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forasecondtherewedwon · 3 years

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In the Arms of the Anus

Fandom: Spider-Man, Thor Pairing: Roger Harrington/Grandmaster Rating: T Word Count: 8883

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, @spiderman-homecomeme!!!

Summary: While people all over the world are finding their soulmates, Roger Harrington can barely find time to grab a sandwich. Clumsy, anxious, and stagnating in a mediocre marriage, it's a miracle that he still believes in love.

Today's the day the universe rewards that belief.

Three things about Roger Harrington: he’d just tripped on the sidewalk, he worried daily that he was developing a bald spot, and, at the age of 36, he felt he still believed in love as strongly as did the little girl in his building who’d made all the residents Valentine’s Day cards the year before.

The cards—which Roger had found endearing while his wife had been baffled to the point of annoyance—had been wedged into everyone’s mailbox sometime on the afternoon of last May 19th, and maybe that was why he thought of them today, exactly a year later.

It was helpful, he found, to consider love in markers of time passing, or just numbers. The anniversary of those Valentine’s cards would always be 271 days early, leap year or not. Roger had been married twice, longer the second time. He had zero children, and that was alright with him because he wasn’t totally sure that he did want kids and, anyway, he was too profoundly stressed about the welfare of the teenagers he taught at Midtown to comfortably imagine himself as a fulltime parent.

His wife was cool. Significantly cooler than he was. She drove out of the city to hike every other weekend (he had never joined her and hoped to never be called upon for woodsy companionship), had once performed an emergency tracheotomy on a friend at a dinner party, and had a tattoo on her hip that predated their relationship, which made it consequently, eternally, enigmatic, no matter how many times she told the objectively trite story of its acquisition. Also, she was a casual shoplifter, which made him very, very nervous in a way that he found difficult to differentiate from how he felt when he was turned on.

He was the kind of person who consistently forgot to take his glasses off before stepping into the shower. She was the kind of person who would run into and recognize a famous race car driver at Whole Foods (that had happened) or fake her own death (that had not happened—knock on wood!). Essentially, what and who his second wife was was the natural successor to his first wife (the reckless young bride to his insomniac young groom), who had in turn been the natural successor to the only other romantic encounter of his life worth mentioning: a kiss on the cheek at a birthday party on the day the Berlin Wall fell. Roger had been seven.

So his romantic history was speckled and, in two out of three cases, spoke a little too loudly of a need for legally-recognized codependence. So he didn’t feel like a man anyone would ever get a tattoo in honour of. So his wife had been a little unkind in the long pause before her negative when he’d asked her if she thought he was getting a bald spot. Roger still felt that love was going to happen for him. Hopefully sustained in his current marriage, but if not, there was always what Julius Dell had taken to (highly unscientifically) calling the Love Wave.

If Roger decided to be really delusional, he could pretend that the Love Wave was to blame for his stumble over uneven concrete on his way to grab lunch. That he was finally feeling its cosmic tug. Not that he would be the last to sense it—the inexplicable force that had lately begun guiding people the world over to their new partners—but every day that he didn’t, he feared his wife would feel it first and go careening out of their life together in a Thelma and Louise-style launch that somehow left her intact and him feeling like he’d plummeted to his death at the bottom of a canyon. Sometimes, when he thought about it, he imagined feeling that impulse to go to this destined soulmate and pictured it leading him home. Not in some metaphorical way, but literally home, to the apartment he shared with his wife, to find her arriving at the same time, the two of them matched up, the universe endorsing their marriage.

The reality was that he was a man with clumsy feet (and knees and elbows) who’d forgotten to pack himself a lunch and had just enough self-awareness (though probably not dignity) not to believe that eating in the cafeteria with his students was something he would be able to socially recover from.

He thought about a poorly-cut-out pink heart glued to a fold of red craft paper. He went to buy a sandwich.

At the deli, Roger waited in line and didn’t so much allow his mind to wander—like a dog off-leash in a dog park—as feel his mind jerk insistently away—like a dog on-leash, trying to snap a dropped slice of pizza off the sidewalk. He was violently not present as his thoughts migrated from Valentine’s Day cards to lesson plans to the anxiety he always felt over the fact of never seeming to have enough power to go with the tremendous sense of responsibility he felt for all situations in which he was even remotely involved. He would have, should have, continued to shuffle vacantly forward in line, except that the man ahead of him grumbled something that drew his focus.

What he grumbled was: “Even the Sorcerer Supreme should be able to spare a minute to decide what kind of sandwich he wants.”

Now, Roger Harrington was a man of science, but he was also a man who had previously enjoyed a close friendship with the Hulk (and if anyone challenged him on specific parameters within that assertion, Roger knew that he would cry). Aliens swarmed the sky like clouds of bees. There were compilation videos of Spider-Man nearly getting hit by city buses that could’ve been designed expressly to see how hard Roger could flinch. For a clumsy man with the unathletic, knock-kneed gait of Pippi Longstocking, Roger did his best to roll with the supernatural punches. Hey, this was how science worked too: just because there wasn’t a precedent yet didn’t mean there never would be. Just because he couldn’t explain something didn’t mean no one could. Sorcerers? Alright. There could be sorcerers.

“Sorcerers?” Roger blurted to the man, overeager to expel the word.

All other words had fled to the back of his mind, twitching in an agitated cluster, leaving just the one to be snatched frantically from the surface. Like fishing. (Roger had never been fishing. One of his greatest fears was having a live fish somehow jump into his shoe and stepping on it by accident.)

“Uhhh,” the man droned. He looked uneasy. If Roger knew how to make his eyes a little less wide in situations like these, he would’ve done it.

“No, yeah, sorcerers, sure,” Roger swiftly backpedaled. “I’m a teacher.”

As if being a teacher equaled knowledge of sorcerers. As if that were a normal unit of the high school curriculum. Roger’s understanding of sorcerers began and ended with Mickey Mouse in a blue wizard’s hat. He wondered if that was sort of the standard look.

The man did not appear reassured. Roger thrust his hand forward.

“Roger Harrington, Midtown Tech.”

Face still wary, his deli companion shook hands.

“Wong.”

“So, this sorcerer of yours didn’t pick a sandwich?” The line shuffled forward and, now in reach of the long glass case of food, Roger attempted to lean his elbow casually against it, misjudged the distance, and jerked back upright again before he could fall over.

“No… You heard that part too?”

“If I could hear the part about the sorcerer, why wouldn’t I be able to hear the rest?”

“I think most people would’ve been so fixated on the sorcerer thing that they wouldn’t really absorb the part about the sandwich.”

“Just got sandwiches on the brain, I guess,” Roger said.

God, if Wong knew a sorcerer, odds were that he was a sorcerer too. (Roger based this on being a teacher with almost exclusively teacher friends and acquaintances.) He was making it sound like he cared more about sandwiches, he knew he was. He stared silently at Wong for a few painful seconds and wondered if the man could tell that he had worked for a sandwich shop as a teenager—the role of wearing a full-body sandwich costume and standing on the sidewalk, trying to attract people into the shop.

But Wong surprised him by nodding.

“You could get one of everything,” Roger heard himself suggest.

He was not typically one to make suggestions, but rather one to panic when other people did and he was in the position of having to choose between them. He could never decide on a restaurant for he and his wife’s now few-and-far-between date nights, or provide straightforward feedback when she asked for his opinion on her clothing choices… which movie they should see… what they should buy for her friend’s sister’s housewarming gift...

Oh god, she was probably going to fake her own death and his biggest anxiety was knowing that someone would ask him to choose the casket!

“I have like…” Wong jingled his pockets and extracted a fistful of coins that, when he opened his hand, Roger saw belonged to several different currencies. “…six bucks.”

Like a mirror with a delay, Roger patted his own pockets to locate his wallet. He flipped it open to reveal something promising and terrifying: he’d forgotten to return the school credit card after the last field trip he’d chaperoned. He shouldn’t, but… sorcerer.

“I think this’ll cover it,” Roger said. “It’s for emergency expenses.”

“Like lunch?” Wong asked doubtfully.

“I could be very hungry.”

“They sell seventeen different types of sandwiches here.”

“I could be very, very hungry.”

Wong shrugged in evident acquiescence and Roger marvelled that it was so simple for him to accept this act of generosity. Roger couldn’t recall the last time someone had been as generous towards him. Wait, yes he could. The Valentine’s Day card. Well, handing over a credit card that wasn’t technically his didn’t exactly equate to presenting his ticket at the Love Wave gates (not that there were such things—not that he’d know), but he was hoping to trade this generosity up for a different magical experience in the near future.

When they reached the front of the line for service, Roger ordered a total of eighteen sandwiches. (And received an undisguised groan of complaint from the people still in line behind himself and Wong.) While they waited, Roger buzzed like the posterchild for over-caffeination, doing his best not to let his excitement translate into erratic movements.

Of course, once the sandwiches were presented and paid for, it only made sense for Roger to help Wong carry them all. His own ham-and-Swiss was stuffed into one of the three bags and they were all bulging, threatening to spill. If one of them ripped on Wong’s journey back to wherever he had to take them, who would be there to gather the sandwiches into their arms so that Wong wouldn’t have to leave them on the ground? Roger was clearly the best (only) person for the job.

And if they talked on the way? That would be natural. If Wong stared at him with abrupt, unyielding suspicion the instant Roger attempted to negotiate a visit with this ‘Sorcerer Supreme’ in exchange for buying his lunch? Yeah. Yeah that suspicion would be fair.

“Not for my sake!” Roger defended as Wong blinked back at him. “For the kids!”

“The Sorcerer Supreme isn’t a birthday party magician.”

“No, I would never imply that! These are bright kids. They’d be there to learn, respectfully. They’ve had their own traumatic encounter with Spider-Man already so there wouldn’t be any clambering to meet another person with superhuman powers!”

“What did Spider-Man do to traumatize them?”

Wong looked interested now, in an entertained sort of way. Meanwhile, Roger was having a flashback of his life flashing before his eyes inside the Washington Monument.

“Actually, he saved us,” Roger explained. “That’s not the point. It would be purely educational. You and the Sorcerer Supreme would call the shots. As long as it wasn’t anything dangerous.”

“Dangerous? We would never put children at risk!”

Roger was about to clarify that he hadn’t meant to imply that they would when he realized Wong seemed to be taking this as a reason to prove himself, or to make the other sorcerer prove what he’d just said.

“I would hope not,” Roger said carefully, “because not all of the children I’ve taken on field trips have come back alive and that haunts me.”

“Well, what haunts me is everything I’ve seen and learned from in order to become someone who could now guarantee a safe field trip environment.”

“Well, that would be great.”

“Well, good,” Wong concluded.

Roger looked down at the bag he was holding as he dug out his sandwich. His wrist twisted and he caught the time on his watch. Oh wow, oh no, his lunch break was almost over.

“Ok, deal,” he said quickly. “We’ll come by next Tuesday!”

“I’ll be out here to let you in!” Wong agreed with a parting wave.

Roger took off running in the direction of Midtown and when that got too awful, he wheezed like an asthmatic and waited at the closest bus stop.

—

Roger had expected Principal Morita to say there was no room in their budget for this trip. That they were nearing the end of the school year, that parents and guardians would be reluctant to sign another form for an excursion that Roger could only give a vague, stammering explanation of. At the very least, he’d anticipated the journey via school bus in lurching, stop-and-start traffic to take so long that the kids would revolt; Flash Thompson would lead the complaints that they could’ve walked to their destination faster than the ride took and Roger would feel the primal horror of a confrontation with a self-possessed teenager who wielded the kind of peer influence Roger could only have dreamed of when he’d been Flash’s age.

But no.

Highly improbably (Roger didn’t like to consider it miraculous), things went smoothly. The trip cleared the budget assessment on zero notice because, besides renting the single bus to transport the students, their outing didn’t actually have any costs. Permission slips came back signed. Traffic was light. And dear, dear Flash—who usually gave Roger so much anxiety—slapped the hand Roger raised to shield his eyes from the sun as his students disembarked from the bus, rewarding him with a surprise high-five for getting them out of the classroom on a Tuesday afternoon. It almost knocked Roger’s glasses off.

They were ushered inside by Wong, who was now laying the mystical solemnity on pretty thick. He certainly wasn’t talking about sandwiches or complaining about the Supreme Sorcerer under his breath.

Before Roger could feel too good about himself though, he realized he’d had time to run through his headcount of the students three times without interruption. Normally, something would happen partway through his first count and he’d be uneasy for the rest of the day, sure that one of the kids had fallen down a manhole or been stampeded by a dog-walker’s unruly canine swarm. The universe shoved teenagers into the path of bike couriers with one hand and paired up soulmates with the other. That was just how things went! However, inside this house (or, no, Sanctum, Wong had called it), the air was still and quiet.

“Do you think he’s gonna make himself appear out of thin air?” Roger heard Ned ask at a whisper. “Or out of a wardrobe, or a trapdoor, or one of those boxes people get in to get sawed in half?”

“Those are cheap tricks,” Wong said loudly. He stared unsympathetically at Roger’s motley group, hand closed around his opposite wrist to maintain a serious pose. “The man you’ll be meeting shortly has capabilities that far outstrip those of the kind of magician-for-hire you’d find in a phonebook.”

From behind him, Roger heard Peter ask Ned what a phonebook was.

“What kind of capabilities then?” Flash demanded.

Roger sighed and was turning to reprimand his student when Wong said, “Like this!”

The man faked a sneeze of horrific volume and range, doubling over and cupping his hand around his mouth and nose. When he straightened up and presented his open palm, there was a raspberry sitting in it.

Roger closed his eyes for a moment to collect himself and his teaching career played on a fast-forwarded film reel behind his lids. The Sorcerer Supreme was a no-show; all Roger had accomplished was taking the kids to a weird building to witness a man pretend to sneeze out a raspberry. Midtown Tech was going to fire him. His wife would recognize his unemployment as a reason to leave him. Depressingly, Roger was thinking about how that would almost be a relief—an end to his incessant worrying that they were really kind of a mismatch—and he was thinking it while he blankly watched Wong eat the raspberry he’d just feigned dislodging from his nasal cavity.

He was really unprepared for a different man to come sweeping down the stairs, motion with his hand, and have a red sheet come whizzing down after him to settle itself on his shoulders. Roger blinked. He heard the mixed noises of fright and appreciation from his students.

Then Flash piped up with, “That’s just a trick. It’s wires or something.”

Roger backed into the cluster of his charges and, without taking his eyes off the obvious Magical Guy in front of him, reached over and placed his hand across Flash’s mouth.

Unfortunately, his censorship seemed to be too late. The Sorcerer’s narrowed eyes zoned in on Flash.

“Oh yeah? How ’bout this? Is this just a trick?”

Fingers splayed, the man moved his hands in a precise, practiced way and a window opened up in the middle of the room. No, not a window, but Roger was having a tough time wrapping his head around it. What this non-window showed was something that wasn’t the room, that wasn’t a view of the street, that wasn’t anyplace in New York, if he had to guess.

“You can’t just do it like that,” Wong said wearily. Roger felt himself and his students look from one of the men to the other as though watching a tennis match. “There should be a little more finesse.”

“Look,” the Sorcerer told him. “You don’t get to spring this on me and then expect me to ham it up for the kids. This isn’t a David Blaine show.”

“Maybe you should watch one. You might learn something about showmanship.”

“So, it’s fake, right?” Flash checked.

Dammit, Roger had dropped his hand, distracted as he tried to make out what he was seeing through what he was becoming increasingly comfortable with calling a ‘magic portal’ in his thoughts. He scrambled to take hold of Flash’s shoulder—yanking him back would be bad, but dealing with the fallout of him pissing off somebody who could make magic portals would be much worse—but Flash dodged him, swaggering forward to inspect the Sorcerer’s work.

“What is it? Mirrors? Greenscreen? You buy your tech from Stark?”

“Stark?” the Sorcerer spat out derisively.

Overcome with the terrible feeling that he was about to find out what it looked like when a wizard put a curse on a child, Roger sprang forward. As he did, three things happened: the Sorcerer rotated his wrist slightly, the scene on the other side of the portal changed, and Flash turned to the side.

Without a student to grab onto and pull to safety, Roger’s momentum sent him hurtling through the gateway currently connecting Midtown to parts unknown.

Of all the times to trip, he thought.

—

The world was bright and fast and bad. Actually, Roger was almost positive that what he was seeing wasn’t the world at all, but he couldn’t put a name to where he was any more than he could think of better adjectives to describe it. Unless the Sorcerer Supreme owned a magical slip ’n’ slide that operated at speeds designed to train prospective astronauts for space travel, Roger was no longer in his building.

The colour of the tunnel of light surrounding him turned from something like the intestinal track of a unicorn who ate lightning and nebulas to a dangerous, broiling red. Roger kept waiting for his skin to bubble, his face to melt off. Maybe he was the fabled frog in the pot of boiling water and had failed to notice the heat steadily increasing. Because he didn’t feel hot. He couldn’t tell whether or not he felt cold either and before he could work it out, he finally landed.

It was rough.

He curled his arms up around his head, protecting his face. He hit and tumbled, hit and tumbled, banging his shins and elbows, setting off a series of metallic clangs and thwumps like his body was playing drums made of the contents of somebody’s recycling bin. Roger could see—once, shaking, he was able to lower his arms and open his eyes—that his imagination hadn’t been far from the mark: he was lying in a heap of trash.

Trembling like a baby deer, he got to his feet and assessed his surroundings. There were piles everywhere. Piles of stuff. Roger could identify some of the battered objects, but most were utterly alien to him. This was like the time he’d found his wife’s sex toys all over again.

“Hello?” he called out, because he seemed to be alone. “Hel—”

His throat closed off abruptly when he swiveled in place and noticed the sky. His mouth fell open. Was that what he had just come through? That furious-looking, billowing, volcanic, enormous… disturbance? Weather pattern? Entrance to hell, if hell were a mountain of trash?

Oh man. Where was Spider-Man this time? Roger didn’t know which would come first, but if something distinctly reassuring didn’t happen in the next 30 seconds, he was going to either burst into tears or pee his pants. His cool wife was going to be so bummed to have to declare him dead instead of faking her own death. And his students would be traumatized, having just witnessed their teacher disappear before their eyes. He spent a frantic 17 of his 30 seconds wondering if this were Jumanji and he’d started a game without realizing it; being sucked into a board game was another of his greatest fears, ever since he’d watched the chilling horror film Jumanji in his teens.

“Hello?” Roger croaked a final time.

Some other scientist—a Tony Stark type—would thrive in this scenario, Roger knew. They would scavenge the surrounding mounds of metal, collecting and assembling pieces into some sort of technology that would either get them home or enable communication with a rescue team. Would there be a rescue team for Roger Harrington? Would anyone even try to get him back?

The cry/pee conundrum was looking more like cry with each passing second until suddenly, amongst the broken things Roger was aggrieved to consider the lone sentinels of his demise, some kind of spacecraft touched down. Based on his recent luck, whoever was at the helm was likely here to kill him, but he immediately elected to throw himself on their mercy, whether that meant rescue or just a swifter snuffing out of his life than he would otherwise experience on this sad island of garbage as he died from dehydration, starvation, and exposure to that infernal gateway in the sky.

He mouthed the word “help” more than said it as he staggered forward on legs he could hardly feel. A door in the side of the spacecraft slid smoothly open and party music blared out. Roger flinched back as though he had not heard the sounds of civilization in years.

A woman exited the craft. She wore an expression about as kind as the murderous upside-down mushroom cloud in the sky and when their eyes met, she barked, “Back!”

Roger executed an awkward reverse lunge, pleading hands raised. Ok, now that his time had come, he didn’t want a quick death. Put out of his misery? No, he would learn to live with his misery, the way he’d learned to live with his college roommates, or his wife’s collection of handmade bowls! With food and water to sustain him, he was suddenly confident that he could be successfully miserable for years if this intimidating woman would just leave him to his own pathetic devices.

But then, like a visitation from a tan, eye-liner-wearing angel of indeterminate age, a man in gold robes emerged from the vessel. He beamed like he had always been beaming, and always would be.

Just like that, Roger Harrington got it. He got what Hot Chocolate meant when they sang that they believed in miracles. He got the meaning of Kylie Jenner’s year of realizing stuff. He got why a child would send out Valentine’s Day cards in May and why his wife was so dedicated to her hiking group and why he was here.

“Now, what did I say about that before we left?” the angel seemed to be asking his companion, though he’d locked his eyes on Roger. “Did I say to harass our visitor or did I say to be nice?”

The woman narrowed her eyes at Roger, which he felt more than saw; it was possible that he was crying after all. Tears of joy.

“Harass,” she answered flatly.

The angel chuckled.

“You know, I do like having you around. Before you, I said to myself, ‘Next time, get an enforcer with a sense of humour.’” He sighed as his laughter dwindled. “But you can, uh, skedaddle back onto the ship now. That’ll be all.”

“What if you want to melt him?” she queried.

That was enough to tear Roger’s gaze away from the man and send it zipping nervously to the threatening almost-smile the woman was now directing his way. He’d preferred the murder face.

“Melt him!” the angel said, in a tone that implied her suggestion had been ridiculous. (Roger relaxed. A little.) “Topaz, don’t you realize who this is? Don’t you know?”

She shrugged.

“Trash.”

“No, he’s not trash! Do you think I would’ve left the Grand Arena to retrieve a new gladiator by hand? All those Scrappers don’t do my bidding just so I can dig through the garbage looking for fresh challengers for my champion! I wouldn’t even assign Scrapper 142 this task, and you know she’s my favourite!”

When the woman only grumbled, the man pressed, “You have an unbelievable poker face. Do you really not know why I flew all the way out here for this guy?”

“I’m his soulmate,” Roger blurted, because that was the one thing he did know.

He had no idea what a Scrapper was, or whether the man in front of him was more or less important than the ‘champion’ he’d mentioned, or how his homicidal sidekick planned to melt Roger, but he understood what was happening here. Forget the Love Wave—what had come for him had yanked him violently across solar systems, maybe galaxies. He’d been sucked under by the Love Riptide.

The angel pointed at him and proudly proclaimed, “Correctamundo!”

Then he strode forward and folded Roger into a hug. Roger thought this must be what it was like to be a piece of antique furniture, tenderly wrapped in gold leaf.

“I’m the Grandmaster,” he said.

“Roger Harrington,” Roger offered, feeling that his life was entirely surreal as he cautiously returned the hug.

“As soon as I felt you land on my humble little planet here, I came looking. My orgy guests were disappointed, naturally, but I had to put my interests first. What was I, elected? If they wanted a leader who would pretend to care about everyone equally, they should have organized themselves into a viable political party capable of rivalling my dictatorship, am I right?” He drew back slightly and laughed. “You should see your face! I’m kidding. I would’ve had anyone involved in such a thing put to death. Don’t you worry, Hairball.”

Roger cleared his throat. He’d learned so much in the last few sentences alone. Death. Dictator. Orgy. Any one of those things was a lot to confront and yet… he was calmed by the Grandmaster’s presence. He was alive and unmelted. He’d managed to find his soulmate—a man he’d been almost certain to never meet as things stood with Earth’s individually-impressive but cosmically-insignificant progress with space travel. At long last, the universe had smiled on Roger Harrington.

“Just Roger is good,” he said. If last names ever came up again, he would tactfully correct his soulmate, but with a name like ‘the Grandmaster,’ he doubted they ever would.

“Roger. Anything you say.” Gripping Roger’s shoulders, the Grandmaster leaned in and planted a sound kiss on his forehead with a loud, “Mmmwah!”

He asked Roger if he would like to go aboard his ship, apologizing that it wasn’t the one where he’d just been having the orgy and appearing to check Roger’s face for disappointment. Roger didn’t know what the Grandmaster saw in his expression, but he knew it wasn’t that.

Inside the spaceship, Roger looked around with huge eyes. He hadn’t felt this kind of wonder in a room jammed with so much beyond his understanding since the first time his mom had taken him to the New York Hall of Science as a kid. Everything was bright and white and immaculately clean, and Roger could concentrate on all of it because the Grandmaster had Topaz drop the volume of his party playlist until it was just a low pulse of background noise. Seemingly amused by his awe, the Grandmaster allowed him a peek at the controls before gently herding him into a chamber with seating arranged for socializing. A pneumatic hiss sealed them safely inside and away from the woman’s scowl.

“I really just wanna sit here and, uh, just look atcha, but that look on your face tells me you’ve got about a million questions.”

The Grandmaster settled back into the bench seating, resting his long arms along the top of the seat. Across from him, Roger fidgeted, experiencing sensory overload. Soulmate. Spaceship. Alien planet. He found it hard to decide what to ask first. Was that even polite? Was the Grandmaster just saying that Roger could ask questions when he really wanted Roger to say or do something else? There was an awfully flirtatious look in his eye, the likes of which Roger hadn’t seen directed towards himself in several years.

“What is this place?” Roger asked before he could stop himself. “Where am I?”

“Oh! This is Sakaar! Are you saying you didn’t come here on purpose? I figured you weren’t aiming for a pile of trash, but you really didn’t know where you were going at all?”

Roger shook his head so hard that he had to nudge his slipping glasses back up his nose.

“It was an accident. I fell through a wizard’s—uh, I mean, a sorcerer’s—magic portal. That kind of clumsiness must sound pretty farfetched to someone who’s so obviously…” Roger motioned spastically towards his soulmate, the dictator, with both hands. “…in control of their life.”

The Grandmaster laughed, transparently pleased and preening.

“Oh, Roger, you flatter me.”

He stretched out his leg to playfully tap his shoe (gold) against Roger’s (plain, brown, frayed shoelace). Roger jumped, giddy from an alteration in sea level, possibly, plus life-changing events.

“But it really isn’t so uncommon for people, beings, things… to end up here without meaning to,” the Grandmaster went on. “A lot of junk passes through the Anus. Not that you’re junk, obviously.”

With a winning smile, Roger’s soulmate leaned forward and patted him on the knee. He was a touchy-feely guy, it seemed, and it made Roger cognizant of how very lonely he’d been in his marriage, in the last year especially. How skittish around strangers, how unaffectionate with his friends. This was what he needed, and the universe had understood that.

It took his brain a few seconds to catch up with what his soulmate had said, distracted by the comfort he was taking in his easy warmth.

“The Anus?” Roger asked in a choked voice.

“The Devil’s Anus, to be exact. That enormous, horrifying wormhole out there in the sky!” the Grandmaster explained, gleeful. “Best I can guess, it acts as a funnel for accidental travelers, like yourself. And boy, are we ever grateful for that thing. I’ve never had to post any ‘Help Wanted’ flyers, I’ll tell ya that. We need more people serving drinks? Boom. More entertainers? Boom. More lubricators for the orgies? Boom, the Anus provides, baby.”

Roger didn’t inquire what the duties of a person with the job title ‘orgy lubricator’ entailed; it seemed sleazily self-explanatory. He just nodded.

“And now,” his perfect, golden match continued, “the portal brings me my soulmate. I love that thing. It’s really somethin’, huh?”

“It’s really something,” Roger agreed. “Really, really something.”

“You’re looking just a little stunned there, Rodge. Can I offer you something to eat? A drink? I promise, I’m usually a much better host. I feel like I’m positively, uh, bumbling right now.” He beamed.

This man was so many things at once—possibly too many—but bumbling was so far from being one of them that Roger actually laughed weaky in his state of happy, semi-delirium. He accepted the cold glass that was pressed into his hand, the brush of the Grandmaster’s warm palm across his forehead. He had moved to sit right next to Roger.

“You can get used to this place at your own pace, within reason.” His soulmate chuckled. “Heck, we can stay right here a day or two. My plans are cancelled, and when I stop, the world stops. That’s how it is, being the Grandmaster, and that’s how it’s gonna be for you too. You can give all your worries a big, wet kiss goodbye, my love. You’re living a life of luxury now. A court of sycophants, fights to the death in the evening, orgies on a lazy afternoon. I’m talkin’ a life of pure class—”

“Class!”

“Yeah, baby, that’s what I said.” The Grandmaster was wearing a languid smile as he traced the back of his fingers along Roger’s jaw.

But Roger was suddenly too alert to be lulled by welcome caresses and delicious, exotic beverages.

“I was teaching a class before I fell through the portal,” he said. “I’m a teacher. My students are probably terrified. Some of them might be messed up for life after watching me disappear right in front of them. What have I done…”

“So you gave them a cool story to tell their friends! You don’t need to think about that anymore. Now that you’re living here—”

“I can’t live here!” Roger said, seizing the Grandmaster’s hands in his as he tried desperately to explain. “I have responsibilities as an educator! Jesus Christ, I’m married!”

“Roger. Rodge. Rodge. Hey,” his soulmate said, finally disrupting Roger’s spiral of panic. “That’s all in the past. Do you know how many creatures from just, uh, every darn corner of the universe I’ve made slaughter each other for my entertainment? Thousands, Roger, ok? Thousands. And it’s taught me oodles about life. What I’ve learned is that love is the only thing that matters. What all of those poor bastards scream for in the end is their mom, their partner, their best friend. Now, that doesn’t help them, but it helps us. It helps us understand that we’ve done it—we’ve achieved the one thing in our lives that was worth a damn to achieve. I’m not gonna, gonna now be parted from you, sweetheart. You are the point of me.”

Roger felt himself growing teary at the speech. Yes, this had been a whirlwind—they’d met no more than 15 minutes ago—but he was feeling something just as deep as the love the Grandmaster described. It was a fantasy in the best way, the life his soulmate pictured for them (most of it… maybe not the part about slaughter). But it was a fantasy in the worst way too, something so impossible that Roger felt sick for getting as attached to this man as he already had.

“I can’t,” he said softly. He let his head hang down, solaced when the Grandmaster guided it onto his shoulder and wrapped a protective arm around him.

“Can’t you? For me? Roger, if I put you on a ship and send you back through the Anus, we may never meet again.”

Roger squeezed his eyes shut. He wanted to be selfish, but there were people he couldn’t leave in the lurch. People who maybe didn’t care about him in a way that was equal to how he cared about them, but that was how any kind of relationship was, apart from soulmates. There were imbalances. He knew he might not be the most brilliant scientist, the most inspirational teacher, the husband a woman would prefer over the outdoorsy hunk in her hiking group, but he knew who he was: he was someone who couldn’t just walk away.

“We’ll be together again,” Roger said, clutching the Grandmaster’s robes. “After.”

Though he didn’t yet know what ‘after’ would mean.

—

It wasn’t as unexpected as it could have been—Roger had always had a feeling he’d die on a school bus.

The difference between his fears and reality was that he wasn’t departing this world in a fiery crash or zooming out of control between the steel trusses and into the East River. There was confusion, there was chaos, there were screams and the violent honking of horns, but there were elements he couldn’t have predicted. Primarily, the giant alien spacecraft hovering over the city. The ship immediately moved into first place of the most ominous rings in his life (he and his wife were not in a good place). Since its sighting, things had quickly spiraled out of control. Julius had radioed Roger from the other bus of students they were chaperoning to MoMA to report that Ned Leeds had ‘flipped his shit’ and Peter Parker was currently missing. Roger had nearly passed out. The only thing that had kept him conscious was his jittery concern for the rest of his students.

At Midtown Tech, they had drills for almost every eventuality. As of 2012, hostile outer space invasion was actually part of their repertoire, but it had always been assumed they would be at school when it happened, not out on a field trip. The most Roger had been able to think to do was get the kids to a secure location. Which meant getting the buses to a secure location. But the buses were on the bridge, and all over the bridge drivers were panicking, mindlessly stomping on the gas and attempting to swerve around the rest of the vehicles. Above the blood rushing in his ears, he’d heard crash after crash, until their bus was hemmed in and, through the smoking, crumpled hoods of their fellow commuters, the alien ship hung stationary in the sky. Disturbingly tranquil as New York City went to pieces to the tune of apocalyptic dissonance just below.

In the end, the spaceship hadn’t stayed put, but Roger had. The lanes around them were crowded with smashed cars. Glass from shattered windshields glittered on the pavement. Still, more vehicles surged forward as drivers attempted to use the bridge to flee the city; this wasn’t NYC’s first alien rodeo. He hadn’t attempted to force any of his students to remain on the bus—they were some of the smartest and the best of their generation, and he trusted their survival instincts far more than his own—but he did direct the ones who fled to first climb up onto the roof of the bus instead of dropping directly down onto the street and risking injury. Yes, he worried about minor cuts and bruises. Even now.

He thought that Flash was staying with him, and was touched. But then he realized Flash was just gripping his shoulder for leverage as he jumped and grabbed for the emergency roof hatch with his free hand. Roger knew the boy was somewhat neglected by his parents, and so, for the first time, he was happy go hear ‘Hotline Bling.’ It was Flash’s ringtone and it played incessantly as his phone rang and rang until the song, and the sound of Flash running, faded into the distance. Somebody wanted to see that he was safe. Somebody cared about him.

Alone, Roger hunkered down between the seats, knees bent in front of him. He scraped one hand anxiously through his hair and gripped his phone in the other.

He should call his wife. He knew he should. Only, he was afraid that she either wouldn’t pick up or she’d answer and be with the guy from her hiking group. Roger wasn’t even upset; he was glad she had someone, if this was it.

Ever since he’d returned from Sakaar, he’d been different, he was aware that he had. In the past, his wife had been largely responsible for the sundering of their marriage, but Roger knew that he was now pulling away too. It had begun inside him—the tear. He wanted to be with two people for two different reasons. In two places, on two worlds. Commitment clashed with longing. Logical rightness fought emotional rightness. He’d been weak, persuading himself daily to tough it out with his wife (even as he slept on the couch every night because lying beside her made him unhappy), when, for once in his damn life, he wanted to be fulfilled. Somewhere out in the stars, there was a man with blue eyeliner and an entire planet at his capricious command and he was the person for Roger.

If only, he thought, picturing the face he shouldn’t have been able to recall so clearly for the brevity of their encounter months ago. Roger shut his eyes to better remember the Grandmaster, and so he wouldn’t have to see his phone clatter to the bus’s dirty floor when the hand that held it turned to dust.

—

As with his life on regular, non-apocalypse days, not much happened to Roger. Despite his paralyzing breakdown on a school bus, he wasn’t among the billions scattered to the wind like sentient dandruff. He picked himself up and went home. Sure, he was shivering almost out of his skin from the shock, but he didn’t collapse into wracking, snotty sobs until he was safely in his living room, listening to his neighbours’ wails through the condo’s walls.

Roger’s wife wasn’t there, didn’t answer when he called her, and, three weeks later, still hadn’t made contact. It took another two months to hold her wake; the funeral business was booming. Never had so many words been spoken over so many vacant graves. Some members of his wife’s hiking group attended, some had even helped him select the right music and flowers beforehand. They knew her preferences. It felt surreal to be burying a person he couldn’t prove—in any meaningful way—that he’d really known.

With a queasy sense of being very lucky, he accepted that, apart from his marital status, his life hadn’t been upended. His windows weren’t broken, his car wasn’t stolen, the few family members he was out of touch with anyway had also survived. He went back to work before anybody called him in. There weren’t any students at first, just the echo of Roger’s clumsy footsteps tripping over the rug in the staffroom, half-solved equations on the whiteboards in the math classrooms, and the unholy stench of unwashed pinnies when he poked his head into the gym storage room to see if Coach Wilson was around. One day, Roger tipped back in the chair at the front of his own empty classroom and spotted a gigantic cobweb in the corner of the ceiling. It made him think of Spider-Man. He guessed that guy was gone too.

The most important thing for keeping sane was establishing a regimen. Work was a big part of that, but Roger also traveled daily into Manhattan to visit the Sorcerer’s place. It became a kind of pilgrimage. Early on, Wong would come out to say hello, but it was eventually less about commiseration and more of a perfunctory thing. Roger knew (assumed, hoped) that if the Sorcerer ever did return, Wong would let him know and welcome him inside. And then… a portal? And then the Grandmaster? He tried not to think about it too hard. Yearning took up a lot of energy and, when his students began to come back to school in distressingly low numbers, Roger needed to reserve that energy for teaching.

Everything was the same, every day, until it wasn’t.

For a reason he couldn’t rationally explain, Roger knocked on the Sorcerer’s door. While he was waiting—just a few seconds, he planned—a man materialized on the sidewalk right next to him. He tottered and Roger reflexively said, “Whoa!” and grabbed his shoulder to keep him on his feet. Before Roger could hypothesize or ask the man any questions, a teenage girl returned to existence a few feet away. Then a woman holding a toddler tightly in her arms. A little boy. A man with a dog. A bicycle-less bike cop, still wearing his helmet. Releasing the man, Roger spun and pounded against the door with his fist.

Still, no one answered.

Fighting the urge to show up at Midtown Tech, Roger made himself stay put, right there on the Sorcerer’s doorstep.

He waited a long time. As the sun set, New York City rose around him. He watched people hugging, running home down the middle of the street. He fielded unfinished questions as the newly returned began to ask him what had happened, what time it was, what year, before jogging away, more purposeful with every step they took. Roger’s foot began to bounce on the sidewalk and his clammy hands twisted fretfully. It was still another 12 hours before the door opened.

Roger fell backwards into Wong’s shins, delirious from the sickening seesaw between urgency and exhaustion. Everywhere, people were reconnecting. He scrambled to his feet because he wanted to be one of them.

“Is he here?” Roger demanded.

Wong narrowed his eyes slightly, holding the door so it couldn’t be pushed open further.

“Might I remind you that it’s me you’ve been seeing here the last five years.”

“Yeah,” Roger agreed, trying to see past.

“I thought we had developed a rapport.”

Finally, Roger met Wong’s eyes, his own pleading.

“No, yes, you’re right, we have,” he babbled.

“We’re friends.”

“Yes, of course, we are friends. Definitely.”

“So when is my birthday?”

Roger’s mouth hung open as he searched his brain for a piece of information he knew wasn’t in there. A few seconds later, Wong turned mirthful.

“Did you spend the Blip hiding under a rock where there are no jokes? Come inside. We just got back.”

None of the thousands of times he’d come to the door mattered—Roger hadn’t been inside the Sanctum since that first time. He hoped the Sorcerer remembered him.

When he saw the man, Roger’s steps stuttered. The Sorcerer appeared grim and wiped out. He was dirty and he looked older, though Wong whispered to Roger that the Sorcerer had been among the Snapped. Roger understood that, for something to go right and bring everyone back to life, something else had gone wrong. He could dwell on that and awkwardly bow his way back out of there, or he could convince himself that things had gone wrong for him too, and that he’d like them to be righted. He remembered that his soulmate was a dictator and tried to channel that sense of entitlement.

“What do you know about the Anus?”

The Sorcerer blinked.

“What.” The word came out perfectly flat.

“The Anus.”

“I wasn’t that kind of doctor.”

Roger strode eagerly towards him, hands gesturing before his words caught up.

“When I was here about, um, five and a half years ago, I fell through your magic portal—”

The Sorcerer snapped his fingers in recognition and turned to Wong.

“Oh, that’s who this is. I always wondered what happened to that guy.” He looked at Roger again. “How did you get back to Earth?”

Roger hadn’t been prepared to answer this question, just make his demands, and he began to explain what had happened to him, all out of order. The words ‘orgy ship’ had barely left his mouth when the Sorcerer was waving him into silence. His expression told Roger he was sorry he’d asked.

“So you went through the portal…” he prompted instead.

“That’s right! And for a while, I was just falling. I don’t know where I was.”

The Sorcerer stroked his chin.

“The connection must’ve been unstable. I know—one of your students distracted me.”

“That’d be Flash,” Roger said.

“Jesus. This is why I prefer not to be a field trip destination. Normally, the portal would allow you to pass cleanly through one place and into another.”

“And instead he passed cleanly through the Anus,” Wong summarized.

“…Yeah.”

Roger glanced from one man to the other.

“So,” he said, “could you do it again?”

The Sorcerer stared at him.

“The short answer is no. The long answer is also no, but it contains a great deal of vernacular to do with the Mystic Arts, so I’ll save us both some time.”

The last time Roger had defended his intellect and qualifications had been years ago, and he was out of practice. Anyway, he didn’t want a lengthy debate.

“Can’t you just open a portal and shove me through?”

“If you haven’t noticed, I’ve got a lot going on today. I’ve only entertained you this long because you and Wong seem to be friends. I’m not just going to mess around to humour you.”

“What if you had to do it?” Roger asked quickly, beginning to feel desperate and preparing to metaphorically jam one of his clumsy feet into the closing window of opportunity.

“Uh, let me think about that,” the Sorcerer droned disinterestedly. “No.”

“What if I attacked you and you opened a portal in self-defence?”

The Sorcerer squinted at him in disbelief and befuddlement.

“What?”

But Roger was already gracelessly throwing his weight into a wild, uncoordinated punch.

For once, he didn’t think critically of himself; he told himself that the Sorcerer’s portal sparked up between them because he was intimidated by Roger’s tenacity. And that it didn’t show a clear destination because the Sorcerer’s reaction speed was no match for Roger using the element of surprise. And that he dove purposely through the portal—on a mission for love and science and the unknown—instead of tumbling into it sideways because the momentum of his unpracticed punch had gotten the better of his balance. It didn’t matter. His feet went out from under him and he was on his way.

Roger had forgotten how intense the trip was, but he completely recalled the rough landing, bouncing down through a stack of the universe’s lost garbage. He shut his eyes to the whooshing and the brightness and braced himself (probably too early, but he didn’t think he could be too careful on this reckless endeavor).

He felt his body hit open air and gasped as he fell, trying to keep his limbs tucked in. The hat he’d been wearing was torn from his head. Didn’t matter; it wouldn’t have offered much protection anyway. At any moment, his poor elbows and knees would be battered by space junk. Between his velocity and his fear of the coming impact, Roger could hardly breathe.

Music. A familiar voice singing, It’s my soulmate! made his eyes fly open. Right in time to land on his back. Whatever was beneath Roger was soft, but he’d still had the wind knocked out of him and was struggling to fill his lungs. His eyes clamped shut as he began to cough.

“I have no idea how you survived that thing twice, but I sure am glad I caught ya.”

Finally sucking in a stronger breath, Roger opened his eyes and looked up. His glasses were askew. Above him was the opening in the ceiling of a hovering spacecraft, but closer than that, leaning over him, was the face of the Grandmaster. He was beaming.

“Any trouble with the Anus?” he asked.

Roger grabbed for the hand his soulmate had rested on his shoulder and moved it to his chest, right over his heart.

“The asshole who got me here will probably be thrilled to never see me again, but the Anus treated me just fine.”

“Ha!” the Grandmaster barked. His free hand lovingly patted Roger’s windblown hair back into place. “Welcome home.”

#my writing #MCU #spider-man #thor: ragnarok #Roger Harrington #En Dwi Gast (the Grandmaster)#their ship name is Mr. Master and they're what G deserves on her birthday

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originlist · 2 years

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@grandordergirl спросил(а):

It's some ungodly hour deep into the night when the door to the infirmary opens. Cana stands there in a simple T-shirt and shorts, her hair a mess, and her face a little too pale. Her entire form is trembling and her gaze is focused squarely on the floor. Her weak voice makes it sound like she's about to cry. "Asclepius. Help. Please."

Her left hand holds onto her right wrist, holding onto a small towel loosely wrapped around her right hand. The towel slowly grows redder and redder by the moment. Tiny streams of blood trickle down her fingers, threatening to drip onto the clean tile below. The artificial light glints off what appears to be glass embedded into her skin.

It was clear that someone wasn't having a good night...

She’s lucky that Servants don’t need to sleep, and even when Asclepius chooses rest, it’s probably within the infirmary. The door open and he’s arisen from what might be called a doze, his work jacket and hat materializing over undershirt. His name is called and the entire clinic comes to life with a hum.

His footsteps go from the padding of bare feet to the click of heels within the space of a step without even stumbling as he makes quick pace over to Cana. It’s almost funny that she says please so imploringly, as if he wouldn’t otherwise. She’s his patron, after all. He asks no questions, immediately taking her hand in his and turning the wrist so he can see it.

Magic wells in his hand, rarely used outside the battlefield but it’s Cana and he prefers a Master in one piece. The bleeding slows. Analgesics are for later. Asclepius catches a rolling surgical table that has appeared out of nowhere and drags it to keep her arm at a working height. “Don’t move.” The first words he’s said to her thus far.

Forceps appear in his hand and he sets to work freeing what of the glass he can without breaking open a vessel again. It hurts, likely, but she can handle it. From while he’s working, a cold dusting of antiseptic spray from his familiar, which pokes its metallic head up over the side of the table. If Cana starts whimpering, Asclepius’ll figure out a painkiller. Until then, he’s working. Suture appears next to tie off any major vessels, then wounds that can’t be sealed with butterfly bandages and gauze. At least, after the first prick of suture needle, he remembers that humans are supposed to not feel this kind of thing if they don’t have to.

A burst of lidocaine from his familiar over Cana’s wrist. Fine, he’ll be nice. Ish. It’s enough to dull it to manageable pain. The bleeding is slowed. Everything that doesn’t expressly need sewing shut gets dressed. Once all of it is as good as it’s going to get for the time, Asclepius brings out gauze and stretch wrap.

Cana’s wrist is addressed. That problem, solved. Asclepius straightens up, then uses the forceps to prod at the shards of glass on the table. “Keep it clean and dry. If there’s any blood spotting, come back to me.” A brief pause. Asclepius’s arms cross. “So,” he says. Her hand is returned to her. “What did you do, exactly.” Especially at such an hour. Not exactly prime time for punching mirrors or whatever.

#grandordergirl #ic : asclepius #asks

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tendertenebrosity · 4 years

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Tagging @castielamigos-whump-side-blog, @iwhumpyou, @doglover82; @top-hat-aye;

The army was almost ready to set out. The ground of the lands outside the town was trampled into mud days ago, and then the mud had been thrown up by cartwheels and great hooves into ruts and puddles and ridges. Helis had never wished so badly that they could wear shoes like regular people did. They ducked through the chaos, eyes darting nervously. Trying to skip over the worst of the mud, trying not to get in anybody’s way, trying not to get hurt. They weren’t supposed to be here.

Where is he? They made it through into a calmer place, tried to balance their feet on a relatively stable piece of dirt, and scanned the crowd. Oh, please don’t let him have left already, please…

There. Near the command tents - a mounted figure in a pitch-black jacket, standing out above the rest of the crowd. The figure turned and bent his head down to address someone; the neat tail of hair down his back confirmed it was Illiam.

Helis chewed their lip anxiously and left their island of dirt, plunging across the expanse of mud. If he was already mounted that probably meant he was leaving very soon; they were probably only just in time.

As Helis approached, the person Illiam had been talking to became more clear - a noblewoman, a little incongruous in her deep blue velvets. At least to Helis, who’d just passed through the main bulk of the army with its dull browns and greys. Her hair was the same deep black as Illiam’s, though twisted into an elegant knot at her neck.

Oh. Illiam’s sister. Helis knew better than to interrupt - they paused a few metres away, twining their fingers together anxiously.

“Of course I will try, Jetta, but I don’t control the letter once it leaves my hand,” Illiam was saying impatiently. “I will write them. I cannot promise you more than that.”

Jetta sighed. The resemblance was clear, looking at them both from this distance; her eyes were the same ice-blue, although her face was a lot more mobile and expressive. There was a plaintive note in her voice as she tipped her face up to look at her brother, and Helis was struck by how young she seemed. “I wish I were going with you.”

“No, you don’t,” Illiam said brusquely. “You’d be whining to turn back before the week was out, you know you would. If…”

Jetta had paused, cocking her head, and Illiam trailed off as well.

“What is it?”

“Look, Illiam, your pet’s here,” Jetta said, a half-hearted smile pulling up one corner of her mouth. “To say goodbye to you? How sweet.”

Helis remembered, a touch late, to lower their head and watch the ground submissively. When nothing more was said, they glanced up through their lashes, nerves fluttering in their stomach. Both nobles were now looking over at them... and Illiam was scowling. Helis dropped their head again, heart sinking, wings drooping.

“No,” Illiam said coldly. “They’re coming with me, actually, but they’re supposed to be setting out with the second party. I don’t know why they’re here.” He turned away, his attention directed back downwards to Jetta. “Never mind coming with the army, you stay safe here, you hear me? Keep busy and keep writing to me. It won’t be so long, you’ll see.”

“And I can visit you in Crestmead once the war’s over,” Jetta said, a wavering brightness in her voice. “You can show me around! All the things you used to talk about. Right?”

After the invasion, in Crestmead? Helis wondered. Once it belongs to the North? What things do you think are still going to be there? Is Illiam going to show you around ruins and piles of dead people? They supposed the city wouldn’t be destroyed, not completely, but the way Jetta spoke about it you’d think she was talking about going sight-seeing, not visiting an occupied and war-ravaged city.

“Yes,” Illiam said, after a moment. He sighed. “Jet, don’t cry. Come on. That’s enough.”

Helis glanced up and saw that the woman, the girl, was still smiling, in a fixed, brittle way. They weren’t close enough to see whether she was in fact crying, but they felt guilty regardless. Helis combed fingers through some of their feathers, uncomfortable. They were intruding. Jetta barely seemed to register that Helis existed a lot of the time, but Illiam usually didn’t speak like this to her if he thought Helis could hear. Easy familiarity, the sharp edges filed off his tone. And now he was riding off to war. They both had to know he might not come back.

“Well. I still need to go and pay my respects to Father,” Jetta said, her voice under control. “Goodbye, Illiam. Be safe and good luck! Please write!”

“I don’t need your luck. I’m very good at what I do,” Illiam told her, the confidence in his voice a touch over-exaggerated. “Farewell.”

Jetta giggled. “You are! Goodbye!” She kissed her fingers and fluttered them up at Illiam, still smiling that fixed smile. Then she turned and strode away, head held high, towards the command tent.

There was a long pause; then Illiam raised his voice. Any softness or good humour that might have been there was erased from it; it was only cold and hard. “Helis. Here.”

Helis flinched, but they straightened their shoulders and stared to pick their way closer to him, feeling their stomach flip in trepidation. Oh, great, I already made him angry. They tried to marshal their thoughts, the careful statement and request they had prepared on their way here. They didn’t outright ask Illiam for things often, and they had no idea how he was going to react. But the situation they had just left frightened them so much that this had seemed worth it.

It had seemed worth it when they were over with the supply wagons, under the eyes of the soldiers. Now they were a little less certain.

They stopped, rocking back on their feet as they looked up. Illiam on foot was intimidatingly tall; Illiam on horseback towered.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he snapped. “Running about everyone’s ankles like an escaped chicken? You’re going to get yourself run over by a cart, and frankly I’d be half inclined to shrug and leave you there. Are you carrying a message? Because that’s just about the only reason I’m prepared to accept for your presence here, and not back with the supply wagons, where I expressly ordered you to be.”

Illiam rearranged his reins, and brought the horse around a few steps so that he could glare more effectively down at Helis. The horse snorted, rolled a large dark eye at Helis.

“I - no message,” Helis stammered, inching away from the animal’s head, back towards Illiam. “I’m sorry. I, there’s no message, but I can’t - I wanted to ask you -”

“Of course there’s not,” Illiam growled. His voice dropped, low and threatening. “We had words, did we not? About how I cannot afford distractions? Have you seen anything in the past couple of days that have indicated to you that my priorities have changed?”

“N-no…” Was this still worth it? Too late to back out now. Helis was not going to go through all this, walk back through the whole army, and end up back in the same situation they had left except with Illiam angry at them, too.

“Then what. Are. You. Doing. Here?”

Helis took a deep breath, and all of the carefully formed phrases left their head. “Please, Illiam,” they blurted. “Please…”

He raised a hand in a gesture of frustration. “You haven’t asked me anything yet! What do you want?”

“I c-can’t… Illiam, who am I supposed to stay with, in the other group?” Helis said desperately. They stepped closer, and put their hand up to rest lightly on his saddle blanket, not far from the cuff of his boot. They focused on it, fixing their eyes on the stitching in the black leather. “What will I do? Where will I sleep? I know I’m going in the wagon with the servants but they don’t exactly… I think they’ll be upset if I try to…”

Helis had met the servants that were traveling with the supply wagons. They had made their feelings on sharing any sort of living space with a beastfolk quite clear, particularly one who didn’t know their place. Helis’ head still smarted from the lesson. They had yet to find any beastfolk, but Helis’ hope of finding any sort of fellow-feeling with the beastfolk of the castle had been dashed weeks ago anyway.

“And, and, it’s going to be weeks on the road, you said, and I’ve never been…” They blinked hard, trying to push tears back. “I don’t, um, Illiam, I don’t feel… safe…”

They felt a distant, hysterical urge to laugh at themselves. They were saying they didn’t feel safe away from Illiam? When had they ever been safe with him? A few weeks ago he’d threatened to throw them off a wall to their death!

But he was predictable. He yelled and belittled them, threw things and made threats, and they were too afraid of what he might do to try another escape attempt; but if he’d genuinely wanted to kill Helis he’d have done it already. He valued Helis in some way that none of the servants or soldiers would share. You are worthless here.

Helis chanced a look upwards. Illiam was staring at them, fixedly, his face a little too high to easily focus on from this distance, and unreadable. Disbelief? Ambivalence? Confusion? They had no idea.

“Some of the soldiers keep looking at me,” they tried to explain, miserably, and flinched in preparation for the scathing rebuttal they would probably get for that. Looking at you? God forbid you endure people looking at you! “What am I going to do? I mean – they s-say things, and I don’t...” Panic rose in their throat, and they had to pause and just breathe for a few moments, thinking about that, thinking about spending the night outside alone surrounded by people who thought they were worthless.

When they had themselves under control, they still hadn’t been interrupted. Helis looked up again, carefully, tilting their head back.

They ended up meeting Illiam’s eyes, because he was still staring down at them. His brows were drawn together, and his mouth was downturned, but he wasn’t yelling or telling them to go away, so Helis felt a fragile swell of hope.

“You don’t feel safe,” he repeated, his voice hard. “And so you find me to complain. What do you want? To come with me instead?”

“Oh, please,” Helis begged. “I’m sorry, I know it’s inconvenient, I know I’ve disobeyed you, but I just… I’m scared, Illiam.” They swallowed, blinking the tears away. “I’m so scared. Please?”

He broke the eye contact, looked up and away from them, and then out across the muddy fields and the army that occupied them. He watched the milling chaos of people, horses, vehicles for a few moments, and then shifted his gaze up to the clouds drifting past in the grey sky. They saw him swallow, once, his jaw tight, his face shifting minutely as he thought.

Then it stilled as he came to a decision. He looked back down at them, scowling, and twisted in his saddle to reach down.

Helis blinked as his hand was suddenly right in front of them.

“Fine. Put your foot on the stirrup,” he snapped.

Helis caught their breath. “I - you mean I can? You mean it?”

“Come on. Today, if you don’t mind!” He clicked his fingers impatiently.

Their stomach flipped again with relief and fear. Good news - they could travel with Illiam. Bad news - they would travel with Illiam. This was better, they knew it was better, they had weighed up their options and this was far preferable. But their stomach still dropped at the thought of his touch. And when they made the decision to ask… somehow they hadn’t factored the horse into things.

Helis carefully put their hand in his, half expecting this to hurt somehow, for it to be a cruel trick of some kind. Instead his fingers closed over theirs, firm but not painful, and held them stable while they tried to get their clawed foot up high enough for a hold on his stirrup. The horses’ ears flicked back, but at a murmured word from Illiam, it held steady.

Their breath caught in a yelp in their throat as Illiam pulled them up, and they tried to help as much as they could, their wings opening to flutter ineffectually at their shoulders. But it was mostly his strength that hauled them up and over, caught them under the armpits to resettle their weight on the saddle in front of him.

“You realise, of course,” he grumbled from behind them, “That this is going to be very uncomfortable for the both of us. I don’t suppose you have any experience riding at all?”

“Uh. No,” Helis squeaked. They searched desperately for something to hold on to, gripped a part of the saddle with white-knuckled fingers. The ground seemed so far away!

“Wonderful,” he drawled. Illiam’s arms went around them, gathering up the reins, pushing Helis back against his chest and squashing their wings between them. “Hold still. You’re going to be black and blue by the end of the day, you know that, don’t you? I didn’t bring the best saddle for this. And I’m going to have to change horses twice as often. Thank your lucky stars you don’t weigh very much.”

“Sorry,” Helis said meekly. They shifted, trying to ease one pinched wing. Where were their feet supposed to go? “Thank you…”

“Hah. We’ll see if you thank me tonight when we stop. I would put money that you don’t.” His voice was odd, deep and reverberating from behind them, with its characteristic clipped anger. “Stop wriggling, idiot. Want to get us both thrown?”

“Throw… No, of course not.” Helis hunched their shoulders, tried to settle against Illiam and the horse carefully. It was awkward, being this close. They wanted to shudder at the feeling of his arms around them, but they pushed the impulse back. “Thank you, Illiam. I’m… I really appreciate it. I’ll hold still.”

His legs moved behind Helis and his hands shifted on the reins; the horse started to move, and Helis yelped again, fingers clutching the saddle for dear life.

He grunted. “You’d better. This is going to be a very long day.”

#Illiam #Helis #captivity whump #my stuff #Jetta de Graer #New side character I haven't introduced properly but oh well #riding double #Villains have loved ones too #war and military stuff #probably writing horses terribly but oh well #better the devil you know #mercy #kind of

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clinioelerrante · 4 years

Text

A peculiar discovery.

“This is absurd, Mr. Weasley!” said McGonagall. There was a touch of weariness in his complaint and a perfect point of exasperation and disbelief when he rolled her eyes and raised her hands to heaven like asking to Most High for enough patience to be able to keep his composure.

“My arse it is!” Ron mumbled underneath his breath retorting her decision in a rare emotional tidal wave from the professor of transfiguration and head of the Gryffindor house.

“I beg your pardon?” The expression of astonishment on the old teacher’s face is immediately replaced by the frown, the stony countenance, and the gaze above the crescent glasses which the students of Hogwarts have learned, since their first year is the equivalent of an imminent and particularly original detention.

“Nothing. Doesn’t matter”, the whisper escapes from a head down, red as hellfire, which, if it keeps going down, there was a good chance of ending up inside its own arse.

Minerva McGonagall has been a teacher at Hogwarts for many years and has certainly seen students from all classes with all kinds of families, personalities and individual problems. So, in theory, she should be versed in dealing with students from all walks of life, but even so, there is always someone in every generation of students, who simply do not fit into any of the classifications made to date. She thought that classification was complete when she had to face the gang led by James Potter and his friends Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew, but it seems that this new generation has its own challenge to her patience. A really serious challenge, it seems, and one that is going to require all her patience and experience as a teacher and head of the one of the house of the school.

“Mr. Weasley”, she asks him, after taking a deep breath and composing herself in her office chair while she rests her forearms on the desk in front of her and leans slightly forward. “This situation cannot be sustained any longer. Please look at my face as I speak to you”, She demands, causing the furious fire in front of her to be replaced by two blue eyes of surprising intensity despite her youth. “Mrs. Pomfrey has already noticed that you have been visiting Miss Granger in the infirmary every night outside curfew. She understands your concern for her and has been turning a blind eye to it to this day, but this situation is already unacceptable.”

The old teacher cannot help but feel a lump in her throat when she remembers the scene before her just a few hours ago when, at the request of the school nurse; she came to the nursing wing.

There, leaning on the bed occupied by the petrified Miss Granger, it stands amidst a jumble of scrolls of sloppy calligraphy; it was the head, with the traces of crying on his face, of a sleeping Ronald Weasley sitting by the bed while holding his friend’s hand.

“Mr. Weasley, from this moment on, you are “expressly" forbidden to go back to the infirmary outside visiting hours and especially outside curfew.”

“But Professor…” Minerva is not so much surprised by the interruption as by the vehement and passionate tone in which a hint of despair seems to be hidden. “Hermione has been petrified for weeks. She must be deadly bored, so I go and tell her all the things that happen at school, only the nice ones of course. Like the mandrakes are maturing and she’ll soon be fine and how boringLockhart’s classes are or how Harry’s great at quidditch and he swept the pitch with Malfoy’s stinking ass…” and then his face lights up like if he’s found the definitive and irrefutable point “… she’s been out of class and out of notes for a long time. When they wake her up, she’s going to be distraught, so I read her my own while I’m with her. I know they’re not as good and fucking perfect as hers…” the strict instructor’s hair stands up on the back of her neck when she hears such language, but not as much as when she feels the intensity of the feeling shining in the child’s eyes and translating it into his words, “…but at least they’re something and I’m sure she’ll be able to improve them as soon as she starts studying because she’s the best in the school, whatever asshole face Malfoy says and…”

Minerva’s detecting something now. There is loyalty in the child’s body language, but in his words, she finds something else - devotion. There is a genuine admiration for his friend, an unwavering desire to help her. Hagrid had told her about the slugs incident, and the teacher’s pride in her pupil was burning. Initially, she thought of punishing him, but the Gameskeeper’s recounting convinced her that the youngest of the Weasley boys had had enough punishment. McGonagall detected something else also: a threat to anyone who dared to harm her.

“Mr Weasley!” She interrupts him. “I think Professor Dumbledore has explained to you that petrified people feel absolutely nothing”. She uses a calm and instructive tone in an attempt to calm his own distress. “For them time has stopped. When Miss Granger is unpetrified, it will have will be very similar to that of having consumed a sleeping without dreams potion.”

“But she’d certainly be looking at how to help Harry and me if we were the ones petrified and missing class. Right now she would be raiding the library trying to find some way to wake us sooner, even if we were as dry as a one-eyed dragon’s eye. She’s crazy, I know, but I’m sure she would, and besides”, the intensity in his gaze that existed until that moment, disappears and is replaced by a shadow, while his shoulders fall and his voice descends to something more than a whisper. “Besides, it’s the only thing I can do after that stupid idea of the kiss failed so, I’m going to keep doing it no matter what”. At that moment Ronald Weasley seems oblivious to where and with whom he is, giving the impression that those last words are, rather, a reflection out loud to himself.

“Mr Weasley!” The professor suddenly stood and looked with open eyes at a stunned redhead whose facial expression quickly changed from surprise to understanding and from understanding to panic-. “Are you telling me that you abused a helpless… ?”

“NOOOO!” The scream from his mouth was if he had been slapped by the accusation. “No. It’s not like you think… well, it’s … but not… I mean, I did kiss her, but it’s not like that, it’s not like that at all any way.”

“Explain yourself”. McGonagall’s voice suffers no kindness. It’s a pure ice knife ready to attack as soon slightest transgression it detects.

“Last year Hermione was talking to us about the differences in how muggles understand magic, and she was telling us some muggles stories of spells and curses. One of them tells the story of a woman who seems to fall under a spell so similar to the living dead potion and how she is reanimated, not by a potion, but a kiss! Yes. I know it’s crazy and that real magic doesn’t work that way, but I thought… FUCK!” The imprecation escapes meanwhile he runs his hands through his hair in a reflex act of desperation over his inability to explain the obvious. “Professor Dumbledore spends his time talking about magic and that it has aspects that are completely unknown and mysterious to us, and my best friend survived to the killing curse from the most evil and powerful wizard of all time so I thought, why not? Maybe the crazy muggles were talking through their hats and written their own version, so there was nothing to lose, so I kissed her on the forehead. I did it for her and because I don’t like seeing her like that. That doesn’t look like Hermione. That doesn’t look like my best friend”, he says, collapsing on the chair with his face in his hands.

With all her years, with all her experience, Minerva McGonagall, Head of Gryffindor House, member of the secret society known as The Order of the Phoenix, cannot help but gaze in disbelief at the revelation. One, which very few have had the opportunity to see in all its grandeur: Rebellion, concern, sacrifice, dedication, tenderness, loyalty, devotion, protection… desperation. All from an eleven-year-old boy already irrevocably in love with his schoolmate. Too young to be able to recognize her own feeling and give it a name, but so strong and indestructible that the old teacher can only pray to heaven that Hermione Granger’s heart will harbour the same feelings for the impetuous and stubborn Ronald Weasley.

The owner of all rights is JKR.

This was my work for the Romioneficfest 2020.

I apologize to the heirs of Shakespeare, but, I was really dying to publish something on Romioneficfest. I hope you can forgive my terrible English. A million thanks to the festival's moderator, who revised my grammar and put this story on a diet to keep it within the regulated parameters.

There's a dragon lady. That even though she always looks angry, we all know she has a tender heart.

Thank you.

#Romione FicFest 2020 #Fic Post#Romione #Ron Weasley #Hermione Granger #Submission #Queue Up for the Dragon #Rated T #Rated PG-13 #Mod note: Emailed to me and asked to edit.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26120641/chapters/63539629

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tommyplum · 4 years

Photo

- tis the saison | tommy/alfie, modern au for @boundinshallows’ sholomons prompt fest 2019

Nobody much cares for holiday parties, but everybody's got to go to them nevertheless. Tommy Shelby's no exception, much as he would like to be. .

notes: takes place in the same modern au as eggplant peach question mark - maggie

"Tell me one more time that you don't want to go, Tommy Shelby, and I'll not only send Arthur round to drag you there, I'll buy you a Christmas jumper with mistletoe pinned to the hem and sit back and laugh at the thought of you jumping around the room like a scalded cat trying to avoid being kissed on the cock."

"Christ Almighty, Pol." Tommy rubbed his fingers over his eyebrows, using the heels of his shoes -- currently hooked up on the edge of his desk -- to drag his wheeled office chair forward. "Giving me a little too much credit, aren't you?"

"Giving the other attendees of the liquor board holiday party too little, more like it." Polly's voice sounded amused and warm, even over the tinny speakerphone. "Thomas, you know I usually take on party duties, but it simply can't be helped this year. You're going to have to represent for us. It won't be so bad! How many distributors can you have slept with already?"

Tommy felt it was quite admirable that he had the grace to just let silence stretch between him and speakerphone Polly in answer to that question. Pol, however, didn't seem to share his viewpoint on that.

"Oh, hellfire, Tommy! It's a wonder you get any fucking work done at all, I swear to God."

"Look, I'll go, I'll go. I won't like it, but I'll go." He used his heels to push himself away from the desk, drag himself close again, bony knees accordioning up on each approach as he chewed a thumbnail and mentally totted up the likely suspects he'd be running into over fusion dim sum appetizers and rounds of whatever vodka blended drinks were on the themed menu. "Might even make it out of there unscathed."

"You're a horror." Polly paused, and then said, "--Alfie Solomons is going to be there this year. He said since we were clear that it's a holiday party and not a Christmas party, he felt at peace in his devotions with dipping a toe in the secular festivities. He literally said those words."

Tommy grunted, thumping one shoe down onto the floor. "So what? So he's religious. I've seen you twirl a rosary or two in your time, Aunt Pol."

"Shut it. Don't fuck anybody."

The dial tone followed this warning, and Tommy ended the call on his desk phone. With Alfie Solomons around being the cock-blocking arsehole he'd more than once proven himself to be, Tommy thought sourly, there wasn't much chance of his even being able to disobey Polly's orders.

---

Hour One of Holiday Representation Hell consisted of two tremendously terrible courgette gyoza, a peach-and-satsuma nightmare of a blended drink, and two elderflower ciders in quick succession to rinse out the taste of both. It also consisted of Tommy smiling and nodding as a number of representatives of small labels that wouldn't see next year paraded themselves past him, pressing flesh and telling him their names with voices of great import. Tommy made jokes that didn't land half the time, but watched them all laugh anyway.

Hour Two of Not-Christmas Carnival of Nonsense saw the introduction of wasabi cheese straws (somehow more tasty than the gyoza, and Tommy had one in his mouth at all times through that hour), another cider, and a few shots of green apple soju. Luca Changretta followed him around for at least twenty minutes trying to sell him on fruit wines, and Tommy finally promised to try his blueberry merlot before hiding in the kitchen for the rest of the hour and feeling up one of the servers through her sensible cotton pants. She ate the rest of his cheese straw and he retreated once the coast was clear.

Hour Three of Whatever It Was, the peach-and-satsuma nightmare had become much more tolerable with the addition of most of a bottle of peach schnapps, and Tommy watched a short parade of those small label representatives conga out the back door.

"What are they called?"

Tommy blinked, raising his eyebrows as he turned and found Alfie Solomons standing next to him, munching a wasabi cheese straw as if it were a stalk of hay and himself the laziest cow in the pasture. "Pardon? What? What are who called? Make sense, Alfie."

Alfie snickered and nodded at the tail end of the line. "They all gave you their names when you glad-handed them, love, and you looked oh-so-terribly interested in each one. I'll give you five pound and a kiss if you can tell me the name of even one of the poor blighters."

"Why would I bother to remember their names?" Tommy said, irritated, and looked around for where he'd put down his drink. "It's a party. Bad manners to expect proper business at a party. If they had any sense they'd give me business cards."

Tommy spun back towards Alfie, startled to find the man's fingers delving into one of the back pockets of his jeans … and extracting a little sheaf of business cards. "You mean these?" Alfie said, then laughed and pitched them in the air. Tommy made no move to stop him, only groused, "The serving staff won't thank you for that, Mr. Solomons."

Alfie made a noise that Tommy would swear he'd heard a high-fantasy tree make in a movie once, and took Tommy's hand in his own -- warm, surprisingly deft, with a crown tattoo near the thumb that Tommy'd somehow failed to notice before -- and brought it to his lips. For one heart-stopping moment Tommy thought the daft bugger was going to kiss his fingertips, but all Alfie did was brush the very end of his nose above Tommy's fingers and intone, "...and you've already ingratiated yourself to the serving staff from the aroma of it, eh, darling?"

Eyes blazing, Tommy snatched his hand back and rubbed it against his shirt. "Pick those up," he snapped, pointing at the cards scattered on the floor. "Really, Alfie. Some fucking manners."

A low chuckle followed on Tommy's heels as he marched away, in search of a fresh drink and maybe some fresh air. His face was feeling awfully hot, for some reason, all of a sudden.

---

Hour Four of the Wonderful Year-End Festivities found Tommy performing his best booze-related trick for a captive and somewhat plastered audience: lopping the cork off a bottle of mid-range champagne with a short saber brought expressly to the party for that purpose. Tatiana shrieked with triumph when he managed to pull off the feat, champagne geyersing from the neatly broken neck of the bottle in dry-scented frothing excitement, and flung her arms around his neck to claim a very wet and vodka-fumed kiss.

"All Tatiana's idea, I assure you," Tommy told the remaining celebrants as they applauded him and he brandished both bottle and saber around. "In fact she's the one planned this whole party. A round of applause, ay, for Tatiana?"

The gathered people obliged, and Tommy handed off the bottle but kept the saber as he trailed over to the decimated cake in the shape of a squat beer keg and used the sword to hack off some frosting for himself. He bore it carefully outside, using a case of bottled water to prop the door open, and leaned against the railing of the stairway landing to swipe his thumb through the clot of frosting and stick it pensively in his mouth.

The party hadn't been that bad, all told, apart from that fucking courgette repeating on him and the hopeful looks some of those nameless reps had been shooting him all night. The server girl with the sensible knickers had caught his eye and it was clear she'd be up for it, if he wanted a go. And she was pretty, with curly hair dyed some sort of pale purple and a snub nose and freckles across her dark skin.

But, Tommy thought bleakly as he bit frosting from his thumb, there was just something … wrong. Something missing. And the thought of ending the night as he'd ended so many others, making the trek back to his quiet, junk-filled flat with a bottle of gin to fall exhaustedly asleep on the settee and wake up to dry toast and jelly, it was … well, it was depressing. And Tommy was getting heartily tired of feeling depressed.

He lifted the saber with the thought of bringing it whooshing down again so that the gobbet of frosting on the end would sluice off, somewhere down three floors to hit the ground, but a hand grabbed his wrist and -- dammit -- here was Alfie Solomons again, peering at Tommy in the dim light. "Steady on, sweetie," Alfie said, "don't want to disappoint the cleaners more than you already have, eh?" He nodded towards the party, now in its decided downswing. "That girl you had as an aperatif has gone off with one of the Young Bolsheviks--"

"Young Turks, you mean?"

"No, red's back in fashion, it's very woke to talk about the evils of capitalism at the drop of a knitted hat these days." Alfie grinned, twisting the saber out of Tommy's unresisting grip and scraping the frosting off on the railing before sliding the sword into his belt.

"Ridiculous," Tommy said, although whether that was about the saber, Alfie's wearing it, or his farcical claim about young people and their politics, he didn't care to draw a bead on. But that hollow feeling had eased, somehow, and Tommy was suddenly in no hurry to get back inside. "You don't look the slightest bit drunk. Have you turned teetotaller, Alfie?"

His companion shrugged, heavy shoulders rolling under t-shirt and plaid. "I don't get sloppy at company hurrahs, love," he said. "Hard to erase that picture when you're back at the grindstone trying to cut deals with suppliers and distributors. I save my getting squiffy for when I'm with friends."

"And you've got some," Tommy scoffed. "Friends."

"Not all the ones I'd like." Alfie reached into the breast pocket of his plaid shirt and pulled out a cellophane bag tied with twine, holding it up by the cinched bit to swing in front of Tommy's face before Tommy took it and opened it, taking out one of the rings inside and laying it in his palm before looking at Alfie, perplexed.

"What's this?"

"Oh, come on now, Thomas -- I know you Shelbys grew up the ragamuffins on your street, but surely even you, the benighted orphans, had biscuits once in a while? A chocolate finger or two? A fucking Jammie Dodger on the High Holy Days or whatever your kind celebrates when you're not busy moaning and rending your garments?"

Tommy scowled, closing his hand over the bag and -- just barely -- easing up his grip enough not to crush the remaining rings of cookie it held. "High fashion party rings," Tommy said after a moment of studying the one in his palm. Begrudgingly. The damn thing had flower petals as decoration. He looked up at Alfie. "Why on earth--"

--and then he was being kissed, and Alfie tasted somehow of fizzy lemonade and smelled of cake frosting and hops, and his hand was cupping Tommy's jaw (so deft! Who would have thought) and stroking the crest of his cheekbone with one thumb. His mouth is like a peach, Tommy thought stupidly as he breathed and opened up and swayed into Alfie's space. Or maybe a satsuma.

Alfie's lips closed and he smiled, not moving away, staying close with Tommy in his space. "Been wanting to do that all fucking night," he rumbled. "Longer, if I'm honest."

"Make some fucking sense," Tommy said, because damned if he was gonna give in that easily to this. He curved his palm enough that the scalloped edges of the delicate biscuit nipped slightly at his skin and said, "you never liked me. I never liked you. It's a happily mutual distaste we've maintained for each other."

Alfie made a hurt, indignant noise. "You wot! I know for a fact that I've been nothing but lovely to you, sweetie, sheer loveliness on a sodding stick."

"You're in my phone as 'that loser who keeps texting me,' and I'm in your phone as 'how about no.'"

Alfie considered this for a moment. "Aside from that." He laughed and took Tommy's hand, curling his fingers over into a fist until the biscuit he was holding snapped, in one place, then two, then crushed into more pieces than Tommy could tell without opening his hand to look. "Don't tell me you'll let a little thing like that stand in the way of what could be a bloody mind-blowing shag for the both of us, Tommy. After I brought you a little prezzie and all."

"Which you've just ruined."

There's three more." But Alfie looked fainly contrite, letting Tommy unfurl his hand while still keeping his own beneath it. Tommy sniffed and tossed his head imperiously, the smell of sugar seeping up from the warmth of his palm.

"How about no," Tommy said, and ducked his head, licking up crumbs and icing and petals like a horse nosing around for a sugar cube, licking the gritty bits down onto Alfie's fingers, grabbing his wrist and turning his hand over, sucking down hard on that crown tattoo as he listened to Alfie sucking in his breath like a dying man.

Straightening, Tommy slid his tongue against the roof of his mouth and swallowed, lips parted, eyes hooded as he regarded Alfie steadily. "Did you pick up those business cards like I told you?" he asked, voice low and measured, thrumming in his throat. "Like a good little boy?"

Alfie reached into his back pocket, crumbs and spit smearing against his jeans, and brought out the slightly crumpled wad of cards, holding them pinched between thumb and forefinger. "Mmmm," Tommy hummed, and knocked his hand against Alfie's wrist, sending the slips of cardstock fluttering over the rail as he grabbed the back of Alfie's neck and kissed him, deep and wanting, all thoughts of shame or restraint sent down to the ground three floors under.

A beat passed, and then Alfie growled, the saber clatering against the concrete barrier when he shoved Tommy against the wall, hips crowding in against him, cock thick and promising when he rolled his groin into Tommy's and felt the answering rise there. "That loser, eh?" Alfie muttered, nipping hard at Tommy's jawline. "I'll make you eat those words along with the rest of your biscuits, pet, see if I don't before the night's through."

"You can make me do whatever you want, Mr. Solomons," Tommy said primly, knuckles white as he gripped the back of Alfie's belt, clung to the back of his collar, cellophane crinkling into the nape of Alfie's neck. "Dip your fucking toe into the secular festivities."

"I'll be dipping more than that, Tommy," Alfie said, with a firm thrust that drove Tommy's breath right out of him.

Maybe he'd have to ask Pol where he could find himself one of those mistletoe jumpers.

/end

#peaky blinders fic #tommy shelby #alfie solomons #sholomonsfest2019 #tolfie #i feel sort of bad for monopolizing the prompts so far #erk #sorry guys

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brittysaucefanfic · 5 years

Text

Operation: Voltron

Part 29

Keith

(First)(Previous)(Next)(AO3)

“Keith, hide in the ceiling-” Lance had said.

Keith, of course, didn’t disobey and used the desk to pull himself into the ceiling. It's thin, barely able to hold his weight without falling through. Other than that, he is perfectly fine with staying up here, especially once the guy they were stealing information from walked. He looked around with beady eyes, slowly moving across the room as Keith watched from above.

Keith looked around for a way around this guy, maybe even a weapon. The janitor uniform didn’t really allow for hidden weapons. The cart maybe, but it was decided against in the final stages of the planning process.

He curses as he catches sight of the USB drive thing Pidge made for him.

It’s still connected to the computer, and Pidge expressly told him not to yank it out before she was done no matter what or they’d lose everything. Keith held his breath as the target walks directly beneath Keith, and he lets the ceiling tile he was holding up slip shut before he could be spotted.

“Anyone have eyes on Lance?” Allura asked over the comms, and Keith is reminded that Lance went rogue. God, when this mission is over, Keith is beating his ass. He wants to reply out loud, but then he’d be compromised. There’s an intake of breath and suddenly the door opens again. Briefly, Keith thinks Hunk is blowing his cover and pulling something Keith would do, but he’s wrong when someone else walks into the room.

Keith almost doesn’t recognize him, if not for Shiro’s suit jacket.

Lance saunters into the room lazily, a hat Keith’s never seen before perched on top of his head and hiding his face from Keith. That’s it, they’re all gonna die. The man who owns the room twirls around, almost falling on his ass. Keith takes a moment to look at the scene. Their target, some guy who goes by Prorok, is short, plump, and has neck roll gunk that makes Keith want to puke.

Lance is the complete opposite in appearances.

Tall, lithe, dressed in a casual business sort with a t- shirt and jeans with Shiro’s suit jacket. Which kind of looks tight around Lance’s shoulder, and it shows off the broadness of his chest. His very strong chest, and very strong thighs encased so well in those jeans. Wow, eyes up Kogane, Keith says to himself before he can get carried away.

“Well, if it isn’t an old colleague of mine. I assume it was you who set off my alarm?” Prorok says, crossing his arms and raising his chin like he’s trying to stare down his nose at someone far taller than him. Lance chuckles, swiping off the fedora with a charming flip of the hat before bowing with a sarcastic smile.

“At your service.” Lance says, then does another hat trick when he slips it back onto his head. Allura’s voice filters in his ear, but with all of his attention on Lance, Keith barely hears her.

“Keith has eyes on Lance, hold your positions, we’re patching the feed through.”

Lance moves to lean casually against the desk, effectively blocking it from Prorok’s line of sight. He looks at his nails, like he does when he’s trying to piss Keith off with a challenge or dare. Keith was always weak to that side eyed look lance gives him, and always caves into doing something stupid to one-up Lance. Sometimes he wins, sometimes Lance does. It’s a tie as of now.

“And no need to sound upset, us splitting was just business. You know how it is, right?” Lance says, like he was trying to sooth the heart he just ripped in half with a breakup. Slick and deceitful. No wonder Lance is so good at being a thief. That sly tongue of his could get him anything he wants. Or as the saying goes, he could drop the panties of a nun. Prorok’s eyes narrow even more than they already were, making him look like he was constipated.

“You blackballed me and nearly ruined my business. Why are you here Prince? Or whatever you call yourself these days.” Prorok says. Lance picks up the stapler and starts snapping it closed and making a click click click sound. He points at Prorok with the stapler before waving it in the air lazily while he spoke.

“I wanted to know if we could have one last go, for old times sake is all. I’ve got some paintings I need fenced, but my usual fence has the heat on their tail so I’m stuck with three Matisse paintings ready to sell. Care to help a guy out?” Lance says, setting down the stapler and stepping forward only a step with his hand out to shake.

“I got it! Download is complete.” Pidge said. Keith sees the brief tensing of Lance’s hand, as if to grab the drive, but he’s too far away. Stepping back towards the desk is suspicious, so they have no way to get it before Prorok sees. Keith is mid freak out, when he sees Prorok sneer at Lance.

“No deal, I work only for one person now. I don’t need a traitor’s business. Now leave.” Prorok says, but he doesn’t wait for Lance to leave on his own, already pushing him out the door. The door is almost shut when Prorok yells at Hunk, firing him. Hunk hesitates, but he leaves. Keith tries to slip out of the ceiling as quickly and quietly as possible, and has the drive in hand when the door slips shut. Keith tenses when he hears the locks turn in the door, and he rushes to try the handle. But Keith is locked in, and with Hunk being ‘fired’ he has no exit strategy.

Shiro is at the end of the hallway, outside a storage room a few doors down. Keith tries the windows in the office, but off course these don’t open, and smashing the window isn’t an option. Too much danger for pedestrians below with all the falling glass. Keith is halfway to a panic attack when he registers he’s being talked to in his ear.

“Keith! Keith do you copy?” Allura says. She sounds stressed and exhausted. Who wouldn’t with the bullshit she has to endure? Keith swallows thickly and breathes slowly, shutting his eyes so they can’t see him as he freaks out.

“I’m here Allura, you wouldn’t happen to have a way out of here would you? I’m kind of trapped inside the office.” There’s a groan in response to his claim and he opens his eyes to try to find more exits. Maybe he needs to think like the Blue Lion? Except how does one do that? How does Lance think his way out of situations like these?

“Uh guys?” Hunk says, his voice a cross between relieved and worried sick. “Lance isn’t behind me in the stairway anymore. And I’m almost to the ground floor.”

“It’s fine Hunk, exit the building and come to the van. Pidge you too.” Allura says, far more calm than she was mere seconds ago. “Lance must have some sort of plan going on, so I say we take his advice and trust him.”

“Just great,” Keith says. “I’m entrusting my freedom to an idiot.”

******

(First)(Previous)(Next)(AO3)

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bexinthecity05 · 6 years

Text

Settling for Contrasts (Pt.8) (Louisa x Spiros)

part one x part two x part three x part four x part five x part six x part seven

Well this didn’t entirely turn out how I wanted (it seems my stories are becoming just porn without plot.. but I promise there WILL be plot later! I was also thinking of Phyrne x Jack level of cock-blocked when I wrote this (Miss Fisher fans hopefully will understand that level of pain!). The fire place scene was inspired by @thewordperfection-doesnot-exist and didn’t turn out quite as I imagined it (sorry!)

I’m also not entirely sure when the next bit will be up - as this was all I had already written and mostly ready to go, (save for the end bit) but I will try and keep it regular!

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Should she be concerned that her lover was married? Louisa wondered as he came trotting in, having taken the last of her guests away for the day (they hoped) sometime previously. He crossed the room towards her, a lustful grin spread across his face. One that she was sure she mirrored.

She knew what was coming but it still took her breath away. He took her face in his hands and kissed her. It started with slow intent but as her fingers buried themselves in the nape of his neck, and the room grew impossibly warm, the pace quickened like they’d die if they didn’t have each other right then.

Spiros’ arms encircled her, holding her right against him and she could feel every rippling muscle as he pushed them both against the wall. The force was such that a picture fell off and smashed. His arms cushioned them and he winced as the weight of them combined crushed his arms against the wall.

The pain was fleeting as he lost himself in her again. She nipped at his lower lip and he let out of a breathy moan. When had he become so carnal? Obsessed with lustful urges!? But it wasn’t sex he was obsessed with, it was her. She was intoxicating to him, and the pain of being apart most of the time was only soothed by being near her, with her, by making her whimper beneath his weight. And the more they continued their passionate trysts, the less he was able to deal with not being by her side.

He pulled away from her mouth t breathe and buried his face in her neck. He butterfly kissed her hot skin, and she pulled on his shirt collar. Spiros scrambled for the hem of her skirt, sliding it upwards. His fingers trailed over her thigh and she shivered. He lifted her leg up, and in response, Louisa wrapped it around his waist. His pelvis pressed in her hers and he ran a hand along the inside of her thigh. He reached her knickers, pushing the silky barrier to the side. A whimper fell from her mouth.

“Louisa,” he murmured, pulling his face out of her neck to crash his lips down on her hers.

“Mrs Durrell!” a voice called and they pulled urgently apart. It was that annoying man who had come over with his elderly mother. She pulled down her skirt hastily, immediately missing the touch of his hands on her skin. Her own hands went to her hair, trying her best to flatten it down. She noticed that Spiros had turned himself away from the door.

“Err, in here Mr Droghall,” she called, her voice several octaves too high. She reached out a hand to the wall to steady herself. The man strolled in, his hat in hand and she couldn’t even look at Spiros, let alone the intruder. She chose to stare at a spot just above his head.

“Mrs Durrell, I thought I might ask you to join me for an afternoon stroll,” he said. He was not exactly not handsome, but a little weak, like a puppy kicked one too many times. She scrunched up her nose, about to say ‘no’. “Please?” he added and she looked behind her to see Spiros’ bacj.

“Erm,” she fumbled, releasing the wall, “yes, okay then.” She didn’t really want to but she wanted the man out of her house. He looked at her expectantly and her eyes widened.

“Oh you mean now?!” she said, clasping her hands in front of her.

“Well, I’ve left my mother with your delightful friend Mr Stephanides and I hoped Mr Halikiopoulos would drive us into the town?” the man looked past her to Spiros who, having seemingly regained his composure, turned to the visitor with a smile.

“Of course,” he said almost begrudgingly.

Mr Droghall broke into a wide grin, one that gave him an almost boyish appearance and he held an expression that roamed over her. One she didn’t appreciate.

“If you could just -” she gesticulated to her and Spiros and he nodded conspiratorially.

“Right, yes! I’ll wait by the car, Louisa,” he said and she smiled unpleasantly.

She had insisted all the guests call her Louisa but it sounded unsavoury out of his mouth. When she was sure he’d gone, she turned to Spiros almost apologetically. She approached him and stroked his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. He shrugged with a small smile.

“It’s fine,” he told her, turning his head to kiss her palm. It wasn’t fine, she thought. She’d much rather have him in her bedroom, rather than have to endure another pompous Englishman who thought he was a potential suitor.

Then he broke away and she followed him out to the car sadly. The whispers of their unfinished encounter following her like a shadow she couldn’t shake.

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Larry eyed Louisa over his typewriter. Now the guests were all gone (and she’d expressly told him not to invite anymore, at least for a little while), he actually had time to write. Except his mother had been pacing on and off for the past half an hour, casting odd glances in his direction like she had something to say that she’d been bottling up.

After the fourth round of pacing, he stopped typing and threw his arms up in the air.

“For God’s sake. Just spit it out and stop pacing!” he snapped and she jumped. She looked around for her other children then approached him, wringing her hands. She slid into the seat beside him and he lit a cigarette.

He watched her but her gaze was fixed on the table. “Well?” he said, raising an eyebrow. She took a deep breath.

“I really don’t want to embroil you in this...” she started, unable to look him in the eye. He had gone from irritation, to amusement to confusion and now he was stopped at concern.

“What’s happened?” he asked, furrowing his brow.

She leaned forward.

“Nothing...I just...” she steeled herself, rolling her shoulders. “I need you to clear the house out, I need an evening to myself.”

He looked at her and she forced herself to be forceful, confident, despite the tremor in her hands.

“If this is so you can engage in playful relations with Hugh, just go to his bloody house,” he scoffed. Her gaze flickered away, down to her hands.

“Not Hugh...” she murmured and his eyes widened like saucers. He tilted his head to look at her.

“What? Who?!” he sounded scandalised, outraged even and she blushed furiously. She looked at him only once before averting her glance quickly. His mouth dropped open.

“Oh my god! Spiros?!” he hissed and she refused to answer he said, “As in married Spiros?”

She looked sharply at him. “Well you didn’t seem to have a problem with it before.”

“And I don’t have a problem with it now ... but I’m surprised at your attitude. You’ve always been so conservative about sex,” Larry shrugged and she winced at his brazen use of the word ‘sex’.

“I just...” she paused and pushed out of her seat, flailing her arms around her. She leaned on the wall and he came to stand beside her. They stared out at the sea.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she said as he offered her the cigarette. She took it, drew in two large drags and handed it back.

“Listen, I’m happy to be instrumental in you satisfying carnal urges,” he said with a grin. She rolled her eyes. Then he turned serious. “But... just... sex with Spiros is a bad idea when you feel the way you do. You’ll both be hurt in the long run.” He had become the parent, yet again.

“It’s ... it’s not ‘sex’,” she said, whispering the word ‘sex’ like it was sordid, “I mean... it’s not just about that.” She screwed her eyes up, hating herself for having to have this conversation. When she looked back at him, her eyes were watering. He pursed his lips. “I think this is the only way we can be together, even for just an hour here and there.”

“Alright, I’ll make sure the house is empty tomorrow evening,” he said cautiously, stubbing out his cigarette. She stared at the water, her mind churning too fast for her to catch up and her chest rose and fell quickly.

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The picnic basket lay empty between them and Louisa refilled Spiros’ glass before she filled her own, taping a sip from it.

“It’s so beautiful down here,” she said wistfully. They’d chosen a spot down the hill from her house, that overlooked the coast but was enough of a private oasis that they could pretend only they existed.

“Yes,” he said, but he was looking at her, not the view and when she noticed, she blushed with a shy smile. Too wrapped up in each other, neither had noticed the black clouds starting to gather momentum. She stared intently at her lap, her legs tucked underneath her.

She felt nervous, like a teenager on a first date, something that always seemed to happen around him. She dusted something imaginary from her skirt, her wine glass abandoned on the ground beside the basket.

“It reminds me of India sometimes,” she blurted and he looked sideways at her, a small smile tugging at his mouth. “The trees, the water lapping at the shore. The bizarre animals.” She let out a small laugh. “The unpredictable weather. Once we had a monsoon so bad we were confined to the house for a week. My poor husband-” she broke off suddenly, halfway between melancholic reminiscence, and the stark realisation (which brought on renewed guilt), that she hadn’t thought of Lawrence in a long time.

She took a shuddering breath and fell silent.

“What was he like? Your husband?” Spiros asked over the harmonies being swung around the trees by the love birds overhead.

She looked at him. She often wondered if he felt inferior to the ghost of her husband. She had always hoped not. But now he was just looking at her with curiosity, with love and it almost made her chest burst. She smiled, her mind drifting over a million memories.

“He was ... larger than life. Funny, silly. But ... he was kind, compassionate and sweet. Now I think about it, I think Gerry got his love of animals from him,” she said, watching gulls dipping into the sea. “He brought home a stray puppy once, simply because it followed him home. Just a few months after Gerry’s second birthday I think. And that’s how we ended up with Roger.”

Spiros watched her, enamored and amazed that she’d had a passionate and loving marriage. He’d have to be stone dead not to compare it to his own lukewarm marriage. Or maybe it was the lure of Mrs Durrell that made everyone fall so hard.

“He was a lot like you actually,” she said picking at a grass blade. Spiros grinned and she looked up, a smile of her own spreading across her face faster than the rising blush.

“We have both lov-” his words were bitten off by the flash in the sky and then the cracking of thunder. Their attention was dragged out to the horizon where the black clouds had gathered very quickly.

“Time to retreat,” Louisa said sadly as the pair scrambled their belongings in a desperate attempt to make it back up the hill and to the safety of her house before the rain fell.

They were only a little way up the hill when the first big spatters came down. She pulled him under a large tree which offered minimal shelter. Her eyes shone with something that made his stomach somersault aggressively. She pulled him in as close as possible to bring him under the shelter of the canopy just as the heavens opened fully. Thunder split the sky in two and rain drove down relentlessly. It was so monstrous they couldn’t hear themselves think. Perhaps that’s why she didn’t care when, in public, where they could be seen by anyone, she leaned in and kissed him. He was mostly taken by surprise but recovered quickly and kissed her back.

He could taste the wine on her tongue, and on her lips as he ran his tongue along them. He dropped the picnic basket and put his hand on the tree trunk, just above her head, to steady himself. He pressed his body tight against her and she wondered if he’d take her right there, in the pouring rain. She shivered at the thought and wished he would. All too soon however, he pulled away, his breaths coming in heavy pants. His eyes were hot, burning through her and she felt her legs weaken.

“I don’t think it’s going to stop anytime soon!” she shouted over the din, tilting her head to the rain. He nodded slowly with a tiny smile.

“No,” he shouted back. She looked around the tree, taking in the hill, and chewed her lip. She took delight in that it still tasted of him. The hill however, was not that long. They could reach the house in just a few minutes if they ran. She wasn’t sure if her legs would work however, not with him pressed so close against her.

They could stay there forever, she surmised. Or at least until the rain stopped. But that could be hours and she felt a very real need to feel him moving inside her, and it was evident he was not one for public exhibitionism.

“I think we better run!” she said and he nodded, shrugging off his jacket to give her. She took it wordlessly, touched by his selflessness. He bent to grab the basket and the pair ran, hand in hand up the hill, shrieking as the water ran down their backs. Thunder rumbled like a growling wolf as the house grew larger on the horizon.

Spiros’ jacket and the picnic blanket he held over his own head, proved little shelter from the torrential rain and by the time they’d burst into the kitchen, Louisa’s hair had lost its curls under the weight of the water droplets clinging to them. She hung his jacket on the back of the chair and looked at him with an urge to laugh. His clothes were wet through and his hair stuck out in strange angles.

“Hang on, I’ll get some towels.”

The cold was staved off by the roaring fire and the sound of pounding rain could only be heard when they paused to listen. Their wet clothes had finally started to dry. And the room was warm, incredibly warm, Louisa thought. But not because of the fire. She didn’t care that her hair was getting messed up by the cushion, or that it’d dried in all the wrong directions. All she cared about was the wanton desire flooding through her. And the man moving expertly between her thighs.

One of Spiros’ hands was braced on the arm of the sofa to bear his weight, the other cupped her face as his lips worked against hers. She cried into his mouth every time he pushed into her with unrelenting passion. He drew her nearer to the edge, his heart pounding in his throat. Her breath came fast and shallow and when he pushed her over the edge she clenched around him, a small cry ripped from her throat. She was still trembling just when he was ready to follow her down the rabbit hole of pleasure. But his foot got caught in the blanket that draped around them.

He felt himself falling because he could comprehend and Louisa was falling with him. She let out a yelp as they landed on the floor with a thud.

“Are you okay?” Spiros said, shifting his weight off of her.

She instantly missed his warmth, the feel of his weight bearing down on her. She couldn’t speak coherently so simply nodded, letting out a shaky laugh. At that, he let out a loud laugh before leaning down and resting his forehead against hers.

Oh how he wanted to stay here forever, making love in front of the fireplace. But he couldn’t. He had to go back to a wife he cared for, but couldn’t love. But, he thought, tonight was not tomorrow and he opened his eyes, taking in her post-coital glow, her haphazard appearance. He didn’t think he had ever seen a more beautiful sight. All of it made him fall in love over and over again. He played with a stray lock of her hair as she absentmindedly ran her hand sup his forearms, resting on his broad shoulders.

“I love you,” he said, swallowing her response. He wasn’t sure if she had recovered from the first time until she pulled at him, wrapping her legs around his waist. He smiled against her mouth and slowed his rhythm. He pushed her to the edge again and again, pulling her back just in time to stop her tumbling over it until she almost couldn’t bear it. She wanted to draw him as close into her as humanly possible and she felt like she was beginning to fold in on herself. He pulled away from her mouth and kissed her neck. Tasted her pounding pulse with his tongue.

When he was sure she couldn’t take anymore teasing, he didn’t pull her back and she came with a guttural, drawn out mewl. He let himself follow and groaned against her neck.

Louisa ran her hands through his hair, kissing his temple as he rested his head on her shoulder. Their chests heaved with laboured breathing and for a few moments their panting, the crackling fire and the now softened patter of rain on the roof were the only sounds in the world.

When the haze dissipated, Spiros reasoned that he should go home, his wife would surely suspect something if he didn’t. But he didn’t think he could physically leave Louisa, even if he wanted to. Couldn’t leave her like a cheap mistress when she was so much more. He rolled onto his back and Louisa felt a flicker of fear, that he was going to leave but he didn’t and she rested her head against his shoulder.

Every ounce of common sense in their minds screamed that he shouldn’t stay, that if he did, something catastrophic would happen. But Spiros pulled her close to him, instead choosing to, just for one night, believe this was their life, that she was his wife, his was their home. The thought carried him into pleasant sleep.

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“No, I told you, if that goat has peed on my bed one more time-” Margo was arguing with, presumably Gerry, as the four children strolled into the kitchen. If they had been surprised by Spiros’ car outside, they didn’t show it. Gerry pulled up a chair.

“Morning!” he declared as Louisa pushed a plate of toast in front of him.

“Morning,” she said, over her tea.

“Morning Gerrys,” Spiros greeted with a grin. For at least a few minutes more, he could pretend this was his family.

“How was Theo’s? Presumably drier than here,” Louisa mused.

“Yeah it was actually,” Margo said as she hugged Spiros from behind briefly and then slid in her own seat.

“How’s Hugh?” Leslie asked stroppily. Louisa caught Spiros’ eye before frowning.

“Hugh?” she repeated and Larry stepped in.

“I told them about wanting to cook Hugh dinner... remember? For your date?” he said, raising his eyebrows. She feigned realisation.

“Oh yes! Of course, Hugh’s fine,” she lied.

“Well Durrells, I must depart,” Spiros announced with a jubilant smile. he got up and, following a chorus of farewells, began to walk away.

“I’ll see you out,” Louisa followed him, leaving the children to eat breakfast alone.

Leslie followed his mother and Spiros from the room with his eyes, wondering why, if Mother cooked for Hugh, wasn’t he there but Spiros was? He frowned as the beginning seeds of realisation were sown.

#spiros halikiopoulos #louisa durrell #spiros x louisa #louisa x spiros #settling for contrasts #love #fanfiction #smut #fic #the durrells

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benrleeusa · 7 years

Text

[Eugene Volokh] U.S. courts and child custody judgments from foreign countries that have sex-discriminatory custody rules

Coulibaly v. Stevance, decided Wednesday by the Indiana Court of Appeals, considers whether Indiana courts should honor a Malian child custody decree (involving Malian citizens). Indiana has adopted the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA), under which state courts must enforce out-of-state and out-of-country custody decrees if

the decree was issued by the jurisdiction that was the children’s home jurisdiction at the time of the order,

the objecting spouse was given notice and opportunity to be heard when the decree was issued, and

“the child custody law of [the] foreign country [does not] violate[] the fundamental principles of human rights.”

There was no dispute that the first two elements were satisfied, and the question was whether Malian child custody law violates human rights principles as Indiana courts understand them; the Indiana court of appeals said no, even though aspects of the law involved sex discrimination, and even though Malian law more generally doesn’t ban Female Genital Mutilation. (One of the couple’s children is a 15-year-old daughter.) First, the facts:

Mother and Father are both dual citizens of France and Mali. They were married in Mali in 2001 and had two children, a daughter born in 2002 and a son born in 2004, who are also dual citizens of Mali and France. Father is a computer science engineer, and throughout the marriage and thereafter, he has operated a company that provides internet service in Mali. Mother is a physician, and she and the children lived in France with Father’s consent from 2005 until 2007 while pursuing her Master’s degree in epidemiology.

Father remained in Mali during this time but visited Mother and the children regularly. Mother returned to Mali in 2007, where she practiced as an OB/GYN. Mother wished to immigrate to Canada, and she and Father both filed the necessary paperwork to do so. At some point, however, Father made it clear that he did not want to leave Mali or the business he ran there.

The marriage subsequently deteriorated, and Father filed a petition for divorce in Mali on March 14, 2008…. At the hearing, Mother indicated that she wished to live outside of Mali and she alleged that Father had been physically abusive to her. Father denied Mother’s abuse accusation and asserted that Mother was determined to move to Canada or Europe and he feared she would kidnap the children and cease contact with him. Both parties asked for custody of the children. Following the hearing, but prior to the issuance of the Malian court’s custody order, Mother took the children and moved to France.

On October 6, 2008, the Malian court issued its decree awarding Father custody of the children. Despite this order, Mother has not returned the children to Father, and she unsuccessfully sought relief from the order in both Mali and France before moving to the United States and seeking such relief in Indiana.

The court notes that the UCCJEA was aimed at preventing “self-help and the rule of ‘seize-and-run’” in cross-jurisdictional custody disputes, and that the UCCJEA and related laws provide that (1) the violates-fundamental-human-rights exception should be “invoked only in the most egregious cases,” and (2) “the court’s scrutiny should be on the child custody law of the foreign country and not on other aspects of the other legal system.”

[T]hat a foreign jurisdiction’s law differs from our own or strikes us as outdated is insufficient to establish a violation of fundamental principles of human rights…. “The commentary to [the UCCJEA] reflects the drafters’ concern that the provision not become the basis for magnifying every difference between the U.S. legal system and that of a foreign nation to virtually stymie effective application of the UCCJEA in international cases.”

Given this, the court rejected mother’s argument that the custody law “violates fundamental human rights because it favors men over women”:

Mother notes that Mali’s divorce law is fault-based, and … argues that Mali’s marital laws evince a preference for men such that women will more often be found at fault for a divorce, resulting in a de facto paternal preference in child custody decisions. Specifically, Mother notes that statutory law in Mali expressly provides that “[t]he husband owes protection to his wife, the wife obedience to her husband.” The law provides further that the husband is the head of the household, that the household expenses “fall principally on him,” that he has the right to choose the family residence, and that the wife must live with him and he must receive her.. Additionally, a woman is prohibited from running a business without her husband’s permission.

In light of the prevailing fault-based divorce system, it is unsurprising that the Malian court made a number of findings with respect to the parties’ conduct during the marriage. The court expressly found Mother’s physical abuse allegation to be unsupported. The court also noted that under Malian law, a husband is entitled to choose the family residence and that Mother’s dispute regarding Father’s decision to live in Mali was therefore grounds for divorce. The Malian court further found that Mother admitted that she had “a habit of uttering insulting and offensive remarks toward” Father, which constituted “serious abuse”, and also that Mother’s persistence in her plan to emigrate with the children without Father’s knowledge or consent was a violation of her duty of loyalty, a mutual duty imposed by Malian marital law upon both spouses irrespective of gender. In light of these findings, the trial court granted Father’s petition for divorce and dismissed Mother’s counter petition.

However, the Malian court did not actually apply the statutory custody presumption in favor of Father as the party who obtained the divorce. Instead, the Malian court expressly indicated that custody could be awarded to Father or Mother, and that only the best interests of the children controlled this decision. The court found that Mother’s emigration plans “could bring important risks and unknowns to the lives of the children” and that “she offers no promises of stability or safety for the children.” The court further found that Mother’s decision in this regard “results in necessarily depriving the children from the affection of one of their parents,” i.e., Father. The court noted further that Father wished for Mother to have extensive visitation with the children, and that he had sufficient and stable resources to provide for their education and care. In light of its findings, the Malian court awarded custody to Father and visitation rights to Mother.

In reviewing the Malian court’s order, the Indiana trial court found that Mali’s child custody law as applied in this case did not violate fundamental principles of human rights and was in fact in substantial conformity with Indiana’s child custody law…. Thus, when considering Mali’s child custody law as applied in this case, we cannot conclude that Mother has established a violation of fundamental human rights….

Moreover, even if we confine our analysis to Mali’s child custody law as written, we find no violation of fundamental human rights. Mother essentially argues that any “presumption of custody is a violation of the fundamental right for a parent to the care, custody, and control of the child.” But custodial preferences are not foreign to American jurisprudence. Indeed, gender-based custody preferences were the norm in the United States in the not-so-distant past.

Although not directly on point, we find Malik v. Malik (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1994), instructive. The court in that case did not consider the UCCJEA’s escape clause, but it did consider whether enforcement of a Pakistani custody decree was required under general principles of comity, which provide that a foreign judgment will be given no effect if it is repugnant to the forum state’s strong public policy. In relevant part, the court reasoned that:

If the only difference between the custody laws of Maryland and Pakistan is that Pakistani courts apply a paternal preference the way Maryland courts once applied the maternal preference, the Pakistani order is entitled to comity. A custody decree of a sister state whose custody law contains a preference for one parent over another would be entitled to comity, provided, of course, that the sister state’s custody law applies the best interest of the child standard.

… [T]he case again came before the Maryland appellate court in Hosain v. Malik 988 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1996). The Hosain court affirmed the trial court’s decision to enforce the Pakistani custody decree despite evidence that the order was based in part on the Islamic doctrine of Hazanit, which the court described as “embod[ying] complex Islamic rules of maternal and paternal preference, depending on the age and sex of the child.” In reaching its conclusion, the Hosain court noted that the evidence presented supported a finding that Hazanit was merely one factor considered by the Pakistani court in determining the best interests of the child. In concluding that consideration of this factor was not repugnant to Maryland public policy, the court reasoned as follows:

We recognize that Hazanit is different in many respects from the traditional maternal preference once followed in this State. We recognize, however, that Hazanit is nonetheless similar to the traditional maternal preference in that they both are based on very old notions and assumptions (which are widely considered outdated, discriminatory, and outright false in today’s modern society) concerning which parent is best able to care for a young child and with which parent that child best belongs. Viewed in this regard, standing as a factor to be weighed in the best interest of the child examination, Hazanit is no more objectionable than any other type of preference. As we noted in Malik, the courts of this State will not refuse to enforce child custody awards of those states still recognizing the maternal preference as a factor.

The Hosain court also concluded that the Pakistani court’s consideration of the mother’s adultery as a factor in the custody decision was not repugnant to Maryland public policy, noting that Maryland courts are permitted to consider parental adultery in determining custody, at least to the extent that it affects the child’s welfare.

We acknowledge that the comity standard applied in Hosain and Malik differs from the human rights standard at issue here, and we do not intend to suggest that the simple fact that a doctrine or policy was once prevalent in the United States conclusively demonstrates its compatibility with principles of fundamental human rights. Nevertheless, we note that like in Hosain, the parental preference at issue in this case is not conclusive. Rather, Malian law provides that “children will be in custody of the spouse who obtained the divorce unless the court … orders for the best interests of the children, that all or some of them will be cared for by the other spouse or a third person.” Thus, the law does not permit Malian courts to blindly apply a parental presumption or ignore the bestinterests of the children. Rather, the law appears to do nothing more than allocate the initial burden of rebutting the custodial presumption in favor of the innocent spouse to the at-fault spouse.

Further, although Mali’s marriage laws impose different duties on husbands and wives based on gender, either spouse may be granted a divorce based on the other spouse’s failure to fulfill his or her respective duties. Whatever we might think about the wisdom of Mali’s marital and custody laws in this regard, we simply cannot say that they are so utterly shocking to the conscience or egregious as to rise to the level of a violation of fundamental principles of human rights.

The court noted that some forms of discrimination by the foreign country’s courts might be seen as violating fundamental human rights, for instance “if a foreign court nevertheless places a child with one parent or another based solely on that parent’s race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or gender.” (I assume the “solely” was meant to distinguish the situation in the Maryland cases that the court approvingly cited.) But the court concluded that there was no evidence that this happened here.

The court also rejected the mother’s argument about Mali’s failure to outlaw female genital mutilation (in part because it noted that the father had condemned the practice as “horrible,” which presumably suggests that it would not likely be performed on the daughter):

According to Mother, Mali has outlawed FGM in government-funded health centers, but not the practice itself. Testimony was presented at the evidentiary hearing that a law specifically prohibiting FGM had not yet been passed but was being worked on. At least one witness testified that FGM was already punishable under existing criminal laws in Mali. Although it is not entirely clear on the record before us whether FGM is illegal in Mali, the parties are in agreement that the practice is very widespread….

While we have little difficulty concluding that FGM is itself a human rights violation, we are not as certain that a country’s failure to pass a law specifically prohibiting the practice constitutes a violation of fundamental principles of human rights. In any event, the comments to the UCCJEA make it clear that our scrutiny is limited to Mali’s child custody law and not on other aspects of its legal system, including the law (or absence of law) concerning FGM.

At oral argument, Mother suggested we should nevertheless find Mali’s failure to outlaw FGM to be relevant because the practice of FGM is, as a general matter, likely to affect children. But consideration of every law likely to affect children would throw the doors wide open — laws regarding civil rights, education, health care, housing, and inheritance, to name just a few, would all be fair game in evaluating a foreign custody decree. Such an approach would put the courts of this state in the untenable position of passing judgment on the entire legal system of a foreign country, a result plainly at odds with the clearly stated intent of the drafters of UCCJEA.

Mother’s remaining arguments suffer the same infirmity — she essentially asks us to look beyond Mali’s custody law to conclude that Mali’s legal system and culture are, on the whole, so oppressive to women that no custody order issued in that country could be enforceable in the United States. [Footnote moved: Mother … notes that men in Mali are permitted to have multiple wives, while women may have only one husband. Mother notes further that the marital laws permit (but do not require) the payment of nominal dowry by the husband upon marriage “where required by custom.”] We are in no position to make such a judgment, and the language of the UCCJEA prohibits us from attempting to do so. Mother has not established that Mali’s child custody laws violate fundamental principles of human rights, and she is consequently unable to avoid enforcement of the Malian custody decree.

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nancyedimick · 7 years

Text

U.S. courts and child custody judgments from foreign countries that have sex-discriminatory custody rules

the decree was issued by the jurisdiction that was the children’s home jurisdiction at the time of the order,

the objecting spouse was given notice and opportunity to be heard when the decree was issued, and

“the child custody law of [the] foreign country [does not] violate[] the fundamental principles of human rights.”

Given this, the court rejected mother’s argument that the custody law “violates fundamental human rights because it favors men over women”:

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/10/27/u-s-courts-and-child-custody-judgments-from-foreign-countries-that-have-sex-discriminatory-custody-rules/

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wolfandpravato · 7 years

Text

U.S. courts and child custody judgments from foreign countries that have sex-discriminatory custody rules

the decree was issued by the jurisdiction that was the children’s home jurisdiction at the time of the order,

the objecting spouse was given notice and opportunity to be heard when the decree was issued, and

“the child custody law of [the] foreign country [does not] violate[] the fundamental principles of human rights.”

Given this, the court rejected mother’s argument that the custody law “violates fundamental human rights because it favors men over women”:

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/10/27/u-s-courts-and-child-custody-judgments-from-foreign-countries-that-have-sex-discriminatory-custody-rules/

#Law #Lawyer

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