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houseofceline · 6 months

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My Pretty Girl - T.N.

Steal My Girl

Pairing: Ravenclaw and sort of ditzy but talented Reader x Slytherin notorious playboy Theodore Nott

Warnings: None (yet ;))

Summary: Theo's friends get to meet you for the first time.

< 2

__________________

Perfect.

You clapped your hands in satisfaction after taking a little study break to organize all your fabrics by color. The plan was originally to go to the dining hall to grab a quick snack, but your messy little studio set up in your dorm easily distracted you on the way out and made you change your plans.

Your fingers flipped through the pages of your design sketchbook. A small smile formed on your face as you traced your sketches.

Fashion.

The only thing that you felt competent in. You didn’t have to try to make things look good. It was the only thing that came natural to you. You could plan an entire outfit for any occasion faster than you could even list the ingredients in a simple potion. You weren’t going to become a doctor like both of your parents, but you thought it’d be better to do something you’re good at rather than forcing yourself to study materials that you’ll never be able to understand. No matter how many times they tried to persuade, or threaten, you to change career paths, you never strayed far from your dreams. The dreams that kept you happy when you were scolded for wanting to stay home and draw instead of going with your father to work.

At least you will never have the chance to mess up a surgery. That would be worse than the invention of jeggings.

The door swung open and your roommate walked in. You furrow your eyebrows upon her presence, wondering why she would be back so early from her date with Cedric.

“How’d your date go?” You closed your design book and walked towards your bed before flopping onto it.

So comfy.

Cho sighed before rolling her eyes, “stupid last minute quidditch practice.”

You giggled as your stomach growled. Maybe you should’ve gotten a snack before you decided to clean.

“Dining hall?” Cho offered her arm out.

You jumped up from your bed and happily skipped over to her and took her arm.

“I’m famished,” You exclaimed in desperate need of having anything in your stomach after the oatmeal bowl for breakfast.

“Me too, Cedric had promised me pastries from a bakery in Hogsmeade before I got canceled on,” Cho grumbled as the two of you walked in a pair towards the hall.

Pastries. Croissants. Ugh you missed home. France has the best pastries. Now you were craving a chocolate croissant. Not that croissants are the only pastry in France.

“Next ti- ow,” you rubbed your head after the harsh impact, stumbling a bit.

“Watch where you’re going next time mate,” another boy came up and landed a harsh slap on his back.

“I’m so sorry, are you okay?” The boy in front of you questioned frantically while trying to hide the fact that he was searching your head for any bruises. Theo might kill him if he made a bruise on his “pretty girl”.

“I‘m okay,” you waved your hands in front of your face, kind of nervous that people were starting to look.

“Hello y/n,” The other boy came up and offered his hand out.

You were confused on how he knew your name despite the fact that you didn’t know his, but still shook his hand.

The boy chuckled at your confused looking expression. He could understand why Theo had called you pretty instead of his usual “she’s hot”s that the group would receive when talking about girls.

“I’m Mattheo, Riddle,” he winked, “Nott’s friend. And this is Lorenzo.”

You made an ‘ohh’ face in recognition but you remained surprised at the fact that you were even linked to him.

Cho nudged your side. You looked over to her and was met with a raised eyebrow. You were as equally as confused as her. You and Theodore had only interacted once and it was during that one potions class, the day Cho had to skip due to sickness. You had no idea why his friends knew about you or were even talking to you.

But nonetheless you offered a warm smile towards the two boys, “nice to meet you.”

“Nice to finally meet you too,” Lorenzo returned the gesture. You liked him, he seemed nice.

Cho cleared her throat while clutching her stomach. You had forgotten what the two of you had even come to the hall for.

“Well, enjoy your meal!” You waved them goodbye as Cho dragged you to the Ravenclaw filled tables and out of their sights.

“Who are you losers bothering,” Theo scowled and smacked the two boys on the back.

“We were just getting acquainted with our best mate’s girlfriend,” Mattheo teased as Theo raised his arm pretending to hit him, making Mattheo duck.

“Girlfriend? Please, you and I both know I don’t do none of that,” Theo rolled his eyes and the trio walked over to their table.

“Lucky her, you’re not exactly boyfriend material yourself,” Enzo replied as they took their seats grabbing their lunches before quidditch practice. The first game between Slytherin and Gryffindor was coming up, they needed all the fuel they could get before Malfoy made them run what felt like 100 laps during practice.

“What are you talking about? I'm the epitome of it,” Theo replied confidently as he took a bite of his sandwich. Sandwich was a bit dry, Italians do it better.

“Right, someone bring Hannah over for questioning,” Mattheo laughed as Theo glared at him.

“We never dated, I don’t owe her anything.”

____________________

“IT’S SO COLD!” You let out a high pitched scream as a huge gust of wind blew right into your face. You had a sweater that you knitted yourself on, paired with a skirt and black tights along with a designer scarf you had searched the whole country for. It was late October, but you hadn’t expected the weather to drop this low. Maybe you should’ve worn your winter coat or opted for a bigger scarf. Or maybe you shouldn’t have come at all. That was the original plan until Cho had managed to convince you to attend. You didn’t really understand quidditch. The whole game seemed complicated to you, plus the whole flying really high and the possibilities of students getting hurt didn’t sit well with your stomach. But you came regardless and it seemed to make Cho very happy.

“I KNOW BUT WE HAVE SUCH GOOD SEATS!” Cho screamed over the loud clapping and cheering that signaled that the game was about to start. Loud screaming, another thing you weren’t a huge fan of.

“HERE!” Cho screamed as she took her earmuffs off and placed them on your head.

“YOU MIGHT NEED THEM MORE THAN I DO!” She yelled before turning her attention back to the game.

One by one players in either red or green began to fly out. Everyone you were cheering as if it was a competition to see which side would be the loudest.

“GO HARRY! YEAH!” You heard Cedric shout from the other side of Cho.

You didn’t know any Gryffindors that well but since you were in a crowd of people all supporting that team, you didn’t want to stand out so you decided to clap along.

You recognized a few Slytherin players, the faces of the two boys who you had bumped into a few days earlier were spotted flying on broomsticks. You secretly clapped for them as well.

The mixture of red and green made your heart happy. Christmas. Your favorite holiday. Only two months to go! You couldn’t wait until you get to start putting together presents and drink peppermint mochas with your friends. It was all so exciting!

Focus on the game!

You scolded yourself. You look up and frown as you see players begin to grow aggressive. You frowned as a Gryffindor player tried to throw one of those flying balls at Lorenzo.

You knew it was part of the game but the fact that someone had almost harmed the nice boy made you want to reach for your wand.

“Yay go Enzo!” You cheered and clapped as you watched him dodge them with ease. A few Gryffindors side eyed you and gave you nasty stares but it was hard to pay them any mind with the distracting colors of ketchup and mustard wrapped around their necks.

Theo wanted to thank Berkshire, he really did. He wanted to thank him for providing him the strength to throw bludgers at Gryffindors. What was he doing stealing your attention like that? Last time he checked Berkshire was busy trying to ask out a Slytherin a year younger than them. He needs to leave you alone, you were his friend first. Maybe he should throw a bludger and knock Berkshire off his broom.

Would that be a Slytherin or Gryffindor point?

#theodore nott x you #theo nott x reader #theodore nott imagine #draco malfoy x reader #hogwarts oc #hogwarts au #harry potter #slytherin #ravenclaw #slytherin boys #draco malfoy #blaise zabini #theodore nott #mattheo riddle #lorenzo berkshire #hp fandom #hp fanfic

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probablyasocialecologist · 7 months

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Some readers are waiting for me to denounce violent resistance. They imagine that without this assurance, which they ask of no Israeli, I do not have the right to speak. They believe they are owed a version of Palestinian which surrenders everything white, Western liberalism affords our oppressors, and itself: the right to exist, the right to self-defense. They have criminalized our nonviolent forms of protest, killed peaceful demonstrators, imprisoned our poets, and assassinated our journalists. They do not believe in our historical or contemporary suffering. At the same time, they believe it is our natural state—part of the hazy, brown landscape of abjection in the so-called “Arab World.” It is an abjection we must accept, silently and upon the pain of our deaths.

[...]

“But what about Hamas?” I grew up with this question whipped at my face every time I declared my people’s right to survive. “What about Hamas?” It didn’t matter if I’d just asked for clean water or the right to return to our stolen land. “What about Hamas?” they’d ask, holding my humanity hostage. Their smug smiles at this question, which they saw as a rhetorical coup. I gave them hours, pages of my words. I filled rooms with my hot breath, panting, “We are not terrorists—Hamas is a symptom of oppression—yes of course I condemn extremism—this is a struggle for human rights—Israel propped up Hamas for years—please look at our children—please, don’t you see our helpless elders?—please, if you don’t respect us as humans, could you spare some pity?”

[...]

Tens of thousands turn out in city after city, Palestinian flags flying from New York City and London to Baghdad and Kuala Lumpur. Pro-Palestine rallies are banned in France, Vienna, and Berlin. French protesters, defying these orders, are sprayed with tear gas. Hundreds of Jewish activists block Senator Chuck Schumer’s home in Brooklyn, protesting the senator’s full-throated support of Israeli bombings. Dozens, including the descendants of Holocaust survivors, are arrested.

“This feels different,” my friends and I murmur to each other. The question we do not ask: Will it last?

#israel #palestine #gaza #zionism

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ayeyolooo · 4 months

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Memory lane

This is part 2 part one is here!

Please excuse any grammatical errors 😥!

—

"MAN ION LIKE BOYS BUT who was that fine ass boy you was talking to at the mall yesterday n/n?" London asked. "Oh he's someone from middle school." You shrugged and smiled.

"One of them kids that made you leave?" You nodded. You clacked your nails together as london mugged you. "No no he was the one who made them stop." You said defending armin.

"Ohhh okay." She said. "I'm happy that you found someone my love." She said smiling and wrapping you into a hug. Paris was sleeping cuddling with your dog kody who was also sleeping.

"I wanna see how they look now." You mumbled and laid on your stomach before opening instagram and clicking armin's page. You scrolled on his page.

"But maybe imma see them later." You said. "Girl you over there worried bout them,youn got nothing to be worried bout." London said. "Okay?" London asked. "Okay." You said clicking your phone off. "Now let's go do summm." She said smiling and getting off of your bed. She grabbed your beats pill speaker and grabbed your phone. She unlocked it and clicked shuffle on your playlist.

'Run tha streetz.' By Tupac started to play as you both of you starting singing. "YOU COULD RUN THE STREETS WITH YOUR THUGS ILL BE WAITING FOR YOUUUUUU." The both of you began singing outloud and laughing.

London went on her Instagram and began to go live.

User1: ouuuu who is thaaaat?

3rennn joined.

Mi.mikasa joined.

Meelasplayhouse: ouuuuu she reall prettyy.

"I know right!" London said bringing your face into the camera. You just smiled and lip synced to the song.

Armin.alert joined.

"Ohhh y/n there go your mannnnn." She said as you jerked your head back before looking closer to the phone and seeing that armin joined. Your face went hot as you just sucked your teeth."Girl that's not my mannnn." You said. "Yet." She whispered.

Niseyuserlol: whoooooo!?

^gossipqueennn: that basketball player armin alert.

Jaecomments: no way she talks to armin alert.

"That's cause I don't." You said throwing some hair over your shoulder.

You pulled your pants up and buckled them finally after jumping just to get them up. You took a breath out and just laid on your bed out of breath. "Lord have mercy." You sighed out and stood up before you walked to your dresser and grabbed a shirt and slid it on.

You walked to your closet and grabbed your jordan 4's before abusing your finger trying to put your shoe on.

You grabbed your bookbag and threw some blank journals, a binder,some mechanical pencils pens and some paper in it. You grabbed your France fragrance perfume by Victoria secret and sprayed some on you before placing it into your bookbag.

You grabbed a hoodie and made your way downstairs. You seen your mom throwing last minute things into her purse before looking up and seeing you.

"Oh hey baby you look beautiful as always." She said kissing your forehead. "Thank you ma." You said cheesing. Your mom grabbed her phone and held it up. "I need my pictures,this your last year mama." She said.

You groaned. "Maaaaaaaaa." She shook her head. "Ion wanna hear it,now pose." You did a pose with a fake smile and she clicked the button making the flash shine bright in your eye. Your eyes watered as she took a thousand more pictures.

"Okay ma. It's getting late." You said looking at your Apple Watch. "Okay fine."she said smiling at the pictures she did get. "Ahhhh my baby got so big." She said. You sat in the front with her as she started the car and backed out of the driveway. "Okay here's your schedule,just ask around and someone would point to where you have to go okay?" Your mom said handing you your schedule. You nodded before taking it from her.

You looked at it and scanned for your first class. "Psychology." You read outloud. You walked around asking for directions as everyone pointed to where your class was. Your heart was beating out of your chest as you knocked on the door.

Someone opened it as your heart was beating out of its chest as you walked to the teachers desk. She had glasses with a ponytail and a green suit on.

"Hello." She greeted as she took your schedule. She scanned it and nodded. "Okay you can sit in this group right here." She pointed to a group that had one seat missing. You nodded "thank you ms...." You trailed off you her name. "Oh it's hanji! Don't worry students always have a hard time pronouncing my name." She said smiling.

You just gave her a little smile before you turned and made your way to the back where you sat down in the seat drawing attention to yourself. "My goodness she's so pretty." One of the girls whispered to the other who just nodded in agreement.

"Y/n?" You heard someone call you. "You looked around and seen the familiar blonde. "Armin?" You asked scooting over to him and hugging him.

"Wait your name is y/n? As in y/n l/n?"the boy with a buzz cut asked as you nodded hesitantly. All of their eyes widened and their jaws dropped.

"Pick ya jaw up off the floor before someone step on it." Armin said mugging them. "How do you know that?" You asked them tracing your forearm tattoo. "Um I'm Connie,that's mikasa,Jean,Sasha and eren." Your body went hot as your eyes widened.

"My bad man we didn't mean to run you away." Connie apologized. You just shooed it off. "You good,I just hope that we're passed that point." Everyone eagerly nodded as you just chuckled. "You're so fine." Jean said as you just smiled. "Thank you." You said. Armin just chew on his inside cheek.

"Okay class so we're going to be talking about the mind responds to different things." Hanji said titling the board. "Make sure you take good notes and use a pen,do not write with a pencil in my class." Hanji said pushing her glasses up and turning around.

"Y/n." Armin lightly nudged you. "Hm?" You asked looking at him. "You're left handed?" He asked looking at you holding your pen. You just chuckled and nodded yes. "That's so cool." He said with a pearly smile.

His pink plumped lips looked so kissable right now. "Wanna go catch up wit you." He said. You nodded "yeah when?" You said bouncing your leg up and down. "Today after school." You nodded. "Yeah but you gotta come get me cause ion gotta car yet." He nodded his head. "Ight imma come get you around what? 5:30?" He asked. You nodded. "Bett." He smiled.

My kitty kitty meow meow is not meowing right now. It's growling,barking and waterfalling. Heyyy do you like hello kitty cause my kitty wanna say hi to you lollll.

His nose is so rideable. I can see his abs though his shirt. I should ask him what size shoe he wear for research purposes..

"Y/n you good?" He asked you "I'm good." You cleared your throat and continued to write the notes down.

"Okay so now that we're done with the notes! Please review with your partner what you've taken down. And exchange some information between the two. After that please give me two examples of the different types of responses and stimulus's" hanji said writing on the Promethean board.

You were sitting beside Sasha and armin. "Hiiii." She exitedly waved as you smiled and returned her wave. "Okay so I'm just going to let you know nowww,I'm INLOVE with you." She said. You just laughed and covered your mouth. "Thank you." You said barring your false eyelashes at her.

"Girl I'm so serious." She said with a serious expression before the both of you buses out laughing. "Na I'm just playing but wanna work with me?" She asked. "Yeah sure." You said.

Both you and Sasha exchanged socials and phone numbers before getting to know eachother. Hanji had to ask you two to quiet down more than once,which was horrible due to the both of you laughing out loud.

"So what's something you've been interested in?" Sasha asked you as the wrote down the answers "I've learned how to do hair." You replied as you worked.

"Ohhh that's niceee,I know how to do nails." She said showing you. You gasped and grabbed her hand as you looked at her nails. "Girllll these are so cuteeeeeee." You said looking at her short nails that were black French tipped with little planets on it.

"These $45 for you ma." She said with a little wink. "Ouuuuuuu." You covered your mouth from being excited. "So y/n..." Connie drew attention to you as they all started asking you questions until class was over with.

You placed your things in your bookbag and you looked up to see Sasha waiting for you at the door. You just smiled as you walked next to her. "I didn't think you was going to wait for me." You took your beats out and placed them around your neck. "Why?" She giggled out. "Becauseeeee." You trialed off.

"Listen I'm truly sorry for how we all treated you in middle school,but I promise you that we aren't like that anymore." You just played with your lanyard that held your id in it. "Okay." You said with a small smile.

She wrapped her arm in with yours and walked with you to where everyone was. "Y/nnnnnn!" Connie said running up to you.

This was honestly so weird. "Yes?" You asked looking for Armin.

#ayeyolooo #black y/n #aot x black reader #aot x reader #eren x black reader #onyankopon x black y/n #onyankopon x chubby reader #x black fem reader #aot x black y/n #black reader

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vivwritesfics · 5 months

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Keep On Rolling

Chapter Twelve

Summary: Lando's best friend having feelings for anyone on the grid? Impossible, right? She worked with them, sharing her friendship with the grid with the world via the FormulaY/N youtube channel.

After film a video including... spicy water (alcohol), everything changes between her and a certain world champion. Good thing she hasn't had a crush on him since his F1 debut, right?

Right?

2K words

Series Masterlist

“I have done God’s work.”

It was a bold sentence, but some people would have agreed with her.

She sat in front of her camera, black headphones covering her ears. Y/N had never done a video quite like this one before; to her viewers it didn’t seem to be anything Formula One related. But it was, they just needed to be patient.

“So, as a good lot of you have noticed, I have spent the last week streaming on Twitch,” she said, moving her hands a lot. “And I know a lot of you thought this was weird, considering I’ve been absent for the last few weeks, but I’m hoping this video makes up for it,” she finished, looking somewhat guilty as she stared at the camera. “Because, as you also probably realised, I wasn’t streaming alone.”

She grinned at the camera as four pictures popped up, one in each corner of the screen. “That’s right, guy!” Animated confetti covered the screen. “I got the Twitch Quartet back together!”

The pictures were moving, Charles, Alex, Lando and George all cheering. “Anything you guys want to say before we roll the footage?” Y/N asked the boys as she leaned back in her chair.

“Uh yes,” Lando said instantly as he got himself more comfortable. “I let her win because I’m a good friend. I am not [bleep] at these games. I’m actually really really good at these games,” he said and stared into his monitor camera.

“You little liar!” George shouted with a laugh.

“It’s fine, Lando. Those who watched the stream know what they say,” Y/N replied with a smirk. She gave one final word before the footage of their streams over the last few weeks started.

Y/N had never watched her own videos before. She trusted James with her whole heart and uploaded what he sent back to her. But this was her first video back since her hiatus and she wanted to make sure it was perfect. It was, edited in a way that made it funny and enjoyable even to those who didn’t game.

As Y/N watched the video, her phone buzzed.

It was a text from Max – three simple words. Come to Monaco.

What were they? Y/N didn’t know. They weren’t friends, definitely more than that now. But they weren’t quite dating. It was basically friends with benefits, with both of them needing to take that leap into relationship.

Friends with benefits was hard when you’re in two different countries. And Y/N’s youtube salary didn’t give her enough money to be flying to and from Monaco every time Max wanted her.

And she told him that. I can’t, she typed out, the video still playing on her laptop. I haven’t got that kind of money.

I’ll pay for it.

She hated it when he did that, hated it when Max offered to pay for her. It was… Icky, made her feel like their relationship was completely transactional.

But she did want to see him, and she didn’t have it in her to turn him down. Okay, she replied and began shoving clothes into her bag.

There was no telling how long she was going to be in Monaco for, when Max would let her go home, when she’d want to go home. So, she bought a plane ticket, not caring about how expensive it was, and Max sent her the money.

Just five hours later Y/N was touching down in France. She got in the taxi and made her way into Monaco, heading towards Max’s apartment. Because of her friendship with Lando, it was easy to recognise her. Especially in Monaco. As soon as Lando had moved there and Y/N had visited him, oh so many pictures of the two of them circulated. Her face circulated the Formula One social media pages and so many people thought they were dating.

But nobody seemed to notice or recognise her as Y/N stepped out of the cab and made he way into Max’s apartment building. She made her way up to his floor, her black McLaren backpack on her shoulders.

As soon as Y/N knocked, Max opened the door and pulled her inside.

He wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her as she kicked the door shut behind them. “I miss you,” he whispered as she wrapped her arms around his neck. From their cat tree, Jimmy and Sassy looked up at her, but they quickly went back to sleeping.

“I missed you too,” she said, her face squashed against her chest.

Max released her and Y/N looked around. She’d been to the apartment every times since that moment in the rain, had slept in his bed just three times. When she didn’t sleep over at his, she made her way to Lando’s, surprising him.

Y/N walked through the apartment, petting the cats as she walked past. She placed her bag down in the bedroom and walked back out towards Max. “Dinner?” She asked him and Max grinned.

He grabbed a jacket from the back of the sofa. “We’re eating out,” he said and Y/N stared at him.

“We’re… what?” She couldn’t quite believe it, couldn’t quite believe that Max wanted to go out for dinner. “But...” It was incredibly hard to express just how she was feeling. “If we’re seen out for dinner, people will talk, you know that?��

Max nodded his head. “Let them.”

***

So, they were out, having dinner. Y/N L/N was having dinner with Max Verstappen. She was having dinner with a two time world champion. It was crazy, unbelievable actually. They sat there, drinks in front of them, enjoying a way too expensive dinner that Max was more than happy to pay for.

She didn’t notice the people taking pictures of them, the papparazi that had honed in on their location. If Max noticed, he didn’t say anything. They were out enjoying dinner together, he wasn’t going to let anybody ruin their night.

After dinner they headed back to the apartment. Any minute now there was going to be news stories about them, she knew as Max shut the door behind them. He leaned against it, watching as Y/N shrugged off her jacket. She hadn’t dressed up fancy, in the same comfy clothes she had travelled in. But Max thought she looked perfect.

He smiled as he pushed away from the door and strode over to her. He wrapped his arms around her and leaned in close, kissing her suddenly.

Kissing Max was always unexpected to Y/N. She never expected it, never expected to be kissing the Dutchman. Shock always delayed her reaction and she always took a second to kiss him back.

But she always did, always wrapped her arms around him, leaned into him and always kissed him back. Her eyes closed and Max stepped forward, with Y/N stepping back. When she hit the sofa he lifted her up, sitting her on the back of it.

She pulled away and looked up at him. But there wasn’t much she wanted to day, not much that could convey her wants and her needs. As she looked to the bedroom, Max seem to understand. He lifted her up, holding onto her ass and carried her as Y/N wrapped her legs around him.

***

It was always surreal waking up in Max’s Verstappens bed. Y/N woke up, facing a still sleeping Max. He snored softly as she climbed out of the bed and pulled on his shirt. She grabbed her phone and made her way to the bathroom.

Once she was finished up, Y/N made herself a coffee and sat herself on Max’s couch. She’d been there enough that she no longer felt too awkward about getting herself something to eat and drink in the morning.

As she sat there, she scrolled through her notifications. Texts, emails, a plethora of Instagram notifications. At the bottom of her notifications was a couple of news paper articles. All of them were about the same thing, her and Max having dinner together.

All of the articles named her, named her youtube channel. It was out there now, the world knew. A lot of the messages she had received in the last few hours were about that and nothing but that, sending her screenshots of the articles.

Y/N ignored all of the messages. She hadn’t even discussed it with Max yet, she certainly wasn’t going to discuss it with anybody else. There were messages from Lando, George, Alex and Charles, her best friends on the grid. Y/N ignored them, too. As much as she didn’t want to, she wasn’t going to tell them anything without knowing whether Max agreed with her first.

She clicked her tongue and used her nails to scratch at the material of the couch. Jimmy came running, but Sassy kept sunning herself. “Hey, sweetness,” she said as she scratched the top of his head. He purred and pushed his head further into her hand, asking for more attention. When Y/N moved to stroke along his back, he sniffed at her coffee, but Y/N pulled the mug away.

“Hey.”

She looked up towards Max’s bedroom door. “Hey,” she replied as Jimmy jumped down from the couch and went trotting over to Max, rubbing his body against his legs. “Sleep well?”

They both knew they had progressed further than this small talk. Max didn’t answer as he walked over and sat beside Y/N, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her into his side. He went to take a sip of her coffee, but Y/N pulled it away. “Surely you’re contractually allowed to only drink red bull,” she said and let a grin cross her face.

Max shook his head at her. But he stood walked into the kitchen and returned with a cold, fresh Red Bull. “Happy now?” He asked and sat beside her.

Y/N nodded her head. But the laughter and the smile dropped away. “I want to show you something,” she said and pulled up her phone. She went into the articles and passed her phone to Max.

Two time Formula One world champion Max Verstappen seen out in Monaco with mystery woman.

Below the text was a picture of him and Y/N at dinner, with photographer only capturing Max’s face and the back of Y/N. He read on.

On the night of Tuesday 19th of September Max Verstappen was spotted by fans with a new woman in an Italian restaurant in Monaco. The driver has not been romantically linked with anybody for quite some time.

It took fans only moments to discover that this mystery woman was youtuber FormulaY/N, a Formula One media personality and best friend to Lando Norris. While it is not uncommon to see her enjoying a meal or a stop at a café with her driver friends, many fans have been quoted saying that this interaction feels difference.

This begs the question, was this just a friendly dinner? Or was something more going on?

So far neither Max nor Y/N have been seen giving any indication of the intentions of this interaction.

“Intentions of this interaction?” Max asked as he passed the phone back to Y/N. “I thought the intention of that interaction was clearly that I want to be with you.” He answered.

But Y/N didn’t have an answer to that. Well, she did, but it wasn’t verbal.

Once again she passed the phone to Max, showing him her email inbox. At the very top of the inbox was one name that stuck out like a sore thumb. Jos Verstappen. Subject line My Son.

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itsgodepi · 7 months

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If I lose my mind | Ch. 5

Series summary: When life has given you more than enough lemons and you cannot figure out how to make a lemonade, the only way to make it work is to get rid of the whole basket. But was it neccesary to send you to a whole different dimension for that? A juicer would have done the job, really. Or, one day you go to sleep as a normal person and the next you wake up as a Formula One driver. You've never been a fan but isn't it like, one of the most exclusive sports? Pairing: CL16, LH44, CS55, DR3 x fem!reader Chapter: Previous | Next Word Count: 3k Also on AO3

Reading your own Wikipedia page is quite a strange experience. Paragraph after paragraph of your life written on the internet for everybody to see, from the day you were born all the way to this very moment.

You do not know if the fact that none of it is true is for better or worse.

Some parts are accurate, information about your hometown, date of birth, relatives' names and... that’s about it really. According to this biography, not only have you been the runner-up for a Formula 3 championship, but you are also a Formula 2 champion, which is good you guess, for someone that did not even know those kinds of competitions existed. As of two hours ago, Formula One was the only championship with those kinds of cars you had ever heard about, but there are so many. Too many actually. In a section of your page named ‘junior racing career’ —which is in itself a crazy sentence to read—, it even says something about karting’s championships and an academy thing, concepts you are not sure if you want to understand.

Oh, and the most important part, you are a Formula 1 driver, a statement endlessly repeated throughout the text. They even claim this to be your second year on the motorsport, ‘not a rookie anymore’ they say, as if yesterday’s race was not the first one you have ever watched from start to finish.

Still, if being pushed into a Formula One car and a whole Wikipedia page was not enough of a confirmation, you can find a million articles online that certify your participation in the sport. Webs filled with photos of you with the cars, dressed in full gear and with that stupid blue helmet, the situation getting worse and worse with every tap of your finger.

How is any of this possible?

The rabbit hole that seems to be your ‘life’ keeps you awake night after night, new information slapping you in the face every two minutes while you try to navigate what appears to be a Formula One driver’s normal schedule. Nick makes sure of that last part at least.

The first step on that agenda had been to fly out of Austria, a place you cannot comprehend how you had arrived to when you were in Spain just yesterday. It is not like you were having the best time of your life there, finishing the third month of your external internship in a city you thought was already too far away from home, but this change looks a bit excessive. The possibility of being in a completely different country had seemed so absurd at first, when a list called Austrian GP came up as one of the top results in your research, and yet with a simple look to the navigation app, your worst nightmare had been confirmed. From your trip to the airport, to the arrival to another country, France, and to a new hotel, Nick walking you through every step of the process and only leaving you alone once you are back in the hotel room.

The next few days follow a similar dynamic, mornings spent trailing behind Nick without a clue of what happens around you and long nights glued to the phone, the date for the next GP —or whatever they call it— getting closer and closer.

You are not ready to repeat last Sunday’s events, an engine failure had saved you from the inevitable end, but you might not be so lucky next time. There is no way you are stepping into that car again, that is for sure, and even less so when you have not figured out what brought you here in the first place.

Although you had drowned yourself in information about your supposed life the first nights in France, the need to discover what was happening to you had quickly managed to overpower that curiosity. From the moment Nick knocks on your door early on the morning to the hours you lay awake on bed looking for anything that could explain this madness, you spend every second of the day looking for an explanation.

A kidnapping had been the most credible theory from day one, the way you had woken up to all those screams and the men surrounding you, how Nick had come into your hotel room that morning and pushed you to drive with no regard for your safety. It made sense. However, the articles posted all over the internet told a very different story. There is too much information about you, some posts even dating back to when you were a child, photos and videos that cannot be simply edited and uploaded to make you believe you have gone crazy. You have driven a Formula One car on an official race, for crying out loud, that is not something anybody can orchestrate.

To be honest, the whole Formula One thing had knocked down quite a few of your guesses. What could someone gain from making you, a nobody, believe they are a motorsport driver?

In fact, the only theory that could easily explain everything that had happened to you in the past few days is that: none of this is real. A dream. You can vividly remember dozing off on your bed, that sensation of falling down and then suddenly waking up in that unfamiliar place. It could be the reason why you had blacked out when the car exited the garage, why everyone knew you, and could also explain the existence of all those false stories on the internet.

You had made all of this up.

That had indeed been one of your first assumptions, or at least had been an easy way for your mind to let go of all the worries in such an unnerving situation. If this was not real, there was nothing to stress about, no danger in sight. Your alarm will go off any moment now and you will be one day closer to ending this internship and going back home. Tomorrow will be a new day.

Despite this, as time goes by, it becomes harder and harder to hold onto this happy thought.

Stepping foot into the new track is a breaking point. It is Friday, five days have gone by and nothing has changed, the countdown to the next race weighting down on your mind as you walk through what Nick had called the paddock. It is that strange street again, the one lined by those colorful buildings but in a completely different country —another clue that this was indeed not real, you were clearly lacking imagination to be recycling sceneries like this.

They had brough you here yesterday as well, for a tour around the track that had set your nerves alight. Thankfully, you had done nothing but wander around the circuit for a while, be surrounded by a couple cameras, have a meeting with the engineers and go back to the hotel for another sleepless night.

Maybe you should sleep more —which sounds quite contradictory when you are supposedly already dreaming— because, when the events of last Sunday start repeating themselves, you do not even have the strength to push back. Nick manages once again to lure you into the white building and prepare you for what he calls practice, but the reality is that just the sight of that Formula One car on the garage makes you heart drop to the pit of your stomach.

“Don’t worry about times,” a man who has been following you all day says “Let’s see if everything feels good first and we’ll talk things over for FP2”.

A lot of changes had been made to the car since Austria, that is what all the meetings had been about. You had silently sat down through all of them, nodding along to the engineers’ words as if you understood any of it.

Now that you are seated in the car, blue helmet and jumpsuit on, you can only wish that whatever broke the car in Austria has not been fixed. That the engine won’t even start, and you will have to retire again. It is hard enough to listen to the rest of the cars exiting their own garages, their engines revving like they might explode.

How they have managed to put you on the spot yet again, that you do not understand. And it is not only a one-time thing, but they easily make you jump in the car later the day for a second practice.

When you are finally helped out of the car the second time, body uncontrollably trembling and a static sound filling your ears, you feel an unusual sense of calmness. The whole ride had felt like such a clear sign that none of this is real, it can’t be. Both practices had gone by in the blink of an eye, just like it had happened in Austria, a fade to black and you are back where you started. You do not even remember seeing other cars on the road or how you got back to the garage. Nothing. The only proof that you had driven around for hours being the fatigue consuming your body, something that backs the dreaming theory up so perfectly.

They say you have done great though, so that is something.

Nevertheless, it feels nice to be back on normal clothes, like there is less of a target on your back for the cameras and other strangers, but it is still difficult to keep a low profile when you are walking through the paddock with the team’s merchandising. Nick is guiding you out to the last meeting of the day, after you have fulfilled all the media duties and team reunions that have kept you on the track since your arrival this morning. He says this driver’s briefing thing should not last long, that it is quite late already, and they are probably thinking more about going back home than anything.

The meeting is on another building, one you had not even noticed in your two days here, Nick leading you inside and up some stairs until you find the meeting room. When he opens the door, you realize there is already people seated inside, the sound of their mixed talks now filling the long corridor. You recognize some of them, not from the team meetings but from Austria, other drivers.

The room is furnished as a classroom, a projector on the right wall and the rest of the space filled with rows of chairs. There are not many people in it yet, Nick had said it would be better to get there early before people start crowding the entrance and now you understood why. Your gaze instantly zeroes in on Lewis, a tiny smile pulling at your lips while Nick guides you to some seats, deciding to leave your things with him and go say hello. You have not seen him since Austria, after you had spent the entire pre-race ceremony talking to him, and now that you have kind of ruled out the possibility that he is a kidnapper, you have realized that maybe he was just being nice.

Yet, before you can take more than two steps away from Nick, you feel someone pulling at your hand. You come to a sudden stop, looking back to see a man seated in the row in front of you and Nick’s seat regarding you with a huge grin on his lips. He has dark hair and big brown eyes that seem to be staring into your soul.

“Oh c’mon, you’re not even going to say hello because I didn’t get you cookies last week?” the man chuckles, tilting his head as he looks up at you like he cannot believe what you were about to do “Isn’t that too much?”

Even though his tone is light and jokey, you cannot help but frown at him. Why would you greet him when you don’t know him in the first place? And why is he holding your hand?

Instead of letting go when you stand there in silence, too stunned to react to his words, he decides to pull you down into the seat next to his “Didn’t Charles get you some? You are being greedy at this point” he jokes once you are seated, not a word leaving your lips.

Oh, Charles, you remember him from Austria as well. Actually, he was wearing the same exact red shirt as this man, a detail that the abrupt start of the conversation had left you blind to. The Ferrari logo in both his chest and cap are even more of a telltale of who he must be. Charles’ teammate.

“They were nice...” you respond, crossing your legs and relaxing back on the chair now that you have gathered your bearings. It is true, you had been munching on those cookies throughout the race after your disqualification, Nick bringing them over to you as a treat to distract you.

The man shakes his head in disbelief, smile widening as he assures you “I'll get you a full basket next time, don’t worry”

The promise genuinely makes you smile, he seems nice.

“How’s the car doing?” the man queries, crossing his arms over his chest as he looks around

You can almost feel the media training kicking in, pre-made phrases hanging off the tip of your tongue, they have been putting a microphone in your face and asking you about it all morning. Nonetheless, you manage to push it all down, it finally feels like you are having a normal conversation after this stressful week, you are not about to parrot the engineers' words for the millionth time “Well, it hasn’t caught fire yet...”

The man seems to like that answer, letting out a giggle and a “That’s an improvement” while he nods in understanding. There is a moment of silence that follows, his eyes set on your face as if he was waiting for something that does not come. Is he expecting a more in-depth response or something? Yet, before you can decide on what to do, he finally wills himself to say what he has been thinking ever since you entered the room “So... are you feeling better?”

The question catches you off guard at first, the conversation taking a more serious turn than you had expected —or wanted. Should you say you are great, just to shut down the topic entirely? The room is filling up with people by the second and it is not like you are about to open your heart to a total stranger. Or are you supposed to give the same response Nick had made you repeat over and over again in front of the journalists? ‘I’m perfectly fine now, it was pure exhaustion’.

“I’m-” you start saying, mind not really having decided on what lie to tell, when someone pats your head.

You rise your head to look behind you, both to see who it is and to get away from their touch —what is with this people taking such liberties?—, the man by your side doing the same. Standing tall behind your row of chairs is none other than the man you have spent day and nights thinking about: Daniel.

“Ready for the two hours briefing?” he sighs with a raised eyebrow, his hand traveling down to your shoulder when you turn your body around to talk to him. This is the first time you have seen the man out of that bright orange jumpsuit, now sporting a shirt of the same color instead, logos drawn all over it. He is still wearing that matching cap though.

“So dramatic...” the man seated by your side snickers, the previous chat seemingly forgotten “We should do a twenty-four-hour briefing just for you”

“Mate,” Daniel says with a half-smile, pointing at you with a tilt of his head “she wasn’t here last year”

That must mean something you do not understand because it is all the man in red needs to groan out loud, his face falling in defeat at the prospect of having to sit through such a long meeting. On the other hand, you can only sit there with your eyebrows furrowed, Nick had assured you would be out of here in no time. And of course you were not here last year, or ever, you have not- but your inner monologue gets suddenly interrupted by the one phrase you have been telling yourself all day: none of this is real, you’re dreaming.

“What? No, she was driving here last year” another voice joins the conversation, his statement sharp and direct. You lean your body forward to see who it is, he has taken a seat on the other side of the man in red and his body is blocking the stranger’s face, eyes widening when you recognize him. Charles.

“It was still Mazepin in France, he almost crashed into Kimi remember?” Daniel corrects him with a side grin “She started after the break in... was it Silverstone?”

Daniel looks at you for confirmation on this one, the other two men also lowering their gaze to yours, waiting. You are so overwhelmed though, it feels so strange, the fact that they are talking so categorically about things that have not ever happened. What is Mazepin? Kimi? And Silverstone? What break? The pressure of the situation getting to you in the worst possible moment.

So you end up doing what you do best, nod along to whatever the other person says even though you do not understand anything. That is what you have done to the engineers, to the media, to Nick and now to these three men before the start of a briefing that you won’t understand a word of either.

Afterall, none of this matter, this is only a dream, right?

Next Chapter

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Author's note: Thanks a lot for all the hearts, comments and everything! I'm so happy you're liking the fic

Taglist: @purplephantomwolf @raye2000 @yuiiimd @drezzerk33 @leclercdream @homie0sapien @minkyungseokie @carlossainzwho @rewmuslupin

#formula one x reader #f1 x reader #f1 fic #lewis hamilton x reader #daniel ricciardo x reader #charles leclerc x reader #carlos sainz x reader #f1 x you #formula one x you #carlos sainz x you #charles leclerc x you #lewis hamilton x you #daniel ricciardo x you

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cosmic-crybaby · 6 months

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Break My Heart Again- Tommy Shelby x Reader

Part 2

Summary: After being childhood friends, you and Thomas made a promise one day to get married, but when he returns from France, he comes back a completely different man.

Warnings: ANGST, Tommy being a jerk, talk of trauma/death/etc. Platonic(?) betrayal.

It had been what seemed like weeks after the men were shipped off to France to fight in the war. When in reality, it had been only a week. [Name] had went back to work rather quickly, her mother preferring not to have her daughter mope around the house like a widow. So, she wrote her first letter to him.

Thomas,

You've just left us and it's already quiet here. Too quiet. The betting shop, the street, and the pub are all silent compared to the liveliness we were used to when you were home. When we came back from the platform, Polly, Ada, Martha, and I had walked in silence. Even Finn wasn't being his usual disorderly self. It's almost as if no one knew how to fill the silence. No one can fill the void that you three left.

In all honesty, I am scared. Terrified something will happen, and you won't return home to us. I want you to know how much I think about you, how much I need you to come home to me. I want you to be my first everything, I want you to keep that promise you made me before you left. Even now, as I write this letter, I stare at the ring on my finger, imagining how our future would be. We will pray for you every morning for a safe return.

Stay safe and please watch over each other. We are sending our love and prayers.

Sincerely, Your love [Name].

The whole of Small Heath seemed to be silent the first few days, but the women quickly took over while most of the men were gone. She had worked and worked everyday with the other women in the shop. Polly and Ada were strong women, and they were cracking down on the books like no other. They had involved themselves with their work that [Name] didn't expect her letter to come a few weeks later. Ada came running in with the post, handing her Aunt Polly the letters, and dropping Thomas' letter on the desk in front of her new close friend.

[Name] had never pulled out her letter opener so quickly. She nearly missed the blade as her hands shook to open it. The pages of parchment fell on the desk, unfolding it to read the letter he sent. Her colorful eyes went wide as she read the first page, heart fluttering and beating fast as she imagined his voice saying these words.

[Name],

When the train had left the station, I had already found myself missing home. We Small Heath boys sat together and no one knew what to say. We try to stay optimistic but news is that the odds are not in our favor. It hits harder the further we are from home. I am currently at a training camp, and even when my face is in the mud I still think of you. Your eyes, your smile, your voice. You visit me in my dreams, even when I'm in this hell you still feel like home.

No matter how long this will last, it will be difficult for you as it is for us. But Polly with take good care of you, you are no doubt a part of this family already. You will soon be a Shelby. I had never forgotten my promise to you. You are my dearest friend, and the most beautiful girl I had ever met. I knew from the day we met, you were special.

I will be safe [Name] I promise you that. We are going to make this out alive and you and I will get married and have our future together, building our legacy. Keep your thoughts clear and your mind positive until our return.

Until I write again my Love, Tommy.

The single tear ran down her cheek. Smiling a bit as she folded the paper again, placing it back in the envelope and into the drawer. Hearing Polly and Ada read the letters out loud from Arthur and John as they laughed through the sniffles. It made her lean back into her chair, looking up from the ring to the ceiling.

"[Name]! What did Tommy say?" Ada ran into her office, leaning on the door frame. [Name] turns to the younger Shelby sibling.

"Wouldn't you like to know," She teased with a light-hearted smirk.

"Come off it, lemme see!" Ada skipped to the desk, sitting down on top as [Name] gave in and took out the letter again, handing it to Ada. She smiles brightly as she read over the letter.

"Oh, [Name], that's so nice...I've never heard him be so...well, that before," She laughed. The girl tsked and grabbed the letters back from the Shelby.

"You'd be surprised, he's quite the romantic," She arched a brow at Ada.

"Yeah sure..." She shook her head.

"How are John and Arthur doing?" She had asked, putting the letters back.

"As good as they can be, [Name]...as good as they can be..." She paused. "Have you talked to Martha?" Ada asked. [Name] shook her head.

"Is she still sick?" She asked, her voice laced with worry.

"We think so, Polly's gonna visit her after work today, give her some medicine make sure she's okay, but just don't say anything to Tommy about it...She doesn't want John to worry," Ada explained.

"Of course, your secret is safe with me," Her lips formed into a tight lipped smile.

"I'll leave ya to write your letters," Ada hopped off of the desk and left her office. [Name] lets out a heavy sigh, moving the record books out of the way to pull the typewriter forward, placing the paper in before thinking of what exactly to write. How she could pour her feelings into one letter. Taking her fingers away from the keys to take a quick prayer, the same prayer that Polly taught all of the girls at the shop.

---

It had been years since the men from Small Heath had left. During those years, the two of them wrote letters back and forth as often as they could. At some point the letters began to slow. Anyone could imagine the reason why. In the last letter Tommy sent, he gave [Name] an idea of what he had to endure. The carnage and violence was only the beginning. The deaths he encountered, the injury and damage that had happened to him physically and mentally was enough to hurt her. Just from reading it. It was the middle of July of 1918. She was writing another letter to Thomas.

Thomas,

I received your letter last night. I miss you more than words can describe. Everything is starting to feel like normal again, as normal as is can be. I suppose the women taking over the jobs while most of the male population being away was the norm for the time being. It was still strange though. However, business has been slow recently. Ever since Martha had passed Polly and I had been taking turns to take care of the kids. Cooking for them and cleaning up after them nearly every day was just as hard as I imagined, Martha made it look so easy. Please give John my condolences once again and that we are thinking of him. And let me know how he is holding up.

The horses are looking healthy, Curly has been taking good care of them. My mother and I take walks in your uncles yard after dinner nearly every night just to see how the horses are doing, and so far he has been doing a wonderful job.

As much as I want to keep this letter forward-looking and cheerful, I do hope you are doing alright Tommy. The last letter you sent me had me worried for you. You told me you were going to be in charge of digging tunnels to bury explosives, I just hope you make it out alive. You had been there for me when my father had passed, and I hope you will let me be there for you after this is all over. Of course I have no real insight of what you are going through, but I hope you are safe. You were always so determined and strong. Make us proud, you always do.

Please give my love and support to your brothers.

Your Love, [Name].

It took months to receive a letter back. Longer than usual, but you didn't question it as you knew his job was hard, but you'd be lying if part of you didn't think the worst. But those clouds that plagued your mind were clear upon seeing his letter. It was a short one this time, but you imagined that he barely had any time to write these days.

[Name],

I am writing this by candlelight, Danny and Freddie doing the same. Writing wills and writing home. I have left everything I had to the family, you included. I'm sorry it's not much or what we had planned, but this is inevitable.

Knowing what's waiting at home encourages me and I will do my best to come out alive.

I will make sure to relay your kind words to John next time I see him.

Until I write again, SMG, Tommy.

Her hands shook as she read over the short letter. Again and Again she couldn't believe what he was saying. She set the letter in the desk drawer, along with the other piles of letters, before shutting it. She didn't want to believe it, not one bit. She was still hopeful that he would live. He even said 'Until I write again,'...but she didn't expect the letters to completely stop coming after that. No matter how many letters she had sent his way, she still didn't receive one back.

Weeks had passed, as Ada and Polly were receiving letters back to back every week, while [Name] came to an empty desk, but she never told them, afraid to hear if they received his letters as well or not. It made her heart hurt to think of the possibilities.

On November eleventh, a boy ran through the streets blaring the news. The war had ended. There was a shift in the air after the news broke of the war ending and the men finally returning home. The entirety of Small Heath seemed to be rushing to prepare for the return of the soldiers. Even Polly seemed increasingly distracted as she prepared for the return of her nephews, leaning on [Name] to review additional books and records. But tensions arise further as the official date was announced of the soldiers arrival.

Ada and the other girls grew giddier with each passing day, making [Name] just want to smack them. She was happy for them of course but, how could she witness their excitement for their men if she hadn't heard from hers in months. When the day finally arrived, it felt like the entire town was rushing to the station. Polly and Ada were waiting in anticipation for the train to arrive, while [Name] kept her brows stern in worry as she kept her gaze to the cement floor. She honestly had no idea what to expect. If he wasn't to return she would be heartbroken, if he was she would be confused by the cold shoulder he gave her. The sound of people cheering and screaming caught her attention as the train approached. Polly and Ada pushed their way forward as the train came to a stop. [Name] made sure to hold onto Finn as tight as she could so he wouldn't get lost in the crowd.

"Where are they?" Polly asked, excitement seeping in her voice.

"I dunno, [Name], do you see 'em?" Ada asked as she pulled her quiet friend along. Her eyes barely scanned the area as families reunited in tears, the boys finding their family members and just melting into their embrace.

"Um..." [Name] tried to get a better look, but the hordes of people blocked her vision.

"[Name]!" Ada called next to her...and she felt your heart drop. "I see them! Aunt Pol, look! There they are!"

[Name] couldn't catch her breath as Ada pointed somewhere in the distance. She squealed as she pulled [Name] with her. The closer they got, the more her heart began to beat. It felt like it was going to beat right out of her chest. She almost didn't want to lay her eyes upon them. In fear she would end up like the women receiving bad news that their own soldier had died in the battlefield.

But, she finally looked up. Ada, Finn, and Polly running to hug Arthur and John. [Name] stood in her place as she met this eyes. Those icy blue eyes and suddenly the air flew back into her lungs.

He was alive.

"Thomas?" She called, he stared at her. "Thomas!" She took off from her planted state and ran towards him. Throwing herself in his arms as she held him tightly, his arms wrapped around her tightly as he burred his face into her neck, inhaling deeply. She smelled like florals, an exotic blend of jasmine and violet. She smelled like home.

"You're okay...you're alive," She whispered to remind herself that he was in the flesh. She lifted her head to look at him, tears flooding her eyes as she rekindled with him. His hair was cut, short on the sides and back, nearly to the root with longer hair on the top that draped just across his forehead. The square of his jaw was clenched and sunk at the cheeks, sharp cheek bones...sharp enough to cut glass. Dark circles under his eyes and pale skin, but the same freckles littered his nose and cheeks. He looked so different. But nothing could beat the look in his eyes. He looked like a man that had gone through hell.

She supposed he actually did.

"My love? Are you really here with me?" She asked him, bringing her hands up to his face.

"I am...[Name], I'm here," He slightly smiled at her as he kissed her forehead. She knew he was physically here, but part of her knew mentally...he was distancing himself.

As the days passed, his once beautiful, vibrant blue eyes turned dull and emotionless. Just like before, he was sweet with her at first, but he started to grow cold. On some nights, she would sleep in his small bed, just waiting for him to come home in the late hours. When he did come home late, he would be drunk and simply stumble into bed, the faint smell of roses on his neck. He was a shell of the man she used to love.

One morning, she walked into his office.

"We need to talk," She told him, standing in the doorway sheepishly. He barely looked up at her before lighting a cigarette.

"What is it [Name], I am extremely busy," He huffed. The woman rolled her eyes, clenching her jaw as she closed the door behind her and walked to his desk until she were standing in front of him.

"You have been acting strange with me all these weeks, Tommy...What's happened?" She finally asked.

"Nothing happened, [Name]…Is that all this is about?" He asked, standing to grab some books from his shelf to look over, still avoiding her eyes. She almost felt delirious as she just wanted him to look at her. Her eyes followed him.

"You barely talk to me-"

"We're talking now," He quipped. She refrained from tearing her own hair out at how dismissive he was being.

"Hardly..."

"What is the point of this conversation [Name]?" He asked, arching a brow as he went back to his desk, again her body followed him, facing him again.

"The point is you don't treat me like I matter to you anymore, you hardly treat me as your bride-to-be let alone a friend! Does our friendship even matter to you anymore?"

He stayed silent as he just kept his head down.

"For Christ sake Thomas, look at me!" She shouted in frustration. His head snapped up to look at her. Surprised she had raised her voice as she had been so quiet since his return.

"You want to know what really happened, [Name]? Eh?" He quickly stood up and stalked towards her, her breath shuttered a bit as she was backed away into the wall, he stood tall over her.

"I saw people die, for four fucken' years! I nearly died in those tunnels, drowning in the mud and still, you assume I'll forget that ever happened?!" He shouted, getting closer.

"I don't blame you for what happened while you were gone...I understand-"

"No you don't [Name], stop fucken' saying you understand me when you don't! You weren't there, you will never understand what happened to me out there!"

"So what changed Thomas?" She asked, her lip trembling a bit. "What did I do to make you treat me this way?"

He scoffed, shaking his head as he pushed himself off of the wall and distanced himself from her.

"I thought you died out there Thomas, you didn't respond to my letters for weeks, I...I was so scared, and to find out you were alive and now? You treat me like a stranger... What did I do wrong?" Her voice was stern, but even Thomas heard the unstable wavering of some of the words. Thomas eyed her, looking at her like she was some common woman, not his closest friend and love of his life.

"You drain me...just being with you is exhausting, I mean for fucks sake [Name], you cling to me more that a fuckin' leach from the cut,"

"A leach?...That's what you think of me now?" She shook her head.

He hesitated.

"So that promise you made me was all fake?"

'What can I say? France gave me clarity..." He shrugged. [Name] was fuming. This wasn't the man she loved. Not anymore.

"I don't know who you think you are, but I loved you Thomas...But you're not the man I fell in love with,"

Thomas bit his lip before reaching into his pocket to grab another cigarette. There was still light in his eyes but he was too deep in his memories of France that he couldn't get out. He hardly slept as he heard the digging in the walls every night. She would have made those noises from his head and those terrors in his dreams if he had just given her the chance. He'd rather spend his nights elsewhere getting drunk and sleeping with the prostitute he met shortly after returning home.

"The old me died in the tunnels..." He spoke softly. She wanted nothing but to just kiss him and tell him everything would be okay. But the memories haunted him. And therefor turned her love away.

"I suppose the new you doesn't have love for anyone?"

"No," He replied quickly.

She nodded slowly. Reaching into her left hand and debating if she wanted to return the ring he gave her before he left. Tears brimmed her eyes as she slipped the gold band off of her finger. Thomas' eyes widened ever so slightly as he watched her walk over to him, grabbing his hand and placing the ring in his palm before folding his fingers over it, moving past him as she left his office without any last words.

she had stormed to her own office, slamming the door and quickly gathering her thoughts before gathering her things. She had left the shop in silence, Polly had called her name as she watched [Name] leave without a trace.

"Where has she gone, why is she leaving?" She asked her nephews and niece before going to investigate the now empty office. Thomas watched in shameful silence as Polly confirmed that her things were gone. Though the reason was unknown, Polly accused of Thomas being the reason for the young woman's departure. After she had voiced her (harsh) words, she left him in silence again.

"Trouble in paradise?" His brother asked, smirking a bit after watched their aunt butchering him with her words.

"Shut up John," He rolled his eyes before returning to work.

---

[Tag List]

@mysticalbouquetwolf-posts @milljane @cyphah @diosa-ahre-blog @badlandsbrunette

#Spotify #peaky blinder fanfic #tommy shelby #thomas shelby #Tommy Shelby x reader #x reader #peaky blinders #peaky fucking blinders #tommyshelbyxreader #light angst #friends to lovers

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whoslaurapalmer · 7 days

Note

twin peaks but it happens in 2010. laura palmer have iphone etc etc

this ask has been haunting me since i saw it last night oh my god okay okay so

i wanted to lead with laura being an influencer but no one was quite influencing in 2010 yet. but the point here being that i think she posts a lot online and cultivates her online image very carefully (very soft, carefree, excited teenager) and has a LOT of followers on everything and always gets a ton of likes. bc it's laura, she's so beautiful and special and popular, of course everyone is following her, of course everyone is liking all her posts to get a piece of her

she has a twitter (laurapalmer93) where she posts a lot of pictures with little captions like.......'morning donuts at the diner!!' with a picture of the donuts and a milkshake or a Coffee To Be An Adult, 'can you believe this guy? <3' with a picture of bobby making a face (or even.........dare i say it...........doing the dougie), a picture of donna and james with '<33333333' (modern emojis were just getting really big then but i myself was not a big emoji user in 2010 yet, so neither is laura), 'don't tell ;)' with a picture of her holding a cigarette (of course everyone still smokes in the high school bathrooms).

one time she gets away with posting the lyrics to if i die young by the band perry (IF I DIE YOUNG! BURY ME IN SATIN! LAY ME DOWN ON A BED OF ROSES!) (FUNNY WHEN YOU'RE DEAD HOW PEOPLE START LISTENING!) bc it's a popular song. it raises a few eyebrows but it's a song and it's laura. how seriously do you take teen angst, even among your friends? that's just what laura does. what's there to really worry about, huh? (the song was released in may 2010 but let's say the lead up to her death is in 2010)

on facebook she posts a lot of volunteer stuff. school dance photos, which she helps organize. buy some cookies to support the french club!! she's very involved with student council, and she organizes the group halloween costume. her facebook is filled with photos of her with other people, but not really any of just her. she doesn't post a lot of statuses, but they're usually about homework or tests or 'feels like summer!' towards the end of the school year. she's friends with her parents. she definitely takes ap classes.

she has a private vent twitter (lostinthewoods) with zero followers that she uses as a diary bc she thinks it'll be safer than having it physically written down. her childhood lisa frank diary with the tiny lock and glitter gel pens that she kept in her bed post went missing, after all. her vent twitter is filled with sooooooo many tweets bc this was still the 160 character limit days and she would just post and post and post especially late at night. (she definitely has string lights in her room.) she is a MASTER of using her phone with no one seeing -- she has the layout absolutely memorized. she was only caught texting in class once and of course the teacher let it go.

bob/leland finds her passwords and breaks into the vent twitter and leaves her horrifying tweets she sees later, instead of the back and forth they have in the diary and leland ripping the pages out.

i think she has a third twitter, for sex, but i'm not sure if that tracks for the time period? (snapchat wasn't a thing until fall 2011.) or like a forum sort of thing? i think it's still super easy for laura to sneak out, even in an increased security camera world. there's still a lot of stress on the, yknow, ~secret unexposed underbelly of the world especially in a time of more eyes on everything~ in the 2010s.

meanwhile, james posts music a lot on facebook, and also acoustic covers of songs. like. yknow. HEY SOUL SISTER. donna loves the original pusheen stickers. they record the picnic video on her flip video camera. mike loves icanhascheezburger, and he jailbreaks his phone. audrey gets really into audrey hepburn quote posting, Aesthetic France, black and white photos, berets, has a photography phase and carries and actual camera bc it's Vintage. she's an early tumblr user. no one else in school has a tumblr yet, so she feels very cool but also very lonely about it.

harry has very little understanding of social media, however cooper is very into all social media, he finds it delightful. he enjoys a good cat video. he looks through all of laura's photos, her tweets, facebook videos, and i think there's, honestly even more of a feeling of tragedy bc of how much more physical evidence there is available of laura's life, lingering fingerprints, last tweets, last posts, passwords to put in and information to see, cold blue computer light, the even worse voyeurism in people expecting so much of your life to be online, in watching it play out online, in the image laura created for herself online to be the person people expected

donna rereads laura's twitter in the dead of night, just over and over again. goes back through their texts. so much of grief has become so much more public with social media and using it as a teenager, and there's this back and forth in donna of not posting anything and then posting the most miserable statuses about losing her best friend.

i know i should get deeper into the investigation but i keep thinking instead of how laura definitely gets a 20/20 special. it's probably definitely called 'the secret life of the american teenager.' (bc there was that show on at the time with the same name) elizabeth vargas visits twin peaks, is appropriately grim, there's a lot of b roll of the town and the woods but without the grace of twin peaks' cinematography. they play up the creation of a narrative big, as they always do on 20/20. the revelation of her 'double life' is at the halfway mark and simultaneously not discussed enough and overestimated. 'laura palmer was your average, everyday teenager -- she liked horses. cats. she got good grades, was homecoming queen, had a boyfriend on the football team. she volunteered on weekends. she had her whole life ahead of her. or was there more to the story than anyone knew? was there a dark side to the all-american girl?' oh, it's agonizing. the trailers play up a lot of potential spooky woods stuff that isn't followed through on in the actual episode.

now 20/20 prides itself on getting the story right, so i feel like it's.........i feel like they have to say it's leland at the end (and they definitely never get into anything about bob). but i also think, for some reason, it could easily have a 'we never found the killer' ending. especially re: s3........the thing is, i feel like laura's death particularly is the kind of thing that shows up on 20/20, but the rest of the circumstances would've ended up on like the unsolved mysteries website (the last revival ended in 2010, before the netflix reboot in 2019) (especially with WELL OUR FBI AGENT WENT MISSING). and there's so much online to put together in a website about it, there's so much for people online to dig into who have never even been to twin peaks, to think they know a town and the people in it and the girl who died even if it's just literally THE MOST DISGUSTING VOYEURISM IN THE WHOLE WORLD i just think there's such a. horror in that. people have the most, just, enraging takes when they get involved in a Murder That Happened Somewhere Else. people thinking they alone can figure out a mystery they've never seen, they can of course see something no one else has. and it's different than the people in the town ignoring it -- i think a lot of the secrets in twin peaks stay the same, no matter the time period, so of course it's still, a terrible dying town killing the people in it, maybe even quieter than it is in the original, some new infrastructure but old buildings, not all of them occupied anymore, ANYWAY -- like of course yes people in the town ignore the same amount they did in the original, all small towns bury things. but just bc the town itself isn't paying attention doesn't mean that some rando online is going to know more, no matter how much they think they will. there's like an entitlement to details of a murder, an I Must Be The Hero, The Savior, bc i'm on a fucking reddit thread about it

now i have zero (0) idea of how medical science and forensics work, but i have to assume there have been some advancements in the field between 1989/1990 and 2010/2011. the town still rushes the funeral, but would albert have been able to find anything else sooner? what is it he would have found to point to leland sooner? oh........dna testing, maybe? would he be able to find out about leland right away? there's more of a sense of urgency, maybe less of a slowness between events, even more of a shattering horror. maybe leland goes missing in an attempt to cover things up. hmmmmmm.

final note -- cooper gets called mulder as a nickname bc the x files happened as a show in this universe.

#lulu talks about twin peaks #THIS HAS CONSUMED ME. I HAVE TO PUT IT DOWN. THANK YOU SO MUCH KAM I HAVE LOVED THIS

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leilakisakabiri · 11 months

Note

request: Hi can you do where the reader is wearing Gavis hoodie and she accidentally stains it and starts freaking out. Thank uuu and i love ur writing

I Got You (Gavi)

Summary: You need Gavi to come help you after you get yourself into a bad situation.

Warning(s): None

A/N: Thank you so much for the request and for your support! Requests are open. Currently working on The Promises We Keep Pt 2. Also, guys if I haven't done your request yet, don't worry, it probably means it's gonna be a long one.

Word Count: 3.1k+

Masterlist

It was a Saturday night in Barcelona, and you were holed up in your room, feet tucked under you, a knitted blanket over your shoulders as you read over the words in front of you for the hundredth time.

While the city was alight with people getting drinks, dancing, and laughing, you silenced your phone, closed your blinds, and put your headphones on to quiet any outside noises.

You had decided to stay in this weekend, caught up in writing an essay for your criminal law class that was worth 50% of your grade. Safe to say you did not take it lightly. You had been hunched over your computer for the last nine hours, brain numb and fingers aching as you had tried to come up with a thesis and strong argument for your essay. You had blocked out this weekend to finish the essay, letting everyone know ahead of time not to contact you unless it was an emergency, including Gavi.

Gavi had been gone for the last couple of days, traveling around Europe for the last leg of La Liga, and he had been adamant about spending as much time with you as he could once he got back - before his summer schedule kicked off. However, that hope was quickly cut short when you informed him you most likely wouldn’t be able to see him at all this weekend due to you being stuck finishing your essay.

Although he had tried to convince you to change your mind, bribing you with the idea of endless cuddles and then promising to be as silent as possible while you wrote when his first idea didn’t work, you relented, knowing that having him around would be a major distraction, one that you couldn’t afford.

“I’m sorry Pablo I don’t think I can this weekend. What about Monday?” You asked hopefully.

He sighed over the phone, his face pulling into a frown, “I can’t. We’re leaving Monday morning for France.”

You bit on your lip, feeling bad, “I’m sorry I just really need to focus this weekend.”

He nodded, “I get it. It just sucks. I wanted to see you at least once before I’m gone again. But it’s fine – I’ll survive.” He replied dramatically.

You grinned, “Well I’ll miss you Pablito.”

“I already miss you.”

The smile on your face only grew as your heart warmed at his words, “I’ll text you if anything changes. Have a great game, I’ll be watching.”

He gave you a wink, “Damn gotta show off now that my girls watching.”

You giggled at him, “Bye Pablo.”

He mocked your tone playfully, “Bye Y/n.”

That was last week, and now you were nose deep in your essay, textbooks scattered around you as you looked for possible quotes to strengthen your thesis. You had been so busy scanning the words on the page that you hadn’t noticed your phone buzzing non-stop next to you.

Once you saw the glow of your phone screen curiosity got the better of you and you flipped it around seeing you had eight missed calls from your best friend.

Your eyebrows knitted in confusion, it was almost two in the morning, she would for sure be at a club right now, happily dancing the night away with your friends, so why was she consistently calling you?

The phone buzzed once again and this time you were quick to answer.

“Hello, Gia, what’s going on?”

Her voice was slurred on the other end, but you could sense the panic regardless, “Y/n? I don’t know where I am, I was with the others but then I went to the bathroom, and I then couldn’t find anyone anymore. And this guy won’t leave me alone-”

“Gia, where are you? I’ll come get you.” You cut off her rambling, already rushing to put on your shoes, essay long forgotten.

She hiccupped, “I’m at Macarena. I’m sorry no one else answered.”

“No, no problem at all. I’m coming right now, Gia. Don’t move. I’m glad you called.” You comforted her.

The club was only a twenty-minute walk from your house, and seeing as you didn’t have a car or the time to wait for public transport, it was your best option.

You cursed yourself for not answering sooner as you rushed to get your keys, grabbing a random hoodie on the way out.

Although summer was beginning to creep into Barcelona, the nights were still chilly with cold winds rushing through the area.

You sped through the streets, walking with purpose as you finally reached the club. You were severely underdressed for the club wearing a random hoodie and yoga pants. You saw the line for the club was still extremely long, wrapping around the corner and you knew you had no time to waste.

You took a deep breath, mentally preparing yourself, you were never one to break any rules or ask for any special favors, but now seemed like a good time to start.

You walked up to the club bouncer, ignoring the nasty look the guy at the front of the queue was sending you, “Excuse me. I need to get in right away, my friend is inside alone, and I need to help her.”

You heard the guy next to you scoff.

The bouncer looked at you unimpressed. “Sorry sweetheart. You want to get to her, you have to wait in line.”

You relented, “Sir please, just look at my outfit,” you said gesturing to yourself, “clearly, I’m not here to party, I just need to get my friend and leave. You can even come with me!”

He gave you an apprehensive look, taking in your appearance, “I can’t leave my post.”

You groaned, “Fine, then can someone else escort me? I can literally call her right now. She’s not in the right head space.”

He squinted his eyes at you, “You look familiar.”

It finally clicked. This is where you had gone with Gavi and his team, celebrating after they had won a final a few weeks ago. They had treated you like royalty, blocking off a whole section just for you, the club owner even making an appearance to congratulate the team.

You didn’t like to use the fact that you were dating a well-known athlete as a way to get special privileges but if it meant helping your friend then you would do it.

“Yeah, I was in VIP a few weeks ago. I know the owner, so please let me in.”

“What’s his name?”

You racked your brain trying to think of that night, “Santiago. It was Santiago!” You replied, finally remembering.

The bouncer gave you a once over before he finally nodded begrudgingly, “Fine – but be quick.”

You heard the other people in line begin to argue but you quickly thanked the bouncer, rushing inside, not wanting to wait long enough for him to change his mind.

God bless Gavi.

The place was packed, bodies pressed together so closely that you had to squeeze in between heavily making out couples and groups of friends to make your way to the middle. The strobe lights were going crazy, changing every few seconds to the beat of the music. There was a DJ booth twenty feet above the crowd playing EDM Spanish music and the crowd was going insane, chanting along.

You hit your head on your forehead as you realized you forgot to ask her where she was.

You pulled out your phone, letting out a breath of relief when she answered, “I’m here Gia. Where are you?”

“I’m at- I said no, stop, I’m at the bar.” She huffed. You felt your anxiety rise, who was she talking to?

“Ok, I’m coming.”

You pushed through the throngs of people, finally spotting the bar, seeing her leaning against the counter, hands flying as she argued with someone.

You walked towards them hearing the tail end of their conversation, a bad feeling in your stomach.

“Gia!” You yelled, coming to stand next to her.

She gave you a relieved look, falling into you, the effort of standing up being too much.

You caught her, hugging her back.

“Oh wow – two for one. I got a buddy that would love you.”

You steadied Gia looking up to see the guy she was talking with giving you a smirk.

You held his gaze, annoyed, “No thanks. We’re leaving now.”

You went to turn but he caught your wrist pulling you back, the drink in his hand sloshing,

“Woah, don’t go yet, the fun’s just getting started. Look my buddies are in VIP we can hook you up.”

You yanked your hand away, giving him a disgusted look, “First don’t touch me. Second, we’re leaving.”

“You’re not leaving.” He persisted.

You raised an eyebrow, “Fucking watch me.”

He reached for you again, but you were prepared, grabbing his hand, and flinging it off you, as you weaved into the crowd, ignoring his shouts.

You let out a breath as you stepped outside of the club, grateful for the cold air after sweating through your hoodie in the packed club.

You adjusted your hold on Gia, holding her waist as you started the trek back to your apartment.

She stumbled over her steps as you walked, giggling, “Oh my god Y/n your bleeding!”

You gave her a confused look, dragging her, “What?”

She giggled again, reaching for your hoodie, “It’s coming from your stomach, look it’s red!” She pointed at your shirt.

You looked down and you stopped in your tracks, breath hitching as you began to panic, “Oh shit Gia I’m wearing Gavi’s hoodie!”

She stopped as well, letting go of you as she plopped onto the ground, staring up at you,

“So?”

“So? He’s going to be so mad at me. That dick spilled his drink on me. This is a white hoodie – who knows if it will come out?” You stressed.

“It’s-" she hiccupped, “fine.”

You shook your head, “No It’s not it’s his favorite hoodie, I didn’t even realize I was wearing it. Fuck, I have to clean as soon as we get home.”

You started walking before you realized she wasn’t following you.

“Gia?”

You turned around to see her slumped against the sidewalk, eyes closed.

You rushed to her side, shaking her, “Gia? Gia, are you okay?”

She hummed, “I don’t feel so good.”

“Can you walk? We’re almost halfway there.” You asked, helping her sit up so she was leaning against you.

She groaned, “I’m going to throw up.”

You looked around anxiously, unsure of what to do. You had left the main strip of clubs and restaurants, and were now on a back road, walking in an area that was dimly lit and that you weren’t too familiar with.

“I can call an Uber.”

You reached into your pocket, cursing yourself as you realized you had forgotten your wallet in the rush to get to the club.

“Shit, I don’t have my wallet. Do you have yours?”

“Antonio.” She groaned, leaning her head against your shoulder.

You let out a huff, contemplating what to do. You attempted to get her to stand up once again, desperate to get out of the area, but she couldn’t stand, and you weren’t strong enough to carry her the rest of the way. You chewed on your lip debating a solution, but you didn’t want to do it unless it was the absolute, last, last resort.

You spent the next five minutes calling all your friends, but no one answered. You groaned, frustrated, knowing you had run out of options.

You heard your friend beginning to doze off and you shook her, “Gia stay awake.”

She moaned, “Y/n I really don’t feel good. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

Your finger hovered over the contact, and you finally pressed it, feeling the guilt build inside.

It rang seven times before going to voicemail. You called back.

On the third ring, the line finally connected,

“Y/n? Why are you calling me so late?” Gavi’s voice was thick with sleep, his words murmured.

Hearing his voice sent a pang of relief through you, and suddenly you didn’t feel so alone,

“Gavi I’m sorry. I really need your help.”

He was up in an instant, wide awake, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m stuck in the middle of the road with Gia. She got drunk and I went to get her but now I’m worried there’s something wrong. She can’t get up and we’re all alone. I don’t have any money. I called our friends, but no one answered, I-I didn’t know what to do.” You rushed out.

You heard his breath accelerate on the other end of the line, “Ok don’t worry baby I’m coming. Send me your address, everything’s going to be okay. Just stay on the phone with me.” He reassured you.

You nodded before realizing he couldn’t see you, “Thank you so much Gavi.”

You heard his car door open, “Anytime. If anything happens like this again you call me first, okay?”

“Okay.”

You stayed on the phone with him, rubbing Gia’s shoulder to comfort her, readjusting her whenever she began to doze off.

Finally, you saw a familiar car pull onto the street, and you waved your hands, trying to get him to see you.

The car made a quick turn and then Gavi was rushing out, a worried look on his face,

“Oh thank god you’re okay. I was so worried.”

“I’m so sorry for waking you. Thank you for coming.”

“Y/n stop apologizing.” He said, helping you carry Gia to the car.

Upon feeling that she was being lifted, her eyes shot open, “Y/n what’s going on?”

She glanced over to her left seeing Gavi before she turned to look at you, it took two seconds for her eyes to widen and then she was whipping her head back, “Gavi? The hell y-you doing here?”

You giggled at her abruptness, “I had to call for help.”

She turned to you, snuggling into your shoulder affectionately, “You’re the best Y/n. She was a rockstar today.” She spoke, as you both pushed her into the car.

Gavi raised his eyebrow at you as you both got in, “A rockstar eh?”

You rolled your eyes, “She’s just spewing nonsense.”

Gia groaned in the back, hands clumsily coming to slap your shoulder, “Ehh don’t lie Y/n. You should have seen the way she talked to those guys – even I was scared.”

You saw Gavi’s grip on the steering wheel tighten, his posture stiffened as he looked over at you,

“Guys? What guys?”

You opened your mouth to reply but Gia beat you to it.

“This one guy, he kept trying to get me to come with him, but then Y/n was like no way we’re leaving, and then he started hitting on her, but then he tried to grab her, and she karate chopped his hand! He was so embarrassed!”

You felt yourself blushing at her recollection of events, “I did not karate chop his hand!”

“Yes, you did. It was like in midair when he was talking about his friend that liked you, and then I blinked, and it was gone!”

“Did he try anything?” Gavi’s voice was hard, as he looked at you.

You shook your head, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, “No don’t worry. We were fine.”

You felt his body relax under your touch, and one of his hands came to grip your own, “You should have called me sooner. I’m sorry you had to deal with that asshole.”

You felt your heart flutter at his words, “Don’t worry I handled it. But thank you, next time I will.”

Soon you were pulling up to your apartment and hauling Gia up your steps.

“I really wish we had an elevator right now.” Gia groaned as she was being half pulled, half carried up the steps.

You made eye contact with Gavi after hearing her statement, and you had to bite your cheek not to laugh out loud,

“You and me both G.”

Finally, you reached your apartment, and all let out a sigh of relief as she fell onto your bed, passing out almost immediately.

You cringed as you saw her head land centimeters away from the sharp edge of one of your textbooks.

You reached over, clearing the space so she was able to sleep without the risk of a concussion.

You looked up once the area was cleaned to see Gavi looking at you intently, a weird expression on his face almost like he was stuck in his thoughts.

“What? Is everything okay?” You asked unsure, looking down at yourself.

That’s when you realized.

You were still wearing his hoodie, the one that had a massive red stain on it now thanks to the jackass at the club.

You had completely forgotten about it.

You quickly apologized, “Gavi I’m so sorry. Gia called and I was so worried so I grabbed the first thing I could find – and then the guy kept grabbing me and had this drink – anyways,” you let out a huff, “I’m really really sorry, I can buy you a new one.”

Gavi stared at you in surprise, shocked by your outburst, “Y/n relax. It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry I know how much you love this sweatshirt.”

Gavi shook his head slightly smiling, you were just so adorable, and he physically couldn’t hold back the words he’d been dying to say any longer, “I love you more though, so it’s fine.”

“Wha-what?” You stumbled over your words, clearly not expecting such a big revelation.

“I said I love you.” He said it with so much confidence, almost like he was reciting a fact, something that couldn’t be changed, and you melted a little at how sure he sounded.

You didn’t know what to say, your brain still playing those three words on a loop. He loved you. He had said it first.

The silence stretched on and now it was his turn to get nervous, “Is that okay?”

Your mouth was still open in shock, but you quickly recovered,

“Yo-you love me?” Your voice cracked.

“Well, yeah… why would I not?” He asked, eyes locked on yours.

You shook your head, a smile gracing your features as you took a step closer to him, “I love you too, and I’m sorry-”

He cut you off with a sweet kiss, pulling you closer into him, as he slid his hands under the sweatshirt, fingers gently squeezing the soft flesh of your hips.

Your lips moved in sync and your hands went to play with his hair, gently tugging.

You heard him let out a groan and you bit his bottom lip instinctively.

He pulled away out of breath, a dazed look in his eyes, “Joder, you can ruin all my hoodies if this is how you apologize.” He muttered breathlessly.

You rolled your eyes, smiling as he brought you back into him for another kiss.

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ladykailitha · 3 days

Text

Never Hold Back Your Step... Part 7

I know, I know. I put out a chapter recently for this one. But it was the closest to being done after my elbow started feeling better so it got to go first.

In case anyone was curious, this is the song that the title is based on. It's from the musical The Scarlet Pimpernel and it's about the lead, Sir Percival Blankney trying to get his friends to help rescue nobles in France during the French Revolution.

Steve is going to have a very rough go of it for the next couple of chapters. but we're nearing the third season so that should be fun (it might get glossed over a bit for the sake of this story's plot, as it's more about Eddie and Steve then the events of the show).

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

****

Steve was taking a break from doing homework to work on his next comic. This one was a little bit more dangerous to put to paper in the sense that even the dumbest agent would immediately know what he was referencing. Well maybe not immediately, but definitely by the end.

But to the people who didn’t know that underneath their feet was this massive alternate dimension filled with murderous monsters? It was the easiest to hide. Giant wolves in a junkyard? The spunky new character who had more sass in her pinkie than the entire rest of the Party combined and considering Dustin was in this one, that was saying something.

He was lettering his favorite exchange between Max and Dustin. Her calling Steve insane and Dustin saying that he was awesome.

He could be both.

Really, all he needed to do was finish up the lettering and he would done. Then he could actually give it to Eddie and not chicken out this time.

Last time, he had brought it over to show Eddie, but had gotten cold feet at the last minute. Not that it had mattered, the ever loving idiot that he was had left it at the trailer anyway.

He already had his note to Eddie explaining the real events behind the comic on the back. Again with the instruction to do away with that page after he had read it.

He really, really didn’t want either of them in trouble with the Feds.

Steve looked up at the clock and sighed. If he wanted to get his homework done, he’d have to get back to it. He knew he really didn’t have to work that hard, having graduation in the bag, but he couldn’t help try anyway.

Plus at least two of his teachers had threatened to prevent any student who slacked off in class from walking in graduation. And he didn’t doubt that a least two others would do it, too, they just hadn’t said the quiet part out loud.

He put aside his comic and pulled his history book closer to him. He sighed again when he saw that he had barely done two questions. He dug the palms of his hands into his eyes and rubbed them.

He could do this.

****

Steve had been invited to a couple of graduation parties, one from a couple drama geek friends and another from Lyle on the swim team. Was even hosting one of his own.

Thankfully none of the were on the same night and he could do all three. Eddie wasn’t going to any of the ones he’d been invited to. Including Steve’s.

And as much as that hurt, Steve understood. He didn’t think that he could stand there with people graduating, knowing that he wasn’t going to be on that stage with them.

****

Marty, Janice, and Steve were all standing in the corner at the drama club party, drinks in hand and wishing to be anywhere but there.

“I’m just saying,” Steve muttered for the tenth time since he got there, “that we pick up Eddie and some real booze, drive out to the quarry and get proper shitfaced.”

Marty rolled his eyes. “So you keep saying. But I can’t if my parents find out I’ve ditched the party, I’ll be grounded until I go to college.”

He took a sip of his punch and winced. It wasn’t even alcoholic. It was Sprite and Kool-aid. Lime Kool-aid, no less. With lemon/lime soda? At least use it to spike cherry or some shit.

Janice suddenly ducked behind Steve and hid her face into his back. “Shit, it’s Tammy Thompson.”

Tammy walked up to Steve and Marty.

“Hey, guys,” she said cheerfully. “Glad you two could make. I heard Janice was going to come, have either of you two fine fellas seen her? I wanted to talked to her about where’s she going to college, just to see about what her prospects were.”

Marty and Steve shared a glance and then Steve frowned.

“Yeah, sorry,” he said, “she did stop to chat with us briefly, but then she moved on.”

Tammy pouted. “Well thank you anyway.”

She wandered off and Janice hissed, “So you could degrade them and make sure not to apply there, because they were beneath you, you hell beast.”

Marty snorted.

Steve just shook his head. He dumped his almost full plastic cup into a nearby garbage. “You guys can stay here if you want, but I’m out of here. I’ve been to some pretty lame parties, but this one takes the cake.”

“I’m with you there,” Janice agreed. “How about you Mart? You coming?”

Marty winced again and looked around. The music wasn’t loud enough to be heard and they were standing pretty close to the speakers. The food was just chips and store bought cookies. The drink was nasty as hell.

“Come on,” Steve said gently tapping Marty’s elbow. “At least let me give you a ride home.”

Marty deflated and tossed his cup in after Steve’s. “You’ve got me there, man. Yeah. Let’s go.”

Steve breathed a sigh of relief.

He led the way out to his bimmer and went to go dig out his keys out of his pocket when he was spun around roughly.

“Hey!” Janice cried.

Steve gulped. He was looking into the very furious and drunk face of Kyle Carver.

The asshole who had tried to sabotage Steve’s performance as Thomson in the school play by dumping water all over him.

He had been expelled and no doubt blamed Steve for that.

“It should have been me!” Kyle screamed in his face. “You ruined my life Harrington! You’ll pay! I’ll see to that!”

Then he took a swing at Steve. Steve managed to move to the side enough to have Kyle miss, but it was a near thing. He pushed Kyle’s chest.

“Back off, man!” he growled. “You ruined your own fucking life. You cheated on the audition, you tried to dump water all over me because you couldn’t get over the fact that I’m just better than you.”

He turned around to get into the car, but Kyle slammed his head into roof of the car. Marty and Janice screamed, hurrying to get over on the other side of the car.

Steve turned around and touched his forehead. His finger came away with blood. “You’re going to regret that, Carver.”

Kyle scoffed. “Billy told the team what an absolute pussy you are, Harrington. You couldn’t fight your way out a paper bag now that you don’t have that freak Munson around as your guard dog.”

Before Marty or Janice could stop him, Steve swung with everything he had.

CRACK!

Kyle stiffened like a board and went down.

Marty and Janice skidded to a stop to look down at the now unconscious Kyle Carver.

“What the fuck did you just do?” Marty asked in awe.

Steve wiped the blood off his forehead and spat on Carver. “What I should have done from the beginning. Take those assholes out. I was just afraid of what my dad would if I was caught fighting again after the incident with Byers.”

He gestured to Marty. “Come on, help me get this idiot off the side of the road.”

Steve lifted under his arms, while Marty and Janice moved him off onto the grass.

A passing sophomore saw them and made to open his mouth to scream.

“Hey, hey,” Steve said softly. “He’s just had a little too much to drink and hit his head. So why don’t you keep an eye on him for us.”

The sophomore nodded and the three of them slipped into Steve’s car, Janice at the wheel.

****

Eddie opened his trailer door and looked down at the trio of them getting out of Steve’s car.

“And just what did you two do to my boyfriend?”

Janice laughed and waved her hand at Steve’s smeared with blood forehead with a grin. “This? Oh this is nothing. You should see the other guy.”

Eddie sighed, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “What other guy?”

“Kyle Carver tried to get in Steve’s face and smashed his head onto the roof of the bimmer. So Steve here, just turns around and lays him out flat. It’s a good thing I could tell he was breathing, because holy shit, did Kyle go down hard.”

Eddie raised an eyebrow at Steve.

Steve shrugged. “It’s the reason I don’t get into fights. I don’t know my own strength.”

The other three looked at him in a mixture of shock and awe.

“Get your ass in here,” Eddie huffed. “I’ll get the first aid kit.”

Steve, Marty, and Janice made it up the steps and Eddie held open the door for them to all file through.

Steve sat down on a kitchen chair so Eddie could have a look at him.

“Let’s get you cleaned up first, sweetheart,” he murmured on his way to the bathroom.

He came out moments later with a large first aid kit and a damp wash cloth.

“Wow,” Steve said as Eddie set the kit on the counter. “You’re med kit is almost as impressive as mine.”

Wayne, who had been sitting on his recliner this whole time, snickered. “Eddie was very accident prone when he first hit puberty. All limbs and no idea where to put them. Plus, the bullying. I got the best I could afford just to keep up on it all.”

Eddie blushed a deep red as he wiped off Steve’s forehead. “The cut isn’t that bad, head wounds just bleed a lot. You’ll get more of a bruise than anything else.”

Steve nodded.

“I get why Eddie has an extensive med kit,” Marty huffed. “But why do you have an extensive med kit, Steve?”

Steve threw back his head and laughed. “I babysit six barely teenagers. One plays basketball and another skateboards. Plus, there’s Dustin who is just a walking disaster because he always has to be right and has absolutely no fucks to give to his general surroundings.”

Eddie snorted, rolling his eyes. That was a really good description of Dustin if he was honest. He liked the kid. He did. But low wisdom and high intelligence made for quite the disaster.

Janice nodded. “Yeah. I could see that. My little brother rollerskates and he is a menace on wheels I swear to god.”

Eddie finished putting on the band-aid and then kissed Steve forehead better.

“I’m sorry Carver was an ass,” he said packing away the first aid kit. “But I’m glad you won.”

“Steve told some kid to watch Carver because he was drunk and passed out,” Janice said gleefully. “So even if he does remember the encounter he knows he can’t say shit because then he’d have to admit to assaulting Steve first.”

Eddie kissed Steve again, this time on the cheek. “My super clever boyfriend.”

Wayne grunted as he got to his feet. “Come on, Marty and Janice,” he muttered. “I’ll take you home. I don’t trust this idiot to drive.”

“Hey!” Steve and Eddie protested together.

Wayne just shook his head as if they proved his point.

Janice and Marty said their goodbyes and followed Wayne out.

“Let’s get you some aspirin and into bed, darlin’,” Eddie cooed.

Steve nodded and followed Eddie into the bedroom.

He stripped down to his underwear and climbed under the covers. As he drifted off, he smiled softly to himself. It was nice to be taken care of for a change.

Just before he fell into a deep sleep, he felt a warm hand card through his hair and a soft kiss on his hair.

“Sleep well, Stevie.”

****

In case you guys don't remember, Kyle is the one that got suspended when he tried sabotage Steve's performance as Sec. Thomson in the musical 1776.

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#my writing #stranger things #steddie #ladykailtiha writes #boy with a bat

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simplykorra · 8 months

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thinking about ava deciding she'd rather go back to being paralyzed than let those she loves down. how much weight something like that has coming from anyone, but especially somebody like ava who had her life horrifically stolen from her and who was beyond grateful and overwhelmed and filled with joy at being able to live again. a character so in love with life actively choosing this time around to give it up on her own terms.

refusing to even consider michaels plan until she's shown there's no other way. only then does she resolve to do it because the other option, letting her friends, letting beatrice, have to live(or die) with the consequences of her inaction is unfathomable. and not only that, she tries her very best to not even let bea witness it, see it, because she knows the effect that would have on her. bea cannot watch her die. ava didn't have any choices before, now she does, and every one she makes is in service to those she loves

i think of ava sitting at home one night in switzerland, on the couch next to beatrice who has a book in her lap and a tiny little smile on her face and ava gets up and makes her a cup of tea all the while thinking about how fucking beautiful it is that she can just...do that

first, that she has the ability to get up on her own, to make (subpar) tea and do a little dance to the music playing in the background as she sashays around a chair in their kitchen. she's so appreciative of the little things - the way a car sounds when it drives by and how beatrice always hums a little to herself when she turns a page

which brings up the second, that she has someone in her life that is there for her. ava grew up so alone and abandoned and forgotten - frances literally tried to erase her existence and now she has this whole beautiful and glorious person who cares about her and looks out for her - who made her a promise to never leave her side and kept it.

ava is the quintessential 'burned too hot, too fast' kind of character that shines so bright but only lasts for a short time and her story reflects that right up until her final fight with adriel. she's accept it, but there's never heartbreak in her feelings towards it - she's grateful and that is what makes her special. ava had every reason to be bitter and angry.

she didn't need time, certainly she wanted it, but she didn't need it. what she needed was the chance. her heart was so grateful for the love she found, for the people who took her in and accepted her and gave her a chance that the very thought of anything happening to them made her choice easy. it hurt, you can see it when she kisses bea and later when she's walking with michael, clearly detached, but in her mind, it was so so easy.

that goes back to beatrice, beatrice who loved her, who chose her and i think deep deep down, that's all ava ever wanted. she wanted to be someone's person. she wanted someone to look at her and pick her and beatrice did and in ava's eyes that made her invaluable. that made giving up her own life simple.

in the end though, that same reasoning is why ava lived - because beatrice chose her and while ava may be the one with the halo and the powers and the destiny, beatrice is just as special and we saw it multiple times in season 2 - no force of nature and no act of god was going to keep beatrice away from her. she would, literally, fight the world if it meant getting to ava and keeping her promise.

ava's alive and will come home to her, because they chose each other, and you just can't beat that.

#avatrice

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storiesofsvu · 4 months

Text

Solace in Solitude Ch 11

Emily Prentiss x reader warnings: language, mentions of alcohol and tobacco, smut. Welcome to the beginning of the time jump chapters. in my mind each ** means that it's been at least two weeks since the last bit.

“Do you ever stop working?” Emily’s voice rang through the apartment, jolting you out of your hyper fixation spiral of the day when you glanced up at her.

“Huh?”

“You look like you’re cramming for finals right now.” She swiped a pastry off the counter, dropping down into the chair perpendicular beside the couch as you glanced around the room, letting out a small, embarrassed laugh.

“Oh god.” You dropped your hand into your face for a moment while she chuckled, what had started out as some research to combat the boredom of the day ended up with a bit of an explosion, and Emily was right. You had multiple pages open on your laptop, tablet beside you with a medical journal open and a pile of notebooks and textbooks spread out on the couch and coffee table. “Sorry, I didn’t meant to turn the apartment into a dorm room.”

You began to flip closed some of the books you were no longer working, piling them up so you weren’t taking up so much of the shared space. Groaning when a handful of high lighters toppled from inside a notebook to the floor.

“Don’t worry about it.” Emily shrugged, leaning forward to scoop them back up, dropping them into an empty coffee mug on the table, “what’s got you so invested?”

“Boredom.” You replied with a huff of a laugh.

“Okay but when I’m bored on a day off I end up numbing my brain with stupid tv not pouring over case files or true crime. You should’ve gotten out of the house, take advantage before the weather turns to shit.”

“I’m not just bored on days off, that’s the problem.” You sighed, relaxing back into the couch as you started to stretch out your body, realizing just how stiff your muscles and joints were.

“A trauma surgeon who’s bored at work? Okay, we definitely have a problem.” Emily half teased from her chair and you rolled your eyes.

“I don’t get a lot of patients out here and honestly being on your feet for that long is tedious enough but when you aren’t really in it anymore, it’s even worse.”

“Looking for a career change?”

“No.” You laughed, “before I got shipped out here I was working on start ups for a couple of different trials and I’ve always been super passionate about those kind of things. The medical field is incredible already but there’s so much that we either don’t know or can’t execute properly and figuring those things out just makes my brain happy.”

“You were a really big science nerd in high school, hey?”

“Oh shut up.” You tossed a pad of post it’s at her with a laugh.

“The hospital have any programs like that here?”

“Not really.” Your nose scrunched, “that’s what the other half of the research was, finding a home base to set up. There’s one in Germany that has insane tech but the language barrier has been tough enough trying to get information, a handful across the UK and a couple in France but nothing here.”

“Are you looking for an out?” She asked, cocking a brow in your direction and you shrugged.

“No... I mean as far as I know I’m here ‘til you’re cleared, I just… wanna have a back up plan, ya know?”

“Yeah…” she nodded, tugging her lip into her mouth and chewing on it as her gaze drifted out the window. You watched her for a minute, the way her brow scrunched, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly as she began to get lost in thought.

“Are you gonna go back?” You asked, almost timidly, continuing to watch her and her head tilted when she registered your voice.

“Hmm?”

“To your team? Or like, DC in general. From what I’ve gathered the world is basically your oyster.”

“It’s complicated.” She replied, her eyes still latched on the afternoon sky, “they were my family and I felt more at home with them than any place before but I don’t know how things are going to go… or if that’ll ever be home again.”

“Mmm.”

“Does that make sense?” She asked, suddenly looking up to you and you nodded.

“Yeah. But hey, Federal Agent means federal, you could pick up a job anywhere in the country. You’ve got tons of options.”

“Yeah...” She smiled tightly over at you before standing from the chair, “I was thinking stir fry for dinner? Use the rest of that chicken?”

“Sounds great.”

Emily jumped when the apartment door slammed shut, looking up toward the door to see you dropping your bag to the floor, kicking off your shoes and tossing your coat in the direction of the closet before you instantly disappeared into your room. By the muffled yell it was safe to assume that you’d dropped face first into your pillows to let out a scream. She thought about leaving you be, but you had left the door completely wide open and maybe you needed to talk, or a smoke and she’d be lying if she hadn’t been jonesing for one.

So she put down her book and tentatively approached the door, a chuckle escaping her lips as she found you having not moved an inch, face buried in the pillows, flat on your stomach. You were still in your scrubs, which she had never seen, you almost always changed at the hospital. It didn’t take a profiler to figure out that you had wanted to get out of there and home as fast as you could.

“You okay in there?” She asked with a smirk, crossing her arms over her chest as she leant against the door frame.

“Uggghhhh!” Was the response you gave without moving a muscle.

“I’m sensing a little bit of anger here… I’m guessing this isn’t a lost patient kinda thing?”

“No.” You grumbled, rolling onto your side to prop yourself up on your elbow, “just the most terrible, impatient, demanding, nit picky bitch I have ever met.”

“What was she in for?”

“Lipo.”

“Seriously? Why were you working with her?”

“She needed a couple of incisions redone, her doctor was out today and the resident didn’t want to go near her. I figured after you no one could be that bad, but boy was I wrong…. No offence.”

Emily barked out a laugh, “none taken.” Her arms dropped to her side as she stepped into the room, “you seem pent up, I think I may know how to help.” With a smirk she crawled onto the bed, gripping your hip to flip you fully onto your back.

“Oh?” You raised a brow.

“Yeah.” She nodded, her fingers delicately undoing the tie on your scrub pants, “think of it as an apology for being your second worst patient.” You laughed softly, your breath hitching in your throat at the feeling of her fingertips on your skin as they snuck into the waistband of your pants, “relax…”

With a gentle smile Emily tugged down your pants, tossing them to the floor before her hands softly glided up your legs, thumbs rubbing relaxing circles as she went. She massaged lightly, continuing higher up your thighs as you let out a satisfied breath and your legs easily fell open for her. She tugged at your panties, nudging at you to lift your hips so she could rid you of them, tossing them over her shoulder before she settled on her stomach between your legs.

Her lips softly kissed up your inner thigh, breath just barely hot enough where you were already craving it before she repeated the action on the other side, her hands soothing across your skin as she went. You let out an impatient whine and she chuckled, choosing to nip at your inner thigh instead, resulting in a gasp leaving your lips. Not wanting to frustrate you further her tongue darted out, flattening and licking through your pussy. The gasp you let out this time was louder, a hand shooting downward to tangle into her hair as your hips rocked upward. She chuckled softly into your cunt, kissing it gently before she began to eat you out.

Pleasure almost immediately began to soar through you, there was no doubt Emily was skilled at this and it wouldn’t take her long to figure out exactly what it was that made you tick. Her tongue sank into you, coaxing out your arousal, letting it smear across your pussy and down her chin. She licked up again, flicking at your clit and you moaned, fingers tightening in her hair.

“Fuck…”

She repeated the motion, her tongue slowly dragging through you before circling around your pulsing nub, creating a steady rhythm as your hips began to rock up against her mouth. You could already feel your pussy fluttering around nothing, the sparks flying through your body relaxing it, making all the worries of the day completely melt away. Your eyes slowly shut, letting the moment take over as you practically melted into the mattress, little moans and whines escaping your lips as Emily continued to eat you with expertise.

“Oh God…” You groaned when her lips wrapped around your clit, sucking it into her mouth, “more…”

You could nearly feel the way her lips curved up into a grin against your body, her tongue dancing patterns across your pulsing clit. A hand snuck up between your legs, the tips of her fingers toying with your juices before sinking into your pussy.

“Yes!” You moaned, nails scratching at her head, your hips jolting up off the bed.

Emily’s fingers pumped in the same pattern that she sucked on your clit, sucking harder when she curled them perfectly to hit the sensitive spot inside your pulsing walls. It didn’t take very long before you let out a soft cry, your thighs clenching around her as your orgasm washed over you. You heard her laugh softly as her lips finally popped off you, her fingers gently fucking you through your orgasm. She pressed a light kiss right above your clit before her tongue cleaned you up, careful not to overstimulate you before she nipped at your thigh again.

“Feeling any better?”

“Much.” You replied with a relaxed sigh as Emily shifted between your legs, sitting up at the edge of the bed so she could toss your clothes back to you, “could probably still use a drink though.”

“Yeah? How ‘bout a smoke?” She raised a playful brow and you laughed.

“Why the fuck not?”

“I’ll pour the wine.” She swatted at your calf, “grab a sweater, balcony’s a little chilly.”

You were standing in the kitchen, laptop open in front of you as you chewed on your lip, scrolling through page after page of recipes. Every so often your movement would catch Emily’s gaze over the top of her book and she would watch as you pulled open the pantry, staring into it. You’d shuffle a couple of cans or bags around, pulling things to the front before letting out a huff and moving back to the laptop. Her eyes would flick up again when only a couple of minutes later you would repeat the process with the fridge this time.

“Didn’t you pick up groceries like two days ago?” She finally asked and you let out a huff, dropping onto your elbows on the counter.

“Yeah. But my sister called a couple of days ago, freaking out cause she couldn’t find mom’s stuffing recipe. I didn’t even realize Thanksgiving was this weekend and now I feel like I’m missing out.”

“You wanna make a dinner?” She asked and you snorted.

“For just two of us? We’d be eating leftovers til Christmas. Besides,” you glanced over your shoulder, “a turkey isn’t fitting in that oven.”

“It’s overrated.” She shrugged, placing her book down on her lap, “everyone knows the side dishes and dessert are the best part of the dinner.”

“Yeah.” You sighed, your chin coming to rest in your palm, “but without it, the stuffing’s always dryer than it should be.”

“Could use a chicken?”

“Nah. Not enough space for how much stuffing a person needs.” Your nose crinkled and she laughed.

“Your mom make one of those over the top gourmet kinds with apples, cranberries and shit?”

“Ew, no.” You laughed, “bread, spices and practically a pound butter, the way it should be.”

“Well,” she pushed off the couch, padding over to the kitchen where she pulled open the fridge and pantry, “let’s figure this out. What do we need to go pick up?”

“Bread, potatoes,” you ticked off on your fingers, “gravy mix if we’re not actually gonna cook any meat, carrots… maybe brussels sprouts? I don’t like green beans, but if you want them.” You glanced over to her and she shrugged.

“We were never big on Thanksgiving. Wasn’t that much of a priority, and by the time I was an adult I was always working.”

“You never did dinner?” Your brow scrunched.

“Oh there was dinner.” She laughed, “mother would never waste an opportunity to host or show off, but she wouldn’t have even raised a finger when it came to cooking. Most years I’d finish a small plate, ask to be excused and go hide in my room.”

“What? No board games, football?” You asked and Emily barked a laugh.

“I was the only kid. This wasn’t like, a family gathering thing, this was my parents coworkers and people to make connections and network with, it was a place for a kid to be seen and not heard. Until of course my Mother was insistent I share what I was thankful for.”

“Ugh, the worst part of the meal.”

“Yeah, let’s get back to the best parts.” She grabbed the pad of paper you usually used for grocery lists, sliding it across to you, “you do main course I’ll do dessert.”

“Sure, as long as by main you mean sides.” You teased and she laughed.

“Of course.” She tossed you a grin, “and Carter…you’re not roping me into any fucking football.”

“Please,” you mocked, “you’re not ready for combat sports right now and I don’t wanna have to fix your rib again. I will however absolutely destroy you in Scrabble.”

“You sure about that?” She smirked.

“English words only!”

Emily shivered, pulling the blankets tighter around her and tucking them up right under her chin as her eyes wandered to the window. The weather had taken a turn for the worst, thick fluffy flakes of snow drifting through the air and coating the city. She’d already swapped her regular pyjama shorts for a set of pants, pulled a sweater over her shirt and grabbed a pair of wool socks. She’d stolen one of the blankets from the couch and still couldn’t manage to get warm enough in order to fall asleep.

You were faintly aware of noise outside your bedroom door and you did your best to ignore it, curling tighter under the blankets to hold onto sleep. Instead you heard your door open then swing shut and felt the weight of someone on your bed and you let out a small grumble.

“It is fucking freezing!” Emily’s groggy voice broke the silence of your room and you gasped when she pulled up the blankets, letting in a blast of cold air, “shove over.”

“What the fuck...” You grumbled, moving backwards on your side on the bed as Emily dove in next to you, quickly fitting herself right next to your body.

Letting out a reluctant sigh you wrapped yourself around her, spooning her from behind as you knew there was no fighting it. She snuggled deeper into your arms as one of her hands adjusted the blankets and you realized she’d brought the blankets from her room too. Her hand grabbed at your wrist, pulling it around her body in an attempt to get more body heat and you nearly shrieked.

“Jesus you are frozen!”

“I wouldn’t be in your bed if I wasn’t.” She replied, burrowing into the pillow.

You held back an eye roll, letting your arm settle around her body, hugging her closer to you as you readjusted back to a comfortable position, your hand softly rubbing at her arm. As you settled against her your hand slid down her waist, wrapping around the hip she had against the bed, making sure she was snug to you before it rested there, just barely sneaking under the hem of her shirt. Your fingers moved absentmindedly, drawing what you thought were soothing patterns on her skin, movement that would lull her to sleep. Instead Emily let out a soft sigh, her back beginning to arch into the touch as her ass pushed backward into you and you couldn’t help but let out a dark chuckle.

“You know..” you murmured, your lips nearly brushing the shell of her ear, “I’ve got an idea that may just warm you up, even relax you to sleep.”

“Is that so?” She asked and you just knew her eyebrow was raised.

“Mmhmm.” You nipped at her neck and her breath caught in her throat.

“Whatever you’ve got in mind, go for it.”

Your hand easily slipped into the waist band of her pants, sneaking down until your finger tips found her clit, starting to lazily rub it until she was letting out breathy moans, her hips gently rocking in time with your hand. Even with you barely touching her she could already feel the heat beginning to spark through her body, each brush of your hands on her skin warming her up, her pussy tingling, sending different kinds of shivers through her.

“That’s it…” you murmured, lips kissing at her neck as you coaxed her to keep rolling her hips and she let out a moan.

“More…”

A small laugh escaped your lips, nipping at her earlobe as your hand sunk further between her legs, fingers swiping through her folds before they sank into her pussy, earning a gasp from her. Emily tossed her top leg over yours to spread herself open for you and you took full advantage. The heel of your hand continued to grind against her clit while you fingered her, thrusting faster and harder than you had been before. She was already squirming in your arms, little whines breaking free from her lips, ones that turned into moans as your other arm wound around her so you could start to play with her tits through her shirt.

“Oh god…” she groaned, hips grinding down against your hand, practically begging you to never stop.

Your fingers curled inside her, hitting that sweet spot right as you pinched at her nipple and she gasped, her body jolting in your grasp. Your lips formed a smirk against her skin, continuing your motions, beginning to suck on her neck as your fingers thrusted in and out of her dripping pussy. Not wanting to leave her hanging your thumb shifted, starting to rub at her clit in time with your thrusts and she let out a louder moan.

“Fuck!” She muttered through gritted teeth, “oh god, don’t stop. I’m gonna come.”

Her hips continued to grind down on your hand, her pussy fluttering around your fingers as you curled them a few times more, your hands toying with her body in just the way she needed it. It didn’t take much longer before she reached her peak, shaking in your arms, whimpers leaving her lips. Your hand slipped out of her pants, settling against her abdomen again as you felt her fully relax into your embrace.

“Christ…”

You certainly had warmed her up, a sheen of sweat coating her skin under all the fabric that brought warmth to the both of you. She was fast asleep minutes later, finally content with the temperature in the room and you weren’t far behind her.

_____________

@mickey-gomez @daddy-heather-dunbar @maybe-a-humanbean @rustyzebra @leftoverenvy @dextur @supercriminalbean @daffodil-heart @its-soph-xx @just-a-torn-up-masterpiece @peanutbutterprincess @emilyprentisssluvr @lex13cm @zizzlekwum @emobabeyy @riveramorylunar @scorpsik @happenstnces @sapphicprentiss @geekyandgay98 @pagetboobstarcomments @onmykneesformarvel @inlovewithemilyprentiss @desperate-gay @amypoehlfey @overtrred28 @regalmilfs4me @ara-a-bird @five-bi-five-mind @inlovewithmiddleagewomen @hotchs-bitch @ollysmulti @kmc1989 @irishavengersassemble @romanoffsho @ratsnestinmyhair @assgardangod @originalbrunettecharacter @hopedoesntknow @venromanova @waitaminuteashh @noahrex@imlike-so-gaydude @wittygutsy @cx-emerald-cx @lesbodietco @momily

#emily prentiss #emily prentiss x reader #criminal minds #solace in solitude #emily prentiss x you #emily prentiss x female reader

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beansidhebumbling · 5 days

Text

We Stand Between Goliaths- Chapter 1

This was originally intended for Feylin week but in keeping with my reputation I am fashionably late. Thanks to @ae-neon, @kateprincessofbluewhales, and @feyres-divorce-lawyer. I can't write without encouragement and they were an endless well of it. Also I reckon this will be about 3 chapters in total if I stay motivated lol 😅

Some translations and notes at the bottom. I'll return later to add more. Please ask if there's something you don't know about and I'll make a note on it. If there is anything I missed or anything you have questions on please ask.

Old Moore's Almanack, a publication weighted by the faith of a nation, the bible of every town and village dotted liked barnacles on the rock of Ireland, failed them that summer. The worn pages of the copy, tied with string to the dresser by the back door, held no warning of the rare scorching heat that hit Mayo that August.

It held no warning of him either.

It crept in slowly first, the continental warmth a welcome novelty. Sure, on days like this, they said, when the cornflower blue skies kissed the rolling fields of Monet-painted green wasn't Ireland more beautiful than France and Spain?

'You're lucky to be away from Dublin for the Summer, young Archeron, aren't ya?'

Big Paddy McCaffrey commented, ringing up their purchases to add to the account, as Nesta ventured down the shop's only aisle for some flour. Feyre, focused on saving her 99, the milky ice-cream already saturating the thin wafer rim of the cone and dripping onto her sunscreen sticky hands, threw the man a tight smile.

'Suppose I am.'

She answered tersely.

'Strange all three of ye be home together, isn't it? First time since yer Ma passed, God rest her,'

He pressed, his hulking frame leaning over the old counter of the siopa, eyes searching for any shred of a story, or even better, a tear.

'Bout as strange as how you've aged ten years in the space of two, Paddy-boy.'

Her elder sister sniped as she emerged from the back corner of the shop, the bag of Odlum's safely in her grasp. The sharp lines of her trousers, some fine London make, cut through the dust motes, conjuring whirling ghosts as she marched towards the till.

Not leaving the huffing giant any room to retort, she grabbed Feyre's free hand, and they left the shaded confines of the shop to face the noon-day sun, a blistering presence high in the clear sky.

'Not looking like you're here to make friends, Nes.'

Feyre snorted, once out of earshot.

'Nosey fucker. They'll do his autopsy one day and find the Toormakeady Tribune instead of lungs inside him.'

The laugh that tickled its way from deep in her belly, had no breeze to dance on and so hung happily between them, another sign of the welcome if unfamiliar camaraderie birthed between them since their return to the home place in May.

Feyre did not know what her sister had found in London these last two years, but it looked an awful lot like peace.

'Speaking of gossip, did you see the new owner of Drimbawn House?'

'New new or new to us?'

Feyre asked. It was a relevant question. With Elain in Cork working in one of the big houses, Nesta abroad terrorising the lawyers at her new secretarial job, and Feyre in college, they had happily lost the rhythm of their birthplace.

'New to us. He bought it off Hollywood. Tamlin Stewart-Carmichael is his name. A fine block of a man by all accounts.'

Nesta paused to climb the gate behind the GAA pitch as they followed the path of their childhood, cutting through Ma Bryant's fields to get home.

'He's English. No surprise with a name like that. An excessive bunch in every way. Has only visited the place once after buying it but it's been kept in ship shape since last July, in case he wants to call on his summer residence.'

Feyre scoffed, running her hands through the grass that tickled their calves, rippling like the waves at her touch.

'What in Christ's name are they at? Houses for the seasons. Have you ever heard the like?'

'You wouldn't believe half of what I hear back in London with that posh lot. It's a different world Feyrín.'

Nesta grew quiet then, lost to a place across the sea, her mind's eye turned towards the unfamiliar horizon and, Feyre reckoned, to the secret letters that had been arriving with an English postmark since she'd landed on Irish soil.

Her heart full at the sound of a pet name she had not heard from Nesta in years, Feyre followed her sister home, as she had done all her life.

------

In a country where too much of a good thing was highly distasteful the unnatural heat soon extended beyond its welcome. After a week of no rain and blistering, bruising sun, the rumblings of concern began. The labourers started to seek shade to avoid the rage of noon and the farmers nearest the Lough Mask, let their cattle cool in gentle waters, for neither man nor beast in Toormakeady was built or bred for a Mediterranean climate.

Having been on nursing duty Monday night, Feyre greeted the dawn with a weary welcome. He was fading and she knew it. Her father, who had looked so frail when she'd come home that Summer, a husk of the hale man she'd known from childhood, felt like a figment now.

It hurt too much to sleep knowing by the minute more of him was lost to her, gone to a heaven Feyre had never truly believed in until death loomed. Because there was no way the story of John Archeron ended with a skeleton in the ground.

He was the ritual footing of turf. Lunch together on the bog, eating sandwiches Elain wrapped in tinfoil, the fresh bread slathered in Kerrygold with thick slabs of salty pork. A needed balm for the tired ache that radiated from neck to ankle. Sitting in the rusty Ford come sunset, drinking cold tea from a shared cupán before heading home, his wordless clap on her back the only praise she'd ever got or needed at the end of the day.

He was the man who'd never raised his voice in all of Feyre's life, bar the time she captained the U-15s to a camogie final, when his bellowing and cheering could be heard from Galway as she raised the corn above her head. She remembers him, cheeks full and face ruddy, the proudest he'd ever been Nesta said. For hadn't his Feyrín óg scored three goals and two points that day and led her team to victory.

He was her father, and, in that word, a million memories were stored.

Elain's bustling entry into the kitchen brought Feyre back to the present.

Her sister, already busying herself with making breakfast, whispered.

'How is he Feyrín?'

Stretching in the armchair by the stove, feeling the tension roll from her shoulders and down her arms, she shrugged.

'Not too bad, slept like a log for most of the night. He's still running a bit of a fever but that stuff the doctor gave him has eased the pain. Also don't worry about whispering, fairly certain Judgement Day couldn't rouse him right now.'

Meandering over to her sister she added.

'What's on the schedule today then?'

'Elain, expertly frying rashers and eggs, ran a critical eye over Feyre.

'Well, some food and the leaba for you I'd imagine anyways. Did you sleep at all?'

Feyre ignored the question.

'I'm not tired, El. Actually was going to head on over to the Kelly's place. They've been shocking good taking the herd when Da got sick, but I can manage them now. Reckon I'll sell half at Ballymote this month, bring the number down, you know?'

Elain's back stiffened, her sister in temperament and posture as flexible and fluid as the willow, became stone. Only the crackling and hissing of breakfast could be heard.

Words careful and softly spoken passed her lips.

'Have you spoken to Nes?'

'No. She's never been interested in the farm. Didn't think I needed to ask permission.'

The words, daggers of her making, pointed at Elain.

Her sister's soothing tone did nothing but rankle her further.

'It's not about permission, Fey. I just think we should make these decisions together.'

But though Elain dealt in serenity, she could wield knives too and often did with deceptive skill. Sticking one in Feyre's gut she said with feeling.

'It's what Da would want.'

Her doe-eyed sister who vomited sugar and ribbons could be a right bitch.

Too close to bleeding from her eyes, hurt and a desperate anguish crawling from her stomach and up her throat, Feyre turned towards the back door, grabbing some blackberries, juicy and shining, from the glass bowl by the Almanack.

'I'm going for a walk. I'll be back for dinner.'

The words spilled from her, gruff and broken, trails of hot saltwater carving famine roads along her high cheekbones.

With Elain who'd always read people like Nesta read books, burning holes into her back, Feyre pulled on her boots and grabbed her old hurley, that was tucked neatly in its shrine of a nook by the door.

It was time to visit the forest.

---

The camóg sat like a comfort in Feyre's hand, its weight familiar and grounding, the sleek ash stained with dirt at the boss. She imagined this was how warriors of old felt carrying their swords, this strange companionship, an extension of herself that knew her in a way no person could.

As was the case when Feyre had a hurl in hand, time moved differently, the mixed woodland hurtled by a blur of brown and green, the ferns that crept onto the path crushed beneath her boots. Bouncing the sliotar off the ash, she focused only on that settling pulse, on finding the perfect balance to keep that round ball on the curved head of the stick, on the thumping of her feet against dusty ground.

And gradually that burning sadness that ate at her heart, the searing anger at her sister's face, too soft to be so cruel, faded from stinging tears to a small hole at the pit of her stomach. Contained and controlled for now.

After all, Setanta didn't cry.

She ran and ran, taking joy in the burning muscle of her thighs, the stinging of her eyes, the heavy panting of her breath, until she reached the boundary line where Toormakeady Forest met the Hollywood Hills.

Stopping at the rusted gate choked by bindweed, where lus na teanga grew between the tufts of grass as the path faded to an end, Feyre stared out across the rolling hills of the English fella's fields, just about able to spot the glittering waters of Lough Mask in the distance.

When Richard had lived here, it was custom to walk through the hills. Hollywood, as he was known, a retired American actor had been genial if distant, happy for the village to take the short-cut through his land provided they never approached the house.

Feyre reckoned he might have been more than a bit offended if he knew exactly how well that suited the villagers in kind.

But now this Tamlin Stewart-Carmichael had co-opted the land the rules had likely changed.

With a fecklessness more characteristic than she'd prefer to admit Feyre hopped the gate anyways. Ignorance was bliss and in weather like this no jumped-up staff of an absent gentleman were going to get between her and the shining waters.

---

Lough Mask lapped at her legs cool and tickling as she stood to her knees in the water, a medicine Feyre had not known she needed, easing the feverish redness that coloured her cheeks and gently tempering the fire that still roiled quietly in her gut.

Looking out from the shore, Feyre faced the distant veridian mountains that sat the far side of the expanse of rippling greyness. There they stood, imposing Goliaths set in sharp contrast to the saturated summer sky. The bays and cries of livestock nearby seemed so muted, overwhelmed by the gentle rhythm of the calm opaque waters.

Tranquillity found her briefly.

And left rapidly when, out of nowhere but Hell surely, a naked man arose from the lake, splashing and gasping for air, a siren of old.

'Sweet Jesus!'

Feyre yelled, lifting her hurley above her head to take a crack at the blond menace before her.

‘Don’t!’

He commanded, raising his tanned well-muscled arms in mercy. His voice was deep, with the distinct sharp bite of an English accent.

She dropped her hurley before him in the water in panic before grabbling it and retreating to the land. Her wet feet smarting at the pinch of the pebbles as she made the rapid withdrawal, putting distance between them. Man, or siren, she was not interested in drowning either which way.

‘Who the fuck are you?’

She pointed the hurl accusatorily at him.

Sitting back into the water, his lower half became submerged once more. Not that Feyre would forget what she saw in a hurry. As it was, the well-hewn muscles on his abdomen, shining with water droplets and the crosshatch of curling golden hair on his chest, was distraction enough.

Smirking slightly, green eyes dancing, he replied,

‘I could ask you the same question...Miss.’

Apollo had stopped pulling the sun and landed his chariot in Toormakeady to laugh at her apparently.

‘Anyone who is anyone in these parts knows my face, Sassenach. On voice alone, if you’d ever set foot in the village, I’d know ye.’

His dimples seemed to share an inside joke with the lines that creased his eyes as he stared at her. Definitely entertained and strangely delighted at this bizarre encounter it seemed.

‘Touché, Miss.’

‘Odd name that,’

She stated drily.

He laughed. A gentle thing, carried in huffs and breaths by the soft breeze off the lake.

‘You wield your words as well as your weapon....’

He motioned lazily towards the hurley,

‘...Feyre Archeron.’

Her eyes widened in shock, and, following the movement of his arm, were confronted with the thick Sharpie scrawl of her name along the handle.

Well, shit.

Her pulse began to settle all the same to a somewhat normal rhythm now she was out of arm’s reach of the dangerously alluring specimen.

‘You must be connected to yer man moving into the big house then,’

She gestured vaguely towards Drimbawn. If she had the sense God gave a rat she’d walk away now, leg it back home. But Feyre would not be scared from the lake, let alone by some Englishman so she continued,

‘Usually, the posh lot hire locally or at least Hollyw.. the last fella did. But then again, it’s been a few generations since we’ve had someone with the brass neck to keep such a beautiful place as a second home. Can’t say I’m terribly fond of your boss there, stranger.’

Pink roses blossomed on his cheeks and a large, veined hand pulled at the wavy sun-bleached strands that tickled his shoulder.

‘He has hired local men. Um... I’m here to just keep things running until he comes to visit. I’m Ta-Tanner.’

He went to stand up and shake her hand. Some remnants of well-intentioned civility she imagined, however when challenged by his pronounced obliques, the last of her good sense and innate Catholic shame made her turn rapidly on her heel to face the forest she’d come from.

‘Easy there, squire. Might want to put some trousers on first.’

‘Of course.’

He answered, voice apologetic and brimming with a crushing embarrassment that made her want to cackle.

He was like art. Like whomever Michaelangelo thought of when he had carved David.

Her supplies had remained zipped away since coming home. It seemed wrong to take joy in the delicate scratch of lead on paper, to crave the feeling of dried acrylic on canvas and skin. Where she usually saw endless, boundless colour and life, there existed only delicate ash structures. It struck her, this sudden wish to paint Tanner, as the first time since she’d seen her father so frail in that flimsy, miserable bed off the kitchen, she wished to paint. Her first time seeing and tasting glorious colour again.

A shadow fell against her own.

‘You can turn around now.’

Tanner murmured quietly.

Feyre came face to face with the most beautiful person she’d ever seen. His looks, that were barely palatable from a safe distance, threatened to overcome her as he stood within arm’s reach. The freckles that dotted his nose, slightly crooked from at least one break she imagined, and across his high cheekbones, seemed to map constellations of the night. But he, gilded like the horizon at sunset, was no child of the moon.

His eyes, speckled with brown flecks like oak leaves smouldered as they met hers, the threatening spark to a flame.

Casting her sight down, coward that she was, she focused instead on the cotton of his shirt, which though crinkled, was luxurious and well-crafted.

‘The big man must pay well indeed,’

She scoffed.

‘He’s not a bad guy, all things considered.’

He remarked, his hand glancing off her own, a touch just slight enough to claim as an accident.

‘I’m sure he’s a charmer.’

Feyre muttered.

The silence that settled between with a comfort that seemed unearned, a space of knowing and understanding. It was this, this strange contentment in her soul, that said stay, which prompted Feyre to run.

‘You best be going, it’s nearly time to do the milking.’

She prompted.

His eyes shuttered, disappointment flickering through them before he nodded reluctantly.

‘Oh yes, of course. The milking...For the cows.’

His hand caught hers gently, encasing it within his, and Feyre who had never felt delicate in her life, felt like a doll in his giant grip.

‘Do you come here often Feyre?’

A question that sounded more like a plea.

Her heart, ever the loyal organ, beat to the rhythm of his.

‘I’ll be here tomorrow,’

She replied breathily, unsure yet whether it was a lie or truth, before breaking his grasp and running back towards the forest.

You’ll be back tomorrow,

Her heart whispered.

As she disappeared from view, the mountains and a liar watched on.

---

Translations:

Feyrín- Little Feyre (Fey-reen). Common structure in Irish. Add -ín at the end and things become small. See names like Róisín (Little Rose) or bothrín (little road, i.e. a lane).

cupán- cup (cup-awn)

óg- young (oh-guh). Common to put after someone's name if they are young, sort of like Junior in English. Especially traditionally in families where there's a family name. E.g. there's a grandfather Connor and a grandson Connor in the one family, the grandfather could become Connor Sean (Old Connor) and the grandson, Connor Óg.

leaba- bed (lah-baa)

camóg- hurl (less common term used for a hurl when playing camógie. See the notes below for more context).

Further Notes for Context:

GAA- Gaelic Athletic Association consists of four indigenous Irish sports (hurling/camogie, Gaelic football, handball and rounders). Hurling and Gaelic football are by far the most popular. I didn't even realise rounders was on the list and I've been involved with the GAA since I was a kid.

#feyre #tamlin #feylin #acotar #fanfic #acotar fanfic #the last section needs a reread tomorrow when i'm conscious

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crazychaoticizzy · 10 months

Text

French Girl

note: this is a birthday present for my friend I hope you enjoy <3

The poor boy from France that you'd run into on the ship had caught your attention, and you can't help but ask him to portray you the way he sees you.

WARNINGS: Titanic AU kinda, Fem!reader, fluff, nudity, suggestive but not explicit

Word Count: 3.1k

Masterlist

AOT Masterlist

As you flip through the somewhat erotic sketches in the notebook you hold, you can't help but think about the hands that drew them.

The fact that being seen with him could completely ruin your reputation was the last thing on your mind as your fingers gently graze the edges of the pages, carefully admiring every detail in each drawing.

“You drew all these?” you ask, looking up at him.

Jean smiles, his eyes moving from your face to his notebook, and nods. “Yeah, all of ‘em.” His voice has an accent that yours doesn’t have, and you can’t decide if it’s because of the language he uses or something else. “Turns out lots o’ dancers in France are willin’ to drop their panties for me.”

Your jaw drops at his crude words, which makes Jean laugh. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees at he looks at his own drawings. The movement makes your kneecaps touch, and you find yourself subconsciously crossing your legs.

“Nah, m’just kidding. Well, mostly, anyway.” Another chuckle slips from his lips when he notices your slightly widened eyes. He gently grabs the notebook from your lap, flipping through the pages.

“Like this one,” he said, turning it to show you. It was a charcoal drawing of a woman and a man sitting at a table, the woman wearing an eyepatch and the man missing two fingers. “I approached ‘em in a pub one day and asked if I could draw them. The lady—well, they actually didn’t identify as a man or woman, they told me, but their name was Hange—seemed a lot more enthusiastic about it than Levi, the man. Anyway, they told me about their time in the military as I drew ‘em.”

You nod along to his words as you take the notebook back in your hands and admire the drawing. Even though your eyes are distracted you hold onto every word he says.

Upon further inspection, you notice the man’s right eye was white, barely a hint of an iris in the drawing.

“They both lost an eye while serving,” Jean continues, noticing how you seem to focus on that small detail. “Hange lost their’s completely, I’m pretty sure, and Levi went blind in his right.”

“I wonder what happened,” you softly muse.

Jean shrugged. “They didn’t really give details about their injuries, they really only told me about their dead comrades and training and such. Actually, their commander was someone I’ve drawn before—can I?”

You nod, handing him the notebook so he could flip through a couple more pages.

“They saw the drawing while I was looking for a clean page and asked about it. His name was Erwin Smith, and he was the thirteenth commander in their survey corps. Hange told me they were the fourteenth after him, and they passed it on to some blond boy named Armin before retiring. I think Armin is on this boat, actually.”

Jean turns the book back to you in the middle of his small rant, showing a blond man with thick eyebrows. You noticed that instead of a head shot like the other drawings, it was a full body portrait to show that he was missing his right arm.

“They spoke the world of him. It seemed like the three of them were incredibly close.”

Jean sounds sad talking about them, almost like he knew the ins and outs of their relationship personally. He might have, you suppose, because it seemed strangers spilled their hearts and souls to him during one single conversation.

“Are the first two a couple?” you ask.

Jean shrugs, handing you the notebook again so you can continue flipping through it. “Dunno. They seemed really close and like they trusted each other with everything they had, but never mentioned bein’ together.”

You nodded, flipping through more drawings. There were multiple of a young boy with dark hair and freckles throughout the journal, all dated very close to each other until you stopped seeing them. He must have been close to Jean, but you don’t ask about it since the last drawing of him was done years ago and seems unfinished.

“So, those French girls. Is there a reason they…” you paused, hesitating to repeat his earlier words. “You know.”

“Dropped their panties for me?” He smirks cheekily at you as you bite the inside of your cheek, nodding. “Nah, don’t think so. Though I do think they thought I would pay them back with something more erotic than what they got.”

“You drew a lot of dancers,” you comment as you flip through, noticing two or three drawings of naked women on each page.

“Jealous I’ve seen naked women before?” Jean teases, lightly nudging your knee with his.

Your lips tighten as you fight the urge to smile. “No, it was merely an observation.”

Jean laughs. “I was just teasin’. But they make for good anatomy practice. They can bend their body any way they want and stay for extended periods of time. They’re the perfect people to draw for practice.”

“And they have to be… bare?”

Jean shrugs. “Well it’s more difficult to draw bodies with all those bulky clothes they wear.”

You make an O shape with your mouth, unable to decide if he’s telling the truth or simply teasing you again.

It’s silent as you continue flipping through the pages, the soft ocean breeze being the only sound between you and Jean as he watches you.

You notice a black-haired woman appear multiple times throughout the notebook. She has short hair that frames her face perfectly, and there’s a mark just below one of her steel gray eyes.

“You liked this one,” you note, reading the small writing at the bottom of one of the pages. “Mikasa Ackerman. She’s very pretty.”

“What makes you say I liked her?” Jean asks.

“You drew her quite a lot.” Jean hums, but doesn’t say anything in response. “I believe there might have been something going on.”

You smile. You don’t turn to see, but you can feel Jean’s expression change as he continuously denies your claim.

“No, no, we were just friends. She was always at the dance studio when I went, so I was just always drawing her.” His cheeks are pink though, and when you turn to look at him he puts his hand over the bottom half of his face.

You hum condescendingly, turning back to the pages. “She was very pretty. I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point you developed feelings for her.”

“Yeah, she was.” Jean’s voice is soft, a whisper, almost. You keep your head down but glance at him, noting the way he fondly looks at the drawings.

“You did like her, didn’t you?” It’s not an accusation, and you don’t mean it to be. You make sure your voice is gentle when you say it, coaxing him to tell you more.

He’s still for a moment before he gives a single nod. “Yeah, I did.”

You can’t tell why his accent changes, but the way he said I sounded more like ah. You assume it might be due to him having been all over the world, and make a note to ask him about it another time.

“I eventually realized we would never happen. She was too high class for me.” Jean doesn’t sound sad about it, in fact he talks about it as if it’s a nostalgic memory for him.

“Just like I’m too high class for you?” The words slip from your mouth without thinking, and you immediately shut your mouth. But now that you’d said it, you realize that you’re right. You shouldn’t be seen with him. The blow that could do to your family, the rumors it could start. If the wrong person saw this it would be a one way ticket to poverty for your family.

Jean purses his lips. “Yeah. Jus’ like you.”

You softly nod, closing the notebook and handing it back to him. “Thank you for allowing me to see your artwork, Mister Kirstein.”

“It’s just Jean,” he said, grabbing his notebook and standing up with you. He tucks the leather bound book under his arm, bowing his head slightly. “Someone as posh and fancy as you shouldn’t be givin’ me titles like Mister.”

“Of course.” You gently bite the inside of your cheek, smoothing out your dress. “Well, I thank you anyway. And I suppose we shall see if we run into each other again on this boat.”

Jean gives one nod. “Maybe we will.”

You noticed that his responses were curt, and you took that as your cue to bow your head and walk away from him.

As you walked past a few people on your way back to your room, you noticed some giving you a glance, and you prayed to God that they wouldn’t let anything slip.

—

You giggled with Jean as you entered your room, closing and locking the door behind you after you made sure no one had seen you.

Apparently the wrong crowd had seen you two together when you were looking at his drawings. That had led to a lovely dinner with your family and fiancé which led to another series of events that had reconciled the two of you.

You remember being slightly buzzed when you asked if he could draw you, but he agreed nonetheless. He waited until there was no alcohol in your system and no one you knew was around before he asked if you still wanted him to draw you. You had nodded, following him to his cramped room before grabbing him by the hand and dragging him back to yours.

You weren’t exactly trying to be sneaky anymore, but you were still cautious of who was watching.

Jean stood in the center of your room in awe, mouth agape as he looked at the intricate wallpaper and fancy light fixtures and beautiful paintings leaning against couches.

“Is the lighting alright?” you asked, taking a step closer him him.

He hummed in question, closing his mouth and turning his head to you. “Oh, yes, yes. It’s fine. Perfect, actually, uhm…” He nodded once. “Yeah.”

You could tell he was nervous, but you weren’t sure why. It’s not like this was your first time alone together, and you certainly knew he had no problem sneaking around with you.

“Are you alright?”

He nodded again, averting his gaze to one of your paintings. “Is that Pixis?”

Your eyes followed as he stepped in the direction he was looking, noticing the mostly gray and red painting.

“Yes. You know him?” You stepped behind him, leaning over as he crouched down and softly touched the edge.

“I love his work. He was a Chief Official in the French army before he passed. He painted in his free time and most o’ his work depicts his time on the battlefield. There’s one he painted of giant beasts that he saw in his dreams.”

Jean’s eyes swept over the painting once more before he stood up, turning to you. “So, anything you want to be drawn by? Or with?”

It took you a moment to register what exactly he was asking about. You had been admiring his amazed expression, lost in the way his lips slightly curved while looking at your paintings.

You nodded. “Yes, give me just a moment and I’ll grab it.”

Jean nodded, softly scratching the back of his neck and looking around as you retreated to your sleeping quarters and opened the closet door.

You turned the dial on the safe to open it, retrieving the black box Eren had put in it at the beginning of the trip. You hesitated a moment, looking at the rock on your finger before taking it off and leaving it in the safe.

You returned to Jean, watching for just a moment as he admired another painting you had. Your approaching footsteps brought his attention to you, and when he turned he saw you opening the box.

You handed it to him, watching as he gingerly lifted the expensive necklace and looked at it in the light.

“This is a real nice necklace. Probably worth more than I am.” He softly laughed, glancing at you as he placed the box down on a side table. He lifted the necklace again, looking at it closely. “What is it, sapphire?”

“Diamond,” you replied, stepping closer to him. Your side pressed against his, and you felt him tense up slightly. “I want you to draw me wearing it.”

He briefly glanced at you again before looking back at the necklace. “Alright. Where?”

“Wearing only that.”

Jean paused, turning his head to look at you after the words left your mouth. He raised a brow, as if to ask if you were sure about your decision.

“I want you to draw me like one of your French girls. The dancers.”

You watched as the corner of his lips twitched, fighting the urge to smile. He placed the necklace back on top of the box, running a hand over his face. “You sure?”

You nodded. “Yes.”

He allowed his lips to curl into a charming smile as he gave you a once over before nodding. “Alright. What room?”

You gently grabbed his hand, leading him into the room next to yours and turning on the lights.

“Whatever pose you’d like,” you said. “Any lighting you’d like, as well. I only want you to draw me.”

He smiled down at you, handing you the necklace. “That I can do. Wanna undress here or should I wait?”

He softly laughed at your expression, gently patting your shoulder. “I’m only kiddin’. Go get ready while I set up.”

His hand traveled from your shoulder to your wrist, and he gently lifted your hand to his lips. He left a soft kiss on your knuckles, not breaking eye contact before he winked and walked further into the room.

While you undressed you heard something scraping around in the other room, stopping after a couple moments. You assumed Jean was moving around furniture and liked where he had placed it.

When you finished you slipped on a robe, tying it around the waist so it didn’t fall open before you wanted it to. You clasped the necklace around your neck, adjusting it so the large diamond sat in the middle.

When you walked back to the room Jean was sharpening a piece of charcoal. The fireplace had been lit, allowing an ethereal glow to outline him as he worked. You took a moment to admire him before he noticed you.

He softly smiled, his eyes sweeping over you as he stood straighter and put his blade down. You walked over to him, taking graceful steps.

“The last thing I need is another portrait where I look like a delicate flower. I want you to draw me as you see me, Jean.” You smiled at him, showing him the quarter held between your fingers. “And as a paying customer, I expect to receive what I ask for.”

Jean softly laughs as you place the quarter on the table. “And what if I see you as a delicate flower?”

“I know you don’t. Why do you think I asked you to draw me?” You watched him laugh in shock as you winked, taking a step back and seating yourself of the edge of the couch. "How should I pose myself?"

Jean looked you up and down, biting the inside of his cheek in thought. "Laying down," he said after a few moments.

You nodded, untying your robe and slipping it off your shoulders. You draped it on the arm of the sofa, turning your gaze toward Jean.

You watched as his eyes swept over you, trailing the edge of your shoulder as you laid back. He took you in for a moment, mouth slightly agape and eyes sparkling in awe.

He softly shook his head, bringing himself out of his trance as he gave you a once over again. "Life your arms above your head," he said, returning to that same thinking look you loved.

You did as he said, and when he stood from the chair and stepped forward to adjust your pose your breath softly hitched. You felt his warm hands along your arms, gently moving them to his will. You took a moment to admire his own face, the straight slope of his nose and the sharp line of his jaw. His lips looked soft, and you wondered for a moment what they might feel like against your skin.

He stepped back, crossing his arms as he assessed the pose he'd put you in before nodding to himself and sitting back down.

"Alright, don't move," he softly said. You nodded, which made him softly chuckle. "I said don't move."

"Well that was hardly moving," you replied, but a smile spread across your lips anyway.

You watched as he picked up a piece of charcoal and began drawing soft lines across the sheet of parchment. You watched the way his eyes followed the pencil, flicking between you and the drawing. The light coming from the fireplace made his irises glow, making them a beautiful honey color.

You watch as his long and elegant fingers move across the page, eventually staining themselves with the dark charcoal. You remember the many times he had lightly touched you, lingering for longer than he needed to. You remember how warm his hands were, and when you tried hard enough you could imagine they were on you again.

You're not sure who starts the conversation, but most of the time he draws is spent talking. The two of you exchange life stories. You tell him about your upbringing and the people you knew as a child and teenager and he tells you about his.

The entire conversation put into perspective how different the worlds you came from are, but you can't help but think that you were meant to find each other.

He stands when he finished, grabbing your robe from where it was draped and handing it to you. He only shows you the portrait once the robe is tied around you once again.

He's signing and dating it when you come up behind him, slowly wrapping your arms around his neck and resting your head on his shoulder. You softly smile at it when he puts his drawing materials down, turning your head to leave a soft kiss on his lips.

"Thank you," you say.

He turns, your faces barely touching as he gazes into your eyes. "You're welcome."

He leans forward, leaving a quick, chaste peck on your lips.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! she doesn't have a tumblr account but she is amazing and I wish her the happiest year yet

also, should I make this into an au? idk I kinda liked it

anyways I hope you all enjoyed. as always likes, comments and reblogs are appreciated so please do that!

-Izzy <3

TAGGING: if you'd like to be notified whenever I write for Jean please comment or DM!

#izzy’s imagines ❀#attack on titan #aot #jean kirsten x reader #jean kirschtein fluff #jean kirstein #jean aot #jean kirschtein #jean x reader #jean kirstein x reader #aot x reader #attack on titan x reader #jean attack on titan #jean kirschtien #jean kirschtein imagine

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assortedseaglass · 1 year

Text

The Seamstress & The Sailor - Chapter Thirteen

[Masterlist]

Warnings: Very strong language, NSFW themes (kinda smutty?), depictions of war, World on Fire spoilers

Word Count: 4.1K

Notes: The banner is absolute potato quality, soz. We’re gonna say hello to the Vaughns, but we’re with Tom for the majority of this chapter. If you’ve seen the series, you know what’s happening. Buckle in, my dudes.

Late May, 1940

“Up you get, Dadda.”

A hand tucked under each of Fergal’s arms and hoisted him from the pew. He looked blindly at the faces around him. Each solemn and unrecognisable through his grief. The only faces he knew where those of his daughters. Cora and Bess holding him upright, Dot rubbing his back as they walked him out of the church. Beautiful spectres in their mourning veils, the girls moved through the congregation, shook hands with the priest and entered the piercing sun of the June day.

A few of their friends and neighbours were gathered at the church steps. There was Dennis Warley, Mrs Mason and her children, Mrs O’Connell and Mrs Flaherty. Queenie Warren, Roberta, Hattie and Jude. Leading the sea of black was Lois, her bump growing by the day, and Douglas.

“Could you hold this?” Bess whispered to Lois, who nodded and took the order of service from her hands. At the bottom of the page, after the service readings and the parish notices, was a small note. Mass dedicated to the memory of Albert Michael Vaughn. Together, the group formed a procession that made its slow journey from the church to the Vaughn’s home. Occasionally, Fergal wobbled on his feet as a new wave of grief wracked him, and the procession paused as his daughters steadied him. A few people meandered into their own homes after kissing the girls and shaking Fergal’s hand. Mrs O’Connell and Mrs Flaherty brought round a selection of sandwiches for the mourners, and Queenie set about making tea. Douglas led Fergal to his armchair and set him down, while Lois cradled a hysterical Dot. Cora made her way to them, and along with Lois, held her shaking little sister.

“Bess, I’m off,” Queenie’s voice was quiet as she handed Bess a cup of tea. She tried to keep her voice measured as she spoke again. “He really was the best of them.” Bess removed her veil and nodded. Queenie kissed her on the cheek and departed. Roberta, Hattie and Jude were next to say their goodbyes, with promises to visit Bess in Manchester next weekend. Soon, the house was occupied by just the Vaughns and the Bennetts. Cora saw Dot to bed, then set about scrubbing the china more vigorously than Bess had ever seen, Lois helped her put away the remnants of the dreadful day. Douglas spent a silent hour with Fergal by the unlit hearth, holding his hand and sharing a glass of whisky. Outside on the front step, Bess sat alone, gazing at Tom’s photograph. When the front door opened, she hastily tucked it into the belt of her dress. Someone settled on the step beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. Bess inhaled the familiar smell of laundry detergent and relaxed into the arms she had become so used to. She and Douglas sat there a while, neither speaking for there was nothing to say. Eventually, Bess whispered into the descending night.

“I just want to hold him.” With Albie’s body buried somewhere in France, the Vaughns had been unable to hold a funeral. Unable to see their beloved Albie one last time. The string had been cut, and Bess’ kindred spirit was no more. Beneath Douglas’ arms, she began to shake. “I feel untethered,” she choked out. “Like I’m going to float away.” For what felt like hours, Bess cried and cried into Douglas’ shoulder. He said nothing, merely stroked her hair and let her wail. When her sobs eased into hiccupping breaths, he took her face in his hands.

“You’ll make it through, I promise.” He kissed the top of her head, opened the front door and called for his daughter.

“Douglas,” Bess’ voice cracked with the effort of using it. “I have some of Albie’s old clothes. I wondered if you might take them for Jan, next time you visit the Chase’s?” The older man nodded with a sad smile.

“I’ll be round in the morning.”

Lois clung to her father’s arm as they crossed the road, and when they had shut the door to their own home, Bess retrieved the photograph from her belt. It was real. Albie was the first of them to die. How many more would there be now? It had started. She kissed Tom’s face and prayed. Keep him safe, keep him safe, keep him safe.

✼　　✼　　✼　　✼　　✼　　✼

“God help the Jerries if that’s the look you give ‘em.” Norman laughed as he watched Tom read over his post. “I wouldn’t cross you in a month of Sundays.”

“I have a date with a solider from the infirmary. He’s called James. I think we’re going to the Palais. How are you managing with only men aboard ship?”

Tom’s bottom lip quirked with annoyance. “How long until the auxiliaries leave?”

“About an hour, I reckon.”

Tom nodded with resolve. That evening, the HMS Keith was to join Operation Dynamo in the attempt evacuate Dunkirk. In dock reloading with fuel and supplies for the men they to rescue, most sailors aboard were taking a few hours of shore leave before entering the fray. The air had been tense all morning. The resulting lack of crew meant that when Tom entered the mess hall, he found it empty. He took Bess’ photograph from its permanent residence in his pocket and placed it on the table with his paper and pen. This letter better be a good one.

But when he tried to write, nothing came. He stared at the blank paper, unable to escape the image of Bess and this James man dancing at the Palais. Tom smirked as an idea popped into his head. Lighting a cigarette, he picked up the pen and with a laugh, began to write.

Bess,

I know what you’re trying to do. Telling me all about your little date in the hopes it will make me jealous. Would it make you smile, love, if I told you it was working?

Tell me more about James, love. Is he tall? Is he handsome? Does he know you like I do? Does he know that you hate wearing pink because it clashes with your hair? That you sneak fudge from the picture house into your pocket? That you collected feathers and eggshells when you were small, or that you write secret letters to a criminal like me?

Can he read you like I can? Does he know that when you don’t wear make up, or curl your hair, you feel defiant? Or that when you’re angry, your eyebrows straighten? That you only smoke as a means to avoid speaking? That when your eyes darken and those perfect lips of yours part, when you blush and it spreads right across your nose, it means you desperately want fucking?

Can he satisfy you like I can, Bess? What’s it like when he holds you? Are his fingers long? Have they been inside you yet? I know I could do it, Bess, if you’d let me. I heard the way your breath hitched every time I touched you. I watched your chest heave every time I got close. I see the way you watch me, the way you’ve always watched me.

God, what I’d give. You’re all I think about. At night, when the other men are sleeping, or else touching their cocks and pretending no-one’s noticed, it’s you I see when I close my eyes. I replay the day I watched you changing behind the screen each night. The outline of your body. Damn your family for coming home. What would have happened, do you think? After I had pinned your body beneath mine? If I try, I can hear you moaning my name. I can feel your cunt against me. If your family hadn’t come home I’d have ravished you, Bess. I’d have fucked you with my mouth, my fingers, my cock. Watched you take me. Watched unflappable Bess Vaughn come undone by my body. Made love to you until your mind could think of nothing but me. Can this James boy do that for you? Can he satisfy you like I could?

I can’t take it anymore. I can’t kiss another woman and pretend it’s you, calling them by your name. I don’t want to imagine anymore what those nimble fingers of your can do. I’m tired of using my hand and pretending it’s your mouth around me. I’m mad with wanting you, love. I’ll kill any man that gets in my way to you. You’re mine, Bess. You tell James that.

Yours, hungrily,

Tom.

He stopped writing and reread the letter. His cigarette had dwindled to a stub and when he reached the end of the letter, Tom barked a laugh. At least that was out of his system. Perhaps, one day, he would give it to her. He folded the page, placed it in an envelope and wrote, simply, Bess on the front before tucking it into his pocket. When Tom took out the second page of paper, he hung his head and thought. Really thought, before placing the pen upon the page.

Dear Bess,

Thank you for the letter. Please, if it upsets you, don’t write anymore. Your letters are the best thing that happens to me at sea, but I couldn’t bear being the cause of more pain.

I’m sure you’ll have all heard back home, but we’re starting the evacuation tonight. I won’t lie to you Bess, I’m terrified. Thousands all herded onto one beach with us to rescue them. Feel like sitting ducks. We’re going into something big, Bess, and I’m scared I won’t come back.

If I don’t, know that I think of you every second of every day. And if this James fella doesn’t treat you well then I’ll haunt him until his dying day. I hope he makes you happy, Bess.

If I do come back, I’ll spend the rest of my days regretting what I did to you but know this, I will make it right. I adore you.

Think of me, as I’m forever thinking of you,

Yours, always,

Tom.

Tom rubbed the pen between his fingers. That was it. That was all. Writing Bess’ name and address on the envelope, he hurried from the mess hall back to the cabin he shared with Norman.

“Gonna get a last look at land,” he said as he opened the door and placed the two letters he had written on his bunk, one addressed and one not. “You coming?”

“Last look? You’re optimistic.” Norman lay on his side and watched Tom don his cap. “You’re alright, gonna stay here and get some rest before it all.”

“Right you are.” With that, Tom made his way to the __ deck and watched shadows of cloud drift across the French docks. Two minutes after he departed, a ratings officer knocked on the cabin door. Norman answered.

“Anything for the post before we leave?”

“Just these,” Norman grabbed a letter of his own, addressed to his parents, and the two from Tom’s bunk. “Hang on, he hasn’t addressed this one.” Hastily, he copied Bess’ address from one envelope to the other and handed them to the man at the door, who looked at the name.

“Two letters to one girl?” He whistled lowly. “She must be a special one.”

✼　　✼　　✼　　✼　　✼　　✼

Despite the calm water and pastel sky, by the eve of the evacuation’s second day, Tom’s agitation was reaching fever pitch. Arms resting on his knees, he watched the point behind Norman’s head where the horizon burned. Dunkirk. Tom was in half a mind to wrestle a paddle from an oarsman, just to give himself something to do. Their lifeboat, capacity 40, made its slow way back to the beach and the 300,000 people waiting to be rescued. From their position a mile off the coast, the evacuees looked like ants fleeing a magnify glass.

“What’s on your mind, Tom?” Norman asked. His back was to the beach and Tom envied his brief position of ignorance.

“How come our ship is called HMS Keith?” Tom tried to sound light, breezy. “Keith isn’t the name you give a fighting ship.”

“You what?”

“All the other ships are called Atlantic, Calcutta, Dreadnought, and we get Keith.”

Norman shrugged. “Well? What’s the problem with that?”

Tom leant down to fix his shoe in order to give his hands focus. “Well, Keith was always the name of the kid who wore a balaclava till April, candlewax snot hanging from his nose.” He thought irresistibly of Frank Smith and Norman laughed at him. The sound lightened Tom’s mood and he continued the jest. “How many trips back and forth have we done? Twenty? And not one tip all day-”

“Would you like it better if it was HMS Tom?”

“If it was called HMS Tom it wouldn’t be here, mate. It’d be cruising round the brothels of the Med.” Tom’s arms came to rest once more on his knees, head oscillating a little as he fixed his mouth in a smirk. Norman thought it made him look cocky, like he was gearing up for a fight. Tom knew that it was a nervous twitch, something to make himself seem bigger when danger loomed. He glanced behind Norman again. They were getting closer. Black smoke billowed in the town beyond the beach and the fearful shouting of the stranded filled the air like braying horses.

By the time they made it to the beach, Tom’s agitation had turned itself into reassurances to the soldiers and an eagerness to be as far away from France as possible. So close to England, it was almost as if he could smell home over the sea and gunpowder.

“Move it lads! Fritz is due to call again soon and he won’t be selling ice creams. You’ve had all day to sunbathe, just get on board, let’s go home, eh?” He called to the queue of soldiers shuffling into the shallow water. They looked like the living dead. Behind him, Norman and the oarsmen hauled them into the lifeboat. “Go on, here you are pal.” Tom gripped the shoulder of a man as he stumbled on the unstable ground. A young man in civilian clothing took his chance and pushed forward through the queue. Tom spotted him in an instant, pushing the man back as he tried to board the boat. “No chance, get to the back and wait your turn.”

“You can’t stop me,” The man looked like a ghost, eyes rimmed with purple circles and face ashen with tiredness. He wasn’t French, though from where, Tom didn’t know. The stranger lunged forwards.

“Oh yeah?” Tom pulled a pistol from the waistband of his uniform. “I can with this. Jerry’s only gone for his tea break. If we don’t get away on this tide, we get sunk, so killing you’s a small price if it stops all these fellas buying it too.” Tom hated this. He’d let him on if he could, but thousands of angry soldiers would end him before the Germans if he did. What’s more, with a tiny boat full of scared and exhausted men, he needed to assert that he was in control. It was chaos enough on the beach, God help them if it spilled over into the rescue boats.

The man stumbled forward and spoke lowly, pressing his chest into the gun. “I’m ready for death.”

“We’re all fucking ready for death, mate.” Tom scoffed and indicated at the men surrounding him. “We’re all ready for death.” Once more, he pointed the gun towards the man.

“SHOOT ME!” The man screamed. Before the war, it would have stunned Tom, but he’d seen too much to know that death was a welcome choice by many now. In the dark of the night, he thought about it too. Tom watched all hope fade from the man’s eyes and was about to take his hand when another solider grabbed the stranger by the shoulders.

“Get out of the way,” he growled, pulling him backwards until he fell into the shallows. “Get back and fight for your country, you Polish bugger.”

Thankful, Tom continued calling to the soldiers. “Right, behave lads. Any more hassle and we’ll be going home with a boat half full, alright? Now come on. I’ll put the kettle on for us, eh? Let’s go home.”

“You won’t want any of his tea,” Norman shouted as he pulled another man into the lifeboat. “Bath water tastes better.” A few soldiers let out half-hearted laughs, which for Tom and Norman, was an achievement in itself. They smiled at each other a moment and, there with his friend, Tom forgot about the war around them. For that second, they were just two friends on the beach at sunset. The sounds of war had faded.

A muted thud carried across the expanse of beach. Then another. The dull thumping of metal and rock. From the clouds above, Luftwaffe descended. Two from the east and two from the west, they wailed their battle cry. Sand soared into the air, each mound rising closer and closer to the boat. Tom froze. He looked around. Men were scrambling towards the boats, back up the beach towards the town. Debris from the already bombed out boats and trucks ripped through the air, through bodies. Like dominos men fell, or else were blown into the sky. Was Tom ready to die? If I don’t come back, know that I think of you every second of every day. He saw her. Sat at the piano. At the dancehall, tucked under the blankets and sat on the front step. On the carousel, hair aflame under the lights.

Boom, boom, BOOM. A missile struck the lifeboat nearest Tom’s own, and in a flash, he ran. From all sides, metal, sand and viscera attacked his senses. Weaving around scattered bodies, Tom ran as his eyes scanned the beach. What he was searching for, he didn’t know. Somewhere to hide? Someone sent to rescue the rescuers? The juddering of gunfire sounded and screams rent the air. Keep weaving. Bullets flew past his ears and he ducked. Through the mist of sand, he saw the metal hull of an overturned truck. If he could just reach it, he could clammer inside or hide beneath it. Twenty metres. His legs were burning. Ten metres. Next to him a man dropped. Five metres. Hot pain ripped through his shoulder. He could smell the burning of his own flesh. Taste gunpowder and iron on the air. The force of the bullet caused Tom to stagger and, breathless with pain, he collapsed.

✼　　✼　　✼　　✼　　✼　　✼

The clattering of the ceramic pan rang echoed throughout the ward, and Bess fell into a seat by the soldier’s bed.

“What is the meaning of this?” The matron hissed as she stormed towards Bess. Joan and Helen looked at her from their nearby stations. Since the death of her brother, Bess’ ‘funny turns’, as Joan and Helen called them, increased but she had always managed to push through until now.

“I’m sorry, Sister Stern,” Bess knelt from the chair and fumbled to pick up the equipment. “I’m sorry-” A pair of gleaming boots entered her vision and she looked up. Sister Stern was staring at her down the bridge of her pinched nose.

“You’re white as a sheet,” the matron said, placing a hand on Bess’ forehead. “And burning up. Go home at once. You’re no use to us here in this state.”

“Yes, Sister.” Bess bowed her head, not looking at her friends as hurried away. Bess didn’t go home as the matron demanded. Instead, she boarded the first bus for Longsight. Something told her she had to get to the Bennett’s.

She heard him before she saw him. From beyond the turning to their street, Bess heard Douglas’ shouts through the fog.

“Anybody in?” There was the unmistakable thundering of fists on doors. “Hey? Are you in? Come on! Help me-” Bess’ feet hurried along the cobbles. More banging. “Hello? Are you in? Help me, help me, help me. Come on!” By the time she made out the man amongst the fog he was trembling, hands over his eyes and cowering on the pavement. Bess ran to him just as he slumped onto the floor.

“Douglas, ssh, come on.” She struggled to lift him. “Let’s get you inside.” Two more figures arrived through the haze.

“Dad?” Lois and Connie rushed forward and placed their arms beneath Douglas’.

“Help me get him in,” Bess said to Connie. “Lois, you get the door.” It was half an hour before the three women managed to get Douglas settled, and even then he muttered under his breath and stared into nothingness.

“I know it. I can feel it in here,” Douglas indicated to his chest, and Bess looked at the kitchen table scattered with newspapers and a magnifying glass. Another chip broke away from her heart.

“Any real news? Not one of your “feelings” like Gypsy Rose Lee on Blackpool Prom.” Lois said gently. She was just like Cora, and Bess gazed at her in awe. Pregnant and alone to look after her father, Lois Bennett was extraordinary.

“If anything’s happened to him, I made him go,” Douglas mumbled. “I told him to go. I…I made him-”

“Dad,” Lois tried to reason with him.

“I’m no dad. I’m no father. No father to you. No father to him. I’m no father, me.” Connie and Bess looked at each other as Douglas continued to spiral. “We just have to wait now.” He stood abruptly and made his way to the wireless.

“They’re not going to announce anything on the radio, are they? Not just like that-” Bess heard the plea in Lois’ voice but she was cut off by her father.

“Shut up, will you?”

Bess whispered to Connie. “I’ll back in a minute.” Connie merely nodded and watched Bess speed across the road. Dadda would know what to do. Wiping tears from her eyes, she opened the door to her childhood home.

“Dadda?” She called out. “Dadda?” No-one replied. Deflated, Bess realised that everyone would still be at work. Just as she turned to leave the house, a thud came from above her head. Tentatively, nervously, Bess made her way upstairs. “Hello?” The door to her old bedroom was open. Nothing. No-one. Across the hall, the door to her father’s room was ajar. “Dadda?” She pushed it open. Face down, drool spilling from his mouth, Fergal was asleep on the bed. One arm was flung out across the bed and beneath the hand that lolled over the frame, an empty whisky bottle lay on its side on the floor. She stared at his pitiful state for a moment, then her eyes drifted to the empty bed next to the door. Set out, perfectly folded atop the quilt, was a jumper and pair of moleskin trousers. A framed photo was propped on the pillow, and Albie smiled gently at her from the faded image. Bess wanted to scream. Instead, she stepped from the room and slammed the door to her old bedroom. She heard her father grunt. Good. She couldn’t care less about his sore head and sorry state. Sitting on the bed she once shared with Dot, Bess opened her purse and took out the photograph she always carried with her.

“Don’t you dare be dead, Tom Bennett. Don’t you dare.”

Notes: Woof. Writing this has been a rollercoaster. Just a little note again to say that I replaced Fred in the episode with lovely Norman. Poor Grzegorz too. I’m hoping we’ll see him and Tom interact again in WoF series 2, considering Grzegorz is now in Manchester. Also, the letter situation is very obviously inspired by Atonement, which incidentally has one of the best Dunkirk scenes in cinema!! Next chapter soon!

Tags: @aemonds-wifey @multiple-fandoms-girl @jessssica1234 @babyblue711 @anditsmywholeheart @allthefandomtherapy @valerie977 @bookwyrmsblog @phantomontheinternet @chainsawsangel @greenowlfactif @thelittleswanao3 @yentroucnagol @beiigegalx @skikikikiikhhjuuh @just-emmaaaa @mefools @aquakaris @its-actually-minicika @whoknows333 @arcielee @honeymaltgelato @girlwith-thepearlearring

#ewan mitchell #tom bennett #tom bennett x ofc #world on fire #ewan mitchell x reader #the seamstress & the sailor

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random-of-random · 17 days

Text

The Pirate Queen

Chapter 3 - The Ball

If anyone ever said pirates weren’t efficient, they should be told the tale of Alice and her crew getting ready to host a ball for a new Commodore.

Hiding anything suspicious was the easy part. The locked extra pantry was plenty enough to stow away any of the papers they needed to keep from prying eyes. Their gear was locked into trunks in their personal rooms.

What wasn’t easy was shelling out the money for caterers and extra servants to make the night perfect. While they had the money, Alice had made a fortune sailing with Sam Bellamy and then even more in her exploits, they all hated spending it on posh pricks who would more likely give them a bullet than the time of day under normal circumstances.

Most pirates on ships had duel roles. Everyone chipped in, and just like on a ship, the men dove head first into getting ready.

By the time the night arrived everything was absolutely perfect.

Three of the men would be carefully and quietly sneaking into the Fort while the rest of the town partied at the mansion, courtesy of Vicountess Somers. Their goal was it make it seem like no one have ever been there. They didn’t want to get captured, and they didn’t want to have to kill. Alice and her crew took a page from Sam Bellamy - they didn’t kill if they didn’t have to.

The men left before the extra servants arrived for the night, and Alice went upstairs to get ready. Edward stayed at the mansion, her even present bodyguard.

When he knocked at the door to her room to let her know guests arrived, he couldn’t help but smile.

“You may not be a noble, but you wear the outfits quite well.” She turned to look at him with a smile on her face.

“Let’s be honest, I look better in trousers and my jacket.”

He motioned to her dress. “I see you’ve picked your signature color.” The red dress was her most fashionable. Bright red, matching the bow weaved intricately through her hair. Instead of an updo, she wore her hair down. The black hair fanned across the red dress she had commissioned to match that bow. The dress itself was more old fashioned than she had been wearing and the corset fit just perfectly. There were no color accents except around the sleeves and chest, and was intricately woven with gold and red fabric.

“Well, I wanted to stay partly me.”

“I wish Sam could see this.” Edward said and Alice took a calming breath.

“Me too.”

“Where should I wait during dinner?”

“You’ll be next to me.” Alice said simply and Edward raised his eyebrows.

“I don’t think it’s proper to have your bodyguard sitting at dinner. Robert would faint.”

Alice laughed. “Tonight is our last night with these people. I don’t particularly care what they think and they’re not going to question a noble.”

“Sounds good, Captain.” Edward was dressed in mostly black, fine quality that most would expect of a bodyguard. “People are going to be arriving soon.”

“Alright, let’s get ready to play our parts.” She effortlessly switched into her posh accent.

There were murmurs throughout the party. The red was certainly making some heads turn. When Governor Swann and Elizabeth arrived Alice was there to greet them.

“Lady Frances, you look marvelous!” Elizabeth said with a smile. They two women held hands for a moment.

“As do you, Elizabeth.” Her dress was a light blue which paired with her quite well. Her hair had been curled delicately and put in an updo worthy of a coronation, she was sure of it.

“That is such a stunning color.” Governor Swann started. “You stand out, in the best way.”

“Thank you, Governor.” Alice replied, trying her best not to smirk. “I felt it was appropriate since the ball is on behalf of a member of the Navy. Navy blues seemed a bit too pompous, don’t you agree?”

Governor Swann searched for something to say as Elizabeth politely held her laugh behind her fan. “You look absolutely wonderful, Lady Frances.” He finally said. Safe, complimentary.

“Thank you, Governor.” From behind him she caught the eyes of James. “Please excuse me, sir. I want to wish the man of the night my congratulations.” As she made her way over, James couldn’t seem to even think. She was beautiful. James was in his Navy dress. An outfit that should send Alice’s anxiety shooting upward. Yet, she was sure she had never seen a man so handsome.

“Captain Norrington.” She curtsied and he bowed back. Alice knew that there couldn’t be a repeat of the night of the dinner. The best thing would be to treat James Norrington with civility and step away as quickly as she could.

“Thank you for your generosity with this night.” He started. “And, if I may say, you look absolutely beautiful, Lady Frances.”

“Thank you, Captain. It is a pleasure to celebrate you.” James could tell she was being more formal, putting more of a guard up. He had no right to wish for something different. To wish anything different was downright improper. “Please, enjoy yourself.” She curtsied again and turned to greet her other guests. The bow going through her raven hair caught his eye and something stirred in his memory. Just for one second a moment of fear crept into his mind, but he couldn’t, for the life of him, understand why.

As everyone made their way into the dining room, there were whispers at the fact that while Lady Frances sat at the head of the table, her own bodyguard was to her right. To her left was Governor Swann, beside him Elizabeth, and James was surprised to find himself placed next to her.

Once everyone was seated Lady Frances stood.

“Good evening. I hope you are all enjoying yourselves.” There was some murmurs of approval. “Tonight we are here to celebrate Captain James Norrington, who will not be called Captain in twenty-four hours. Now, I have only known Captain Norrington for a few short days. I could regale you all with the kindness and character he has shown me. However, I wanted someone who knows him more, who served with him, to speak here tonight. Lieutenant Groves, if you would please?”

A few seats down from Edward, Groves stood, and Alice took her seat. She knew her brain would betray her if she was forced to give a speech about James. She could hardly talk about how handsome he looks in the moonlight. She was supposed to be married. More than that, it was about to be James’ job to be in charge of hunting her and the people she cared about. The thought soured her mood considerably. More so when she realized she shouldn’t even be thinking about James Norrington. She should be wondering how we men were doing at the fort. By the time she came back into focus, Groves had finished his speech and she held up her glass in a toast before the first course.

Once the food was cleared and the band had begun to play, Alice whispered to Edward to go and be on the lookout for the returning men. The hope was they would be back quickly and efficiently. One of her men named Simon had offered to help in the kitchen. He had been a chef back in Ireland and then became the chef for her crew, and he would be waiting to move any papers to the locked pantry.

“My dear Lady Frances.” Governor Swann said as he walked up to her. “Would you honor me with a dance?” He held out his hand and she took it immediately.

“It would be a pleasure.” They danced to a lively tune. The laughter around the floor told her everyone seemed to be having a great time. She made sure they had enough stock of wine to last them, and making sure everyone was good and drunk could only help her in the long run.

As the Governor turned her she caught a glimpse of James who was dancing with Elizabeth. He was smiling, she was laughing. Alice felt a pang of jealousy go through her, but she quickly pushed that away. Any thoughts about her and James Norrington needed to stop at that moment. And, more than that, she knew he would make a great husband to Elizabeth. He was kind and gentle. When he showed emotion it was sincere. In the first night she had watched his eyes flicker to Elizabeth which such adoration. Alice knew she would be taken care of and loved. She couldn’t ask for more than that from two wonderful people.

The dance came to a close and there was a small round of applause. “Thank you for the wonderful dance, Governor.” He bowed. “If you would excuse me?”

“Of course.” He beamed. His cheeks were red from several glasses of wine and Alice found herself thinking that wasn’t a bad idea. Find a servant with the wine she took a glass for herself. When she turned back to the party she was surprised to see James walking toward her.

“Lady Frances.”

“Captain Norrington.” She acknowledged. “Are you having a good time?”

“I am, thank you.” He promised. “I came to ask if you would honor me with a dance.” She couldn’t say no. Maybe it was knowing that after tomorrow she would, hopefully, never see him again.

“I would be delighted-“ She was interrupted by Edward.

“I am terribly sorry, my Lady.” He bowed.

“What is it, Edward?” She asked.

“May I speak with you, privately?”

Her eyes turned to James. “My apologies, Captain.” She and Edward turned, heading for another room. James couldn’t pretend he wasn’t disappointed.

The study was a place she had wanted to spend more time in, if they had the time. It was dark wood with books lining the walls. Giles stood outside on guard to make sure no one came within earshot as Edward closed the door behind them.

“Is everyone alright?” Was her first question.

“Yes, everyone made it back safely.” Alice let out a sigh of relief. “They were in and out quickly, no one saw them. It’s what they found that’s concerning.”

“What did they find?” Alice asked.

“A list of spies for the Royal Navy and where they are located. Some are on Tortuga.” Her jaw clenched. “There’s also a few pirate havens that they know about. I think your Captain Norrington intends to go raid them after his promotion is made official.”

“Go, get Robert, will you?” She asked and Edward gave a quick nod before leaving. They would have a head start on anything Norrington had planned, which was key. She sat in silence for a few moments. If her mind wandered too far, she could almost feel tears threatening to spill. So, she pushed them down. Edward and Robert came back in a few minutes.

“Captain.” Robert acknowledged.

“I need you to get to the docs and get first passage that you can. You have to get to Tortuga as quickly as possible.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “Hopefully those pirate havens can be cleared out before the Royal Navy gets their hands on anyone. And make sure the right people in Tortuga know the names of the spies.”

“You can count on me Captain.”

“When you get to Tortuga send someone for us. We’ll want to leave late tomorrow night.”

“I will.”

“The winds be with you, Robert.” She shook his hand and he headed back out the door.

“What’s the plan?” Edward asked.

“Tomorrow, after the ceremony,” Alice started. “We will spend the day carefully packing, not drawing any attention. Once night falls we will gather everything up. We can’t leave a trace of us behind. Not a single piece of clothing.”

“Understood, Captain.”

“We will leave an urgent note with the Swann’s. My husband has taken ill and we were quickly recalled to England.”

“Will they believe it?” Edward asked.

Alice shrugged. “Once we’re back on the seas, it won’t matter.”

“I’ll start telling the men.” He said and she let out a soft sigh. “You should get back out there. The hostess will be missed.”

Alice seemed to clench her jaw. “I can do this for one more day.” He nodded before opening the door for her.

#james norrington #James Norrington x ofc #james norrington imagines #pirates of the caribbean

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