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#*  ( Marie. ) ✦ Ch. Study.
kenneth-carson · 8 months
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Study Guide || Possessed Doll
@boointhenight
Ken felt like he was 16 all over again, sitting on the floor of his bedroom with a bunch of research and questions to match.
When Mary had gotten back to him after their séance with all the research she had done on his family Ken...didn't know how to feel about it. He was grateful of course, but having to actually consume all that material had been painstaking. Mostly because he wasn't a reader.
He had finished it all, eventually, and asked her over. Their usual set up in the living room for movie night was forgone, as Ken didn't want to have to explain anything in case poor Hercules walked in, in favor of his room. The usual snacks and drinks were still present though.
"I still don't get how knowing my whole 23-and-Me is supposed help you figure anything out," he said, back resting up against his bed frame and legs splayed out in front of him as he flipped through the papers.
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lacedinweb22 · 9 months
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drunk and crushing (Miguel O’Hara x reader) (part 1)
🕸️ Entangled series 🕸️ ch. 2 prev part
Warnings - alcohol, house party, sexual references 
Summary: After your physics midterm, a group of classmates invite you and your friend, Miguel, to “a small party” they’d be throwing late at night. You both get drunk, and Miguel is especially protective and flirty with you; your feelings and crushes on each other are revealed as the night goes on.
FYI: Some words will be bunched together but that’s just me representing slurred drunken words. ALSO this will be in parts so get ready to be fucking edged. Sorry >:D I hope you enjoy <;3 
I imagine this playing in the background of this part's party scenes so I HIGHLY recommend listening to this with headphones on while reading:
youtube
✧・゚: *✧・゚:*    *:・゚✧*:・゚
We walked out of class together, side by side. “Sooo, I mean, I’ll only go if you go,” he said, nudging my shoulder, smirking with that annoyingly perfect, pearly smile. “Hmmm, ‘a small party,’ she said, I don’t know, I don’t believe that… I hate large gatherings and… I don’t know half of the people that’ll be there,” I muttered, my eyes following the passing squirrels then glancing back up at Miguel. 
What was the point of going when I knew I would just have to witness every girl and their mother trying to suck this man off in the bathroom??? He’d be busy all night, away from me, why bother? I prefer our mini study dat– sessions. Study sessions. 
“Yeah… I know, but you’ll be with me, so you can just… you know, stick with me,” he suggested, shrugging and smiling down at me, his gaze stuck on me as we walked. I smiled, looking at our feet walking together. Stick with him. “Okay, fine, yes, let’s do it. I’ll feel better… that way.” “Okay, I’ll pick you up at 9 then?” 
Pick me up? Jesus, why are you like this? Stop being so fucking nice to me; it makes it so much harder to get over you. 
It’s fine. He’s just being a good best friend. Friend. We. Are. Just. Friends. He’s just being nice. 
“Yes, sounds perfect… thank you, Mig, can’t wait,” I said, giving him a thumbs up as I walked away from him. “Hey, where are you going?” he called out. “I’m going to go meet up with a friend, I’ll see you later tonight, M” I yelled back. “Okay… Y/N,” he muttered, his eyebrows softly scrunched with confusion, lifting his hand up to say goodbye. 
* * *
I wore my favorite vintage black strapless dress, and long knee high socks stuffed into my black mary janes. My waves trickled down my shoulders and collar bones. I feel so pretty. I wonder if Miguel will think the same. 
He texted me that he’d be here in five. I sat on the short garden wall outside of my apartment complex, waiting for Miguel. He was always early. Always. 
Sure enough, he pulled up, smiling and saluting me. “Present, Captain Y/N,” he said, as I walked towards the car door. Before I knew it, he was out of the car, about to open the door for me. As he approached the car door, his eyes scanned me up and down. “You look… really nice. Super beautiful.” I felt my face warm up. “Thank you, Mig,” I replied, shyly. I got in, he closed the door, then went to his side. He got in and began to drive. 
“And you. I love that moto jacket on you… and you smell nice,” I replied, leaning towards him, my face near his chest, sniffing him. “Hey, I always smell good,” “Yeah, you do, you do, but you know, it’s a party, I get it. Love, drugs, weed, pussy. I get it,” I replied, hands up. He laughed and rolled his eyes, his deep laugh so rich, music to my ears. He smelled so good. His jacket must be fucking drenched in his smell. I wanted to touch him so badly, to feel his snug t-shirt, his warm muscles against my fingertips. I just knew–“Y/N,” he dragged out. “Yes, sorry, what was the question?” I responded quickly. “You smell good too, and you look pretty, I mean you always look pretty, I mean I just… is there someone from our class you’re looking forward to seeing?” God, you have no idea. “Ummmm, no, nope, no. There isn’t. Is there… someone you–” “No, no. Just the drugs and the weed,” he replied, nodding. I scoffed. Sure. 
We pulled up to the house party. There were a million cars and what seemed like a million people inside and outside crowding around the front yard. Colorful lights glowed through the windows as people danced and trashed their red solo cups everywhere.  
We found parking, then walked towards the chaos. As we approached, Miguel grabbed my hand. I looked down at it then back up at him. “Stick with me, okay?” he urged, squeezing my hand twice. I nodded. His large, muscular hand wrapped around mine. He was so warm; his calloused palms rubbed softly against mine as we walked in. 
We pushed through the crowd to get to the kitchen. The speakers blasted music and sent vibrations across the floor and throughout my body. I clung onto Miguel as we pushed through the crowd. He towered over everyone, as the longing eyes of girls and the envious eyes of guys followed him.
We found Lizzie, our friend from physics, pouring shots for a few other classmates I recognized. “Miguel and Y/N,” she hummed out, teasingly.  “You two are so cute! I’m so glad you could both make it!” she exclaimed, winking at me. “Us too,” Miguel replied, squeezing my hand and bumping my shoulder. “Do you guys want some of… this?” she said smirking, holding up a bottle of tequila. Miguel looked down at me for approval. I shrugged. “I’ll do one if you do one,” I told him, smiling. He grinned down at me then nodded to Lizzie.  She grabbed a shot glass then a larger glass, 3x the size of mine. “He’s much bigger than you,” she said, shrugging, as she poured them out then slid one in front of each of us. “Fuck, what have we gotten ourselves into?” I asked, picking up the small glass and looking up at Miguel. He raised his glass up to mine and tapped it, “I guess we’ll have to find out,” he said, smirking.
Our eyes met as we both brought the shot glasses to our lips, never breaking eye contact. We downed the shots. Miguel took it extremely, scarily well, as I gasped and hovered over the counter processing the burn. I felt the warmth spread down into my chest. “Mmm that was so yummy,” I moaned. Miguel patted my back and laughed, “Let me get you a soda or something, wait Y/N, have you eaten?” I kept my head down and breathed out, “I saw Dr. Peppers back there, please, God, and yeah… umm I had mac & cheese earlier.” He patted my back then walked away. 
“You need a drink?” I turned around to see a guy I knew from physics holding out a plastic cup to me. “Oh, no I’m good, thank you, Miguel should be bringing me something right about now,” I responded, peering behind him. Where is he? It was just righ– “I don’t see him,” he responded smugly, shrugging. I awkwardly laughed. He was cute, but he wasn’t… him. His eyes were glued to my lips. “Ha, ummm, yeah well, so… how do you feel about the midterm?” I asked, trying to ignore the tension. 
Lizzie brushed by me, handing me a new shot glass, raising her eyebrows. I didn’t feel the first one in the slightest, so I obliged. I downed the shot, breathed out, caught my breath, and looked back at Jack. 
“It was fine. Anyways, Y/N, I see you every lecture, and I’ve always wanted to, you know, talk to you, but you’ve– I mean shit, you got him following you around like a lost puppy–” “Hey, what? Where is this coming from? Miguel’s my friend, he’s my best friend, how is he like a lost puppy?” I argued, offended. “I mean everyone sees how he looks at you,” he replied, confused, like I was the one missing something. “Everyone? What do they see or… think? What do you mea–” “Do you not–? You’re not together? You haven’t…?” he asked, bewildered. “Nope, just friends,” I sighed, grabbing a can off of the counter and chugging. “But hey, thanks for the reminder,” I breathed out before chugging more of whatever this bitter shit was. I need to forget that Miguel doesn’t want me, that he could never think of me the way I think of him. 
Jack smiled, and leaned on the counter closer to me, his elbow getting closer and closer to my chest. I looked down at his elbow then up at him with furrowed eyebrows. “You’re close,” I asserted. “You look beautiful tonight, truly. You know what? We should go take a quick hit outside,” he smirked, holding up a joint. “Nah, I’m good, It’s niceandwarm in here and Miguel shouldbecomingtosaveme any minutenow,” I shook my head no, realizing how heavy my head felt. Fuck, this beer can feels a little heavy. “You’re so pretty,” he whispered, getting closer to my face. “We should go get brunch sometime,” he added. Brunch? “That’svery kind but I’m good. DamnIsaid Iwasgood like fifty times. I’m waiting forMiguelllll, my best friend, my buddy, so don’t worry about me! Go check out someone else who’s lonely, I’m not lonely.” “You look lonely,” he reasoned. “Hey, you fucki–” I stopped as I noticed his eyes grow fearful as his gaze looked up above my head. “What are youlookingat, weirdo?” I asked, sharply, reaching my fingertips to my hair. 
“Hey, Miguel,” Jack breathed out, grinning fearfully. I looked up to see Miguel behind me peering down at Jack. I watched as he kept his eyes on Jack while lowering a Dr. Pepper into my hand. “Here, Y/N,” “Thank you, Miguel,” I mimicked, looking up at him then back at Jack. 
“I’m here. You can leave her alone now,” Miguel hissed at Jack. I like this side of him. Darkened eyes, heavy voice, angst. Gives me chills. “We were just talking about a fucking midterm,” Jack muttered as he walked away. “Yeah okay, pinche gringo,” he called out to him. I turned around and looked up at him. His cheeks were flushed, and his hair slightly messier than when I saw him ten minutes ago. Where had he gone? Who was he with?
“Miguel,” I scolded, holding in my laugh. “What if he understandsSpanish, huh? They’re gonna kickyourass out,” I reasoned. “Nofighting here. This is a peacezone,” I said squeezing his forearm. He shrugged, “Ni modo.” I rolled my eyes then drank more from the can. “Hey, where’d you get that?” Miguel asked, grabbing it out of my hand, analyzing the label. He swiftly drank what was left of the beer then offered me the soda he brought. He lifted my other hand grasping the soda up to my lips, then bit the tab up, snapping the soda open inches away from my lips. “Drink this,” he muttered, through his teeth before spitting the soda tab onto the counter. “Haaaa I forgot about this!” I laughed out. “Yeah, yeah drink some,” he laughed, supporting my hand. 
I drank a good amount then pressed it to his lips. His soft pink lips wrapped around the can rim. His eyes stuck to mine as he sipped some. My cheeks burned.
He then grabbed my hand and led me to the upstairs living room. There were far less people and the music wasn’t as loud. A friend stopped Miguel by the mini bar, so I stood beside him as they talked. I subconsciously remained holding his hand, which he held firmly on his lap as he talked to his friend about school. Lizzie and a few of her friends came by again, handing Miguel and I shots. Miguel hesitated as he looked down at his glass, then looked back at me and my now empty shot glass. He stared at me with extreme concern, then continued talking to the guy who was bombarding him with questions about the midterm. 
He continued glancing at me, worriedly. “What are youlookingat?” I asked, pushing him with my body, “oops sorry I just meant to nudgeyou not push you, woah you’re so firm, I’ve never felt yourchestbefore geez you’re so strong, wait doyouthinkyou could lift me up? Try carrying me!” I blurted, laughing. A bit of pink creeped into his cheeks, as he smiled and put his hand on my fingers lingering on his chest. “Yeah, Y/N, you’ve had a little too much. No more, okay?” he urged, almost scolding me. “Damnnnn okay, MOMMMM!” I replied, rolling my eyes. He turned to his friend and excused himself, then stood up and turned to face me. He looked down at me, his eyes glaring, as I looked up at him, smiling fearfully. He wrapped his forearms around the back of my thighs, lifted me, and gently carried me over his shoulder, within one second. I was weightless to him. I laughed non stop, as he put me down slowly and rolled his eyes. “Wait couldyoulift me like, like wrappedaroundyou like you know…?” I asked, excited. Jesus, someone stop me.
He tilted his head, looking at me critically, then succumbed. He wrapped his hands on the back of my thighs then effortlessly lifted me up so we were chest to chest, heart to heart. His hands remained on the back of my thighs, my dress was now riding up, probably showing my underwear to the world. I was too drunk to care, and too focused on Miguel to care. 
My arms wrapped around his neck, as our faces were inches apart. We looked into each other’s eyes then down at each other’s lips. My heart is beating dangerously fast. Can he feel my heart racing? It felt like 10 minutes had passed us by, when in reality it had been mere seconds. He put me down slowly, as we held eye contact. I wasn’t laughing anymore. 
That sobered me up. I cleared my throat and tugged my dress down. His gaze was still glued onto me. His gaze felt different. Has he always looked at me like that? “Let’s go over there,” I suggested, as I pointed at a group of people playing beer pong on the balcony. I hated crowds, but I needed more sobering up; the alcohol was hitting me like a bus. He held my hand and followed me, as I led him through the crowd this time.
As we approached the balcony and made our way through the crowd, the music grew intensely loud. We now had to shout to hear each other. “‘SMALL PARTY’ MY ASS!” I shouted to Miguel. “I KNOW,” he laughed, “IT’S SO FUCKING LOUD. IT’S TOO MUCH” he shouted, over the music. “DO YOU WANNA LEAVE?” “NO, LET’S JUST GO TAKE A RESTROOM BREAK,” he yelled back, grabbing my hand and leading me to one of the bathrooms. 
to be continued…
next part (flashback) drunk and crushing pt.2
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teriri-sayes · 5 months
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Reactions to Young Master Shield's Chapter 204
New title - 26. The Return of a Legend, Young Master Shield
TL;DR - Academy president is troubled by Cale's upcoming speech. Rumors of Cale's speech spread. Cale is thinking on who to bring to Aipotu.
Effric's Troubles This entire chapter was hilarious. Half of it introduced us to the academy people. Effric was the current president of the academy, and the former prime minister of the Roan Kingdom. However, Cale's upcoming speech was giving him trouble.
Two old people, the male dean of the Knights Department and the female dean of the Magic Department, also added to Effric's troubles. Yes, these two oldies were Cale fans and were very excited for his speech.
They wanted Effric to increase the scale of the opening ceremony. They also wanted to invite CH, Mary, and Gashan to give lectures. Or welcome dark elves as students. They wanted Effric to personally visit Cale to hand him the invitation letter. In the end, Effric's patience ran out and he shouted at them to get out of his office. 🤣🤣🤣
But Effric was a Cale fan too. He was already troubled at the Knights and Magic departments in attending the speech. But he was also thinking of including the Commerce, Public Administration, and Political Science departments to attend too. Because he thought Cale was skilled in those too... 😂
We got some background about the academy too. It used to be famous 20 years ago, but had recently declined. So Effric was thinking of using Cale's speech to boost the academy's prestige again. But 20 years, huh? Is this when Zed, Deruth, and Drew attended the academy? I'm curious about it too!
And Effric's troubles did not end with just the deans. News of Cale's upcoming speech also spread to the students... and caused chaos. 🤣🤣🤣
Students from the Knights and Military Studies departments were constantly shouting "Shield! Shield!", annoying the other students. Some were bringing out their silver shield props. Some wanted to invite their whole family to attend the speech too. Some were thinking of dressing up like Mary. And there was even a chuunibyou who wanted to release a black dragon in his arm like CH... 🤣🤣🤣
Of course, our Cale who was staying in the black castle at that time felt a strange chill on his back. 😂 Cale, your speech is starting to evolve into a huge fan meeting. 🤣🤣🤣
Aipotu Plans GoD told Cale that he could bring, at max, 50 people to Aipotu, regardless of race or gender. When Cale was troubled about the possible karma he might suffer, GoD reassured him that this was an exemption.
The Aipotu world was unresponsive, so the balance was already broken. Cale's actions there was to actually restore the world and bring balance back, so GoB approved of GoD's plan. And even if GoB tried to impose the karma on Cale, the other gods would stop her.
Also, poor overworked GoD:
Cale: Hey. GoD: You don't have to treat me like a god, but can you stop calling me "Hey"? Cale: Hey. GoD: Sigh... Cale: How about a hundred people? GoD: ... Isn't that too much? Cale: Just give it a try. Try it and contact me later. *turns off the divine mirror's screen* GoD: *tries to send messages in protest* Cale: *ignores the messages*
And finally, we have a Soos mention! Cale thought that CJS and Sui should also go to Aipotu because they had to find the missing CJG. That was it. He just thought of including them. No mention if CJS went back with them to Roan, or if he agreed to meet up with them in Aipotu.
Durst was also mentioned. He was taking care of Myung (the Blood Demon successor candidate), the previous priestess of the Blood Cult, and the current priestess (the youngest Orsena lady). All of them also came back with Cale in Roan.
While Cale was thinking of his Aipotu plans, the others were training. Dodori and Raon were sparring against Rasheel, Clopeh was smiling while being beaten up by CH (in the name of training), and the half-blood dragon was flying together with Mary's bone monsters. Cale was planning on having them join too. Oh yes! Clopeh-nim will finally be joining the legend! 🥳
Ahem, ahem. Anyway, some of the other people Cale was thinking of were Lock, Gashan and the tiger tribe, dark elf Tasha, and elf Pendrick. Oooh, so many familiar faces. This is making me excited for the next arc.
Ending Remarks The new chapter title cracked me up. Return of the Legend? Young Master Shield? 🤣🤣🤣 I'm looking forward to Cale's idol concert speech in the academy.
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violettaskies · 1 year
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To Share A Kiss The Devil Has Known
(ch. 1)
Pairing: Eddie Munson x you // Eddie Munson x f!reader // perv!Eddie Munson x innocent!reader
Genre: romance, mild smut, Catholic trauma, religious trauma, friends to lovers, slow burn
Notes: this will have a three installments // this chapter is just the intro honestly lol so sorry if it’s boring build up // Eddie is kinda pervy lol // he’s kinda dark but also not // i tried to write him to be as much of a consent king as possible
Warnings: MINORS DNI, 18+ ONLY, NSFW // talks of religion, reader goes to confession and her priest is a little mean with his words (at the beginning), slight manipulation, pillow humping, humping, first times, dacryphilia, corruption kink, praise kink // masturbation //please let me know if there should be more added, thank you!
ao3 // chapter two // chapter three // masterlist // series masterlist
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-:-:-:-:-
Every other Sunday was for confession. While other members of the family went on Wednesdays or Saturdays, you always chose Sundays since it would start the week off on a clean slate.
Not that there was much to confess about. Oftentimes, you would walk from your house to the church a few hours after mass ended, maybe feeling a bit guilty about your thoughts, rarely was it ever your actions. One day, you came in to tell the priest about how angry you got at your parents when they grounded you for accidentally falling asleep in church. You didn’t lash out at them, of course; but, you did curse them in your head — not honouring thy father and mother very well.
Then there was an instance three years ago at the homecoming dance. One girl had on the most beautiful baby blue dress you had ever seen, while you were stuck with a hand-me-down gown of the same colour. You prayed aloud that night in front of your bed, that you would one day have the opportunity to wear a dress as nice as hers. But the prayer backfired when your mother overheard, then told you to march to the church the following morning to confess how you broke the tenth commandment of coveting thy neighbour’s goods.
As a whole, you thought there were never any major moments in your life where you sinned gravely. That was until you went to your friend’s house for Bible study on Saturday night. She hosted it weekly, and invited all the kids from school. Needless to say, only a handful of people appeared. Not that it wasn’t fun, the six of you would always spend a few hours going over passages, and then eat a nice dinner afterwards. Truly, you looked forward to it since there weren’t other things you were invited to in town.
So when this past Saturday rolled around where the first epistle to the Corinthians was read, specifically the sixth chapter and eighteenth verse — your group started to analyze it as normal. But, little did you know that this was the day your heart would drop the hardest it ever has.
‘The sexually immoral person sins against their own body,’ the people in the room repeated the verse over and over, like a chant taunting you and your actions.
It was the first time you walked into the confessional on a Sunday afternoon with shaky legs and an intensely beating heart. You told the priest what you told your friend, trying to rid yourself of the sins you unknowingly committed. But he stopped you, his voice only getting louder as he gave you guidance on your next steps. ‘Stop doing that,’ he said, ‘God may not be so quick to forgive you if you give into the Devil’s temptations so often.’ Then after he assigned you a penance of five Hail Marys and going through the rosary twice, you were gone.
All you could think as you took your first steps outside, were words that should never cross your mind. Not now, not ever.
If sinning is so bad, then why does it feel so good?
-:-:-:-:-
As the day ended, and a new week of school began — your guilt never went away. Teasing you from the back of your subconscious as you walked home, ate dinner, and failed at doing some homework that was due a few days later.
It had been three days since the last time you unknowingly sinned, two days since you found out what it was, and one day since the priest’s voice scared you to the point of no return. Everything affected you gravely, that even once you walked into school Monday morning, the noises from the other students became a muffled and chaotic mess in your ears. So much so, that as you were shakily getting things out of your locker, you didn’t even notice movement from the one next to yours.
“You look stressed, sweetheart.” The voice startled you, only amplifying your inner-guilt, since you spent the past few moments focusing on shutting the voices up in your head, rather than greeting your favourite locker neighbour.
But what made you feel guiltiest of all, was that he is the one who inspired these sins of yours.
The throbbing ache between your legs felt good, and the way your pillow helped relieve that ache felt even better. If you were able to feel this level of delight every night, then why not think of someone who made you feel the same way? — the question plagued your mind nightly, during the moments you were oblivious to committing a sin.
Little did you know that it was truly sexual in meaning.
There was only one person who made you feel equally as amazing with their words and actions. Your locker neighbour to the right, Eddie Munson.
Several moments replayed in your head. Like the time he kept calling you ‘pretty girl’ because you decided to wear a skirt on the first day of Spring. Then, you remember how his calloused fingers felt when they were so close to your face after he brushed your hair from your neck; making sure to linger on your sensitive skin before mentioning how beautiful the silver crucifix looked on you. There were so many times after that too. From his deep voice whispering in your ear to ask if you needed a ride home while you both were in study hall; to his arms wrapping a sweater around your shoulders during lunch when the school’s heater broke. The Hawkins townspeople claimed him as a spawn of the Devil, but you named him as the only true friend you had. The only person to make the butterflies in your stomach tingle every time he spoke to you.
“I-I’m not, it’s just I can see now why Mondays aren’t people’s favourite,” you responded, still staring into the vastness of your locker. Thinking about how your start to the week wasn't so great as it usually is.
Eddie had opened the metal door completely, removing the barrier between the two of you. “But, Mondays are always your favourite because you get to see me after a painstakingly long forty-eight hours,” he pouted while trying to get you to giggle at his dramatics.
It worked.
“Well, I normally see you around the fourth period. This is the earliest you’ve been at school for a while.”
“Mondays are the worst because my homeroom teacher loves putting tests at the buttcrack of dawn,” Eddie groaned, while holding up the notes you loaned him at the beginning of the year since you already took the biology course before.
“Well, good luck, I’m gonna go—” no matter how much you loved talking to him, and how warm he made you feel, Eddie was part of your current predicament. So seeing him now made your heart ache in the worst way.
As you went to grab the locker door to close it, Eddie lightly grabbed your wrist. “I saw you leaving the church yesterday. You looked so,” he paused, moving his head downwards to meet you at eye-level, before continuing. “Sad, you looked so sad. I even called out your name a few times so I could give you a ride home, but you kept walking, so I assumed you didn’t hear me.”
So it was the Devil’s spawn shouting your name as you made your way home; not the Devil himself making you feel guilty for your actions. It was just your friend who wanted to look out for you.
Eddie continued: “or maybe you’re ignoring me,” he pouted with feign-sadness.
“Oh, uh-uhm it was just a really tiring day and I guess the voices in my head were too loud,” it was only partially a lie.
“If something’s bothering you—”
“Nothing’s bothering me, honestly,” this one was a lie, and it came out a bit too easily. But all you could focus on now was the feeling of Eddie’s thumb stroking small circles on the soft skin of your wrist.
He looked you up and down suspiciously before saying, “you know you can tell me anything, right?”
“I do.”
“So whatever is going through your mind, let me know. Who am I to judge anyways?” He winked before letting go of your wrist.
You nodded, seriously contemplating if you wanted to have a confessional with your little Devil. Just as you stared at him with eyes full of conflict, the bell rang. Instead of responding, you softly said your farewell. “Anyways, see you later during fourth period, if you decide to come again.”
It was the only class Eddie had a perfect attendance score in, but he would never let you know that you’re the reason why.
-:-:-:-:-
By the time English class rolled along, you didn’t realize just how much your body was moving itself robotically. Going through the movements you’ve been so used to doing for the years you’ve been in high school. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, thankfully. First period was a calculus lesson, history happened afterwards with a lecture on the French Revolution, then a substitute showed up for geography during third period so that was a boring class. All throughout those hours, you kept quiet; because the wrath of the Angel on your shoulder, condemning you for your sins, was becoming far too much. To even think about answering questions the teachers asked was mentally exhausting.
It all came to a peak once you sat on your chair for fourth period English — the only class you had with Eddie this semester, and of course, the only class everyone sat at long desks that held two people. As you looked out the window to the dark blue skies of Autumn, your conscience kept telling you to be careful. You were about to sit next to the boy who amplified your senses as you sinned. Goodness knows how he’ll react to the news if you told him.
What would he think if he found out you think about his hands helping guide your hips nightly, or his voice telling you ‘you’re so beautiful’ when you finally find the climax of your relief, or his lips kissing your —
“You’re still so tense,” the voice brought you out of your haze for the second time today. But this time, Eddie’s warm hand was on the top of your left thigh; the set of thighs you unknowingly went from bouncing one second to squeezing together the next.
“Just tired, maybe I’ll nap when I get home,” you sighed. Truly, it has been three days since the bane of your guilt was committed. You could barely sleep now that you’ve stopped doing your nightly routine.
“Take a nap in my van, I have cute pillows in there,” he scrunched his nose as he teased you, then released your thigh to stretch his arms in the air.
Thinking of how your class went to the zoo for a field trip once, and Eddie found the scariest-looking bats cute, you replied sweetly: “your definition of cute is not really the same as mine.”
“But, I think you’re cute, don’t you?” Eddie loved to make you blush with his not-so-suave comments. Said it was practice for whenever he goes to the bars and flirts with girls there. But he never was able to make them flustered in the way you always were.
You saw the teacher walk into class in your peripheral vision, and prayed that would mean you didn’t need to talk to your locker and desk neighbour for the next three quarters of an hour. “I’m not,” you shyly say while looking away from The Dealer completely.
“You’re such a good girl too,” his voice was deeper than normal.
He was wrong. So wrong. The guilt in your heart only deepens as his words echo in your ear, along with the voices of your priest telling you need to repent for your sins. If this day couldn’t have gotten any worse, of course the muse of your sinful thoughts believes you’re a good girl when you aren’t.
“I-I’m—” your words are saved by the bell and your teacher’s voice which booms through the classroom. You thought you were safe, thought that until lunch you could get away with not looking at the boy who makes you unknowingly rub your legs together. But no, the day that was going downhill, just hit rock bottom.
“This class is a bit different, it will be a work period since I’m assigning you a small project due Wednesday. That’s not a lot of time, so today will be a work period then tomorrow we will have a lesson. I hope that you all can get the project finished after school over the next couple days.”
Doing a small project wouldn't be so bad, would it? The curiousity sat in your brain momentarily before your thoughts went haywire. The teacher paired you off, specifically with the people you were sitting next to, where each duo would need to analyze and present a different chapter of The Picture of Dorian Gray. So after a beat of silence once the teacher’s explanation was over, the class erupted in murmured voices and squeaky chairs. But you couldn’t get yourself to move to face your project partner.
“Don’t kill me but, we may need to finish this tonight because tomorrow—”
“You have your g-gig, I remember,” spreading out your time with Eddie would have helped your intensifying sinful thoughts subside. At least until you got over your bad habit. But now, you both had to do this for your grades — mainly his — so there was no time to lose. Maybe this could be a positive distraction.
“How about we work on it today right after school so we can get it over with?” he suggests.
“Alright, I guess skipping band practice one time wouldn’t be so bad,” you start shaking your left leg again. If you were a sinner, why not fall down the path of delinquency — your tendency to accept defeat a little too quickly, and then spiral, was catching up to you now.
Eddie notices, and touches your thigh again to calm you down like he has so many times before, even a few minutes ago. Although now, you move your leg away from his grip. “No, no, no, you go be a good girl and head to band practice, then I’ll pick you up afterwards and we'll run to the library,” he says trying not to sound disappointed that you backed away from his touch.
“I’ll finish probably a little after half-past three today since there’s only one song to practice,” you state while opening the book to the assigned chapter. “What will you do while you wait?”
“Oh, you know, maybe do some buying and selling,” The Dealer says nonchalantly.
“Shopping?” you ask innocently.
“Of sorts,” he mimes the act of smoking a joint in your direction, and you look at him curiously before understanding what he meant. You remember your father telling you it’s not a good idea to be friends with your locker neighbour because he’s a sinner who does the Devil’s drugs.
Guess he rubbed off on you, while you rubbed off on something else.
The pang of guilt hit you again. Like a stab to the heart from God himself. Tonight, you’ll do penance until you sleep, before the Devil on your shoulder tells you to commit your sinfully bad habit again. “R-right,” you say quietly. “Let’s get started then, you have to stay focused, Eddie, do you promise?”
“Pinky promise, my dear,” he grabs your fingers that are so much smaller than his, and hooks his pinky onto yours. “Only if you promise to focus too. You’ve been zoning out all day long. When you walk from class to class it looks like you’re constantly about to puke.”
“I do not,” you say in a defiant whisper.
“So do,” he teases. “Listen, if I promise to stay focused the entire time while we try and finish this project, you’re gonna tell me why you’re acting this way. It’s worrying me.”
You pause, looking at Eddie’s weirdly mischievous eyes as he starts to rub the bottom of your back. “There’s nothing really bothering me, though.”
“You’re lying, aren’t you, pretty girl?” his fingers started circling in a pattern that brought pleasurable shivers up your spine. After years of giving you featherlight touches — because that’s what friends do, he said one day — he knew exactly where to grasp your body to make you relax.
“Let me think about it,” you slightly give in. However, you can’t get yourself to admit, again, how badly you want to confess your sins to the one who inspired them.
He notices how you started to squeeze your thighs together again during this class. “That’s all I ask,” Eddie chuckles before moving his hands to your waist to move your body closer to himself. “Now, don’t kill me again, but I didn’t read the chapter. Or the book, so,” he elongated the last word while looking at you with feign-innocence with his doe eyes and pursed lips.
One thing you unknowingly did admit, was just how easily you were able to fall for his manipulative ways.
-:-:-:-:-
As Eddie waited in his van for you to come out of band practice, all he could think about was how strange you’ve been acting throughout the day. You were always one to talk to him in shy tones as he would talk your ear off in any given conversation. Today was different though, and he wasn’t able to place a finger on it. What hurt him most was when you reacted to his touch by moving your leg away — a move you haven’t done in the years you had gotten used to his touch. Then, you didn’t join him for lunch like you did every Monday and Friday, since the other days you would be asked to join the band or church group tables.
Something was off, and Eddie feels like it has something to with the downcast image of you walking through Hawkins on Sunday afternoon. Today, he was going to figure it out.
Ever since the man found out his locker was next to yours on the first day of Freshman year, The Dealer became obsessed with you. Not that you noticed him often — Eddie was notorious for skipping class so much that even though you went to your locker between every class, you would only see him once a day during that year of high school. However, he definitely noticed you: your shyness, the way you kept your head down as you roamed the hallways to the next period, and how you had a tendency of jumping a little every time you closed your locker and saw him standing there at his.
The small silver crucifix that was dangling on your neck was the icing on the cake for Eddie. Realizing then, that you were an innocent Angel who went to Bible study and mass every week. While he could only ask God why He put him in such a shitty place with even shittier parents.
Your innocence astounded him — like when people would joke around about how you didn’t know what sex was, all you would do is blush; or how one time a Senior basketball player walked up to your locker and invited you on a date. He was infamous for keeping a list of all the girls he took the virginities of, and you were his next target. The only thing you did though, was thank him and tell him that Bible study was scheduled to be a long one this week so you would rather go to that.
Something possessive leaped out of Eddie that day as he overheard the conversation from behind the metal door. He had to have you, had to know what it was like to roam your mind. He would do anything to make sure you were his.
So he did. Slowly, as the days passed, he would start talking to you more, trying to get you out of your little shell. You were so quiet that sometimes he would need to get close to your figure as you spoke — not that he minded of course. Eddie genuinely did love your innocence and how you didn’t even realize that he was being a flirtatious pervert when he complimented you. That every time he mentioned you were wearing something nice that day, he would go home and picture fucking you in only that piece of clothing or jewelry. His favourite, being the image of you wearing only that tiny silver crucifix you both loved so much.
Then there were the touches you had grown accustomed to. Eddie would invite you to sit with him during lunch — where he would lightly touch your fingers as he went to steal a fry off your tray. Afterwards, he would take his perverted compliments further, by straightening out the fabric of your skirt or shirt collar for you even if it just came from the dry cleaners. The Dealer would do anything to have an excuse to caress your skin for one moment.
You had asked him one day when you had visited his home to watch a movie: “you touch me a lot, why?”
“Do you not like it? Sorry, I just really enjoy—” if he wasn’t already worried about the fact that you were in his trailer for the first time, his heart dropped at the thought that you might hate him for his touch.
“No,” you would never want to make Eddie feel guilty for his actions. Youth group lessons taught you better than that, since it was only right to be accepting of everyone. “What I mean is, I don’t see many other friends do that with each other and I feel bad for them.”
It was his turn to be curious now. “What do you mean?”
“Your touches are nice, Eddie, so soft and sweet. I wish that all people would feel as nice as this with their friends too.” Look at you being charitable with your experiences — when these touches were only meant for you.
“That’s what friends do, they find ways to make their friends feel good.”
“Do you want me to do it for you too?” you reach out to touch his shoulder awkwardly, but you weren’t one to enjoy touching other people yourself.
“Not if you don’t want to. You make me feel good by being there for me when I need it. While I do the same for you, when you need someone to support you,” it’s true; even through all his indecent intentions, Eddie truly found an innocent and friendly warmth within himself for you, besides his love of wanting to be more than friends.
You look at him with sweet eyes to innocently ask the next question. “Then may you please rub my back like you do sometimes? It makes my heartbeat calm down and this movie is scary.”
“Of course, Angel,” it was right then, Eddie realized how much he loved it when you were needy.
“I wish I could have you do this whenever my cousins want to watch horror movies with me. Honestly, my parents don’t even know I’m here. But I just like your tou–”
“Tsk tsk, so naughty. Where do they think you are?”
“Am not,” you exclaimed and Eddie could tell your heart was beating a lot faster than before so he started to rub sweet circles on your back. “Plus, they think I’m watching a movie at a friend’s house, just don’t know who. It’s not a lie. I’m still a good girl.”
“Yes, you are,” he proclaimed deeply, realizing his rebel tendencies have inspired you. While you nearly moaned as your heartbeat stabilized, his touch and his voice made you feel so much better.
When Eddie was home alone that night, he couldn’t stop replaying the small whimpers of yours he memorized. If it was the hormones, or your innocent eagerness to be alone with him and let him touch you — he would never know which one he loved more.
Eddie was a sinner, he knew that, and was able to empower himself with the label. No matter how many times people around Hawkins would rebuke him as the Devil, or how often he would get stares from kids at school as he started to talk to you more: none of it phased him. What he loved most about you was how easily your innocence became obliviousness when it came to his sins – that you would hear about them and refuse to believe he was such a bad person because he was always so nice to you. Eddie couldn’t seem to understand why.
What he did understand though, was that his biggest sin was that every damn day of his life he was on the path of no return when it came to wanting to corrupt your virtue. To make all of his fantasies become a reality as he wanted to slowly make you addicted to him.
Did you figure it out? Is that why you were so awkward with him throughout the day? Why did you beg for his familiar touch in his memories, but pull away today?
Eddie’s mind moved at a million miles a minute, unsure of what was going on. But one thing was for sure: he was going to find out exactly what was hurting you, and he was going to do everything in his power to relieve that pain.
A small tap on the driver door window brought him out of his overstimulated thoughts. “Are you ready to go?” Your voice was muffled by the barrier, but Eddie was able to hear you before nodding.
He chuckled at your tendency to knock everywhere before you entered. Even with the van, you never approached it first unless he was already in it, or opened the door for you — that was mainly because The Dealer wanted to have some semblance of being a gentleman to you, even if he took that opportunity to touch your back to guide you into your seat.
“So the library?” Eddie asked as he watched you put your bag on the floor and straighten your skirt in the seat, not looking him in the eye as you respond.
“Y-yeah, it probably won’t be crowded since it’s a Monday.”
You were wrong, so wrong. It looks like all of the English teachers assigned similar group projects to their classes, since the library was filled to the brim with students from all grades cooped up at tables. You started to get nervous, the library was going to be your saving grace as you worked on this project.
“Should we go to my place?” He asked while tugging on the strap of your backpack lightly to get your attention.
“No,” you exclaimed a little too loudly, shocking Eddie a bit. “We can j-just go to mine instead.”
If you two finished the tasks at his trailer, then you felt as if it was walking into the Devil’s lair — a place where Eddie sinned like your parents said he did. The memories of the times your friend made you feel warm were enough to commit your treacherous acts; goodness knows how you’ll be when you’re in a room where everything is him.
While bringing the Devil reincarnate into your home wasn’t the best idea, your house had your Bible and other religious paraphernalia to protect you from giving into temptation. But, that’s also the place where you committed your unknowing sin, night after night — you thought.
These conflicting thoughts were about to be the death of you, as long as the annoying throbbing between your legs and Eddie’s teasingly sinister voice didn’t get you first.
-:-:-:-:-
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mooberryink · 25 days
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3.2.24 | It rained the entire morning & soaked through the afternoon, so I went to a used bookstore. I was happy to find some very cheap Wordsworth editions of Blake, Keats, & Shelley for my Big Six Romantic poets study next month in honor of National Poetry Month & napowrimo. I already have Wordsworth & Coleridge; only Lord Byron left (& nobody ever has him). I also picked up Wide Sargasso Sea, Ann Radcliffe's The Italian (with a Pokémon card tucked into the second chapter), & Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey. I love rainy days. ♡ 𝑁𝑜𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑖
𝑂𝑛 𝑚𝑦 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑑
▪︎ "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver, hiking trip to see elephant seal pups ▪︎ 𝑊𝑎𝑟 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑃𝑒𝑎𝑐𝑒 discussion updates, read two chapters ▪︎ The Annotated Persuasion: up to vol. I ch. 7 ▪︎ Finish 𝐷𝑒 𝑙'𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑖é by Montaigne, notes & letter on La Boétie ▪︎ Film recent book haul w/bunnies + forage basket w/treats
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inevitably-johnlocked · 2 months
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Five Fics Friday: February 9/24
Happy Friday everyone! Got 5 more fics to start off your weekend!! I hope you enjoy today's fics, and give some extra love to my boosted fic!!
Enjoy, and see you Sunday!
SIGNAL BOOSTING
Breathe by LoloLolly (T, 8,517 w., 1 Ch. || HLV Fix-It, Grief, Angst, Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Mary is Not Nice, Feelings Realization, Character Study, Blood Mention, Vomit Mention) – In which Sherlock's death is announced a bit...  prematurely in HLV. Things spiral from there.
RECENT MARKED FOR LATERS
Lying in Winter by Raina_at (E, 6,486 w., 1 Ch. || TSo3 Fix It, Established Relationship, Relationship Talks, Blow Jobs, Domestic Fluff) – What do you do when the love of your life is asleep in your bed and you're both excited for and terrified of what will happen when he wakes up? If you're Sherlock Holmes, you have a bonfire and do some midnight shopping. Or: John comes home. Sherlock does, too.
The Meeting Place by standbygo (E, 14,653 w., 11 Ch. || Man Up AU || Case Fic, Alternate First Meeting, Romantic Comedy, Mistaken Identity, Misunderstandings, Murder, Serial Killers, First Kiss / Time, Past Abuse, Romantic Fluff, First Dates, Blind Date, Happy Ending) – Sherlock thinks it's a breakthrough in his case. John thinks it's a date. They're both kinda right.
The Stories in Our Veins by victorianpining (E, 26,088+ w., 8/29 Ch. || Dracula Crossover / Victorian / Vampire AU || Unreliable Narrator, Blood and Injury, Blood Drinking, Gaslighting, Mental Instability, Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, Strangers to Lovers, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Angst with Happy Ending) – You hold in your hands a leather-bound book inscribed with the title The Stories in Our Veins. No author is named by the cover. On the first page, the following passage has been written in an elegant, cursive hand: A confederate who foresees your conclusions and course of action is always dangerous, but one to whom each development comes as a perpetual surprise, and to whom the future is always a closed book, is indeed an ideal helpmate. Sherlock Holmes in “The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier,” written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1926.
RECENT LOKIUS BOOKMARK
Exsanguination by Beb (T, 3,061 w., 1 Ch. || LOKI SERIES || Protective Loki, Mobius Whump, Hospitals, Worried Loki, Mobius Needs A Hug, Blood and Injury, Angst, Hurt/Comfort) – As a trained agent, Mobius really believed his presence was required in every mission, no matter how risky. As a worried friend and lover, Loki really believed this was absolutely, undoubtedly the last straw. He wasn't about to do nothing and let Mobius carelessly throw himself in danger anymore. Not after the last incident nearly cost Mobius his life.
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summercourtship · 2 months
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a missed meet cute. (edward's pov)
Edward and the reader's first meetings, from his perspective. From ch. 5-6 of Stay to Burn (Only to Drown Instead)- this will not make sense if you haven't read that!! 2687 words. | no warnings
read on ao3 | stay to burn masterpost
Arkham Asylum was both exactly what Edward had expected and nothing he was at all prepared for. When you’ve suffered in one place it was easy to think that all horrible places would make you suffer in the exact same way. And yet, it had somehow been easier to endure the suffering at the orphanage as a child than it was in the asylum as an adult. Maybe it was because when he was an orphan, he knew he could age out or request emancipation (which he had, as soon as he had been able). Here, there would only be escape if he forced it.
But, God, was the asylum boring.
There was hardly anything new going on, no mental stimulation for him to distract himself. He had a crossword from the newspaper (given to him by a sympathetic orderly each week) and a large book of sudoku that one of his previous followers had sent him a few weeks into his stint. He allowed himself to do one puzzle a day, trying to keep the book going as long as possible.
And then he saw her. Passing by a window, a new face in the stale hospital. But not new to him. No, he had seen her before and it only took a few moments to remember that she had been the one standing in front of him at the mayor’s funeral. The one who had let him move in front of her (even though that certainly ruined her view, she was far shorter than him) and gave him a front row seat to the chaos he had created.
When the car had crashed through the building and everyone was escorted out, he’d had half of a mind to find her again. After all, he had overheard her conversation and was interested in the project she was working on. (Because it was about him, that’s what her friend had said, had said that the girl talked about it all the time.)
But, he had other plans with the Batman that day and didn’t have the time to find a random college girl.
However, her friend had left her student ID somewhere clearly visible. A simple glance down at the lanyard and he knew how to find her, her name and student number out in the open for anyone to see. Later, when he was sitting alone and thinking about everything that had happened that day- the rush of his first real interaction with the Batman still coursing through his veins- he remembered her, her friend’s ID flashing behind his eyes as he sat in front of his computer, fingers flying over the keys before he could even think about what he was doing.
The name Marie felt fitting, a sign from a higher power he no longer believed in that he was on the right path.
Once he found Marie, it was easy to find the other girl, the one who mattered. One tag on Instagram and there she was. A small picture on the screen with a witty username and a short description simply stating that she was a student and what she was studying.
And, like a naive blessing, another affirmation that he was on the right path, her profile was public. Not that he couldn’t have gotten past a privacy filter easily. But now he didn’t have to dirty his hands.
He spent a minute or two scrolling through her pictures, but that wasn’t what he was looking for. It was just to solidify her face in his mind. That’s all. (That’s what he told himself. He couldn’t afford to get distracted by a pretty face right now.)
Once he was content with her photos, it was just a few short keystrokes until he had her email address. They really don’t make this information hard to obtain, not when you know how to find it.
He crafted an email then, generating a burner email quickly. This, he knew, could blow up in his face if she wasn’t what he thought she was. And she very well could turn this into the police (not that they, incompetent as they are, could trace it back to him). But he had a gut feeling about her. The way she had leaned forward over the railing, observing everything. The way her friend had described she delved into the research, how she seemed obsessed with it all.
No, he had a good feeling about her.
Normally, he wouldn’t give out the link to his website so casually. He liked that his followers had to work to find it, to prove that they were worthy of his cause. But she wasn't going to be one of his followers, not to the same extent that the others were. He knew that much. She had too much of a head on her shoulders to join a militant online group.
No, she was going to be the one to tell the world about what he was doing, the changes he was going to bring. she would sympathize with his message- karma, her friend had said she’d called it- and do the work of spreading his revelations of truth and justice in Gotham city.
At least, that’s what his fantasy had been. What should have happened if everything had gone to plan. But now he knew that it was foolish to put his trust in others so quickly, to make plans around others actions, especially if he’d never spoken to them. The Batman had taught him that much, the betrayal of his rejection still stinging months after. He had forgotten about the girl after the Flood had failed, his mind occupied elsewhere.
But seeing her on the other side of that glass in Arkham had been like the dove returning to the Ark, the olive branch clutched in its beak a symbol of peace, hope, rebirth. (If his Flood had succeeded, it would be an even more apt parallel but he shouldn't linger on that for too long.)
Ark-ham. Isn't that something?
Edward does not believe in coincidence. There was a reason she was at the mayor’s funeral and there was a reason she was at Arkham now, looking at him from the other hallway.
He stood still, his eyes narrowed slightly, wondering what she was thinking as she examined his face, her eyes wide. She made a movement, stuttering, like her body was trying to bring him closer to him. Then, something drew her attention away from him, a noise from further down her hallway. Edward continued to watch as she turned and hurried down the hallway, his head turning to track her movements.
Then, only a few brief weeks later (the weeks themselves were actually agonizingly long, boring days of doing nothing but trying to engage his mind with whatever was laying around him so he didn’t actually go insane), she appeared again.
This time, he was in his cell, laying on his cot and trying to dull the cacophony of voices from outside his cell. The glass in the cells weren’t soundproof, obviously, so he heard immediately when there was a new noise, his ears pricking up at the sound of the door to the block being unlatched.
He jumped from the cot, moving to the door to see who it could be. The guards weren’t switching yet, and as far as he knew no one had visits to their doctors scheduled for this time of the day. He pressed himself close to the door, peering down to the door.
It was the girl, accompanied by none other than Dr. Crane. The man wasn’t his doctor, but he’d seen him around and had enough small conversations with him to dislike him. (Edward didn’t like seeing you with him. He wondered how you knew him, if you had just met him when you’d- presumably- been hired to the asylum).
He pressed his face against the glass, trying to get a better look at the girl as Dr. Crane led her through the cell block. There was no practical reason for him to bring her here.
As Dr. Crane passed his cell, he gave Edward a side glance, his sharp eyes unreadable as they slowly slid away. But the doctor didn’t stop to say anything, though that insufferable smirk was still on his face. Edward paid him no mind, instead focusing on her.
Her head was craned backwards, examining the skylights and the second floor of cells as she slowly walked through the hall. He pressed himself closer to his door, mentally urging her to look down and see him. His mind was whirring, trying to figure out what he was going to say. Because he knew she would stop to speak with him, there was no way she wouldn’t feel the same draw to him that he did to her.
Finally, she did look down and almost immediately spotted him. Her lips parted, and he could see her inhale, slowly and shakily. But she continued walking, her eyes not leaving him.
Edward was now overthinking, knowing that if she did stop- and she would stop- he would have to start the conversation. (He’d never been good at starting conversations with girls. Or with anyone, really. It was a side effect, he told himself, of not speaking to anyone until he was ten even though he was perfectly capable of it. He hadn’t had the practice.)
What on earth was he supposed to say? Small talk was boring and would sound wrong coming from his mouth. He needed to say something that would grab her attention, that would keep her standing in front of him for as long as possible.
And then, she did stop. He withdrew from the glass, ignoring the fog from his breath. He couldn’t help but feel vindicated that he was right. And then, like he had planned it all along, he said the first thing he could think of.
“I know you.”
“What?” She took a step backwards, her pulse visibly jumping in her neck. He tried not to focus on it. “No, I was here a couple of weeks ago, you might’ve seen me then and-”
“No.” He knew it was irrational to expect her to remember him from City Hall. But still, how did she not remember his face when she had looked up into it and allowed him to step around her, how had she not made the connection when he was caught only a few days later? He realized, then, that he might have to hold her hand a bit. Metaphorically, of course. (For now). “You were there, in City Hall.”
It was satisfying to see the sudden recognition in her eyes, the flurry of emotions that crossed her expression. Confusion, fear, disbelief.
“Oh my god.��
“Karma, right?” And then, because he couldn’t help himself and he simply needed to know, he asked: “How’d that project go?”
“I never-” She shook her head, eyebrows furrowed. “It’s really none of your business.”
He stared at her, suddenly aware that maybe, just maybe, she didn’t like him. He couldn’t fathom why, considering the fact that she had apparently been on his side during his cleansing of Gotham’s corruption.
Then, like a snake, Dr. Crane appeared in his periphery, making his way back to the girl, though he was temporarily distracted by the clown. The girl either hadn’t realized it or was ignoring it in favor of continuing to glare at Edward. He looked over at Dr. Crane, the smile wiped off of his face at the reminder that this conversation was only fleeting and he only had a few more moments of the girl’s undivided attention. Slowly, Edward turned back to her, raising his eyebrows as the riddle formed itself in his mind. Something to keep her occupied.
A breadcrumb.
“What has a long neck, a name of a bird, feeds on ships' cargo, but is not alive?”
He could see her temporary disbelief that she was just asked a riddle. Probably thinking that he was living up to his name, or something like that. But then her eyebrows furrowed, a little crease forming in between them as she tried to figure out exactly what he meant.
The realization of the answer was clear on her face at the exact same moment that Dr. Crane slithered behind her. Edward didn’t miss how his hand found its way to her back, watching the movement with feigned disinterest.
The fact that the girl and the doctor were involved in some way would make this all a lot more interesting. And, he supposed, painful for you once you found out about Dr. Crane.
“Edward.” Oh, how he hated when Dr. Crane said his name. But then the doctor introduced her, as if Edward didn’t already know who she was. But Dr. Crane didn’t know that, of course. “This is my new assistant.”
At the sound of her own name, she whipped around to look at the doctor before back at Edward.
Edward repeated her name, slowly, like he was tasting it on his tongue (and he was- he had never said it out loud before, he’d never had a reason to). He was keenly aware that Dr. Crane was watching her, how her eyes widened and her breath stuttered for a brief moment.
Was she afraid of him? He wasn’t sure how to feel about that- part of him liked that he had any effect on her at all. It certainly felt better than his earlier assumption that she simply disliked him. After all, fear is better than indifference. He could work with fear, could use it to his advantage.
But on the other hand, he knew what Dr. Crane was doing down in the basement. For someone of Edward’s intelligence and perception, it would be hard to not know when half of his patients came back from treatment more delirious and paranoid than before, when those weren’t even symptoms they had exhibited before their sessions. Dr. Crane made his unethical behavior so obvious and yet no one in the asylum cared.
Well, no one that could do anything about it. Until now, with her sudden appearance as Arkham’s newest employee.
“We’ve met before.” Again, he couldn’t help himself.
“I wouldn’t call that meeting.” She was quick to dispute him. Of course, she wouldn’t think much of their brief encounter at the mayor’s funeral because she didn’t know what happened after. All of the work he had put into finding her, all of the imagined plans he had for her. For her, it was just an eventful afternoon that she was probably happy to put behind her.
“I suppose you wouldn’t.” But now it was everything to Edward. He could see her struggling to figure out the hidden meaning in his words. He wouldn’t help her, no, she was smart enough to figure it out. (He liked the way her eyes narrowed at him. Maybe he could work with her disliking him as well.)
Then, crushingly, coldly, she turned to Dr. Crane. “Can we go now?”
They left without saying goodbye. Of course they did, why would they say goodbye to him? But still, Edward pressed his hand against the glass, as if he could reach out and bring her back.
Like she could sense him staring at her, she turned back to look at him. He realized his hand must look like it was raised in a wave. But she didn’t return it, instead facing away from him again and continuing to follow Dr. Crane out of the cell block.
With a high squeak, his palm slipped off of the glass as he inhaled deeply, stepping away from the door and away from the prying eyes of the other inmates.
For the first time since he’d entered the asylum, he had something to occupy his thoughts. Plans, a vision of the way out forming in his mind. He wasn’t sure when he’d see you again, but he was sure it would be sooner rather than later.
After all, it seemed that fate was finally on his side.
ed + reader's playlist | poll for next POV
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iiikaruz · 10 months
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New CH episodes have made me officially decide to stop caring about the actual cast of the show </3 (/hj but i wish it was /j)
Anyway would you like to share some of your headcanons/scenarios for the side/minor characters ? It always makes my day 💚💖(/nf)
dude i feel you on these new episodes. wtf is going on over there. anyways, i’ll gladly dump this 10 ton stack of headcanons on you that i wrote down!! Marie Antoinette: 
loves hyperpop and 90s house music. she’s so slay (i have a playlist lol)
into european weirdo cinema like Gaspar Noe’s but she also likes chick flicks (her fave films are Climax (2018), Daisies (1966), and But I’m A Cheerleader (1999).)
frequents on lolita forums and goes to really shady places just to get cute lolita items.
has absolutely mastered voguing. super into ballroom culture.
has a pet borzoi (those groovy long-nosed dogs.) her name is “Vanille” and Marie loves her dearly.
wants to study fashion. she especially loves Vivienne Westwood and Moschino.
Jesús Cristo:
is a juggalo, and he indoctrinated Van Gogh into it as well.
says “it is what it is” at any minor inconvenience.
had a mental crisis at 13 as a product to the stress of living up to his clone father. similar to joan’s breakdown in s1e3 but 10x worse. he tries to ignore it when people bring it up.
designated driver on any road trip. for some reason.
into bands like The Cure whilst also bopping to Cypress Hill.
his fave video game is Parappa the Rapper.
accidentally punching holes/nails into his hand is a common occurrence. seems like it just keeps happening, so he’s learned to just roll with it. he’s also a pretty good nurse bc of it.
Marilyn Monroe:
is always down for the school play. BUT she usually just does script-writing and tech. 
into conspiracy theories and video essays. (all gorgeous gorgeous girls love video essays).
is a dedicated Britney Spears and Gwen Stefani stan.
SO “COQUETTE LIZZY GRANT DIOR RETRO” in her fashion choice.
she also gives “elle woods from legally blonde” vibes. straight A student right here.
CERTIFIED GIRLBOSS <3
Thomas Edison:
is obsessed with American Psycho (2000). he has a poster in his room and he’s weirdly obsessed with Christian Bale (very 🍎🍉🍊 of him, but he always excuses it with “oh no, i just idolize and worship him. there’s absolutely nothing gay ab it.” he’s lying.)
also he’s SUCH a pretentious film bro. he has a whole library of stupid film facts shoved in the back of his mind (im totally not projecting).
he only listens to: 80s new-wave stuff like New Order, Oingo Boingo, Beastie Boys, & Talking Heads OR Lana del Rey. There is no in between.
he worked (past-tense bc that shit is GONE in 2023) at a blockbuster video store next to the mall and he liked being a total bitch to people about it (example: “you really rented this shit? this movie sucks, dude”)
after getting unfreezed, he was ECSTATIC over how easy pirating movies is nowadays.
Napoleon Bonaparte:
member of the speech/debate club and he is THE WORST TO BE PAIRED WITH. he’s foaming at the mouth the moment someone gives a rebuttal he didn’t think of. some meetings end in him trying to beat up someone. 
into 80s rock like Metallica and Black Sabbath. he has an electric guitar. he also FUCKING LOVES ABBA AND JAMIROQUAI. like… too much.
unlawfully good at Just Dance. he absolutely fucks it up on the dance floor.
adores fantasy films like Conan (1982) and The Never-Ending Story(1984). he’s so lame/ pos.
he bakes really well. that’s all he’s got going for him.
he either found his napoleonic military uniform at party city or at a thrift store with Marie Antoinette; his story changes depending on who he’s talking to.
he cut his own hair when he was 14. the following conversation after he did so was with caesar, and it was just the haircut scene from fleabag . he then continued to keep his stupid haircut to what it is now.
is a hopeless romantic. he can make up entire love poems & sonnets in his head about a girl he’s crushing on, but literally cannot talk to people without sounding like a douchebag unless he’s super comfortable w/ them.
Ivan the Terrible:
is an avid deftones, sewerslvt, & duster listener (i, unfortunately, ALSO have a playlist.)
spends his nights scrolling on 4chan and arguing w/ people. him & topher have accidentally argued w/ each other AT LEAST 5 times.
literally refuses to take off his ushanka in any weather. it doesn’t matter to him if it’s 90 degrees, that thing is staying ON.
kins Travis Bickle and Shinji Ikari. i mean, just look at this dude and how he presents himself. average NGE & Taxi Driver enjoyer/ hj.
fave video games are Postal 2 and osu!. he plays osu! phenomenally, to the point where it’s impressive. (pls put that energy into a job or something).
and yea that’s all the energy i have to write this down :]
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bethanydelleman · 1 year
Text
Mary Bennet: Is it Canon?
Mary wears glasses
Fanon (I’m using this term to cover adaptations and JAFF), not canon. Never mentioned.
Mary wears dark colours/dresses like a nun/she is secretly Jane Eyre
Fanon, not canon. Never mentioned in the book and unlikely since Mrs. Bennet is trying to get them all married. She probably wears similar things to the rest of her sisters, though she may trim her gowns and hats less.
Mary styles her hair differently
Fanon, not canon. Never mentioned. Their hair is probably all done by the same upper housemaid whom Mrs. Bennet tells to focus on Jane instead of Kitty on one occasion.
Mary loves Fordyce’s sermons
Fanon, not canon. Mr. Collins chose what book to read and we are never specifically told any books that Mary reads. According to David Shapard, Mary quotes the novel Evelina by Frances Burney either Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Letters by Hugh Blair or Letters on the Improvement of the Mind by Hester Chapone. It is reasonable to assume she may have read Fordyce since it is in the house, but we don’t know if she liked it. If she was obsessed with it, she’d probably quote it more often.
Mary is intelligent
Mary wants to be seen as intelligent, but she mostly just parrots things she has read without actually integrating the knowledge. This is why Mr. Bennet says she makes “extracts”, which would be a collection of quotes. She has a very shallow understanding of what she reads and therefore cannot use her knowledge without preparation, as we see in Ch 2.
“What can be the meaning of that emphatic exclamation?” cried he. “Do you consider the forms of introduction, and the stress that is laid on them, as nonsense? I cannot quite agree with you there. What say you, Mary? For you are a young lady of deep reflection, I know, and read great books, and make extracts.”
Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.
Mr. Bennet is actually mocking Mary there (father of the year). 
Being smart is Mary’s personal expression of vanity. Today you would think of her as a know-it-all, but one who spouts trivia instead of actually thinking about deep topics.
Mary is a wallflower/shy
Mary is very eager to put herself on display and be the centre of attention:
Mary, after very little entreaty, preparing to oblige the company. By many significant looks and silent entreaties did she endeavour to prevent such a proof of complaisance,—but in vain; Mary would not understand them; such an opportunity of exhibiting was delightful to her, and she began her song. (Ch 18)
Fanny Price (Mansfield Park), who wants to be a wallflower and is shy, refuses to learn how to play at all, probably because she doesn’t want this sort of attention. Mary’s speeches are another example of her displaying herself. She is drawing attention, not trying to hide. 
Mary sings/plays terribly
Fanon, not canon. Mary plays pedantically. It’s not fun to listen to her because she plays technically difficult pieces when you just want some nice music. As a modern example, she plays classical music when you want a pop song.
At the Netherfield ball we hear, “Mary’s powers were by no means fitted for such a display; her voice was weak, and her manner affected.” According to David Shapard, the voice being weak means that Mary gets worse over time, so the fact that she is doing a second son is the real problem. She’s not off-key. And her manner is affected, as in she’s showing off and that is easy to perceive. So while Mary plays better than Elizabeth, she plays for her own vanity instead of for other’s pleasure.
Mary doesn’t dance
Fanon, not canon. We never hear of Mary dancing, but she does attend balls and if someone asks her, she assumably would dance. We know Mr. Collins intended to dance with all his cousins in chronological order, except for Elizabeth being first. It’s probably not mentioned because Mary isn’t a main character or having a romance during the novel.
Mary spends all her time studying
True. While she does go to evening engagements, Mary declines every time her sisters invite her to go somewhere during the day and Jane says she is reading instead of attending to her grief-stricken mother.
So what is Mary? She knows she isn’t beautiful, so instead she shows off her accomplishments and memorized quotations. She has a pretty bad relationship with her sisters. While her behaviour seems better to us than Lydia and Kitty’s, she is vulgar because she puts herself forward for praise and display. Fortunately, she is only nineteen years old so hopefully she will improve over time.
Reference: David Shapard’s The Annotated Pride and Prejudice
The Mary Map (a collection of every reference to Mary Bennet in P&P)
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penelope-regulus · 8 months
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Thank you so much for Eckhart mansion series loving it! I wanted to tell some information that you mention which is confirm by novel.
1-duke office is on first floor
2-derrick office was located on the west side of the mansion, opposite the one where the Duke's office is located. ( penelope said derrick office looked very desolate and restrained it show his cold-blooded nature.
3-Penelope room is in second floor.
4-Ivonne room is at third floor ( It was the floor where the least amount of people walked around, and it was also because it was the floor that connected to the pathway to the attic ) penelope said even tho her room was pretty good, but the Ivonne room was different from the size of the door. It wasn’t offensive or upsetting.
This isn’t novel but if you see ch 123 you see a lot of Eckhart mansions and…..it looks like palace of versailles……penelope lives where marie antoinette once live…..
Once again thank you for the series keep up the good work! Can’t wait to see more!
Thank YOU for the appreciation and the information you've provided here ❤
It seems I made a mistake about the location of Derrick's study, so I'm going to try and correct that in my post about where it is when I get the time to. Thanks for making that detail clear for me!
And also OMIGOD!! I never realized the resemblance between the Palace of Versailles and the Eckhart mansion!
They seem to be the exact same!!
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
WHOA-- The layout, the number of floors, the coloring, and patterns all bear a clear resemblance to each other! Even the floor and balconies have the similar patterns on them!
W-whatttttttttttttttttt
My sincerest appreciation and gratitude to you who made my lifelong dream of getting to see the full construction of the exterior of their mansion come true!!!!!!
Anyway, thank you for liking the series! I'll try to continue to keep this series going with stuff on the outer parts of their mansion including the back garden and the drill hall!
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pennyserenade · 2 months
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all we ever wanted was everything
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interlude i: henry & mariella - fade into you | ao3 link
pairing: javier peña x female oc, javier peña x named female oc (mariella), male oc x female oc rating: e (explicit) tags/warnings: angst, smut, talk of children and pregnancy, marriage, depression, infidelity.  word count: 6.7k summary: theirs is a story as old time: married much too young, certain they were pioneers on those unbeaten paths of love. all they ever wanted was everything & all they ever discovered was how none of it was really as original as they had hoped. it is a love story & it is not.  a/n: you don’t technically have to read this but i think for the sake of the story & all  understanding of mariella as a character, it is recommend. also it does play an important part in the next chapter, but i do think could get by without it.
The clock ticks past midnight at the college library and no one notices. Mariella Tawes and Henry Rath are both little more than lowered heads at the opposite ends of the same room, drawing in the same tedious, steady breaths.
She is studious at the wrong hours, insomniac and homesick, and he is making up for another weekend of fun. His head swarms, full of numbers and equations, and hers tilts, rested on the palm of a tired hand. Mariella’s mouth follows along silently with the words on the page and Henry’s eyes are prone to wandering in her direction. He chances a glance at her now and then, and finds she never looks back, so he grows braver still with the length at which he inspects her each time.
He remembers her name. They had health together last year in that cold, creaky classroom with old Mrs. Severson (who remembered, ironically, as being pretty severe with the deadlines). Her name is Mariella, pronounced Mari-ella. He wonders if she remembers him. She doesn’t seem to notice him from her corner of the world – and didn’t then, either – so he guesses probably not.
Henry is good-looking: hazel eyes, more green than blue, generous nose, boyish smile with a heavy bottom lip, and a head full of thick brown hair that falls shaggily over his ears and cascades just above his eyebrows–just how the girls like it. If you think of an All-American boy–try to conjure up an image–he might be the product you receive. Someone, in the spring of his Freshman year, told him he was the Pacific Northwest’s answer to JFK Jr, so of course he is not alien to the attention of women. He doesn’t really need more of it, but for some reason he’d really like Mariella to look at him just once.
Maybe that’s why he’s staring so hard. It’s not just a glance anymore. He’s inspecting her the way she’s looking at the book in her hands, careful and captivated.
She looks up at him, notices, like she can hear his thoughts. He smiles at her, not as nervous as he ought to be for having been caught. He wanted to be caught. It's the truth. She smiles too, before she ducks her head and finds her book page again. Her cheeks tint red and he feels poorly, but nicely too—liking the idea that he might be something that could make her nervous in a warm way. They go back to their quiet, to their own work, until his hungry stomach upsets the balance in the room thirty minutes later. It grumbles for seconds that feel like hours.
He laughs nervously, embarrassed. She smiles, reserved. “I haven’t eaten in a while,” he says.
“I think the pizza place is open down the street,” she provides kindly. He nods; it is. During the week, he works there. It is odd that he has never seen her there.
“Are you hungry? Would you like to go with me?”  He is personable. Mariella is less so, it seems, but not in an unwelcoming way. He can tell she’s shy. He remembers that she rarely ever raised her hand in class.
She shakes her head. “I’ve got to study.” The book in her hand is lifted, as if to say: see.
He smiles. “That’s fine. I’ll bring one back for us.”
He doesn’t give her the time to protest. When he comes back, cheeks red from the winter bite, he’s got half cheese, half pepperoni. She’s still in the corner, softly whispering a passage to herself. “Which kind?” he asks, opening the box in front of her.
“It’s okay, really,” she tells him. She smiles. “Eat your pizza. I don’t need any.”
“Are you sure?” he frowns.
She shakes her head again. “I don’t want to take your pizza. I’m okay, really,” she insists, still smiling. A polite smile, cushioning a rejection.
He gives up, trying not to act too defeated. He probably wouldn’t take his pizza either, now that he thinks about it. “Okay,” he tells her. He goes back to his side of the room, opens the math textbook that has been making his head feel heavy, and gets back to work. Grease stains the college-lined paper as he begins yet another problem.
“You’re Henry, aren’t you?” she asks out of nowhere.
When he lifts his head, he sees her looking at him from all the way over there. Her finger is tucked in between the pages of her book and she is beautiful in a way he can’t necessarily pinpoint, and wouldn’t want to. He nods sheepishly. Rejection does wonderful things to the ego, especially at hours like this. Even JFk Jr. would blush. “Yeah,” his voice says for him.
“I’m Mariella. I think we had a class together.”
“Yeah, health last term. I didn’t know if you remembered.”
“I did.”
She did. He blooms with his newfound boyish crush.
They are going to fall in love. It’s written between the lines of the grease stained paper his number is sketched on—the one he gives to her just shy of one am, and she keeps for decades after.
Leafs fall on campus the day Henry walks Mariella to class for the first time. They meet in the middle of the large university, at the edge of the empty soccer field. She wears a maroon cable knit sweater and her smile grows incrementally as he approaches her. His hair is wet, curling around his ears already, and the wind is biting as it blows in his direction. He wouldn’t have put this off for the world; he’d jog halfway here from the gym, wet droplets falling onto his heather-gray sweater the whole way. Even with the shower, he smells somewhat like chlorine and clean sweat, but he’d made it. His chest burns from the effort, but he beams at the sight of her–a beautiful square toothed smile.
They’ve been seeing each other in that tentative way young people do when they’re not sure what the other one wants; casual non-dates at the cafeterias peppered across campus, kissing in the back of his car with the radio turned down low on weekends; promises to see each other throughout the week. But no one dares to say the word date or boyfriend and girlfriend. They exist in the liminal space of the pre-relationship, and it’s beginning to worry him.
“Want me to carry those?” he asks her, nodding to the books in her hand. They don’t seem to be weighing her down, but the act seems chivalrous and he wants to be helpful, giving. Last night he’d explored the inside of her mouth with his tongue, tasted the salty column of her neck and felt her over her white lace bra. The car had gotten so stuffy, and she’d been grateful to let him draw up her blouse — it had proved rather tantalizing for them both. But as nice as that was, he doesn’t want her to think that’s all he wants.
“It’s okay,” she tells him. He looks so handsome like this: dripping wet, his chest rising and falling, so earnest. He’s got such an intense stare–so imploring.
Henry likes her–really– and she knows it, which scares her most of all. Something about him makes her feel helpless. He is like a cosmic wonder, some shooting star that tails its way across the night sky and fills you with hope – all while making you feel the precariousness of human life.
“You didn’t have to walk me to class, you know? I’ve been doing it by myself for a long time,” she says, though not unkindly. Her voice is always warm with him, even without her trying.
His bottom lip protrudes and his eyes go droopy, as if he is a puppy dog that’s just been kicked. “You don’t mind it, do you?”
“No. No, of course I don’t,” she's quick to clarify. “I just don’t want you to think you’ve got to do it.”
A cloud of relief flushes into the ecosystem of his body. He wears a contented grin as he breathes out: “I do want to. I like being around you, Mariella”
If  he only knew how much she wanted him. She can’t shake this feeling of impending failure, can’t shake how it looms ominously over each interaction they have together. At the dining halls she worries her food choice is wrong. In his car she worries he might have more experience than she does. On walks such as this one, she worries his inspecting gaze will catch an errant behavior, an ugly mark, too much smile or too little—anything—and find her no longer attractive. The fact that he seems so pleasantly happy to be here with her, walking, stuns her more than it ought to. It isn’t that she isn’t pretty. It’s not even that being pretty is what matters most to her. What Henry has brought into her life, along with a pocketful of joy she’s trying her best to ignore, is the realization that she’s afraid she’s not lovable. That something is wrong, always has been wrong, and that when she opens herself to him, he will find it.
“I’d like to take you as my date to this party I’ve been invited to next week.” He broaches the topic gingerly as they round the corner. They branch off into a more secluded pathway that she takes every day to this class. The stony decade old buildings provide an echoey background as he says,“It’s a low stakes affair, just something a friend of mine’s putting together.”
She stares ahead, feeling the lump of fear form in her throat. Now is the time to back out, she thinks. But for some reason she can’t. His body bumps into hers and he apologizes weakly for the misstep. In his voice she can hear nerves. She looks at him. His face is open, nothing to hide on its handsome expanse; he is nervous. “You don’t have to,” he adds quickly, “I just thought maybe since…”
“I’d love to go,” she tells him. Okay, she thinks. This is it. You are going to do this. This being: pursuing him, allowing herself to be pursued, falling in love with him. Getting serious. This is more than she’s ever given to any person in her life and it makes her flush. A grin breaks out across her lips and she feels like laughing. He looks like he feels that way, too.
“Great,” he says. “I…Would you like to have lunch with me? After your class?”
“Yes.”
“Two yeses in a row. I feel like I’ve got a good streak going here.”
“You do,” she laughs. They turn another corner. When they bump into each other again, no one apologizes.
“Mariella?” he asks.
“Yes?”
“Would you be my girlfriend?”
Her eyebrows draw up to her hairline. She looks to see if he’s joking. He is not.
“Okay.” It doesn't take her long to decide. This is a part of the plan, after all, just served up sooner than she imagined. “Yes.” —
In Harvey, James Stewart talks to his imaginary bunny and loses his mind in the most endearing manner. He’s set to the soft volume of six tonight, heard but not always seen. The hues of the movie throw shadows on Henry’s face and Mariella admits to herself that this boy is devastatingly good looking. Her heart thrums nervously in her chest as his warm hand skirts up her leg. They’re going to do it. He’s got condoms in his bedside table and a bottle of lube in the bathroom, if needed.
It isn't Mariella’s first time, nor his, but there’s an exciting freshness to it anyway. He gathers her up in his lap, asks her once, twice, ten times whether or not this is okay. His hand fondles her breasts, grips at the flesh of her ass, and drags a slow path to the waistband of her underwear. She nods against his forehead, warm with desire and flush with excitement. Last week he had fingered her in his car, in a position much like this one. She’s been thinking of it since, let’s it cross her mind at odd and obscure hours of the day. To be wanted by Henry makes her feel good, seen, human. When she thinks of his fingers inside of her, the way he kissed her hotly as his fingers ran over clit…
She moans wantonly and he nods, encouraging her. “Please,” she tells him softly, “Now.”
Suddenly Henry is above her, in her, forearms pitched at either side of her head, tongue in her mouth. Her hands guide his ass and her legs embrace him, the entirety of her body opening for him. He groans softly as he sheaths himself inside of her. Beneath them, the mattress groans from the pressure of their sway. It is nothing. It is everything. People have been doing it for centuries and yet nothing like this, not the way Henry and Mari do it now. It is flesh meeting flesh, the undoing of neatness and propriety that has guarded her for too long. Mariella gasps earnestly when he comes inside of the condom and he kisses her until her lips are red and plump and ache a little. Then he does something no man has done before and he makes her cum too, his lips glossy with her want at the end. She likes him.
In the post-coital aftermath, they finish the movie. He holds her loosely against his naked frame and touches her appreciatively, a thumb stroking a nipple, or her stomach, or some place as innocuous as her cheek. When he tells her that the movie is a favorite of his father’s, a man who calls him once every five years and who he scarcely knows past that single fact, Mariella falls a little in love with him.
Henry Rath understands her before he knows he does.
—-
They move in together, in an apartment close to campus. During the summer they had searched relentlessly for a place, calling long distance from Laredo to Washington, racking up unimaginable phone bills as they circled their newspaper entries with red pens. They hummed and hawed over the possibility of their future and now they stand in it: A plain two bedroom that costs three hundred a month. 
The manager had been so adamant that they take the apartment as soon as possible — “These things go fast because we’re so close to campus” — so they did. Because why not? It's been two years and Henry’s finally got a diploma. He wants to hang it somewhere that’s all his. 
Mariella wraps her arms around his torso and lays her head against his back. She moves with his muscle, listens to him speak through the sinew of his body. “It’s so hot,” he groans, but he doesn’t tell her to get off of him. He bangs a nail into the wall and laughs with boyish pride when it turns out alright. She had told him she worried that his craftsmen skills weren’t up to boot. 
“You did it,” she says, poking her head out from behind him. He lifts an arm and she pulls herself through, hanging off his side. It is hot; she can feel the sweat on the small of his back. They inspect his work with  grins only people in love can wear; soft and pleasant, like life is a cloud and they’re ready to sleep on it. “I probably shouldn’t have,” he responds. But he’s happy he did. 
She nods; she told him so. But this is so new. He is a college graduate and she’s a year out from her own degree. For the first time in her life she will never return home after the year finishes. This fact alone is enough to make Henry warm with excitement. Two summers without her had been long–even with internships to keep him busy. He visited her once, midsummer this past year. Laredo had welcomed him as most places did: with open arms. Mari’s father thought he had a good head on his shoulders, and told her so. And secretly, without her knowledge, Henry had asked the man—who could be intimidating when he wasn’t actively being warm—if asking Mariella to marry him would be alright. 
“At twenty-three it is easy to think you know what the world wants for you,” James told him. But he’d said yes after Henry added on the fact that he wouldn’t do it until Mariella was finished with school. So there’s this apartment and the promise of more to come. It’s pleasant to have so much future, an endless expanse of more stretched out before them. 
They will even thrill at the insanity of shared holidays, divvying themselves up between Laredo (her father’s) and Washington (his mother’s) with a bewildering delight. Their marriage is inevitable, but time is no race. Unlike their parents, they vow to do it right. -
She wears an inexpensive pink gown that her father had bought her for a different occasion–her college graduation–and admires the way her simple gold band looks against the tan of Henry’s suit. It’s fitted, the first he’s ever had. He’s so handsome that she feels a deep and incessant need to just touch him. Her husband. The word feels ethereal and interminable, sweet on the tongue as she nuzzles her head into his neck and whispers it. As they sway along to the soft sound of wedding acoustics, he lays his hand on the small of her back. Married in a church earlier today and celebrating in the back of her grandparents’ sizable home, Mariella feels like she’s beat some magnificent curse. After the reception, they travel into the thick of the Washington woods. He’s gotten them a honeymoon cabin, equipped with a hearth. There is no reception, just trees and the eerie quiet of vast woodlands. What is usually the makings of a horror movie seems a respite with him.
She wraps herself around him in an armchair, moves into his lap, lets herself gasp with pleasure. There is no one around to hear. He tastes like forever, his tongue finding her own, his cock deep inside of her. They move like they did when they were dancing, a sway, his hips meeting her hips, a rhythm so comfortable and easy as to allow for conversation.
“Two children,” he rattles off, tucking her hair behind her ear. He looks down between them, his voice heavy with his own desire as he watches them connect. Henry. He’s got a mole on his cheek and he wants to fill her with children. His wedding ring rests against the softness of her curves and hers presses into the firmness of his bicep. Two children, he says, because he and Mariella are the only children to two sets of parents who didn’t work out. It’s lonely being the only creation. She nods against his forehead and presses her lips to his. They gasp into each other as he fills her deeper.
She’s on birth control so the sentence is little more than a fairy tale, but they like it. Maybe it’s sweet naïveté or honeymoon foolishness. Perhaps it’s the fact that they’re tucked away in the trees, no one coming to disturb them for a week, not even in the form of a phone call. Whatever it is, they enjoy it. They form these stories between them, hips moving together in wedded sync. She feels him deep inside of her and her cheeks tint red as he tells her, against the cusp of her ear, “Let’s make them now, Mariella.”
It’s so easy to agree knowing it can’t happen. Playing pretend like children, except now the concepts are grander and the playing is different, a shade more intimate. She closes her eyes and imagines hazel-eyed children in a beautifully lit house, their little feet in the palm of her hand. Their toes will look like his; their smile will look like hers. Maybe they will inherit something from his mother. Maybe something of her father’s. It doesn’t matter. There will be two and they will not be lonely, and they will be half of him and she will love them just as much, if not more.
Her and Henry are going to grow old together. They’ve discovered love, really discovered it, a groundbreaking newness to the oldest thing in the world. It's never been like this, not between anyone else. Mariella is so sure.
- During the first summer of their new marriage, Henry makes friends with the principal of a private Catholic school. They stand cart to cart in a long checkout line and find common ground on a topic as simple as Sunday night football. By the time they reach the end of the line, Henry’s got himself an interview. They need an accountant as badly as he needs a job. In the parking lot, holding a package of hot dogs in one hand, he leans forward and shakes the man’s hand with the other. He is so pleased with himself that he calls Mariella as soon as he gets to the car.
He gets the job because he’s Henry: lovely, affable, and qualified. He does a good job. Such a good job, in fact, that they take Mariella on too.
At first she is a helper for a large second grade class, but then she matures quickly into a full fledged teacher herself. Mrs. Miller has a baby in December and decides the baby needs her more than her little classroom does. There is talk of Mariella being set to take on kindergarten next year, too because Ms. Neely, a seasoned kindergarten teacher, is ready to move up with her class.
The air is full of promise. Their future feels nearer and nearer every day. They buy a moss green ranch house with a downstairs and an upstairs, and two extra rooms for anything they want. They get the approval to paint it tan by the Homeowners association and they laugh together about the fact that they have to ask for things like that.
Henry falls asleep on the couch sometimes, too tired to drag himself to bed but they are happy. They married young and people told them it would be hard. And it’s not terribly hard, not as bad as they made it seem. He is still adoring. He brings her flowers for no reason, and he still loves her enough to take her on dates every Saturday night, no matter what. She can’t ask for much more.
——
Henry’s wearing a red baseball cap. His cotton white t-shirt is paired with blue-wash Levi jeans and he looks devastatingly good–like a baseball player on a day off. It is the school’s annual end of summer picnic. Mariella wears a pink summer dress that falls to her ankles, and a delicate gold cross on her neck to make up for the indency of bare shoulders. Children and parents alike call her “Mrs. Rath” as she helps pass out food.
One of the mothers is flirting with Henry, the way mothers tend to do because school accountants don’t usually look like this. It makes Mariella ache with pleasure. His muscle is flexing beneath the cotton of his shirt as he plays idly with a baseball in his hand and listens to the woman. It’s like he’s James Dean or Marlon Brandon: an American dream lover in the flesh. He is all hers.
The mother looks at him like he’s the greatest thing on God green’s earth and he’s so polite, so kind, nodding along to her like he doesn’t notice. Perhaps he doesn’t. She wouldn’t put it past Henry.
He turns his head and sees her. He begins waving like crazy and the mother turns her head to look too. When she sees Mariella she smiles like a woman who understands, or one who’s been caught, and nods her head respectfully. I see, the move says. And Mariella beams. Yes, she thinks warmly, he is all mine.
She finds she wants to bury herself in the love he has for her. She’ll give him children, of this she is certain. Not now, but one day. They both intrinsically understand this, so he doesn’t ask and she never says. Their condoms and their concepts stretch on, because they are so young and life is so sweet with ripe possibilities, but she knows, looking at him, that she must do this for him. She loves him more than anything. If she is going to give anyone children, it has to be him.
-
Her mother was older than this by the time she had her.
Henry and Mariella experience a shift, eat separate dinners on Wednesdays and Fridays, and make friends with people at work. He goes golfing sometimes, talks about country clubs and moving away. This is ennui. She shrugs, content with life but open to the possibilities. Or is she content? Is this just boredom she’s grown used to? She finds it’s better not to think about that. It is contentment.  
One night Henry asks her about babies. It is not a forbidden topic but they’ve begun to treat it like it is. He has come home late, a little buzzed, and he is groping her. She doesn’t mind. It has been two weeks. “When?” he asks softly into her ear. She leans back into him, hums. He humps against her backside and seems to forget she doesn’t answer.
She has children. Fourteen, all small and bright and lovely. There’s a precocious little girl who she favors, and almost makes her consider the possibility of it. It just doesn’t seem like the right time now.
Some day, she will give him his children.
They are still young. There is so much time. –
Over a cup of coffee, Mr. Seton confesses to Mariella that he loves her. His classroom is across the hall from hers and he seems to be her only friend these days. They’ve bonded over many things: music, old movies, the fact that they’ve both got busy, active partners and that they are the youngest on the roster this school year. Henry has so many friends, and seems to make a new one every week, despite the fact that his job is rather isolated. It makes Mari nervous, like there’s something wrong with her. When Mr. Seton – whom she calls Adam when there are no children around – tells her he loves her, she feels betrayed. You were my friend, she wants to tell him, in the same tone she uses to tell a student she is disappointed in them.
When she gets home, she tells Henry. He is upset—not at her, he makes sure to clarify—but at Adam. He asks her all kinds of questions about him, and though they are spoken in a gentle tone, she knows: Henry is upset at her, even if he says he’s not. It’s an undercurrent, his anger, his frustration.
“He knows I’m married,” she adds hopefully, as if it will help. But she has wondered all day if maybe she hasn’t been doing a good job at showing how married she is–wondering if maybe somewhere along the way Adam had figured out something she hadn’t. When Henry asks, “And Adam’s wife? Does he not think of her?” she knows the questions are meant for her, at least in part. And Mariella’s husband? Does she not think of him?
Henry loves Mariella more than he has ever loved anyone. If this divide they’re experiencing is because of children then he won’t ever ask about them again. He hadn’t even meant to. He’d gotten a little tipsy that night and it had slipped out, but it doesn’t matter to him. Not this much. He’ll do anything if it means that goddamn teacher won’t tell Mariella things like that again. Next time he sees her–tomorrow–Mr. Seton will know Mariella is too goddamn in love–that it will be pointless and embarrassing to confess something like that. Their love is invincible and this is just a kink because they married young. Everyone said they’d go through rough patches and this is one of them. How dare that man think his confession could come to anything?
“Mr. Seton, love your own wife,” Henry can imagine himself saying to the be-speckled, wannabe home-wrecker. He is nothing if not equable, even to those who threaten his domain, his life. “You’re going through a rough patch, and my wife will not be your garden of Eden. She loves me. She tells me what you said. Your secrets are her stories to me, because she loves me.”
Maybe not so equable, then, not in his own mind. Not to Mr. Seton. Not to fucking Adam.  
Later Henry fingers Mariella on the staircase. They don’t make it to the bedroom because they can’t; it's needy and desperate. It feels like before, like she is twenty and he is twenty-two and this is that shitty apartment they rented together their second summer as a couple. It feels like that until he asks her to say she loves him. She does, and he asks again, over and over and over, and he swallows the words in his mouth along with her moans. They go down like stones, hard and sharp. They are true–she does love him–but they are also just words, yet to be eroded by the pleasures of deep meaning.
Mr. Seton loves her, but Henry loves her more.
She loves me, she loves me not.
God, they married so young.
- A third anniversary. They don’t think of children, at least not together. Henry does, but it makes him ache so he tries not to. They’ve got a lifetime ahead of them and Mariella is not yet even thirty. They will have her eyes, her mouth. They will have his eyes, his nose. They will be perfect and loving and worth the trouble and the time and this desperation he can’t seem to fix.
Mariella forgets to say she loves him in the morning before work but remembers many more times throughout the day. This is just life.
- They argue. It is so rare that they do. They are not like this.
It is angry. His anger is large, not violent, but it makes her lip trimble anyways. For the first time in her life, she thinks she could hate him. She does. But then she doesn’t. She loves Henry so much and this is her fault. She works so late, comes home too tired to do anything but sleep.
“What does a teacher even have to do that late, Mariella?” he bellows and it is an ugly accustation. She counters: “Are you saying my job is somehow less important than yours? You don’t think I need to stay out as late as you because what–you make more?”
The argument becomes about so much of nothing in the end. Henry wanted to go on vacation—and it was only a suggestion. She was unrelenting and mean and they end the night by fucking. Fucking, unlike anything they’ve done before. It is ugly and they don’t use a condom. He cums on her thigh, mostly, and she is afraid two weeks later when her consistent period isn’t consistent anymore.
She doesn’t buy a pregnancy test to assuage her fears, not that first week, and she doesn’t tell him. The thought of it makes her sick. She can’t bring a child into this. It is so boring and ugly, and they are so young. She has fourteen kids in her class and she doesn’t want to take time away to be a mother. Not yet. She knows she will not be like Ms. Miller and he will not understand. Henry aches to be a parent. She can’t barely handle it, the way he aches. When her period comes she wants to be happy, but she is so notably unhappy now. Henry worries more about the teacher who confessed she loved her, to the point of quiet paranoia. He asks her so many questions about him. He finds the pregnancy test in the trash. They don’t talk about any of it. - Henry doesn’t want to divorce Mariella, but he realizes that he has to. He’s watching a movie late at night and she’s gone, at a conference for teachers and he is so excited for her to get home, wants her more than ever. But he knows what will come is not the Mariella he needs. It’s this idea he’s in love with, and maybe he’s that to her too. Ideas don’t stretch very far.
She doesn’t love him anymore. Not really. Not the way he needs her to.
They discuss it in the shower when she returns. He can’t tell if she’s crying as she leans her head back into the water spray. “It’ll cost money,” she tells him, so matter-of-fact he wonders whether or not it's a badly timed joke. It is and it isn’t. She loves Henry. She only said it so she wouldn’t promise babies to make him stop talking about it. Because she can’t do that. Not yet. Not now. Probably not ever. She is only twenty-six.
She read once that babies inherit fears and anxieties of the mother when they are in her womb. Her mother had been twenty years old and scared to death of her, of the idea of having to care for her alone. Maybe that’s where she got this: a fear of motherhood. Or maybe she’s just wrong, born out of sorts. She’s got a maternal instinct but an emotionally barren womb. It's no man’s land, working but unavailable. Everything will come out wrong somehow, she knows. If God was that cruel to Eve, what’s stopping him from doing something as twisted as that to her? Nothing.
Henry will never understand that. She is only twenty-six today and next time she will be only twenty-seven. Or maybe she will just be twenty-six and divorced. Who knows?
It's raining so hard outside that they’re wet from the downpour. He’s kissing her like he’s never kissed her before. Her lips are cool against his own. She shivers, drenched. They are going to be fine. She is an April baby and it always rains on her birthday. He gives her a necklace that’s too expensive but just her taste. They discuss a child quietly in bed that night and he is so excited. She is twenty-seven and terrified. They are going to be alright.
Aren’t they? - Henry asks Mariella for a divorce in the summer. By Christmas they are. She goes back to Laredo, tail between her legs. She doesn’t eat properly for months, but life moves on. - He invites her to the wedding. They promised to remain friends and this is how he is  a friend. She knows it’s not mean, that Henry really wants her there. The wife looks so different from her. She wonders how badly she must’ve fucked him up. Mariella declines. She is meant to be a good friend the way she was meant to be a good friend: hardly. - He is a father to a baby girl. Her name is Emily and she is their concept, an idea they formed together as a married couple, come to life with some other woman. She doesn’t have anything of Mariella’s, not the eyes or the mouth or the nose. Mariella tells him congratulations so earnestly she hates herself for it later. She is in Washington to visit her grandparents. Her grandpa is dying, which is something she might’ve told him before, but can’t now. He has a child! The grocery store is so overwhelming, all that bad fluorescent lighting and passing carts. She just needs soup. He tells her to keep in touch, really means it because he’s so goddamn happy and full of life. A beaming new father. She doesn’t keep in touch. Of course she doesn’t. - Randomly, he writes to her. Asks how she is, says that he wonders about her. His daughter is yay high and his wife is happy. Mariella writes back. She’s got a new job as a teacher. It’s been a good week so she sends the letter and forgets about it until he sends one back. They talk and talk and talk, safety in the miles between them.
She is happy to be his friend. - She visits her aunt and her grandmother at the beginning of summer. Henry isn’t on her mind until he’s in her line of vision. Another grocery store. She’s wearing a summer dress and her hair is shorter than it’s been in ever. His daughter tugs at his shirt and they stare at each other forever, remembering the life they had once lived. He asks about dinner. She says yes. Of course. They’re good friends.
They spend the night having sex, and it’s familiar. It  isn’t supposed to be like this. He is home. She was so young when she fucked it up. They are in love or maybe not. Maybe this is just the past mistaking itself for the present. That happens when you get lonely enough.
“You’re so…” Henry stutters off. His fingers dig into her hips, his groan deep as she fits herself over him again. “Tight,” he finishes. “God, Mariella. It..” His pace quickens, the sound of bare skin hitting bare skin evading the sex scented air. “It’s never been like this.”
Her skin tints red. A furrow settles between her eyebrows and he wrongfully mistakes it for mounting pleasure. She feels his satisfaction between her legs, his moan low and guttural as he takes in the sight of her above him. When he opens his mouth to speak again, she raises her hand, covering his wet lips with her fingers. The unashamed obscenity of his words is so unlike him. She never thought about the ways he’d be attuned to his other wife, about the ways doing this with him would make her think of the fact that he’s no longer hers. He takes her finger in his mouth, his hot tongue eagerly swirling around it.
His eyes connect with hers for the longest second in the world. They are the most promising thing she’s ever seen, wet with silent apology and the pain of their enduring love. Maybe even a little bit of remorse. He’s a cheater, after all, and she is his willing accomplice.
Beneath the soft orange hue of the bedside lamp, his eyes are green, freckled with familiar browns and blues. She replaces her finger with her tongue in his mouth. He tastes achingly of home, of their abandoned Washington ranch house someone else probably owns now. It’s so ironic she could cry. He does, a little; their kiss becomes salt drenched and tragic, but real, honest, like it should’ve been at the beginning and not now, some place even further beyond the end.
He twitches inside of her. He pushes her downward, so close to his chest that her nipples scrap over his chest.
Her cheek rests against the warmth of his lips.
She is gone by morning and he frowns, touching her side of the motel bed like he’s not quite sure she is really occupied by it. But she did. He remembers. Hip to hip, mouth to mouth, married in memory. When he gets home, his little girl opens her arms and giggles into his embrace. His wife is in the office, the one they share. She is also an accountant and she doesn’t ask where he’s been, but he tells her anyway. “Was at work,” he lies.
She believes him, because why shouldn’t she? He is always at work.
It has been three months. He leaves her a voicemail once, twice, three times and she deletes them all. His wife does not know. His daughter asks him why he’s gone so much. He cries in the shower and wonders why the hell he lets Mariella ruin his life.
And the answer is as simple as anything, but no less painful: because he loved her first and he might love her always. He is envious of the men he cannot know exist--the ones he imagines might be entertaining her. He wants to fly to Laredo, to ruin her life, but does not. Life moves on.
All they ever wanted was everything. He realizes that was too much. He will settle for half of it. 
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zablife · 2 years
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Camping
Jack Nelson x family
Summary: Jack Nelson’s four children are playing one hot, summer day and decide to cool off in their father’s office, pretending to camp out under his large desk. What will happen when their father returns home unexpectedly?
Author’s Note: Written for @deans-ch-ch-cherrypie Hot Fic Summer Challenge. I chose camping for the PB fandom. I was going to go in another direction with this originally and then I stumbled on the pictures below and decided on something completely different. I hope you enjoy it! (I used the family structure of another story I wrote called Homecoming. You don’t need to read that fic to understand this one though.)
Warnings: language
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It was a hot day in Boston and the sun baked the pavement to a temperature more suitable for frying eggs than jumping rope. The neighborhood kids didn't seem bothered, chasing each other with shrill squeals of delight despite the scorching heat. 
Jack Nelson’s four children had been playing outside for hours. Their cheeks were pink with fresh sun which would leave a constellation of freckles across their tiny noses by the end of summer. Their mother had used her time in an empty house wisely, busying herself with household chores. Hearing her bustling about inside, they looked around for ways to entertain themselves.
Five year old Susan was the first to suggest they come inside to escape the harsh rays of the midday sun. “I’m too hot,” she protested to her eight year old brother, Robert. 
“Alright, come on. Let’s go in,” he sighed in agreement. Being the oldest, he took it upon himself to call to Elizabeth and Mary, leading them indoors in a tidy line like baby ducks.
When they entered the house, the air felt thick and stagnant despite a single fan running in the corner. The fan occasionally blew hot air across the living room, but it did little to bring them relief. Six year old Elizabeth piped up with an idea. She was always coming up with fun things to do so the other children listened intently.
“Daddy’s office is nice and cool. Let’s go there,” she suggested. 
“Mom said we can’t go in there!” Susan said protesting. 
“Don’t be a chicken, Susie !” Elizabeth taunted her, running toward the door.
“I don’t know, girls, let’s play something else,” Robert said trying to keep his sisters from imminent trouble. 
“Daddy isn’t home, silly! He can’t punish us if he’s not here. Let’s play under his desk! It will be like we’re camping,” Elizabeth said employing her imagination.
“Yes! That would be so much fun!” Susan agreed, changing her mind.
“Oh, alright, but just for a little while,” Robert said watching his three sisters barge into their father’s study. 
It was dark and quiet, a somber atmosphere that made them all hush their incessant chatter. It was cooler inside as their mother had drawn the shades early that morning so the sunlight could not warm the space.
Three year old Mary brought a blanket from the sofa and let it drag behind her as she toddled into the room. She asked for Robert’s help to drape it over their father’s desk to make a fort and he agreed. "Look, now we have a door!" she cried in delight, watching the fabric cover the opening under the desk. She pulled it back like a curtain to demonstrate and Robert nodded his approval.
Jack’s oak desk was a monstrosity that took up a portion of the room by the large window. It had impressive carvings and beautiful brass handled drawers, but the girls liked the fact that they could fit under it with room to spare. Robert had long since stopped this kind of play, preferring to sit in his father’s chair instead and imagine himself as the boss.
He watched his little sisters huddle under the desk. Only their feet were visible behind the blanket door to their "house." They played quietly for a few minutes before someone stepped on Mary’s fingers and she began to wail loudly. “Shh, don’t cry, Mary,” Robert said, moving the blanket aside to reach in and pick her up.
“I want Mommy!” Mary cried loudly. Robert dutifully went in search of their mother, but not before Elizabeth cried after him, “Don’t tell Mom we’re here!” Robert didn’t look back, but Elizabeth knew he wouldn’t snitch.
With just the two girls under the desk, their play space had increased and they giggled as they laid on their backs, pushing their feet into the top of the desk. They banged their feet against the wood and hummed to themselves, pretending they were walking on the ceiling.
Suddenly they heard someone approaching the room and looked at each other in fear. They knew the sound of their father’s heavy footsteps. The girls sat up quickly, but realized there was no time to run away and tried to hide themselves without making a sound.
Jack looked puzzled as he walked in, finding Mary’s blanket lying across his desk. He balled it up and placed it in a drawer quickly apologizing to whoever he was with, “My kids must have been in here today. Little rascals,” he said. The girls pulled their knees up to their chest and pushed themselves against the front of the desk, trying to keep their little feet out of sight.
“Now, gentlemen, where were we? The contracts, right?” He searched the drawers looking for his paperwork and found it, placing the documents on the his desk.
After a moment of hearing pages flip above them another man's voice sternly accused, “This isn’t the deal we were promised, Nelson."
Jack sucked in a breath before answering, “Well this is the fucking deal you get, boys. Take it or leave it.”
Elizabeth and Susan clapped hands over their mouths, eyes wide at their father's foul language. They had heard him use the f word before and their mother explained it was a very bad word that shouldn't be repeated. The forbidden nature of the curse made it irresistible to them though and they could barely contain their giggles whenever they heard a naughty word. Today was no exception. Susan began first and Elizabeth soon followed, snickering to themselves. 
Jack looked from right to left, trying to find the source of the noise he had heard. He closed his eyes briefly, trying to compose himself when it hit him that his children were in the room. Then he thought to check under the desk. He knew his girls were obsessed with that hiding spot. 
No sooner had he ducked his head under the desk, they yelped, “Daddy!” Jack motioned for them to come to him and they slowly crawled out. 
“I’m sorry for the interruption, fellas. Just let me deal with this real quick,” Jack said trying to handle the situation at hand. Before he could say anything to his children, Elizabeth had popped up next to him and was staring down the grown men in front of her with no sign of fear. 
“Are you gonna take the fucking deal or not?” Elizabeth said in a loud, clear voice, arms folded across her chest to signal that she meant business. Jack's head whipped around to look at his daughter. There was no mistake what she had said. He was silent for a moment before letting out a hearty laugh. He shrugged sheepishly before saying, “What can I say, the kid takes after her old man!”
Then he bent down to the girls and pointed a finger at them threateningly. “You tell your mother about this and you’re grounded for a week." He knew he would be in just as much trouble as Elizabeth if his wife found out about her outburst. "Now go play!” he said giving their backs a nudge. Susan grabbed Elizabeth’s hand and pulled her from the room before they could cause any more trouble.
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takadasaiko · 3 months
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Burn the Worlds Chapter 21 (a OUAT fic)
Story Summary: Rumplestiltskin had everything set up just as it needed to be for his curse and to find Bae, but when an enemy bent on destroying him makes his way through to Storybrooke as well, he may find that his cursed persona isn't a match for the cleric. Pre-S1. AU. 
Chapter Summary: Rumple and the others regroup while Magnus sets the chess board to bring them back.
FFN II AO3
Quick Note: Due to the insanely long hiatus between Ch20 and 21, some changes happened in the story set up and I made some edits to the end of Ch 20. I'd definitely recommend re-reading that chapter before reading this one.
Chapter 21.
Mary Margaret had made it a point to stop by the hospital to check on their John Doe every day since they had found him. If Mayor Mills knew anything more about him, she hadn't said, so the elementary teacher had made sure to drop by frequently during her volunteer hours, and sometimes even outside of them. No one should be alone, especially if they couldn't remember who they were.
It was strange. She would have thought someone with no memory of who they were would have been a bit of a blank slate. There were no memories of experiences to form up a personality, but somehow it shined through with him. The more time she spent, the more she enjoyed his company. He made her laugh at the most unexpected moments and there was a lightness she felt around him. A rightness. Somehow, she was drawn to him, and he seemed to be drawn to her. What a strange world.
He wasn't in his room, though. The bed was empty and a stranger stood with his broad back facing her, seemingly looking out the window towards the pond that Mary Margaret so often walked around with the man she'd come to visit. As the stranger turned, though, she saw that he couldn't possibly have been taking in the scenery. His eyes were milky white, scars marring the skin around them. Long-healed burn scars with what looked like had once been deep gashes mixed in. He must have been in a tremendous accident at some point in his life.
"You must be looking for David," the stranger said, his voice deep and strong.
It took Mary Margaret half a beat longer than it should have to key into the fact that not only had he been speaking to her, but he'd been speaking about her new nameless friend. "David?" she asked. "Do you know him? Is that his name? How -"
"Patience, child," the stranger cut her line of questions off. "Your answers will come in time."
The elementary school teacher tilted her head a little to the side as she studied him. Then it clicked. "You're Mr Dawson, aren't you? You work at the convent."
"Indeed I do. I was hoping to enlist your help in a matter."
She flashed him a smile that he couldn't possibly see. "I'm always happy to help."
"Yes you are. I'm looking for Mr Gold."
The statement caught her by surprise. Why would he have come to John Doe's - or David's, supposedly - hospital room to look for her of all people to help with Mr Gold? Dark brows drew together. "I rent my apartment from him, but I don't really know him."
"Few do," Jacob Dawson responded, "though you do know Emma, and I have reason to believe that she and the boy are with him."
"I don't know where."
"But you have a way to contact her."
Strange, it sounded much less like a question than it probably should have, but there was something in the man's tone that lulled her. Mary Margaret found the questions that she somehow knew she should be asking slipping away and the next thing she knew, she was handing the blind man her phone. He flipped it open and seemed to know exactly where to go. He offered her a smile that didn't sit quite right. "You've done well, and you will be rewarded. Go."
"Go?" she echoed. All of this felt wrong. She couldn't explain it, but that sharp sentiment cut through the fog.
"The others will be gathered to the town square. Fetch David and you'll receive answers there."
It was a dismissal that would have rivaled the mayor's, and as Jacob pulled the phone up to his ear, Mary Margaret found her feet leading her out before she'd ever given them permission. It was as if she couldn't stop them. The brief flashes of curiosity started to subside, left dulled by the fog that replaced it. David. Town square. Okay.
She rounded the corner and slammed directly into Mother Superior. The lead nun looked as startled as Mary Margaret felt, but seemed to recover more quickly. "Sn…. Mary Margaret. I need you to come with me."
"But I'm supposed to get David and go to the town square."
Mother Superior shook her head. "He's not at the town square. Come. I'll take you to him."
Her words didn't have the pull that Jacob Dawson's did, but somehow they felt more right. Despite the fuzziness in her mind, Mary Margaret nodded and allowed herself to be led out of the hospital.
She wasn't sure how long they had been sitting on the floor of the bathroom in a fancy hotel room, her boyfriend helping his poisoned father into the adjoining room and said father's girlfriend sitting with her on the cool tiles, providing more support than Emma thought she'd ever received from someone she'd met so recently. This woman didn't know her. Not really. But here she was acting more like family than an orphaned girl knew what to do with. They all had.
Emma blinked hard against a tear that escaped down her cheek and Belle reached around her, pulling her into a side hug and letting her lean. The flood gates might have opened if her phone hadn't rung, distracting her from the near breakdown. She reached into her pocket, saw Mary Margaret's name there, and cleared her throat before answering. "Hey, listen, I know that Dr Whale didn't want him leaving but -"
"Hello, Emma," a deep, authoritative voice boomed in her ear that was very much not Mary Margaret and a chill flooded her system. She knew that voice. It was a voice that would haunt her nightmares now, and suddenly she felt like she was standing on the steps of the convent with the man ordering Neal's execution. And he had Mary Margaret's phone. He had Mary Margaret.
Emma was on her feet in an instant. "What'd you do to Mary Margaret?"
"She is safe. For now," came the cryptic answer. "The Evil Queen Regina's fate remains dependent on choices you make here. Everyone in the town's fate does."
The teenage girl bit her lip as Belle stood slowly at her side, a supportive hand going to the teen's arm. "You can't hurt Regina. Everybody would know."
"You've spent time in Storybrooke. No one would know. Any questions are lost to the fog of the curse."
Emma felt her stomach roll again, but this time for a very different reason. Since the confession and his promise of proof, Neal had spoken so openly about his home and his family, as had Belle and even Mr Gold and Regina to a lesser extent. To hear that this man refer to a curse so casually was still enough to make her head spin. "I don't believe you. You're just trying to get us to bring Neal's dad back. It's not happening."
"Believe me or don't, child. Rumplestiltskin will die either way. It's you I offer the chance to."
The blonde teen swallowed hard. "What do you mean?"
"You don't know, do you? The Dark One keeps his secrets well."
Emma clenched her jaw. "You say a lot of nothing, don't you?"
"Then unlike the demon you protect, I'll speak plainly. Your family - your parents - are in Storybooke."
Complicated. That's what Gold had called it when Emma had asked how she tied in. It was a complicated question. More complicated by the minute, and Emma thought she might know why. Magnus' threats were crystal clear. "You hurt one hair on Regina's head and Gold will be the least of your problems," Emma snarled and snapped the phone shut.
"He has Regina?" Belle asked in a strained voice.
"Yeah. And it's about time I got some answers." She didn't wait, but instead stormed out of the bathroom and through the double doors that separated the two rooms.
Everything was in motion, but he felt as if he were frozen still. The Hatter's little girl sat in the corner of the living room with her knees pulled up to her chin and a stuffed rabbit clutched tightly against her chest. Though her body language showed fear, her glare was something else entirely. It was the look of a child that knew she'd been used against her own father, yet could do nothing about it. It was a well-earned look, if Caiden were honest, and he pushed back the nagging feeling that he'd crossed yet another line in his service to Magnus. He couldn't dwell on it. He had no intentions of hurting the girl, and once Jefferson brought whatever two useful souls back through from the Enchanted Forest that Magnus had sent him after, the younger cleric could be done with this distasteful business of leveraging a child. First Baelfire and then Grace… he was ready to be done with it.
Magic swirled, picking up dust and kicking up loose papers from the coffee table. Framed photos shook and a figurine danced itself off of a bookshelf as the whole house trembled and crashed loudly to the wooden floor. The intensity only grew as the portal opened and Grace climbed to her feet. "Papa!"
Caiden flashed out of existence and back in infront of her to keep from rushing it, lest she be dragged in. "Patience," he instructed quietly, watching the maw open up and the Hatter appear. With him came a blond man dressed as if he meant to blend in with the trees. His face was rough and his eyes wide, and at his side was a little boy, even younger than Grace.
Magnus had said that the thief he wanted to employ as a tracker to find the Dark One once he returned to Storybrooke might need convincing. After two children - one grown and one very much not - had already been a means to an end, Caiden shouldn't be surprised. He refused to let the conflict reach his face.
As the magic settled, Jefferson leveled a dangerous glare at the cleric. "I did what you demanded," he growled, disgust woven into every word. "Now release my daughter."
Caiden's fingers loosed around the girl's shoulder and she shot forward, launching herself into her father's arms. The Hatter caught her up and held her close. Pale eyes watched the scene for a long moment before their owner was jolted back into reality by a flurry of motion.
The boy took off in the opposite direction as his father notched an arrow in his bow faster than any man should have been capable of, pulled back, and let it fly. Caiden lifted a hand, magic wrapping around the projectile first, the boy a fraction of a second after, and both were frozen where they were.
"I have no intention of harming you or your child. Only to ask for your help."
"And you steal children to leverage that," the blond accused.
"Desperate times," Caiden answered softly and turned his gaze back to Jefferson. "When the war with the Dark One is over, we will remember your place in it."
The Hatter pulled Grace a little closer. "Get out of our home."
A brief nod and a swirl of magic, and Caiden pulled father and son with him, the sound of the loosed arrow flying through the space he'd just occupied following after them.
He felt like he was drifting in and out, even if he never quite slipped below the surface of unconsciousness. Bae got him inside and to the bed and he could practically feel the stress rolling off his son in waves. When he finally took a seat on the bed and then back against the stacked pillows, he was able to look into those dark eyes filled with worry. Rumplestiltskin's lips pulled thin and down as he reached an unsteady hand up to his gown boy's face. "Oh, Bae," he breathed out, voice less steady than he would have preferred. "I'm gonna fix this. I swear to you."
Before drew in a trembling breath and caught his hand. "What if we waited too long? What if… what are we doing? We should have you in a hospital."
"And tell them what?"
"I don't know," Bae snapped, gripping his hand a little tighter. "Just like I don't know what kind of damage that poison may have caused. For all we know your organs could start shutting down and then —"
Rumple reached his free hand up to cover the one with a death grip on him and the rough chuckle that had been threatening died in his throat as he saw tears standing in his son's eyes. "We're not quite there," he promised instead.
"I can't lose you again, Papa," Bae managed.
And he'd thought the poison ripping through him had been painful. He took a moment, his hand around Bae's and he swallowed hard in hopes it would allow him to speak in a stronger voice. He needed Bae to believe him. To have faith in him. "I'm not letting go, Bae," he swore softly. "I just got you back. I'm not letting you go. You believe me, don't you?"
Bae offered a strained smile and bent to kiss his papa's knuckles, mumbling that he did.
The door burst open from the adjoining room, startling them both. Emma rushed in with a white-knuckled hold on her phone and Belle trailing behind. "He has Regina. And maybe Mary Margaret."
Rumplestiltskin loosed a breath. Well, that was quicker than expected. He removed only one hand to help push himself up on the stacked pillows so that he was sitting up a little more and gave Bae's hand a squeeze with the other at his immediate protest.
"Magnus called from Mary Margaret's phone," Belle offered a bit more explanation.
"To tell me he has Regina," Emma added, panic working its way into her voice.
"We don't know that he does," Rumplestitskin murmured, his voice intentionally gentle so as to not rile her up any further and Emma's gaze snapped to him. Well, at least he had her attention. "Magnus can't kill her. He knows that."
"He said no one would notice because of the curse —"
"That she cast. There are protections in that. Regina knew it. That's why she bought us time." He winced and sunk a little deeper into the pillows before meeting her eyes again. "She's resourceful. She'll be fine."
There was a loud huff from the blonde's direction and Bae squeezed his hand before releasing it to stand and take a step closer to Emma. "Hey, let's let him rest and you and I can talk about —"
"No," she snapped at him, her hazel gaze fixed on Rumplestiltskin as he forced his eyes to remain open. "It's time."
"For what, exactly?" he drawled tiredly.
"In the car. You said you'd tell me how I fit in in time. It's time."
"Emma…" Bae tried again and she dodged the hand reaching for her, turning her fiery gaze on him. "Magnus said you dad knows who my parents are! That they're in Storybrooke."
Bae paled noticeably and Rumple sighed. Of course Magnus did. The bastard was trying to turn them against each other. "He's toying with you,"
"That's not a denial," Emma growled , but clearly hadn't missed Baelfire's expression she turned on him now, and a little hurt made it through the rage. "You knew too?" she asked smally.
"Emma…"
"You were just going to let me leave her there to rot, weren't you?" she demanded, the accusation barely leaving her as she turned on heel and stalked back through the door she'd slammed through earlier.
Rumplestiltskin met his son's torn gaze. "Go."
He didn't need to tell Bae twice as his boy darted after the girl he loved.
Belle watched the door closed behind them for a long moment before turning back to meet Rumple's dark gaze. He loosed a long breath. "You heard the call?"
"Only her end."
"Best you tell me what you can before we find ourselves on the sharp end of any more surprises."
Emma was almost to the exit into the hotel hallway from their room as Bae followed her through the doors. He picked up speed, reaching out and touching her arm, though careful not to take too tight a hold that she felt trapped by it. "Hey? Hey. Look at me." He did his best not to flinch under the vicious, teary gaze she leveled at him. Instead, he met her gaze. "Talk to me?"
"What do you want me to say? My mom is…. You know I've been looking for them my whole life! She's there! She's there and we just left her to him!" The dam broke and with it came the tears. Damn it. He was useless against her tears.
Bae swallowed hard, steeling himself to try to explain in a way that wouldn't make this worse. He really didn't want to make this worse. "It was a lot. Magic, the Enchanted Forest, a curse… I was trying not to overload you. And then everything happened so fast with Papa and I just..."
"You've had time since I admitted this craziness was real."
"I know, but I figured we'd get there. It wasn't like you could just walk up to her and call her mom. She's cursed. She doesn't remember you yet."
Blonde brows drew together and she blinked hard against the salty tears still falling one by one. "What are you talking about? She's one of the only people that remembers!"
Everything seemed to slam to a stop at that. "Wait. Who did Magnus say is your mom?"
Emma seemed to slow down with him. "I mean, he didn't say it outright, but it makes sense… the connection, the fact he's using her against us…."
"Okay, who do you think is your mom?" Bae clarified.
"Regina. Isn't it Regina?"
A flash of relief swept through Baelfire. Okay. Everything was starting to make more sense. "No," he breathed when he realized he hadn't answered. "Mary Margaret is Snow White. She's your mom. David - the guy from the coma - he's your dad."
"Snow White? What does that make him? Prince Charming?"
"I guess?"
All of the anger seemed to rush out of her, leaving her deflated and her limbs heavy. Bae reached out to steady her under the realization and inched her towards the bed to take a seat. He waited as patiently as he could, her pretty eyes staring unfocused on the carpet and her fingers wrapped tightly around her bent knees.
"They're alive," she breathed at last.
"Yeah. I was going to tell you. I just… wanted to give you time to process. Then Magnus."
"Then Magnus," she agreed, the name rolling off her tongue like a curse, even as she sagged against him.
Good. That meant that they'd bypassed the worst of her flight-risk tendencies, at least for the night. He eased her back and she let him, both of them falling into the bed. "You were going to tell me?"
"Of course I was."
"Is there more to it? Your dad said it was complicated."
"It is. I don't even know if I get it all, but if we get some sleep tonight and he's up to it in the morning, we'll get him to explain."
Emma curled into him and he tucked her head under his chin, feeling her arm around his ribs with her fingers wrapping themselves up in the fabric of his shirt. He kissed the top of her head. "You really thought Regina was your mom?"
"I thought… maybe," she answered softly and much less certainly than she'd sounded just a few minutes before. She repositioned herself so that she could meet his eyes in the dimly lit room. "I care about her. That's not gonna go away just because I know the truth."
"I know. We're going back for her."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
That seemed to be enough as his exhausted girlfriend settled down nestled into him. He breathed her in, the closeness calming. They'd get through this, he reminded himself. Papa would be okay and they'd rescue Storybooke from Magnus. Emma's parents, Regina, and everyone else… they could make a life there. It could be their Tallahassee.
He'd fight for that with everything he had.
--
TBC
Notes: So... hi. Looks like my last update was April 2015, so why not add a new chapter nearly a decade later? :') In all honestly, this story has always kind of haunted me. I loved it, I loved the premise, but I was writing it at the end of my ability to stomach where canon OUAT was going. To this day I still have large chunks of post S4 that I haven't seen and can't watch because it was so atrocious. 
I can't promise that I will finish this because I did that last time and here we are. I can tell you that I have the story pretty much worked out to the end and I have ever intention of poking at this along with my other multi chapter fic (over in the Star Wars fandom) that I've been writing on. So here we are. Let's see if anyone's still interested in this fic.
Next Time: Emma receives answers, the Blue Fairy takes a risk, and Regina gets an unexpected surprise.
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frenchiefitzhere · 2 years
Text
Frenchie’s Master List: Redacted Fics & Audios
For my musical fan art (which would be a whole mess if I listed it all here), better to go to:
YouTube: Frenchie Makes Music and Stuff
AO3 Series: “Frenchie’s Original Musical Fan Art”
If you haven't checked it out before, I write songs to & for the Redacted characters. They're completely original songs (not parodies,  not covers). I'm one of only two people that I'm aware of who do this, so...please give it a listen! 💛 Shortcut to Tumblr post with my full song catalog
Imperium AU
New Kindred (angst; crossover)
An Unsettling Settlement (Lasko & Adam spoopy joyride)
Tabula Rasa (Damien/Angel & Lasko angst)
Sunshine, Lollipops, and Laskos (Freelancer & Marci[OC] fluff)
A Dangerous Port in a Storm (Lasko semi-comfort study/stress)
This Time It’s Much Safer In (Lasko anxiety comfort)
Bye Bye Blackbird (prime!James & Lasko thriller/intrigue; crossover) [in progress]
A Formidable Woman (Marie & Milo angst)
Bumping into a Shifter Healer (audio fic; featuring Freelancer)
Imperium!Marie leaves Asher a voicemail (audio HC/ficlet; angst)
MARIE & THE GREERS
Featured Marie audio fics
ASMR | Moving Day with Your Pack Matriarch (comfort; young Darlin is Listener)
ASMR | Your Pack Healer/Mom-Figure Brings You Soup When You're Sick (comfort audio) 
ASMR | Falling Asleep to the Sounds of Your Pack Matriarch NOT Solving a Murder (sleep aid audio) 
Marie Leaves David a Voicemail (angst audio)
ASMR | Coffee with the Pack Healer/Matriarch (post-Inversion audio) 
ASMR | Shopping with Your Pack Matriarch [Body Image Comfort]
ASMR | Planning A Surprise Party With Your BFs Werewolf Ma 
Marie's Storytelling Series
ASMR | Your Werewolf Ma Tells You a Bedtime Story (sleep aid; child!Milo is the listener)
ASMR | Your Werewolf Ma Tells You and Your Friends a Ghost Story (humor/sleep aid; child!Milo/David/Asher/Amanda are the listeners)
Your Werewolf Ma Puts on an Impromptu Puppet Show for You and Your Friends
Marie Audio Headcanons/Mini-fics
Marie and Aggro bonding (audio HC; fluff)
Marie and Aggro bonding part 2 (audio HC; fluff)
Marie leaves Milo a voicemail (audio HC; humor) 
One-sided phone call: Marie at the lakehouse (audio HC; humor)
Marie leaves Sam a voicemail (audio HC; humor)
One-sided phone call: Marie takes a midnight phone call from Milo (audio HC; humor)
Flashback: Marie leaves Milo a voicemail in 2016 (audio HC; fluff; origin story)
An October Birthday Message from Marie (audio HC/ficlet; fluff)
One-sided phone call: A Thank You Call from Marie to Asher (audio HC/ficlet; fluff/humor)
"The Caelum Call" (audio HC/ficlet; fluff/humor)
One-sided phone call: A Pack-a-versary Phone Calle from Marie to Milo (audio HC/ficlet)
Voicemail: The Lasagna of Vengeance (audio HC/ficlet; humor)
One-sided phone call: Marie calls Asher's Mom [2017] (audio HC/ficlet; angst)
One-sided phone call: Checking in with the Groomzilla (audio HC/ficlet; fluff)
One-sided phone call: Milo Tells Marie the Big News (audio ficlet; humor/shitpost)
Collaborations (Audio Fics)
Overhearing New Moms (by/with @starlitangels)
Marie Has Home Video for Your Mate (by/with @starlitangels)
Greer family fics (a.k.a. "The Cannoli Canon")
Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli (FIC: character study; Marie and Colm backstory) [complete]
Rosie (FIC: more Marie & Colm backstory; Ch 1=angst; Ch 2=spice)
Underestimate your virtues (FIC: angst-to-comfort; Marie and Colm backstory; appearance by little Milo)
Cannoli Shells: Epilogue for Colm & Marie (FIC: character study; backstory; ahem...nsfw...minors DNI)
Cannoli Filling: The Colm and Marie Letters (FIC: character study, back story)
I Gave Her Freedom  (FIC: Ch 1=fluff, Ch 2=mild spice; set after Chapter 1 of "Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli")
The Falls, The Fall (FIC: character study; vignettes; backstory)
When the Night Falls On You,. Baby (FIC: Domestic Fluff; one-shot)
An Honest Man Like Yourself (FIC: family drama; father-son dynamic; collab with @ejunkiet)
We're Going to the Mattresses (FIC: whump/angst; happy ending)
Note: I am flattered and delighted by all my fellow fans who say cute shit about me being the voice of Marie, but it is very much unofficial when I do this. I just started doing it as fan art. I always want that to be clear because I respect intellectual property, particularly Erik’s.
Geordi
That Time You Didn’t Want to Be in Geordi’s Head Because (character study/backstory)
Caelum
The Most Important Daemon of the Day (fluff)
Promises made, promises kept: Caelum will have a dance party! (fluff)
Les petits plaisirs (reverse comfort?; post-Inversion; bilingual)
DAMN Fam
If You Can’t Take the Heat, Get Out of the Food Truck (fluff)
Welcome to Doughlia (comfort fluff; featuring my OC Marci)
David & Angel
David Shaw: Gopher Shifter (comfort fluff)
Storming and Norming (mutual comfort; post-Inversion)
Answer Your Fucking Phone, Michael (angst-to-fluff; backstory; comparative study)
Asher
Hair of the Dog (comfort fluff; 2nd person POV) Milo
Early to Bed, Early to Rise (minific; domestic fluff)
Interrogation Tactics (one-shot; domestic fluff)
Sam
A Little Silhouetto of a Man (character study/backstory)
Baby 2.0/Ivan
Still Here (angst; character study)
Avior
The Sound of Starlight (comfort for people who don’t like the sound of their own voice)
A Constellation of Creatures (comfort; my contribution to the Redacted Valentine’s Collab)
I also have a few things up on AO3 anonymously. Good luck finding them, super sleuths! It’s good shit. I promise! Updated 28/6/23
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kleenex-tissues · 1 year
Text
Yours Truly (5)
AO3 version here
Ch. 5: Ravings of a Mad Man
Every single day when Damian returned to his room at the end of his leisure time, a new email was waiting for him. He really should have deleted the email address after he deigned not to fall for his brothers’ scheme, but something stopped him whenever he hovered over the button. So, instead, he made a habit to open the account, delete the email from Marinette, and continue on as he had. It had become a routine for him, a regular part of his activity list.
Today, he made to do the same thing, but he hesitated before sending the usual email into his trash. Perhaps it was because he had such a quiet few days, or maybe he had finally inherited some of his family’s insanity, but he did not hit the ‘delete’ icon right away.
The last few patrols had been maddeningly quiet, as if every criminal in Gotham had decided to go on a joint holiday. Even Jason, for all his theatrical arrogance, had been docile, opting to leave his eye-sore of a helmet hidden away.
On top of this, not only had his schoolwork been mindlessly easy, his brothers and sister had vacated the house for various operations, leaving only him, his father, and Alfred, their loyal butler, to fill the space. It should have pleased him to have such a peaceful environment, but Damian was a creature built for excitement – chasing villains, busting drug deals, deterring gang violence. The silence was starting to annoy him.
And this email was beginning to become bothersome too.
He shouldn’t be hesitating, this isn’t like him. He is content with his circumstances. He has no desire to disrupt his peaceful day with an email sure to irritate him further.
So why exactly was he opening it?
To: [email protected] From: [email protected] Subject: Things to look forward to!!
Hello again, Redbird
I have fully accepted at this point that you will probably never respond to me, but I still need to practice my English. So, today I will tell you all about the things I have in my upcoming calendar.
It’s the end of September now, which means the annual Paris Young Designers Contest submission goes live in just two days. Of course, as I do every year, I will be submitting my own fashion line concepts that I have been working on since last year’s ended.
The best part? If I win, my line will be featured in a runway show hosted by Gabriel Agreste, the biggest designer in the city. Everyone who is anyone in the fashion world will be there to scout the winner. If I win this, I could be working for some of the most well-known designers all over the world. I wouldn’t even need to go to University. It would be straight into the industry!
Obviously, that’s just a pipe dream for me. A ton of people apply every year, plus this is like my third time sending in a submission. If I haven’t gotten it yet, I’m not sure I will now. Alas, my dear friend, Alya, is forcing me to send one in.
See, she told my parents I was gonna join the competition (which I was definitely debating doing despite the book of design concepts sitting on my desk) and they got so excited about it, that how could I possibly disappoint them? So now, here I am, trying to put together a cohesive line to submit within the next eight days.
And next week, my parents have a gig to cater a major event for the mayor, so after submitting my line, I will be thrown straight into the kitchen to bake and decorate as many cupcakes as I possibly can before time runs out.
I also have this huge test for my chemistry class next week, but I don’t know if I’ll have enough time to study. Maybe I can get Adrien to help me? He’s a science whiz, I swear. I don’t know how I passed any science classes before I met him.
Are you any good with stoichiometry? I would definitely appreciate some help. You know, if you ever reply.
Anyways, I hope you look forward to my next email!
Au Revoir, Mari
This was stupid. Why did Damian open the email? Why did he read it all? And why is he now going through his deleted emails and reading every single one that Marinette had sent him?
Most of it was nothing more than idle chatter and rambling. She talked incessantly about her friends – Alya mostly, her schoolwork, her parents’ bakery, the commissions she was currently working on, and numerous other useless anecdotes about her days.
Damian read each one twice.
He must be going crazy, letting something as silly as this take up so much of his time. Maybe he was just that bored. As soon as the criminals of Gotham began to roam the streets again and life returned to normal, this would have no further importance, Damian was sure of it. He was just bored. Yes, bored beyond rational thought.
This small break in his sanity was also surely what was causing Damian Wayne, for the first time in his life, to respond to Marinette Dupain-Cheng.
To: [email protected] From: [email protected] Subject: re: Things to look forward to!!
Marinette,
I hope you will not continue to refer to me as ‘redbird,’ given that it is a moronic screen name my brothers wrote in my stead. I would prefer Damian from here on out.
I have not heard of the ‘Paris Young Designers Contest’ nor of this Gabriel Agreste, so it surely cannot be as life-altering as you state. You should continue your application to University for good measure.
I have heard that Gotham University holds one of the most prestigious fashion designing programs, but I have not experienced it to know. Perhaps, it can be added to your list.
Congratulations are to be awarded to your parents for being held in such high regard by the mayor of Paris, but I hope they should hire more workers to assist in preparing such a large event.
I am well-versed in all areas of science, but I do not have the time to teach you. Attached is a link to a great video on stoichiometry. It will not cure you of your inability to master the subject, but it will be an adequate beginning.
Sincerely, Damian
Later that evening, Damian and his father began their nightly patrol under the moniker of the vigilantes of Gotham, Batman and his loyal partner, Robin.
The title of ‘Robin’ had been tossed around for years, going through Dick, Jason, Tim, and even their family friend, Stephanie Brown. Each had filled the position sufficiently, but none were a match for him. Damian prided himself on being the ideal Robin. He was, after all, Batman’s only biological son, the one and only heir to both the mantle of Batman and the Wayne legacy.
Duty had driven him to his father’s home, but the suit became his very essence and his reason to not return to the den of assassin’s where he was raised. This was his new home, standing on the rooftops beside his hero and protecting the people of Gotham. This is what he was created for.
His ego pushed him to shoot his grapple gun across the four-lane road onto the next roof, despite brushing mere centimeters above a moving semi-truck. This was child’s play for him, but he supposed it did bring him a feeling of triumph whenever he landed perfectly on the roof he had aimed for.
While Damian riskily swung above the city at high speeds, his father merely leapt onto the next roof in his route, silently staking out the alleyways. Where Batman was careful, Robin was assertive. They were compliments of each other, working perfectly in tandem.
They prowled the night, and after three hours, the only crime that surfaced was a petty mugging attempt that the victim had thwarted on their own. All Batman and Robin had to do was bring the mugger to the police station along with the victim’s report. It took a total of eight minutes and thirty-four seconds to complete, Damian had kept count.
Peace once more filled the moonlit night, and the two returned to watching the city from the top of Wayne Enterprises. The silence that strained between them made Damian’s hands twitch. His mouth shot open without him thinking, “Do you think they’re planning something? The rogues, I mean. They’ve never been this tame before.”
His father turned to look at him. His mask covered the majority of his facial features, obscuring Damian’s ability to read how he was feeling, but after living with the man for seven years, he had been able to pick up on the subtle movements of his mouth to make his feelings more clear.
Bruce was thinking. Uncertain and curious, but calm. He tried never to let emotion get the best of him, so his body constantly radiated stoicism.
“I’m not sure, son. My job is to bring peace, so I would love nothing more than to revel in the tranquility of Gotham.” Bruce paused, in a way that seemed less like he was gathering his thoughts and more like he was drawing attention to the next line. He had always had that innate dramatism to the way he spoke. “But this feels off. If they’re planning something, it’s big.”
Damian pondered his father’s words. This wasn’t good, especially with his siblings' absence. While the two were capable of holding their own in a fight, Damian still reluctantly wished for the extended family to return for the comfort of his father. Fighting a battle with only two men was impossible, no matter how strong they were.
Bruce spoke again, his voice faint in the night, “Maybe we should go home and think about this. You’ve got school in the morning, so let’s call it a night.”
Damian nodded, and they headed towards the alley where the batmobile lay in wait. When Tim returned the following night, they could begin discussing further. Until then, there was an unspoken tension running down their backs. Something was waiting, for better or for worse.
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acidcasualties · 8 months
Text
The Professor (A Long Prelude), ch 17
Chapter 16
Chapter 18
AO3
Taglist: @annoying-leftist-donkey @peacefulpianist @kikster606 @liminalpebble @dangertoozmanykids101  if anyone wants to join in or be removed (no questions asked), let me know :)  
--
When she came down to the kitchen, all of her friends were already eating, not paying attention to her entering. She sat down next to Oakley and kissed his cheek. He kept talking to Will about something, and she was relieved nobody seemed to have noticed them both coming downstairs late; considering they were becoming the main joke around the place. “I’m so pumped for today!” Mary suddenly said, clapping her hands. “Yeah, Nevia says it’s a huge spectacle, everybody goes there and it’s a big party.” Harriet added, while they were talking on and on about the race and the festival after it. Lydia couldn’t really focus on the conversation, she kept rolling her cup of coffee in her hands, while Oakley’s flailing ones were just on the edges of her vision. She glanced at his fingers. He was speaking with Will still, explaining how he actually carried his notes for his exam here, because the way he studies is to stretch it out into smaller portions; so he’ll go over the notes today. Lydia wasn’t listening, she was thinking about her issue: Each time they fucked, she came. He came as well. And then she wanted more. It kept increasing; even now, she felt remnants of the heat swirling inside her stomach. She had to move away from him.
“I’m going sunbathing for a while. You want to come?” She asked the girls. Mary got up, nodding, and Harriet said she’ll join them in a second. “You know what? The sun has really dried out my skin, I’ll need to get a body butter or something.” Mary said, and Lydia hitched the dress of her skirt up to show Mary her thigh. “Yes, me too. Look at this. I’ve just been showering without putting anything on, I think that’s what dried me out. Look at these white lines. I have that oil for tanning, let’s go put that on.” Lydia said, and noticed Oakley stopped talking; he and Will were staring at the two of them displaying their legs like this. Oakley stared at her thigh, before looking up in her eyes. He had this delicious expression; she wanted to kiss him immediately and then sit on him to feel his taut body beneath her. “What are you gawking at?” Mary asked, and Harriet chuckled at this. “Do you want help with rubbing that oil in, Lyd?” Oakley said, smirking at her. “I’m good.” She grinned, pushing her skirt down and getting up to avoid the possible imagery of him squeezing her oiled body while he fucked her hard. Oakley didn’t avoid it. His erection subsided when he left her room, but now he thought of the other day, when he saw her like that next to the pool, her skin glistening: looking very fuckable. In his mind, he slapped her bum and slicked his fingers inside her wet cunt, while she moaned and undulated her hips for him.
“Oakley, mate, are you even listening to me?” Will asked. Oakley grinned, apologising, and Will grinned back at him, nodding. “Nope, I can’t listen to this.” Harriet chirped, knowing what they were both thinking, and jumped up, following the girls out. “So, the sex is good?” Will asked as soon as she disappeared. “Fucking hell, mate. The best. I can’t stop. I keep thinking she’ll get mad at me for constantly trying to fuck her.” Will laughed. “I know, I know.” “But she doesn’t. She wants me. Shit. I still can’t believe it.” He wiped his face with his hands. Will tapped his back. “Still, I gotta slow down. I think I’ll go study a bit today before Palio.” “Yup, not a bad idea. I’ll nap, I’ve been feeling worn out by this heat.”
The girls passed by Matt in the hallway. “Mrs Professor, you’re looking very radiant, have you worn my boy out?” “He’s in the kitchen, Matt, bye!” She simpered at him. He chuckled and walked on. “They’re going to talk about you now.” Harriet said, making Lydia sigh. “Oh god no.” “So will we, don’t worry.” Mary added, grinning. “Ugh… Can we not?” “Oh we still haven’t asked the important bits.” “Oh god, fine, let me just get my bikini.”
Lydia went to her room to change, just taking the oil and the towel and wrapping it around herself. Before she went outside, she went back into the kitchen to grab some lemonade. “… her tits the second I woke up, just bury my face-” Oakley stopped speaking the second she walked in, his eyes wide. She didn’t know what to say, just opened the fridge and took the bottle of lemonade out. They were all dead silent. “Please continue.” She said, opening the bottle and taking a sip, leaning against the fridge. He blushed, scratching the back of his head. “Uhh, Lyd…” “Bury your face… where?” “Lyd, umm, I was…” “He was explaining how incredibly hot you are the second he opened his eyes, come on, Lydia, it was a talk of pure love.” Matt said, and Lydia smiled involuntarily, rolling her eyes and walking out. Oakley followed her, stopping her in the hallway. “Are you mad?” “No. It was just awkward.” She said, screwing back the bottle cap. “Please don’t just… talk about… well… my body too much. Or my sounds. Or…” He kept smiling as she blushed, cornering her and putting both of his palms on the wall next to her head - almost looming above her. “Or what?” “Oh come on…”
He kissed her. She kissed him back, wrapping her hands around his neck. Her towel slipped down when she moved to hold him tighter and he caressed her back. She got up on her toes and wrapped a leg around his bum, pinning his crotch to her. He moaned quietly and began kissing her more frantically. Suddenly, Oakley thought of what he’s doing. He’ll get hard again, and try to drag her to his room to pull off her bikini and take her again. …She’ll think he’s too excitable. She’ll tell to him to back off. That it’s too much. So he separated himself. “Lyd… sorry. Sorry for pawing at you constantly.” “Oh, umm… it’s alright.” She wiped her lips, blushing, only then understanding how much she wants him. She was suddenly aware of the hallway they were in; where everybody could see them. Nevia went home already, but what if she had walked in? Or god forbid, Matt? Lydia crouched and picked up her towel off the floor. He kept looking at her with obvious shyness in his eyes. She wanted to bite his lips, still wet from her kisses. “I know I’m doing it all the time, and it’s very hard to resist you, but I know that I’m being unreasonable. Also, it was very dumb of me to not think about contrac…” He kept talking, gulping and looking around, obviously intent on displaying how he is, indeed a reasonable human being and not a horny teenager; but all Lydia was thinking about was how good his scent was, and how raspy that tongue was inside her mouth. He leaned on one foot, and she could see the lower bit of his muscled thigh in his shorts. And his fingers, when he scratched his chin while talking and talking. He plastered his hand on his chest in an apologetic gesture, fully displaying how elegant it was. Lydia had a tactile memory of it curling up inside her as he spoke, in his low, horny voice; how tight and delicious she was. Lydia gulped, trying to focus on what he was saying. “…study, anyway, so you’ll have most of the day to yourself, I promise.” “Uhh, alright.”
She had no idea what he just said.
“You know how difficult it is to verbalise exactly what Martha wants to hear. I could just recite Keats or something.” She realised he was talking about his last exam he had to pass, concluding he needs to study. “Do you… Do you need help with that?” She said, licking her lips, completely unable to think about anything else other than getting him in a room and continuing kissing him. He smirked, looking at her. “You’d help me with my studying?” She swallowed a mouthful of her own saliva, feeling her bikini bottom suddenly very slick against her sex. “Yes. I passed that exam, I might provide useful insight.” Oakley kept thinking how generous she was with him; feeling warm at the thought of her kindness. But he knew he’d try getting her in his bed if she was to be there. “I don’t think I could focus. But thank you, you’re beyond good to me.” He kissed her forehead. She smiled, slightly disappointed. “Oh. Alright. Good luck.” She moved away from him, fastening her towel around herself. “What, no good luck kiss?” He said. She smiled, taking a step closer and pecking him on his lips. “You’ll get a proper kiss later on, when I quiz you on how much you’ve managed to learn.” He grinned, thinking about the dirty implications. “Is that so, Professor?” She grinned back at him, feeling her clit twitch. She wanted him. But she should let him focus. “Don’t call me like that.” “I really shouldn’t.” “Hmm.” She said, turning around and walking out, afraid of what level of begging she’ll stoop down to if he continued eyefucking her like he did.
She walked out. Mary and Harriet were already by the pool. “Where were you?” “I went to get some lemonade, and there they were, discussing my tits.” The girls laughed loudly. “I’ll kill him.” Lydia said, taking a sip. “They talk more than we do, you know. It’s a myth we’re the babbling ones.” Harriet started. “Speaking of which… Is he any good?” Lydia blushed. “Oakley?” “Yeah. Give me the oil.” Mary said, opening the container and rubbing the scented oil on her skin, looking at Lydia with a smirk. “Yes, he is.” They were blinking at Lydia, before Harriet rolled her hand, motioning for Lydia to explain it. She laughed. “I think that’s the best sex I’ve ever had in my life.” “What?! With Oakley?! The grinning, curly, lanky Oakley?!” “Shh, stop yelling! Yes, yes it is. He is good. Fuck.” She said, squirming on the floor, crossing her legs Indian style. “Well, he does seem like he’d do everything in his power to satisfy you. Just has that simpy energy.” Mary said, and they all laughed. “I bet it’s the licking. Is it the licking?” Lydia covered her face with her hands. “Come on, Lydia! Tell us! They’re in there, talking about your tits!” “Oh god. Okay. Yeah, he’s actually really good with that. He knew to curl his fingers up, I just… Oh god, I was acting like a complete slut.” “Who knew? Smart boy. I had to tell Will, I had to show him.”
“My ex, Brian, he was a fast learner. Real fast. But it was always awkward unless I was drunk. It was very good, I have to admit, after a while, after we learned about each other. But I don’t have to tell it to Oakley. He stares at my reactions the whole time, just makes these twitches and tiny changes to what he’s doing until I’m… I don’t know, panting.” “Matt did always joke how Oakley has a thing for curvy women. We actually went to see Maléna with Monica Bellucci, and Matt kept joking about Oakley’s reaction.” “Oh shit, I remember!” Mary added, laughing. “That’s so Lydia. That’s exactly your vibe; that sort of a look.” “Mary, don’t even joke about it.” Lydia said, lighting a cigarette and shaking her head. “Oh my god, I can’t believe you can be this insecure about yourself. Seriously. I’ll get up and call Oakley to come here and tell you that.” “Shhh, no, Mary, shut the fuck up! He can’t know everything! Fine, I know I have good boobs.” “Attagirl! Flaunt it. Fuck being shy.” “I do kinda wish I looked like you in jeans.” She said to Mary. “And I’m seriously jealous of how good these sundresses look on you, Lyd.” Lydia smiled. “Back to the subject: I want to know everything.” “Hah! Well, as I said, even without being drunk, I sort of feel like we… how do I say this… like we just fit each other somehow.” “Is he as excitable as Matt says?” “No. I mean, yeah, he came very quickly the first time we did it, but he just kept fingerfucking me afterwards.” “Whew, that’s kinda hot, I won’t lie.” Harriet fanned herself. “Oh please, everything gets you turned on, Harriet, you’re jumping at Will like there’s no tomorrow.” “There isn’t. There’s only that moment, Mary. Took me awhile until I trained him, I’m just enjoying the fruit of that labour.” Lydia laughed, clapping to agree. “Go for it, Harriet. I love you two.” “Aww, Lydia, thank you. So, there’s potential for continuing this little affair?” Lydia sighed. “I don’t know. It could just be the Italy thing.” “I think not, Professor. He will take up Expressionism.” “What?! He said that?!” Lydia yelled. That was one of her courses, it was an extra course for upperclassmen, an elective. Students had a choice of several ones, including hers.
“Jesus Christ. He can’t.” “Yeah, that might be a problem. In Oakley’s defense, we had some of it already, in Theory subjects, we both wrote about it. He said he can’t wait for the actual course. That was way before you came into picture.” Mary said. “I’ll take it up as well.” “You will? Aww. That’s sweet. I’ll flunk you both.” Mary laughed. “Please don’t.” “In all seriousness, Mary. I do want to try to separate friendship and classes. I won’t treat you any differently.” “I know, I know, Lydia, don’t worry about me. Worry about him.” “Fuck.” “I’m so glad I’m not at Uni.” Harriet said. “But from what I gathered; Oakley will be spending a lot of time in that office of yours.” “I need to go get something to drink.” Mary spoke, getting up and walking back into the villa. “That should be fun.” “No, Harriet, that is dangerous territory. Teaching means the world to me. I still feel embarrassed by this whole ordeal.” “Lydia, love doesn’t choose. You have a kind heart. You love this, I can see it. I’ve been listening about it for the entire year, they all love you. Nobody will respect you any less.” “Love? Isn’t it… too early to speak of that?” Harriet smiled mysteriously, shrugging, seeing now that she shouldn’t say what she sees. Harriet was endlessly romantic, often to her own detriment, but she was sure of this: Oakley and Lydia love each other. She quietly observed everyone, seeing the small changes in how love affects them, a friendship love, a romantic love, a brotherly love. And she saw her friend Oakley’s eyes get bigger and light up each time Lydia walked into the room. She saw a permanent smile on his lips when they would sit down for dinner. Harriet watched Lydia’s eyes get darker, her face fiery and determined when Oakley would be feeling bad – and Lydia would destroy everything on her way to comfort him. That is love. “Yeah, I guess so. But still, Lydia, you shouldn’t worry too much. These things have a way of working themselves out.” “I hope you’re right. Because honestly, it’s getting out of hand. I can’t stop thinking about… doing him. My fucking pill hasn’t kicked in yet, and we… ugh.” “Keeps coming inside you?” Lydia blushed, nodding. “It’s hot, right?” Lydia looked at Harriet who was smirking, before saying: “You’re such a slut.” “…the pot calling the kettle…” “He said he needs to go study. I can’t bother him right now.” “But you want to, right? Especially now. Lydia, is he… big?” “M-hm. I’m sort of achy. But it’s so good. I liked it when it… hurt slightly.” “I can imagine. Don’t say that to Mary. She gets a bit weird, I think she’s still frustrated over her ex. That girl seriously needs to get laid.” “You’re right about that. I’ve been feeling absolutely nervous before… we fucked.” “So, Oakley has a big cock.” Harriet said, with a huge grin. Lydia chuckled. “Yup. As if he needed more reassurance. That man is so smug, it’s driving me nuts.” “But you’d let him do whatever he wanted to you.” “Don’t ever tell him that.”
They were both laughing when Mary got back. “What are you laughing about?” “About the idiots speaking of Lydia’s tits before.” “Oh. Yeah, they’re idiots. Listen, I was thinking, we should start drinking before going to Siena, I think I’ll need the courage.” Mary replied. “For your Italian fuckboy?” “Yes. He’s so fucking hot, it makes me stupid.” “That is good, Mary. I like that. It’s going to be so good! I just want to get lost in a crowd of people and dance!” “Hear hear!” Lydia said, raising her bottle of lemonade.
The girls were laying in the sun for a little while more, before going to their rooms. Lydia decided to finally glue the little ceramic cup Oakley broke when they had a fight in the kitchen - after their first night together. She was in a deep, calm concentration after reading the instructions on the glue packet she purchased in Siena. The handle wasn’t fully mended, but other than that, it looked pretty good. She was satisfied with the result and, after changing into her loose dress, she decided to bring it down to kitchen, explaining to Nevia how she fixed it, and apologised. The old lady stopped by to make them a quick lunch. Matt was with her, hugging her and thanking her. “I have biscotti, what you call it? I make tiramisu.” “Oh Nevia, you don’t have to!” Lydia said. “You are good kids. I make tiramisu.” “Can we help you?” Matt asked. Nevia was endeared by this, and gave them small jobs to do: make espresso, soak the ladyfinger biscuits in it; prepare the Mascarpone. Lydia was writing down the instructions; wanting to have that recipe for when she is as home and missing the sunny Italy. Matt kept asking her questions about Oakley each time Nevia took a step farther from them; and she was laughing and telling him to shut up. When they were done, Lydia kissed Nevia’s cheek, and greeted her.
She went to rest in her room, taking a quick nap. When she woke up, all she was thinking about was the tiramisu in the fridge. So, she got up and sneaked back down to the kitchen to check if it’s settled enough for her to cut a slice. She took the sharpest knife and managed it, before it smeared all over her plate. She chuckled, eating it quickly and licking the cream off her thumb. It was delicious, she sat down and enjoyed it thoroughly.
I should bring Oakley a slice, he’ll appreciate it. She took her quick excuse to see him and jumped up, cutting up another large square of the still mushy cake and placed in on a plate with a tiny spoon, before walking up to his room. She knocked on the doors. “Yes?” “It’s me!” “Oh, come in, its unlocked!” She opened the doors, walking in. He was sitting at his desk which was covered with papers. “Oh my, you’re very hardworking.” “What is that?” “Tiramisu. Nevia taught me how she makes it, so Matt and I helped her. Thought you’d like a little dessert.” “Aww, you thought of me?” “Well, yeah.” He walked to her and kissed her. “How is it possible to miss you this much in a span of a few hours?” He said, making her smile and kiss him back. “Sweet talker. Come on, try the cake.” He licked a mushy piece off the spoon, moaning appreciatively. “It’s incredible, right? I have the recipe, I’ll make it when I get home!” “Will you make it for me?” “Yeah, I just have to find the actual coffee for this pot, moka, I have to go buy it and-” “Then you’ll make it and you’ll invite me to your apartment and kiss me when you open the doors.” He waited for her usual reaction of reprimanding him weakly. “You have to pass this exam first.” “Yes, milady.” “Jesus, Oakley, the period stuff is really getting to you, huh?” He laughed. “She made us some quick sauce for the lunch, says we can have it with pasta, so come down when you’re ready, alright? Enjoy your cake.” She took a step closer and kissed him, still feeling the sweetness of the cake on his tongue. He embraced her gently, cupping her cheek with his large hand. “Thank you, Lyd.” “You’re welcome, baby.” He kissed her again, endeared by the gentleness. She kept thinking how she doesn’t want it to end, just wanted to plaster herself against him and cuddle. “See you soon.” He said when she turned around and grabbed the door handle, smiling at him.
Lydia got back out, passing by Mary who said she was going to go take a nap, because the sun drained her energy. That reminded Lydia she wanted to soak up some more rays, so she knocked on the doors of Harriet and Will’s room, asking her to join in on the sunbathing. Will was getting ready to go out. He and Matt were going to go buy some more wine and liquor to drink before going to Siena. Harriet took her bikini and got out. “Umm, Lyd, do you want to take a shot with me?” “Yes, yes, please. Come try the cake first!” She dragged Harriet to the kitchen where they enjoyed a few more spoons of the now almost fully mushy cake which hasn’t settled yet, chuckling to themselves. Harriet kept checking the cabinets. “There is something called Grappa here… umm, the Limoncello, and Campari! Yes, Campari!” She took the bottle out. Lydia took the small shot glasses and a bottle of water, before going out to the pool where they sat beneath a parasol. “Where is Mary?” “She went to take a nap. I’ll text her so that she comes down when she wakes up.” Lydia said, typing a message on her phone while Harriet poured them some Campari. “Should we take shots of this? I think you’re supposed to drink it with ice.” “Both, honey bunny. Go get ice!” Harriet chuckled, running back to the kitchen. When she returned, they took two shots, followed by large gulps of water. “Oh my god, this is bitter, but so delicious!” Lydia said.
“I think it mixes well with orange juice; I think I saw Mary drinking it in that fancy bar back home.” “Orange? Yeah, I think that would be great. Do we have orange juice?” “We’re out, Matt literally drank all of it this morning. He spent the night with that Italian girl again. She and her friends are coming tonight.” “Shit, there will be everyone. Marco and his people as well. Harriet, I’m feeling so pumped about tonight, I can’t wait to dance!” “Yes girl! We’re all relaxed here, but honestly, I can’t wait to put on make-up and my dress and look just incredible.” “That you definitely do, my gorgeous friend.” “Aww, Lyd, you’re so sweet. Here’s another little shot for your sweetness!” Lydia laughed as she downed it, feeling her brain relaxing slightly. “Whew, this is hitting quickly.” “Yup. Let’s jump in the pool.” Harriet said, taking off her dress and immediately jumping inside. Lydia followed her. “I literally never knew this can sober you up so beautifully.” She said when they dived out, going back to their positions, now refreshed and wet. “I could seriously live like this. With Mary’s money. No, don’t laugh, imagine it: I wake up, have my food prepared for me, then I go sunbathing. Then I take a nap before going swimming in the pool and start drinking like, mid-afternoon. Then I get drunk, fuck Will right here in broad daylight, just mount that man like a stallion; then we have a dinner followed by more drinking and hanging out with my darling friends, before we go to bed. Where I let him tie me up and make me come, like, three more times before falling asleep.” Lydia was slapping her palm on her thigh, laughing. “Well, fuck, Harriet, that sounds awesome. Here’s to eternal summer!” Lydia yelled out, pouring them two more shots. “What would you do?” “Ahh, the same, I guess.” “No, Mrs. Professor, details.” “Hah… Umm, fine, the morning would be the same, except for maybe I’d take my coffee completely alone. This is an exception, but I usually need my complete peace for an hour.” “Fine, fine, then what?” “Then I’d go swimming…” “Then you’d go fuck Oakley.” Lydia laughed.
“No, that would happen the second I opened my eyes. He’d wake me up by going down on me. That’s what he did this morning, anyway.” “Oooh! Nice, Oakley, very nice.” “So, a little pre-coffee fuck session?” “M-hm.” Lydia nodded, sipping on her cold glass of water to pace herself. “Then I’d go to Siena. Definitely. Have that spinach pasta. Alone or not, doesn’t matter. Then I’d have friends over for dinner. And maybe some of Oakley’s cock for dessert.” Harriet snorted into laughter. “Oh my god, I can’t believe I just said that. Shit, I’m drunk! Shit, was I too loud?!” Lydia covered her mouth and Harriet slapped her knee. “I knew it! Look at you, you’re blushing. That’s so sweet, Lydia. God, I love you two.” “Aww, thank you. Umm… does… Will actually tie you up?” “No, not really. I’ve been trying to talk to him about it. He’ll get too horny the second I mention it, and we’ll end up not discussing it and just fucking instead.” “Ugh, I know. I try talking to Oakley, and three minutes later, his fingers are inside me.” “I can’t believe you and I haven’t been hanging out so much. For somebody so incredibly opened, Mary never wants to discuss it. I think there is something bothering her.” “It’s the upbringing. Her parents are incredibly stuck up.” “Yeah, they are.” “So. Oakley. Tall, kinda lanky. Right? Right. That’s awesome. But… I think he looks too boyish for me. The curls are not my thing, I just mostly tease him about it. He’s like an imp.” “Yes, that exactly. So arrogant, as well. He always acts like he’s the shit. So fucking cocky. Harriet… I love it. I love it when he does that. I’m a fucking idiot, but it gets me so wet.” “Lydia, that is just too adorable. I’m serious. Will acts like he’s a sub, and like he always follows my directions, but when we’re alone… he just goes feral. I’m a puddle. I want him to order me around in bed.” “Harriet, you’re so fucking kinky!” “You have absolutely no idea. Speaking of which, what’s your weird thing?” “Weird thing?” “Like… like a fetish. Come on, spit it out.”
“Shit… umm… alright, there is a thing. Jesus, I’ll blush even more. Wait, let me have a shot first.” Lydia gulped it down, before drinking some water. “Alright. Exhibitionism. I absolutely love the idea of being caught. I always tried to get my ex to fuck me in Uni. He’d be such a little bitch about it. Ugh.” “That’s hot, I’ll give you that. What’s the most public place you did it at?” “Uni. The bathroom. What about you?” “Shit, you’re not going to like it now.” Harriet said, shaking her head and looking up to the sky. “Spit it out!” “I used to spy on people doing it. Not in a completely weird way, it’s just that… It gets me hot, thinking about it. I don’t want to do it with them… I guess it’s the idea, the idea of sex which excites me. Ok, I’m kind of lying, I’ve only ever seen, like, drunk people in the club sort of dry humping, but still… I usually go jump Will up when I see it. Shit. I never told this to anyone.” She finished, hiding her face in her hands. “Wow. Wow. Okay, no, no, thank you for trusting me. I’ll never tell anyone, don’t worry. No, it’s not that weird, I actually think I get it. Some of it.” “Thank you. Will knows. He teases me about it, but I can tell it excites him somehow.” “Shit, why wouldn’t it? It’s kinda hot.” “I need to go jump in the pool again, I’m flushed now.” “Don’t be embarrassed.” “I kinda am, Lydia…” “Let’s do something to break it, to break the embarrassment. Fuck it! Long live the kinks!” “Long live the kinks!” Harriet yelled out, downing another shot, before she, in a wave of drunken excitement, got up and took off her bikini top, jumping like that in the pool. Lydia’s jaw dropped down when she downed her shot. “Fuck it!” She yelled out, taking off her own top and jumping inside. Harriet shrieked when they dived out, laughing. “Now this is a real vacation from our regular lives.” “Freedom, Harriet, freedom!” Lydia said, walking out and lying back down on her beach chair. “Ahh, this feels good. When are Will and Matt coming back?” “Will texted me while we were talking, they had to go to Siena to pick up Matt’s Italian girlfriend, so I think we’re good for at least an hour.” “What if Mary comes down?” “You know what, fuck it. I don’t care. She’s seen boobs before. They all have.” “You’re right. Let me just pull up my chair, I want to sunbathe.” “I can’t. I just want like a nice little nap here in the shade.” Harriet replied, turning to lie on her stomach, sprawled on her chair.
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