, what the hell?”

“Just because you tell him no doesn’t mean he’ll offer to go with you,” your brother mutters. “I already overheard him asking Kang Miyeon if she’s free.”

The name of your senior strikes a chord and you force a hopeful smile. “At least that means he’ll go, right?”

“Get a grip! Taeyong’s in love with her, not you!”

“They already broke up,” you begin slowly, fingers unconsciously curling together into a fist. “The tabloids haven’t caught them together on camera as of late.”

“People are secretive! Especially someone like Taeyong who has face and knows he’ll get jumped the moment he gets caught with a dating scandal again!” Sicheng rolls his eyes and spins around to face you; you can tell he was trying his best to not lose his temper.

“Pull yourself out before you really get hurt this time.”

“I… I can’t just stop loving him when I’ve loved him for so long already, Sicheng. That’s just impossible.”

—

You’ve had your fair share of dating rumors with multiple celebrities along the path of forging your modeling career, the press honing in on every word you said and every tiny action you made when your first relationship with an actor when you were 18 had gone public. The daughter of an ex supermodel dating a rising young actor had been such a story, or at least it was until said guy was caught locking lips with a fellow model in your same management two days after he had proclaimed his undying love for you on your 19th birthday. Since then, you never went public with another relationship again, tired of the constant questions on how long things would last and what your mother thought of your rumors.

Of course, the press was not to be underestimated, their detective work always finding you when you thought you had it all under wraps. Just recently it was practically their goal in life to determine whether you were romantically involved or not with Lee Taeyong, one of the members of the playboy quartet currently wreaking havoc amongst the entire female population of the city with their dashingly good looks and wealthy upbringings after the man had showed up to an evening ball with you as his so-called “date” for the night.

Ten, another member of said grouping who also happened to be a close friend of yours, giggled like mad at finding out you harbored the same infatuation with Taeyong as did the numerous female readers who had read the magazine that had done the spread of the four “Golden Boys”, even offering a helpful word of advice to move on from Taeyong to spare yourself the rejection before even giving the confession. But love worked unpredictably and lowered its head to no one, hence the slap on the face only stung more when you found out he had only approached you to get closer to one of the fellow models signed under your company. 

Miss Kang Miyeon, like many of the female models just entering the industry back then, looked up to your mother greatly and was no doubt nicer to you than she should have, warm smiles and offering tips on how to correct your walk and strike poses that were unique yet carried the elegance that was true to the name of what was ‘high fashion’. The two of you had gotten close enough to the point of sisterhood, but a sly sabotage at Sicheng from her end to win a spot on a catwalk your mother was also scheduled to walk on before her imminent retirement had cut the growing stalk that was your first friend outside of the family. Left to shreds, the budding friendship shrunk into an indifferent senior/junior separation at work. She had even cut off all ties with Taeyong, convinced he loved you more because of your elevated silver spoon in terms of modeling when she had to work from the bottom up.

Naturally, Taeyong hadn’t received the rejection well, and that was when you received the rejection for your unspoken confession, his signature deathly glare and furious growl crushing your heart into a million pieces of shattered glass. Of course, this hasn’t stopped you from trying to get back on his good graces and has never stopped you even when it would be better to simply move on to spare yourself any more misery at the lack of reciprocation for your feelings.

“Hey, are you ready?”

“Yes!” you call out, glancing over your reflection in the mirror one last time. Hair freshly washed and makeup lightly applied save the darker than usual eyeliner, you reach for the black Heich Blade jacket draped on your chair just as your brother walks in.

“Sicheng, you look great!”

Decked in a black Charm’s turtleneck, suspenders hooked on his leather jeans followed with a splash of color from a pair of forest green sneakers, he angles his round glasses down at the black tie-dye Saint Laurent shirt tucked within your black belted pencil skirt. A disapproving click of tongue follows the confirmation of the puppy socks on your feet while you put the black jacket over your shirt.

“What’s your concept, angst-ridden teenager who volunteers at animal shelters on Fridays?”

“These are Ten’s clothes, so I’m telling him you called him an angst-ridden teenager when we see him later.”

His fingers snap in confirmation. “I knew that shirt and jacket weren’t yours. Why can’t you wear your own clothes again?”

You ignore his question and gesture at the two pairs of shoes contending to be worn out. “Should I wear the combat boots or the heeled ankle ones?”

“You know Mom’s going to kill you if she knew you wore combat boots of all things at a fashion show.”

You groan at the disapproval, switching out your purple bedroom slippers to the pair of black ankle boots that had been mocking you since you woke up to get ready.

“Fine.”

“Ten’s going to say you look better than him in his own clothes,” Sicheng begins, heading downstairs and making sure you were out of the house first since you had a reputation of turning tail last minute. “He’ll either burn these after you return them to him or let you keep them.”

“I hope I can at least keep the jacket,” you giggle as the family driver opens the limousine door for you. “I like how snuggly this is and all my things fit in the pockets.”

Sicheng peeks into the front pocket and rolls his eyes at seeing the phone and wallet nestled safely within.

“Don’t get caught scrolling through your phone during the show.”

“They can’t catch me when I find myself a seat in the back.”

“No can do, we have front row. You know Mom would never arrange for us to be seated in the back when it comes to attending fashion shows.”

◇

At least twelve cameras flash in your faces the moment you and your brother step out of the limousine, accompanied by the bombardment of questions regarding your mother when the two of you make the way over to the red carpet.

“I hate this,” you mutter through gritted teeth, linking an arm around Sicheng.

“Tell me about it,” he replies, bowing after the final shots were taken. You pause for one last photo, holding tightly onto his arm as he weaves through the sea of bodies huddled around the inside of the show venue. Frequent stops are made to talk briefly with photographers you’ve worked with before, and models from other management companies walk up to you several times to give their greetings and start a conversation about your attendance after three years of playing hooky. Even representatives from your favorite brands stop by to offer a greeting, the most memorable being the rep from Charm’s who basically wouldn’t let Sicheng go once spotting your brother among the sea of attendees for today’s show.

“Hey, you look better in my clothes than I do.”

You turn around and giggle at the frown on Ten’s face.

“Love the look, by the way.”

“Tell me about it,” he says dramatically, adjusting the black tie at his collar. “There’s always pressure to look good because that’s how I get more jobs.”

“It’s not like you need it,” the figure to his right jokes. “You’re loaded.”

“Shut up, Doyoung. Some of us here actually can have fun making our hobbies our careers.”

“I never said I didn’t enjoy my job as a model,” Doyoung scowls, his lanky figure not at all pleased at the diss. “I could use more popularity from the jobs that you don’t take, you know.”

“I’ll put in a good word to all the photographers I deny since you like picking after my remains so much.”

Their bickering only amplifies the buzz around you, your head spinning at the overstimulation of the immediate environment.  

“Three years since I was last here and it seems like each show only grows in numbers per year.”

You squeeze your brother’s fingers gently. “Thanks for not leaving me to attend this by myself.”

“You’re my sister,” he says rather pointedly. “Who else am I going to be there for if not you?”

“Aw, Sicheng.”

The lights dim and guests begin filing to their designated seats, you and Sicheng thankfully next to Doyoung and Ten at front row. A brief introduction starts off the first day of the week-long event and you watch keenly at the models making their ways down the catwalk. It’s all too familiar: the clicking heels, cameras and flashing lights while models sashayed down the stage in the outfit the stylist had given them, hurried returns backstage to change, not to mention chaos from last-minute touchups on hair and makeup. The front row seat becomes twice as enjoyable—legs crossed, jacket covering your lap as you fiddle with your phone underneath.

“You’re not very good at being discreet.”

“Shh,” you shush at hearing Ten’s chiding. “I’m just checking my messages.”

“Sure, sweetie. And I’m so excited to be here when I could be out dancing at the club.”

You blow a raspberry at Ten and try to focus on the models and the clothes they were showing, but it is difficult when you were more excited about returning to the mobile game still running on your phone. Fleeting gazes between overlooking the men and women who walked back and forth down the catwalk and what was underneath your jacket, you cross your arms and lean your head against Ten’s shoulder, his cough failing to edge you back to your side of the personal space bubble.

“Don’t get caught, then.”

He turns his head to speak softly to Doyoung, careful to not move too much in case you slip and hit your head. Thoughts to eavesdrop on their conversation flicker briefly in your mind but manners stop you in your tracks.

“No, I’m out of energy already?”

The outburst catches the attention of the guests down the line and some behind your row, and you quickly lock the screen. Hurriedly sitting up straight, you pretend as if nothing had happened just now and return your attention to the show.

“Told you so,” Ten mutters under his breath, nudging at your forearm. “Behave.”

Thankfully the runway show ends sooner than expected, giving you the opportunity to wiggle away from Ten and Doyoung, Sicheng already somewhere off on his own as you leave the audience seats and head for the bathroom. Sitting for such a long period had you fidgety and when you got anxious, you usually ended up needing to go to the bathroom almost immediately after.

Business completed, your path back to Ten and Doyoung comes to a halt when you hear two raised voices. An angry-looking Kang Miyeon brushes past you without notice and pushes you aside, nearly causing you to lose footing had the steady pair of outstretched hands not kept you upright.

“Are you alright?”

You turn around, at a loss for words at the prompted question.

A grunt and Taeyong removes his hands.

“I guess I did something I shouldn’t have.”

“Taeyong, wait!”

He stops and you panic.

“I… You came to Fashion Week with Miyeon?”

“Yeah. I saw you with Sicheng on the red carpet.”

Tongue-tied, you fumble for a new topic to continue the conversation when you hear footsteps clicking down the hall.

“What’s going on here?”

Sicheng walks towards you, his arm linking around the crook of yours.

“Don’t you have better things to do than get my sister in trouble?”

“Sicheng, he wasn’t—”

“Goodbye,” Taeyong snaps, barely sparing another glance at you as he pushes through Doyoung and Ten, the pair catching sight of Sicheng and apparently followed to gauge at the spilled tea.

“Yeah, hi, Taeyong,” Doyoung replies cheerily, a frown instantly forming on his face once Taeyong is out of sight.

“Y/N, I literally don’t know what you see in him, he’s the rudest motherf—”

Forgoing a response to Doyoung, you notice there’s an extra person standing behind them, eyeing Ten questioningly before he catches your gaze and pats the newcomer warmly on the back.

“Don’t think you’ve met Jaehyun yet, sweetie. Idiot practically sprinted over when I told him you were here today.”

“I mean, you’re so good in front of the camera,” Jaehyun stammers, sentences incoherent while avoids your gaze. “Not saying you’re usually bad because that’s obviously your job, but I think it’s very cool that you can be so good at… at being in pictures. Even if you aren’t working today.”

“Our mother would disown us if we couldn’t even take a decent mug shot,” Sicheng quips, unimpressed by the jumbled introduction. “It’s comes with being raised by a supermodel, mister Golden Boy.”

Jaehyun ducks his head, ears reddening at hearing the title from the magazine spread that had first labeled him with that term alongside Ten and Taeyong..

“By the way,” Ten butts in, sensing the budding tension between them and switching gears to another topic. “How’s your mother? I overhead Sicheng ranting to a Charm’s assistant that you two are going to attend the remainder of SFW?”

You glance at your brother in surprise.

“What? Since when?”

“Mom’s flying to France tomorrow but promised beforehand that she’d attend,” Sicheng answers in an explanatory manner. “So she tossed us out to the dogs to save her own trip from falling apart at the chase of paparazzi.”

“Why didn’t I find out earlier?”

“I forgot to tell you,” your brother shrugs. “Now you know.”

“You make it sound like your mother doesn’t care about you,” Jaehyun begins cautiously.

“My sister and I had to learn how to navigate the fashion world on our own since we were young,” Sicheng deadpans. “Having her name to use as a bonus point during our go-sees was already the best advantage we could ever get as rookies on the runway.”

“We all have our own stories, Jaehyun,” Ten fills in helpfully. “Sicheng’s not trying to snub you on purpose.”

“Sorry,” your brother mumbles after realizing he had perhaps stepped over the line. “Our family is complex and I don’t expect everyone to understand it from the get-go.”

“No worries,” Jaehyun nods. “I didn’t mean to offend.”

The conversation eventually dying down, Jaehyun finally meets your gaze head-on and smiles a dimpled smile that doesn’t quite mask his nervousness at talking with you.

“So, um… after the shows are all over… one of my friends is hosting a party at the end of the week and I was wondering if you’d like to come?”

Your mouth drops in surprise and Ten’s ears twitch at the mention of a party.

“What party?”

“Lucas crashed his dad’s yacht in the docks the other day and he’s… it’s so ridiculous, he’s hosting a farewell party for the totaled yacht.”

A snort leaves your mouth before you know it and Doyoung jumps in, eager to get in on a share of the pie.

“Listeners get an invite too, yeah?”

“Sure. Knowing Lucas, he won’t mind who shows up as long as somebody shows up.”

“I’d like to go,” you begin, looking at Sicheng. “Wanna go?”

“I’ll pass. I’m going to catch up on my games.”

You turn to Jaehyun, not sure how to phrase your impending question.

“Um, do you… do you know if…”

Ten coughs knowingly and asks your question without making it too obvious.

“The rest of the gang will be there too, I’m assuming?”

“Yeah…” Jaehyun begins counting off his fingers. “Me, you, Lucas, Taeyong, Mark’s a maybe, Johnny and Jungwoo have yet to RSVP but I’m sure they’ll end up saying yes…”

The answer more than satisfactory, you enthusiastically agree to show up at the farewell yacht party and ignore the quiet mumble of “shameless” from Sicheng, the thought of seeing Taeyong at the party happily bringing a skip to your step as you follow Ten around to talk to the designers preparing for this evening’s show.

—

The party was apparently invitation-only, but the host greets you with enthusiasm when you inform him that Jaehyun had told you about it. Yukhei (or Lucas as everyone called him) provided a bit of background for holding this party as he showed you around the enormous mansion that he called home, pumping a fist in the air to commemorate a year and two months with his father’s yacht before it died under his hands. The story more comical with his exaggerative reactions, you apologize for the crashed yacht on his behalf and he grins, deeming you cool enough to stay and exchanging numbers to invite you on future hangouts with him and the rest of the crew. As expected of the fourth Golden Boy in the quartet.

“Hey, hey, hey.”

You turn around at the base of the stairs connecting the upper and lower floors and smile widely.

“Johnny! How’s it going?”

Johnny takes your hand, kissing your fingers before breaking to a warm smile. 

“Good. How’ve you been?”

“Alright. By the way, I didn’t see you at SFW.”

A tale of miscommunication between his manager and the travel agency had apparently delayed his return to Seoul, and Johnny excuses himself briefly before returning with two glasses of champagne, the bubbly beverage tickling your stomach as you down half the glass in one gulp.

“You’re not cold?” he asks, taking in the olive-green romper and your most comfortable pair of block heel sandals. “It’s a bit chilly today.”

“I’m good. If I need extra clothes, I’m sure Lucas will be more than willing to lend me a hoodie to wear.”

Johnny suggests moving to the living room rather than lingering on the stairs and you nod, plenty of people already present, ifferent threads of conversation exchanged between groups of twos and threes. House staff zip through each small group to serve champagne and other bite-sized snacks; those who weren’t talking lounged on the couches with red cups in their hands. A few recognizable faces here and there, but otherwise you didn’t know anyone else at this party besides the fellow model that was Johnny Seo.

“Where’s Ten? Jaehyun said he’ll be here.”

Johnny shrugs. “Maybe in the pool out back? I haven’t gotten to mingle since I just got here twenty minutes before you did.”

You make a pit stop at the kitchens before heading out to the pool, dropping off your emptied glass of champagne and picking up another one from the refreshments table. The red cups on the side would do well for a mixed concoction later, which you make a mental note of as you maneuver around the mansion. Upon careful observation, the layout reminded you quite a bit of the place your mother owned in Vegas. Only difference here is that there were more girls in the hallways and almost all the rooms on the upper floors were already occupied with those hooking up or inhaling fumes of questionable scents that you weren’t interested in at all. No sign of Ten inside, so you suppose Johnny was right in that Ten might be in the pool out back after all.

Pulling open the glass door that led to the pool, you spot Ten and Doyoung by the chaise lounge chairs scattered around the bleached waters. Doyoung is the first to notice you via the champagne glass in hand and he raises his own when you approach them.

“When are the two of you ever not together?”

Ten grins and you take a sip of your champagne after clinking glasses with the two of them, the conversation drifting from details regarding Ten being the one who can’t seem to stay away from Doyoung to Ten daring Doyoung to cannonball into the pool since he was already perfectly prepared for a lap around with his swim trunks and conveniently waterproof navy tee.

“The water’s cold,” he complains. “I’m not going in even if I got paid to do it.”

“Join him,” Ten smirks, gesturing for you to make a lap as well.

“I’m not dressed properly but I’ll keep you company on the edge if you’d like,” you tell Doyoung, who grudgingly gives in as he takes off his tee and throws it smack at Ten’s face before heading for the pool. Groaning in frustration, he slides into the cold water and shouts profanities, raising a fist at Ten for convincing him to do such a thing.

“Make a lap around,” Ten yells from his lounge chair, adding a circling motion with his index finger for emphasis. “You’ll get warmed up that way.”

You giggle at their banter and take off your sandals, placing them to your left as you sit and dip your feet into the water, wiggling your toes at the cooling sensation.

“By the way, have you seen Taeyong?”

“Oh, sorry sweetie, he’s not coming,” Ten answers. “Said he’s helping his sister with some marketing decisions for her clothing line. Something about her not liking the model he suggested, I think.”

“Miyeon?” you ask with a sigh.

“Who else?”

Not answering the proposed rhetorical question, you kick aimlessly and nearly fall in at the sudden tap on your shoulder.

“Hi there.”

You look up, scooting over to give Jaehyun space. He leans back, arms taut at the edge of the pool while his legs splash at the water.

“How’s the water?”

“Alright,” you shrug. “But I’m not dressed properly for a swim.”

“I’m not either, but clearly we’re still able to enjoy the pool, yeah?”

You smile, nodding in agreement.

“Yeah.”

He grins in return, reaching his arms into the pool and splashing up water your way. A mini water fight commences and after five minutes you find yourself pulled into the pool after Jaehyun, fully soaked from head-to-toe as he circles around you in delight.

“Jung Jaehyun, I hope you know I didn’t bring a change of clothes!”

“Then I guess we’re both going to have to walk around soaking wet.”

Rolling your eyes, you shake your head and head for the stepladder, pulling yourself out of the pool and squeezing water out of your hair while a towel drapes over your shoulders.

“Thought you might need this.”

You turn and open your arms, Ten squirming in distaste when you get water over his black tank top.

“Sometimes I’m too nice to you, sweetie.”

“You love me.”

Ten rolls his eyes and tosses another towel behind you, a soaked Jaehyun catching it with one hand.

“What happened to keeping Doyoung company by the pool?”

You smile awkwardly and Ten shakes his head. “Jaehyun distracted you, huh?”

“Knowing Doyoung, he’s found someone to chat up,” Jaehyun laughs, gesturing at the tall lanky figure sitting on a lounge chair on the opposite side of the pool. Engaged in an animated conversation with a girl in a navy bikini, it didn’t seem like he had regretted his decision to go for a swim as she pulls him up and they enter the water again.

“See?” Jaehyun reiterates. “He has a magnet to him.”

“You two should consider getting a change of clothes,” Ten suggests. “I’m heading in for another glass of champagne.”

“I actually have an extra set of clothes in my car,” Jaehyun offers. “How about it?”

You nod furiously, not wanting to remain in wet clothes.

“Yes, please.”

Weaving back inside and out to his white Ferrari parked two blocks away, he hands you a plain white tee when you reach his car, the dry shirt topped with a dark-green plaid button-up that was cut at the elbows, hemline likely long enough to cover your thighs.

“I only have one pair of jeans but I can call someone to bring you a pair of shorts or something?”

“That’s fine.”

He nods and unlocks the car so you can change inside.

“There’s a plastic bag in there somewhere for your wet dress, I’m sure.”

“Okay.”

The door closes and you quickly change out of your romper, careful to not drip too much water on the backseat while you look for a bag, Once you find one, you drop the wet garment inside and tie it shut. Pulling the clean shirt and plaid top over your chilled body, you note the sleeves stop at your forearms and the hem drops almost to your knees, almost but not quite there yet. As a model, you were taller than the average female, but still felt engulfed in Jaehyun’s clothes when he was only a few inches taller in height.

A knock sounds on the passenger side and you roll down the window, mumbling a thank you at the pair of shorts passed through and rolling the glass back up before changing into the bottoms that are just a bit loose.

“Do you maybe have a belt?” you ask curiously as you tuck the white tee into the shorts. “It’s a bit loose around my waist.”

“Should have one in the trunk,” Jaehyun replies, opening the trunk of his sports car. “Hold on.”

You wonder why he would have a belt of all things in his trunk, but gratefully take the given accessory as you loop it around your shorts and tighten the space around your waist.

“You look nice,” he speaks up, giving you a once-over. “Not saying you didn’t look nice in your own clothes, but you look…”

“What,” you probe on, noticing that he started to mumble. “Do I look ugly?”

“No, not at all,” he blurts. “You just… you look extra pretty wearing my clothes.”

“Oh.”

“Back to the pool or would you rather talk inside?” Jaehyun asks with a soft dimpled smile.

“Pool is fine,” you answer, feeling already much better after the disappointing news of Taeyong’s no-show. “Just don’t push me in this time.”

—

You don’t realize when you passed out, nose twitching at the smell of cigarette smoke drifting your way. The smoky scent is unpleasant to the nostrils as your eyes squint in the dimness of the room. Unable to make out anything in the first two seconds of consciousness, your arm grazes against the vibration of the mobile device that slipped out of your pocket, and you take a deep breath, forcing your eyes open to take the call.

“Hello? Oh, sorry, you’ve got the wrong number.”

Hanging up, you get up from the bed you were sleeping on and step out, head buzzing ferociously from the aftereffect of having consumed too much alcohol. It is 1am and the villa is void of human presence. The party must have ended earlier when you were knocked out, all the other guests already home at a reasonable hour to prepare for the following day’s work.  

“N-No, not there…”

The sound of soft moans accompanied with low grunts catches your attention. Against your better judgment, you make your way out to investigate, only to find the man you had been wanting to see entangled with some girl you didn’t recognize. Lips locked, one hand trailing through her blonde pixie cut… you slowly back up until he shifts his gaze from her face to your presence from his peripheral. A smirk builds upon the corners of his mouth and the hand in her hair trails down from her head to her hips, squeezing roughly while keeping a firm eye on you while still touching her. His teasing yet provocative gaze irritating to watch, you end up bumping into the host himself in your attempt to get away.

“Hey, you’re still here.”

“I’m sorry,” you smile, flustered at being practically the only guest still here. “I passed out and didn’t realize everyone else had already left.”

“It’s cool. Do you need a ride home?”

“Um, no, I don’t think so, I’ll just—”

“I’ll take her home.”

A flash of a figure whizzes past and you flinch at the hand resting on your shoulder, recognizing the thin fingers at first glance.

“Taeyong, you don’t…”

“That alright with you, Lucas?” The grip on your shoulder tightens and you allow yourself a glance at his face. Stoic as usual, albeit the glow along his cheeks spoke otherwise.

“Of course,” Lucas nods, flamboyantly gesturing towards the front door. “Lovely having you over, miss Y/N, and please get home safely.”

Once goodbyes are exchanged, Taeyong mumbles for you to follow, leading the way towards the black Lamborghini Aventador parked right outside the mansion’s driveway.

“After you.”

You nod in thanks at the opened door on the passenger side; he closes the door after you before getting into the driver’s seat. Seat belt check and he is already out on the streets, the ride home thick with silence. Not that you didn’t know what to say, but you’re careful to not bring up any sensitive topics, namely the girl you had seen him kissing or even Miyeon.

“This is it, yeah?”

You look up and see the familiar gates of your home, slightly disappointed that your time in his car is already over.

“Yes.”

A curt nod and he unbuckles his seat belt, getting out to open the door for you and even offering a hand as you step out.

“Taeyong, I thought you weren’t going to come to the party.”

“Changed my mind.” He pauses, glancing at the extended sleeves of Jaehyun’s dark green plaid top.

“Isn’t that Jaehyun’s shirt?”

“He let me borrow his clothes after pushing me into the pool.”

Taeyong nods warily and places a hand on the ceiling of his vehicle as he gestures at the looming estate up ahead.

“Why…” You bite your lips, not sure where your boldness was coming from. “Why did you choose to drive me back?”

“I found you passed out next to Ten and Doyoung when I got here at around…. 9pm? Moved you upstairs to one of the guest bedrooms but didn’t know when you’d come to so I stayed after everyone else left.”

“But the girl… you and her in the kitchen…”

“It’s nothing to be concerned about,” he says dismissively, “I have no business with her other than temporary fun at the spur of the moment.”

“Are… Are you still mad at me for your breakup with Miyeon?”

His eyes narrow at the abrupt question and you laugh it off.

“I must be drunk; I don’t know what came over me to ask such a—”

“Not anymore.”

You pause, and he coughs into his sleeve.

“I don’t… I don’t hate you for it when she was the one who jumped to conclusions.”

Gasping, you clasp your hands together and he studies your face in amusement.

“You thought I was mad at you?”

“I…  I thought that was why you kept giving me the cold shoulder! Because you were mad at me for causing the breakup between you and Miyeon!” Your giggles echoing in the silence of the night; what comes next is a surprise for you and Taeyong both as you lean forward to press your lips against his cheek.

“Thank you,” you whisper happily. “Thank you for not hating me.”

He dips his head low, eyes scanning over the dark green plaid top you were wearing.

“Good night, Y/N.”

You lift a hand goodbye, a growing smile playing along your lips as you return home for a well-deserved eight hours of sleep.

He never said he hated me, which I still have just as much of a chance as I did before.

Morning rolls in quicker than expected, and the first thing you see upon opening your eyes is a text message from none other than Taeyong himself, an invitation to his house for tea and maybe even dinner if you had the time.

“Don’t go.”

“Are you snooping through my phone again?” you ask, placing the black lace choker around your neck.

“He’s just using you to get back at her,” Sicheng scoffs as he picks through your closet. “Surely you know that?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Not in the mood to press on, your brother sighs and gives his two cents on what to wear to an afternoon tea, opting for you to go in a light blue off-the-shoulder chambray dress and beige espadrilles.

“Bring me back a cake if you can.”

You shake your head. “Only if you come with.”

“Then no thanks. Have fun and don’t come into my room when you get back; I’m gaming.”

—

“Hey, it’s you!”

“Oh… hello,” you say in surprise at seeing the eager grin on Lucas’ face. “Are you here for tea?”

“Yeah, man.” He opens the door wider and helps you take your bag. “Taeyong’s sister makes the best cakes.”

“Oh, it’s Y/N!”

You find yourself in the company of Ten and Jaehyun, Johnny with the promise of arriving a.s.a.p. after a photoshoot and one of Lucas’ friends in lieu of Doyoung. Jungwoo, he said his name was.

“You came,” the familiar voice says as tea and a platter of bite-sized sandwiches is placed down on the table.

“Taeyong, where’s the cake stand?” Ten asks. “I want cake.”

“We’re making it, have some patience.”

You take a seat wherever there’s room (conveniently next to Jaehyun), and light conversation makes it way around the circle, topics ranging from Lucas’ farewell yacht party last night to the earlier Seoul Fashion Week. All items you can chime in on as the guys enjoy their tea and sandwiches while the tower of cakes was still m.i.a.

“Oh, Jaehyun,” you speak up. “I forgot to bring the clothes you lent me, I’ll get those back to you as soon as possible.”

“It’s cool,” Jaehyun smiles. “I’m in no rush to get them back.”

“What’s this clothes exchange?” Lucas smirks. “Jaehyun let you borrow his clothes?”

“Idiot shoved her into the pool and she had to get a change of clothes,” Ten explains. “Nothing like the sort of things your dirty mind was assuming.”

Slightly disappointed, Lucas shrugs and Jungwoo nearly chokes on his sandwich when Lucas not-so-subtly extends the offer to give you an exchange of clothes without needing to shove you into a pool. The innuendo easy to pick up, you shift your focus onto the half-empty cup of tea on your saucer and reach for the teapot when Jaehyun beats you to it, offering a dimpled smile as he refills your cup.

“Thanks,” you mumble.

“No problem.”

“Cake! Cake!” Ten jumps up from his seat at the three-tier cake stand set down before him and grabs everything off the top tier, ignoring the scowls and murmurings of being a snob as he stuffs his face with the sweets he’d been craving for so long.

“Tart?”

You look up to the offered lemon tart and nod, mumbling thanks to Taeyong as he hands you a lemon tart along with a few of the strawberry macarons. One bite of each is enough to send you directly into pastry heaven, any concern about your calorie intake for the sake of dieting tossed out the window.

“It’s delicious, Taeyong.”

A rare smile lights up on his face, one you don’t see often. 

“I made that myself.”

“Did you now?” Ten marvels, grabbing another off the stand while at it. “I didn’t know you bake.”

“I’m working on it as an aside to my usual hobby of cooking,” Taeyong says while nibbling at a walnut scone.

“Nope, this is dry. The tart’s fine though, I hope?”

“Yes,” you confirm, Ten following suit. “It’s perfect.”

He clasps his hands and gets up without another word, sprinkling confusion into the circle before returning with a red box and placing it before you.

“What’s this?” you ask curiously.

“Open it,” Jungwoo encourages. “I think it’s moving.”

“Moving?”

The doorbell rings as you ponder over the box and in walks Johnny and Taeyong’s ex.

“Bumped into Miyeon on my way here and extended the tea invitation,” Johnny informs the host and his guests. “Don’t mind, do you?”

“Not at all,” Taeyong says crisply, shooting a more-than-enthusiastic grin at Miyeon. The model barely glances his way, mumbling brief greetings before taking note of your presence.

“Oh, hello, Y/N. Didn’t know you’d be here.”

You put on the best smile you had and nod.

“The feeling is mutual, Miyeon.”

“Tea and cakes are for the taking,” Ten breaks in, no doubt sensing the sudden tension and attempting to shoo it away for the sake of camaraderie. “And these pastries, Taeyong made them himself.”

“Still lacking,” Taeyong smiles, turning your way again. “And you haven’t opened my gift yet.”

“Oh, right.” You reach for the ribbon at the top and pull it off, opening the lid to reveal a small black kitten that is the most adorable little thing, its copper eyes staring curiously up at you before letting out a single meow.

“This one,” Taeyong wiggles a finger at the black kitten, “Was the last in its litter at a family friend’s place and she reminded me of the one Ten was working with at his photoshoot. You were there too, I recall.”

“Yes.” You gently scoop up the kitten from her box and gently scratch at her ears, the little feline purring in delight at your soft touch.

“Is this kitten… is it really for me?”

“She’s yours if you want her.”

You loosen your hold and watch as she clambers over laps, stopping before Jaehyun and batting tiny paws at his fingers before jumping onto the table with the teapot and cakes.

“Sicheng is going to love her.”

“What a nice gift,” Miyeon smiles curtly. “You’re so kind, Taeyong.”

He eyes Miyeon and leans over to take your hand in his, grasping your fingers tightly.

“Anything for my girlfriend, you know. Whatever she wants, she will get without question.”

—

In your head, you told yourself Taeyong called you his girlfriend because he genuinely liked you.

No one had been expecting it. Even now, you find it hard to believe the change in status for yourself whenever you received lavish gifts and invitations to join him and his friends plus other big names out for dinner or other social gatherings. The press had eaten it up like starved dogs, rapidly flashing their cameras while drilling you about the story of how you’d gotten together and other probing details about your relationship with him. There were only so many ways to say how grateful you were at having your feelings returned and describe how happy you had become since then, hence you’d offer only the most minimum of details whenever the topic was brought up.

Sicheng openly confronted the lack of care for your feelings upon first hearing the news, but dropped it at seeing the eager look on your face at any mention of Taeyong; the contents of the moving box you’d brought home proved useful to distract him instead. The kitten (given the name Luna courtesy of his not-so-hidden love for Sailor Moon) served as the perfect distraction from words of encouragement to break things off and you loved the adorable midnight munchkin to pieces. You hadn’t thought Taeyong would remember you had been there when Ten brought over the cat during his work.

Of course, not everyone let the announcement of your new relationship go that easily, the biggest protestor coming from none other than Jaehyun, whom you still owed the set of clothes you had borrowed during Lucas’ yacht party.

◇

“Hey, didn’t know you’d be here.”

Jaehyun looks from up the reserved table at the seafood restaurant and nods curtly.

“Ten invited me.”

“And so I did,” comes the jolly voice that follows the tap on your shoulder. “Is Taeyong joining you, sweetie?”

“He said he’s busy,” you answer. “Next time, though.”

“Order anything you’d like,” Ten announces as he flips open the menu. “My treat.”

“Whatever’s the most expensive then, since you’re paying.”

Throughout the meal, you notice Jaehyun’s aloofness doesn’t go away for a second. Only offering one-word responses whenever you asked him questions and even ignoring you altogether for Ten, the latter strapped in the middle with nowhere to go as he juggled between the two of you for the sake of preventing a fight from breaking out.

“Thanks for treating,” you say when the party of three finishes up. “The shrimp was really good.”

“Jaehyun recommended this place, so I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

You glance at Jaehyun, who refuses to say a word until the outburst of Ten being late to an afternoon work call renders you losing the ride you had arrived with.

“Drive her back, will you? I’m going to be late for work at this rate.”

Silence resumes its hold and Ten waves goodbye without waiting for a reply, the awkwardness between you and Jaehyun prickling.

“Um… I can get back home myself if it’s too much trouble,” you speak up. “It’s really not a big deal.”

“I can drive you back,” he says crisply. “Come on.”

The valet brings forth Jaehyun’s white Ferrari after a moment’s notice and you get into the vehicle, nodding your thanks at his opening of the passenger side for you before he entered the driver’s seat and shifted gear, driving off with you in tow.

“So why the cold shoulder suddenly?”

“Not sure what you mean.” The car rolls to a stop at a red light and he turns to you with a rather forced smile. “I’m not being cold.”

“I thought we were friends, Jaehyun.”

The engine quiets down and Jaehyun scoffs.

“Friends don’t ignore genuine advice to wake up from the dream that is Taeyong actually liking you.”

“What is with—”

“He’s just using you to get back with Miyeon!” His hands slam down on the steering wheel, a heavy sigh echoing within the car. “Literally everyone knows he’s only using you to provoke her and it’s really—”

“They’re not together,” you intercept, voice lowered. “He told me so.”

“Men are liars, Y/N.”

“Are you saying you’re a liar then?”

Jaehyun glances at you with a pitied softness.

“I’m not as good as I want to be, but I’m trying.”

The light shifts to green and a revving engine takes off down the road, stopping once the gates of your mansion-sized home come into view.

“I hope you can find happiness with someone who genuinely cares about you, Y/N,” he finishes. “As a friend, I think that’s the least you deserve.”

—

Jaehyun’s words remain afloat in the sea of consciousness that is your fretting mind, and they don’t seem to relinquish their hold no matter how hard you try to dismiss it as pure paranoia. Every relationship has its ups and downs; it is simply a matter of willpower and active effort to communicate any troubles and work them out between the two of you. Taeyong wasn’t the most vocal person, but he still made efforts to make you happy with gifts and showed up to dates. You were happy when you got to spend time with him and made sure he knew it, mouth nearly aching from how widely you’d grin whenever he called and asked for you to go out with him. Surely he also felt the same with you if you were still together for so long.

But the nagging feeling always lingered in the back of your head, informing you that this was something too good to be true. That it wasn’t genuine, that you were only being used to get back at his ex… a part of your brain was so sure that this was all a hoax. Ongoing anxiety and paranoia had spun your feelings into a churning mess in your head that would eventually run rampage unless you rein it back into reality.

Which is why when you finally speak up about it one week after your three-month anniversary, you couldn’t fathom why you didn’t detect the burnt bits earlier when the entire pot had been bubbling incessantly the moment the course of things had been set into motion.

“Are you still in love with Kang Miyeon?”

Taeyong doesn’t look up from his phone, fingers tapping on the screen as the sales associate returns with two sets of suits. One a glen check while the other pinstripe, both are in the preferred shade of faded gray that he liked.

“Sir, perhaps these are more to your liking?”

A nod of approval at the sales associate’s question and he tucks his phone away without even sparing a second glance at the offered suits.

“I’ll take both.”

“Taeyong,” you persist. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“It’s an irrelevant one that doesn’t deserve an answer.”

The sales associate stands still, unsure of how to deal with the impending argument until Taeyong gestures for her to ring him up. Tilting his head to show thanks while grabbing the paper bags off the counter, he pulls you after him with his free hand, leaving the store only to enter the one next door for “a more comfortable pair of shoes than boring black heels”.

“Try these,” he says, picking up a pair of brogues from the women’s section. “They look more comfortable than the ones you have on.”

“I… Taeyong, can you listen to me for once?”

“Excuse me, a pair of these for the lady and an extra bag to pack the heels. She’ll be walking out in the new ones.”

“Would you please just stop being such an asshole and let me speak!”

The outburst captures all noise from inside the store and silence lingers before Taeyong turns to you, expressionless as he leads you to an empty chair and take the high heels off your feet. Easing the brogues out of the box, he carefully slips them on for you and offers a hand, which you take before twirling slowly once you’re up from the seat.

“Better than the heels?” he asks quietly. “I can still return them if they don’t fit.”

“They fit,” you mumble, “And they’re more comfortable than the heels.”

A nod and he takes your shoes, thanking the staff for their service as he walks out with you in tow. No words are exchanged until you exit the mall and reach his car, the Aventador waiting underneath the shade of a tree in the parking lot.

“Are you still in love with Miyeon?”

“Yes.”

He opens the door for you and you get in, already expectant of such an answer. The fact that there wasn’t even an inch of hesitation after you finished your words was more than enough to confirm.

“Then why did you say I was your girlfriend that time she came over for tea?”

“I needed leverage.” The car backs out of its parked space and revs off, the rest of the world a blur through the glass at its speed. “I told everyone you were my girlfriend because I wanted her to see that breaking up with me was her loss.”

The word “leverage” a harsher reality than you’d expected, an unpleasant sensation churns at your stomach, traveling upwards to your chest as your hands unconsciously curl into fists during the ride. Not daring to look at Taeyong while he was driving, you keep your head down and it remains in that posture until you feel the softest tap on your shoulder.

“Listen, I’m sorry if I caused any misunderstandings. I know I took you out a few times and now all my friends are sure we’re an item, but—”

A misunderstanding would be the least of your troubles if you hadn’t already invested so much time and emotion into a relationship that only proved false in the end.

“N-No worries.”

“Are you sure?” Taeyong makes a left turn and glances at the mirror before switching to the right lane. “I mean, I can make it up to you.”

“It’s fine,” you insist, voice hardening. “I really shouldn’t have expected much when you’d never explicitly said anything about making things official between us.”

Spotting your brother’s hunched figure by the foot of the steps leading up to your family mansion’s front doors, you wait for the vehicle to come to a full stop before reaching for the handle of the door on the passenger’s side, only to pause as Taeyong unbuckles his seatbelt and reaches towards the backseat, grabbing the bag that held the shoes he had bought for you.

“Here. I hope you like the shoes I got you.”

You step out of the vehicle without taking them and he follows behind, concern rolling off his shoulders in waves.

“Is everything alright?”

“I’m fine,” you say, forcing down the choked sobs that were threatening to spill any moment. “I just… I think I need to lie down.”

“Well, please take the shoes anyway. A token of my apology for not making things clear between us, if you will.”

He extends the shopping bag and you take it from him against your better judgment. A thin smile follows, the gesture revealing little about his true thoughts as per usual.

“Goodbye, Taeyong.”

Taking the cue to leave, he nods and hops back into his Lamborghini Aventador, engine revving as the black convertible speeds off into the distance. You don’t look back, and Sicheng stares in confusion at the sight of your figure approaching the gate.

“Luna, look who’s back early.”

Quick glances at the things in your hands and two fingers scratch behind the kitten’s right ear. “How was your date with Taeyong?”

The tears come rushing down your face like a waterfall, and Sicheng immediately helps you inside, placing Luna down and guiding you sit while he fishes a box of tissues from underneath the coffee table.

“What happened, why are you crying?”

You shake your head, heart aching at the reality of your utopia crumbling away from its high pedestal.

“I’m stupid.”

“What, no, you’re not stupid.”

“I’m stupid,” you repeat, sniffling through your tears. “I’m so stupid for realizing just now that everything was one-sided from the very beginning.”

—

You decide to stay away from Taeyong and the rest of his usual gang of friends, fearful of spontaneously breaking into tears at seeing any one of them when they reminded you of the one-sided love you had held onto for so long.

Jaehyun didn’t pry, only sending you a text promising that he was always available should you decide for company at any time of the day. Ten and Johnny were harder to avoid since you’d see them occasionally at studios and other sets for pictorials, so you gave a rather washed out lie of being busy with jobs as the primary reason for not hanging out. The same spiel was offered to Lucas whenever he offered invites to parties and casual drinks at the club. Only Sicheng knew why you were distancing yourself—as expected of your sibling—and you made him promise to keep quiet for your sake in case the others asked him about your sudden aloofness.

“Can you walk later?” he asks as he holds onto the dress for your final show of the fall season. “I can call in a sick day for you so management can find a replacement in time before eight.”

“I…” You yawn, fatigue coursing through your veins from having done three photoshoots since five am. “I can… I can do it.”

“Are you sure? Your eyes are droopy and I think it’ll be better for you to just take some time off rather than overwork as a coping mechanism for you-know-what.”

You shake your head, blowing your nose one last time and taking a deep breath.

“I… I’ll just rest now. It’s only seven, I can sneak in an hour of light sleep before doing the show.”

Sixty minutes pass in the blink of an eye and you now stare at your reflection in the mirror in the breakroom backstage of the runaway show you were scheduled for tonight, adjusting the sewn flowers by your shoulders. More red blossoms stitched at the bottom of the gown pool by your feet, the gradation from a nude coloration to blood-red a stunning sight to behold. The floral garment had walked down the runway in Toronto Fashion Week and was provided for the foliage theme of tonight’s show courtesy of your mother, who had pulled several strings to directly receive the piece from the designer himself. Although you weren’t too enthusiastic on the sheerness of the gown, you loved the way the red flowers adorned the bodice and added a blazing elegance to the nudity of the fabric, your stylist nearly weeping on the spot when the gown had been brought in for you to wear and her to work with. Pulling your hair up to let the flowers have room to shine, she then clips accessory pieces to your earlobes for added effect and touches up your eyes, giving you the okay before hurrying out to see when it is your turn to go.

“Y/N, they switched you from sixth to fourth! You’re up next!”

At the sound of the call, you shuffle out, heels clicking while you pick up the ends of the gown to not step on the fabric and tear a hole in the garment itself.

“Ten seconds, standby please!”

Poking your head out from the side, your eyes scan across those in the audience, catching Sicheng by the front with Ten and Johnny. Further down is Jaehyun and you manage to make momentary eye contact. He nods, offering a tiny wave before turning his head to the right at the arrival of Lucas and one more.

You freeze in place when you see Taeyong, blinking twice to make sure you weren’t seeing things.

What is he doing here?

You hear your name being called frantically and turn your attention back to the runway, apologizing for missing your cue. Taking a deep breath, you make your first steps down, lights flashing and camera shutters going off as you maintain your line of sight straight ahead. Audible murmurs of awe can be heard at the sheer gown you were wearing, the sewn-in red flowers swishing and swirling around your clicking heels. So far, so good. So far, so good.

Shifting a glance towards Sicheng’s side of the exhibition hall, you strike a pose and take your place at the center of the catwalk, lifting one end of the gown and preparing your final pose when your eyes catch Taeyong leaning in towards his left. A manicured hand covers her face, but you don’t even need to make a guess when there was only one woman in the world who can make him smile so genuinely like that.

What magic did she cast to get him to look at her and only her? What was it about her that made him never waver from her time and time again?

Mind blank, ears buzzing from the sound of frantically flashing cameras, reality becomes painful to perceive and you feel yourself wobbling in the black four-inch heels on your feet. Soft murmurs building with fear for your sudden show of imbalance, you shake your head and make your last mark on the runway, locking in eye contact with Taeyong as he studies you on the catwalk. Three seconds before he breaks the gaze to turn at Miyeon murmuring into his ear, smiling once more into whatever she had said to him.

That was perhaps when you’d finally had enough of this whole charade, the sharp intake of breath akin to a shrill scream on toppling off the runway. Consciousness slipping from your very reach, it is impossible to fathom that you had just fallen so cleanly off the catwalk you’d set foot on so many, many times before.

◇

“Oh, thank God she didn’t hit her head or damage anything too important.”

You blink your eyes open to the blinding white fluorescents above and wince at the aching pain by your right leg.

“Where…”

Sicheng quickly helps you sit up and rubs two fingers against his temple.

“The hospital. You fell off the runway.”

“Fell off?”

“I don’t know if it was the gown or what, but you fell off and—” He gestures at your completely bandaged right leg. “You were lucky Jaehyun was fast enough to break your fall.”

“Jaehyun… Jaehyun caught me?”

“Yup. He’s waiting outside with the rest of the gang right now.”

“Don’t let anyone in,” you blurt out. “It’s… embarrassing.”

“Mom was frantic when she heard about the fall. She threatened the paparazzi to leave or she’ll set their agencies on fire.”

A dry chuckle leaves your lips and you strain to move your legs, the left one just fine while the right one stung with an aching pain.

“Doctor said your right ankle is broken and there might be some other fractures from heavy force against the muscles,” Sicheng says as he offers you a glass of water, which you deny. “And Jaehyun told us he caught you before you hit your head but missed the timing of your legs toppling over the stage.

“Want me to tell him to come in? I think he’d like to know if he saved you from dying or not.”

“Alright.”

Your brother gets up and Jaehyun enters shortly after exchanging a quick nod with Sicheng, relief settling in his eyes when he sees you conscious and more-or-less in one piece.

“I heard you ran to save me,” you bring up, patting your right leg. “Thank you.”

“I’m only glad I was close enough from the runway,” he jokes, dimple carved into his left cheek. “Otherwise it would’ve been too late.”

“Is…”

“Taeyong was here for a bit before leaving to go home and report to his sister,” Jaehyun answers. “He offers his concerns and wishes you a speedy recovery.”

Your heart sinks at hearing the message and Jaehyun narrows his eyes.

“Don’t tell me you fell because of him.”

“No,” you lie, the memory of his intimacy with Miyeon a barb biting into your skin. “I think I just tripped on the gown. Believe it or not, these types of things happen to even the best of us.”

He drops the topic and eyes the glass of untouched water by the bedside table.

“You really should drink some water.”

“Fine, give it.” You grab the glass from him and take quiet sips, eventually finishing the entirety of the cup under Jaehyun’s supervision.

“Happy?”

“I’ll inform your mother that you’re awake and bring you some food. You’re probably hungry too.”

“Why… Why are you so nice to me?”

He smiles again, a tender gesture that hit too close for comfort.

“We’re friends and I care about you.”

“You… don’t have to be so kind when I had it coming.” The sniffles start up again and before long, trickling streams of tears drip onto the bedsheets. “I…”

Warm arms wrap around you securely and you rest your head against his neck, pouring out the feelings of agony and unrequited love for a man who had never once thought of you as anything more than a tool in his attempt to win back another woman’s heart.

“I loved him, Jaehyun,” you sob into his shoulder. “Why did I not see the signs earlier that he was only using me to win her back?”

◇

“How is she?”

Jaehyun looks up after closing the door behind him.

“You came back.”

Taeyong takes a step forward to enter the room but a firm hand stops him from advancing.

“She just fell asleep,” Jaehyun says quietly. “Leave her be.”

“I just want to see if she’s okay.”

The corners of his mouth twitch and Jaehyun jabs a finger at Taeyong’s shoulder, shoving the latter back.

“You are the last person allowed to say something like that after what happened to her.”

“What the hell is your problem?” Taeyong scowls. “I’m only—”

“My problem? You’re the one who took advantage of her feelings for your own selfish purposes!” Considering the location of the conversation, he lowers his volume before a nurse kicks them out from the hallway. “You treated her like one of your toys and now think you can swing by to ask how she’s doing after using her like that?”

“This is none of your business, Jaehyun.”

“It became my business when I saved her just in time after she fell off the runway. What were you doing back then, huh? Chatting it up with your ex?”

Taeyong falls silent and Jaehyun growls at the lack of a rebuttal.

“I figured.”

“Y/N is my friend too, Jaehyun.”

“If you considered her a friend, then you wouldn’t have manipulated her into thinking you and her were together just to get back with your ex! I know we’re friends and all, but you think you’re so great and almighty when you’re just a guy who can’t differentiate between people who are true to you with people who approach you just because of your background and looks. How is any of that fair to those around you, especially to those who love you?”

Taeyong purses his lips and Jaehyun crosses his arms.

“She genuinely loved you for you and you just trampled on her feelings like they were garbage.”

“I will come see her tomorrow to offer an apology.”

“No, you won't. You don’t have to give her false hope like that when she knows you’re not worth waiting for anymore.”

—

You spend the next six weeks and counting resting up in the hospital for the sake of your injured right leg, unable to walk and let alone work in any other events that had you in mind. Sicheng visited every single day along with Jaehyun and the two became fast friends because of it, juggling between keeping you company with getting to know each other better outside of the four white walls of the medical center. Ten occasionally dropped by amidst work and jokingly offered to keep your name alive if you ended up not being able to model anymore, but switched to a more serious tone the day he brought in the largest fruit basket you’d ever seen, giving his genuine conviction in a full recovery after your accident. Support from friends and family along with medical professionals guiding you every step of the way… the process was made more bearable and you found your leg growing stronger and able to withstand more weight with each consecutive day.

Taeyong didn’t visit much, but he was the last thing on your mind now, the puzzle pieces finally fitting into the picture of him never being interested in you that way at all.

“Look who I brought to visit you.”

You gasp and make grabbing motions at the cat in Jaehyun’s arms, now a little bigger but still as affectionate as it wiggled onto your lap.

“You’re not so small now, Luna!”

“She’s been eating more and growing quite a bit,” Jaehyun smiles. “And I snuck her in, so don’t tell the nurse you saw your cat today.”

The black feline purrs at the scratching behind her ears and you smile at the cuteness that is the midnight-colored Luna.

“Thank you for bringing her, Jaehyun.”

“How’s the leg? Easier to walk now, I hope?”

“I’ve been very diligently practicing with the staff,” you reply, patting the right-side of your hospital bed. “It’s only a matter of time before a full discharge, I think.”

“That’s great to hear and I’m happy for you.”

You pick up more to his words than what meets the eye and probe further until he cracks a dimpled smile.

“You seem happier now and I’m happy that you’re happy,” he says in earnest. “That’s all.”

“Do I?”

“You’re glowing brighter than ever before and it’s blinding.”

“Stop exaggerating,” you laugh, dismissing the cheesy words with a shake of your head. “I was never like that.”

“You were always the brightest star to me, especially so after what’s happened.

“I’ve said too much,” Jaehyun mumbles. “I gotta go.”

“Wait…”

He pauses midway of reaching for Luna, and you reluctantly hand over your cat, watching wistfully as he places her into the white carrying case he had brought her in.

“I just wanted to hold her a bit longer.”

“Maybe I can sneak her in again tomorrow.”

“I’ll hold you to that. And Jaehyun?”

“Yes?”

You take a deep breath and lean forward, dipping your head until your back is fully hunched over to show your sincerity.

“Thank you for visiting every day and giving me strength after my fall.”

“I won’t accept that because it’s what any decent human would do.

“Take care.”

You nod and give an extra wave to the carrying case as he leaves you to rest. Adjusting your position to lay down, you fold your hands over your stomach and gaze upwards at the ceiling.

“Am I imagining things or is Jaehyun even more weird than usual?”

As your thoughts simmer, the sharp vibration of your phone brings you back to reality. You reach over to pick up the call, puzzled at the sound of muffled speech through the other end of the line.

“Hello? Who is this?”

Buzzing and crackles tickle your ear and you’re halfway into hanging up when the high-pitched whine of your name stops you from pressing the button, an identifier for the unknown caller easily coming to mind when you’d been the subject of such whines so many times.

“Is this Taeyong?”

“BIIIINGO.” Slurred mumbling followed by another whine of your name keeps you on the line as you listen to the sound of clinking glasses mixed with low grunts—he was probably out drinking and had called you by mistake.

“I’m hanging up now.”

“No, don’t! Don’t hang up, don’t hang up…” A groan and his voice drops to a low mutter, bordering on raspy as his words become less structured.

“I need…. Sorry.”

“What?”

“Sorry,” he repeats, three bubbly giggles and a hiccup. “Sorry to say… I’m sad.”

You sigh, not in the mood to keep him entertained over a booty call.

“I’m not in the mood for this.”

The whining only persists. “Please don’t hang up, please… Head hurts. Eyes hurt.”

“Call someone to pick you up, then.”

“Heart hurts… no help for that.”

A bud of panic settles in but before you can ask for elaboration, you hear one last groan and the phone line goes dead. He probably hung up without knowing he had pressed the end call button.

“Someone will help him,” you mutter, putting your phone away and pushing down the creeping buds of sympathy to go find Taeyong. “I can’t run over to pick him up when I’m in no condition to even walk properly.”

—

The calls from Taeyong become a regular occurrence that you keep hidden from Sicheng and Jaehyun, knowing full well they’d threaten him with force if they knew he was still contacting you after six plus weeks of not even stopping by to visit you at the hospital. Each time you’d press the button to shut off the ringtone the moment your screen lit up with the notification, only to have it ring again immediately with an incoming call from none other than yours truly. It got to the point where you figured you had to tell him in person that you were done being the subject of his pestering when he had never cared about you in the first place, and that is the first thing on your agenda once you receive an official discharge from the hospital.

“You couldn’t have told me or Jaehyun about it earlier?”

You ignore the eyerolls from Sicheng. “The two of you would’ve gone up to Taeyong and given him hell when he had nothing to do with my injury.

“Sicheng, you know where he is, don’t you?”

The answer is muttered grudgingly, but nonetheless given after a moment’s pause.

“… If you want to see him, you can probably find him wasted away at Club Cherry.”

“It’s barely 10am,” you point out. “What’s he doing already drunk at ten in the morning?”

“Don’t know and personally don’t care. I’m calling Jaehyun so he can go with you in case Taeyong tries anything funny.”

Jaehyun shows up in ten minutes, pulling up the hospital entrance in his familiar white Ferrari and beaming when he sees you standing on your feet again after being bedridden for the past six weeks.

“You look amazing.”

You smile and he helps you into the passenger side while waving goodbye to Sicheng, who grunts and waves him off before pulling out his phone to call for a cab to pick him up and take him home.

“Have you been keeping in touch with Taeyong?” you ask Jaehyun first-thing.

“Not too much,” he answers. “Why?”

“I want you to take me to Club Cherry. He… I want to see him.”

“See him… Y/N, he’s not worth it.”

You cross your arms. “Either you take me there or I’ll call Johnny to take me there.”

“I’ll take you,” Jaehyun sighs heavily, shifting gear to set the vehicle into drive. “Maybe it’s good that you’re dealing with this now instead of dragging it out.”

You have half a mind to ask for clarification but keep quiet during the ride from the hospital to the nightclub that is a favorite socializing spot of their gang, letting Jaehyun take the lead as he hands his keys to the valet and greets the bouncer at the front entrance. Let in without speaking more than the two words that granted entry into the exclusive club, he holds the door open while you hobble in. As expected of the early hour, the club is empty save the two staff members wiping down tables and sweeping the floor respectively.  

“Oh hey, Jaehyun!”

You follow Jaehyun towards the bartender, a youthful face sparked with relief and concern mixed in one as the two exchange handshakes.

“Who’s this?” he asks, warmly extending a hand over the counter.

“Mark, Y/N,” Jaehyun introduces. “Y/N, Mark. He works the bar here at Cherry but don’t be fooled. He actually owns the place.”  

Mark shakes his head and laughs it off.

“No, no, my dad owns the club. I just work here part-time while attending university to earn some extra money.”

“Basically yours in a matter of time,” you speak up. “Yes?”

“I guess you can say that.”

Jaehyun gets straight to the point once the conversation drifts into more comfortable waters.

“Did Taeyong come in today?”

“Sure did,” Mark replies, pointing at the hall where the private rooms were. “Came here at nine sharp and hauled in an entire crate of champagne bottles behind him.”

A disapproving sigh leaves Jaehyun’s mouth and you give Mark a tiny nod of thanks before following Jaehyun towards the private rooms, entering the first one of the left and covering a hand over your mouth at the sight of empty champagne bottles littering the floor. The wooden crate they came in still holding three more bottles of the like, you hurriedly take the remaining bottles to turn in to Mark at the bar while Jaehyun approaches the slumped figure on the purple couch.

“God, he looks like shit.”

You place the three champagne bottles out of reach and take in the slumped figure hugging a bottle in his arms, pity rolling off your shoulder in waves as you extend a hesitant arm to take away the untouched champagne.

“I’ll do it,” Jaehyun mumbles, gesturing for you to step back. “Taeyong is a handful when he’s wasted like this.”

At hearing his name, said drunkard somehow lifts his head up and squints before emitting loud giggles at seeing your face.

“You finally came to see me!”

“I didn’t want to,” you mutter. “But it’s hard not to when you look like this.”

“WhatdoyoumeanI’mfine.” Taeyong brushes off Jaehyun’s arm and stands up rather crookedly, pouting when you duck behind Jaehyun.

“Why, why, why no hug?”

“Can I talk to him alone?” you ask Jaehyun.

“I don’t know,” the latter begins, eyes flickering with uncertainty. “I wouldn’t trust him to not—”

“Please,” you insist. “It won’t take long.”

Jaehyun gives in, making you promise to call him if you needed reinforcements. You laugh, hooking pinkies with him as a promise before turning back to a giggly and flushed Taeyong.

“Let’s get you somewhat sobered up first.”

“No, let’s talk!” He makes a grab for your arm and manages to pull you down to the couch. “Sit here, sit!”

Sensing you wouldn’t be having much say in getting him to do what you wanted, you give in to his request but leave an arm’s reach of distance in between, brushing it off when he closes in the gap in a matter of seconds.

“What do you want to talk about, Taeyong?”

His lips pout and a whine follows.

“I’m sad.”

“Why are you sad?”

“Because…” Furrowed eyebrows and a sniffle pave way for divulgence of detail kept under wraps since you’d last seen him six plus week ago.

“Because I hurt you.”

You refute his claim. “Let’s get someone to bring you home, I—”

“Miyeon’s dating someone else.”

The outburst catching you by surprise, you simply stare and Taeyong continues, voice dropping to a hollowness you didn’t think you’d ever hear coming from his mouth.

“She was just… keeping me hopeful in case he wanted to break up with her.”

You bite back the retort of how great it was to have a taste of his own medicine and nod to show you were listening.

“Mhm.”

“I was so mad, Y/N. I went to her company to clear things up since she stopped answering my calls and I found her making out with some rising actor who’s currently recording a historical drama. So mad.”

“… That…”

“You know what’s more stupid?” A bubble of laughter and he sits back on the couch, arm slung over his eyes. “After that, I realized what she was doing to me was basically me doing the same to you, and… and wow.  

“You must hate me for being such an asshole,” he laughs, voice trembling as tears trickle down his reddened face. “A loser. I’m just a spoiled brat who… who can’t even treat people right and—”

“Stop.” You lean forward from your seat and wrap your arms around him. “You’re not a loser.”

He continues crying into your shoulder and you remain still, letting him get all his feelings out rather than continue drinking himself into oblivion.

“Don’t go,” he mumbles when you move your numb arms. “I’m so lonely here.”

“I actually came here to tell you to stop calling me,” you begin. “I…

“I came to visit you, did you know?”

You pause. “When?”

Taeyong hiccups and counts off on his fingers.

“One, two… five times. I never went when Sicheng or Jaehyun were there but I did go to see you at the hospital.”

“That…. That’s nice of you, but I can’t do this anymore.”

“Do… Do what?”

“I can’t do this anymore, Taeyong. I can’t keep holding on to this… whatever this is. I know you don’t like me and while I was hurt that you used me as leverage, now I know that I deserve better. I deserve to love and be loved by someone who cares about me, loves me, treats me as someone who is worth it and…

“That someone isn’t you. I thought it would be you but it was all just one-sided thinking from my part.”

“I know I treated you poorly before,” Taeyong rasps. “But don’t you think—”

“I think it’s time for me to move on,” you finish, letting go of him and standing up from your seat. “And I wish the same for you.”

“You won’t even give me a second chance?” His question echoes from the shell of a man broken, a man who had once offered his heart in its entirety only to have it returned in shattered pieces. “I… I wasn’t thinking properly, I…”

“You’re not sober.” Taking out your phone from your purse, you tap at the screen to send a text message. “I’ll contact your sister so she can come pick you up and bring you home.”

—

Work picks up once you re-enter the whirlwind that is the modeling industry, no doubt Sicheng and even your mother having played a significant part in getting you back in the favor of photographers and fashion designers to book you for photos and model new fashion lines for the upcoming season. No word of your fatal fall off the catwalk is mentioned by your colleagues, and even your manager takes care to keep your schedule less busy in case another incident occurs while you were on call for another job. It wasn’t that you didn’t appreciate more free time, but you wish you weren’t treated like a glass sculpture that could easily break with just one touch.

As you remain still while your makeup artist applies more eyeshadow on the lids, a sharp searing sensation pulses through your right leg and you wince, immediately garnering the attention of your manager and at least three other staff members who rush over to see if you were okay.

“I’m fine,” you say with a wave, “I can stand.”

“We can call it a day and resume tomorrow,” your manager tells you. “It’s not a problem.”

“I can stand,” you repeat with a slight roll of your eyes. “It was just a cramp.”

She backs off from pressing on about having you sit down and your makeup artist pulls up a chair for you to sit on, a gesture that only stoked the flames more as you refuse to sit while eyeliner works its magic to shaping your eyes into the sultry cat’s eye look today’s shoot called for.

“The dress is perfect.”

You turn around, smiling at the compliment. Ten whistles appreciatively at the black sleeveless velveteen dress that hugged close to your body, the coral pink flowers dotting the soft black fabric an unexpected splash of vibrancy that comes only second to the choker keyhole at your bosom.

“You like?”

“Sweetie, you look gorgeous. And that’s gorgeous with a capital G.”

“Why, thank you.”

You frown at seeing him still in casual clothes. “You’re not changed yet.”

“Ah, there was a change of my schedule, so I won’t be doing the photoshoot with you.” 

A buzz and he reaches into the pockets of his trousers, beaming as he turns to you with a smile.

“My replacement just got here, so—”

“Jaehyun?” you ask out of curiosity. “He has a nice face for modeling.”

“He’s okay, but you’ll know why I decided to choose who I chose to replace me for this one.” Without saying anything more, he ushers you to head out towards the hotel room for your pictures, waving quickly before turning tail to do whatever it was that demanded his time instead of taking photos with you.

Two knocks on the door and you’re greeted by a face you hadn’t been expecting to see at all, a face that offers a soft smile and brings back the slightest of tugs in your heart as he moves aside to let you in.

“Hello, Taeyong.”

He nods in greeting and scans over your dress, line of sight stopping at your shoes.

“You’re wearing the shoes I got you.”

You bite your lip and nod slowly.

“It doesn't mean anything. I just wore them because I wasn’t told I had to wear a specific type for today and…

“They’re comfortable,” you finish with a whisper. “A lot better than boring black heels.”

“I know,” he murmurs in reply. “You told me so when I picked them out at the store for you.”

“Places, everybody!”

Taeyong gestures towards the ensemble of staff setting up the cameras and offers a hand. “May I?”

Unsure if it was a pity gesture after your fall, you stare at the outstretched hand and find yourself taking it, letting him guide you towards the photographers even though you were capable of walking there on your own.

—

Taeyong is more skilled than you give credit for, naturally photogenic in each shot taken of him on the leather couch in the hotel room. Something as mundane as the everyday couch becomes an instrument in his filling in for Ten, giving the professional model a run for his money with the string of praise trickling from the photographer’s encouraging lips. New poses are suggested and lighting adjusted to better fit the mood for his batch of photos, you find yourself staring longer than you liked and nearly miss the cue to enter had Taeyong not gotten up from the couch, waving his hand in your face to check if you were okay.

“I’m fine,” you dismiss, not looking him in the eyes. “Let’s get on with it.”

You follow the cue to move towards the bed and unconsciously flinch when Taeyong sits down on the other side. Toppling to the side, you nearly fall off until an arm reaches out and hooks around your waist.

“I got you.”

Mumbling thanks, you inch away but the photographer calls for you to move back towards Taeyong. A tiny sigh escapes your parted mouth as you place your head against his shoulder, one frame captured. Intimacy welcomed, you do your best to keep it professional as Taeyong slings an arm over your left shoulder. His head tips toward you and you close your eyes in return. Not having to look at his face made things a little bit easier, your choice in turning your face to the side and averting eye contact to your hands or any other part of the body a smart one during the entire shoot.

Individual shots follow the paired ones and you watch as he changes out of the black top and red pants to a velveteen blue blazer and similarly dark-colored shorts, looking dapper despite—if your eyes weren’t deceiving you—the lack of a shirt underneath the buttoned garment. His gaze distant as he sits against the top of the cabinet, you slip behind to the computers and find the assistant scrolling through Taeyong’s other individual shots. The screen displaying a plethora of samples, a whispered request to the fumbling assistant who is just as amazed at speaking with a model grants you control of the mouse in a matter of seconds. While she mumbles about how Taeyong’s face is perfect for this shoot, you focus on studying the pictures and see clearly why Taeyong had been chosen as a substitute for Ten. His face is sculpted in such a way that it radiated beauty from practically all angles, and the gaze is the cherry on top that seals the deal. Darkened are his eyes, but they channel such a sultry yet melancholic undertone to portray an enhanced depth to the edginess on the surface. Editing effects such as blurs only enhance the beauty emitting from the man and you almost want to ask if the assistant can send you a few of the files after the photoshoot is over.

“Y/N, can you come in, please?”

You nod and the photographer directs you to stand behind Taeyong, close enough that you are pressed against his back while placing your chin onto his shoulder.

“You look as stiff as a cardboard. Place your left hand on his thigh if it helps to make you relax.”

“Go ahead,” Taeyong murmurs, tilting his neck. “I don’t mind.”

You hesitantly place your fingers on his thigh and the touch is electrifying. You immediately shrink away but find your hand held in place by another. Taeyong doesn’t say anything as he holds your hand, and you take a deep breath before pulling yourself together, regaining the initial requested posture and powering through the remainder of the shoot.

“And that’s a wrap, thank you. Anything else we will pick up starting tomorrow morning.”

“Have some time for a drink?” Taeyong asks you after the cameras are packed away.

“N-Not really, I—”

The look of dejection on his face changes your mind and you look away at his beaming grin, a light that tugs at your heartstrings as he eagerly pulls you after him. Out of the room and towards the elevators, then up three floors until the lift stops at number 8. Opening to the makings of a dimly-lit but welcoming bar, Taeyong picks a seat towards the left side of the counter.

“Here.”

He gestures for you to sit next to him as two dry martinis are placed before him.

“Cheers?”

Fingers gripping the martini glass, a quiet “Cheers” and you down the drink in nearly one go, wincing at the burning sensation at the back of your throat.

“Is there somewhere you need to go?”

“Well…” You ask the bartender for water. “I didn’t…. I didn’t actually want to get a drink with you.”

“Why not?”

The glass of water you requested clinks next to your emptied martini, and you opt to take a large sip of the liquid, not answering his question.

“I guess I don’t deserve anything more when I was the one who treated you like a toy.” A bitter chuckle and he calls for two more dry martinis.

“You can go. I’ve put the drinks under my tab.”

“… No, I’ll stay. I won’t need any more drinks, but I can stay and keep you company, if you’d like.”

True to your word, you stay with him for the remainder of the night at the bar without any more drops of alcohol in your system. You listen to him talk and hold rather engaging conversations regarding just about anything: the weather, the modeling industry, his sister’s business endeavors, favorite drinks…

“You’re so easy to talk to,” Taeyong mumbles as his head knocks onto your shoulder. “Great, just great.”

“So I’ve been told,” you laugh, beckoning for the bartender to take your credit card to pay for half a bottle of scotch’s worth of shots. “Come on, let’s get you home.”

“Don’t want to.”

“Then where am I supposed to take you?”

“He has a room here,” the bartender speaks up. “He drank himself to oblivion the other night and I had someone bring him up to the 4th floor. First door on the right-hand side.”

You thank the bartender for the helpful tip and somehow manage to get Taeyong up. Making your way towards the elevator, you keep one arm steadily wrapped around his waist so he didn’t fall, trudging to the elevator and descending from the 8th floor to four levels below.

“Where’s your room key, Taeyong?”

He mumbles an inaudible answer and you sigh before reaching a hand into his blazer, fingers interlacing around a rectangular card that you swipe at the door handle before placing it between your teeth. After helping him inside, you spit out the key, making sure he can sit upright on his own before informing your manager that you were with Taeyong. The request to extend the news to Taeyong’s sister is added less she worry about her brother’s whereabouts and safety at one in the morning.

“I should probably change out of this dress.”

Remembering the bartender had said that Taeyong visited the bar last night, you figure he’d have spare clothes in the closet and open the wardrobe. Taking your pick from the hangers of gray, blue, and the occasional white, you settle on a simple white button-up with a hemline that just barely reaches past your fingertips. The black dress is all but discarded after you toss the garment onto the single chair by the window.

“You’re wearing my shirt.”

You turn around, pulling down the shirt to not flash anything inappropriate in his drunken state.

Taeyong sits at the corner of the bed, hands clasped together as he looks up at you.

“It’s cute,” he adds with a soft chuckle. “I like it.”

“You should take a shower,” you mumble, slinking behind the chair and taking refuge in the curtains. “You smell like booze.”

“Will you still be here after I shower?”

He takes your silence as a yes and gets up from the bed.

“Sit wherever you’d like. It’s cold by the window.”

You wait until he enters the bathroom to make a dash for the bed, pulling up the covers to cover up your bare legs as you make yourself comfortable. After standing for almost the whole day, it felt good to sit and rest your legs on a soft mattress, the sheer size of the room informing you that this floor can only be a luxury suite and higher since most of the doors you had passed in getting here were quite spaced apart.

“You can sleep there tonight.”

You break out of your thoughts and stare at the dripping wet hair and white bathrobe on the man who had booked this suite, not registering his words until he repeats it a second time.

“If I sleep here, then where will you sleep?”

“There’s a chair.” He pulls up another chair by the mahogany desk next to the television and moves it to your right side, sitting down cross-legged.

“You don’t need to do that for me.”

Moving the covers aside, you bend your legs and wince at the cramping sensation in your calves, a gesture that has Taeyong up on his feet in seconds.

“Are you okay, where does it hurt?”

“I’m fine,” you grumble. “It’s not like you were at fault for my fall off the catwalk.”

“Believe me, I would’ve done everything I could to prevent it from happening.”  

Displeasure sinks its claws into your calves and you force yourself up, only be pushed back down by Taeyong.

“Sleep,” he orders. “You must be tired after a long day.”

“I… Why do you even care when I’ve always been a nobody to you?”

“You’re not a nobody to me.”

The depth of the sentence leaves a lasting echo in the room and you stare at him wide-eyed.

“You’re not a nobody to me,” he repeats. “I admit that I shouldn’t have used you to get back at Miyeon, but I never thought you were a nobody to me.”

“You… You never told me.”

“I…” A scoff and he sits onto the chair next to you, head tilted back. “How was I supposed to say I didn’t think you were a nobody to me without sounding like a creep?”

“I loved you,” you say quietly. “Did you know that, at least?”

“…Yes.” He fidgets with his fingers; you can practically see him picking through word by word in his brain for a suitable reply. “But I didn’t act on it because I wasn’t sure if you liked me for me or for my money. So many people have approached me simply because of my background and nothing was ever genuine.

“You can imagine what that does to someone, can’t you? As bad as it sounds, it was just easier to give the cold shoulder and keep at a distance rather than go through the cycle of false hopes at meeting people who didn’t care about my money or my social status. I hardened my heart so I wouldn’t ever be fed lies and fake compliments again, but that ended up hurting you when you always valued me for me and not the things that I had to my name.”

Hypotheticals race through your head, scenarios of what could have been a loving relationship with Taeyong that only create more prickling holes in your heart. As if you hadn’t finished hurting from all the years of unrequited love, now you were faced with another reality, the reality of a relationship that never came to fruition due to failure at communicating your feelings in a way that didn’t evoke misunderstanding in either party.

There was no one to attribute fault to and call blame on; the timing just never came at an appropriate time. And as others had told you before, it would’ve hurt less to have known nothing would ever happen the moment you had felt something more for a man like Taeyong.

Untouchable, out-of-your-league, perhaps you had only been in love with the idea of loving Taeyong, an intangible conception of emotions that had brought you in an endless loop around the park until today. Today marking the day you finally found the exit out of the seemingly endless maze, a day holding so much more meaning than intended as you take a deep breath and prepare to say your final goodbye to a love that had kept you in its chains for so many years.

“Hey, Taeyong?”

“Hmm?”

You reach your arms up and pull him close, pressing your lips against his cheek one last time—a kiss just as soft as the first but harboring hints of a melancholic farewell rather than hope for a chance to start fresh from square one.  

[imagineclaireandjamie]

Original Sin is so hot 😈👏

Thank you, Anon.

Here is a new one - hopefully you’ll feel the same about this when it gets to that point

Part ONE:

It was late in the evening when Claire arrived in Inverness. The tiny station was deserted, devoid of life, as the rain slatted around her. She waited patiently by the small designated pick up zone, her wheelie suitcase sitting idly by her side as she pulled her hood further over her head – the wind lifting it enough to allow brief splashes of rainwater to drip along her forehead.

“Claire – Claire Beauchamp? Is that you?” The voice came out of the passenger side of the old car, making her jump – her peripheral vision obscured by her hood – as it pulled up beside her.

“Yes,” she half shouted through the downpour, “are you…Mrs Fraser?” She asked as politely as she was able to in her current fatigued state.

Leaning over, the lady in the car pushed the side door open, her hand gesturing for Claire to come in out of the rain. Opening the boot, she slid her suitcase into the empty space before closing it again and finally folding herself into the dry, warm space.

“Ye can dispense with the ‘Mrs Fraser’ lark now, lass,” she joked openly, handing Claire a towel to dry herself, “that was my mother in law. I’m Ellen, and you can call me as such, aye? Since ye’ll be living wi’ us - there’s no need to stand on ceremony.”

“Ellen.” Claire replied in a small friendly voice. Using the pro-offered towel, she dabbed the moisture from her face and neck, tugging at the zip on the top of her raincoat. “It’s nice to meet you at last after reading all of the lovely letters you’ve sent me the last few weeks.”

“Aye, same here.” Ellen returned, brightly.

Since losing her parents two summers ago in a horrendous car accident that had left Claire herself with some traumatic injuries, she’d been living hand to mouth in tents and on dig sites with her uncle Lamb. She’d refused to accept a place in boarding school on her release from hospital and had, instead, been travelling the globe with her erstwhile uncle – learning everything from Maths, English and Science to archaeology, herbology and ancient languages. But with her final school year now upon her, Lamb had insisted she return to Britain. A force to be reckoned with, Claire had fought her uncle but this time he was not to be moved and so as the end of another academic year had drawn to a close, Lamb had used his friendly contacts to procure Claire a short-term foster residence in which to complete her schooling and gain her some qualifications.

Brian and Ellen Fraser had answered the call. A friend of a friend had put them into contact and Ellen had begun, along with her eldest daughter, Jenny, corresponding with Claire so that she didn’t feel as if she were moving away to live with complete strangers.

Though it hadn’t made the move that much easier for Claire, she still felt a small motherly bond begin to grow with Ellen the more they exchanged letters.

“Have ye had something to eat?” Ellen asked as she turned the car around and indicated to pull back out onto the main road. “There isna much choice at this time of night, as I’m sure you’ll understand, but we can find ye something if yer hungry.”

“I’m fine, thank you, Ellen. I had a snack in Glasgow when I changed trains.”

At fifteen, Claire -although still very much considered a minor in the eyes of the law- felt more at ease with her place in the world than others her own age. Jenny, the eldest of the Fraser brood, was two years her senior and was about to go into her last year at school – hopefully completing her Scottish Advanced Highers before going off to university. Jamie, the youngest, was the same age as Claire and Ellen had spoken (with glowing excitement) about how happy she was for him to have a peer in the house who might encourage him with his own studies. Claire was not so enamoured by the prospect.

For so long she had been by herself; an only child, she had no siblings and had mostly kept herself to herself -even when she had been in the public-school system. With Lamb she had flourished, her ability to blend and morph with her surroundings exacerbated under his ever-watchful eye. Nonetheless, she was grateful that Ellen had been willing to take her in.

“Ye still have another few weeks before school starts up again,” Ellen said as they crossed the bridge out of the city and made their way onwards to Lallybroch, the Fraser ancestral home. “You have plenty of time, and hopefully ye’ll get some sun  to start up the garden ye wanted, aye? Jenny and Jamie have cleared away the old plot out towards the back of the house. Brian and Jamie even erected a wee shed for you to keep any tools ye might want. It’s only small, aye, but it’s a space that just ye have to continue yer hobbies.”

Tired and overwhelmed by her long journey, Claire wiped the tears from her eyes as she realised the amount of effort Ellen and the family had gone through to make her arrival run smoothly and she forgot, immediately, all of her doubts and misgivings about the situation. She missed her mother terribly, and although this could never bring her back, Ellen had already done a fair amount to show herself to be a successful surrogate.

“You didn’t have to go through all that trouble just for me, Ellen, honestly.”

“Aye, I did.” She said staunchly, taking Claire’s hand gently, squeezing it before letting it go and taking hold of the wheel once more.

Ellen and Brian, Claire had learned early on in their conversations, had lost two of their own children. William, the eldest, had contracted meningitis and had passed away suddenly when Jenny and Jamie were only young. It had hit the family hard and (as Jenny had said in her private letters) Jamie hadn’t ever fully recovered from it. Robert, who would have been the youngest, was born only a year after but had only lived a few hours. Once again left devastated, Ellen had devoted the rest of her life -not only to her own children- but also to others and on various occasions they had fostered (both long and short term) children in care for various reasons.

It was this that had prompted Ellen to assist Lamb in taking care of Claire. She was a daughter without a mother, Ellen a mother who’d tragically lost two of her own children, and Lamb had felt drawn to the Frasers for that very reason. They could give Claire the loving home she needed in these final years of her adolescence.

So, it made sense that Ellen would walk through fire to make sure Claire felt wanted in their home.

Pulling off the thin main road, Ellen steered the car down a narrow lane as the dark bush swallowed them whole. It was still quite a way before it opened up to reveal a lovely tiny village, the old brick buildings with Tudor features standing out bright in the moonlight.

“We’re no’ far up here, lass.” Ellen stated quietly, the steady hum of the engine the only soothing sound present as they drove onwards.

Claire had begun to dry off now and the idea of a nice clean bed with soft cotton sheets ignited her bone-tired body as she perked up, watching the scenery go by as they drove slowly through the village.

“Broch Tuarach is only a wee community, no’ many of us left really. The lack of industry around these parts drove a lot back into the city, or back towards Beauly. That means there are lots of holiday let cottages around here – you’ll notice – which remain empty, or are rarely let, through the term time months and then summer springs up and it’s teaming wi’ guests. Our Jenny tends to a lot of them, taking care of the changeover. It’s been a good wee earner for her and she’s saved quite a bit of money. If ye ever wanted to join her, I’m sure she’d be glad of the company?”

Nodding, Claire rubbed her sore eyes and covered her mouth as she yawned silently.

Nothing more was said between the pair as Ellen indicated and turned into the long winding drive. The trees were well maintained here, cut back well off the path to allow vehicles to pass along it without taking half of the foliage with it. It looked beautiful in the greying twilight, the droplets of raining falling through the boughs and hitting the roof of the car as Claire leaned closer to the window to get a better look. It was then she saw the house, the large arch obscuring most of it as they drove up and under it.

“This is home, aye. It’s been in the family for a long time. Brian’s namesake built it back in the early 1700’s. It survived through the Scottish uprising at Culloden when we managed, by the skin of our teeth, to keep under Fraser rule and we aim to maintain it for some years to come.”

“Do you work the farm all by yourself?” Claire asked curiously as she and Ellen exited the car and met by the boot.

“Oh aye, Brian does most of the work wi’ the help of his crew but there’s only two men that work here now. Jenny and Jamie pitch in too, when their studies allow.”

“Wow,” Claire exclaimed quietly, “that must be a lot of work.”

“Och, it is, but we’re no’ shy of it. I spend most of my time working out the finances and keeping the pension plans up to date for the lads so I dinna spend as much time out on the farm as I’d like. Bureaucracy these days is hard work, but the papers must be filed, and the taxes done so that falls to me.”

By the time they’d fetched Claire’s suitcase from the boot the rain had stopped completely leaving the air tasting crisp and clean. The night was still and calm, the outside world silent apart from the distant cry of one lonesome owl making Claire feel instantly relaxed. If it was possible, and she still felt the same in the morning, she would call Lamb and thank him for persuading her to come.

Before they’d reached the front door, a tall man with a mop of black hair opened it, the yellow light illuminating him from behind as he rushed out to bring Claire’s case inside. Reaching for her hand, he took it dutifully, his palm large and warm on her own as she smiled shyly up at him.

“Hello, Claire, I hope Ellen’s driving didna scare ye too much. She’s a reputation about these parts for her Lewis Hamilton like ability to drive through the roads at great speed -even in her wee auld thing. I’m Brian, and I’m verra glad to meet you.” He chuckled lowly, his deep baritone carrying across the enclosed drive as he took Claire, his hand freeing hers as he managed to guide her inside with barely any human contact.

Her leg twinged at the thought, the now mostly healed injury flaring up at the mention of cars and speed. She wasn’t debilitated by her accident but every now and again something would stir a painful memory and the metal pins in her leg would throb – the muscle recalling the moment of penetration as shards of metal tore her thigh apart. “No,” she whispered, her lungs struggling to process air as she shook off the feeling, “not at all.” Continuing, Claire regained her faculties as she smiled shakily. “It was a really lovely, comfy journey. Better than the frigid train any day.”

“Weel, ye can meet Jenny and Jamie tomorrow, they’re both well asleep by now. How about I show ye to yer room and you can get yerself more settled?” He said as he took her suitcase by the handle. “El, love, get yerself to bed too.”

“Dinna be soft,” she rolled her eyes as she followed Brian and Claire along the corridor, “is there anything I can get ye to drink, Claire? We don’t allow the kids to take food upstairs, but water, juice or tea is fine. There are quite a few tapestries hung in the office and some of the bedrooms and the flooring is pretty old, so we have to be careful up there – but dinna be afraid to have something by yer bedside at night.”

“I’m alright for now.” Claire returned, blushing at the mere thought. Although she was quite self-aware, she was well known for some minor klutz-like behaviours and she didn’t want to knock a full cup of water over some priceless antique on her first night.

Leading her upstairs, Brian and Ellen pointed out various period features of the house; the banister with its old wood and ancient gouge marks where swords had been driven deep into the grain leaving brutal marks on the beautiful surface; detailed portraits of Fraser past; their likenesses covering the hall landings and the long runners that had been lovingly sewn and laid early in the 1900’s – so Brian thought. Lamb would love it, Claire thought as her eyes darted here and there, taking in as much as she could.

Her room was on the first floor right at the end of the hall and had been updated recently it seemed.

“We’ve tried to add some modern features, aye?” Ellen said when Claire had finished exploring. The room had a main suite with a small partition that kept the study space separate from the bed and wardrobe. It also had a very nice en-suite with toilet and wet room shower. “This part of the house had fire damage. Sometime between the wars as it was updated this side, unfortunately, caught alight. The electrics we think. It was quite a common occurrence, but it meant that we could update the rooms without losing any of the charm that the rest of the home has managed to retain.”

“But enough of the tales, aye,” Brian interjected, “I think the lass needs her bed now.”

“Thank you.” Claire turned as Ellen and Brian made to leave, their hands resting over the door handle as Brian allowed Ellen to step into the hall slightly in front of him. Seeing them, the way they hovered around one another, their bodies almost fully in sync with one another made her think of her parents and her heart ached at the thought. “For everything, I really appreciate it and I know that uncle Lamb does. Truly.”

“Sleep well, Claire.” Ellen and Brian said together.

Closing the door behind them – they left her alone to get undressed and crawl into bed. Sleep found her easily, the heat of the thick duvet cocooning her as her eyes fluttered closed and her breathing evened out.

She slept undisturbed, her mind and body too tired for even dreaming and when she awoke, her alarm beeping quietly where it lay beneath her pillow, night had made way for day and the dim sunlight now lit the previously darkened room. The curtains hadn’t been closed, Claire preferring the sight of the stars in the sky to complete blackness. Rubbing her eyes, she dragged herself out from beneath the duvet, searched through her case for her toiletries and closed the door to the private bathroom behind her.

Showered and with her teeth cleaned thoroughly, Claire peeked her head around the door and smiled at the scent of breakfast cooking below her. Her stomach rumbled, her terrible airport sandwich long forgotten in the presence of bacon and eggs as she tiptoed along the corridor and back down the stairs to find the Frasers sitting leisurely in the lounge with the radio on for background noise.

“Good morning, Claire,” Ellen said rather chirpily, picking up her cup from where it balanced precariously on her knee and standing to greet her, “I ken ye’ve spoken, but this is Jenny,” she said, patting her daughter on the shoulder as she stood too and smiled widely at Claire. “And this is Jamie,” she continued, ruffling the lads hair as he shook her off and joined them both. “Brian is out milking, but we wanted to ensure we were all here when ye awoke and no’ absent. Not on yer first morning.”

Jenny was just as she’d imagined; the spitting image of her mother in terms of figure and stance but with her father’s lush black hair. Jamie, however, was not. He was tall, lionine but broad, his longish red hair curling around his ears, his bright blue eyes friendly and captivating as he stood head and shoulders above his mother. Nothing like the spotty, scrawny teen she’d imagined him to be.

“Nice to finally meet you all.” She said, shaking off the obvious assessment she was making of the pair and bringing herself fully into the room.

Jenny stepped forward first, bringing her arms around Claire’s shoulders and pulling her in for a nice hug as she kissed her on the cheek. “Likewise, we’ve been excited about yer arrival since yer uncle called to say he’d persuaded you.”

Claire blushed at her words, her immediate reaction to the move seeming daft now she was here in their company. “I’m glad too. Your home is so beautiful.”

“It’s yer home now too, Claire.” Jamie piped up, his accent so like his father’s – yet his hair and eyes belonged solely to Ellen. Looking at them both, she couldn’t help but wonder what William and Robert would have looked like – whose features would they have adopted in the genetic lottery but she brushed the thought aside and held her hand out to greet Jamie properly.

“Nice to meet you too, Jamie.” She murmured, her attention captured by his bright, eager blue eyes.

He, too, seemed taken with her and they stood, their hands touching for just a breath too long.

“Time to show her the sights, I think lad.” Brian interjected, breaking the moment as his head popped out from behind the kitchen door. He passed them through a collection of breakfast butties, wrapped neatly in greaseproof paper as he eyed his son up and down making Claire turn away, the embarrassment at being caught in such a delicate moment showing plainly on her face. “I’ve made ye all something nice so ye willna go hungry, but I think it would be nice for ye bairns to eat al-fresco today.”

“Fine dining at its best.” Ellen agreed, patting both Jenny and Jamie on the back as she winked at Claire, some manner of humour in her eyes.

The walk across Lallybroch’s wild farmland was incredible and Claire couldn’t keep her eyes off the epic scenery. It wasn’t until they reached the ancient mill that Jenny laid out the gingham rug and placed the breakfasts in the middle. “The wheel doesna often turn anymore because the water levels don’t rise as they used to but when it does it makes the most glorious noise, aye. The churning can be heard in the barn, the cows love it when we’re milking, it soothes them hearing the rushing water pass over the wooden beams.”

“It’s a shame, really.” Jamie continued, passing Claire a small carton of juice as he pierced the top of his own and drank noisily. “We maintain it well, but the stream is fed from the loch which has some active subsidence on the right-hand side meaning the water doesna rise there as it used to. There’s a smaller stream running off the south of it now where there wasn’t before and although it’s quite inland, the tides still play and active role in how it rises and falls. This stream is becoming lower and lower. In a hundred years or so it might dry up completely.”

Claire’s knowledge of Geography and Geology was limited, so she just nodded as she took a large bite of her sausage, bacon and egg sandwich, agreeing silently instead of adding to a discussion she knew little about. Feeling out of her depth, she didn’t let herself think too much about the impending new term -focusing instead on the steady flow of the stream- as Jamie’s words echoed in her mind.

“You have a loch on your land?” She said, finally breaking the silence as she looked up as if her stare would part the trees and the vast body of water would open up before her eyes.

“Oh aye,” Jenny returned, “it isna like Loch Lomond or Loch Ness, but it’s pretty special to us. Maybe more so to Jamie.” She jested, laughing and trying to cover it up with the back of her hand as she regained her composure.

“Hush, Jenny.” Jamie castigated, his tone low and dangerous as he shook his head.

“I’m sensing there’s a story behind that jibe.” Tucking her curls back behind her ear, Claire turned back to the siblings and cocked her head to the side.

Silence fell over them once more before both Jamie and Jenny burst into a chorus of loud guffaws, their laughter reverberating around them as they fell about until stitch got the better of them. Claire smiled at the easiness of their interaction. Clearly it was an embarrassing story, but neither seemed put off and, instead, were joking about it.

“Over on the north side of the loch,” Jamie began, wiping the tears from his eyes as he started the tale, “there is a thicket that’s quite well hidden…or so I thought. I used to go there a lot, in my younger teenage years. I’d swim mainly, but only during the warm spring and summer months.”

“Tell her how you like to swim, Jamie lad.” Jenny interrupted cheekily.

Jamie coughed. “Yer a wee fiend, Jen.” He muttered, but not unkindly. “I didna have any clothes on, that’s why, Claire, my sister thinks it’s so funny, aye? I was there, swimming, happily… on my own. When who should appear? But Jenny and two of her gossipy friends from school. Out of nowhere. I couldna escape so I just loitered in the water, thinking they’d pass by and I could get out – no harm done. But one of them saw me. Then she saw my pile of discarded clothes.”

“Och, Laoghaire didna mean anything by it, Jamie.” Jenny soothed, her voice dripping with false apology.

“Aye she did!” Jamie returned, not believing it for a second. “She was a vicious wee harpy that one, Jen and she’d fancied me for ages—”

Jenny scoffed, and Claire laughed as jealousy bubbled up inside her.

“She had, dinna you deny it.”

“They took your clothes?” Claire added, guessing the end of the story from the tell-tale blush that had begun to race across Jamie’s face starting from his neck upwards.

“Aye, that’s what Laoghaire did. Took my clothes and then goaded me from the bank to come out and get them off her. But I wasna about to run around chasing a lassie in my birthday suit.”

“So, he swam, like a fish he was, to the other side of the loch. He did it so fast that she couldna sprint around the side and he was home and dressed before we all made it back. Talk about Usain Bolt, ye had a bee in yer bonnet about that for days afterwards.”

Placing all of the litter into the bag that had once carried their breakfast, Jamie began tidying up their little picnic as a look of nostalgia passed across his face. “Of course I did. If I’d done that to her it would have been labelled as harassment.” Mumbling something unintelligible, he went about clearing the space, Jenny and Claire standing so that he could pack up the blanket. “When she asked me out afterwards I gave her the pleasure of telling her as much. She didna much care for my assessment of the situation.”

“Ye were right though.” Jenny sighed.

“Glad ye finally think so.”

The walk home was fairly sedate with the story of Jamie’s nudist activities still in all of their minds.

“The band of trees to the left there, can ye see?” Pointing over the rolling fields, Jamie suddenly broke the quiet as he spotted the small forest. “That’s the end of Fraser lands. Up further than that there is some owned by the council for rental and then further on is where the Grant’s still live and farm. We’re the only two families around here that survived the cull after Culloden so it’s pretty special to us.”

Sneaking away and leaving the pair, Jenny kissed Claire on the cheek and made her apologies as she made her way back to the main house to get ready for work – the cottages she maintained often had a late checkout but it was going on for mid-morning now and she still needed to drive into the village to do a minor top up on supplies before she started.

“It’s so idyllic up here, Jamie,” Claire whispered, her gaze captivated by the lush, verdant green that surrounded them. She’d been used to the desert. The gaping creamy yellow that ran for miles rending some insensible by its garish heat. For a long while after her parent’s death she had been drawn to the nothingness that encased her, the moist warmth reminding her that she was far away from home. But here, now, it felt good to be back on British soil.

“Aye, it is. We’re verra lucky to have this all on our doorsteps.”

It was clear from just the few hours she’d spent in their company, that Jenny and Jamie were more like her than she could have imagined and less like the sort of teenagers she’d envisaged meeting on her arrival in Scotland. Young in body but older in mind, Jamie had almost immediately captivated her and she was hooked on his each and every move he made though she tried to bury some of the more complex feelings building as she stood by his side and looked out over the verdant land in front of her.

“Welcome home, Claire,” he said interrupting her thoughts as he placed his hand gently on her shoulder, “I hope that ye’ll soon grow to consider us family. I know mam and da already think of ye as another daughter, and Jenny and I are glad yer here, too.”

“Me too, Jamie.” She sighed, turning and following him as they silently made their way back to the house a sort of pleasant breeze surrounding them both as they walked.

[no6secretsanta]

More Than A Thousand Words

For @naniya27​ from @into-september​.

AN: «Yves» is pronounced similarly to “Eve”, and is the name given the West Block Ophelia in the German translation of the manga.

It was a spring day with the lightest of rain, the sun occasionally peaking through the clouds and drying out the pavement between the showers as he walked home, and the low rays through the windows at the top of the stairwell were particular lovely, he thought, before the walls were sterile grey and he was going up the stairs as the scientists were running down and the sirens were blaring, and everything collapsed into a million moments of blood and gunpowder and adrenaline and a ghost that looked like a girl and in every one of them is he, he, he and what it feels like to have tongs and pliers digging into the flesh of his shoulder and the tremors so fierce boxes and bottles crashing to the floor they'll hit him why isn't he ducking and his wide eyes the blood blooming wet from the bullet burn on his shirt and his still warm hand as they're weightless in the darkness of this narrow stinking there must be a bottom when will you hit the -

 and a lifetime has passed and the shadows had barely moved and his next-door neighbor was leaning over him looking worried.

 "Hey, are you with me?"

 When he opened his mouth to answer a sob came out instead, and he pressed his hand against his mouth.

 "Dude, what happened? Are you okay?"

 He wanted to say that it was fine, but the hand clinging to the railing was shaking and his arm and his leg were burning from the phantom bullets lodged in them. It took him three attempts until his legs would carry him, and getting up the remaining steps and into his flat was hindered by his limping with imagined wounds.

 He sat on in his armchair and stared out of the window, his mind crowding with two lifetimes worth of memories, and one of them was from a world and a place unknown. People he’d never met but still knew exactly which insults would cut them, places he’d never been to but he still knew every shortcut and the best nooks to hide in. He felt at his back and found it as smooth as ever, even as he intimately recalled the endless pain of a burn wound’s slow healing. Voices shouting and pleading and whispering words he didn’t understand even as he knew exactly what they were saying.

 He felt as if he even was forgetting his name, even if he didn’t understand either one of the names he had in the vision. The sun was setting outside when he finally felt as if he had some kind of grip on reality again.

 One: He was undeniably in NO. 3, where he was undeniably living and had undeniably been living his entire life, seeing that he had undeniably brought home groceries as he came home from work today and the guy next door undeniably knew him and there was undeniably a mark on the wall that his brother had made the last time he was over.

Two: He had undeniably been overwhelmed by memories of a life that wasn’t his, and he couldn’t even start to guess to whom they belonged. He’d say that they were halucinations, but after the first blinding wave, they’d merely taken up space along with his own, like remembering a film that he’d been part of.

 Three: Whatever sadistic filmmaker had created it, no-one involved had deserved it. It was a story of innocence lost and replaced by the deepest bitterness, of human suffering of proportions that could kill anyone’s faith in others, of violence on a scale not recorded in -

 Of violence on a scale that was had probably not been committed ever since NO. 6, the first one. Of course, the language he didn’t understand. The wall overshadowing the squallid town, the massacres in the slums, the burning of the forest.

He searched for images of the old NO. 6 in the global databases, and remembered in disturbing detail. The park in the city centre, he’d worked there, that was where he was arrested, the first bee - the Moondrop. Chronos, all the houses that looked the same and his could’ve been any of them, it could’ve been onto any of them that he climbs on his birthday in the storm, ignoring how his arm screams in protest as fresh blood runs from the wound on his shoulder -

 He forced himself back to his real life and looked up images of the disaster. The wall had fallen in the earthquake and he hadn’t even gotten to see it, lying down beside him and waiting for the world to end because he died after all that and what’s the use, what’s the use of the cursed city meeting its deserved fate if this is the price, if the only thing good has to go down with it and he’s so tired and his body is in shatters, a bullet in his thigh and another in his arm and the wound in his chest inexpertly treated -

 He was weeping in grief over a boy he’d never met.

 *

 Cross-continental travel was expensive, but he had money put away. “Two weeks”, said his supervisor, who was kind and who hadn’t protested when he insisted that getting to the roots of his mostly harmless but persisting psychosis was to get to the roots of it and get it disproved.

 He wasn’t so sure it was more a matter of proving. The NO. 6 city centre looked like it always did in pictures and film, the architecture old but still markedly modern, the people happy, the vegetation abundant. The signs were all in Japanese and English, neither of which helped him much, but through a combination of the help of the travel agency in NO. 3 and the extralinguistic nature of public transportation schedules, managed to catch a light rail going out into the parts of the city that had been the much-abused “West Block” before the earthquake.

 He got off at what seemed like a right-ish distance from the wall and found the slopes of a rising hill exactly where he expected it, even if the buildings spoke of an entirely different world than the ones in his mind. The streets were changed, the houses taller, but he navigated by the sun and managed to keep a course that was steady enough until he’d climbed that hill, and found it covered in family housing with small, cheerful gardens and a school nearby. The view was different, the air smelled clean, and he felt a stab of regret at how there was no finding back to what had once been a home.

 The NO. 6 Museum of Human Rights and Democracy introduced its intention to avoid future disaster like the one that had once ravaged the city, and it had an advanced audio-system that plugged into a dozen different languages. He went into the exhibit about the day the city fell, and listened to a calm woman’s voice telling him a story that was the same as the one he remembered from school. A technological Babylon rattled by an earthquake which destroyed 40% of its infrastructure, among them the police headquarters. The reveal of gruesome abuse in the name of the government and the citizens turning a blind eye to those less fortunate. Massacres, sorting human worth on their use for society, mad science, mass surveillance, secret police, human experiments on hundreds of subjects, planting a horrifying disease in their own citizens which ended in a holocaust just as the fatal earthquake set in. Hundreds dead from nature. Thousands murdered by the government elected to protect them.

 No mention of lost forest gods. No mention of girls killed for their brilliance and coming back to sing the boy she loved back to life. No mention of two teenagers breaking into the correctional facility and setting off the bombs bringing it all down. The cause of the collapse remains unknown.

 But by the door was a photo of the interim assembly that started the rebuilding of the city, overseeing the investigation into the abuses of the previous regime, writing the new laws and settling the philosophy of humanism that had been the guiding principle of NO. 6 ever since. And there, towards one end of the group, was a man of indeterminable age; his hair pure white as an old man’s, but his face young and lineless, save for a thick, pink scar on his left cheek.

 Shion was the corresponding name among the many on the plaque below it, and he remembered watching that scar spread on his skin and how his hair had been such a lovely brown before it faded with his fever as the night passed.

 Once upon a time, he’d sat on the blood-smeared floor before a lift as the sprinklers rained tepid water, and his body hurt from bullets and bruises and he’d wept, for the first time in years, because of Shion, because Shion had fallen with him and he wouldn’t have if he hadn’t brought him into it. He wiped his tears, and went back outside into the city that always held the rest of humanity to its own hard-earned standards, because maybe there had been a meaning to it and Shion had been the one to fix it, after all.

 *

 One of the ladies selling tickets in the museum had spoken some French, and pointed him to some kind of memorial outside the city centre if he was particularly interested in the topic. He followed her instructions, and ended up in some strange kind of nature reserve. In a spot in the middle of the of university district was the crater left behind after the Correctional Facility had collapsed, clearly untouched ever since. The remains of the place running all of the old NO. 6’s sins had been left to nature, and nature had reclaimed it; what hadn’t been run down by the elements had been covered with vegetation.

 He walked around the edge until he was standing between the remains of the wall and the crater, closed his eyes and remembered a lightness beyond compare, an Atlas finally free of his burden as the wall had come down and the city would have to face its sins, and he is finished, he is done, and Shion lives, and everything is undone and whatever future will be made now will have to be different. He saw the determination in Shion’s eyes; he knows that he can leave it to him, like she did, because Shion will do better than him and there is an entire world waiting for him beyond this wretched place. He’s delirious from a cocktail of emotions he cannot tell apart, relief and elation and hope and freedom and a looming emptiness and a cutting regret somewhere that he doesn’t understand until Shion calls for him, and he turns around -

 ”you’ll be fine,” he’d said, before the fallen wall and the city beyond it, and he’d kissed Shion and he’d walked away, and he’d never seen either the city nor the boy again. It was that moment his new memories seemed to dwell on the most, recalled in excellent detail. The light of the sun setting, the faint smell of smoke in the air, the unnatural silence, the warmth of Shion’s mouth as the universe stood still for five heartbeats.

 He had never loved anything the way he had loved Shion in that moment, not in that life and not in this one, and that was the core of it. The nightmarish visions made all the more real by the vivid memories of how it felt to live them could be ignored, maybe, could be dealt with with therapy or medication or well-practiced denial. What had proven to be far more distracting was the nagging knowledge that it had been a cruel mistake. If his selfishness hurt him, than that was his own lot to deal with and move on from. But he hadn’t been the only one hurt, and he never forgot how he had loved Shion in that moment, and it had been his final unfinished business, the final promise he’d never made and never got to keep.

 This pilgrimage to another life and to someone who must be dead for decades since was ridiculous. Finding the spot had helped nothing, because there were no ghosts around to talk to. He had a name, now; Shion had gone on to become someone reasonably important, so surely there must’ve been a grave or at least some kind of memorial somewhere. Maybe he could go there with a muffin or a piece of cherry cake to absolve his guilt and move on with the life he was living now? Because that was the only way he could think to apologise to someone who wasn’t around any longer.

 He turned around to find his way down, and hadn’t gotten more than twenty metres when he saw a figure wheeling a bike up the hill. White-haired, like an old man, but with brisk, quick movements. A teenager with bleached hair? Another tourist? He resolved to look ahead and not get caught up in ridiculous ideas and his own hopeless longing.

 He risked a glance as they passed each other, and met a pair of pale blue eyes behind a pair of glasses looking curiously at him. He really did have a striking similarity to the Shion in his memories, and he was staring and it would’ve been mortifying if the other guy hadn’t also stopped to squint at him, and then latched on to his sleeve and spoke three syllables he’d never heard before but instantly recognised as himself.

 “Shion?” he said before he could help himself, and those blue, blue eyes grew wide and the grip on his sleeve grew insistent.

 “Nezumi,” said Shion, and he looked desperate as a stream of words fell from his mouth, occasionally punctuated by his name and small yanks at his sleeve.

 It wasn’t Shion. The pallor of his skin was different, there was no scar, his face wasn’t all that similar, his eyes hadn’t been blue, a different quality to the voice, the name couldn’t be that uncommon, but this Shion seemed to know him, knew a name he’d used back then, knew this godforsaken place. He was looking increasingly more upset, and said his name, a short and despairing sentence, ending with his name.

 “Shion, I can’t understand you,” he replied helplessly. “I live in No. 3. I’m sorry.”

 Shion’s eyes dimmed, and then he started talking in English, and it was only fractionally better.

 “I flunked all English classes,” he said, shaking his head, “shit, it wasn’t as if I’d ever thought I was going to go elsewhere. Sorry. Shion, I’m so sorry.”

 Shion looked gravely disappointed, but closed his eyes and nodded. He said something more, and then he smiled a little. He lifted his free hand to his chest, and moved the hand gripping the sleeve down to make him mirror the gesture.

 “Shion,” he said emphatically, he felt his hand pressed down by Shion’s.

 “Yves,” he replied after a moment of recollection. Shion’s smile widened.

 “Eebu,” he repeated, badly.

 “Yves,” he said again and couldn’t help rolling his eyes, and Shion laughed.

 “Nezumi - iia, Eebu,” he said, and there was no knowing what he meant with the words that followed until Shion remembered. He paused, still smiling widely, and made a gesture down the sides of his head and over his shoulders, and then towards his feet, and Yves rolled his eyes as he realised what Shion meant.

 “Go figure,” he muttered, and wondered if it was fate that had made his parents choose that name.

 “Ne, Nezumi - iia, Eebu - “

 “Nezumi’s okay. Better than mangling my real name, anyway.”

 Shion shook his head, still smiling.

 “Nezumi, Yves...” he made a motion he hoped communicated it doesn’t matter which one, and Shion nodded, and tugged on his hand and pointed to his bike.

 It had been over a decade since he’d last had to balance his body weight on somebody’s bicycle rack, but Shion seemed unfazed by the added weight as he pedaled through the darkening streets. It was utter lunacy: Walking by someone in the street in a strange city, following him to an unknown place because neither spoke the other’s language. It could be some madman, it could be some crazy serial killer, who even trusted someone just like that,  believing in the fact that they knew each other but they did, they did.

 He leaned his head against Shion’s back as they stopped at a crossing. His body heat leaked through the fabric of his shirt, and he remembered how he used to touch Shion, back then, because Shion was the only person so innocent that he never suspected any other motives, who’d let him feel the comfort of a living person’s warmth.

 *

 Shion lived in modest housing within comfortable distance to the university where he probably worked, at least going by the pointing and the looming book shelves and the rock collection taking up space in his living room. He acted as if this was the thousand time Yves had come home with him, and talked as if they’d always shared everyday conversation as he’d pointed Yves to his breakfast table and set to work with a kettle and a tea pot.

 “You’ve done well for yourself, huh?”

 Shion smiled fondly at him, and gave him a tiny, chewy cake along with the black tea.

 “I thought you were all about green tea in this part of the world,” said Yves conversationally as he picked up his cup. Shion pointed to the cake and said something about it.

 “I’ve never had anything like it before. It’s pretty good.”

 It was ridiculous. They couldn’t communicate, beyond each other’s names and the most basic of English vocabulary. He drank his tea. Shion poked at a console on the table’s edge, and the wall next to them flicked to life of what he recognised as some database. Through a combination of voice commands and flickering touches, Shion brought up familiar images from school classes and his own dreadful research back in NO. 3. He brought them up, pointed and narrated, and Yves nodded in acknowledgement, if not understanding.

 “Nezumi...”

 “I’m sorry,” he said, and then he tried it in English, and Shion shook his head fondly and shrugged, and scrolled through a list until he found an entry that brought up a familiar face.

 “That’s the old man - Rikiga! That’s Rikiga!” He almost jumped out of his seat to point to the picture, and Shion was grinning madly at him.

 “Un, Rikiga-san desu! Nezumi - ” the rest of Shion’s overjoyed babble was lost on him, but his joy wasn’t, and for Yves laughed because he felt fully sane for the first time in five months.

 Shion pulled up image after image of the old city, and Yves pointed in recognition of places that had been razed to the ground a century before he was born. Shion seemed to move through archives of the reconstruction chronologically. The work with integrating the West Block in the city proper, the new infrastructure, the political aftermath. Bit by bit, the ruins of the city he had known were overtaken by a place that looked much more like the NO. 6 of today. The market nearest to the hill. The river district. There was even one of the theatre he’d once worked at, which made Shion smile slyly and make some comment that ended with “ - ne, Eebu?”

 “Shut up,” Yves retorted, and Shion brought up the next image, and froze.

 It seemed to be some kind of official opening or function. Standing in the middle of the picture was Shion - the old Shion, older here than Nezumi had ever known him. He seemed to be giving a speech of some sort, serious and intent. He wore well-cut clothing. His hair was trimmed short. He looked tired, but maybe that was just how Shion had looked when he grew up? Yves hardly looked the same today as he had at sixteen.

 The Shion of right now looked unhappy, and Yves suddenly wondered what his memories must’ve been like. He would remember a life in the city, probably. A life as the boy who’d had to loose his best friend his innocence and the only city he’d ever known on the same day as he’d lost his - the whatever it was that Nezumi had been to him.

 Shion had kissed him, once. Nezumi had kissed him back, and turned around and never come back.

 And if Nezumi had wondered how Shion had moved on, then Yves was looking at the man who had been Shion back then, and suspecting in a slow horror that Shion, back then, had waited.

 The Shion-without-a-scar, Shion-with-blue-eyes-behind-glasses, tore his eyes away from the image in front of them with a soft word, and wiped his eyes.

 “Did you wait?” Yves asked, and Shion, who didn’t understand the question, shook his head with another little sentence, and then he looked straight at him and asked him something in a much firmer voice. He pointed at Yves, and made a vague gesture, going back through the images.

 “I went out west,” said Yves, “there were people there - I mean, you probably know that, now. Shion, he - you - wouldn’t have, back then. I think I met his dad, he was a real asshole, but except for that, it was lovely. It was bothersome, too. Uncomfortable. Lots of walking, I got pretty hungry sometimes. People were the same, a lot. Nice in small groups. Bothersome in bigger ones. I wanted to get off Japan, but when I got to the sea, I had to wait so long for a ship to come by. Did you ever see the sea, back then? I mean, NO. 6 is pretty far away from it, and all. Did you travel? Did you visit the other cities?”

 Shion couldn’t answer, and Yves continued.

 “So I went north, after a while. It took me almost a year. There’s this shipping town, but I think it was mostly smugglers going into NO. 4. I wanted to go over there, to the big continent.”

 He stopped, snorted. “I got into NO. 4, and contracted some kind of influenza, I think, after a week. I don’t remember much of the last few days, but at least it was somewhere warm and clean.

 “I think I was maybe twenty-five, by then. It probably doesn’t help to say that I wanted to go back, right? I thought so, towards the end, that I wanted to go back and see what became of NO. 6. I wanted to meet you again, and see what kind of adult you were. I wanted to - I never could admit it to myself, back then, but I wanted to be with you. I wanted to kiss you. I wanted to live together with you. But it was so far to go, and I had no money - I’d need to save up, and - whatever. I’m sorry, Shion. I’m sorry if you waited. I’m sorry if you were sad. I hope you didn’t miss me for too long. But at least I now that NO. 6 is amazing, now. I’m glad I met you, back then.”

 Shion was silent for a while, and then he started speaking. It was a story that was longer than Nezumi’s. He understood nothing out of, except for the words number six. He could only listen, and when Shion’s story closed, he shook his head.

 “I wish I knew what you were saying.”

 “Eebu,” said Shion.

 “Yeah?”

 Shion asked him a question.

 “Do you think it was Elyurias?” Yves answered, “do you think it was she who made us remember so that we could meet again?”

 “Mm, Elyurias,” Shion confirmed.

 They sat in silence for a while, until Shion grabbed a notebook and wrote down “NO. 3”, then pointed at Yves, then back to the paper.

 Yves reached into his bag, and handed Shion his return ticket, to which Shion nodded, and went out into his living room. In a quick yank, his sofa pulled out into a bed, and he pointed to Yves, and then to the sofa again.

 “Sure,” said Yves, “just let met cancel my hotel room.”

 *

 He spent ten days with Shion, in a parody of the five months they’d spent together in a previous life. He wandered around the city when Shion was at work, and then they spent the afternoons going places that Shion wanted to take him. Sometimes it was to places he’d known from back then - the renovated theatre, the city park, the main library where Shion pointed to a shelf of antiquated books and Yves could have wept as he recognised them. He ate the food Shion gave him, and fed Shion ice cream and crepes and coffee. They talked at each other. When they talked to each other, it was mostly through pointing and gestures and single words, and even that mostly worked.

 He hadn’t known what he expected to get out of this journey when he went there, but he’d certainly found it. He had found the truth, and he’d found that he wasn’t crazy, and he’d found that the Shion who lived now was happy to meet him. The thing he hadn’t found, however, was a solution. There was still so much that he needed Shion to know, and so many things he wanted to ask Shion, and it was impossible to approach it. Any interpreter would think the two of them were crazy, and learning a language took months and years of effort. Yves had ten days, and he’d picked up little more than “yes” and “no” and “thank you” and “goodbye” by the end of his stay.

 The night before he left, he dreamed of the correctional facility in disturbing detail, and woke just as he reached the part where Shion was carrying him on his back all the while having the horrible knowledge of what would happen when he sat him down to climb down the refuse chute.

 Shion - the one living now, the one with blue eyes and no scar, was kneeling beside the sofa and looked as ill as Yves felt. He was stroking his hair and talking softly.

 “You had the nightmare too, huh,” said Yves as he sat up. Shion stood up and caught his wrist, and tugged gently.

 “Nezumi.”

 He followed Shion into his bedroom, and let Shion push him down so that he sat on the edge of his bed.

 “Shion...“

 “Sleep,” said Shion in English and didn’t meet his eyes as he crawled into bed, and turned over so that his back faced the middle of the bed.

 “Yeah, okay,” he said, and curled up on the edge of the bed. The linen smelled like Shion, and there was still a faint warmth from his body in it.

 They’d shared the bed in the old room, because the sofa was beyond lumpy and had a spring poking out, and because there was a lot to be said for saving fuel by sharind body heat. They’s slept back-to-back like this for five months. Even after Nezumi had pulled Shion into his arms and taught him the walz. Even after Shion had kissed him, and left him, and Nezumi had hit him for it and agreed to follow him into hell to save a girl who was in love with him.

 Yves had told Shion that Nezumi had wanted to be with him. He had no idea if Shion had ever said something about the same. Even if he was still feeling the longing of a young man a century ago, it wouldn’t be right to assume the same of Shion. What had existed between Shion and Nezumi had been so much more than a clumsy teenage romance, and technically, for all Yves knew, Shion might have a lover who had tactfully stayed away while Shion dealt with this past demons.

 He couldn’t sleep, and he could tell that Shion too was awake beside him. Five months and a century of unfulfilled feelings were bearing down on them, and if they couldn’t talk about anything, then they could never speak of this night, either.

 He turned around, inched closer to Shion, and put an arm around his waist as he pressed his body against his tense back. Shion’s shoulders hitched, once, and then a hand was gripping his, and Shion made a tiny, pained noise as he relaxed, and slipped a foot back to tangle in Yves’.

 Breakfast was quiet, and they spoke minimally on the journey out to the airport. Shion followed him up to the boarding gate, and they stood together and waited until the passengers started filing on board. Shion looked tired, eyes bleary behind the glasses, and he was beautiful. He’d spent days looking at Shion and seeing the memories of his past, but it was now, minutes before they’d part ways again, that he realised that the pensive, exhausted man next to him was beautiful in a way that the Shion-back-then had never been to Nezumi.

 When the queue formed, Shion turned to him, and said something that he of course didn’t understand.

 “Thank you for having me. It was very good to be here,” he answered.

 Shion smiled bravely at him, and then the smile fell, and Shion leaned forward and kissed him.

 It was different from either of the kisses they’d shared back before they were who they were now. This Shion had clearly kissed more people than the boy from Lost Town had, and Yves had no reason to hold back the way Nezumi had. He pulled Shion closer, and he could have moaned at the feeling of Shion’s hand at his waist as the other cradled his neck. He breathed into Shion’s mouth as they pulled apart, and went in to taste it again, touching Shion’s jaw and ear and the fine strands of his hair. Shion’s glasses kept getting in the way when he tried to press closer, but Shion kept him close, his hands tight and firm.

 It was a kiss that spoke more than a thousand words could have said, and it ended only as Yves’ name was announced in the final call by the steward standing three metres away from them and looking at them with pity as they broke apart.

 Shion swallowed, handed Yves his bag, and pulled him in for a final, crushing hug before he stepped back, and they both returned to a world in which there weren’t angry forest gods.

 *

 The central library of NO. 3 had facilities for audiovisual conferences, and he got a card and paid in advance. Shion, as far as he understood, had access through his university. Their conversations happened mostly mornings before work for him and just after regular working hours for Shion; within three weeks, he knew Shion’s weekly schedule, or at least the hours. He got off early on Tuesdays, work long on Wednesdays, Fridays seemed to be unpredictable.

 Every Sunday, without fail, he’d sit down in the booth and connect to Shion’s, and talk to him about his week as Shion listened, and then talked back about lord-knew-what because it wasn’t like he understood a blessed word of Japanese, and Shion seemed to have given up on his English. It didn’t feel like it mattered much. What he needed was the reminder that Shion was there, that Shion still was real.

 Sometimes, they’d talk about Back Then. Shion would be saying the words “Rikiga-san” or “Safu” with considerable frequency, and he’d reply with stories about Dogkeeper and the theatre. He never talked about the Correctional Facility. There was too much to say about it, too much that Shion needed to know that he’d never known how to tell him then, and couldn’t tell him now because he spoke no language that Shion understood.

 Seeing Shion’s smiling face and hearing the warmth in his voice was soothing the hour it lasted, but every time the beep warning of a minute left of his pre-paid time was a dread, would yank him back into a reality where Shion was on the other side of the world and he was here, and hearing their voices replicated throughte sub-standard speakers was the only thing they had. He’d smile as he waved goodbye, and he’d leave the library full with the knowledge that Shion still loved him, and his every day empty of the person who was meant to be next to him.

 Winter was ending, and he knew something had to be done. He’d procured an audio-dictionary, which would recognise a word spoken and repeat it back in English, which eased their communications some. Shion had some kind of French aid, which he used for looking up words. Sometimes he’d speak entire phrases that he’d have to repeat thrice before they were decipherable. Yves was picking up new words in Japanese. He recognised names from Shion’s stories. He could tell when Shion asked him questions. He rarely knew if he answered them.

 It had been so much easier when they were in the same place; when there was a world around them, and they could communicated by pointing and gestures and pointing. It had been so much better when they shared the same world, rather than telling each other in meaningless words as they sat in the sterile booths. They shared the same experience, he thought, he was pretty sure that Shion, too, had grown up ignorant of their past; they both shared the trauma of remembering, and the true horrors of the Correctional Facility, and a kiss on a hilltop overlooking the shattered ruins - not to mention the kiss by the airport gate.

 “I want to be with you,” he said, knowing that with Shion’s atrocious concept of French pronunciations, he probably couldn’t even tell the words apart, “I wanna be in NO. 6. I want to go back there and live with you. It’s a beautiful city now. I’m tired of life here. I want to be with you.”

 Shion replied in English, and he thought he said something like don’t be sad.

 “I can’t afford to travel again. I need to save money, but this is so expensive. I’ve started bringing in lunch to work instead of eating out, so I can afford an extra conference card.”

 The beep sounded.

 “I have to go now. I miss you a lot, and I wish I could talk to you properly, so that we could make a plan. This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

 Shion nodded and said something brief, and the pressed two fingers to his mouth that he moved towards the camera.

 “Bye, now,” said Yves, and was sad as he tossed the used card into the bin next to the door.

 The next day, he found that his food storage unit had malfunctioned, and the repairman could only shake his head in regret. “The fluid leaked into the cabinet, and cleaning it will be hazardous alone. You’ll have to have it replaced entirely.”

 That was worth twice his monthly pay, and he wrote Shion an electronic letter, piecing together the pitifully little he remembered of English grammar with the help of a dictionary.

 Shion,

My kitchen is destroyed. It is expensive. I have no money for conferences. I’m sorry.

Yves

 A few hours later, there was a reply.

 Yves,

I’m sorry to hear that. I wish I could help you. Please tell me when I can talk to you again.

Sion

 The entire spring and well into summer, they exchanged brief, daily missives. His English improved, at least in writing. His new food cabinet was sleek and shiny. He kept a photo of Shion in his notebook, and he’d look at it and remember sleeping with his arms around him.

 If the conferences had been empty calories, then the letters were the bare minimal above starvation. There was so much left to say, so much he had to tell Shion, so much he needed to know. Had Shion lived a happy life? Had he had a family? Did he grow old? Did he want to be with Yves, still?

 Sion,

It’s warm now and the balcony herbs are sprouting. Anette had a cake at work. It was good. I want to talk with you.

Yves

 It wasn’t unfair that world was vast - that was just a fact of life. And there had certainly been others before them that had been parted from their lovers. Probably from far more intimate lovers, too, though he felt like it should count for something that they’d been through this nonsense not just in one life, but in the next one too.

 Yves,

It’s been eight months since you left. I was so happy to meet you, and I’m happy to send letters too. I wish you could be here.

Sion

 He started practicing English words, during idle hours at work, and wondered if it was possible to get a tutor at Japanese.

 *

 August was cooling into September, and his dumb, flashy food cabinet was paid down. He had money left over from his paycheck, and he wondered when Shion’s birthday was. Wouldn’t that be some birthday present - a conference from halfway across the globe? Even if it was unlikely that Shion’s birthday was the same now as it had been the last time he lived. He should ask, his English was better, now. Sending a present would cost more than whatever he’d paid for the present proper, but he’d want to send something. Even if it was just something very small, he was sure it would make Shion happy.

 He wondered if he could’ve have conversations with Shion, now. He wasn’t at all sure if he could speak English, but it surely couldn’t have been worse than Shion’s attempts at French. He wondered if a lot would have changed, if they talked now; it had been nearly six months since the last time. It had been over a year since they’d touched.

 Nezumi had spent years mulling over how he was mulling over the fear that Shion had found someone else. Nezumi hadn’t wanted to want Shion, hadn’t wanted to want for Shion to want him. Nezumi had thought that love was dangerous, but Yves had lived twenty-five years without any such suspicions. He wanted his Shion, blue-eyed, unscarred, to wait for him; he wanted to be wanted, and there was a quiet despair growing that for every day that passed, Shion would realise just how stupid this was. Bonding over a shared past was one thing. Pursuing a relationship on opposite sides of the globe was impractical, at best. It was stupidly expensive, it was a constant ache.

 It was the learning of a language he’d never need, because he needed for Shion to know about Nezumi’s regrets, and what Nezumi had wanted, and that he wanted to make it right, this time around.

 Sunday afternoon was quiet by the library, and he leafed through the book he’d borrowed. Shakespeare. He remembered that one; remembered the contents of the play could’ve maybe cited lines from them if they hadn’t sounded all wrong when he tried speaking them in French. He soon realised that it probably wasn’t the best option for practicing his English; the language was strange and stilted, old-fashioned, probably; he couldn’t follow the sentences, and the single words he recognised were not enough to bring meaning.

 He put the book down and closed his eyes. Being able to quote Shakespeare at any situation was a talent of limited applications. Being a traumatised genocide survivor was hardly better. Unconsciously destroying fourty percent of the infrastructure of the world’s most modern city was something, he supposed, but the years of unhappiness had not been worth it.

 It was so much better to live comfortably with a new food cabinet, and knowing that somewhere out there was Shion, and this time, Shion knew that he’d be back.

 “Do you not like the book?”

 He opened his eyes, and Shion grinned at him, blue eyes hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses and his face shadowed by a truly ridiculous straw hat.

 “Didn’t understand it,” he replied, and reached out a hand.

 “You must practice,” said Shion as he took it. “I practiced a lot,” he said as he sat down and switched his grip so that his hand rested comfortably in Yves’.

 “Don’t mock me, genuis boy,” said Yves, and Shion turned his back to the sun and took off the sunglasses.

 “Nezumi. I never told you. It was very important. I love you.”

 “I know.”

 “Yves.”

 “Yeah.”

 “I love you.”

 “Yeah. Shion, you know - Nezumi - “

 “Yves,” Shion interrupted him, and smiled brilliantly, “I know. I know what a kiss means.”

 He tilted his head expectantly, and Yves, remembering the airport, plucked the hat from his head beforehand, this time.

[evanrosierr]

EVAN ROSIER is A DEATH EATER in the war, even though HIS official job is as THE HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL MAGICAL COOPERATION AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS. the THIRTY year old PUREBLOOD is known to be PERSUASIVE and SHARP but also CORRUPTIVE and DESTRUCTIVE. some might label them as THE DEVIL ON YOUR SHOULDER. fc: chris evans

ANTHEMS.

ICARUS - BASTILLE // INTRO - THE XX // FRIEND OF THE DEVIL - MUMFORD AND SONS // NOT ME - TWO FEET // MALT LIQUOR - LEWIS DEL MAR // LETTING IN - BEAUVILLE.

pinterest board ------ did you ever have a heart?  full playlist ------- too bright, too harsh, too divine.

AESTHETICS // VIBES.

flying too close to the sun ( his life has just begun ), leather brief cases, ancient typewriters, a devilish grin, the absence of a heart, red wine, always getting even, wool sweaters, unfinished sketches, grinning as he approaches an early grave, dried paint on pale skin, ‘there’s a god in the dark and he’s got a hand between your thighs’, making friends with the devil, humming while cooking, always ready to make a new deal ( sell a new soul ), daring you to do something unspeakable, running headfirst into danger, writing long letters at the crack of dawn, collecting old books, half empty bottles of champagne, soft laughter as you take your last breath.

BACK TO BASICS.

name: evan edward rosier. occupation: head of the department of international magical cooperation and foreign affairs. nicknames: rosie, ev.

+ persuasive, sharp, well spoken, daring. - corruptive, destructive, stubborn, tyrannical. 

age: 30. date of birth: november 12, 1950. zodiac: scorpio. hometown: portsmouth, england. current location: lives in a penthouse apartment in london.  gender: cis male. pronouns: he/him. orientation: bisexual. spoken languages: english, latin and french fluently. can also get by on german, spanish, welsh. moral alignment: lawful evil / neutral evil. element: water. house: slytherin.

BACKGROUND // FAMILY.

Evan grew up as the lone heir to the Rosier legacy, and thus had to endure the overbearing attention of both of his parents. They both had teachings they wanted to instill ( his father, determined to make Evan strong, powerful ---- well adept at the dark arts. and his mother, equally as determined to form her son into a diplomat. someone who could use words to bend people to his will ). From his birth and onward, he became stuck in a tug of war. His mother pulling him one way, and his father pulling him the other. They could never find common ground, realize that maybe Evan could be both.

Eliana Malfoy and Edward Rosier were a far cry from the perfect parents, but the pureblood society have seen worse. 

His parents weren’t in a loveless marriage, at least not at first ( both had met at Hogwarts, knew each other quite well, used to be best friends ). But they were also very different people, and both were incredibly stubborn. Used to getting their way. Once upon a time, they used to be in love. Once the stakes were raised, they fell out of love ---- instead, becoming enemies, bound by marriage.

Both had vastly different ideas of how to do.... pretty much everything, and Evan was the only thing to unite them. After the wedding, they never got along, but stubbornly stayed married, always bickering over everything. Most arguments had Evan at its core. Should Evan learn German or French first? Should Evan be tutored by himself or with other kids? Should we really let Evan hang around Tom? Should you really teach Evan how to torture someone, already? As a child, Evan was more of an argument, a conflict, than he was a son.

Kind of grew up with two different personalities, depending on what parent was around? Sort of formed himself into whatever they wanted him to be, at that given moment. Mostly to just make the nagging, the bickering, the arguing stop. He grew tired of hearing their constant instructions / demands well before he left for Hogwarts. Most of it may have been well meaning ( or self serving ), but it was also constant. There is only so much advice that a ten year old can absorb.

His parents were also very adamant on forming strong connections for Evan, so he was forced to go to all of the parties and socialize with an abundance of pureblood kids ( constant play dates? yes ). There was also a bit of competition involved in this, since his mother was VERY determined that Evan should be better than all of the other pureblood kids. To her, he was more of a trophy, than he was a son.

Once his cousins were born, competition increased.

Evan was sort of an apathetic child? Just went along with whatever. 

Examples! Though he was never really drawn to torturing animals / muggles himself, his father wanted him to learn, so Evan obliged. Played the role he was meant to play. Nowadays, he only ever really tortures someone if it gets him what he wants.

Tom Marvolo Riddle was initially a friend of his father, and the two were heavily involved during the 1960s. Edward was part of Tom’s gang ( The Knights of Walpurgis ). But then Edward became a little too ambitious, a little too sly. Tom suspected a plot behind his back, and murdered his former friend in cold blood. At the time, Evan was eighteen, and had already idolized Tom for years. Evan ( none the wiser to how his father had met his end ), stepped into Edward’s shoes, taking over the role as Tom’s avid supporter and friend.

HOGWARTS YEARS.

Coming to Hogwarts was a relief. Though he received constant letters from both his mother and father ( with completely contrasting advice, telling him to do completely different things ), they were easier to ignore than their nagging voices. Finally, he could breath. 

Sort of started a correspondence with the family’s long time friend, while he was at Hogwarts. Tom’s advice and guidance always laid somewhere in the middle of what Evan’s parents wanted him to do, and sometimes, it went way beyond. While Eliana was raising Evan to be a diplomat, and Edward hoped for his son to become a tyrant, Tom seemed to see something else. The middle ground.

If it wasn’t for Evan’s talent for backdoor politics and back handed affairs, he would have made quite the Gryffindor. He’s a bit impulsive, so so brave, incredibly stubborn, willing to die for his cause, a little bit righteous, reckless to the point of it being lethal. It also helps that Evan doesn’t want to be a Gryffindor so.... we all know that the sorting hat listens to that.

But the Sorting Hat saw all that ambition ( his mother’s doing ), that slyness ( inherited from his father ), the longing for belonging ( Tom’s doing ) and the will of steel and decided that Evan would excel in Slytherin. And he would.

Evan joined the Quidditch team as a beater, and was notorious for being one of the few Slytherin beaters that actually played a fair game ( in contrast to his baby cousin smh ).

Also joined a fair amount of clubs while at the school. The dueling club, the potions club, the slug club, the astronomy club to name a few.

Did very well in school, and stayed out of trouble... mostly. Was eventually made prefect, and later head boy. Evan, though slowly acquiring a taste for violence and bloodshed, was bright enough to realize how to keep that part of himself in the shadows.

INSTEAD. Evan’s shtick was to make other people do bad things for him. He could talk almost anyone into doing almost anything. Making good people do bad things was ( and still is ) one of Evan’s absolute favorite past times.

Also... kind of known for being able to talk himself out of anything? At one point, it became a sport to see exactly... how much he ( and others ) could get away with. He would dare other Slytherins to do more and more elaborate things ( like jinxing muggle borns tbh ), and then he’d get them out of trouble.

On that note, Evan also became known as quite the deal maker while at the school. Would help others out, for something in return. Would also lowkey blackmail people into agreeing to different deals and unbreakable vows with him. 

Though the Death Eaters weren’t officially a thing until after Evan graduated, Tom was gathering up a following, and Evan ( who looked up to Tom quite a lot ), joined without hesitation during his sixth year. Pureblood principles had already been drilled into him by his parents, so it wasn’t a great leap for Evan to support his cause.

Evan is so devoted to Tom? He really, really believes in him as a person, and thus, his cause too.

AFTER HOGWARTS.

Evan started off his career in the ministry as the assistant to the head of the department of law enforcement, and he slowly worked himself up the ranks until he transferred to the department of international magical cooperation and foreign affairs, where he would shine. At the age of twenty four (1975), he was promoted to the head of the department.

Was originally a sleeper agent, as he started working within the ministry before the war started. He was very careful at the time, making sure to not associate with anything that could make him look like a suspected Death Eater. Purposefully tried to make himself look softer, warmer. Adopted a dog, started going for runs, brought in coffee for the office, got a girlfriend, a favorite Quidditch team. Everything and anything to make himself look like the everyman, a normal ministry worker, just trying to get by.

His department is considered to be quite difficult to run, especially during the height of a war. Evan was promoted after the former department head swiftly quit and left the country due to supposed exhaustion ( or maybe... someone had something to do with their very Odd disappearance.... hmmmmm.....  ). Either way. Evan took over, and has managed to keep his position for the last five years.

He’s sort of well liked within the ministry? He seems a lot less shady than some other ministry officials, so that’s a win for him.

Works a lot, and does a lot of traveling with work? 

Likes painting, and also art !!!! His father frowned upon his mother’s insistence of letting Evan develop his creative side, but art is just something that has stuck with him. In his apartment, he has a small studio in which he paints.

He’s currently part of Voldemort’s inner circle.

Runs his department with an iron fist.

Very much into brewing poisons ( was highkey good at potions while at Hogwarts too ), and poisoning people is kind of his thing? Like it’s his favorite way of getting rid of someone he doesn’t like. One would do best to never drink / eat something offered by Rosie... In case he suddenly doesn’t like you.

Currently living with his two dogs in a large penthouse apartment in London. 

AS A PERSON.

Bit snarky, has a rapid fire tongue. But also good at controlling himself, and lowkey always knows what to say. Can also be incredibly sassy, it’d be a problem if it wasn’t because he’s so controlled and knows how to hold his tongue.

Proud motherfucker. That’s his vice, his deadly sin. Ultimately how, and why, he will eventually be killed.

Was raised to be a constant paradox, and remains that way today.

ALWAYS OUT TO MAKE DEALS. That’s probably why he’s so good at his job. But he’s making deals with everyone else too, not just for his job. #crossroad demon

Always expecting something in return. Everything has a steep price when it comes to Evan.

Highly intuitive, mostly follows his gut instincts when doing... anything.

A diplomat to his very core ( #thanks mom ), and has a silver tongue. He’s good at getting what he wants. Very good at persuading people too.

Incredibly curious, wants to know how far he can make people go. How far he himself, can go. Also very much interested in seeing what makes people tick and how things work.

Good at making himself seem very warm, inviting, friendly. Whatever he thinks people currently want him to be, he becomes. If he cares enough. But really, he is fairly cold, very cut throat, incredibly ruthless. Constant calculation and logic runs deep in his veins, and he approaches every situation with immense planning and plotting.

Highkey looks down on people who are overly emotional ( which in his book, is basically showing any strong emotion at all ). Evan values logic, rationality, common sense.

Has cared about a total of like... two people in his life. It takes a lot for Evan to actually... give a fuck about other people? Like he just. Doesn’t care. Mostly cares about himself and his work.

Loves his mom a lot. Also a big fan of Tom. : ~ )

Sort of two faced. Can be warm one minute, ice cold the next. 

Thrives off violence, but is pretty lowkey about it. His favorite forms of violence are duels, explosions of magic, lethal spells, poison slipped into coffee cups. ALSO of course, making other people do stuff, let’s not forget That™.

Though he will also sometimes let off steam by just kicking someone’s ass / having his ass kicked. But that doesn’t happen very often. If at all. He mostly stays in his lane !!!!!! Way more into backdoor affairs like poisoning his opponents.

Very patient. Can make people bend to his will very slowly, asking for small favors, asking them to do small things. Before they know it, they’re doing something unforgivable, something maddening.

Good at talking!!!! Seems kinda nice even! What! Doesn’t seem like my type of villain at all!!!

Pretty rational. Cares about the big picture. Doesn’t mind waiting for a decade before acting ( # the long game ).

He’s gonna literally die next year because he’s too stubborn & proud to surrender and I think that says a lot about him and his personality.

STYLE / FASHION / APPEARANCE.

Evan has pale eyes that seem to go from a dull grey to an soft blue, depending on the lighting. His hair is a sort of honey blonde, almost brown color, and he wears it short and meticulously styled. He also wears a neatly trimmed beard, on most days, but also sometimes shaves it off.

Mostly wears well pressed, dark suits for work.

Outside of work, Evan is the type of person to wear wool shirts and knitted sweaters in earthy tones. Mostly wears leather boots. Looks very wholesome!!!

CHARACTER INSPIRATIONS ( under construction tbh ).

QUOTES:

" his skin tasted of wine and his voiced dripped of divinity; you’re so foolish, little lamb. nevermind, the story of Lucifer; this is the story they shall speak of, on how a man burned for his messiah” (x)

“ iv. you think of how, sometimes, he thrusts into you like feral, like animal, like redemption. you don’t have the heart to tell him he won’t find it here, don’t have the heart to tell him he’s damning you too. “ (x)

“ in case of flight, remember this: icarus belongs not to the sun, but to his drowning. “ (x)

“sunlight glinting off your skin, the trick is to be hollow, really, nothing inside, just empty. I remind you not to fall like icarus, but I forget you already have.” (x)

“apollo comes for you and he is too bright too much too harsh too divine too light. “ (x)

“ i. he bites your lower lip hard enough to draw blood and it comes out, dark and primal. everything is agonisingly slow and still - sometimes you forget he’s a warrior and he can go like this all day long. “ (x)

INFLUENCES:

a modern day dionysus - the same devilish smile, cheeky grins, the same tendency to corrupt, to ask that you do something unspeakable.

patch cipriano ( hush, hush ) - bit broody, very sly, always scheming. the fallen angel aesthetic.

kaz brekker ( six of crows ) - literally. cold and ruthless, cares little for morals. quick witted. always has a trick up his sleeve. 

icarus - how he meets his end. always pushing it a little too far. some situations you can’t talk your way out of.

elian ( to kill a kingdom ) - the quick wit, the smooth talk, the deadly demeanor. 

elijah mikaelson ( the vampire diaries ) - very controlling and cold. hardened emotions. ambitious and cruel. very clever.

clay haas ( quantico ) - polished, political, diabolical, a diplomat to his very core.

more to be added... later.... thats it for now

[miss-noo-na]

The Boy King (Chapter 8)

Prologue / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10

Title: The Boy King

Genre: Royal AU

Rating PG-13

Your determination to prove to Jooheon that the princess was up to no good became your entire reason for waking up in the morning. Every second not eavesdropping and making mental notes was spent mulling over how exactly you were going to solidify this proof into something you could take to Jooheon, something tangible that he could not question. You almost felt smug, day-dreaming of the day he’d realize what an idiot he was being.

When you thought too hard about it, it stung, and that hurt seeped deep into your bones as you wondered why on earth he was so vitriolic toward you.  How could he go from being so sweet and loving to staring you down with disgust and refusing to look at you?

Granted, you had not left things on good terms, but your anger was completely justified, in your own mind. He had clearly been toying with your emotions, letting himself be so frivolous with your heart, not considering at all the eventual outcome.

Yet, you did have to take some responsibility for how it played out. You hadn’t exactly stopped him.  If he ever spoke to you again, you’d make sure to tell him that.

For now, you were looking out for his and the kingdom’s best interest by exposing this princess and her family for the rats they really were.

The princess had gotten more brazen in her requests, some of that absurd kindness slipping away as she got more and more comfortable on the castle grounds. She demanded more of you, and of course you had to go along, if only for what it could reveal to you.

Another lady of the court was visiting with her this afternoon, a Duchess she was on good terms with. The princess insisted, though in the middle of their high tea, that you file her nails. 

She handed the rough metal file to you and warned you not to make a single crack in her long, white nails. Her hands were bony, pale, and unusually soft, very much the opposite of your work-hardened ones.

You knelt at her side and concentrated on your task as the ladies chatted, and you tried not to make it obvious you were listening.

“Are you enjoying your time here, dear?” The Duchess asked as she picked up her porcelain cup and dish, sipping daintily.

“Yes, very much. The castle is simply divine, and the company is even better.” The princess said, and there was a slight smirk on her face.

“Oh? Have you and the king been getting along?” The Duchess said with her own sly smile.

“More than. He is absolutely a gentleman and the picture of true royalty, yet there is also something very earthen about him.” The princess mused, and you tried to concentrate on your task even more intently

“Earthen?” The Duchess let out a haughty laugh. “Praytell, how is a child of crowned heads ever so?”

“He is a traditionalist, yet at the same time undaunted to go against convention.  He courts me, properly, but he is not afraid of my feminine charms.”

You scrapped the file against her nails harder.

The Duchess cooed and giggled even more, sounding like a heated dove.

“Please, do not tell me you’ve lived in sin with this man.”

“Never.” The princess fluttered her free hand in a show of drama. “But I can say I’ve had a taste.”

The file slipped, and nicked across her finger. She yelped as a small, red slit opened up on her cuticle.

“You foolish girl!” She cried, pulling her hand out of your grasp and examining the cut. It was minuscule, but she acted as if she’d been maimed, tears brimming in her eyes.

“I’m so sorry, my lady.” You bowed your head, standing up to fetch her something to bandage it with. You could hear she and the Duchess tsk’ing you. You’d like to think it was an accident, but you couldn’t be too sure. 

You brought her back the cloth to bandage it, and she snatched it out of your hands before you could touch her.

“Just go.” She huffed, and you bowed and left the room.

As much as you tried, you couldn’t get the images out of your head, the ones that sprang up there when you thought about her words.  It made you want to march over to the king’s quarters and give him another talking-to, but that wouldn’t help anything.

After dinner, a courier came just as he did every night, bringing documents to your guests during their stay. This was not unusual to you as castle business still went on even when they were gone, and it was not strange for guests to get correspondence sent between their home and their visitation spot.  Tonight, as you gathered up the tea cups on a tray, you watched the courier cross the room to the other man you’d heard engaging in conversation late at night, who you came to learn was the king’s constable. 

The constable sat at a writing desk, finishing a piece of parchment, and the courier waited patiently, a young gangly lad no older than sixteen. Once he finished, he  rolled the parchment, tied it, and handed it to the boy. He held onto it for a moment, and stared into his eyes.

“You know your duty.”

“Aye, sir.”

You quickly looked away before they noticed you’d stopped to watch, something about the interaction, which you’d never witnessed before, piqued your interest.

 Maybe these documents weren’t just the usual bore? Maybe they held something of importance, something you could use.

You took a few more nights to observe, making sure you were in the room when the courier came, and finding a reason to rush out when he left to see exactly where he went. On the 5th night, you hatched a plan.

You sneaked into Jooheon’s room when he wasn’t around, which wasn’t difficult, because he was never around much anymore.

You plucked a piece of parchment and string from his desk, taking it to your own room and desk. You weren’t well versed in word, chambermaids weren’t exactly expected to be literate, but you managed to make a fairly convincing dupe.

You cleaned up early that night, and then waited in the shadows for the courier, your parchment tucked into the pocket of your skirt. 

When you saw him coming, you rushed out from around the corner.

“Sir! Please wait!” You called after him, jogging as you did so. He recognized you from the times you’d crossed paths in the princess’ quarters.

“What is it?” He asked as he stopped in place.

“There’s been a mistake; the constable has sent you away with the wrong document.” You said, producing your faked parchment. 

“Here, this is the one you need.” You presented your hand with a friendly smile. The boy looked down at it for a moment, hesitant, but seemed to relax when he connected with your happy face.

“It would be most embarrassing for the king if this were to go to the wrong place, could you imagine?” You said with a put-upon laugh. Fear flashed in the boy’s eyes, knowing a punishment would be swift, even if it were not really his fault.

“Aye.” He said, handing you the parchment and taking yours. 

“Much obliged, dear sir.” You curtsied to him, and the young one was flustered for a moment, nodding as he turned to leave

You quickly tucked the parchment away and scurried off to your room.

Unrolling the parchment, you lit a candle at your desk and poured over the long piece of work for over an hour. It was difficult at first, but slowly pieces came to make sense to you, even if you couldn’t read every word.  Your mind could fill in the gaps.

It was dressed up in fancy language and business speaks, but it seemed to you to be the plans for the princess to make a return once her father and Jooheon had spoken further. It was being sent to another adjoining kingdom, one near the princess that shared land. It talked of sharing all of the riches, ports, and military they would stand to gain with this kingdom if all was to go to plan, and at the very end, thanked them kindly for supplying the assassin that had poisoned the former king.

You stared in shock for endless minutes, reading and re-reading as much as you could, trying to force your mind around the words you couldn’t read. Even without some of the pieces, the message was quite clear.

You rolled up the parchment and placed it into a drawer, and thought the rest of the night about how you were going to present this to a person who wanted nothing to do with you, nor believed a word you said.

The next morning you set about your chores, sick with nerves all the while. You kept peering at the princess, her father, and the constable from the corner of your eyes, your heart jumping into your throat whenever you heard them speak, as if any minute they were going to figure out what you’d done.

But all was at peace, and they were none the wiser.

You had to wait for the perfect moment, when you could truly have Jooheon alone. Maybe you shouldn’t make a big show of it?  The part of you that wanted to rub his face in it slowly faded when you considered what that document truly held; undeniable proof that his father had been murdered.

It was after dinner, and your last chores. You had stayed to watch the courier, wondering if he would make a comment to the constable about the night before, but as you stood to the side and observed, he was silent, just as he always was. You felt a wave of relief.

After you were relieved of your duties, you went back to your room. You looked over the parchment one last time before rolling it up and taking it with you as you crept out of your room and toward Jooheon’s.

You knocked lightly, and there was a long moment of silence. You were beginning to wonder if he’d heard you when the door cracked open. He looked surprised to see you, and not spiteful for once.

“May I come in, its urgent.”

He hesitated, but without words he opened the door and invited you inside.  Despite how he acted, he’d yet to ever completely shut you out.

“I have your proof,” You said as soon as the door shut, and extended your arm out toward him with the parchment. He narrowed his eyes and took it from your hand, examining it before walking over to his desk with it. The fact he was being so quiet was making you feel ill-at-ease.

He unraveled the parchment,  a nearby candle providing just enough light to view it. He could read much faster than you, and probably knew every word. After a few minutes you heard him pull in a chestful of air.

“Where did you get this?” He asked, but he didn’t sound angry this time.

“The courier, they’ve been exchanging messages every day that they’ve been here.”

You saw over his shoulder how his fingers grazed over the seal at the bottom, marking its authenticity.  You also saw how his hands began to shake and his breathing became ragged.

“Please leave.”

His voice was frail, trembling, like he was on the verge of falling apart. Though you didn’t want to, you bowed your head and left the room without wavering. You could not imagine the magnitude of what he was feeling, and you felt bad for all the awful things you’d thought about him.

It was difficult to sleep that night, you stared at the ceiling and wondered how Jooheon was, if he was okay, and what he was going to do now. Would he hate you even more for bringing him this news? For proving him wrong? Maybe he had actually wanted to marry this princess; maybe he had started to fall in love with her, and would resent you for taking that all way. Your heart hurt.

There was a faint knocking sound, and you thought it was the castle creaking in the wind or the sound of rats in the floorboards and ignored it. But, it came again a few moments later, a little louder.

You swallowed hard as you swung your legs off the bed and pressed your bare feet into the wood floor and made your way toward your bedroom door. Your mind raced, thinking that the constable and the king had found out, and they were here to put you in the stocks, or worse. Your mouth went dry as you gripped the handle and pulled the door open, just barely.

“Can I come in?”

It was Jooheon, sounding feeble. When you looked through the crack, his eyes gleamed in the moonlight that spilled through your window. They were glassy from tears, and his mouth pouted open.

“Please?”

[corvidfeathers]

entrances and exits

Hamlet kisses Horatio in the cold, shadowed corners of the library and teases a smile from him with pieces of Sophocles and Chaucer and Hamlet kisses Ophelia in the meadow under the sun and helps her thread flowers into her hair.  The two are separate, in his mind, the walls of the seasons and distance keeping the emotions from meeting and entangling.

But Horatio is not content with that.

or, how Horatio and Ophelia fall in love with each other (and with Hamlet) and how it changes everything

look i just finished a whole semester of a class where every assignment was basically writing shakespeare fanfic so here’s the most fanfic of it all.

Horatio first learns the name Ophelia when Hamlet returns to Wittenburg sun-golden and smiling.  Half a moment of hesitation, a summer’s worth of distance between them; Horatio wrote diligently, so he could feel, as he poured the week onto the page, the ghost of conversation between himself and his friend; so he could feel, for a moment, that he were travelling elsewhere even as obligation and circumstances held him far from Elsinore and Wittenburg both.  

Hamlet was not a constant writer; Horatio imagined him dashing out the letters when he had the time, caught between the rigors of his own scholarly pursuits and the demands of state.  The letters were long, touching on all matters in his friend’s thoughts but none in the earthly realm, and Horatio could only imagine the events of the summer were so out of his friend’s hands, all princely matters of duty and none of choice, so his letters were one of the few freedoms allowed one who had grown with the shackles of statehood.  

The quieter worry crept into his head now and then that perhaps writing to Horatio was a stray thought that passed through Hamlet’s idle hours now and then;  another obligation to a man best dismissed to past memories of mouths on mouths in a maze of spines and words.

Then the half-moment ends, and under threshold of the doorway both of Horatio’s misconceptions quietly die.  The second, when Hamlet’s mouth meets his as easily and fondly as he had kissed him farewell months before; the first, when Hamlet’s doublet slips under Horatio’s hands to reveal a trail of bruises blossoming down the skin of his neck.

The summer, Horatio learns, had not taken a companion from him. Nor had Hamlet passed it in staid, scholarly thought and family obligation.

Hamlet had not thought to write of it, he maintains, with an uncharacteristic laugh of surprise; he had no intention to lie, only knew Horatio would have no interest in sunny hours passed in the meadows outside Elsinore, of things like flowers and the whispered words of pretty girls, things that mattered not.  Hamlet says this in such a careful, insistent way, with such an arrogant tilt to his smile, that Horatio knows these things matter quite a lot.

Ophelia matters quite a lot.  That was the name Hamlet finally murmurs, some weeks later, when Horatio brings up the bewildered refrain of their reunion.  Ophelia, and though the glow of the hours he passed with her in the sun and the blossoms of her teeth on his neck have faded, by then, Horatio finds flowers pressed in books Hamlet passes to him, and he tastes the name on his tongue.  Ophelia.

*

Hamlet is reticent; Horatio knows he likes to build walls around the bonds he constructs, walls to keep the unwieldy bodies of friendship and lordship from crashing into each other.  In Wittenberg, Hamlet is a student, Horatio’s friend, in Elsinore, Hamlet is a prince, his father’s son, and in the meadow, Hamlet is Ophelia’s, and what that means, Horatio is not meant to know.

Hamlet kisses Horatio in the cold, shadowed corners of the library and teases a smile from him with pieces of Sophocles and Chaucer and Hamlet kisses Ophelia in the meadow under the sun and helps her thread flowers into her hair.  The two are separate, in his mind, the walls of the seasons and distance keeping the emotions from meeting and entangling.

But Horatio is not content with that, as much as he tries.  Intertwined with Hamlet in the cold confines of their students’ quarters after Hamlet’s January return to Wittenberg, Horatio finds, as always, that he can breath easier again; but also, that he cannot stop thinking of the notes he found earlier, tucked with care amongst the clothes in Hamlet’s trunk.  Reading the letters would be a betrayal he could not imagine; but neither can he escape seeing the blossoms pressed carefully between the pages, the scent of petals and perfume still lingering in the paper.  The scrawling hand, so light and yet so much like Hamlet’s.

Horatio does not push.  It is not his nature, not when Hamlet shies away from speaking of Ophelia.  Days pass when Horatio does not think of her at all, caught up in the way Hamlet smiles slyly across the lecture hall to him, content with being able to call the room he shares with Hamlet home.  The parts of Hamlet’s life he shares are the part of his own life he likes best; but he’d like to share all of it with Hamlet, not only the vaunted halls of Wittenberg, but his own humbler home too, and maybe… maybe even Elsinore.  And now and then, he finds another flower tucked in the carefully-printed pages of Hamlet’s collection and he wonders if she chose this poem on purpose, thinks he should like to meet this Ophelia.

*

At first, the only language Ophelia and Horatio share is Hamlet, and they speak only in entrances and exits.

Hamlet comes home to Elsinore with the merriment of their farewell festivities still ringing in his head, his fingers stained with ink and the careful path of Horatio’s kisses etched into his skin.  Perhaps Ophelia reads this; Horatio reads an answer, certainly, in the fact Hamlet returns to him in the fall again with skin golden and blossoming.  Ophelia has perfected the art of drawing flowers from Hamlet’s skin; Horatio marks kisses like a scholar marks pages, denoting interesting passages, but Ophelia kisses like she likes the way those kisses look on Hamlet’s skin.

One summer, as Horatio carefully pours out the sum of delights and miseries of his week to Hamlet, he scribbles a fragment of a poem at the bottom of the page.  Something he ran across in a latin text, a metaphor about flowers, clumsily and hastily translated to Danish not for the benefit of Hamlet- who is as well versed, if not so devoted to the language- but for Ophelia.

This reminded me of your Ophelia, and I thought you might like to share it with her, he writes, and then crosses it out, and writes I thought Ophelia might like this.

Whether Ophelia does or does not, whether she finds a poem a presumptuous gift from a man she never met, or whether Hamlet himself thinks to share it with her, Horatio never knows; what he does know is after that, Hamlet seems to concede some piece of the walls he built to keep his affections separate.

He writes of Ophelia’s love of words, of her sweet voice, of a wit so sharp her tongue could cut without a man even knowing his blood was being drawn.  Of long hours spent with her, away from the war brewing in the court, away from the bloodlust that stalked the castle’s halls.  How she alone at home can see Hamlet as he is; how he misses Horatio abroad, who shares her skill.

But Horatio only knows he loves Ophelia, just a little, when the first letter in her own hand arrives.

*

Ophelia’s correspondence does not end when Hamlet returns to Horatio; all throughout September and October, she writes to her lover’s lover of her garden, of the matters of state that crash about in her life as the warfever in Denmark ebbs and flows, of the frustration of being cooped up in the castle under her father’s eyes and the joy of the freedom she steals by slipping out to the woods and foraging for wild flowers and mushrooms before the snow comes.  I am fortunate the queen has a taste for mushrooms, she writes.  For my father will allow us any action that will please the Queen in his name.  Else he would not even allow me beyond the castle gates ever.

She has as sharp a wit as Hamlet always alluded to; she writes with pointed humor of the political mishaps and scandals of the court, particularly of things she overhears, when others think her incapable of understanding.  I write you this, she confesses, in one letter, for the pleasure of telling another, for I feel I hold too often the secrets of others, and yet, these trivial things could turn serious were I to pass them onto my lord Hamlet.  You know nothing of any of this, Horatio, and that is why I tell you.

Horatio writes back to say, he is pleased she tells him what she likes; but keeping secrets from Hamlet is not something he is sure he is capable of; in truth, not something he wants to do.  It is not that their are not boundaries between them; it is that he does not want to have to worry.  There are so many other things to worry of, and Hamlet is flighty, prone to high emotions and equally prone to repressing them.  Should something like a secret come between them, Horatio worries how long it would take for him to pry that from Hamlet.  Horatio does not want to worry.

He spends weeks worrying instead of offending Ophelia, of betraying her confidence.

Her next letter comes with a dismissal of his worries, and a confession.  In truth, I made it sound more serious than it is, she writes.  Hamlet has little interest in these small intrigues; he loses patience with talk of them very quickly.  But you, on the other hand, are not a lord and so they cannot burden you, so I will continue to write to you of them as long as they do not.

Horatio is only too happy to agree to that.  He knows too well the weight of too many words, waiting to be spoken to someone, anyone.  

*

Another summer comes, and Horatio finally works up the courage to confess the realization that has been blossoming in his mind all spring.  He opens his mouth one afternoon, sitting with Hamlet in the chill, late spring sun.

“I don’t want to go back home,” he says, at the same time Hamlet says “Come home with me,” and they stare at each other for a moment.  Hamlet’s dark eyes are wide and startled and then he laughs, and that is that.

The reality of meeting Ophelia does not occur to him until they are almost to Elsinore; it feels as if they should already have met, he knows her from the ink-scrawl of her words and the traces of perfume on the papers she send, the flowers pressed between them, the marks she leaves on Hamlet.  

It is strange at first, that the quiet girl Hamlet greets so formally is Ophelia.  She’s just as Hamlet described, but her eyes are downcast, her voice quiet as she receives Hamlet along with the rest of the court.  But Horatio waits, and listen, and realizes the stern-looking man at the king’s right hand always has his eyes on Ophelia, measuring the way she curtsies to Hamlet, the way she sits, the way she even draws breath with a cruel and measuring eye.  So often Ophelia writes of her father, but always with scorn, with dismissal; Horatio realizes he did not understand at all how that, too, was a confession, a defiance she was only safe to share with him and perhaps Hamlet. It is only, in a moment when the king finally draws the man’s cruel eyes away, Ophelia’s slide to Horatio and a flash of a smile crosses her face.

Out of the weight of her father’s eyes, Ophelia unfolds like a flower in the sun, suddenly having space where there was none before.  Horatio realizes, for the first time truly, Hamlet is not the only one to whom the walls of Elsinore are a binding weight.

*

It is that weight he feels again, standing beside Hamlet as Ophelia holds out the letters, letters from two and a half falls winters and springs apart.  Ophelia speaks, her voice restrained, her eyes wary, and it should not be so, not when they three are alone.

Horatio realizes this before Hamlet; Hamlet is too caught up in his own griefs.

Horatio is caught for a moment; his breath is stolen the walls of Elsinore closing in to crush the two he loves.

But Ophelia’s eyes find him, as Hamlet’s voice rises.  They have had so much practice speaking without words here; her eyes flicker to the wall, her eyes afraid, asking him to catch her meaning.

Horatio understands, a moment before Hamlet would have realized himself.  He catches Hamlet’s shoulder, and then Hamlet’s hand in his own, and leans in to murmur Ophelia’s message in his ear.

And from then, the story is a bit different.

[globalsource-blog]

The Taiwan Correspondent -Episode II

I’d had enough. It had been too long. Things couldn’t go on like this any longer. I was getting close to breaking point, and pretty soon something would have to give. Thankfully, I’m not talking about my growing craving for some decent bread getting the better of me, although if anyone does feel like shipping me a couple of baguettes and a ciabatta then I promise free hummus for life for you and your children’s children once the Global Source Food Co. is up and running. No, I’m referring to the fact that up until this past weekend, I hadn’t yet spent a night outside of Taipei, despite having travelled around to a few nearby villages and the Yangmingshan national park to the north of the city. As I mentioned in my last post, these first couple of months (spent mostly studying and working as a night receptionist) had been great in terms of getting my Chinese back up to speed, but I’d grown more and more frustrated by having travelled so little round the island. I wanted to get away from the big city life, to see some of Taiwan’s famously beautiful nature and to meet some people less used to 外國人 (waiguoren – foreigners) than the cosmopolitan inhabitants of Taipei, people with whom I could get some proper Chinese conversation without recourse to English. 

After a couple of friends dropped out of a planned trip to Alishan, a mountain area in the centre of Taiwan due to a pretty shocking weather forecast, I made plans to check out the city of台中(Taichung) with a friend who I’d met on the orientation day at NTU, a soft-spoken Dane named Bjarke. I’d immediately taken a liking to him for his dryly understated sense of humour and I’ve since grown to appreciate his collection of three-quarter-length shorts and radical English vocabulary (think ‘stoked’ and ‘steezy’.) We’d talked earlier in the week about making a hammock-and-hitchhike trip down to either Taichung or 台南(Tainan), even if it meant going into ‘survival mode’ (his words). With this in mind I bought a couple of plastic rain covers to keep us dry in our hammocks, and we caught a bus down to Taichung on Friday night with no real plan other than to get out into the country and see where we ended up. It’s worth noting that the bus ride was a delight – as a veteran passenger / victim of the UK’s most reliably unreliable transport service, the Megabus, this trip felt like a ride on a cruise ship, with comfortable, properly reclining seats,  and enough legroom to dance a cancan if necessary.    

When we’d checked into our hostel, we headed out to see what Taichung had to offer on a Friday evening. The neighbourhood we were staying in was pretty much empty of human life, so we decided to get in a taxi and ask where the action might be found. The driver, a husky middle-aged guy whose polo shirt had given up trying to restrain his beer gut, suggested a night market and we gladly took him up on the offer. As we drove across town, I asked what he considered the highlights of the city, fishing for something worth doing the next day before heading out into the villages. His response was to ask me whether I liked strippers or dancing – I’m still not sure if this says more about his thoughts on Taichung or foreigners. Anyway, when we got to the market I was feeling happy with having held a conversation in Mandarin for a good fifteen minutes, even if the subject matter had been the relative merits of all-you-can-drink bars and those where you buy drinks separately (apparently the latter have more beautiful girls).  

When we’d made the rounds of the market, (I’ll be talking in detail all about Taiwan’s night markets in an upcoming post) we headed down a side street to get some less greasy food than the various deep-fried wares on offer between stalls selling screen protectors and bubble tea. The road was lined with small restaurants whose customers mostly sat outside on plastic stools, laughing and drinking beer. I hadn’t seen much of this kind of night-time atmosphere in Taipei; it reminded me of China, where for ordinary people socialising is something which takes place in the street, not in bars and clubs. As we sat down to eat, we were invited to join a table in front of a fruit stall, by a burly guy with a broad smile who turned out to be the stall’s owner. He insisted on treating us to fresh guava and papaya, as well as beer – he was delighted that I was able to keep up with his rate of drinking, a skill upon which he clearly prided himself. Speaking of pride, he and his friends were eager to talk about their love for Taiwan – we got onto the topic through discussing the merits of Taiwan Beer (the imaginative name for the island’s only major brand), and when they found out I’d lived in China they couldn’t wait to list the reasons why Taiwan was the place to be. I must admit, I could have been more vocal in disputing Taiwan’s absolute superiority, but thought coming to China’s defence would likely achieve little, besides sabotaging my new source of free beer. Anyway, as is often the case, I found that the alcohol greased the moving parts of my brain’s language centre, and before I knew it I had spent a good hour conversing and cracking jokes with the fruit seller and his boys. Unfortunately, Bjarke is a geography student and as such only started learning Chinese when he came to Taiwan a few months ago. As he was clearly getting a little bored of smiling and nodding at a conversation he didn’t understand, and as we wanted to make the most of the next couple of days, we said our goodbyes and headed back to the hostel.

After a night spent in the hostel’s stairwell, the only refuge from the incredibly loud and consistent snoring of an overweight roommate (sadly, such is the reality of staying in dorms), we headed out to start the day. Unable to sleep, I’d quickly looked up some attractions in Taichung and settled on the Rainbow Village, a quirky art attraction in the west of the city. It consists of a small group of low concrete houses built to accommodate Kuomintang soldiers after they retreated to Taiwan from China (I’m not going to cover the history of the Chinese civil war here, if you want to find out more head to Wikipedia), and which were already gradually being demolished when an elderly resident, Mr Huang, started to paint every available wall with simplistic images of people, animals and characters from legends, all in bright, childlike colours. The painted village eventually became noticed by students from a nearby university, and is now a popular tourist site. This was evident when we arrived to the sight of several tour buses parked up outside, as crowds of visitors milled around photographing every square inch of brightly decorated concrete. The paintings themselves are charming and the overall ambience of the village is pretty beautiful, although the thronging tour groups jostling for selfie spots cheapens the experience a little. Seemingly embracing the commercialisation of his creation, the nonagenarian Mr Huang himself was present at the gift shop, perched on a stool in his sunglasses and paying absolutely no attention to anyone, while a pair of (presumably) relatives sold postcards, fridge magnets and various other Rainbow Village merchandise to a steady stream of customers.

We left the Rainbow Village after not too long and headed to Fengyuan, a suburb to the north of Taichung where we’d decided to rent bikes and head out into the hills to the east of the city. We arrived just after midday, and soon found a place offering a range of bikes for around NT$200 per day – about £5. We booked a pair of mountain bikes for a couple of days, leaving my ID card as collateral, and were soon on our way along the Houli bike trail. As it turned out, this trail was hugely popular, and as Bjarke put it, this meant it was basically a “bicycle highway”, with heavy traffic in both directions. We were comfortably the quickest on the trail, including the many people who’d rented electric bikes, but overtaking was pretty sketchy since there were oncoming bikes most of the time as well. We ended up leaving the trail soon after stopping at a winery, where we tried a couple of local wines which left a lot to be desired – the kind of stuff you might keep in reserve in case someone you really disliked came round for dinner. Once we were able to make our own way, the ride became much more enjoyable. The scenery became more rugged and lush with each corner we turned, and we soon became very aware of the fact that Taiwan’s mountainous terrain means that outside the cities, the landscape quickly gets steep. A long, winding climb, which I made with my eyes fixed on the yellow tiled roof of a temple on a distant hillside, brought us to the top of a ridge from which we could see over the river which we’d passed over on a bridge while still on the bike trail.

Pausing to admire the view, we then descended down an equally winding road, passing by small farms with groves of orange trees. A couple of weeks before, I would have thought they were lime trees – the Taiwanese orange has mostly green skin, something I only discovered when the owner of my local vegetarian restaurant gave me one as a gift. As the afternoon went on, and we followed the path of the river to the south-east, we saw more and more fruit being grown - oranges, grapes, bananas, what I’m pretty sure was dragon fruit and a whole range of other produce which I wouldn’t begin to know the names of. Taiwan produces a huge range of fruit, which means it’s readily available, and cheaply – being able to eat passion fruit for breakfast nearly every day is one of the better reasons I can think of for getting out of bed. At one point we ended up accidentally cycling right through an orange farm, following a path which at points was just a strip of concrete on the edge of an irrigation ditch, which was a lot of fun besides being harassed briefly by a trio of angry (and understandably surprised) dogs.      

 After several hours riding through villages and past fruit farms, the light was beginning to fade on the damp hillsides. It had been lightly raining on and off for most of the afternoon, and as we started to think about finding a place to spend the night we rounded a corner and were faced with a beautiful and ghostly scene: an old cemetery, overgrown in places, whose tombs were shrouded with mist while in the distance, a ridge of high mountains stood in obscure shadow against the sky. Cloud swirled in the valley below. From the hill on which we stood, it seemed as though we were on a graveyard island in an ocean of white and grey; as clouds churned around the hills, bursts of wind and rain stirred the air. We stood watching the shifting mist, transfixed… this sight was truly breath taking to behold. Needless to say, my phone camera did not come close to capturing the scene. It was several minutes before we picked up our bikes and moved on. As we came to the top of another climb which wound up and to the right, we settled on a wooded hillside in the distance for a place to make camp for the night, far enough from the houses at the foot of the slope that nobody would notice a couple of hammocks among the trees. We had instant noodles and a small gas cooker, we just needed to refill our water bottles and we’d be all set to settle down as darkness fell.

We went to ask for water at a farmhouse, and struck up a conversation with a man and woman who were standing in the open lobby at the front of the house. They invited us to drink some tea and offered some dried fruit, and we happily accepted. They noticed the signs on our rental bikes and asked if we’d come all the way from Fengyuan, nodding and saying “lihai!” (which means something in between excellent and good job) when I answered that we had. The tea was a strong but not unpleasant herbal brew; I asked what it was made of and the smiling lady said proudly that it was a plant which they grew right there on the farm – she offered to show us, and since this kind of offer doesn’t come around every day, we followed her out of the gate and across the road into a huge darkened shed. What was inside was truly impressive; hundreds of shelves of earth covered in all sorts of weird-looking growths of different sizes and shapes. The farm’s owner was inside the shed and our new friend introduced us – I found myself getting along well with our host, introducing myself and Bjarke, and talking for several minutes about what we were doing in Taiwan, where we were from and even a light-hearted discussion of Brexit. We went back to the farmhouse, and after more tea and meeting several members of the family, the boss, whose name was Mr Wu, invited us to stay for dinner. I explained that we needed to find a place to set up our hammocks before it got dark, miming two trees and something slung between them (I’ve since learned the word is diaochuang), and at once several of the family pointed to the trees to the side of the farmhouse.  

The hospitality of the Wu family was incredible. Given the choice between a night spent having dinner and getting to know this kind family of Buddhist farmers, or eating instant noodles by ourselves in the rain, my heart was firmly set on the former option. Bjarke reluctantly agreed, although I could tell he was a bit put out not to be going full ‘survival mode’. We set up the hammocks with the rain covers in the yard, and were soon eating dinner on the patio with Mr Wu while the rest of the family ate upstairs. Since the family was Buddhist, we ate a vegetable stew with fried rice – simple, tasty food. As directed by our host, we ate several portions each, as I talked with Mr Wu and translated for Bjarke, and in order to show our thanks for their generosity, I insisted that Mrs Wu let us do the dishes. After dinner the whole family congregated in an outbuilding which was comfortably decked out with sofas and chairs to watch a documentary about camels in western china. Several family members said that we should sleep in this room; nobody stayed in the building at night and we’d be sure to stay dry. However, this was not what we’d planned, and they had already been kind enough. We were both tired from our early start and the day’s cycling and we soon started to drift off, and went to our hammocks smiling with full stomachs.

For the sake of brevity, I’ll end this post here. Suffice it to say it rained heavily all night, and by 4am we were both getting a bit too wet for comfort despite the rain covers, so we quickly headed in to the outhouse for a few hours more rest, before having breakfast with the family (there was seemingly no end to the kindness they were willing to offer a pair of strangers). We then set out on the bikes, in better weather, through the lush mountain landscape, finally arriving back in Taichung in the late afternoon, where we eventually caught a train back to Taipei for a much needed shower and good night’s sleep.