#am i describing an irish accent

[vaticinatrix]

okay so like. in my brain i know that there’s gonna be a lot of similarity between hillbilly accents and irish and scottish accents. like yeah. duh. lots of irish and scottish immigrants ended up settled in appalachia. but something about hearing colm mcguinness pronounce “fire” the same way my hillbilly-ass family does was jarring

#ah see fahr #am i describing an irish accent #or an american mountain accent #you'll never find out #one of these days i'll stop posting every half baked thought that comes to mind #but today? #not that day #linguistics #accents #colm mcguinness #jonathan young #i see fire #music #music shitpost #linguistic shitpost

[leclsrc]

in so deep ✴︎ cl16

genre: friends to lovers, charles has a huge crush and is a lovesick bloke, smut, humor, Fluff 

word count: 13.1k  

It takes you many cities, a botched Halloween costume and a failed break-in to realize how much Charles likes you. It takes Charles several years to realize he doesn’t need to do much to have you like him back. title from this

nsfw warnings under the cut!

18+ because... penetrative sex, praise central, size kink, unprotected sex

auds here… thank u for all ur love during my periods of being awol .... i wrote this over the course of a week and i hope u all like it!!! its very much a self indulgent thing... :P

The first time Charles realized he liked you, you were both posed for a picture.

It happened at a dinner party in London, in late autumn, thrown by you to celebrate your first year on the paddock as a reporter. Few friends had been invited but, with how noisy everyone was and with the ease of conversation, it felt like a houseful of people in your narrow dining area. Lando was in front of the mirror, tipsy, demonstrating his best rendition of an Irish accent to a genuinely interested Alex and Lily. 

Max was playing with your pet cat, Gene Kelly, and mentally plotting a heist to sneak him out with Pierre’s help. Your boyfriend, Liam, was making himself a cocktail. And Lewis had been roaming around with a glass of dry wine and his brand new film camera to document the night’s festivities—but the host was nowhere to be found. Unbeknownst to everyone, full off dinner and tipsy off cocktails, you’d ducked into the balcony to find where Charles had run off to for the night.

The music was muffled when you shut the door, leaving it ajar just a little bit. Lissie had played Cocteau Twins and was singing whatever gibberish lyrics played, fully drunk off a bottle of Tito’s. Still laughing over her predicament, you turned to Charles and refocused your attention on him. Is it boring?

What w… what is? He asked, turning to you. Briefly his eyes flitted to your hand, the bracelets clasped onto your wrist. He noticed you held matching bottles of beer but yours remained full, nail tapping idly on the semi-opaque glass.

My party, you responded wryly, cocking your head to the side. A loose tendril of hair fell over your eye and he itched to tuck it back in place, thumb over your ear. You continued, still pressing for an answer. You left to smoke but you didn’t come back. 

I like the view. A half-lie but truthful in some way. He squinted to try and make out blurry, faraway signage. I should move here. Monaco makes me sick. He tried to say it jokingly, but was betrayed by the raw tone of his voice. You hummed quietly, to signify you were listening.

So move. Who’s stopping you? You smiled slightly. Aside from your ludicrous career, of course. 

You had a natural disposition of—something. He didn’t quite know how to describe it, almost like the rest of him had yet to catch up with something only his heart was already decided on. You spoke and acted with some kind of smoothness that only the most popular kids in secondary school could have reins over, but you always claimed you weren’t very popular in your teenage years. He just knew he liked hearing you talk, watching you smile. He felt something—but he didn’t want to name it even if he knew exactly what it was. Instead he played into your joke. Yeah, I’ve been told I should move to Dubai instead, become a prince.

You laughed aloud. You are terribly unfunny, you know that?

Am I? He asked. Just then, as the cotton of his tee brushed against your bare shoulder, Liam brashly tugged the balcony door open to find you. He had this drunk smile on his face, brushing his blond hair out of the way and raising a Leica to the two of you.

Hey, I got Lewis’ camera. Smile, Liam had said, eyes squinted behind it. You remained still, half-turned to the camera, and Charles gave a smile whereas you remained in a neutral, half-smiling pose. And right there, at that very moment, as a giggle escaped your lips from having to pose so quickly and even awkwardly, Charles realized with a damning force that he had a massive crush on you.

Liam had left shortly after to resume taking pictures, but would later confront you over your “weird, odd, fucking closeness with the Monegasque bloke” that you would vehemently deny despite a gut-churning feeling boiling low in your stomach. But that’s later. Your conversation continued calmly, along the passive whir of London and the streets below. You both people-watched as you thought of things to say—finally Charles said, Are you interviewing me next weekend?

I always try to get out of it when it’s with you. You rolled your eyes, feigning irritance, then smiled to break the illusion. I think so.

I’ll make sure I have good answers. You’re too smart. Hurts to be in the same room. 

Like you aren’t, you said back, but the rebuttal is shy in nature, like he struck you with a compliment so high you couldn’t bear to return it. He felt then like this was the kind of moment where you would start holding hands any minute, timid touches between clinks of bottles. He remembered Liam existed and screwed his eyes shut. He wished so hard to be able to kiss you. Abandon all sense and just kiss you.

—

“It’s 2023 and still London has the most rubbish ass, fucking cunt, stupid wanker stoplights,” Lissie huffs beside you, checking her watch. “Right then. We’re going to be late. You know how Lando is when people are late. Especially because this is his event.”

“We’re not people to Lando,” you reason, tapping the steering wheel. The ETA on your navigation app tells you you’re still twenty minutes away. “We’re his best friends. If he can’t forgive us, we should kick him out of the group chat.”

“Ooh, and add Alex,” Lily pipes up from the backseat, where she’s redoing her eyeshadow to pass the time. “I keep telling you guys he’s funnier than Lando.” Both you and Lissie make faint, vague sounds of dissent and she grunts again, deflating.

“No boyfriends in the group chat,” Lissie repeats an age-old rule that’s been around for as long as you three (four, including Lando) have been friends. “Or girlfriends, in Lando’s case, but we haven’t worried about that much, have we?”

You’re all en route to watch Lando crank out a brand-new deejay set, one he’s spent the summer break working on. It’s all house and inspired by beach music, and he’s very proud of it, so of course you’re all showing up to laud him. You’re not the only ones, though, apparently—whoever’s in the city is showing up to show their support, which includes a whole stretch of drivers.

“Oh, my God!” Lily says all of a sudden, eyes wide at something on her phone; you both gesture for her to show you and she does with speed. “Do you guys remember this? God, Instagram archives are a godsend.”

“Your dinner party in Chelsea!” Lissie coos, immediately sidling into a fond awwww! You tap at the story Lily had then posted: a video of everybody eating. You tap again to view the one she posted a few days later, which was a collage of Lewis’ camera scans he’d gotten developed overnight. There in the upper right corner, you almost immediately spot your photo with Charles.

“Oh, Christ, that picture.” Memories of your subsequent arguments with Liam flash past your head. Playfully, all you say is, “And I never had a boyfriend again.”

“Liam was an Irish arse, anyway.” Lissie scoffs. “Nobody liked him. Lewis joked about cleaning his camera after he used it that night. Plus, you actively avoid dating, so don’t complain.”

“Fair,” you say with a slight smile. Your mind lingers on the picture, the imprint of it burned fresh into your mind. 

“You—it’s also because you can’t take a hint, babe.” Lily says matter-of-factly. “Who knows how many guys have, you know… fancied, or, like, had crushes on you, and you just never knew?”

“Are you saying somebody fancies me?” You ask, voice whittling out playfully as your eyes count down the seconds to the green light.

Funnily, silence is all that answers. Beside you, Lily and Lissie exchange a look—one that communicates their years-long amusement over your cluelessness. You whirl back to them, eyebrows raised, and double down: “Wait. Does somebody fancy me?”

“No!” Lily ekes out; you don’t miss Lissie’s poorly-hidden laugh. “No. I’m just—it’s just—no.” 

Truth is, it truly seems like the only person in the entire paddock (team and Sky Sports staff included) who hasn’t caught on to a certain somebody’s boyish crush is the crush herself, oblivious as ever, even years and years later. One might think you’d have realized eventually, but perhaps owed to your type A personality and immersion with work, and Charles’ pathetic and total inability to express how much he likes you, the crush has always remained just that, despite your two friend groups’ best efforts to hint at it.

It wasn’t to say, though, that you didn’t sometimes entertain the idea of liking him, too. On that one rainy race weekend when he’d brought you a plastic cup of soup, and embarrassed, laughed sheepishly at Lissie’s joking request for one; then returned twenty minutes later with soup for everyone in the media pen. Or that time in Monaco where he’d pretended to be your boyfriend at a bar to ward off a creepo from hitting on you any further. Or another time, in Budapest, when he’d drank half his body weight in jello shots and slurred out a goofy, heavy I’m soooo sorry, baby while you helped him into the passenger seat of his car.

That one, singular time in Cancun you told your friends once and never again.

But those are isolated incidents, you suppose; plus, dating someone you work with has never seemed like a remotely good idea to you, and you don’t think it ever will.

For all your thinking on the topic, you fail to realize that you don’t know much at all—you don’t know the fact that Charles has liked you for years, after getting to know just how charming and funny you were as a friend. You don’t know that he still gets gut-churning butterflies when he sees you, hands shaky and face tinged pink. You miss the fact that he’s not had any long-term partners in the years of his liking you. You don’t know anything. 

“Don’t lie.” You narrow your eyes as you rev the car and continue the trip. 

“We’re not,” Lily says loudly and a touch too defensively, crossing her fingers. Quietly, she continues, “You should just pay more attention.”

Whatever she meant to say is lost on you as soon as you make a left and spot the club Lando’s at, already teeming with high-profile guests and their high-profile cars. Half an hour later you’re in—valet and being on the guest list effectively cuts your entrance time in half. You separate at the entrance—you, to find Lando; your two girls, to find your reserved table. You find him eventually, busy behind the booth churning out high-frequency tropical music; he pauses for half a beat to flash a huge grin and a thumbs-up before redirecting his attention to the knobs and sliders you can’t seem to guess the functions of.

These kinds of parties are affairs in and of themselves. They mimic the afterparties during the season—nothing if not shows of opulence and networking: champagne paid for by business magnates, yachts that barely make dents in anybody’s wallets, thick CVs, fruity cocktails spilled on pieces of clothing that cost upward of 3000 pounds. You make eye contact with at least seven skeevy businessmen before you spot your friends, but only because you hear them first—by them you mean Lissie, her loud voice raised even more to match the noise at this club.

“I said I didn’t fu—ugh—I don’t want ye fahkin’ champagne,” she slurs out to an old man in a pressed suit, eyebrows knitted angrily. “Got it?!” Behind her, Lily and Alex (who’s arrived now, apparently) watch, concerned and helpless to stop her but equally (perhaps more) entertained.

You step closer and make a move to calm down the exchange taking place, but somebody whispers a “hey” in your ear and startles you. You turn, and come face to face with Charles. His black tee accentuates the breadth of his shoulders, which you connect to his crossed arms; there’s a shy, boyish grin playing on his face. “Oh, Charles!” You smile. “Hey! Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Thanks,” he says with a grin, straining to raise his voice. “You look—you look well. Are you alone?”

“No, I’m—” You turn to your three friends nearby, and to Lissie’s argument heating up. “I actually have to go.” You raise your thumb, jabbing it toward them. “But hi again… again!” You both laugh, but he laughs much louder. “I’ll see you around.”

“I jus—” He says, and you stick around for a second to hear him say what he has to say.

“Yeah?”

He clears his throat and laughs stiffly, abandoning his previous statement in favor of a new one. “I just…. want… to have a great time.”

“Ohhhh,” you holler, nodding, clearly trying to mask your extreme confusion under a polite smile. “Okay, well… go ahead!”

You smooth down your dress and laugh again, evidently more forced but, unfortunately for Charles, not any less pretty.

You carry yourself in a very pretty, graceful way, loud and quiet at the same time, like your confident voice when you’re holding the mic and asking questions or making drivers laugh. He might sound creepy, though, a touch too observant, if he tells you so. He observes you instead, for a second, the low cut of your dress and the way the red overhead light shines on your exposed collarbones—and then you’re leaving. He watches you walk over to hug Lily, realizes how stupid he’s sounded, and smothers a hand over his face, humiliated. 

—

“I just want to have a great time?” Max’s jaw drops and he shakes his head, disappointed above all else. “Charles, what the actual. Like…. fuck?” They’re all camped out at the latter’s hotel room, around the dining table, in varying states of sober and doing different things to wear off the last hour of the night before they’re all due to train or debrief again in the morning. Charles had relayed the disaster of the night to everyone at some point, but Max is the last to hear of it; this, unfortunately, does not inoculate him from the shock and secondhand embarrassment.

“Pierre told me to—” Charles starts, forlorn.

“Oi, no. I told you to say something like I just wish… I’d seen you sooner,” interjects the Frenchman with a tut. “You know, flirting? Not… whatever the fuck you said.”

“I didn’t—I was—I lost my mind,” he groans, burying his head in his hands. It couldn’t possibly be entirely his fault when you looked so pretty tonight, hair down and a wash of glitter on your eyelids. Just subtle little flecks of them. They brought out your eyes, too. And your blush, the pink flush of it that sat high on your cheekbones.

“…llo? Charles.” He blinks and sees Carlos’ deep eyes, wide and staring right at him, so pointedly he’s genuinely startled.

“Jeeesus fucking Christ. What?” He places a melodramatic hand over his chest. “Yeah?”

“What do you mean with the”—Carlos mimics his confused expression—“I asked you a question, tonto.” 

“Don’t bother with him,” chimes in Pierre, half-distracted by his phone. He looks up with a devious smile and continues. “He’s still thinking of Miss Reporter of the Year.” A round of loud, jovial laughter makes its way across the table, a few teasing quips being chimed in here and there.

“I just,” mocks Pierre from across the table, adopting a sing-songy tone as he bumps his shoulder to Carlos’ with a mocking laugh. “Wanna have a great time.” His voice is much higher and more mocking, which is enough to send Charles into a fit of petulant embarrassment.

“This isn’t sixth year,” he grits out quietly, but the blush on his face could just as well be plastered on the cheeks of a twelve-year-old. “Give it a rest.” 

“Mate.” Pierre’s voice mellows into something more austere. “You do know she’s leaving the reporters’ job at the end of the season? She’s going to London full-time. No more seeing her all year round. You know this. And I keep telling you. If you are really, and I mean really, interested, I say go for it. C’est la fucking vie, yeah?”

“Plus, if she says no, you can go for pretty much anyone else, anyway,” concludes Max with a convinced smile.

“It’s not the same,” he admits helplessly, smothering his hands over his face in bleak frustration. Behind his eyelids he sees you still, beautiful and smiling and funny—he seriously needs to institutionalise himself before he goes even more mad with the years-long malady he’s called a crush. And seriously, for a twenty-something to have something he calls a crush is despicable in itself. He feels juvenile.

“I can’t tell her. She’s always told people that dating coworkers is a bad idea.”

“You’re not coworkers.”

“We’re—well, we still work closely together. It is the same.” He groans. “It’s just… I’ve said it before. If I admit I like her, things will become awkward. I’d rather we remain friends.”

“Well… see, nobody said you needed to tell her,” begins Pierre schemingly, eyebrows raising. Around them, everybody groans at the birth of another Pierre-brained scheme that will, no doubt, need the enlistment of everyone’s help and will likely end in disaster. “What?! I’m just offering… I’m just saying, mate—you’ve liked her since forever. Why not make a move?”

“—I can’t—”

“Without telling her?” 

“Pierre,” groans Carlos, ever the voice of reason, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t—whatever this is you’re planning, it’s going to go to shit. I swear.”

“You are acting like I plan to take somebody hostage.” Pierre shrugs. “You know, girls like when you don’t tell them straight up. You have to show you like them. You know, be interested in the things they’re interested in, compliment them, make them laugh. And then they think, oh, how thoughtful, oh, how adorable, and before you know it, they like you. And you’ve got yourself a girlfriend.”

“Mmm. Uh-uh. Untrue.” Max says decisively, shaking his head. “I told Kelly I liked her.”

“Yeah, sí. I told Isa I liked her, too.”

“Will you two—just—” Pierre gesticulates and makes a funny noise that insinuates just go with it. “Okay?” he points out to the latter, rolling his eyes. He turns back to Charles with a ready, dazzling, so-French-it’s-scary grin and continues. “I suggest you let us be your wingmen and help you charm her.”

“Whoa, whoa, wh—us? You’re on your own here,” Max quips with a laugh. “It’s your stupid idea.”

“It’s not stupid, and it’s going to work. She probably likes you already.” His confidence carries the lie with gusto. “We just need—you just need to show her instead of saying the dumbest shit to her face.” Pierre leans back into his chair and shrugs matter-of-factly. “Max and I will be regular wingmen, but we have a secret weapon.”

“Don’t—” Carlos starts with a sigh.

“Yes. Lando, Lily, and Lissie are all close to her, eh? Well, perfect—Carlos will get information from Lando about things she likes, you gift her those things or talk to her about them, bam she’s in love. It’s literally a perfect plan.”

Maybe it’s worth it. Maybe—

“No.” Charles shakes his head firmly, setting the record straight. “This will not work. Who’s to say she even needs a boyfriend?”

—

Despite what his best and closest friends—on and off the paddock—might have you believe, Charles hasn’t always been so hopeless when it came to trying to catch your heart. His closest call came in Cancun, after a long weekend of racing and a flight to the area, early into the night where he thought he was the only one who decided to opt out of partying.

Your skin’s peeling. You turned from where you sat on a barstool observing the shore, startled, immediately relaxing when you found him standing there eyeing you. Your hair was still damp, crunchy with saltwater, and your skin had tanned considerably, a sunburn sitting on the bridge of your nose. You stuck your tongue out.

I spent the whole day swimming. He observed your bikini, yellow and green contrasting the colour of your skin. He blinked slowly, ordering himself a drink to hopefully pass the thoughts away. His eyes couldn’t stop, though, wandering, the translucent material of the scarf you’d tied loosely around your hips, the tinge of heat on your shoulders and nose. I’m burnt everywhere.

There are remedies for that. He smiled around his glass.

I’m aware, you said lightly, crossing your legs and sliding your finger along the salt rim of yours. But just in case I forgot, maybe you could refresh my memory.

Your voice was so sweet, so low, so tempting. Already he knew he was wrapped around your finger, the same finger picking up grains of salt to press on your tongue peeking between your smiling lips. You brought your glass to your lips. It had been some time since the dinner in London so he pressed, his voice deep and a little rough, Liam can do that for you, I’m sure.

Pity, you said meekly as you set your glass down and looked back at him. He’s not my boyfriend anymore.

Out of eyeline, the bartender’s eyes widened at the exchange he was overhearing. 

Is it a pity? He asked, leaning backwards and cocking his head to the side. It’s easy, an easy glide of conversation, flirt, something he’s wanted for a while now. To have you playing into him, and have himself playing into you, just like this. It was naturally easy in a foreign city where nobody knew who either of you were, where you were just two strangers flirting at a beachside bar.

Two strangers laughing while they dug their toes into the sand. Two strangers basking in the water, tinted orange by the sun dipping below the horizon, scarf untied in favor of one last swim before night fell. There was nothing keeping either of you from doing whatever you wanted. Nothing keeping Charles from finally acting on the attraction that honest to God crushed him.

You ended up leaning on the door of your hotel room, keycard fiddled in-between your sandy fingers. You combed a hand through your hair and offered a shy smile. So. 

So, he replied, leaning closer. So.

Sooo. You were laughing and your breath smelled like a mint leaf and vodka. You looked up at him, blinking slowly. I have a rule.

What rule is that?

I don’t date coworkers. He wanted to dip down, place a hand on the dip of your waist, and kiss you.

Pity, he said gruffly instead, a smile forming on his face.

Is it a pity? You chewed on your lip and looked at his barely parted ones, pink and pretty. When I’m about to break it? He was about to help you do just that—eyes fluttered shut already—when a crash resounded from down the hall and you both turned to find the culprit. You broke apart and with your separation, whatever atmosphere of tension you’d built up popped, too, leaving you awkwardly standing beside each other.

Oh m… Lissie? You asked, leaning closer as you recognized your friend more and more. You narrowed your eyes, watching the girl crawl her way through the carpeted floor. Oh, Jesus—let’s—get you—

You both hauled her up and wrapped either arm around your shoulders, unlocking her hotel room with great effort and tossing her onto the bed. You stood back and sighed at her half-blacked out state, slightly amused but ultimately relieved she ended her night unscathed.

She pried one eye open and sleepily, she groaned out, what were… you two… doing together outside your room?

Nothing, you said quickly, face warm and eyes wide.

Because you—Lissie raised a lazy finger in your direction—don’t date coworkers. 

I wasn’t—it wasn’t—goodnight, you spluttered, eyes refusing to meet Charles’ even as you both exited the room, paying him quiet thanks as he pulled the door back closed.

Sorry, you said, pretty as ever. The light shone on the red splotch on your nose. Goodnight.

And so he went to his room that night, bummed out and still high off your scent.

—

“You’re staring again.”

“I’m not,” he lies through his teeth, averting his eyes away from your figure by the shore. Sue him if he was staring (which he wasn’t… but most definitely was) but he finds you much too pretty. After the disaster that was the Mexican GP, he figures he could use some sort of stress reliever. Apparently he was not alone in thinking this, considering half the paddock hauled ass to Cancun and prompty partied.

Across Charles, Joris and Pierre share a knowing look that doesn’t go unnoticed.

“I said I’m not!”

“So you are not staring at her blue swimsuit then?” Joris tests, mouth twisted into a devious smirk. “It’s black,” Charles says matter-of-factly before catching sight of his friends’ smug expressions and realizing he’s implicated himself. He rolls his eyes and crosses his arms, petulantly almost. “And I wasn’t. Can you fucking—fuck off?”

“Just ask her out already,” Pierre groans, nodding when Joris chimes in with agreement of his own. “I seriously can-not handle another bar of this shit. It’s been years.”

“I don’t know how to,” he laments. “It’s going to be awkward if I do it all formal, and she’s going—she’ll laugh at me, and it’s…” He blows a raspberry. “Non. Pointless.”

“Just kiss her at the party,” reasons Joris with an easy attitude, shrugging. 

“Joris! Charles didn’t know about that,” Pierre says, trying to lower his volume, but it’s pointless since they’re barely a metre apart. “Fucking tattletale.”

“Party?!” Charles repeats, eyes wide. “Why don’t I know about a party?!”

“It’s a Halloween party,” Joris says, a wacky grin on his face. “And you said it yourself, didn’t ‘cha? You told us not to tell you if any functions were happening because you’re too tired to go to any. Too… too wrapped up racing.” He laughs. “Or something of the sort.”

“Well the season’s ending,” he huffs, wringing firm fingers over his face, his shut eyes, “and I still fucking haven’t… so I think I’m afforded a party.”

“Alright, then come to the party! Dress code, Halloween. Sexy Halloween.” Pierre wiggles his eyebrows. “You know, speaking of our plan, Carlos overheard Lissie and Lily talking about what your girl’s costume is going to be.” He leans in closer and laces his fingers together. “She’s going as a… Christina.”

“Christina?” The other two echo, confused. 

“Christina. I did some digging, and I think it’s this.” Pierre scrolls and dicks around on his phone for a minute before turning it back around to Joris and Charles, who peek with great interest. They seem to be looking at an outdated movie poster of—

“Cas-per the friendly ghost,” Charles reads aloud, trying to get his accent to dissipate. “Huh. What the fuck is that?”

“It’s a movie, idiot.” Pierre shuts his phone off. “Starring who? Christina Ricci.”

“Vraiment? You think his crush is going to show up wearing… a white gown?” Joris asks, his mind stuck on the outfit he’d seen just seconds ago. “This doesn’t make sense.”

“Well Carlos and I agreed, so. Two to two. And Carlos says she and her friends always wear silly costumes like these. So if she shows up as Christina, what better way to start conversation than to dress up as Casper?”

Charles’ eyes widen with comical horror. “No. No, no, no. Did the ghost and the kid fuck?”

“No!” The two men across him yell in unison.

“Right!” He gesticulates. “So it’s not a couples’ costume!”

“But it’s still—” Pierre pauses. “It still matches. Trust me on this one, mate.” He smiles. “We even brought the supplies.”

—

The party is a hit as soon as Charles and his group enter. The former finds refuge at the table, unwilling to socialize. Pierre roams for a bit and ends up finding you almost immediately—you’re wearing low-waisted pants, a strappy top, and you sport alternating streaks of blond and black in your hair.

“Hey!” He calls, jogging up to you. “I heard you were coming as a Christina. Guess who I am?”

You rake a hand through the streaks in your hair and smile. “Not just any Christina. The artist. Xtina? You know?” You twirl a bit, the dark material of your strappy pants swishing as you go, as if the movement will help Pierre deduce the costume’s identity. “Whatever. You’ll get it. Lando is—we’re matching tonight, but I g—it wouldn’t make any more sense if you don’t understand it.” You sigh a bit and gesture vaguely to the crowd behind you, referring to the Eminem-dressed Lando, who you guess is currently caught in the thick of.

“Xtina?” Iks-tina, he repeats, clearly confused. “I remember hearing… somebody saying you were going as a… a Christina.”

“Chris-tina, Xtina, yeah. Christina Aguilera.” You smile, fingers pinching at the material of your belt. “Anyway—where is everyone? I’ve only seen Daniel’s costume and then yours.” The recent memory of Danny’s neon orange traffic cone costume bumping into everybody flashes in your mind.

“Save yourself,” he huffs, smoothing calloused hands over the denim of his jeans. “Zhou and Esteban came as Bella and Jacob, Max as a Tifosi. Anyway”—he points to his ensemble—“guess yet?”

Your mental images of each cited costume are cut short. “Aha! You’re, um. Yes! You’re Ken from the Barbie movie,” you crack finally, remembering the revealing denim vest and jeans combo from the film you’d watched four times over in theaters a few months ago. “Wow, even your briefs say Ken. Very accurate. Minus the non-bleached hair.”

He tuts and shrugs. “I’m no Alex. What’d he come as?”

“He and Lily matched—Sonny and Cher.”

“Let me guess,” Pierre starts, and already you’re nodding because you can tell he’s going to predict exactly how the night has turned out, “Alex is Cher?”

“Wig and sequined dress and all.” You nod, laughing and squinting; Alex’s tall figure, head clad in a long, fringey, black wig, stands out above the rest. “Oh, I did see Carlos at the bar. Ricky Martin?”

Pierre really laughs at that, a loud, distinctly French guffaw involuntarily forced past his lip glossed mouth. “What the fuck, mate! Ricky Martin?! He’s El Profesor from La Casa de Papel. You know, Money Heist? Bella ciao? Oh, my God, he’s going to fucking freak if he hears—heard you said that.”

“He seriously gave off Ricky Martin vibes,” you defend in-between laughs of your own. “So that’s everyone? Oh—oh. Charles! What did… I never saw him! He kept telling me how excited he was for his costume, too…” Just a few hours ago, at that—a boisterous voice honing into the your voicemail inbox, boasting about a costume while you prepped for the party with Lissie and Lily. Your eyes peruse the room, but the lighting is too dark and vague for you to make out anything you haven’t already seen.

“Oh. Charles?” Pierre’s voice lilts higher. “Um. Yeaaah. Um.”

You, however, are sufficiently distracted by your own search for him, and you fail to notice Pierre’s clear scrambling attempt to stall you. He takes a long swig of beer and clears his throat. “He’s just, well, around. I should actually—excuse me, I need to actually go look for him. I owe him a drink.”

“Oh? Oh, okay. Well—be careful?”

You’re a bit surprised by his sudden, jolted departure, but bid him a rushed goodbye anyway. He waves back vaguely, his eyebrows furrowed into an expression of worry as he shoves his way back into the crowd and toward the area littered with tables. It’s only then that Lissie surfaces from the crowd, scratching absently at her nose as she crashes into you with a floaty giggle.

“Lis, you’re all sticky.” You place two palms flat against her shoulders and push her off. “Are you high?” 

“Yes but not drunk.” She giggles again, eyes fluttering.

“Oh—that’s not. Whatever, I guess.” You exhale and cross your arms over your chest. “Who’ve you been with?” She listens, plays with the braid in her hair, matching her getup as Lara Croft. 

“Um, the deejay. I gave him my number, but he’s actually pretty fucking weird. Come on, I want to pee.” As always, her speech quickens to something inhuman, an effect elicited by alcohol; giving you essentially zero time to react, she loops a hand around yours and drags you with ferocity to the nearest restroom. She moves so aggressively through the thickly-packed crowd you barely have time to react or say hi to people you’re acquainted with en route.

You whiz by the door, and in the rush, you notice Pierre entering the one adjacent with a worried expression etched onto his face. Just minutes ago you’d been conversing—you wonder why he’s suddenly become privy to worries.

“So the deejay,” says Lissie, effectively distracting you for the time being. You hum to signify you’re listening, fixing bits of your outfit in the mirror as she kicks different stalls open to judge their cleanliness. “One, he was dressed up as James Bond. Which is just about the most fucking pretentious thing ever. Two, all he played was Chainsmokers. You’re telling me this pub—club—whatever—in Mexico could only afford to commission this guy? Three, he was”—she kicks the last door open and a gasp escapes her and morphs into a semi-shriek—“a ghost?!”

“Ghosted you? Already?” Your eyes, focused previously on re-lining your lips, flits to Lissie’s in the reflection. She’s distracted, staring at the contents of a stall with comically wide eyes. “What’s up? S’that a fucking glory hole or something?”

“No!” She yells when you approach, immediately lunging forward to pull it shut. “No. It’s—I saw a roach. Serves us for going to a fucking… pub. Don’t go in there, it’s…” She exhales a long breath. “It was a mama roach and… with eggs.”

“What are you talking about?” This isn’t even a pub, it’s a nightclub—one with a door fee that definitely did not warrant rogue cockroaches in the water closet. “Lis, you’re drunk-hallucinating.” You’re not even sure if that’s a thing, but you shove past her and push the stall door open again, ready to come face-to-face with, maybe, a sleeping Tinkerbell or a puking black cat. Worst case scenario, shit on the floor; worst-er case scenario, Lissie is right and you’ve stepped into a den of roaches.

Weirdest case scenario, though, if that’s an actual thing: Charles Leclerc seated on the closed toilet seat, face painted white, wearing an all-white ensemble of a large white shirt, shorts, high socks, and sneakers. He’s got two hands on either side of the wall, as if he’d been preparing to escape; how or to where, you’re clueless. Why he’s here, you’re even more stumped.

His entire face is a stark white, with black smudges of face paint on his forehead (eyebrows, you’re guessing); his hair’s been curled by the humid air at this club, and he looks like himself in all the ways he totally does not, eyes big and caught when yours click onto them. 

Despite confusion, you chalk it up, as one would rationally do at a party, to intoxication. You spend a few bated breaths staring at him staring at you, his face of pure shock and embarrassment enough to sober up a drunk for a few days. “Hi.” You can hear yourself say it, but you’re so caught off-guard and full of confusion it feels alien.

“Hey,” he says, wiping four fingers over his stubborn face paint with a smile. The smile and the paint barely fade. “I’m a ghost.”

“I see. Classic.” You pause. “I’m Chr… nevermind. Um—are you okay?”

“A bit, uh—a tad bit drunk. I seem to be in the ladies’ room.”

“Yeah, you seem to be,” you recite back to him, amusement quickly overtaking confusion. “I think Pierre was looking for you. Let me go get him. Lis, make sure he doesn’t…” You gesture a puking movement, and the pair watch and listen to your shoes click against the tile, before the door swings open and then shut again.

“Coast is clear.” Lissie’s voice has been lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “I reckon everyone you know is already looking for you?”

“This is a disaster.” He rubs frantically at the face paint, but it’s horribly futile. “You know, I didn’t even realize I was in the ladies’ room until you two came in. She cannot see me like this.”

“She already fucking has, mate.” Lissie sounds exasperated. “Whose idea was this? If you say Pierre I swe—”

“—Pierre—”

“—ar to Jesus fucking Christ, Charles—I can’t keep saving you from Pierre’s antics.” She grumbles out a sigh. “What are you supposed to be, even? Have you—did you see how hot she looks? This is like… you look like a… I can’t—” She lets herself taper off, so disbelievingly shocked at his odd costume.

“I’m Casper the Ghost!” Lissie mentally forms a crude picture of the kid ghost, which looks absolutely nothing like what’s in front of her. “Casper was opposite Christina Ricci. Pierre told me so.”

“That’s the dumbest analogy ever, holy Christ. You look like a poster child for some…” She regards him for a moment. “Anemia advert.”

“Take that back.”

“You don’t really have the upper hand here, Charles,” says Lissie with a grimace. “I’m texting Pierre. Are you—did you even get drunk?”

“No,” he woes. “I am totally sober. I had to lie. Pierre went to the table and told me that my—that the costume we planned—it was wrong, and I just—I ran to the bathroom.” Lissie can’t help but laugh at the story, raising her camera to record the incriminating evidence.

Mid-video, Charles’ white face droops and his painted lips part to ask: “You think she found me cute?”

—

Charles likes finding things about you. He supposes the first time he realized just how much he liked hearing you talk about yourself—which you rarely did—happened in São Paulo. He’d been stressing over a spiel to recite in front of a camera, rewriting over words for hours to make everything sound more natural.

Each margin had been hastily written on with pencil, run-on sentences with semicolons in the place of periods. The team scriptwriter didn’t do much to make his lines sound more natural and less like they’d just been spat out of an online translator. You peeked into the media pen and coughed. You don’t belong here, do you?

Tch, he clicked his tongue, turning to offer a smile. I’m working on a script for Sunday. Portugese stuff.

I can help, you responded, walking slowly over toward him. You smiled quietly, approaching slowly like you were waiting for him to greenlight your offer. He did so by pulling a chair out for you, and once you sat you traced a nail over each line, murmuring them under your breath.

You speak Portugese?

You looked up and gave a half-shrug, laughing like you were amused with yourself. Kind of. It’s not very good, but it’s enough. You resumed your editing and he felt content to stare, admire, watch every movement of your lips align with the syllables of the words. You asked for a pencil and began writing something much cleaner. He couldn’t help but let himself be in awe of your intelligence.

You read over the last few lines and turned to face him. Let me guess, you said. You want to make a pun on Ferrari before you say bye.

Ah, he laughs. Yeah.

See, I know you so well, you half-joked, scrawling idle edits on the margins of his script.

He was already looking at you when you turned back to him, seeking his response, agreement, anything. When your eyes met, something caught at your chest—it tugged, tugged, then tugged again, a dull feeling burrowed deep in you. Words failed to wrench themselves free, but once they did, all you could manage was a faint—What?

Nothing. He smiled and shook his head, like he was waiting for you to figure it out. You know… sometimes, I wish I met you sooner. He does. He wishes he knew you back then, when you first learned Portugese. Or when you were in high school, so you could see just how exponentially awkward he was in his own teenage years. He thinks sometimes that he’s lost too much time, met and liked you too late.

Hm, you breathed out, because you didn't know what else to. I know why—so you could always have me. As a proofreader. Right?

Hah. The tilt of his laugh was high and mocking, and he stuck his tongue out, as if to punctuate that. He looked away then, like he wasn’t ready to say certain things to your face just yet. Quietly he added, Always have you… something like that.

—

If you ask Charles what he’s doing hiding in a laundry basket of a luxury hotel in São Paulo, he wouldn’t be able to answer you, either. It’s been some time since the disaster that was Caspergate Cancun 2023, and if he’s perfectly honest, he doesn’t feel like facing you again for the rest of his life. Pierre, of course, has other plans. 

All he knows is last night, Pierre suggested he leave a huge vase of roses for you to arrive to in the living room of your hotel; as he planted it in said room, the door’s lock turned, and he sought a hiding place in the adjacent bedroom. Judging by the prevalent scent of Dior Sauvage, this is Lando Norris’ room.

Did u get to escape??? Pierre’s text irritates him. At the same time, the light flips on; Charles curls in on himself, remaining perfectly still. Lando’s voice trills through the room. “I didn’t leave those roses for either of you,” he’s saying to you and Lissie.

Charles hears you hum. “They’re so beautiful.” His heart swells. “I gotta run for a sec, pick up something from Will’s room.” A few seconds pass and the door opens and shuts, which means Charles is currently alone with Lando and Lissie. Which means he needs to plot his escape as soon as he can. Otherwise he’ll be caught in the crossfire and much too embarrassed to—

A foot meets his concealed body and he lets out an oof! as he’s sent flying out of the hamper, along with strewn-around clothes. He keeps his eyes screwed shut, scared shitless and in a fetal position; he only unfurls when a socked foot kicks at his ass. Above him are Lando and Lissie, both extremely confused. 

“How did you know I was…?!” He asks, aghast.

“My fucking laundry was breathing, mate, s’not that hard to leave alone,” Lando retorts sharply. “What are you doing?!”

“I left roses for her,” he explains fruitlessly, gesturing to the vase outside. “But you came in, and this was the closest hiding place. I was told this would be a great gesture.”

“Right. Where did you even get that advice?” Lando tries to suppress the critical tone in his voice, but judging by Charles’ embarrassed grimace, he’s failed. Beside him, Lissie makes a hm? noise, goading Charles to answer quicker.

“I got it from.” Charles pauses. “A friend,” he ekes out vaguely.

“No shit. Who?”

“Um—” Charles’ eyes are shut. “Pierre.”

In unison, Lissie and Lando both release incredulous gasps, throwing their hands up in the air. Lissie points at the mess of clothes in the corner of the room to emphasize her point and asks loudly, with comical cynicism: “This seemed like proper romantic advice to you?”

“Scratch that. Pierre’s words seemed like proper romantic advice to you? His girlfriend is—!” Lando places a flat palm a few inches off the floor and shakes it a few times to insinuate Kika’s age, his disbelieving expression growing funnier by the second. “Mate!” His voice cracks mid-syllable, though even this mishap seems to be the least crazy thing about tonight.

Charles, burning with humiliation, releases a shaky sigh. “I know! I know!”

“You don’t know!” They shout simultaneously in response, disappointed if anything. Just then the door opens again and your two best friends hurry to throw assorted pieces of laundry on the lying Charles, exiting to make sure you don’t suspect anything. 

“Hey,” you say slowly, because they’re both posed the exact same. “Am I… missing something?”

“A shower, girl,” Lando says, and you flip him off before retreating into your room.

Belatedly you ask, “Did you find out who sent those flowers?”

“Some loser, probably,” he calls right back. Charles emerges to poke him accusatorily, but Lando just shrugs. Charles definitely does not have the upper hand here, anyway. 

“Just get out,” Lissie says, completely done with Charles’ antics. “And stop. Listening. To Pierre.” 

He rinses the odor of laundry off him once he’s at his room, but thinks, despite himself, that you called the flowers beautiful.

—

Are you—

—no. I’m not. You wiped a hand over your face and caught mascara along with it. I’m fine, it’s fine.

What he said, it wasn’t…

I said, you turned to face him, eyes rimmed and mouth trembling. You didn’t finish your sentence, just tore the microphone off your lapel and buried your face in your hands. There was always going to be a first time. Your first time insulted on a live feed, after the Abu Dhabi weekend, was not any less shocking. You felt small. You felt humiliated.

You didn’t want to show Charles any of it. You moved around the green room, picking up shit to throw into your bag. Thank God the season was fucking over, you kept thinking. I feel so, you said, still failing to finish anything you started to say. You’d been called an annoying bitch by a fan of one of the drivers—to your face, as you exited the paddock.

He moved nearer. Charles, you said, a half-sob, and then you were allowing him to crash, allowing him to hug you. Your arms were weak when they wrapped back around him, linking softly in the small of his back. You sobbed hard into his chest until his grey tee was dark with tears. I want out, I just want out.

You’ll lord your career over that prick when you’ve made a million dollars doing this, he said. You do it too well to want out. You’re too smart. You’re too good. You cried harder, your face hurt and every word felt wrestled unintentionally, like it took too much work to say much at all. I’m sorry, you said. You should go. 

No, he said. He held you closer. Not until you feel better.

—

He cries after Abu Dhabi. Bad season, everyone’s said. You snap a few smiling pictures with Max, who wins, and Lily and Lissie and the lot of them, the people who made the year so great. You notice an absence in all the pictures and you find it in a room in the Ferrari motorhome.

You’ve found you both find solace in words. In reassurance. But you’ve also found that your connection enables you both to reassure without having to say anything at all. You sit beside him, lean your head on his shaky shoulder, and wait.

“I was waiting for you to come,” he admits brokenly. “I was just not feeling good.”

“I know,” you respond. “It was a bad race. Shit strat.”

He’s quiet. His breaths are ragged and wet and shaky. “Will you stay? Until I feel better?”

You don’t move. “I’ll stay for longer.”

—

In the kitchen Charles unscrews himself a beer. The sky outside is pink and the sun hides behind faraway mountains, gradually darkening the entire atmosphere, save for the few woolly clouds. He’s by the patio door so he can spot people in the wide yard: Pierre, exchanging a Frisbee with Lando. Max, Alex, and Lissie engaged in an intense match of Uno.

They’re all gathered here in Spain at Carlos’ behest to celebrate the dawn of winter, and the end of the season, Max’s third championship.

He’s yet to spot you—he’d been told earlier you’d be late—but it doesn’t matter. He’s been feeling uncharacteristically himself all day anyway. He wrote that on his notebook this morning, on the flight here, verbatim. Looked up the word to spell it right and everything. He remembers you saying it, that time in London where you and Lando took him around and annihilated Borough Market before lounging on the grassy knoll of a nearby park. I feel so uncharacteristically happy, you’d joked. The syllables were too stunted and too fast for Charles to nail it. But he feels it now. Uncharacteristic.

He tells everyone he’s fine, though, and does a good job of it. Three beers in and he’s beginning to trick himself into thinking he actually is doing fine. Nobody suspects he’s been feeling empty from such a bad finish to the season—the season that was already bad in itself. He hasn’t been feeling his usual drive, his usual appetite. He doesn’t know when it will return.

“Here you are.” Carlos has this goofy smile on his face when he bounds into the kitchen, depositing empty dishes at the sink. “Listen, I have to tell you something.”

Charles and Carlos have always shared an easy dynamic—they’ve both always wanted the same thing. Racing has always been at the forefront of their minds. It makes conversation passionate, easy, fun; it was what helped build their now-natural rapport in the first place. “Yeah?” He prods, leaning against the counter and tipping fizz into his mouth.

“I invited everyone here to announce… something important.” Carlos crosses his arms. “But I wanted you to be the first to know.”

“Me?” Charles knits his eyebrows and smiles. “Wow.” He gulps, cocks his head. “What is it, then? Are you switching teams?”

Carlos’ goofy smile grows. “Isa and I are engaged. I’m retiring next year.”

“You—you’re—” Charles laughs and shuts his eyes all at once. “Oh, my God, mate! Congratulations!” The overload of information isn’t lost on him, but he channels it all into a hug. “Are you really retiring, though? I mean. Wow, this is amazing news—but—”

“I was sure as soon as I asked,” Carlos says squarely, smiling as if he’s conjured an image of Isa’s smiling face (which is likely the case). “As soon as she said yes. As soon as I bought the ring!” He laughs aloud, so overwhelmed with happiness of recalling everything. “I’m so glad you were the first person I told.”

“Besides Lando,” Charles says, because he knows it’s true.

“Besides Lando.” Carlos smiles. “I’m… dios, I’m happy. I always knew I’d have something to look forward to after racing.” They hug again, and then he clambers past Charles and into the patio, where he resumes the façade of being unengaged and still a driver. Left behind, Charles thinks over it himself. What does he have to look forward to after racing? All his life, racing is all that ever existed to him. 

The announcement comes eventually—when it’s dark out, intermittent stars white and twinkly against the black above. Charles has once again turned into a blushy mess because you arrived a few hours prior, wearing a lovely dress and with your hair down in messy waves and you said hi to him earlier without him approaching first. They present a stupid, but very Carlos-and-Isa ring-shaped cake to announce it, and somebody queues up music and everyone’s cheering. Of course everyone’s cheering—it’d be impossible for this announcement to not come with bouts of yelling and cheering and goodbyes to Carlos, who accepts them with glee and—dare he say—excitement.

Charles remembers their first year as teammates, the jokes they’d made about needing to beat the other out. For both of them, he recalls, it’s only ever been the drive to race. He didn’t think Carlos would even entertain the idea of retiring yet. He wonders when he will. The thought of it alone is enough to send a well of anxiety run deep into him—which happens after he congratulates the couple, so he excuses himself to the empty outdoors area to get fresh air back into him.

He didn’t mean it, but he finds you already there. “Hi,” you say when he slides the door shut. “You okay?”

“Just… yeah, I’m fine.” You smell faintly like smoke. “It’s crazy, huh. Everyone’s… moving on.”

“So Carlos told everyone, then,” you say, pursing your lips and waiting for his response. He closes his eyes and lets a soft exhale escape him, warm air out and fresh air in, a welcome change from the heady atmosphere in the party. “I knew. I bought that God awful cake. I kept saying get a normal one but they both wanted it to be shaped like a ring.” You punctuate your sentence with a crisp laugh, a stunted exhale of air to break the tension.

You have a natural sway over words, graceful and beautiful and commanding, something he only wishes he could be. For so long he’d been told the feedback loop of one and the same thing: you’re good. You’re the best. You’re going to be the next big thing. And this season had just… aggravated every single insecurity he’s picked up in his years of racing. He wishes sometimes he’d been told something else: you suck. You’re normal. You’re irrelevant. Then at least he wouldn’t exist in some odd panopticon of feeling on top of the world and yet looking at it from the bottom of a pitch black abyss.

“Yeah,” he says instead, wringing his hands. He mimics the wrist movements he’s made to do during gym hours. “It’s wild how—I mean, not really wild, but. I just can’t… even picture my life after racing.”

“You’re young, that’s warranted,” you laugh. “You’re also… I mean, even if you drop out of racing tonight, it’s not like you’re going to become dirt poor or anything. You could become a bloody orthodontist and people will still love you.”

“Will they?”

He didn’t mean to say it aloud but out it comes, garbled and rushed and he’s a bit embarrassed for sounding like a child in front of somebody he finds so beautiful. The silence is suspended and dry, and for a minute all he hears and feels is the slow rise and fall of his chest. To somehow mend the vulnerability, he tries again. “It’s not—I just think I’ll be lonely if I decide to stop racing.”

The fact that Carlos can say with so much ease that he’s willing to drop his career to ensure his pending marriage lasts is almost terrifying, because Charles knows he wants that. He knows—he’s always known—that he wants that intimacy, that realness, but for it to come at the cost of something he’s known for so long is so scary it’s almost a dealbreaker.

“Lonely?” You echo, voice tinged with concern. “Charles—”

“Lonely.”

He says it with an edge to his voice, so final, so steadfast. Loneliness is what he’s always feared and he knows, with a deep drawling punch to his gut, that loneliness is what will come if he decides to stop racing. Even if he’s tired. Even if he’s so pent up with frustration and loss and anger. Racing is all he’s ever known, it’s all he is—when he’s not tied to it, who is he? “Like no one… like I’m just standing in front of what I’m supposed to be, and when people see me, that’s all they see—what’s behind me. Right through me.”

“Well, you’re off racing right now,” you respond, trodding carefully. “So, well. Do you feel that way?”

He knows what you mean: it’s winter break, so he’s not driving or doing some form of it every single day. And he knows in turn what to answer: no, not really, he doesn’t really feel detached from it because there’s a low anticipation in his belly that tells him he’ll be doing it all again soon. But he chooses to interpret it differently; differently, but not falsely.

“I th… I don’t feel lonely,” he says, “when I talk to you. You see me.” 

Your stomach drops and your heart begins to pulse a mile a minute, knuckles tightening where they’ve gripped onto the wooden post of the patio. You can feel the air in your lungs pass through every divot of your body as it escapes and arrives in long, shaky breaths. He’s looking at you, his eyebrows knitted like he wants—needs an answer, if you’d be kind enough to please give him one. 

“I…” You bite your lip, every thought in your head at odds with the other.

Time feels like rubber, like it’s been stretched and manipulated and Carlos is ducking out to announce that it’s time to blow out candles on the stupid ring-shaped cake and you’ve taken too long to respond and your body feels too heavy but your heart feels too light and your eyes are blinking, open and shut and open again, and you feel like the wind could honestly blow you away now because Charles has given you a neutral nod and left you alone again, to contemplate the weight of what he’s finally, finally admitted, tonight here under the sky of Spain.

You move a hand over your hair, watch him walk away. The words lodge themselves in your throat, but they’re there.

—

One minute after  you realized you liked Charles, you swallowed the feelings until they were barely decipherable.

In happened in Dublin, at a pub on St. Paddy’s Day, when you’d emerged fresh out of a breakup with the most arseholic Irishman you’d ever had the displeasure of meeting. And funnily enough, it happened without Charles’ presence. You’d spent the day at Liam’s, hours of fighting over so many things—the growth of your career and the decimation of his, where your relationship had soured, why you never came to visit him, Charles, the sodding bloke you like so much—until finally, you took your things and left.

Wise, because you might’ve honestly gone insane if you stayed a minute longer, attuning your ears to the deafening feedback loop of his voice. Also decidedly unwise, because you had a piece of luggage and barely any battery, in a full city of people you didn’t know at all.

There was no chance Liam would let you return, and no chance you wanted to, for that matter—the fact still stood, though, that you needed to kill the night before your flight to France left at 6AM. You entered the first pub you heard, deposited your bag at the coat check for an extra couple of euros, and accepted the first pint thrust into your hand and first leprechaun hat plopped atop your head.

In between watching people compare how they poured Guinness pints, Sinead O’Connor songs, and exchanging headdresses with a random stranger, you found yourself impressingly drunk. The Irish did it too well.

A university student stumbled past your stool, tears in her eyes; she stopped to steal a shot of whiskey lying unattended on the bar. You looped a hand around her wrist and stared at her menacingly. Manners?!

Fuck manners, she said wetly, wrenching every word out with great effort. Nobody paid either of you any attention. I just caught my best friend and boyfriend kissing. Her accent was unmistakably Irish and was stronger with the tears.

Oh, you said, loosening your threatening grip. Sorry.

Don’t be. I’m sorry I could ever be so stupid, she said, aghast, before finally stalking outside the pub. Half an hour later, you wound up at a table of thirty-somethings, all belting along to a folky sounding song.

Drunkenly you slurred out, I thought it was a stereotype.

What was, love? One of them paused her singing, dipping down to listen to you properly. Your cheek was smushed against the varnished wood, moving with every syllable you eked out.

The songs. You sound like… you belong in the 19th century.

She laughed at that, surfacing and yelling something to the band onstage you couldn’t quite decipher. The song reached its peak, loud and getting the whole crowd singing along, before fading into a familiar opening. S’this better? She asked, her voice slightly raised above the guitar.

You looked up. I liked the other one too, to be fair. M’not a fucking anti-Irish.

Nobody said that, love. Come sing. She hauled you upward, exaggerating her arm swinging in the air so you’d follow suit, which you did. You hummed the opening, eyes fluttering open and closed. You imagined opening them again and finding Charles across the room, already looking, with the same charming, boyish smile on his face that came to you as comfort.

You thought back to the dinner in London, the feeling of his shirt against your shoulder, the way he’d gotten you so easy and laughing and babbly, something you never got with Liam. You squeezed your eyes shut and exhaled raggedly. Fuck.

Linger’ll do that to you, your companion mused. Around you, the entire pub sang along to the song that served as the backdrop to your all-encompassing romantic epiphany. Missing a lover, huh?

No, just… You opened your eyes, watched the band sing out the rest of the prechorus before they slid into the next verse. A new kind of air had crept over the pub, one that exemplified just how much this song could mean to anyone, no matter who. You shut them again and saw Charles. The green of his eyes, mossy on some days and bright on others. The moles on his face. The grooves of his hand, the way it wrapped around things like pens, mics, bottles, your fingers. His voice, how he curved around words. He always knew exactly what you meant even if it took you ages to get to the point, even if you felt like you didn’t know what you meant exactly. 

You opened your eyes. Suddenly fights with Liam didn’t matter. Whatever little sympathy you had left evaporated as you listened to the lyrics and realized, with a damning force, that you were thinking of Charles. And this was not weak, this was not vague, this was a strong thing that took you off your feet like a gust of wind, hurtling you out of the pub. You thought of every time your eyes met his, both of you already laughing at something else present. Every time he saw you at the end of a busy work day and asked if you were doing alright.

Just this guy, I suppose. His name’s… yeah. We’ve been friends for ages. He’s really very talented. Very kind. Your voice was drowned out by the music but you didn’t intend for anything to be heard, anyway. And he’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. He always knows what to say. He’s not in Dublin tonight, not even in Ireland, for God’s sake. 

He’s your boyfriend, then?

You closed them slowly. No. T’wouldn’t be very smart to date him.

Is he an arse?

No either. It’s just too late.

I’m sorry, love.

Don’t be, you mused, eyes still shut as Linger came to a close. I’m sorry I could ever be so stupid.

—

Charles should be in Monaco. You should be in London. But at four-thirty PM, leaning against the counter of a tiny café in Dublin, you cross paths for the first time in weeks, and everything tilts on its axis.

He notices you first, because he hears you thank the barista quietly. It’s not your reporter voice, not the one you put one when you’re interviewing him or his teammate or his fellow athletes. But it’s your real one, and it’s the one he thinks he could hear through a snowstorm.

A tuxedo-clad man exits and suddenly you’re there. You’re wearing a white top, low neck and thin straps covered by a cardigan. You’re sliding coins into the pocket of your jeans and he watches your hand freeze, drags his eyes back up to you, finds you’re already looking.

You look beautiful, he thinks. You put on a lot of makeup for the cameras, and you looked gorgeous, but seeing you like this—caught, almost, in a moment you didn’t expect to see him—you look unbelievably beautiful. He aches with it. 

“You look well,” he says first when he opens the café door for you. “What’s your business in Ireland?”

“Acquainting myself with my new coworker.” You wait for him to follow and squint when the sun hits your eye. “We’ve been here three weeks, fly back to London next Monday. You?”

“It does seem weird for me to be here,” he observes absently. “I needed a change of pace, I think. Gear up for the season.” He shakes his half-full cup of coffee. “Where are you staying?”

“Just up ahead.” A slow silence overcomes you both. “Come over. I have beer. I know you can’t be fucked to have coffee.” He laughs and nods, following you through the road and up into a flat—a BNB, if he’s guessing. There’s a tiny landing and then stairs to a wider living area, where you proceed to unwrap the croissant you’d gotten a few minutes earlier. You chuck it into the fridge and produce two bottles of beer in one go.

“Sit,” you gesture to the spot beside you, and he sits himself there. “We can talk. We should.”

You’ve shrugged your cardigan off, and he observes every detail of your exposed skin, the way your hair layers atop it. Right as he opens his mouth to respond, a blond girl enters, rings of mascara caking her eyes and a wine glass twiddled in-between thumbs. She’s talking her head off and only pauses when she spots Charles.

“Hhhh…iiii.”

“Salut.” 

“You’re Charles?” She notices how close the two of you are seated together.

“Yes,” he says. 

“Charles, this is Robyn—my coworker’s friend. And by extension my friend.” You pat her knee and point to Charles to get them properly introduced. “She leeches off the apartment.” 

“You love me,” she retorts, mockingly—but sweetly. “Anyway, sorry to intrude. I was just on the phone with my situationship.” She rolls her eyes. “Does he think I give two shits about goodnight texts? It feels impossible to be romantically satisfied these days.”

Charles grunts. “I hear that,” he says, just to make Robyn feel less excluded. You get up then, to fuck around at the kitchen sink—he suspects you’re not actually doing chores—but you come back with wet hands and you sit yourself across Charles, on the loveseat, instead of next to him. 

“The thing is, right,” she gulps wine, “there’s such a thing with dating now,” Robyn says, not missing a beat, her Geordie accent curving round the syllables with a distinctive twang. She stares at the opaque red liquid in her glass, like that will supplement her with more words. “Like a deal. A big deal. Everyone’s making this huge thing out of it, and it’s like, can’t we be in our twenties and fuck around occasionally?” She laughs, a high-pitched, tapered noise.

You shift from where you’re seated, buried into the material of the seat. It’s quiet and beginning to touch awkward, so you speak in a rough voice: “I dunno, I kind of… get it.”

“Oh do you, now,” she responds, voice saturated with wine. “No, it’s—I was joking. Of course you would, you’re absolutely fucking gorgeous, is all.”

Suddenly you feel all too seen and inclined to touch a fingertip to your cheek, feather light. You blink so you won’t feel tempted to meet Charles’ eyes, because you feel them on you. “It’s—thank you, I mean. It’s nothing to do with that. I just always feel it’s impossible to find someone who loves you. I feel like I’m not very lovable.”

“You? You’re bloody fucking likable!” Robyn’s laugh is so disbelieving you find yourself semi-convinced. “You’re a bit intimidating, yeah, but you’re lovable as fuck, babe.”

You double down anyway, voice thin. “Right. I don’t think I’m very good at being… affectionate.”

“Hah. Bull. You’re affectionate with… with Charles! I’ve heard you talk about him to Jane.”

She turns to Charles before you have the chance to defend yourself. To him she asks: “Is she affectionate with you?”

But it’s basically rhetorical. Everyone speculates, sees the way you two bend the line between friendship and romance, the care with which you treat Charles, the way you two understand each other in ways impossible for anyone else in your orbit. Fuck if it’s not overtly physical. Robyn’s known you three weeks and has never even met Charles until seven minutes ago and already she’s sensed the energy, the difference, even if she hasn’t seen you do so much as embrace.

“It’s—” You say and say too quickly. You wind up slowing your speech so you don’t sound too defiant and lean backwards, willing yourself to relax. “It’s… different with Charles.”

“Different?” She repeats, miming every dip and rise of your voice. “Why?”

“We’re close.” You refuse to meet his eyes. “Be—because we’re good friends. I feel… things are… just. They’re different. That’s all, really.” Barely satisfied with the answer you eked out, you cross your arms over your torso like it’ll help shield you from the interrogation going on. Briefly you let your eyes fall on Charles; he’s reclined, eyes all over the place, blinking in quick flashes.

“But you admit it, at least?” She smiles. “That you’re affectionate, I mean.”

“Only with…” you taper off, unwanting to dig yourself a deeper hole. “Right. Sure, yeah.”

“Well then,” she says, eyebrows raising as she dows the rest of her glass. She sets it down on the low wooden table with a clink. “I’ll get going. Don’t let me keep you two from shagging or whatever.”

“We don’t f—shag,” you interrupt, voice sharp. “And you’re not keeping us at all. Me, at all.”

Us sounds so exclusive, you realize as it leaves your lips. Us. It tastes like sour cherries on your tongue, bleeds all over. Robyn gives you a look. In response, you insist on seeing her out, leaving Charles at the sofa, elbows on his knees, hands toying with the neck of the beer bottle. He can make out faint words but he doesn’t try translating or deciphering them, just listens to your muffled voice peek through every few words. You sound amused, also accused, also endeared—a bit irritated. You end it with a laugh.

You clamber back in after a few minutes and find him at the top of the stairs.

“Sorry,” you wave off, rolling your eyes to fend Robyn’s earlier interrogation efforts of. “She’s very strong-willed.” You climb the stairs, your striped linen shorts folding with every movement of your legs. Finally you make it to the top, on the second-to-the-last stair, staring up at him.

“You know,” he says, watching you ascend to the top finally, but you’re still staring upward. “You should know.”

“Should know what?”

“I missed you.”

You inhale and are grateful to find the air is all him. “I missed you, too.”

“In a different way.”

“Me, too,” you echo again, voice quiet. “I missed you. It feels like I’ve missed you all my life.”

He can hear your still, controlled breathing. “Thank you for seeing me. Even when, you know, it’s… hard. You know what I mean.”

“I do,” you say. “It’s never difficult, not…” With you.

He leans down and captures your mouth in his then, like it’s a thirst he’s always needed quenched. You allow it, kiss him back like you’ve needed this your entire life. His lips are chapped, but you don’t mind—Dublin’s cold. He kisses like he’s smiling, like he’s happy, and you think maybe that’s not far off. He moves downward, to your jaw; lower, along the column of your throat, around your collarbones, cornering you against the wall, letting you lean against it.

Charles’ kisses are light and soft, but also heavy, like he’s trying to waste as little time as possible. You sigh, feeling light, feeling ecstatic. He puts two hands on either side of your face, presses your foreheads together, and shuts his eyes. 

You feel the divots of his fingers on your hip, your waist, places he’s never touched before. “I’m sorry I left,” you breathe into him. “Back in Spain. In Madrid. I wanted to think about it. About what you said. About everything, about you.”

“I’m glad I found you here, then.”

You tiptoe to kiss him again, because now that you’ve had it once you’re terrified you won’t have it again. In-between kisses he picks you up, cages you fully against the wall, and you breathe shaky little exhales. It builds up quicker and harder; you feel his cock at your hip and shiver, eyelashes fluttering. “Upstairs,” you say breathlessly.

He likes knowing you want this, because he’ll give you whatever you want. He’d fuck you for hours. Have you shaking, eking out moans of his name. He’d whisper praise up and down your ear. He wants this just as much, if not more.

“I want you, so much,” you exhale when he lies you both down on your bed. “So much.”

He tugs your shorts off, then your panties. He doesn’t usually lack self-restraint, but he thinks he’s never felt this much temptation in his life. He’s so hard. He brings one hand to his thigh and squeezes his dick through his pants, but it doesn’t provide him with any kind of relief. You’re needy already, whimpering, mind dizzy. He slides a finger up your slit and watches you screw your eyes shut.

Slowly he sinks in, watches you accustom to the stretch. “Wanted this,” you breathe out.

He thrusts in further, feels your warm cunt stretch around him, feels your breaths get hotter and quicker against his lips. But he takes it nice and slow, so he can feel every little ridge inside of you as you take all of him. “You like it?”

You nod, too dumbed down to speak. “Good girl. Pretty, pretty girl.”

He’s wanted this for so long, fucking you deep and slow and desperate. He thrusts harder, watches you unravel and your hot breaths pick up in pace. He reaches down, smears wetness around your clit as your thighs begin to shake. Your pretty, flushed face is enough to send him into overdrive, your eyes rolling back as he goads you into orgasm.

You’re still cumming around him when he takes a shaky breath, pulls you tightly back against him, and lets the pleasure take over. He fucks you full, rides his orgasm out while you ride yours out—buries his dick all the way inside, so each spurt fills your contracting pussy up.

He pulls out and collapses beside you, pressing his lips to your shoulder before lying on his back. “I’ll clean you up in a minute.” It’s quiet for a second, just you two breathing.

Then: “I did, I did think about it,” you say, voice reedy. “I thought about you.”

“Yeah?” He watches you blink at the ceiling, lets you clasp your hands onto his.

“About me, too.” You open your eyes and stare into the green.

“D’you want this?”

“Believe me,” you say, threading your fingers into his tightly. Your hair’s fussed from the sex. “I do. But—”

His heart drops.

“I don’t want to… I want you to not…” You sigh. “You know, I like seeing you. I like being that. I like knowing I make you feel good. And I want you to know you… you make me feel amazing. Like you and I… we understand each other.” You pause. “Sometimes I feel like you’re the only person who understands every inch of me.”

“Ditto,” he says, and you smile.

“I look up to you, you know? I don’t want you to anchor yourself onto me. I want you to realize that on your own. You’re smart. You’re a great driver with a shitty fucking team I hated reporting on last season.” He laughs shakily. “You know I look up to you. You know… you know I love you.”

“I do. I love you.”

“I always have. It wasn’t… it didn’t always make itself clear, but I always have. And I know I always will.” You smile. “We’ll be in different cities, in separate timezones, but if we survived the years of not telling each other how bloody fucking much we liked each other, this is nothing. When we’ve sorted ourselves out, we’ll know the right time to finally call this what it is.”

He’s never thought of himself as a writer, but his notebooks might beg to differ. Many times you’ve told him yourself that he has an affinity for describing things, especially when he lets go of language as a limitation. He wonders what you’d say if you knew the amount of times he’s tried to write about you. Careful letters or typefaces, in an effort to form a coherent picture of you, the way he sees you, the way he loves you. But he’s so scared he tears the pages off before they get too intimate, too personal, crossing the border from having a crush on you to being in love with you.

For once he’s not. He nods. It’s bittersweet, but it’s a segue to a better ending. He moves a hand over your hair and holds you close.

“You could never be unlovable,” he says, pressing a kiss to your forehead because finally, he can. “I mean it.”

#f1 #charles leclerc #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc imagines #charles leclerc drabble #charles leclerc smut #f1 x reader

[i-hate-accidents]

i hate accidents: the beginning

femme!reader x benedict bridgerton, femme!reader & the bridgerton family, femme!reader & penelope featherington

summary:  the adventures of a working class femme who befriends a fellow writer, a boisterous family, and a bewitching second eldest son

sections:  I. the beginning / II. the between / III. the ball

y/n:  bipoc, she/her, afab, nonbinary femme, queer, working class, of immigrant parents

content warnings:  classism, mentions of financial survival, microaggressive sexism, microaggressive gender assumption, positive/supportive families, allusions to alcohol abuse in [I.viii]

word count:  13.9k (of 38.8k)

story context:  everything in s1 and s2 of the tv series is canon for this story except for the s2 epilogue with the bridgertons.  this story takes place leading up to and into the 1815 season. 

additional notes:  this story is incomplete. scenes that are not written are described in chevrons <> with third person pov or are delineated by isolated ellipses. additionally, the author has only watched s2!  she has not watched any of s1 aside from clips, and they have not read the books aside from quotes used in edits.  they have not yet watched queen charlotte.  the author kinda knows the gist of an offer from a gentleman; they are familiar with sophie beckett (and are excited to meet her/them in the tv series!).

author’s note:  this is the first time the author has written fanfic in 13-15 years.  :)  it is her hope that they have made some progress since her pre/teens.  additionally, this fanfic has been written, on and off, over the course of two years.  the author sincerely hopes you find some sort of joy in it, especially the readers who maybe hope to see themself a little more specifically in the world we so love.

reading tip: whilst the author is proud of it, she understands the intro to the first section is long. if you wish to get more straight to y/n and benedict's story, the author suggests jumping to [I.ii]. they won't be offended that you did heh.

𝄆 ⚘ ✸ I.i ✸ ⚘ 𝄇

you do not know how you got here.

well, that is not true; you quite literally walked from the markets and followed the directions that penelope had given you, but you did not think those directions would lead you here.

this is a mistake.  i must have taken a wrong turn, gone up instead of down, made a left when i should’ve taken a right. 

or perhaps this is a dream?  yes!  that has to be it!  a dream!  i must have lulled off and dreamt myself here, for whatever reason.  once i close my eyes and open them again, surely i will be at home, or the markets, or the workshop even.  surely!  

so, you close your eyes shut.

you had been walking about the markets on your non-work day, some weeks ago, browsing the wares you wouldn’t (and couldn’t) buy, eavesdropping on any conversation of intrigue, observing the bustle of the crowd going about their day, mindlessly thinking of the next thing to write, daydreaming—when you had collided with someone.  they had let out a squeak, their materials flying out of their hands, as you had fallen on your back, thankfully not hitting your head.  in your periphery, you had seen how the person had crawled to your side and looked at you with urgency and concern.

“i am so sorry!”  their voice was pretty.  sweet and lovely.  you lifted yourself up a bit to see the person you had collided with.  they were also pretty— beautiful, red-haired, and hooded in blue.  

their eyes widened.

“er, i meant,” they spoke again, but this time with an— irish accent?  their voice was still sweet and lovely but very distinctly irish and distinctly different from their voice mere moments before. “are you hurt?”

“i am all right, thank you.”

“very well,” they said, still in their irish accent, “then i must be going—”  and they shot themself up and turned, you assumed, to run away.

“wait!  you’re a writer, yes?”

as you had hoped, the person in blue froze.  they slowly turned to you again, apprehension and intrigue in their eyes.

“how do you know?”  their voice was mangled between their two accents.

“unless you pluck birds for fun,” you stated as you collected the scattered materials they had dropped in the collision, “these are quills.”

you stood up, approached them, and held out their quills to take, offering a smile.  the stranger took the quills and put them in their bag.  they returned their eyes to you and returned your smile.

“thank you,” they responded in their english accent.

“i know how precious those are, so i am very glad to see they won’t go to waste.  well, they wouldn’t have gone to waste either way; i would’ve taken them if you hadn’t turned around.”

that caused the person in blue to laugh.

“i assume you are a writer?” they inquired.

you don’t know what had overcome you; you don’t know why you had been so trusting of this stranger, especially with something such as your writing, but you had been. you reached for your then most recent, folded up quarto, kept between your bosom and your blouse, and offered it to the stranger to read.  they took it, shifted their eyes from line to line, turned it to read the crossed lines, and then looked up at you, beaming.

“this is brilliant!— oh, forgive me; i did not even ask for your name.”

“y/n,” you extended your hand.  “and you?”

the stranger seemed to stiffen but quickly relaxed themself, taking your hand in theirs and shaking them.  they beamed still, but something of their smile had grown quietly mischievous.

“can you keep a secret?”

when you open your eyes, you huff out a breath in a poor attempt to assuage yourself from the reality of your situation:  you are not dreaming.  here you are—you—at grosvenor square.  

you knew of your friend’s circumstances as she had shared it:  she is a noble lady, a third sister of the featherington family, who has been writing scandal sheets of high society’s romps and happenings since her ‘debut,’ as she had put it (you hadn’t understood how she had used that word and became further confused upon her explanation of it), under a pseudonym called lady whistledown.  penelope has been kind enough to let you read her sheets, and you find it ridiculous what these high society persons do for their lives and utterly brilliant with what wit, snark, and compassion even penelope commentates on that world.  

but you did not ever, ever think that she would bring you to it, let alone into it.  when penelope had said that you were to meet her most beloved friend, you had thought it would be in an obscure alley or a room hidden behind a bookcase in an unassuming shop—not the literal neighborhood in which she, and presumably her friend, lives!  by your posture, by your clothes, by your very existence, it is blatant how much you do not belong here.

i should run.  i am going to run.

and so you turn and start—

“y/n!”

—when you hear the sweet voice of your friend.  you scrunch your eyes closed, inhaling and exhaling through your nose, and turn around and see penelope in a picturesque green dress, lifting up her skirt with gloved hands, scurrying down the pavement of her neighborhood towards you, beaming.  despite the anxiety that rages within you at this very moment, your heart swells upon seeing your friend in such enthusiastic spirits, and you smile despite yourself.

“good day, pen.”

she takes hold of your bare hands in her gloved ones and gives them a squeeze.  perhaps she can discern your nerves because you start to feel yourself calm ever so slightly by her gesture.

“i am so glad you are here,” she says.

“i am—— glad to see you,” you then lower your voice.  you do not know why; it is not as if your lowered voice will help conceal your existence in this place.  “are you certain i am permitted to be here?”

letting go of your hands, penelope swats at the question.

“the bridgertons and i care not about such things.”

“the— bridgertons?” 

“yes!” she turns and gestures to the grand brick house with wisterias.  “it is at their home, after all, in which we will be spending our time together.”

your jaw drops.

“we are staying inside the house?  not simply meeting outside the house?”

this is not a dream.  this is a nightmare.

penelope returns her eyes to yours, and it startles you with what tenderness she gazes at you.

“i understand that you are fearful, y/n.  i had presumed you would not have come if you had known we would be here.  but i would not have led you to bridgerton house if i did not think you would be safe here.  the bridgertons are the most inviting, kindly family of the ton— of high society,” she amends upon seeing your confusion at the word ‘ton.’  their name for their world, it seems.  “eloise has assured me that we shall be in her bedchamber for the entirety of our time together.  and if you wish to leave, for any reason, at any point, i shall accompany you, and we shall leave together.”

with closed eyes you heave a sigh through your nose.  you flutter your eyes open and offer penelope a weak, but sincere, smile.

“very well.”

penelope squeaks in excitement, taking hold of your hand once more, giving it another squeeze of encouragement, and leads you towards this bridgerton house as she so called it.  she raps at the stately door thrice with great eagerness, seeming to knock in perfect tandem with your beating-too-quickly heart.

an elderly man opens the door, about to greet penelope and her guest, when a young femme shoves herself through the opening.

“thank you, giles!” she calls out as if the man is across the road and then looks at you, ferocity in her eyes.  it ought to unnerve you, the whirlwind force of this stranger, but it doesn’t.  you just return her gaze with a large, albeit a bit bemused, smile.

“penelope has shared so much about you,” the stranger states and takes hold of your hand.  “let us get inside!” and yanks you into the house.  she turns, looking straight ahead, and barrels forward, pulling you with her.

as the fiery femme seems to soliloquize excitedly to herself, you look back at penelope who merely wears an amused smile at her friend’s antics as she follows behind.

“oh!” the femme exclaims suddenly.  she halts you both and sharply turns to you, still gripping your hand, grinning.  “my name is eloise.  eloise bridgerton.”

“y/n y/l/n.”

“excellent.  now!  with introductions all sorted—”

and she turns and barrels you both right, rather than heading straight ahead to the grand staircase as you had presumed she would.

“eloise—” eloise’s fervency had provided a reprieve to your anxiety, but the confusion in penelope’s voice puts you back ill at ease, “where are you—”

“it’ll take just a moment, worry not, pen!”

eloise leads you down a hall, noises and voices of all sorts coming from an entrance to a room, growing louder and louder as you approach until they reach the peaks of their volume as eloise halts you both once more, to your mortification, at the entrance of that very room.

“family, penelope, y/n, and i shall be in my bedchamber.  we have much to discuss.  please do not bother us,” eloise proudly announces to the entirety of the room.

silence falls.  all eyes—and there are many eyes—are on you.

oh, my god.

you turn to penelope.  her overall manner is calm and composed, but you can see the disquiet in her eyes.  she peers into you, the apologetic look conveying, i did not know this would happen.

you turn back to the family.  

a lady.  a lady of older age.  two gentlemen with a difference in age.  a boy.  a girl, the youngest amongst them.  

how is it with a house this massive in the middle of the city that the entire family is present in this one room?  well, the room is the size of the two floors of your home combined, if not larger, so in that sense it is sound—but your question still stands.

this has to be the entire family.  surely.  there are so many of them.  this has to be the entire family.  yes?

“no talking, no music playing, no fighting?” inquires a droll voice walking into the room, “has someone—” 

you turn your head to follow the source of the voice and make contact with dumbfounded ocean eyes.   

butterflies flutter in your stomach.

oh.

shit.

“y/n, this is my second eldest brother, benedict bridgerton,” eloise states.  “benedict, this is my friend, y/n y/l/n.  do not bother us once we are in my bedchamber.”

he stares and blinks at you but then assumes a gentlemanly posture and bows his head.

“it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, miss y/l/n.”

without any forethought you start to extend a hand to benedict until you hear penelope give a slight cough only you, she, eloise, and he can hear.  receiving the hint, you retract your hand and pretend to swat at your skirt.

“err— yes.  likewise.” 

another cough. 

“mis, ter?— brid… ger?—ton,” you articulate with complete and utter uncertainty of how this world’s introductions function.

he cocks his head and furrows his eyebrows at you, something like amusement playing at his features.  he wears a lopsided smile that he is barely attempting to conceal.  his expression should be infuriating.  and it is.  but, it is... charming, too.  and welcomed.

you have never felt more embarrassed or more pleased in your life.

shit.

“before the three of you retreat to eloise’s bedchamber,” declares an authoritative voice, breaking your reverie.  you turn away from ocean eyes and see the lady of the room approaching you.  much to your surprise, she smiles.  to an even greater surprise, her smile seems sincere.  “i must insist that i introduce myself and the rest of the family to our guest.  

“i am viscountess kathani sharma bridgerton, the lady of this house,” she curtsies with perfect elegance.  “it is a delight to welcome you to our home, miss y/l/n.”

“thank you for having me— lady bridgerton.  and you may call me ‘y/n.’  you need not use such, uh, formalities with me.”

“very well; then you may call me ‘kate.’”

you furrow your eyebrows.  she had introduced herself as ‘kathani’ but now asks you to call her ‘kate.’  it makes you think of mama and papa; they shared with you once how they had chosen to go by different names upon emigrating to england.  when you had asked why, they simply replied that it would be easier for others in this country to address them.  

“may i call you ‘kathani’ instead?”

surprise flashes over the dignified demeanor of the viscountess.  she regards you with softness in her eyes.

“yes.  yes, you may.”

resuming her full composure, kathani guides you to the eldest of the gentlemen and introduces him as her husband, viscount anthony bridgerton, the lord of the house.  he offers you a small smile with a bow of his head and greets you ‘good day.’  you try not to wince at his decorous use of ‘miss’ with your first name, but you suppose it is merely in these people’s natures.  

kathani continues and leads you to the lady of older age, introducing her as dowager viscountess violet bridgerton.  she dips into a lovely curtsy and, on her rise, gazes upon you with a gentle smile.  you feel compelled to respond in kind, but it would certainly not be as graceful as hers, and worse, she may interpret your slovenly attempt as a lark.  so, you refrain.  

the viscountess next introduces you to mister colin bridgerton (you summon all your self-restraint to keep your countenance neutral—this is the boy who hurt penelope); then to mister gregory bridgerton (he bows so ceremoniously towards you, you cannot help but be endeared by his resolve); and lastly to miss hyacinth bridgerton.

“why are you dressed like that?” she inquires.

“hyacinth!” the dowager viscountess reprimands.  she must be her mother.  she sounds like a mother.  it reminds you of how your mama reprimanded you and your siblings as little ones; the memory and the exchange make you hold back a laugh.

“what!  what did i say wrong?”

you ought to feel self-conscious, your lower standing brought into further display to everyone in the room, but you detect neither malice nor judgment in the young girl’s voice.  just genuine curiosity.  so, you smile.

“my family and i have different means to clothes, amongst other things.  i wear these when i work or go about my day.  though,” you regard your attire and then— hyacinth?, feeling the glimmer in your eye, “it makes for running around and playing make-believe quite easy.”

“make-believe!  gregory, do you hear that!  miss!— miss—“ she turns to you with a cocked head.  

“y/n.”

her eyes shine once again.

“miss y/n plays make-believe!  we must play!” hyacinth latches onto your hand and, with remarkable strength for a child who cannot be older than two and ten, pulls and drags you towards the entrance of the room.  “come along, gregory!  wouldn’t want to be the last one there!”

“no fair!  you cheated!” the second youngest shouts back, dropping all previous ceremonies, and scrambles towards the entrance.

“hyacinth!  y/n is not your playmate!  she is here with me and penelope!”

“plans do change, dear sister,” hyacinth retorts.  eloise’s jaw drops, and the rest of the family bursts into laughter.  the entire exchange warms your heart.  in so many ways, they are so proper, so wealthy, and yet they are not all so different from your own family.  they seem to really care for one another.

“when did you get so smug!” eloise shoots back.

“small wonder where she could’ve learned that from,” you hear colin, the traitor, murmur.  turning your head, you see him give amused, pointed looks to eloise and kathani.  the latter grins wickedly, and her husband beams at her with pride. 

“there are only so many hours in a day!” hyacinth complains.  you face her once more, still holding her hand.

“what about this?  i will play with you and your brother for an hour, and then i will be with your sister and penelope for my remaining time here.  i want to honor the wishes of each of my new friends.”

hyacinth considers this with much theatricality to her expression.  she then grins.

“that is an excellent plan,” she remarks, looking to eloise for her thoughts.  you follow her line of sight.  eloise rolls her eyes and sighs, but a smile rests on her lips.

“very well, then.”

feeling peace restored, you smile in return and, in doing so, in your periphery, catch the ocean eyes of the second eldest brother.  benedict.  he is looking at you.  why is that?  you feel your cheeks flush and the tips of your ears heat.  his gaze is somehow gentle and intense and indecipherable all at once, and the flutterings in the pit of your stomach grow, and intensify, and start to overwhelm you—

when you are tugged back to reality with a tug forward.

–

< hyacinth leads y/n through the house to the gardens with gregory by her side.  y/n is both uneasy and in awe of the things she sees.  eventually, they arrive in the gardens.  y/n notices two swings hanging off of a large branch of an old tree and is utterly endeared by the sight; it confirms what she has been thinking:  though the bridgertons are wealthy, they are warm and welcoming.

< just as hyacinth declares that she has found a suitable spot for make-believe, two male voices ask if they may join.  hyacinth, gregory, and y/n turn and see benedict and colin approaching.  colin shares that though y/n seems lovely, it would be unwise of the family to leave the two youngest with a stranger; though y/n agrees with his family’s caution, she refrains from wanting to strangle the person who hurt her friend.

< gregory whines and asks if they can begin before eloise complains.  hyacinth agrees and says that they need to assign characters.  y/n suggests that hyacinth should be a sorceress and gregory should be a knight; these proposals delight the youngest bridgertons.  y/n volunteers herself as the villain and decides to be a banshee; she turns to the elder bridgertons and asks what they wish to be. 

< before they have a chance to respond, hyacinth proposes that benedict should be the princess who has been captured.  benedict indignantly asks why, and hyacinth simply states because he is the most sensitive of the family.  sensing how the sibling argument is about to evolve, y/n intervenes and suggests that, like a sensitive princess, perhaps benedict is merely in tuned with his emotions, even amidst adversity; it is, in its own way, a compliment.  benedict’s eyes become indecipherable upon the comment, but he wears a small sincere smile.  gregory then proposes that colin is y/n’s changeling henchman. 

< make-believe ensues, and it is very sweet and very silly.  eventually, gregory is called in for latin tutoring and thanks y/n for the fun with a deep bow; hyacinth is called in for pianoforte lessons. >

hyacinth launches herself at you with a hug.  pulling back from the embrace, she beams.

“we must continue when you return next!”

before you can even start to reply, she turns and skips off towards the house.  you hear how gregory makes a comment about coming in first, and suddenly the youngest bridgertons are in a race against one another, shouting taunts and insults.  you can’t help but smile.

“they seem to quite like you.”

your smile falls.  you turn and face towards the two elder bridgertons, the traitor being the one to have spoken.

“colin bridgerton,” you begin, “yes?”

he smiles and nods.  you surge forward and shove your finger into his face, his smile now wiped.

“if you ever hurt penelope again, i shall make certain that it is the last time you ever do.  do i make myself clear?”

when he does not respond, you repeat yourself, and he slowly then quickly nods.  satisfied, you turn towards ocean eyes and point your finger at him.

“and you look after him.” 

“what did i do?”   

“be a proper elder brother and serve as an example for your misguided sibling.  understood?”  

“i— yes.  of course.  understood.” 

you smile again.

“wonderful.  i am glad we three are in agreement.  it was good speaking with you, gentlemen.  good day.” 

you turn away and start to walk towards the house.

“i quite like her too,”  and you hear the restored smile in the third bridgerton’s voice.  “what about you, brother?”

you hasten your steps towards the house.  though mere moments before you had felt emboldened and brave, you fear hearing benedict’s response.  you do not why.

–

< eloise, penelope, and y/n extensively discuss literature and writing; upon talking about women writers, y/n shares how she does not fully see herself as just a woman. >

“so, what are you?”

you wince.  you have kept good on your promise and joined eloise and penelope in the former’s bedchamber, but you are swiftly wishing you had been able to stay with hyacinth, gregory, colin even, and benedict.  you had attempted to explain an aspect of yourself to eloise but not to very much fruit, it seems.  you want to hide and escape and run from this place—

“eloise.”

—when penelope comes to your defense.  

“what?  what is it?”

“perhaps you could have phrased your question with more tact and thoughtfulness.”

eloise looks between the two of you, concern flooding her eyes.

“did i— did i not?”

penelope turns to you.

“are you comfortable to answer?”

“i would prefer that i didn’t.”

you hope that your eyes are sufficient enough to convey the immensity of gratitude that you feel towards penelope in this very moment.

“y/n,” begins eloise, “i did not realize—”

“and what are you three gossiping about?”

you jump, penelope squeaks, and eloise growls a noise of exasperation.  turning towards the voice in the doorway, you are visited, once again, by the third and second bridgerton siblings.

“and what makes you think we are gossiping?” demands eloise, “because we are w— people?”

you feel the corners of your mouth tug upward.  at least she is trying.  wanting to keep the attention on benedict and colin rather than yourself, however, and with genuine curiosity, you cock your head at the two gentlemen.

“do you two always come in a pair?”

“not always,” replies benedict.  and he smiles at you, “today is merely a special occasion.”

stupid butterflies.

“speaking of such,” colin proceeds.  “kate has requested that the three of you join the family in the drawing room.”

< the five of them make their way to the drawing room.  kate shares that, on behalf of the family, she would like to invite both y/n and penelope to dinner.  though at first honored to have been invited, upon hearing “dinner,” y/n realizes how late it has become and looks out the window:  the sun is halfway set.  she apologizes and says that she cannot stay because she resumes work the next day.  her latter statement renders some of the people in the room confused, but kathani states how she understands and that y/n is welcomed to join dinner whenever she visits.  

< seeing how confused y/n is, anthony shares that y/n is welcomed to visit their home whenever she is able and whenever she would like, and the rest of the family pipes in with how delighted they would be if she does.  not knowing how she deserved such kindness from people who were mere strangers at the start of the day, y/n thanks the bridgertons and says that she would love to.  penelope chooses to stay for dinner and says that she will see y/n next week.  y/n affirms that she, and the bridgertons, will.

< kathani and benedict offer to escort y/n to the entrance.  y/n walks down the steps and passes the gate but, before she goes, takes one last look at number five until next week and sees benedict still in the doorway.  y/n notices, but reprimands herself for perhaps imagining it, that his smile grows when his eyes lock with hers.  with flutterings in her stomach, y/n offers a wave.  he gives a small wave back.  she turns and goes, smiling all the way home. >

𝄆 ⚘ ✸ I.ii ✸ ⚘ 𝄇

“benedict has been making more appearances as of late,” penelope remarks.

the three of you all look up—you and pen from your writing, eloise from her reading—to see benedict entering through the doors and heading towards the other side of the drawing room.  he looks over at you— at you all and offers a smile before he plops himself down onto a chaise and begins to draw.

“yes, it is strange,” eloise considers to the two of you.  “for so long he had been moping about, locked away in his bedchamber aside from mealtime or the occasional visit to the drawing room.  he’s even picked up his charcoal again.”

“again?” you inquire, averting your gaze from the artist to your friend.  “had he stopped prior?”

“he had entirely put it down after—” eloise sighs.  whatever memory she has recounted, it does not seem to be a pleasant one.  you look to penelope; you sense that she shares a similar sentiment by the sad look in her eyes.  you are curious but you choose not to press.  

“it has been quite some time since he’s last drawn.  but now, whenever i see him, whether in his bedchamber or the billiards room or some other room in the house, he’s drawing.  he frequently arrives to mealtime with charcoal stained fingers—much to the chagrin of mama and anthony.”

you all laugh.  benedict looks up at you three, and from here you can tell he wears a curious expression, no doubt wondering what you are laughing about.  when he exaggeratedly arches an eyebrow, eloise just makes a face at him.  benedict rolls his eyes, smiling, and for the briefest moment, you feel as though he is looking at you.  but you’ve always had an active imagination.  when you blink, he has returned to his drawing, a smile still on his lips.

“i wonder what has changed?” eloise softly says, still looking at benedict.  for all her fire and spirit, you see how deeply she cares for her second eldest brother.

“perhaps he has found a muse,” penelope poses rather than queries.  you shift your gaze from eloise to penelope, and you’re curious about her expression.  she seems... delighted?  benedict finding his passion for art again does sound delightful; you know firsthand how difficult it is to pick yourself up from a slump.  but that’s not what she seems delighted by.  she just looks at you.  with a soft smile.  why?  what does benedict have anything to do with you?

you feel your cheeks and the tips of your ears flood with warmth.  you don’t know why, but penelope’s expression unnerves you, in a pleasant sensational way.

you clear your throat.

“i am happy for him,” you say, returning to your quill and folded quarto, haphazardly writing down whatever words come to your mind.  

ocean.  charcoal.  smile.  flutters.

shit.

it is not until what feels like an uncharacteristically long moment later that you hear penelope resume her writing and eloise resume her reading.  you try not to imagine what they could have silently exchanged with your gaze averted.

𝄆 ⚘ ✸ I.iii ✸ ⚘ 𝄇

you suck in a sharp breath and shoot out of your seat.

“you do not!” you shriek, hastening towards kathani, eloise, and the stack of books they have just settled onto the table.  you had arrived early to the bridgertons’ home, at the invitation of kathani, so early that the rest of the family seems not yet to be awake.  

(which is strange, you find, as it is nearing 8 o’clock.  most mornings, at this time, you are already well into the bustle of work.)  

kathani had prefaced, rather enigmatically, that she and eloise had a surprise they wished to share with you.  you had your suspicions as to what it could be related to, and with each passing moment, you are suspecting, very excitingly!, that you are very correct. 

“indeed, we do,” kathani grins and gestures to the stacks.  

taking no hesitation to the offer, you grab from the top of a stack and open to the title page.

the dramatic works of william shakespeare.  vol. 2:  a midsummer night’s dream / the merry wives of windsor / much ado about nothing.

you shriek again, this time accompanied with hops of excitement, flipping to the final third of the book.

“much ado!  this is the one i’ve read!” 

dorothea, a fruit seller, had offered a copy of it to you (at a lowered price, she had emphasized) when she had learned of your liking to stories.  she grandly stated that she had started to write down the dialogue during low-attendance performances at the theater and then brought her handiwork to be typed and printed at a not-to-be-named press.  but if the pages’ handwritten annotations alluded to anything, you suspected that she had managed to purloin a performer’s copy of the script.  you felt a bit of pity for the poor performer who misplaced it, but you respected, and still respect!, dorothea’s moonlighting. 

you shoot your head up from the book and are greeted by the grins of your two friends.  “which one has romeo and juliet?”

this past autumn you had overheard several candlemakers at the markets animatedly discussing the ‘incandescent’ portrayal of the titular character by an actress from ireland.  a performance, described as ‘incandescent’ by candlemakers!  embodied by a storyteller who has emigrated here!  hearing all those wondrous things made you insatiably curious to one day read the text that made such wondrous things happen.

“i believe,” eloise says, pulling the second from the bottom of a stack, “it is this one.”

you twitch your fingers; you have to refrain yourself from snatching the book from your friend’s hand.  when it is in yours, you open to the title page and feel your eyes, along with your smile, widen.

“it is, it is!  oh, this is extraordinary!”  you flip furiously to your desired page and, once you find it, start to read,  

prologue.  two households—

—when you hear kathani say, “we had thought of starting with that one.”

that makes you rip your eyes away from the words and look up at the two ladies.

“‘starting with’?”

“when eloise, penelope, and i learned of your eagerness to read shakespeare,” elaborates kathani.  her saying that makes you flush; you had not realized with what apparent enthusiasm you had spoken of the poet.  “the three of us had discussed that the four of us could read his plays together.  if you would like, of course.”

your jaw drops.  you cannot help the squeal that emits from your mouth.  hopping once again in your excitement, you throw yourself at your friends and wrap your arms around them both.

“if i would like!  i would be delighted!”

you pull back from your hug with the two ladies and are greeted by gleaming eyes and wide grins.  you feel how your expression matches theirs.  it has only been a little over a month of your friendship with eloise and kathani, and the rest of the bridgertons at number five, but they each have somehow found a way to carve themselves out in your heart.  and if this most recent kindness by eloise and kathani indicates anything, perhaps you have found a way to carve yourself out in each of theirs.

(and you promptly ignore the thought of what that could possibly mean for ocean eyes and charcoal-stained hands, flutterings within you be damned.)

“how shall we allocate the book?” you say aloud out of genuine inquiry and a deep desire to revert your heart, mind elsewhere.  “shall we read passages aloud and then pass it on to the next reader?”

< eloise makes a remark that indicates her confusion at y/n’s question.  kathani, who is more privy to the situation, shares how she has her own copy as do eloise and penelope.  the stack that they’ve brought is an extra set that the bridgerton house has that y/n can use.  this perplexes y/n.  she cannot understand how a household can have multiple copies of a book, let alone copies of a whole anthology of many books.  before y/n can doom-spiral into thinking, penelope arrives at the entrance of the drawing room.  reading of romeo and juliet commences.  

< just as y/n finishes reading the scene in which romeo and juliet meet for the first time at the capulet ball and then kiss, y/n notices in her periphery benedict approaching the four.  kathani remarks how unusually early he is to be awake and ready for the day; y/n notes to herself how there seems to be some sort of mischief in the viscountess’s smile. >

𝄆 ⚘ ✸ I.iv ✸ ⚘ 𝄇

“i shall be y/n’s teacher,” the viscount declares.

“you were adamant on her not fencing, and now you are insistent on being her teacher?”

“it would be hardly appropriate, colin, for two young unmarried men to be in such close proximity to a young unmarried lady, as proximity of teacher and student in fencing would require.”

“are you always this— antiquated?”  you inquire.

that earns a snort from kathani.  anthony, looking betrayed, turns to his wife; she merely shrugs in reply, mirth shining in her eyes.  he turns back to you, eyebrows deeply furrowed and mouth fully frowning.

“and what do you insinuate by that!”

“are you so distrustful of your own brothers, the ones for whom you have served, and still serve, as a model, that you think they would take advantage of me in such a situation—”

you sense how the eldest bridgerton is about to retaliate and arch a severe eyebrow at him in response; you refuse to be interrupted.

“or are you so unbelieving in persons of feminine dispositions that you think i shall be compromised by the mere closeness of a body different from my own sex?”

there is a silence, and though you cannot see them as you stare down the viscount, you can feel how the others exchange delighted glances with one another and hold back their laughter.

“you have two choices, my lord,” you offer.

“neither of them are suitable!  and do not call me ‘my lord’!”

“is that not the proper way to address you?”

“it is, but you—!” he huffs out air through his nostrils, like an indignant dragon in a fairytale; it is a very silly, very amusing sight.  “we have not even begun the lesson and you are already the most exasperating student i’ve ever had!”

you turn to colin and benedict, grinning.

“you two must have been saints then.”

“would you expect any less?” colin grins back.

your wide smile remains intact until your eyes fall on the expression of benedict.  you are entirely uncertain of what emotion he could be possibly feeling until he seems to realize where he is, and how you are looking at him, and breaks out into a brilliant smile with matching brilliant ocean eyes.  you quickly snap your head away from him, ignoring the fluttering of butterflies summoned within you upon the shift in benedict’s expression, and turn to anthony.

“shall we begin, then?”

–

it turns out that you are quite the quick learner when it comes to fencing.  after putting on a fencing vest that had previously belonged to benedict—

“because you are the shortest of the three of us, brother,” remarked colin after the second son inquired why it had to be his former vest that you were to wear.  benedict scrunched his nose and eyebrows in displeasure.  (perhaps you should have taken offense to his opposition, but it was truly of no personal consequence to you and the reaction it created in him was truly adorable.)

“i am not!”

“you are, indeed,” anthony deadpanned.

“prove it!”

and the three eldest sons of the esteemed bridgerton family stood next to one another, comparing their heights.  you turned to kathani, eloise, and penelope.

“are they always like this?”

“idiotic?” eloise deadpanned, sounding remarkably like her eldest brother.

“indeed, they are,” grinned kathani.

—over your blouse, you are immediately put to lessons.  anthony explains the basic concepts of fencing and then demonstrates elementary strikes and parries, occasionally adjusting your stances to the proper forms.  noting how quickly you took to the lessons, he calls for a match between the two of you to observe how you would apply your skills in combat.

“you are retaining information exceptionally well, as well as executing the techniques rather impressively,” states your teacher as you deflect his strike.  you try to hide your gladness in his praise as you smirk and push his blade away with the terzo of yours.

“ah, so my sex is not a detriment to my abilities; that is good to know.”

you hear snickers and snorts from around you.

“i said nothing of the sort!”

“did you think it?”

your opponent frowns further, slightly turning his head away from you to steal a glance at his wife.  he turns back to you.

“i did,” he admits defeatedly.

“it takes a true man of honor to rise up to his folly,” you remark honestly, as you strike anthony’s arm with the tip of your sabre.  loud cheers burst from the onlookers and an aghast but proud look emerges on the countenance of your teacher; you grin, “and a fool to leave his defenses so easily open.”

impressed by your display of sport, and seemingly overcoming his antiquation, at least for the moment, anthony decides that you will match against colin and then benedict.

“how are you to improve if you are to face the same opponent?” claims your teacher with his usual air of annoyance, but you detect his pride in your accomplishment.

it is also decided that the matches will end when one scores a point.

and so, you face colin.  it is easy to keep pace with him, not due to lack of skill on his part but complete and utter determination on yours.  you tried to convince yourself, in the beginning of your match, that the remnants of your anger towards the third bridgerton brother, and how he treated your friend, did not fuel your determination to score the point— but it did and does.  and successfully so, as you strike colin in his left shoulder.  perhaps you do it with too much force as the strike reels him off balance (and perhaps you are delighted that it has done so), but he quickly resumes composure and flashes you a grin.

“i see more and more everyday why you and pen are friends.”

that softens your heart.  you should be dubious of his charming remark, but you aren’t; it is too sincere, as is he, and you begin to see, even if minutely, why penelope cares for him.

“she has good taste in the company she keeps, i’m learning.”

that makes him laugh, as it does the others, and you look over and see how pen’s countenance shines with joy.  that is enough to put your anger towards colin at ease, and turning towards your defeated foe once more, you return his smile and bow your head.  bowing his head in kind, colin leaves, and in his place arrives your next and final opponent; he is smiling like a boy.  

“best for last?” he remarks as he prepares his starting position.  you roll your eyes, ignoring the warmth that starts to fill the center of your chest.

“this shall determine that,” and settled in your starting position, you and benedict begin your duel.

you have observed something of the eldest bridgerton brothers in your matches against them.  anthony struck like fire, bombastic and ferocious.  colin stood his ground like earth, his guards resolute.  and benedict— 

benedict moves like water.  free.  fluid.

as if he is dancing while dueling.

both you and he have reached a stalemate.  you have managed to parry every one of his strikes, and he has managed to deflect every one of yours.  you can feel how those watching are holding their breaths, waiting for someone to land the point.  

you try not to startle when you hear benedict’s voice as you guard against his strike.

“it takes quite an astonishing person to earn the praise of anthony bridgerton.”

“are you so surprised that i am such a person?”

“quite the opposite, y/n,” he catches one of your strikes and grins at you.  “i think you are entirely perfect in that regard.”

you roll your eyes once again but cannot help the blush that you feel spread across your cheeks as you push back his sabre with yours.  

“do you honestly think charm will win you the point?”

“do you find me charming?” you ignore the heat that creeps up your neck and the voice in your head that has already answered his question far too quickly for your liking.  “no, i do not think so lowly of such a formidable foe.”

and he winks at you.

and somehow, without you realizing how you got there, benedict strikes the center of your chest.

“but a little distraction does help.”

his point earns a round of groans and bleats from the crowd.  instead of looking offended, benedict just laughs and approaches you, gloved hand outstretched, a boyish smile once again on his face.  despite your loss, you cannot help but smile too.  you place your gloved hand in his. 

“it was a pleasure to duel with you.”

“yes.  likewise.”

perhaps you imagine it, but you feel his thumb swipe against the side of your hand.  it is featherlight, hardly felt with both your and his hands gloved, but felt nevertheless.  before you can process the sensation any further, he lets go of your hand.  with another smile, he bows his head at you as the crowd of people approach you both, penelope raving about your matches, eloise expressing her wish to fence now, anthony already commenting on what you could do better in your next match.

and without you realizing it, you gently swipe against the side of your gloved hand.

𝄆 ⚘ ✸ I.v ✸ ⚘ 𝄇

"mama?  papa?"

it is a rare occasion when you, mama, papa, and your sibling eat together, and an even rarer occasion to do so for a second meal, but this night was such a night.  the three of them halt their conversation and look over to you.

"how did you know you were in love with one another?"

there is a small silence, but then, without looking at one another, they smile in tandem.

"it was at first sight, really, for me,” your papa says as he offers his hand to mama.  “as trite as that sounds."

mama takes his hand into hers.

"i as well."

"when i looked into your mama’s eyes, i knew that something was different.  that my life had changed."

"for the better, dearest?"

papa laughs heartily.

"no, actually.  it has been misery ever since."

you and your family laugh as mama playfully slaps at papa’s hand.  it warms your soul every time they do this, when they tease one another and are light because of the other.   it makes you believe in love each time.  

mama and papa lace their fingers together again, smiling, still gazing at one another.  as if it is just the two of them in their own world.  mama, turning her smile from papa to you, speaks again.

"the flutterings in my stomach wouldn’t quiet, and they only intensified as we approached closer to one another that day and grew closer to one another with time."

she looks nostalgic until something mischievous quickly overcedes her countenance.

"why do you ask, my dear?  has someone captured your eye?"

"or, better yet, your heart?" papa tags along.

ocean eyes and charcoal-stained hands flash by in your mind.

"no!" you say too hastily.  "no, of course not.  it’s— for one of my writings, is all."

you repeatedly poke at your bit of boiled chicken to avoid any further inquisition from your parents’ gazes.

–

sat by your window, you stare up at the night sky when the voice of your sibling infiltrates your dreaming.

“it’s one of the brothers, isn’t it?”

you whip your head over to them.  they don’t even look at you; they are preparing for bed.

“pardon me?” 

“is it the artist brother?”

“what!”

fluffing their pillow, they smile.

“so i am correct.”

“i didn’t even say anything!”

“that is not true.  you said ‘what.’”

“that reveals nothing!”

pleased with the setting of their bed, they ruin their work by plopping their bottom onto it as they finally face you in what you realize now is a confrontation.

“of course it doesn’t, the word on its own.  your reaction, however?  could not be more transparent of your feelings.”

“i have no feelings!”

“is that why you asked mama and papa about being in love?  because you have no feelings and you need to be told what they are?”

“i!—— i am going to bed!” you lift yourself up from your seat at the window sill, turning away from the peace of the night sky, and crash onto your bed.  you lay on your side, faced towards the wall, refusing to make eye contact with your sibling.  you lift up your sheet with too much force and lay it over your body and head.  “good!  night!”

after some silence, you hear the creak of your sibling’s bed and, a moment later, feel a featherlight touch on your upper arm.  you give it a thought, and perhaps against your better judgment, you lift off your sheet, turn, and are greeted by the gentlest of expressions from your sibling.

“i think it is wonderful, y/n.  whoever it is, they are very blessed to have your affections.”

your heart swells.  you love your sibling.

“how did you know it was the artist brother?”  

“so i am correct!”  they smile with a shrug.  “i deduced based on how much you’ve been writing about paint and charcoal as of late.”

you almost shoot upright from your bed.

“you’ve been reading my writing?”

“well, if they weren’t to be read, why do you leave them spread out on the table?”

“because there is no other place to store them!”

“and how good that is, or else i wouldn’t be able to read your fantastical stories or have been able to discover who your beloved is.”

“you are impossible!”

they kneel next to your bed and place their head on your shoulder.

“i love you too.”

you exhale the last of your frustrations, adjusting yourself a bit so that your sibling can rest their head more comfortably.  without realizing, you stroke their hair, just as you always have.

“i quite like the story about the mushroom family,” they state after some time. “i’m happy that the middle mushroom child befriends the peony and then the hyacinths.  i am happy they are happy.”

you feel your eyes start to drift.

“his name is benedict, by the way.”

you hear your sibling’s need for sleep in their reply.

“that’s a lovely name.”

“he is,” you murmur as the peace of the night falls over you.

𝄆 ⚘ ✸ I.vi ✸ ⚘ 𝄇

“good day!— robert?”

“good day, y/n!” and robert holds the door of bridgerton house open for you to pass.

“pardon the confusion in my greetings—”

“no offense taken on my part!” the late adolescence beams.  you grin back.  with how utterly enthusiastic robert is all the time, one would think it is part of some ruse.  but it is not; he is just that genuinely delighted by life, you’ve observed.

“i am grateful.  i had expected to be greeted by giles, is all.”

robert frowns.  you feel the corners of your mouth tug downward in response, concern starting to swell your heart.

“he is ill at the moment.”

“ill!  with what?”

“i know not.  i had admitted the doctor perhaps not even a quarter of an hour ago.  but worry not too much, y/n!  from what the viscountess has shared with the servants earlier this day, giles shall make a quick recovery.  and lady bridgerton has yet to be wrong in anything!”

relief floods your body.  giles is of elderly age, so it calms you to hear that his ailment seems not to be too severe.  and you can’t help but smile not only by robert’s sunny temperament but also by his rightful faith in kathani.

“that is all good to hear.”

“shall i announce you to the drawing room?”

“oh god no.  i am quite all right, but thank you.”

“understood!  then i must pardon myself; i must retrieve miss bridgerton and miss featherington.”

“‘retrieve’?  are they not in the drawing room?”

“i was informed by dowager lady bridgerton, who was accompanied by miss bridgerton and miss featherington themselves at the time, that they would be in the gardens until your arrival and to retrieve the young misses upon your arrival.”

“i see.  well, i shall be in the drawing room then.  thank you again, robert.”

“it is my pleasure, y/n!” he beams once more and takes off to complete his task.

how odd, you think to yourself.  this day seems rather unusual to the ones you’ve had thus far at bridgerton home.  and it is hardly even noon!  you become lost in your thoughts as you approach the entrance to the drawing room—

when you are greeted by benedict, and benedict alone, lounging with his legs thrown over the arm of a chair, staring sternly at the page he draws on.

“oh,” is all you say.

benedict snaps his focus from his book to you, his countenance transforming from deep concentration to frustration to genuine surprise in a mere moment.  he scrambles up from his seat, book in one hand and charcoal in the other, posture now proper, and he bows his head.  

“miss y/l/n.”

never before have you been alone in a room with a man.  a gentleman.  a gentleman with a handsome face, charcoal-stained hands, and beautiful ocean eyes.

you roll your eyes.

“blimey, it is just me.  there is no need to bow.  and why are you calling me miss y/l/n?”

benedict smiles.

“all right.  y/n.”

shit.

perhaps that was a mistake.

“where has your family gone?” you inquire as you go to sit in the chair parallel to his, ignoring the flutterings within your stomach.  “it is uncommon to enter the drawing room of bridgerton house and not be greeted by talking, or music playing, or fighting.”

smiling, benedict falls back into his seat and resumes his drawing.

“hyacinth is with her reading tutor; gregory is with his fencing instructor; colin is eating some sort of pastry, i am certain, in town; anthony and kate are likely— preoccupied—”

you snort; benedict’s smile grows broader as he smudges charcoal with his thumb, a small furrow in his eyebrows now forming.

“and mother has managed to rope eloise into learning about the flowers of the gardens, and eloise, being eloise, has roped penelope into doing the same.”

“and what of you?”

“and what of me?”

“why have you chosen the drawing room as your whereabouts?”

benedict cocks his head towards his drawing.

“it’s in the name of the room, is it not?”

“ah, a man of wit, i see.”

“i am a man of many attributes, y/n.”

ignore the butterflies.

“such as?”

“what attributes would win your favor?”

“so that you may lie to me and say you possess them?”

“of course not; the list is merely too long and i shan’t bore you with a soliloquy.”

“so, a man of thoughtfulness.”

“oh yes, a myriad of thoughts.”  

“name one.”

“how much i am enjoying our conversation.”

and benedict shifts his ocean eyes from his drawing to you, a smile on his lips.  he is being playful, but you detect no deceit in his expression.  it infuriates you, really.  how charming he is.  how endearing.  how sincere.  

you return his smile.

“as am i, benedict.”

you sit in comfortable silence a moment more until benedict breaks the gaze, returning his oceans eyes and smile back to his drawing.  his smile, however, does not last for very long.

“this sketch, on the contrary—”

and he rips out the paper from his book, crumples it in his hand, and throws it onto the carpet of the floor, giving his deed not another moment’s notice.  he puts his charcoal to a new page in the moment next.

your smile falls.

“do you know how much paper costs?” you demand.

benedict looks back up at you with scrunched eyebrows and a smile having returned to his lips.  he tilts his head.

“why?  should i?”  he inquires.  nonchalantly.  delight in his ocean eyes.

as if you are making a jest.

as if this is amusing.  as if this is nothing.

it reminds you of a recent memory.

eloise had generously given you sheets of paper.  hitting a stride in your writing and wanting to continue, you had asked, after much internal deliberation, if you could have a ripped half of a quarto upon running out of all negative space on your current one.

“have a foolscap.  have a whole lot of them, actually,” she said easily, taking a good chunk of her stack and handing it off to you.

“eloise, are you certain?”

“of course.  it is just paper, after all.”

“right.  yes— of course.  thank you.”

eloise hummed affirmatively in response, returning to her passage, as you stared at the small stack of foolscap in your hand.  that amount of paper would have been eight months’ wage, perhaps even more.  

a gentle touch of a hand on yours brought you out of your clouding thoughts.  you looked over and saw penelope looking at you softly.  understanding her unspoken thoughts, you held her hand and gave it a squeeze.

thank you, you mouthed.

"i must be going,” you say aloud.  “goodbye, mr. bridgerton.”

you stand, turn, and quickly exit the drawing room. 

“y/n.  y/n!”

you hear him scuffling up from his lounge and start to follow you.  you hasten your steps towards the entrance.  

moments before you can open the doors of bridgerton house to the respite of the outside world, you feel benedict take hold of your wrist, stopping you in your steps, and it infuriates you how gently he does it.  how you can pull away from his touch if you want to, how you can just go if you choose to.  but you do not.

it infuriates you how much you want him to hold you.

you turn to face him.

“please— wait,” he breathes.  “what did i do wrong?  what have i done to upset you?”

you look at him incredulously.  then it dawns on you.

“please.  tell me,” benedict practically begs.  with such softness in his voice.

it infuriates you.

“i know money is of no concern to you, or your family, or fair ladies and pretty gentlemen.  but it is for the rest of us.  for the rest of us who have to work to keep the ones we love fed, clothed, warmed, sheltered.  that is a fact with which i have been concerned since the very moment i could think for myself.  and for you—of the male sex, of pale skin, of inherited riches—it is something to discard onto the carpet of one of your family’s many houses.  the paper you threw to the ground would have paid for a month’s worth of warmth for the entirety of my family’s home.  and you ask me what you have done to upset me?”

he says nothing.  he just looks at you, damned ocean eyes and all.  gentle.  attentive.  like he could care; like he does care.

you feel your nostrils flaring, your blood pounding in every vein of your body.  you finally rip your wrist away from his loose hold, already missing his touch.

“i shall take my leave.  please give my regards as well as my apologies to eloise and penelope.  goodbye, benedict.”

you turn away from him, yank the door open by its handle, and step outside, walking composedly at first, then quickly, then sprinting, then running.  to be as far away from number five of grosvenor square as you possibly can be.  to be far away from crumpled up paper, charcoal-stained hands, gentle touches, and ocean eyes.  

you rub your wrists against your eyes.

stupid bloody tears.

stupid fucking heart.

why am i so afflicted by this?  why am i crying?  why do i hurt?

because i love—

no.

you cannot fall for him.  he is someone you cannot have, cannot want, cannot— cannot…

it cannot happen, the two of you.

and most likely of all, you are not someone he wants.  not someone who he would love.  not the way you—

you are a fool for getting this far.  but these feelings, they will pass.  somehow.   you will forget them.  you will forget him.  this is not the fairytales you read, not the fairytales you write.  daydreams, hopes, love for a gentleman— there is a reason you are a writer.

you write the things you can never have, the things that will never happen.

you and benedict will never happen.

this is the prayer you tell yourself that evening before sleep takes you.  you pretend not to be affected by the tears that afflict you as you do so.

𝄆 ⚘ ✸ I.vii ✸ ⚘ 𝄇

< y/n does not go to number five the next week on her non-work day as she had grown accustomed to.  she had tried to write at her table in her home to preoccupy herself, but her teardrops were ruining what she had already written.  she considers going to work to distract herself, but y/n knows her unexpected presence would be a detriment to her fellow workers’ established flow of day.  she decides to go to the markets to try and get fresh air and a change of scenery and to do anything to interrupt her spiral of thoughts and emotions.

< while at the markets, y/n hears her name called and turns to see penelope in her blue cloak.  y/n asks what penelope is doing here, and penelope gently replies that she can ask y/n the same thing.  she shares with y/n how, the week prior, after she received news that y/n had left bridgerton house, she left to find y/n in the markets and at her workplace but to no avail.  

< their conversation continues.  penelope shares how y/n was missed last week; by her, by the family, by benedict.  y/n tries to dismiss her words and how the past few months have been a mistake and that she shouldn’t be there with pen or the bridgertons, that she’s not meant to be in their world.

< with patience and empathy and grace, penelope gently encourages y/n to return to bridgerton house next week, and y/n, though her heart aching and reluctant, agrees because she misses them. >

𝄆 ⚘ ✸ I.viii ✸ ⚘ 𝄇

you sigh deeply.

have courage, y/n.

and you rap your knuckles twice against the stately door of number five.  a moment later, the door opens, and you are greeted by a beloved grin.

“miss y/n!  i have not seen you in weeks!”

you cannot help but smile back.

“good day, giles.”

“oh, where are my manners!” and the elderly doorman bows at you.  you huff out a laugh, feeling how your face contorts with distaste. 

“blimey, please don’t.  i am not a lady, giles.”

“you could’ve fooled me, miss y/n.”

you shoot him a severe look; he merely continues to grin.

“you know of my feelings towards being called ‘miss.’”

“i am getting older; my memory frequently fails me, miss y/n.”

“and yet you’ve recalled how we haven’t seen each other in two weeks.”

“three.”

you grin.

“precisely.”

“well, it was quite the surprise when I fell ill the following week!” then giles frowns.  “and it was an even greater surprise to have not seen you when i had returned the week following that.”

you look at the ground, unable to face the inquisition in his sad, kindly look, but when you bring your head back up, you manage a smile.

“it is no matter.  i am here now.  that is most important, yes?”

the elderly man smiles.

“yes, i suppose you are right, y/n,” and he holds the door open for you to pass.  

“aside from bouts with ailment, how have you been, giles?”

“still standing upright, still opening and closing doors,” he beams without a bit of sarcasm.  “and what of you?  how have you been?”

“i’ve been—— well.  and the family?” you say quickly, wanting to move the conversation away from you and your feelings.

“the same as is to be expected.  though—” 

concern starts to swell in your heart.  what has happened in the fortnight you have not been present?

“mister benedict has been absolutely despondent.”

“oh,” is all you say.  giles’ gentle joviality transforms into solemnity, and it makes your heart ache even further.

“on the rare occasions i do see him now, he is leaving for the gentleman’s club in the bright light of day and coming home at an ungodly hour, drunk as a wheelbarrow, wreaking of what smells like every available spirit in london.  he had stopped dipping rather deep sometime ago, much to my relief, so it was an utter shock to return to my station and to see him back on the cut, and deeply at that,” the elderly man sighs.  “i wonder what has happened for him to be so…” he unexpectedly turns to you, his countenance sanguine, “do you happen to know?”

you swallow as you ignore the sensation pooling in the pit of your stomach.

“no, i— i do not.”

“i see.  well, whatever it might be, it is clear how much it deeply afflicts him,” and giles offers you a small, sad smile.  “you know mister benedict; he has always been the most sensitive of the family.”

i do.  

i do know benedict.

you clear your throat.

“do you happen to know where eloise and penelope are at this moment?”

giles cocks his head at you but is kind enough (you thank the heavens) not to press your change of topic.

“the last i had seen them, they had spoken of viewing the art gallery.  do you know the way?”

“i am unfamiliar.”

he smiles again, and it makes you smile in return.

“then i am most glad to escort you there.”

–

giles opens the doors to the gallery, and ahead, in front of a portrait, you see the turnings of penelope, eloise, and—

“y/n,” he utters.

“benedict,” you breathe.

and he looks just as surprised as you are.  

you look to giles, his eyes wide and mouth agape, and then to eloise and penelope.  upon seeing their expressions, you feel your eyes narrow.

“ah, penelope!” shouts eloise.  everyone else turns to stare at her.  “with y/n’s arrival, i must change out of my, my art gallery viewing dress!  and— and, into my... drawing room!  sitting— dress...”

eloise scrunches her entire face in displeasure, confused by her own poorly concocted excuse.  that does nothing to deter her, however, from clamping onto penelope’s wrist and barreling forward towards the doors of the gallery.

“come along, pen!” she calls out to the friend she is pulling right behind her.  as they pass you, eloise gives you a strange and strained smile bearing all teeth, and penelope offers apologetic eyes and an encouraging smile.

giles looks to you, to benedict, and to the two escaping ladies.  mouth still agape, all he manages is,

“i suppose— i shall see to that— miss bridgerton and miss featherington arrive to miss bridgerton’s bedchamber... safe—ly…?”

he mouths, i’m sorry!, at you before quickly bowing his head at benedict, fleeing the scene with remarkable speed for an elderly man who has recently recovered from illness, and leaving you at the entrance of the art gallery.

closing your eyes, you deeply inhale through your nostrils as you place your hand to the space between your eye and your temple.  on your exhale, you wipe your hand hard against the side of your face and open your eyes, whipping your head to look at the second eldest bridgerton brother.  it seems that he has been staring at you this entire time, stupid (stunning) ocean eyes and all.

“would you like to paint a picture?” you snark.  “you are the artist in the room, and it would certainly last longer.  or perhaps you have run out of paper?”

he does not respond, indecipherable expression unchanging, and it unnerves you how guilty you feel at goading him, at taunting him, and he merely takes it.  you sigh again and cross the gallery to where he stands.  resisting the urge to look at him again, as you feel his gaze still on you, you instead look at the painting ahead of you.

it is a portrait of a gentleman.  with dark chestnut hair and mutton chops.  he wears a blue jacket, a darker blue vest, a cream cravat, green breeches, and brown boots.  a watch on a ribbon hangs from his vest; it looks familiar.  he looks familiar.  a benevolent smile rests on his lips.

you look at the plaque at the bottom of the gilded frame.

edmund bridgerton, the 8th viscount bridgerton.

you look back up at the painting, captured by a particular feature.

“you have his eyes.”

“his are gray; mine are blue.”

you roll your eyes but smile despite yourself.  (you try to ignore the flutterings that bloom upon hearing his voice again.)

“yes, but that’s not what i was referring to.  they peer into you— not with scrutiny, nor judgment, but with kindness, curiosity, compassion.  an eagerness to learn about you.  pools of welcoming.  cool tones that radiate warmth.”

you cough, ripping your eyes away from the portrait to inspect the scuffs of your boots.  you feel embarrassment spread throughout your entire body as heat creeps up your neck.

“the painter is excellent at their craft.  it is as if i know him, your father.”

silence falls in the expansive gallery, the calm and kind eyes of viscount bridgerton looking down upon you and his second eldest.

“i’ve missed you.”

you snap your head up to look at benedict, your eyes making contact with his ocean ones.  welcoming and warm.  honest and... hopeful?

i’ve missed you, too.

“benedict, it has only been a fortnight since we saw each other last,” you respond aloud, your voice coming out so much softer than you had intended.  you offer him a small smile, an olive branch of sorts.  something of relief starts to fill his ocean eyes, but his demeanor does not change.

“i behaved arrogantly, and you did not deserve to be the recipient of such behavior.  no one does, and i am so— i am so sorry, y/n.”

and you know he is.  you resist the urge to touch his cheek, to comfort him with your caress, to selfishly have your skin touch his.  instead, you look on at him.

“i do not ask you to grant me your forgiveness; i know i am unworthy of it.  i just— i just wanted you to know how i felt, and feel still.  and how i shall work on myself to be better, to do better.”

the butterflies in your stomach flutter maddeningly.  you emit an exhale from your nostrils.  the urge to touch him intensifies, and you feel yourself flex your hand to let go of the sensation.  you huff out another breath, and smile brightly, sincerely, at benedict.

“well,” you begin, “with our friendship renewed, care to show me what other paintings you love in this gallery?”

benedict’s ocean eyes beam with relief and joy, a brilliant smile lighting up his face, and it takes all your self-control not to drop all discretion and wrap your arms around him in a crushing embrace.

“i would love nothing more, y/n,” he declares.

you try not to flutter your eyes closed at the words ‘i,’ ‘love,’ and your name in the same breath from benedict’s lips.  at the pleasantness and home you feel in them.  you smile on.

“where shall we begin, then?”

you and benedict walk together as he approaches a miniature in a wooden frame ornately carved with floral motifs.  he admits that he has not the slightest clue which bridgerton ancestor this is, and that makes you snort.  grinning, he points out how adeptly the artist portrayed the translucency and fluidity of the lady’s veil and how particularly impressive it must have been to accomplish such effects in paints during the early 1600s, if the remnant dating of the artist’s signature is correct.  you remark how particularly impressive it is that a painting has endured two hundred years of existence, details still intact, and benedict responds simply that rich people have a way.  that makes you snort again, and that makes benedict grin again.

he then leads you to a portrait of kathani and anthony, the viscountess sat in a chair with the viscount stood behind.  you marvel at the painting—how much it looks like them, how much it captures kathani’s confidence, how much it captures anthony’s conviction, how much it captures their love.  excitement coloring his voice, benedict imparts to you how he was given the opportunity to observe and assist the painter on the days the latter was commissioned to portray the viscountess and the viscount.  he also shares with you how impossibly difficult they were as models, always giggling and kissing and looking away from the painter and talking to one another, being overall sickeningly saccharine.  you chortle and share with him how that does not surprise you in the least bit.  despite his annoyance upon recalling the memory, an incredibly fond smile rests on benedict’s lips.  turning from his lips back to the painting, you remark how in love they are, and he remarks that, indeed, they very much are—and turns his fond smile from the painting to you.

coughing, you walk over and ask about the landscape of an enormous building.  benedict names it as aubrey hall, the ancestral home of the bridgertons.  you recall how you had heard of it early on in your friendship with the bridgertons; you had been unable to see them one week as they were preparing for kathani’s first ball as viscountess at the home.  you also recall how the usually collected and confident kathani was anxious and uncertain during that time.  benedict, beaming with pride, says how, of course, she absolutely excelled and how all of the ton—he rolls his eyes then and you guffaw—enjoyed themselves at the event.  while kathani had done an unsurprisingly resplendent job, the ball was not very entertaining to benedict.  he much more enjoyed the annual bridgerton game of pall mall leading up to the event.  after announcing how kathani had won—much to the contradictory disappointment and delight of her husband—and answering your questions about what sounds, to you, like a very silly, very fun game, benedict suggests that you join them next year.  you laugh, finding it impossible to imagine yourself at a home such as aubrey hall, particularly for the entirety of three days, but your heart swells at the invitation and the sincerity in his voice, and you say aloud how you would love nothing more.

your spontaneous tour eventually comes to an end, and the two of you make your way towards the entrance, still discussing the various art you had seen.  as you and benedict walk out of the gallery, a thought crosses your mind.

“none of your work is on display.”

you notice how benedict stiffens.  you feel your smile tug into a frown.

“ah, yes.  i do not think my work is— up to snuff— with the work on display here.”

“horse shit.”

benedict’s jaw drops, his face aghast and regaled in reaction to what you assume is your choice of language.  you merely shrug.

“you have not even seen my work!”

“i do not need to see your work when i can already see how harsh you are being.”

he scoffs, and it aggravates you.

“fine— i will show you, then, and prove to you my point.”

“fine, then!  show me, and i will prove to you my point!”

–

“you are full of horse shit!”

you and benedict are in his bedchamber, where all his works are hidden away.  he has shown you canvas after canvas, sketch after sketch, charcoal drawing after charcoal drawing, his palette of color ideas— and he still has the audacity to say that his work is not “up to snuff” for the bridgerton gallery.

benedict looks aghast again, perhaps by your language, perhaps by what you are (very rightly, very correctly) insisting.  he shakes the canvas that he holds in his hand in your face.

“look at the proportions, y/n!  they are entirely off!”

you roll your eyes, swatting his arm away, and begin to rummage through his other work.  you pull a sheet and hold it up to benedict’s face.

“look at this sketch, then look at the canvas.  there is a very clear, marked improvement, and with only a—” you look at the dates at the bottom right corners for confirmation, “—a difference of two days!”

“what does ‘improvement’ mean if the improvement is not even good!”

“it is good!  and!  improvement is everything, benedict!  it is progress!”

“what—”

you and benedict jump back from one another by the sudden new voice.  you had not realized how close the two of you were as you were shouting at one another, how close your faces were to one another, how close your lips were to—

a blazing heat creeps up your neck, at the tip of your ears, and across your cheeks as you turn from benedict’s flustered face to the scowl of the eldest bridgerton sibling in the doorway.

“—are the two of you doing?”

“brother!  i— i was merely showing y/n my work.”

you vigorously nod your head.  anthony’s glare remains unaffected.

“alone?  together?  in your bedchamber?”

your heart almost leaps out of your chest, your eyes about to bulge out of their sockets as you look around the room, suddenly aware of where you are.  you are in benedict’s bedchamber.  alone.  together.

“i—” you start, very pathetically.  “i——  we—”

anthony curtly bows his head at you.

“y/n, i would like to have a word with my brother.  in private.  please.”

“of— of course, right— of course!”

you hastily put the sketch on a nearby table and walk towards the door, pass anthony as he steps in, and are about to run down the hall and away from the scene when—

you turn and steal a glance at benedict, mustering up all the apologies you can convey through your eyes.  despite the peril of his current predicament, his ocean eyes soften immediately, and a thousand butterflies erupt in your stomach and flutter around viciously.  he offers you a slight smile, one that is sincere and unregretful.  you offer one back, just as sincere, just as unregretful, before anthony gives you another bow of his head and closes the door.

–

“are you pleased by the results of your consorted trickery?” you state blandly upon seeing the young ladies that you thought were your friends sitting in the drawing room.

eloise looks up from her pamphlet, beaming at you, as penelope wears a wide and proud smile.  well, at least they have answered your question.

“trickery?” eloise feigns.  you roll your eyes; their expressions answer honestly, but their words continue their game.  “i have no idea what you are referring to.  pen and i were merely keen on viewing the art gallery today, and i thought, my blue-deviled of an elder brother ought to stop moping about; what better to get him to leave his bedchamber than by way of his favorite topic?”

“and his other favorite topic,” penelope adds.  eloise chortles, and you feel the tips of your ears heat.

“what is that supposed to mean!”

eloise waves a dismissive hand at you.

“benedict knew nothing of your arrival, as i am sure you deduced by his surprise,” but the second eldest daughter grins wickedly.  “though, from the sheer amount of time you have spent together thus far today, i am also sure the surprise was very welcomed, indeed.”

“by both parties, it seems.”

you promptly ignore the flush you feel on the apples of your cheeks.  your friends are lucifer incarnate split into two.

“well, then you must be delighted to know that your shared plot has led to punitive action against him.”

that surprises them.  (good.  you are relieved to finally have some sort of an upperhand in this conversation.)

“‘punitive action’?  by whom?  for what?”

“by—”

the three of you hear a set of footsteps.  you look to where the sounds are heard and see the two eldest bridgerton siblings enter the drawing room, the elder approaching you with conviction and the younger trailing behind him like a pet that has just been reprimanded.  the sight would make you laugh, if you weren’t the one to have instigated the current conflict between the two brothers.

anthony stands before you, posture perfect and chin held up high.

“y/n, thank you for your patience.  please allow me to apologize most ardently on behalf of my brother for his complete and utter lack of propriety.  it will not happen again as i shall be more vigilant in tracking his every deed.  i do hope this incident of my brother’s disrespect does not taint the beloved friendship between you and our family.” 

and he deeply bows his head at you.

your jaw drops.  benedict shuts his eyes tight and scrunches his face.  penelope bops her gaze amongst the three of you.  and eloise just howls, causing anthony to break the gravitas of his decorum and shoot a glare at her.

“it is no laughing matter, eloise!”

“it is harmless fun, brother!  a pursuit of intellect exchanged between two creatives, who also happened to be by themselves.  i have never heard of a baby being conceived from sharing some art.”

“ELOISE BRIDGERTON!”

you have now entirely hidden your face behind your hands; no one needs to witness the deep crimson that you are certain is spreading very rapidly across your countenance.  an absurd hope also blooms in you that if you cannot see the others, then the others cannot see you.

“what ever is the matter in here?” 

your eyes shoot open upon hearing the much needed voice of reason.  removing your hands from your face, you see kathani enter the drawing room, a confused expression worn on her face.  

“my dearest,” anthony begins, “i have offered my deepest apologies to y/n for benedict’s disgrace.”

“disgrace,” scoffs eloise, crossing her arms.

“disgrace!” reiterates anthony with increased fervor.  kathani’s confusion does not lighten.  she looks to benedict, whose eyes are scrunched closed again (his nose looks adorable this way), and then to you.

“are you all right, y/n?” she inquires gently.

“i—” you had intended to say, am well, but that would be a lie.  you are utterly mortified.  so, instead, you state the truth.

“benedict has been a gentleman.  he has treated me with the utmost respect, and when he has done wrong by me— which!  which has nothing to do with our being in his bedchamber!—  he—” you steady your voice, determined to say this right, as you know and feel it with and in your heart, “he has corrected himself and bettered his words and thoughts and deeds.”

“you hear that, brother?  no harm has been done.”

“eloise, you were not even there!”

“i believe what eloise means, anbe, is that you are being dramatic.”

“dramat— they were in his bedchamber, kathani!  together!  alone!”

kathani rolls her eyes, her attempt at diplomacy entirely gone.

“speak louder, anthony; just a bit more and the entire country shall hear you.”

the viscount pouts grumpily at his beloved, emitting a huff of air through his nostrils.  

“you must trust y/n by her word,” the viscountess states.

“or do you not trust someone of feminine disposition to speak for herself?” eloise inquires.

“pen!” 

you all snap your gazes to the entrance of the drawing room and see colin making his way to your friend in blue, followed by—

“y/n!” shouts gregory and hyacinth as they run towards you.

“y/n, penelope!” remarks violet and approaches you both.  “how delightful it is to see you!  you—” she says, reaching out for your hand, gently taking it in hers, and smiling kindly at you, “—in particular.  it has been a moment, y/n.” 

it melts your heart, really.  the sincerity of affection that flows so easily from violet bridgerton.  you recall the kind eyes and benevolent smile of her late husband.  it is no wonder you so easily fell in love with this family; true, real love is woven into the very fabrics of each of their beings.

you look at them.  hyacinth and gregory cling onto your slides, holding you tight.  kathani and anthony are engrossed in debate, affection in their eyes despite the heat in their words.  colin and penelope speak with and blush around one another as eloise, unknowingly (and, in your opinion, frustratingly, endearingly), butts into their conversation.  and benedict.  who, with the gaze of the entire room no longer on his so-called indiscretion, is looking at you.  softly.  with those damned, wondrous, bewitching ocean eyes.  a smile on his lips that makes the flutterings in your stomach unbearingly, wonderfully unyielding.

you truly, really love this family.  

you love the bridgertons.

“though,” the dowager viscountess starts.  

shaking yourself out of your thoughts, you see how violet looks at the others in the room as half of them now pointedly avoid eye contact with the matriarch and the other half share a similar sentiment to her.

“is everything all right?” she turns to you, peering curiously into your eyes.  “has something happened?”

you cannot help the laugh that bubbles out of you.  violet seems taken aback by your reaction, as are the others in your periphery, but her eyes, as well as theirs, shine on.

“i think,” you say, smiling, “it is just another day with the bridgertons.”

#bridgerton #benedict bridgerton #benedict bridgerton fanfiction #benedict bridgerton x reader #benedict bridgerton x you #benedict bridgerton x y/n #benedict bridgerton imagine #benedict bridgerton fluff #benedict bridgerton angst #bridgerton x reader #bridgerton x you #bridgerton x y/n #penelope featherington #kate sharma #anthony bridgerton #colin bridgerton #eloise bridgerton #gregory bridgerton #hyacinth bridgerton #violet bridgerton

[horseimagebarn]

I love your writing style. I read your posts with what I can only describe as a horse accent (generally not a lot of pitch changes, letter R emphasized and kinda spoken through the nose, letter S softened and almost slurred, very soft tone overall). closest thing I can compare it to is maybe northern irish? idk I've heard someone speak like that before and I know it was somewhere in rural ireland. anyway your posts are a balm to my scattered brain

thank you friend perhaps one day i shall do a live reading of some of the horse posts just for fun to show my internal inflection in writing them if enough people are interested perhaps as a 10000 follower celebration as we are already nearing 7000 which is incredible and gratifying and elating however i will warn you right now that i am not north irish i am but a southeastern american

#horse #horses #horseblr #horseposting #ask #horseimagebarn talking

[olderthannetfic]

I'm a run of the mill White American, and I've been doing a lot of geneological research recently and can't help but feel a deep sense of loss. It's not my own loss, but it''s something my ancestors lost and thus were unable to pass down to me.

One of my great great grandfathers, for example, emigrated from Ireland as a child. From what I hear, he spoke English with a mild Irish accent and faced all the anti-Irish discrimination that was common in his time. His daughter, my great grandmother, had an American accent and there was nothing Irish about her aside from her surname. She had no stories or recipes or songs or festivals from Ireland to pass down toher own children, and by the time we got to me the fact that that side of the family was Irish at all had even been forgotten. Word of mouth in my parent's generation was that that brand of the family was Scottish (it was a common Mc/Mac surname, spelled variously in different records), and it wasn't until I traced my great grandmother's census records back to her birth that I learned that my great great grandfather's name was Patrick and he was born in Ireland. Anything Irish, even the very fact that he was Irish, that this man brought with him from his home was entirely lost within the space of a single generation. That loss of culture and identity is tragic, even if it's not my own loss.

The same thing happens on nearly every branch of my family.

Another great great grandfather emigrated from Italy as an adult; records from 1890 described him as a naturalised citizen who looks and sounds Italian. His son, my great grandfather, had am American accent, did not speak any Italian, and had no Italian culture to pass down to his children. Aside from the name and the basic fact that the surname is Italian, all Italian culture and identity was lost, again within the space of a single generation. All the Italian food my parents cooked when I was growing up were things they learned from recipe books simply because they liked it, and had nothing to do with my father's Italian heritage.

Another branch of my family is Swiss, it took one generation to lose Swiss accents, language, and culture there, too.

Another is Danish. it seems to have taken two generations for all Danishness to have disapeared.

The Dutch and German branches of the family both came to the US earlier than these, so it's harder to track down information about who came from where and when, but there was no Dutchness or Germanness in those respective branches by 1900, they spoke English and were considered Americans, and if they had any specifically Dutch-American or German-American culture or traditions, they did not pass them down to my great grandparents' generation.

All these cultures are things I could have had, but that my ancestors lost or hid or had taken from them before we got to me. I'm comfortable in my cultural identity as a white American, I don't feel any need to go out and claim to be Italian or Irish or Danish or Swiss or anything, and I especailly don't want to talk over anyone actually from those parts of the world, but for my American identity to exist, countless people lost their own European cultural identites. Some were more marginalised than others (a recent reblog posted some newspaper ads that demonstrated how German Americans were prefered over Irish Americans, and I can't help but think about that in context of my own German and Irish ancestors who were in the US at that time), and some are more at risk than others. The Italian language isn't going anywhere any time soon, but every person who learns to speak Irish is one more drop in the bucket against that language going extinct.

I think it's important for White Americans to remember where we came from and to know what our ancestors lost to create the identity we have today. Even if I have no Italian-American culture, it's good to be able to say "my surname is from Italy and I know what the world was like for my great great grandfather". It's also important to realise that our ancestors' identities are not our own, and what they lost cannot be regained simply by claiming their identities for ourselves. I can try to learn about and participate in their cultures, I can learn to speak Italian and cook Danish food and sing Irish songs, and in doing so I can even help keep at-risk cultures or languages or traditions alive, and this is good, but we also have to keep in mind that having an Irish great great grandfather does not mean that we are Irish the same way he was.

--

The loss of culture is sad, though one thing I will say is that immigrants between anywhere and anywhere tend to lose their old language by the third generation unless they're going back and forth or there are a lot of monolingual speakers in the new country. That probably wouldn't ever have stuck around, but the food and the festivals could have.

[copperbadge]

I've had Fete For A King on my TBR for a while, and have finally gotten around to starting it. The reason I put it off for so long is because - well, I think you've said you have aphantasia? Is that correct? My problem is the opposite of that. I hyper visualize, or whatever. And while I very much understand your admiration of Guy Fieri, I wasn't sure I wanted to read a romance novel with him in my head the whole time. Try as I might, I can't always control my brain's fan-casting. I once couldn't stop picturing a character who was supposed to be a 20-something Irish rogue hacker type as the dad from The Nanny (90s sitcom) and gave up reading entirely. However, the moment you (well, Gregory) described Eddie's physique as "built like a Viking" my trouble-making brain screamed "THOR!" So now Eddie is being played by a slightly less magazine-bodied Chris Hemsworth. Occasionally, the Aus accent creeps in. I can't fix it. It could be worse.

All this aside, I am very much enjoying myself and looking forward to reading the rest of the series. I have also recommended it to a bestie, who also has aphantasia - I figured if it wasn't boring for someone who's aphantastic to write, it's probably great for a fellow aphantasic to read. Thank you SO MUCH for sharing.

I'm s so glad you've been enjoying it! Even with poor Eddie "Thor" Rambler-Hemsworth. :D

Eddie is probably actually the most visually ambiguous of the characters, I think I do better describing everyone else. Part of that is intentional, even down to the "viking" thing because that evokes a specific mental association but that varies by person. Without getting into the weeds about it, while in my mind Eddie is a regular-bodied guy built on large lines, lbr: Guy Fieri is kinda fat, and gets a lot of shit for it. For years before the current renaissance he's having in the public eye, I would ask "Okay, what's he actually done that makes him so awful?" and it always boiled down in the end to two things: being dangerously enthusiastic and being unforgivably fat. I understand entirely people who find him difficult to watch because he does have a very specific style of talking/hosting/behaving that can be offputting, but a lot of people just offhandedly dismiss him because he's a happy fat dude.

So I wanted to deliberately leave space in the stories for people to read Eddie as fat and successful, desirable, and attractive, if that's where their heart lies. (Also, because it is a bit ambiguous, at some point I'd like to do a story with a protagonist who is fat in the same way Caleb is trans: the condition of the protagonist's body is part of who they are but not the point of the narrative.) But also like, some people won't think that, or would struggle with that, so I left Eddie kind of ambiguously "large".

ANYWAY, glad you could find a facecast for him :D And I hope your aphantasic friend also enjoys it!

#shivadhverse #sam writes #fatphobia #fat acceptance

[all-things-normaler]

i wanna write fanfics but i'm not sure how to keep everyone in character and to write normal dialogue. do you have any advice? thank you!

Okay so, I've written fanfiction and roleplayed for nine years, and I know it's scary and hard at first, but eventually with enough practice, writing will become as easy as breathing air.

First thing I do is envision the scene in my mind, like a movie! What's the setting? The mood? What kind of characters are here? What's the plot? Materialize all of this in your brain and do not force yourself to make dialogue, it'll come up to you naturally. Think of yourself as the actor for all these characters, feel their emotions, study their motives, backgrounds, passions and even body mannerisms.

If you're dealing with a pairing or characters that correlate with each other, try to think. What are their similarities and opposites? Are they really all that similar or is it one or two few traits? This is where the Venn Diagram comes in! That's the method I've been taught at school, and honestly, I could make a list but the Venn Diagram helps me visualize things better. To be honest I have sharp memory to things I'm fixated in, so I don't do it physically, but it's very useful! And YES, while studying these characters annotate everything that could be useful in writing dialogue.

Do they have an accent? A lisp? Is there any vocabulary depending of where they were raised?

I have things to say about these things in dialogue and the first two are more personal and up to my taste.

Personally when people write "accents" that aren't like Country or Irish accents that actually have different words in the vocabulary, when you replace the letters to make the "sound" and in a way create new words, not only does it look messy, it IS messy to read! It's an unfortunate phenomenon in the Team Fortress 2 Fandom lol.

EXAMPLE: "Viz is not good. Vhat was a vad decision."

For these instances, use regional words and spellings for the dialogue, it says much more than what I've told you. Are they british? Use words like "favourite" instead of "favorite" etc. Trust me, the readers aren't dumb people, you can do ONE paragraph describing that your character has an accent and they would understand.

I think my gripe against that style of writing isn't only aesthetically but also because I'm bilingual (my native tongue being Spanish) so honestly, it would look a little offensive reading a fanfiction where my type of accent is typed like that.

When writing bilingual people ALSO avoid this:

Like prideling said, that one's a big example of what bilingual people do. Even in their own native language! I constantly forget to say "accurate" in Spanish lmao.

And we do not "switch" languages, we aren't Dora The Explorer. We can greet and talk normally to people. Only times I'd say bilinguals happen to jump back at their native tongue accidentally it's when they're surprised? It's happened to me, but for a very short time. Bilingual readers prefer to be represented with the struggles of knowing two languages and showcasing their culture throughout descriptive paragraphs over anything.

Anyway, moving on... DIALOGUE!

This is a classic. Do NOT get comfortable with the verb said. Try using other words like: exclaimed, announced, warned, shouted, whispered, etc!

The more you write, the more you'll learn about these verbs, adverbs and adjectives and it'll come handy tremendously. We don't want to have too much repetition do we?

I am also handing you this emotion wheel that will be incredibly useful if you're starting writing:

Speaking of repetition... Remember that thing I said about studying your characters? Try to avoid too much repetition of one word between the two characters. As you may have noticed people have a cadence and ways of speaking. If you do that a lot, people will break from the immersion and think it's you who's talking, not the character.

Another classic! SHOW, DON'T TELL.

If you're into writing, you'll probably have heard this saying before. All writers have committed this sin when they started writing, using adverbs and adjectives too obsessively instead of narrating how the character feels.

Is your character anxious? How about instead of doing:

“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck! What am I supposed to do now!?” He anxiously exclaimed.

We do...

“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He tightly gripped onto his jet black hair and ripped it from his scalp into shreds. Pain was the last thing he cared about when a bigger torture was on his mind. His chest constricted, his lungs having less oxygen filled with hot air. The corners of his eyes burned, and his brain constantly banged to the corners of his skull begging to free it from this horrible outcome. The man started to lose his senses, he couldn't smell the horrible stench from his machines, or feel the bottom of his feet anxiously walking in circles, his fingers were getting tingly and numb. Onceler couldn't even see the insides of his destroyed mansion and the deforestation he caused from his window. All of it was a blur and too much too handle, the weight of his actions fell into his mind and stomach, forever scarred and stuck like that last stump in the middle of what used to be a vibrant Truffula Tree forest.

“What am I supposed to do now!?” He scratched his knotted throat as loud as he could, ripping his vocal chords. It didn't matter if he could hear himself now, he didn't listen to his real soul in the past, and now, no one will listen to him now. No matter how much he begged for help.

Alright, that was a little big example there haha! But you get it right? Here's a picture to help you visualize better.

Mind you, the first example isn't bad to use! Just don't constantly use it. It's good to show a story throughout the actions of your character!

Alright, what else... what else... oh yes!

Be mindful of spellchecking bots!

I'll be honest to you, I do use them! They come incredibly handy because sometimes I mess up verbs or I just simply add too many spaces or create typos without meaning to! But remember that bots are bots, and at the end of the day they don't have humanity. They're AI. Therefore, these bots might make suggestions to change certain words because they don't recognize it as part of the vocabulary, but if you do click on everything they suggest, your dialogue will become very robotic and lacking of stylization. Keep those peepers open!

Use a beta reader?

I never had one. To me, writing is a very personal thing and for me to have one, they would have to share the same fandom that I'm writing of to be trustworthy. Beta Readers can be useful because they can point out mistakes other than spelling ones. Something the bots CANNOT do. They can point out weird things in dialogue, plot holes, etc.

Learn of your narration voice.

The way you narrate is your brush strokes of art but in writing! What type of a narrator are you? The unreliable type? The classic? Or just a narrator with a god complex? Have fun with that! And remember, if you want to narrate not as a narrator or yourself but as one of the characters, REMEMBER to study the character. Basically, the first tip I gave you.

Stuttering.

Don't overuse it. And we don't always stutter like: "b-b-but!" NO! Instead, try slurring the words, and adding ellipsis (the three dots ...)

Not only is it more realistic, but it looks better on writing.

This image is something I struggle with too, but it'll be useful to see it now!

Honestly, my path for writing has been rocky and I raw-dogged this shit, so it's an honor being able to help you! If you ever have any doubts keep coming here! I love to get in more depth, but I've been making this post for like an hour already!

I think that's all I can give you for now! Lots of people that have read my fanfics and roleplays have pointed out that dialogue is my forte! It's rather flattering. As always, I don't give tips or boast about my writing without evidence, so here's a snippet of a Normaler fanfic I'm writing:

“I brought you some things. Water and a towel. Hopefully that's enough.” She handed him the materials and he gladly took them, opening the water bottles and damping the towels.

“Thanks. It's tomatoes. I doubt there's a lot to get me dirty with those.” He chuckled awkwardly, before rushing to rub the towel against his cheek.

Norma smiled, raising her eyebrows.

“I take it that you're a foreigner?”

“You can tell?”

“Your accent. Yeah.” Norma stretched her legs as she sat next to him. “You're one of those cowboys?” She grinned back at the man.

The Once-ler laughed, and my... did he have a goofy laugh. Not what she expected.

“I wish. It sounds like fun, but where I come from, rural life is pretty boring.” He continued to rub the towel against his clothes.

“Greenville doesn't like foreigners.” She explained bluntly. “They always come here with bad intentions.” She furrowed her eyebrows with a teasing smirk, causing the Once-ler to dramatically gasp, a hand on his chest.

“B-But I ain't coming here with bad intentions!”

#writing tips #ask

[professor-sandalo-fakemonblog]

I realized that I may not have properly introduced myself. Oh, silly me! Hello trainers and pokemon of rotomblr! My name is Georgia Sandalo, and I am the Professor of of the JunPil region. It’s a med-large island group supposedly near Pokelantis. My home region is a common stopping point for migratory Pokemon, with a naturally wide variety of different Pokeberries that are very rare in other regions. This island is also a pilgrimage destination for people of Galar, Kalos, and Hoenn.

[OOC:]

Please no EXPLICIT nsfw interactions and anons are on. No malice allowed. @tanxiang-genshin-pokemon is my most recent au sideblog

Name: Georgia(like the professor)

Born in 2000

This Fakemon region is based off of a mix of Jerusalem, as it’s a very well known pilgrimage destination for three of the major religions of the world; Louisiana, another big migration stop where people just stayed around; and the islands of the Caribbean. Also, Professor Sandalo has a “soft” Cajun accent with a sprinkling of Irish and Arabic pronunciations of some words.

This Fakemon region focuses primarily on branching evolutions and focuses more on Eevee than anything else.

She’s about 24, making her definitely one of the younger professors, and it’s more because her region just hasn’t had anyone step up as a researcher until she did in the middle of becoming a proper folk healer/nun. Her hair is loosely curly, in an asymmetrical and roughly cut bob and is dark blonde.

She keeps bandannas of various colors that she ties over her hair as a nod to the path she left behind as she keeps a protection ward pinned on her at all times, an nearly complete tattoo on her hand showing how far she was into her training before taking her new position as the region’s professor.

Her Pokemon would describe her as soft looking and looking like a young mother, while the elders of the village describe it as “being a shame” that she took a path that “broke the heart of every boy in the village”. I would describe her as being pleasantly plump and what many cultures seem to consider “very womanly”. I wanted her to be softer and at least pleasant looking because her condition makes exercise difficult, so it’s natural for her to be plump when you consider her inconsistently fluctuating diet(as in what she eats, not like dieting) and appetite.

She has moments of age regression to about 5-7, but her Pokemon take great care of her during this time.

Her partner Pokemon, a shiny male Sylveon named Sylph, is very protective and often stays pressed gently against her side to support her as she walks with her walking stick or cane. She has many other Eeveelutions she’s taking care of who insist on assisting her, even learning how to help with her experiments, becoming exceptionally helpful once she gets someone to craft a few Pokemon-friendly versions of her microscope, centrifuge, and a couple other things. Her pair of Ryujeon especially love to bring abandoned or injured Pokemon and children to her.

Hope yall enjoy this RP blog!

#fakemon #fakemon region #eeveelution #pokemon professor

[j-eryewrites]

The Blind Banker (I)

Part 10 of The Arbitrary Lives of the Occupants of 221b Baker Street

Previous | Next

SERIES MASTER LIST | MAIN MASTER LIST

Word Count: 7.k 

Warnings: Crime scene description, description of a dead body, Sherlock is Sherlock, Y/N is a badass, Sebastian is a dick to Sherlock, fluff

Notes: I am writing Y/N as being multilingual. I myself am multilingual and love to use it/show off any chance I get.

__________________________

Y/N frantically dashed from the bus stop to the steps of the National Museum of Antiquities. The building's tall columns hover over her. Their structure soared up to the heavens as if the gods themselves resided there. Her coat swayed behind her as she climbed up the steps. An autumnal wind circulated her,  grazing her cheeks leaving a redness to them. Her hair danced along. She swiftly entered the museum and peered around for the polished man she now called her boyfriend. Her eyes landed on Jim. His custom-made suit heightens his edgy charm. His deep mahogany eyes caught sight of her and he flashed his million-dollar smile. She blushed under his gaze as her feet made their way to him. The memory of him asking her to be official still fresh in her mind. With his dazzling smile and eager eyes, there was no way she could have ever turned him down. 

She ran to him grasping him in a big hug. Then Y/N pulled away to offer Jim a quick kiss. 

“So glad you could make it in time,” he grinned. He took his hand to hold hers. “The demonstration is about to start.”

Y/N squeezed Jim’s hand excitedly. “I can’t believe you found out about this.”

He chuckled at her enthusiasm. “Well, I thought my girlfriend,” he enunciated, “who happens to love Chinese culture and speak the language would be interested. Guess I was right.” His Irish voice chirped. 

She leaned into his shoulder, wrapping her free hand around his arm as they walked. Jim led her to where a tour group was gathered. In the vast room there stood glass cases presenting antiques collected from the great land of china. Y/N’s eyes ogled at them as they passed. Her inner geek popped out to mention fun facts to Jim. He smiled and nodded as she told him. A lady entered the room, holding a Chinese clay tea set in her hand. Carefully the woman placed it down on a table in front of the group. Y/N stood on her tippy toes to peer over the heads of the guests in front of her. Jim noticing, took them to the side of the group, presenting Y/N with a perfect view of the presentation. 

The woman who sat before them was Chinese. She had a soft round face and beautiful dark eyes that held a peacefulness to them. The woman, who introduced herself as Soo Lin began the demonstration of an ancient tea ceremony. Her long delicate finger picked up the fragile centuries-old clay pots. It was as if these pots meant the world to her. 

Carefully, Soo Lin brought the tea to a boil and began pouring the liquid over the clay tea set. Some of the children in the group were awed as she did so. 

“The great artisans say the more the teapot is used, the more beautiful it becomes,” Soo Lin says.

Y/N watched in pure fascination as Soo Lin described the history of the practice. Jim gazed at Y/N with a softness in his eye, ignoring the presentation completely. 

“The pot is seasoned by repeatedly pouring tea over the surface,” Soo Lin explained in a heavy Chinese accent. “The deposit left on the clay creates this beautiful patina over time.”

Then Soo Lin holds up the wet teapot for the group to see. The clay pot was once dull but now shines like a diamond. 

“For some pots,” Soo Lin continues, “the clay has been burnished by tea made over four hundred years ago.” She places the pot down and begins to finalize her presentation. As the other guest turn away and move on to other exhibits, Y/N walks toward Soo Lin. 

“宜兴茶壶 (Yixing teapot)” she mentions. 

Soo Lin peeks up at Y/N, her ears twitching up and hearing her mother tongue. “你会说汉语吗？”

Y/N smile’s grows brighter as she hears the familiar language. Soo Lin focused on the woman in front of her. Her eyes filled with surprise. 

“对。我会说汉语,”Y/N replied. Soo Lin’s flashed a smile that matched hers. “我真的很喜欢你的演讲。你做得很好。“

”哪里哪里，“ Soo Lin chuckled. 

Jim looked fondly between the two women. His eyes widen as the conversation continued. He leaned into Y/N. His whisper tickled her ear. 

“What are you two talking about?” He wonders. 

Y/N shudders and slightly laughs. She motions to Soo Lin. “I’m just complimenting her on the presentation. That’s all.”

Soo Lin smiles and nods her head. “You’re girlfriend can speak quite good Chinese.” 

Y/N blushes and Jim responds by wrapping an arm around her waist. “She’s a woman of many talents.”

Y/N playful pats his chest and returns to Soo Lin. “I won’t keep you long, I’m sure you’ve got other things to do. Thanks again for the presentation.”

“I’m glad you liked it.” Soo Lin comments before returning to her work. 

Jim and Y/N turn around making their way out of the room. They continue to tour the rest of the museum. Y/N stops at every exhibit and Jim fixates on her figure. He admired her as if she, herself, was an antique piece of art to be treasured by all who visit the museum. Eventually, they made their way through the museum and exited the museum right as it began to close. 

“You sure liked those exhibits,” commented Jim. He smirked at her as she leaned into him. 

“I did,” She confirmed. “I especially enjoyed the Yixing teapot demonstration.” 

“Seems to me you enjoyed speaking to the lady more than any of the other exhibits we visited.” Jim poked at her and gleefully ran away from her as she tried to get him back. 

She laughed as he dodged her attempts to catch him. Finally, she caught him and he brought his lips to hers. Her breath was taken away. 

Shaking it off she continued, “Well, ya. It’s not every day you find someone who can speak mandarin.” 

Jim placed her hand in his and they continued meandering around the plaza. The lights of London illuminated their promenade. A pleasant silence fell over them as they approached the bus station. 

Jim turned to Y/N and said, “I’m going to be heading for Germany in a few days.” 

Y/N cocked her toward him. “You’re leaving?”

“Unfortunately I’m leaving the day after tomorrow,” He clarified. “I’m going to be gone for a few weeks at most. Business calls.”

Y/N groaned. “Really? Is there any way I can see you before you go?” 

Jim brought his hands to cup her face. “I’m free tomorrow night. If you would like to join me for a nice dinner.” His mocha eyes flicked between hers. 

She nods.”Promise you’ll call?” She pouts. 

Jim lovingly smiles. “Every day.”

 Y/N leans in to press a lingering kiss to his lips as the bus pulls up beside them to take her back to Baker Street. Reluctantly she lets go of Jim’s hand and enters the bus. She sits by the window and waves him goodbye as the bus pulls away from the station. Y/N rests her head on the window and solemnly peers out. It’s going to be a long few weeks. 

_____________________________________________________________________________________

It was a beautiful morning. The sun was high in the sky shining down its excellence for all to see. A rare occurrence in London late in the autumn season. On a day like this, Y/N dreamed of being outside and feeling the sun’s warm rays on her face but she was stuck in a bistro. Now, typically she wouldn’t complain about being in a bistro except it that it was outrageously far away from Baker Street. She had quite a struggle finding a bus to the location. Eventually, she had to settle on taking three different buses to reach the bistro. All because a certain bullheaded brother of her employer, Mycroft Holmes insisted on keeping up his appearance and staying under the radar, as he called it. 

Y/N couldn’t complain since the income that Mycroft was giving her kept her afloat despite her job working as Sherlock’s assistant. Mycroft increased her pay due to her proximity to his brother. 

Mycroft had cut all the niceties and skipped to the point. He demanded to know about Sherlock’s movements and whom he was involved with. Y/N, of course, told him everything to the best of her ability. Mycroft, jotting down everything she said. It did not take long for the interrogation to finish. 

Mycroft closed the notebook and pondered. “Are you engaging in any relations with my brother?” 

Y/N about choked on her tea. “What?!”

“You must be confused about my question,” Mycroft stated. “Let me explain, are you engaging in any romantic or sexual relat…” 

“Let me stop you right there, Mycroft.” Enunciated Y/N. “I am your brother’s assistant and ONLY his assistant.” Mycroft’s eyes narrowed at her. “I’ll have you know it I’m in a relationship with another man, and am in no way inclined into being in a relationship with Sherlock.”

Mycroft sat back and nodded his head, satisfied with the answer. He reached for his umbrella and stood up out of his seat. “I’ll see you next month, Ms. L/N.” Without another word, he was gone.

Y/N sighed and rested her head in her hands. Dealing with one Holmes brother was enough, but two. That’s where she drew the line. 

Just then the phone in her back pocket rang, and she was greeted with the familiar sound of John panicking. 

“I’m having a row with a chip-in-pin machine at the grocery store. Sherlock won’t pick up. And I’m about to break something.” Fumed John. 

In the background, an automated voice chimed, “Item not scanned. Please try again….Card not authorized…” 

“Alright, John” giggled Y/N, “I’m on my way. It’s going to be a while until I get there.” She grabbed her things and made her way out of the bistro. 

“Better than Sherlock,” John grumbled. “He is not picking up his phone.”

“Really?” She asked. She could hear John grunt on the other end of the phone. “Send me your location, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”  John sent her his location and she typed it into her maps. 

As she was walking, she tried calling Sherlock’s cell and was sent to voicemail. After a few times being sent to voicemail, she called her Aunt’s number. 

“Hello, this is Martha Hudson speaking.” Mrs.Hudson still hadn’t gotten used to the cell phone. 

Y/N chuckled, “Auntie M, it’s me.” 

“Oh, I should have known that’s why your name was on the screen. I’ll never get used to these phones.” 

“You’ll get the hang of it eventually” reassured Y/N. “By any chance is Sherlock home? He’s not answering his phone.”

_____

A man wrapped in clothes covering him head to toe lunged at Sherlock. A sword stabbed forward and Sherlock lept to the side. Then Sherlock jumps up grabbing the man by his wrists. After some struggle, the man pushes Sherlock onto the kitchen table, his sword aimed at Sherlock’s throat. The man yelled out to bring the sword down. Sherlock pushes his attacker’s wrist upwards to put distance between him and the blade. A sweat broke out on his forehead, dripping down his chiseled cheekbones. The attacker’s grip began to weaken as his wrist bent slightly upwards. Suddenly, Sherlock forces himself off the table. The attacker backs away into the living, swiping at Sherlock. He ducks and then brings a powerful uppercut into his attacker’s chin. The man falls to the ground with a grunt, unconscious. After catching his breath Sherlock stands tall, dusting off the mess of the fight. He ran his hand through his head of dark curls wondering how he was going to take care of the body. 

______

A deep sigh escaped Mrs.Hudson’s mouth. “He is, Lizzy. But he’s…” There was a pause as she tried to find the right words. “I believe he’s occupied with… with a special someone. I can hear them from downstairs. It sounds like they’re having quite a good time, by all the grunting, crashing, thumping I hear..” 

Y/N’s face turned bright red. “Oh! Thanks for telling me. I thought he... Just… never mind. See you later, Auntie M.”

“Alright dear, goodbye.” Y/N immediately pressed the red button and burst into laughter. She couldn’t wait to tell John about what Mrs.Hudson had told her. 

There was an extremely long line when Y/N entered the store, at the front stood John. His finger angrily motioned towards the machine a vein popped out of his head.  He refused to give up and kept trying to figure out the chip-in-pin machine. An automated voice responds, “The card you are using is not authorized. Please try again.” A collective groan escapes the mouths of those in the line.

“Oh shut up. Go wait in another queue if you so please.”  Scoffed John. He was not happy, Y/N could tell that. But seeing her best friend get so frustrated over a chip-in-PIN machine was just too funny, so she laughed. Recognizing that laugh, John looked up and a sigh of relief washed over them. So much so that he announced it to everyone in the queue behind him. “Look everyone, help has arrived.” A few people in the queue behind him awkwardly clapped their hands, unsure of what to do. 

Y/N chuckled and pulled out her wallet and inserted the card. Typing in her pin the machine chimed, accepting the card and payment. John stood there shocked, as Y/N started gathering the bags of groceries. “You didn’t need to do that Y/N.” 

“Just helping out a friend in need.” She replied as John began taking a few of the bags from Y/N’s arms. 

“No, no, you stopped me from practically murdering that machine. Let me pay you back.” 

Y/N chuckled, “Alright then John. You can cover for me tonight. Jim’s asked me to have dinner at his place.” 

John wiggled his eyebrows at his friend. “Oh? Last I heard you two made it official. Special night planned?”

Y/N smiled to herself and a pink tint flushed over her face. “I don’t know. He leaves for Germany on a business trip for a few weeks, so…”

“I’ve got you covered, Y/N,” John confirms. “Though it’s not really what I meant by paying you back, that works too.” Once the two of them had gathered the groceries. 

On the way home, Y/N remembered to tell John what Mrs.Hudson had told her when she called asking for Sherlock. Immediately John’s ears turned bright pink as his mind fought to process this new information. “You’re telling me Sherlock might’ve had someone over? That doesn’t sound like him...I was pretty sure that he was…”

“Married to his workl?!” Proposed Y/N, John nodded his head in agreement. “Same here, but you never know. I mean he’s never told us specifically that he was… you know. But imagine, if what Auntie M said was true. Sherlock’s never gonna hear the end of it,” chuckled Y/N. John couldn’t help but chuckle as well. Sherlock, the man whom everyone thought was married to his work, might have been possibly overheard by his landlady satisfying certain needs.

It didn't take the two of them long to return home. The whole way home they’d come up with ways to tease Sherlock. Laughing and joking as the cold November wind blew around them. Lifting the fallen leaves on the road sidewalk causing them to dance around like a spinning ballerina. When they entered 221 Mrs.Hudson had told the two of them to settle down. It had only just gotten quiet upstairs. This sparked another wave of laughter between John and Y/N as they remembered all the teasing and jokes that awaited them. Mrs.Hudson brushed them off and sent them up the stairs mumbling something about how laughter was good for the soul. 

Sitting at the dining table, Sherlock was typing away on John’s computer. Not even looking up at his two friends as they entered the kitchen with the groceries. Y/N and John shared looks as they looked around the apartment for clues to aid in their suspicion. Except the place was just as they left it and Sherlock on his throne not having moved an inch.

“You took your time,” Sherlock noted not looking up from the computer. 

 “I had a row with a chip-and-PIN machine. I tried calling you for help, but you didn’t answer.” Placing the groceries on the counter John looked at Sherlock in disbelief. “Is that my computer?”

“Of course,” stated Sherlock. 

John clenched his jaw. “What?!” 

Y/N smirked as she placed the groceries in the fridge.

“Mine was in my bedroom, John,” Sherlock enunciated. “You…you had a row with a chip-and-PIN machine?”

“Y/N had to come and save me.” John paused and opened his mouth thinking of how he could censor his words. “It’s password-protected, Sherlock!” John spat.

“In a manner of speaking. Took me less than a minute to guess yours. Fort Knox. You should change your password,” suggested Sherlock. John’s mouth hung open and he would have stayed that way if it wasn’t for Y/N chucking an apple at him. John caught it and then turned his focus on unpacking the groceries.

Leaning over the dining table, Y/N began implying, “So, Sherlock.” He glanced up from the computer to look at her. A few hairs fell into her face. Her smile was all too suggestive of something. “Sounds like you had quite a good time earlier. If you know what I mean.” John practically choked on the air he was breathing. 

He cocked a brow up at her and glanced around the room. “If you say so,” He replied returning to John’s computer. 

John looks back at Sherlock and sighs. He marches over to Sherlock snatching his computer from Sherlock’s hands. John then marches across the room placing the computer as far away from Sherlock as he could. Then sliding down he sits in his armchair. John’s eye catches a pile of bills. He frowns. 

“Need to get a job,” he mutters. 

“Oh, dull,” Sherlock replies. 

Y/N clears her throat catching the attention of Sherlock and John. “Actually, I still haven’t been paid since Abbey Grange.” 

Sherlock narrowed his eyes and John looked up to the ceiling with frustration. 

“I need to go to the bank.” Stated Sherlock, completely ignoring the comment Y/N had just made. 

“Okay…?” Y/N responded. Sherlock stood up and threw on his coat. He turned to Y/N and John. His blue eyes gave them a look. “Oh! We’re coming.” 

Sherlock headed down the stairs. Y/N scurried out after him. John groans standing up from the comfort of his chair. He slowly made his way out of the flat and after Sherlock and Y/N. 

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Tower 42, Old Broad Street. That’s what it said in a big bold steel letter. The glass skyscraper lived up to its namesake. It towered over the three of them. A giant in a city of tiny figurines. The numerous windows shimmered in the late morning sun. Each surface is expertly cleaned extracting the sense of wealth. Y/N shudders just thinking about the amount of wealth this bank owned. Before the three of them stood glass revolving doors. People spun in and out of them. Sherlock stepped forward leading John and Y/N inside the luxurious building. 

They entered an impressive foyer. Chatter filled the background as people took calls and others withdrew money from their accounts. As Y/N glanced around, she saw the newest and best computer and technology. This bank far exceeded the expectations of her own. To the side there hung a large sign saying Shad Sanderson Bank. Y/N glanced toward her employer. His icy eyes astutely observed his surroundings. The images of the glass barriers, clocks, and the reception desk could be seen in them. Then Sherlock came to a stop. They had arrived at a reception desk. 

One of the many receptionists behind the desk peered up at the three of them. Her eyes judgingly glanced over their appearance. It was obvious they did not belong in a bank of this caliber. 

“Sherlock Holmes,” addressed Sherlock. The woman’s eye’s widened and she immediately led them through a heavy set of doors labeled employees only. She led down winding hallways, and the three of them passed numerous offices. Some of which were larger than the entire square footage of their apartments. Eventually, they came to an office. To the side of the door, there stood a brass name tag: Sebastian Wilkes. The receptionist opened the door and ushered them inside. 

A man in a well-tailored suit stood up from the desk. He flashes a grin at the three of them. His brown eyes land on Y/N and linger on her figure. Sherlock’s jaw clenches and he clears his throat bringing the man’s attention to him. 

“Sherlock Holmes,” Sebastian states. 

“Sebastian,” Sherlock grimaced. 

Sebastian sticks his hand out for Sherlock to shake, which he reluctantly takes. 

“Howdy, buddy. How long has it been? Eight years since I clapped eyes on you?” Sebastian guessed with an overly excited smile plastered on his face.

An expression of disdain flashed on Sherlock’s face, one which he barely tried to hide. A similar look appeared on Y/N’s face. 

Sherlock pointed towards John, “This is my friend, John Watson.” 

Sebastian widened his eyes in surprise. “And who’s this lovely lady?” Sebastian asked. Sherlock’s eyes narrowed at him. 

Y/N winced at the comment. 

“This is my assistant and friend,” Sherlock glowered at Sebastian, “Y/N L/N.”

“Right.” Sebastian scoffed. He gave Sherlock a quick look as if to say Didn’t think you had any friends! Grinning unpleasantly the man sat back in his chair, motioning for the others to take a seat. Both John and Y/N’s lips purse with instant dislike. “Well, grab a seat. D’you need anything? Coffee, water?”

The three reply with a no.

“So, you’re doing well. You’ve been abroad a lot?” Sherlock commented.

“Well, some.” Sebastian smiled at Y/N.

“Flying all the way around the world twice in a month?” smirked Sherlock. 

“Right. You’re doing that thing.” Sebastian noticed. Looking towards Y/N, he continued, “ We were at uni together. This guy here had a trick he used to do.”

“It’s not a trick,” Sherlock muttered barely enough for Y/N to hear. 

“He could look at you and tell you your whole life story!” Sebastian exclaimed. 

“Yes, I’ve seen him do it,” Y/N noted. 

“Put the wind-up everybody. We hated him.” Y/N noticed how Sherlock turned his head away and looked down at his feet. She of all people could recognize his face momentarily filling with pain. The presenting pleasant expression dropped from Y/N's face. Her jaw was tightly clenched as her gaze turned back to Sebastian. “You’d come down to breakfast in the Formal Hall and this freak would know you’d been shagging the previous night.

“I simply observed,” Sherlock stated remnants of pain still present in his eyes. 

“Go on, enlighten me,” scoffs Sebastian,” Two trips a month, flying around the world – you’re quite right. How could you tell?”

Sherlock opens his mouth to reply but Sebastian continues speaking over him to Y/N. “You’re gonna tell me there was, um, a stain on my tie from some special kind of ketchup you can only buy in Manhattan? ” He smugly says. 

John squirms in his chair, ticked off by the man. 

“No, I …” Sherlock tries to clarify. 

“Maybe it was the mud on my shoes!” Interrupted Sherlock. 

“I was just chatting with your secretary outside. She told me.” Sherlock stated. 

Both John and Sebastian frown at him. John was confused by the simply ordinary explanation of his deductions. Then Sebastian breaks into a humorless laugh and Sherlock smiles back at him. His face showed no hint of humor. Suddenly Sebastian claps his hands together, turning back to Y/N

“How’d you end up working for him?” He asked as if it was impossible. 

Y/N smiled a knowing smile. One that hid the shared hatred she, John, and Sherlock felt for Sebastian. “I work for Sherlock because I admire his talent and the fact that he’s a good person.”  

Both Sherlock and John’s eyes widened at her explanation. The pain from Sherlock’s eyes dissolved and was replaced with something else–something more tender. John smirked proudly at his friend. 

Sebastian scoffed in disbelief. “Wouldn’t a pretty girl like you want to work for someone…”

She cut him off. “What? Normal? Are you normal?” 

He nods as he fell into the trap of her faked innocence. 

“Oh,” she gasped, her expression immediately losing all its pleasantness. “So it normal for you to stare at women as if they are objects to be ogled at?” Sebastain’s face drops as she shifts in his seat. Uncomfortable under the woman’s powerful gaze. “Because I’ve noticed you haven’t taken your eyes off of me since I walked into this room despite having invited Sherlock here for help. So why don’t we discuss that? After all, it's what we are here for. If not, we will kindly take our leave.” 

Sherlock glanced toward Y/N, her tall and confident figure etched in his memory. He made no effort to hide the large smile on his face. John, on the other hand, had to use his hand to stifle a laugh. A few snickers escaped his mouth. Y/N sat still, glowing from the victory of her battle. Their reactions only added to the embarrassment that Sebastian felt.

Sebastian cleared his throat and flashed an awkward smile. Catching his breath, Sebastian straightened his tie and then leaned forward. His tone became more serious. He turned to Sherlock and got to the point, “I’m glad you could make it over. We’ve had a break-in.”

“What did they steal?” Interrogated John. 

Turning towards John, Sebastian explained, “Nothing. Just left a little message.” 

Now, this intrigued the consulting detective and his crime-solving friends. They rose from their seats and followed Sebastian as he showed them to the office. Sherlock stood close to Y/N as if he was repelling Sebastian away from her; Not that he needed to after her outbreak in his office. 

 In order to get into the room, Sebastian had to use a security card, something that Sherlock took note of. Inside, the walls were plain white. On one of the walls behind the large wooden desk was a huge framed painted portrait of the once bank’s chairman. The painting wasn’t what captivated the attention of the three friends. It was the bright yellow, spray-painted, graffiti tag on the wall left of the painting. The tag appeared to resemble the number 8, but the top of the number was left open. Above it was a horizontal straight line across the painting. Sherlock stepped forward to get a better look at the wall, Y/N standing closely behind him. John stood on the other side of the room next to Sebastian. 

“The room’s been left here like a sort of memorial,” Sebastian explained. “Someone broke in late last night.”

Y/N peered up at the graffiti symbols. A sense of familiarity washed over her. “It looks like numbers,” she muttered quietly to herself. She noted that the line covering the painting’s eyes reminded her the of Chinese word for one. Pulling out her phone, she snapped a picture of the graffiti. 

After they were done observing the wall, Sebastian had taken them back to his office to view the security footage. The three of them, John, Sherlock, and Y/N,  crowded around Sebastian’s computer. Y/N had retrieved a leather-bound journal and was writing down notes with her blue gel pen. The only pen, Sherlock noticed, she was willing to write with. Sebastian began to explain the videos. “They’re 60 seconds apart. Someone came up here in the middle of the night, splashed around some paint, and then left. All within a minute.” 

Sherlock squinted his eyes at the screen. “How many ways into that office?”

“Well, that’s where this gets really interesting.” Sebastian then showed the three of them the security camera in the reception center. “Every door that opens in the bank is logged right here. Every door.” 

Sherlock took his turn at the computer and noticed that “The door didn’t open last night.”

Sebastian stood up, pulling something out of his chest pocket. “There’s a hole in our security. Find it and we’ll pay you–five figures,” Sebastian reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a slip of paper.  He held a check out. Sherlock glared at the check. “This is an advance. Tell us how he got in and there’s a bigger one on its way.” John’s eyes widened and graciously took the check from Sebastian’s hand. 

Sherlock had asked to see the office once more, alone. That meant John and Y/N stood outside, waiting for what seemed like hours for their dark-haired friend to emerge from the room. Shortly, afterward, Sherlock is dancing around the trading floor. John and Y/N uncomfortably stand as their friend ducks down behind a desk. Slowly, Sherlock’s head of dark curls rises above the desk. His eyes stared in concentration at the glass door to Sir William’s office. Then he scurries across the floor, to the bemusement of John and Y/N. They chuckle at their friend’s ridiculous methods, knowing that it works. Sherlock continues to scamper around the office. Scurrying from behind the desk and peering at the office entrance. He reaches a doorway and enters an office. He makes his way behind the desk and, again, looks up at the office entryway. His eyes narrow as he gets a clear view of the spray paint covering the eyes of the portrait. Afterward, he makes his way around the office one more time before ending back up at the office. He looks around the room, as John and Y/N observe him. Then Sherlock heads to a door and calls Y/N’s name. Beckoning her to him. He slides the sign out of the holder and hands it to her. She glances down at the name on the slip: Eddie Van Coon. Once she places it securely in her pocket, the two of them head off. John followed them. 

Sherlock led them toward the escalators. The two ran after him. John was about to ask Sherlock a question, but Sherlock immediately answered. “Got everything I need to know. That graffiti was a message for someone at the bank working on the trading floors. We find the recipient and ....” 

John finished his sentence, “then they'll lead us to the person who sent it.” 

They stepped on the escalators. The buzz of the escalators hummed loudly in their ears. 

 “Two trips around the world this month. You didn’t ask his secretary; you said that just to irritate him,” noted John. 

Sherlock smirks but doesn’t reply to John.

“How did you know?” John pondered. 

“Did you see his watch?” Sherlock asked. 

“His watch?” repeated Y/N. 

“The time was right but the date was wrong,” Sherlock explained. “Said two days ago. Crossed the dateline twice but he didn’t alter it.”

“Within a month? How’d you get that part?” John mused. 

“New Breitling,” Sherlock proudly emitted. Y/N cocked her brow up in confusion. “Only came out this February. Obvious really.” 

John smiled proudly at his friend. 

“Sherlock?” Y/N wondered. “There’s probably about three hundred people up there. Who was the message meant for?”

“Pillars,” stated Sherlock. 

“What?” John and Y/N chimed in unison. 

Sherlock smiled, “Pillars and the screens. Very few places you can see that graffiti from. That narrows the field considerably. And of course, the message was left at eleven thirty-four last night. That tells us a lot.”

“Does it?” John asked. 

Sherlock stepped off the escalator and continued talking as the three of them went through the revolving doors and onto the street. “Traders come to work at all hours. Some trade with Hong Kong in the middle of the night. That message was intended for someone who came in at midnight. Y/N” He interjects, “what was the name on the card I gave you?”

She quickly pulls the slip out. “Umm…Edde Van Coon.”

“Not many Van Coons in the phonebook.” Sherlock cleverly says. 

His blue eyes scan the road landing on a taxi. Immediately he calls out, “Taxi!”

A buzz comes from Y/N’s pocket and she pulls out her phone. Jim. She glances over the message as John and Sherlock enter the cab. 

___

Can’t wait for tonight. I’ll pick you up around 5.30.”

-Jim

____

Y/N’s drifted up and caught sight of the time. Two hours until her and Jim’s date. She cleared her throat catching Sherlock’s attention. 

“You two go on without me. I’ve got to go.” 

Sherlock tilts his head. “Pardon?”

“Ya, I’ve got um…” Y/N looks towards John for help. “A date.” 

John nods his head, “Let’s go, Sherlock. We’ll see you later, Y/N.” He grasps Sherlock's sleeve to pull him into the car. Sherlock yanks his arm away from John and steps out onto the curb facing Y/N. 

“You can’t.” He states. “I need my assistant.”

Y/N sighs. “Sherlock, you’ll be just fine. Plus, you have John.” 

Sherlock doesn’t budge. “Y/N as your employer, I expect certain things of you. One of which is altering me before the time that you will be absent from work. That way John and I can plan accordingly.”

“But I told John this morning,” she pleads. 

“Exactly, you told him and not me, your employer. Tell your date that you can not make it.”

John scoffs in disbelief. “Sherlock!” John glared at Sherlock. The determination latched in his blue eyes, defeated John. 

“Sherlock, my boyfriend is leaving the country for work and will be gone for the next few weeks. This will be the last chance I get to see him. It’s not fair.”

Sherlock leaned into Y/N. “It’s not fair to us. We are in the middle of solving a case, and an important one at that. I need you here by my side.” Y/N crossed her arms.  “Of course you can leave,” Sherlock stated. “I have no control over your actions, but that would put your attachment to your job in question.” 

Pinching her nose, she took a moment to think. She did need the job and she was starting to like John and Sherlock. They were growing on her. A pregnant pause filled the air. Y/N sighed sadly, her eyes lowering.  “You’re right. Just let me call Jim and tell him I can’t make it tonight.”  

Sherlock’s shoulder release as he nods. Then he climbed back into the cab. Y/N tried calling Jim, but it went to voicemail, so she texted him instead. Explaining that something came up at work and that she couldn’t make it. A pang of guilt swished in her stomach. Soon after, she got in the back of the cab, and they were off. 

John looked over Sherlock at Y/N and offered her a comforting smile. His eyes telling her that he was sorry about not being able to help her. Y/N understood and then turned away to peer down at her hands. She began to fiddle with the rings on her fingers. Her back slightly hunched over. 

_____________________________________________________________________________________

The taxi lets them outside a block of flats. Sherlock pays the driver and then heads out marching directly toward a door buzzer. He glanced at the names and found one that was labelled ‘Van Coon’. He pressed the buzzer for a few seconds and then released it. There was no response. Y/N stuffed her hands in her pockets and began looking around. Sherlock pressed the button again. No response. 

“So, what do we do now? Sit here and wait for him to come back?” John pondered. 

Again, Sherlock’s eyes glance over the name label and then flashes a triumphant smile. 

“Just moved in.” Sherlock smirked. 

“What?” asks Y/N. 

“The floor above. New label.” He clarifies. 

Then Sherlock pressed the door buzzer above Van Coon’s. 

“Could have replaced it,” John added. 

Sherlock turned to look at John, “No-one ever does that.”

Suddenly a scratching noise comes from the speaker in front of them. A woman’s voice breaks through. “Hello?”

Sherlock turns to the camera and smiles. The smile reminded Y/N of the southern hospitality she experiences in the United States; The cheery neighbors popping by with a plate full of cookies and asking if you had Jesus or God in your life. 

“Hi!” chirped Sherlock. His voice most definitely three octaves higher. “Um, I live in the flat below you. I-I don’t think we’ve met.” He grins into the camera. Y/N does her best to stifle a snicker. 

“No, well, uh. I’ve just moved in,” the woman’s voice explained.

 Sherlock briefly turns around to present his I-told-you-so face towards John and Y/N. “Actually,” Sherlocks states, “I’ve just locked my keys in my flat.” He fakes embarrassment as he says it. 

“...Do you want me to buzz you in?” The woman hesitantly asks. 

“Yeah…and can I use your balcony?” He requested. 

“What?” The woman responds. John and Y/N flash each other confused looks. 

Not long after Y/N, Sherlock, and John are buzzed into the apartment building. As they step into the elevator to the correct floor, Sherlock address his friends. “John, Y/N. You two wait outside Van Coon’s flat. I’ll let you in.”

John nods, but Y/N declines. Sherlock cocks his brow up. “You wanted me to stay with you right. If I remember correctly right by your side. I’m coming with you.” She dictated. 

Sherlock’s eyes narrow and his jaw clenches. “Fine.” She smiles triumphantly. “John, wait for us and we’ll let you in.” He leans in close to Y/N’s, whispering into her ear. “I hope you’re good with heights.”

_____________________________________________________________________________________

“You want me to what?!” Y/N exclaimed. 

Sherlock looks back at her as they stand on Ms Wintle’s balcony. “I want you to climb down.” 

He peers over the edge of the balcony. His eyes fall on the ground several floors below them. Quite a fall, he notes. Y/N visibly gulps, and Sherlock smirks. “You can always join John.” 

“No !...no,” she states more calmly. “I’m staying right by your side.” Sherlock’s cheeks lightly flushed at the promise. 

Without another word, Sherlock swings his leg over the balcony and with the expertise of a gymnast fall down onto the balcony below. Y/N yelps and runs to the edge. Sherlock flashes a cocky smile. 

“Worried?” 

She scoffs. “No…never.” Y/N takes in a deep breath ignoring the shakiness of her hands. Her knuckles turned white from gripping the edge of Ms. Wintle’s balcony. Carefully she swings a leg over and feels her arms give out from under her. She cries out as her grip on the balcony tightens. Her legs flail as they search for ground. 

“Need help?” Sherlock asks. 

She turned her head to look down at the balcony below her. All she had to do was let go and she would come in contact with Van Coon’s balcony. “...Never.” She grunted. She let go and preemptively closed her eyes. Her feet it the concrete surface and Y/N opened her eyes, becoming aware of the sensation of Sherlock’s arms wrapped around her lower back and waist. They were close–to close. Their noses were barely touching. Y/N’s eyes widened as she realized an aching feeling her hand. She was gripping onto Sherlock coat tightly. She released her hands and stepped back. She looked down and dusted herself off. 

“Better let John in.” She muttered. Sherlock’s eyes followed her as she slides the door from the balcony open and entered the apartment. 

The apartment was very elegantly decorated. It was spotless. Almost as if it were a showing apartment, decorated by real estate and interior designers to sell the space. This is clearly the apartment of a wealthy man. Y/N noted the white leather furniture free of any wrinkled and shiny black tables with minimal clutter. Sherlock parades through the room looking at everything as he goes. He stops to glance at a pile of books on a table and the coffee mug with the handle facing left. Then Sherlock walks through the kitchen with Y/N following behind trying to calm down her fluttering heart. He opened the fridge to reveal that it’s full of bottles of champagne. “Must be a romantic,” Y/N mumbled. Sherlock rolls his eyes at the comment. Suddenly, the front door to the flat buzzes.

The muffled sound of John is heard from the other side of the door. “Sherlock?” He pauses. “Y/N?”

They move into the hallway.

“Are you two, okay?” John yells.

“We’re perfectly fine, John!” Y/N calls back. 

Sherlock swings the door to a small bathroom open and glances inside. Shutting the door moves onto the next door. He turns the knob, yet it resists. 

“Yeah, any time you feel like letting me in,” John commented. 

Y/N immediately turned around towards the sound of John’s voice. “Coming!” 

She leaves Sherlock to go let John in. Coming to the door she notices that all the locks have been used. Her hands hover over the locks, and then reach into her pockets to pull out her phone. Why would someone who lives this high up bolt every lock on their door? She snaps a quick photo and opens to the door for John. 

Suddenly a loud crack is heard from behind her. Her and John’s eyes widen as the race towards the sound. They burst into the room. Y/N’s stomach lurches and she has to look away. 

There lay a man in a suit and overcoat lying on the bed. His eyes open. A pistol on the floor and a bullet hole in his right temple.

______________________________

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[juliusthedressmaker]

hi Julius,

Just a quick question my friend was wondering about, do you speak in Gaelic with Killian or in English? Also, do you two have more of a strong or less strong accent or non?

-☆anon

Hello again ☆anon :'333 you always send me such interesting questions! The answer might be a bit surprising though.

Killian actually prefers to speak Latin, and at home he pretty much always speaks in Latin. I can understand the language perfectly well and can speak it to an extent, just from being around Killian.

He taught himself the language as a young child and was already quite good by the time I met him. He's very intelligent, he never was able to attend a day of education but taught himself to read, write, mathematics, languages, sciences...the list goes on.

It was Killian who taught me all these things as well, he forced me to learn English once we immigrated to Boston, though he could hardly speak it himself at the time. Killian picked it up much quicker as he just has a knack to learn incredibly easy and fast, you know?

We speak in English to each other more often than we used to now, just out of habit. But it's still usually Latin or Gaelic.

As for our accents, mine is certainly much more noticeable than his is. Killian does still have an Irish accent but his Boston accent is very heavy and mostly obscures it. Not to mention, he's got a very loud, deep, and gravelly voice which obscures his Irish accent further. I love his voice....(⁠◡⁠ ⁠ω⁠ ⁠◡⁠)

My Irish accent is very noticeable from what others tell me, though Octavian described my voice as "the stereotypical coked up east coast gay boy" .... whatever that means. I think my voice is cute! Though I've often been told I sound different than people thought I would...hmm

I'm rambling now, but when am I not, you know? I have a tendency to do that... probably all that powered go-fuel I just took straight to the dome...heh.

:)<3

#//rp blog #//don't do drugs /serious #//Julius' addiction is not glamorous or good #//i write him in character on this blog so keep that in mind #julius the dressmaker #creepypasta roleplay #creepypasta #julius doherty #killian lynch #creepypasta fandom #rp blog

[offbookkeeping]

convincing you to listen to my favorite off book eps part 2:

146. bachelor quest!:

do you like conspiracy theories, very true historical facts about james dean, bars named after times of the day, raves, british accents done by irish men, and beyoncé? well this is the episode for you! join a chaotic cast of characters that all have to speak in the same scene at one point. kyle thinks he's been abandoned by his best friends so to save his bachelor party he embarks on a 24 hour adventure through all the time of day themed bars in his town with a bartender named chrysanthemum, a stripper named big joe, and a limo driver named little joe as they seek a woman for him to spend his last night of freedom with (even though they all think he's insane for wanting to sleep with someone who isn't his fiance beyoncé). meanwhile his best friends from finishing school are confused as to why he isn't at the steakhouse like he said they'd be so they try to find him with the help of officer goodbody, a stripper cop. it's surprisingly wholesome and zach plays an Annoying White Girl named poppy who is a conspiracy theorist and one of the most irritating and wonderful zach characters ever

4. curses curses curses:

do you want an episode that is both a valuable lesson about raising children and also so fucking sexual? this episode is... a lot. a young girl thinks there's a weird imbalance with her parents because they swear so openly and refuse to let her swear so she and her horse go talk to her teacher who's having an affair and also follow her sister who's maybe dead and also pregnant and dating a really douchey guy. there are talking horses, jess's rich old lady voice, the incredible song Sleeping With Barbara, a lot of great songs involving copious amounts of swearing, and a reveal at the end that both horrified me and made me laugh. so enjoy that. i really can't explain the plot it's... so wild. also i am very tired and may be forgetting some details but this episode is both terrible and wonderful and i love it

224. the other scottish play

do you enjoy scary scottish women, whimsical british twins, spider women, and jess not listing all the snacks in her bag? the other scottish play is the riveting tale of three people who go to scotland to see a spooky scottish performance art piece (it's hard to describe) and end up in a theater full of ghosts. their friend dies kind of, but they get to see two twins perform their hoop and stick song, a spider woman and her chorus sing, shirley mclain verbally abuses her stage director in an oddly sexual way, and they get to go to the wizz palace! it has some really incredible songs and also katy berry plays a headless horseman who cut his own head off so he could suck his own dick. need i say more?

#off book #off book podcast #zach and jess #jess mckenna #zach reino

[anarchotolkienist]

dialect anon here, i am mostly interested in the gaelic of kintyre, and while you said it was in the unsalvageable category i’m not sure if i agree (i would put it on the bottom end of your third category) but that’s why i asked in the first place :)

there is actually a fairly in depth linguistic study called ‘the gaelic of kintyre’ by nils homer in 193(7?) that has lots of information on the dialect(s) including phonology, dialogues from native speakers from multiple areas in both celticist IPA and gaelic, every prepositional pronoun transcripted into IPA, descriptions of grammar, and even a section describing the sound changes from old irish to kintyre gaelic. even though it would be really difficult i think that if i were to put a lot of time into it i would be able to come up with a reconstruction that is pretty close to the original dialect even if just through the accent and not any specific idioms or terms. (btw did you know that kintyre gaelic only had the non initial broad r sound?)

i’ve developed a special interest of kintyre gaelic and this ask and my first ask are basically asking is it worth it to try and actually learn it or just admire it as historical. thanks for your really in depth answer on the first ask, your gaelic posts are always fantastic!

Ah, you know more of it than I do, I was not aware of that study! Nils Holmér did the same for an argyle dialect that's been revived too, based on that work. Then yes, I would say that it is salvageable, certainly, and (based on some Kintyre songs) I would say that the dialect is probably quite similar to Manx Gaelic (though their grammar has degenerated a bit due to pressure from English), which would give you an additional angle of use our of learning that specific one. I would in general say that you should learn the dialect that interests you - there is no dialect that is so different that it will result in any real difficulty communicating with other speakers, provided you are both fluent enough, so even if you decide to learn it and you remain the only speaker of that dialect and it dies out again after you, then it would still have given you satisfaction and linguistic pleasure, and that is worth something, I'd say. Besides, every speaker of any dialect at all matters in these waning days - and who knows, if you actually learn it to fluency I'm sure that you will find others who're keen. So I'd strongly encourage you to learn it, myself. There's a discord (that I'm not in but thatmy ex-boyfriend was/is active in) called Aras nan Gàidheal that I know has a specific sub-section for people learning extinct or very very threatened dialects of Gaelic, so that might be worth checking out to a)see if someone else is doing it and b)if they have any advice or help for going about it. Good luck, anon! Hope to talk to you again sometime - I would love to hear what Kintyre Gaelic once sounded like.

#also glad you like my incoherent rambling about Gaelic <3

[thiefbird]

H j t for the ask game :)

H: How would you describe your writing style?

Hm... I'm going to answer both ways this question can be read, I think!

So in terms of how I tackle writing, I'd say I'm both incredibly straight forwards, and incredibly chaotic. For the most part, when I'm writing fanfic or original works(and even to some extent non-creative writing like analytical/argumentative essays or research papers), I come up with the basic idea of What Will Happen, and then I start at the beginning and write each chapter, from beginning to end, without planning it. This is widely considered to be A Bad Idea, for good reasons. I'm currently trying to teach myself to at least plan out the scene by writing it as a weird first draft of a screen play, with general action cues and dialogue but no description, and it is going relatively well, so far, but we shall see if it sticks! [I also write all my fanfic by hand and then either use my reMarkable to convert it into text, or copy it over by hand because I am Not A Reasonable Person]

In terms of how my writing, like, sounds, on the other hand, I am told I have a really good skill at aping other authors' styles, so I think perhaps my writing style is Chameleon? I am a heavily masking sort of person, entirely subconsciously, and said mask adapts very quickly to what I'm around to the point that it only takes about half an hour, these days, of exposure to have an undetectably false British or Irish accent - not always even the accent I'm surrounded by, but a slightly posh central English accent, and a blend of a Dublin and Galways Irish accent, because Oxford&Coventry and Galway&Dublin are the places I've spent the most time - and this happens in my writing! Whatever I'm absorbing the most of at that time will reflect itself in my word choices, and the cadence and rhythm of my sentences.

J: What’s your favorite fanfic trope? Have you written it?

I think my favourite when it's done well is soulmate AUs, because there are so many concepts to play with in them: how does it effect the culture of the world you're writing in? What happens if you fall in love with someone who isn't your soulmate? What if you have multiple soulmates? What if you just straight up don't have a soulmate?

I haven't written soulmate AU yet, but I have an idea for one both for the Aubreyad, and a DA:Awakening into DA2 idea that I may explore at some point - the DA one next time my brain circles back to Thedas in terms of special interest du jour; the Aubreyad idea is sitting on the back burner until I either run out of ideas for So long lives this, or need to take a break from it.

Also, honorable shout-out to HMD/daemon AUs. Love those things so much. I love giving characters A Little Guy and thinking about how they as a person would sublimate part of their soul out of their body, what animal it would be, and how they would interact with it. I have a very slightly started Hannigram HMD AU(a True HDM AU taking place in Lyra's World, even, though in North America not Oxford ofc), and a partially thought out Aubreyad daemon AU(I don't know enough about the history of Lyra's world to write historical fiction within it).

T: Any fanfic tropes you can’t stand?

Hmm... I wouldn't say I can't stand it, but the thing I'm least likely to read is probably modern/coffeeshop/highschool/uni AUs, unless there is a compelling plot point mentioned in the summary, or I am familiar with the author. I don't always enjoy when the main themes of the original are gone unless there is an equally present driving force. They definitely can be done well, and I've certainly read ones that I was doubtful of at first that I really enjoyed, but for the most part that would be what I'm most wary of.

However, I do like AUs like this where they keep the driving force and change the circumstances. Modern Thedas with magic? Amazing, 10/10, I want to know how Isabela would text so bad. Hannigram AU where Will did something not at all FBI related, but he and Hannibal meet anyways and Hannibal is still a cannibal? Divine - they always will meet because they are entangled like atoms; Hannibal will always be Hannibal, and he will always be drawn to Will.

I think this is harder to do when there are less fantastical elements to the story; I have a harder time imagining a coffeeshop AU I would enjoy for the Aubreyad, for example, just because there are no longer tall ships or Napoleon to beat - and there are, in fact, not many modern AUs for the Aubreyad; there are a good deal more for Temeraire, because there are fantastical elements to Temeraire (dragons) that can be transferred over.

Thank you for the questions, @papercranesong and I hope you enjoyed my essay xD

#thiefbird speaks #this is what happens when i no longer have depression. i write essays in response to tag games

[acrossthewavesoftime]

Hornblower AND WHO, though? (Or is it Hornblower and what?)

The title is a bit of a place holder as I don't have a proper name for the story yet. The idea was developed together with the wonderful @nordleuchten, who was just as distraught over Bush's death in the novels as I.

But, see, they never recovered any body(-parts) that were identfiably Bush... The story is set in 1824. Hornblower, a national hero, is trying to convince himself that the domestic idyll of having a wife, a son and a vast estate is all a man needs, but secretly suffers from severe nostalgia for his old days at sea.

Then one day, a curious letter arrives...:

Admiral Hornblower Smallbridge, Kent Grande-Bretagne.

My Dear Sir,

It is with some reservation I send to you this missive, for we have not been introduced to another, nor were we ever acquainted in another way, yet I am compelled to write to you following an incident in Le Havre—: at the harbour, I was approached by a sailor, a one-legged fellow who spoke French with an accent. At first, I was certain he would ask me for money, but he did not, though he appeared to be in some state of destitution and quite drunk: “Sir”, he pled with me, “Sir: from your dress, I can tell you are a man of import in this country, and thus beg your aid: I am but a poor sailor, and cannot write, and neither can I go home for the lack of funds that will not even allow me to send a letter: I have four poor sisters at home, and an ailing mother: will you please write to the good Admiral Hornblower of his Britannic Majesty’s Navy for me, with whom I served? He shall remember his old shipmate, and surely aid me, once he knows of my situation. He resides at Smallbridge in Kent, and shall no doubt accept the word of a gentleman such as you are.” I, moved by his speech and the destitution of the man, and no doubt his poor siblings and mother, asked him which name I was to give, but he was gone within an instant, only thanking me greatly, before disappearing from view amongst the alleyways.  

I have long thought on it, not wishing to accost a stranger with what might be but a mere trifle; yet those blue eyes seemed to haunt me until I put my pen to paper, and wrote this letter to you.

I am, etc. Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette.

Thinking instantly that the man described can only be Bush (but how did he end up in this situation? He's supposed to be dead after all), Hornblower travels to Le Havre, who indeed finds Bush alive, and rather well; it appears that Bush had been rescued and returned to England by fishermen. Since at the time his demise had already been widely reported, Bush became an asset for the government as a spy, a position Bush only took on because the increased pay offered to him as compared to the Navy meant he could more efficiently care for his mother and sisters.

Bush admits to having tried to lure Hornblower over to France via La Fayette because he needs his help: the British government has received news that several British individuals are planning on kidnapping the Marquis on his way to his tour of the US as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of American independence.

The people behind the kidnapping are Irish nationalists who intend to stir up trouble between America and Britain by kidnapping La Fayette using a ship sailing under the British flag, their idea being that perhaps Irish nationalism will be received with greater political interest, credence and perhaps even support (especially from France; they have not forgotten 1798 yet) abroad if there is a rift between the US and UK. They also plan on maybe using La Fayette as a hostage to negotiate arms deliveries.

The head of the group of people Bush and Hornblower are up against is Lucy Anne FitzGerald, historically staunchly true to her brother's, the famed Lord Edward FitzGerald's, (political) legacy, who, rather inconveniently for Bush and Hornblower, was married to the Royal Navy captain Thomas Foley, so the threat is sort-of coming from within.

They are joined on their mission by Hornblower's son Richard, who has followed his famous, but largely absent, father as a stowaway.

The people Hornblower perceives as antagonists are not meant to be portrayed in a negative way, on the contrary; Hornblower and Bush are set up against people with good intentions and reasons Hornblower might, in other circumstances even understand or even sympathise with to a certain extent.

I always found that Hornblower's antagonists are a tad shallow, from Barry McCool to the infamous "Wolfe" of the TV series, I thought the topic of 1798, or the fight for Irish independence could be dealt with with much greater nuance.

And, I think it would be interesting to set the oh-so-moral and correct Hornblower up against (gasp!) a lady.

While I have the faint outlinings of an ending in mind, I haven't fully planned it yet; the idea is however that there isn't a clear triumph or victory for one or the other side; the journey is what matters, a journey on which the newly resurrected friendship of Bush and Hornblower is put to the test, and Hornblower and his son grow closer over the mutual adventure.

Thank you for the ask! :)

#ask #ask game #ask reply #hornblower #horatio hornblower #r writes

[sarah-dipitous]

Hellsite Nostalgia Tour 2023 Day 148

The Reichenbach Fall

“The Reichenbach Fall”

Plot Description: Moriarty hatches a mad scheme to turn the whole city against Sherlock.

Oh, Jawnnnnnnnn. Glad you went back to therapy over it though

Ok yes. He’s been ungrateful with his other tokens of gratitude, but to humiliate the man by making him wear the deer stalker cap after he’s just brought you interpol’s most wanted? Come on…

It’s an EAR hat, Jawn

The “confirmed bachelor” lines were no accident and just blatant queer baiting.

Jimmmmm!! Jim my love

I…made this scene a VERY large part of my personality for TOO LONG. Now I’m just gonna sit back and enjoy watching this man bring a country to its knees (this part of The Thieving Magpie was my alarm for years, and I maintain that I was correct to have it. It’s way better than what I have now)

Who’s doing it like him, I ask you

Wiggling, squirming. Oh man. I had THIS on playlists too (the song right before Jim’s trial…when I say my WHOLE PERSONALITY…stayin alive was also my ringtone. Would you believe I’m divulging this lore SOBER?? Because I am)

Do not be yourself in this trial, Sherls, omg…

There’s a weird nostalgic pang of “god I wish that was me” when he asks the one courtroom worker (truly, I don’t know her job title) to slip her hand into his pocket. Maybe it’s just the Irish accent. It’s just for gum but he’s so slutty about it

I can’t look at this actress without thinking of her as Jen from the IT Crowd. She can’t be anything else in my mind. She’s forever Jen doing a bit in a costume in different places (this is going to take forever to watch if i keep pausing like this)

The Sheriarty is jumping out right now. You don’t describe someone you know is definitely listening and watching you as “a spider, a spider at the center of a web. A criminal web with a thousand threads, and he knows precisely how each and every single one of them dances.” YOU ARE LOOKING INTO HIS EYES AT HIS TRIAL AS YOU SAY THAT ABOUT HIM. Were I a consulting criminal, I would be so flattered by that description

Oh god…don’t make the jury hate you. Yeah. Of course he finds it impossible to not show off

This tea scene omgggg when he…is it really breaking into 221b if Sherlock is expecting him??

Every once in a while, I do get the glimpses of how these three shows got lumped together. Jim telling Sherlock he’s boring because he’s on the side of the angels is definitely one of those things

He’s got the best little speeches “no such thing as a private bank account now, they’re all mine. No such thing as secrecy, I OWN secrecy. Nuclear codes? I could blow up nato in alphabetical order. In a world of locked rooms, the man with the key is king, and honey, you should seeee meeee in a crown” (did I do an embarrassing amount of that from memory? maybe so)

Oh shit…i forgot the fairy tale stuff Moriarty puts them through…I mean, you gotta fill 90 minutes somehow (I want to sleep so badly…but I’m not even half way done)

I fucking hate how he treats Molly. She deserves better than him and this show. God…she thinks she doesn’t count…fuck. I hate it

Riiiight. He made it seem like the kidnapping was Sherlock’s doing so he could then solve it and he the hero. Just planting the seeds of doubt

Oh the Tale of Sir Boast-a-lot

When villains hijack the airwaves>>>>>> (my taste has not changed a bit in 10 years lmaooooo) I know in this case, he’s actually the cab driver, but he’ll do it later in the series. For now, we’ll just enjoy this nice little story Jim’s telling

You can’t outrun………oh, that was one of the assassins that moved onto baker street

It’s so weird that he’s doing exactly what Jim wants him to do…..

He’s unbelievably precious as Richard Brook. Insisting he’s a children’s storyteller, he’s on tv. It’s on dvd. You do almost forget that he’s a criminal mastermind for a second, except for that one moment when Kitty can’t see him and he has that look on his face as he glances at Sherlock

John and Mycroft have such a good dynamic. No matter if they’re on the same side, on opposing sides…it’s always a good scene when it’s just them

Uuuuggggghhhhhhhh, we’re starting with the roof of St Bart’s scene…will it be as good and heartbreaking as I remember?

Reader, it is. Jim’s lament about how easy it was to beat Sherlock, his best distraction for the monotony of staying alive. Oh, bby. Andrew Scott is such a good actor.

The fact that there was no code, that it was always a few of those threads that Jim made dance to send the world crashing down around them.

(I’m currently living in a world where his character didn’t get absolutely fucked over by the last episode of the series…………….so far(?))

I do like that Jim underestimates the importance of Molly. She still deserves better from everyone around her, but it’s nice that she’ll get SOME recognition in season 3

Pausing because I know what comes next and I don’t want it to…

Can we not just stay like this??? (Not if I want to make it a true full rewatch…)

I STAY a “here’s how [villain] can still live/be alive” girlie. I DO NOT CHANGE LMAO

Oh the phone call… “nobody could be that clever” “you could” I hate everything

Mycroffffffffft. Jawwwwwwwwn.

John at Sherlock’s grave is just…heart wrenching. Always and forever.

This is the best and highest rated episode of this show for GOOD REASON

#hellsite nostalgia tour 2023 #we discover I’ve always been this way… #and my tastes have not changed in 10 years

[irlkisukeurahara]

Just some writing practice using my Pokémon AU -- Most of the context is explained. Hop is Irish and his accent is typed out. Might be difficult for dyslexics or screen readers.

The laughter settled down from Leon's mouth, his expression growing even more saddened as tears streamed further down his face. Whirring magical sounds began to die down as the pink color faded from his eyes. His energy went down as he wiped tears from his eyes. "Wow… I really am a fraud." The ex champion spoke with a weak voice. "They always praised me over you for not having dad's substance problems, being so successful and important, and not having his psychic powers like you do." Leon avoided eye contact with his little brother, looking down at the ground with a sense of shame and burden. "And, well…" His voice was meek and unconfident, something unbefitting of the man. Hop stared at him blankly. The professor had been using his brother as an outlet to vent his struggles, to a degree you would certainly describe as toxic. But Hop's eyes were slowly opening, learning more about his brother that was previously blinded by his obsessions. He realizes just how malicious he was towards his older brother, despite all he did for him. Hop's lip tightened, processing everything thrown at him before in Leon's sudden breakdown. The professor leaned into his brother's face for a moment, thinking for a second before suddenly raising his voice.

"So what?!" Leon looked back up at Hop again after this, tears still streaming down his face, unsure where Hop was going with this yet. "Yeah, a Pokémon master is somet'in ultimately kinda arbitrary to be and makes ye feel like ye wasted years of yer life on it when you lose your title…" Hop leaned away for a moment, glancing his older brother up and down, seeing the crumbled mess he had become. And for the first time in so long, Hop felt bad for him. Hop realized that was actually a good thing. He suddenly shot back forward into Leon's face again, "But so what?!" He shouted again. Leon leaned away, the brothers both just sitting there on the ground beside each other. "Are ya just gonna… Give up on life? Over Pokémon battling?" Hop spread his arms out suddenly, almost hitting Leon in the face. Hop had an angry look on his face, but it was different. When he'd yelled at Leon before, he was just looking for something to yell at after years of abuse. But for once it seems, he came from a genuine place of concern, after so long of falling down his dark path. "After, you know, all you've said to me? After you told me not to give up on life over Pokémon battling?" He suddenly grabbed Leon's face, squeezing his cheeks in between his thumb and pointer finger, forcefully tilting his head and digging his sharp talon-like nails into his face. "What kind of role model are you?"

"I–" Leon was fully caught off guard by Hop's change of heart. He wondered when Hop started caring about him again. He sighed, rubbing his tears away again. "You're right. I've been too depressed ever since… Well, I suppose the day Rose released Eternatus." He lightly put his hand on Hop's wrist, "That's not the type of person I am." He tugged on Hop's wrist slightly, and Hop let go and set his hand down beside him. "I haven't been like myself. I've been faking it out of some hope of fixing you…" he chuckled a little, "You could tell, couldn't you?"

"Of course I could, Lee." Hop crossed his arms, "I'm an expert of faking t'in's wit' a smile. You should know t'at." Hop tilted his head slightly, glancing up at the sky in thought. His ponytail twitched as he thought, a passive effect of the psychic powers mentioned by Leon that they both possessed. His expression then became almost sad, sighing as he looked down at the ground. He then looked back up at Leon, his expression still serious, but a different kind of serious. You could call it sincere. "Look, Lee. You kept sayin' t'at ye want t'e real me back. T'at ye miss yer brot'r." His voice now reflected that sincerity, "Well, the kid ye knew was never t'e real me. In… multiple ways…" Hop looked away. He didn't plan to clarify on what that meant, but Leon did make a mental note of it. He leaned back into Leon's face again, "But! I've been actin' so cruel to avoid t'is!" He grabbed Leon by his shoulders, tears starting to well up in his eyes too. "I want my dad back. I didn't want to admit it." Leon's eyes lit up, practically glowing with stars as he heard Hop say that. Admittedly, their relationship had always been father-son rather than brotherly, just due to their awful upbringing.

"I want my son back too." After a second of hesitation, Hop let go of Leon, then proceeded to hug him. Leon held onto Hop gently, as to not hurt his fragile back. It's been so long since he gave Hop affection like this as Hop pushed him away, so he still wasn't sure of his own strength compared to Hop's extremely low constitution.

"I'm sorry, Lee." Hop paused. "No. I'm sorry…" he nuzzled his face into Leon's shoulder, "Dad." Leon started tearing up again, he couldn't help but hold Hop firmly. "I'll try to be better. I–" Hop was about to continue onwards, but Leon let out a quiet 'shh' noise.

"I will too, bud." He spoke quietly, a sincere smile on his face as Hop held onto him. He didn't audibly cry, but he was teary eyed as everything came to a head. For once, he'd face his problems in a healthy way. With the help of his real dad.

#most of this is out of context but i wanted to spread my father-son leon and hop agenda lmao #Pokemon Unown Legends Tale #rambles with miles #mini fic #writing practice #au #fic #pokemon au #pokémon #pkmn #pokemon fic #hop pokemon #leon pokemon