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sixth-light · 3 years

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Man, prior probabilities anon here, you have described the bulletproof kink sequel of my dreams and I shall never get to read it! Alas, the life of a fangirl is tragedy. ;D To mend my broken heart I guess I'll have to reread Good Enough to Be True, which got me through a rough day today, so thank you very much for that. Your writing is a joy & you deserve good things. Thanks for answering my ask!!!

this is...uh...probably not the bulletproof kink sequel of your dreams but you are fully responsible for it existing at all, so:

After all the trouble with Nicolò’s betrothed running away, and finding a man in the ocean, and getting attacked, and then the man they found in the ocean turning out to be Nicolò’s runaway betrothed – not to mention the part in the middle where Nicolò bedded him and very nearly gravely insulted his betrothed’s family, who didn’t know that said betrothed was still alive, much less with Nicolò – Marco tried not to think about his youngest brother’s marriage, because the whole thing gave him a headache. He told everybody as much when he returned to Genoa.

“Yes, but do you think it will go well?” his wife asked.

“I don’t see how it can’t,” Marco said. He was too busy trying to coax their son to walk towards him to explain it again. “Nicolò was three-quarters in love with him before he even knew who he was. It’s like one of those fairytale things.”

“I suppose,” Anna said, “but it also sounds as if there may have been hurt feelings.”

“Give them a couple of years,” Marco said. “Yes, that’s right, towards me…what a good job!” He picked up Tomaso, who was giggling, and tossed him gently in the air. He had got so big while Marco had been away. It was amazing how children grew. He said as much to Anna, and thankfully, that changed the subject.

Unfortunately, every other member of his family – at least the ones who still lived in Genoa – had the same question for him. The problem, as Marco saw it, was that Nicolò was the baby of the family and they all thought he needed looking after. They hadn’t seen Nicolò in a fight, that was the trouble. He tried telling his second-oldest sister Giovanna this – she had married a nobleman of the city, unlike Bernadetta, and so was still here – but she just looked at him blankly. “What does that have to do with whether he is happy in his marriage, Marco?”

“Well, the prince turned out to be very good with a sword too,” Marco tried to explain, “so they have that in common.” Giovanna was not convinced.

“It concerns me,” Godfrey, Marco’s oldest brother, told him. “This sort of alliance only holds if there is respect between them, since they won’t have children of their own.”

“I don’t know why you’re talking to me about it again,” Marco said. “Isn’t Nicolò writing?”

“Yes, but he isn’t writing about his husband, and that is its own sort of message,” Godfrey said. “I want you to visit.”

“Visit Malta?” Marco threw up his hands. “But Anna is pregnant again, and –”

“It’s a week’s voyage away! Two at most,” Godfrey said. “You will be back well before she is confined. Besides, Marco, I am counting on you.”

“Of course I will do whatever you need,” Marco said hastily; it pleased him when his brother the Count relied on him, even if in this case he strongly suspected that the instruction originated from his mother. She had been Godfrey’s regent for many years, and although she was diligent in not being seen to rule him now he was of age, Godfrey still looked to her for advice. As well he should, of course. And this whole marriage alliance had been something she had cooked up with the queen of Tunis, because of their old friendship.

“Very good,” Godfrey said. “We have an agreement to send them ships, anyway. Just go along, and make sure everything is as it should be.”

It did not take long at all for Marco to realise, once he was in Malta, that everything was not as it should be. Nicolò greeted him with pleasure, and his husband was genial, but Marco knew what it looked like when Nicolò was truly relaxed with somebody; this was not it. Yusuf and Nicolò were courteous towards each other, and respectful, but not at ease. And they watched each other, all the time, when they thought the other one was not looking.

Marco consulted Captain Nile, who had sailed with them on that original voyage, and knew the entire saga. He did so by buying her a glass of wine in an inn down by the docks. She groaned, and put her head in her hands. “Oh, don’t get me started.”

“But it was going so well between them,” Marco said, truly confused. “Nicolò was at least half in love with him! And the prince did not seem to mind it. At least, he bedded him, and agreed to marry him. What more did they need?”

“Don’t ask me,” said the captain. “They’ve been like this for months. It’s driving everybody mad. And it’s distracting both of them.”

“I can see that,” agreed Marco, because Nicolò had missed at least two things Marco had said already, and both times because he had been watching Yusuf. “I know my brother has great respect for your counsel. Have you not tried telling him this?”

“Of course.” She rolled her eyes. “And he says, everything is very well, and he appreciates my concern, but surely there are more important things we could be speaking of.”

That last thing was something Godfrey would say. If Marco wanted to annoy Nicolò he would go back and point that out, because Nicolò did not like thinking he was anything like their eldest brother even when he was. But he didn’t want to annoy him; he wanted to be able to go back to Genoa and report that everything was absolutely fine in Malta, which he could still do if Nicolò was annoyed, but not if Nicolò was – like this.

Of course, he could try speaking with his brother directly, but he knew exactly how that conversation would go: as the captain had reported, with the addition of suspicious questions about whether their mother had sent him. Which she had not. Directly. Although she had of course told Marco to convey her best wishes to Nicolò and his new husband.

So he didn’t do that. Instead, he went and found the prince.

“Yusuf, called al-Tayyib,” he greeted him. “It still feels strange knowing you had another name all along.”

The prince winced, but only a little. “I think you understand why I did that.”

“No, not really,” Marco said, “but your family didn’t seem all that surprised and they would know you best.”

He laughed. “No, they were a little surprised, I promise you. I have not made a habit of running away from anything. Though I thought I was running towards, at first. But I have not said, it is good of you to visit – I know Nicolò misses his family, as I do mine.”

Marco knew he was not accounted the brightest mind of his family – that was probably Giovanna, in a fair weighing up – but he could not miss that change of topic. Unfortunately for the prince, he had something to accomplish here. “Ah, so you are talking, that is good. You really did not want to marry him, that was obvious, and my family are all concerned that it will not prove to be a contented match.”

“Not at all!” the prince protested. “Not in the slightest. Nicolò is extremely gracious, and kind, and I do not think I could find a better man to rule beside me, here or when I take the throne – which will be some day far in the future, God willing, my mother being in excellent health. I know it might not seem it from your point of view, but I promise it was not Nicolò in himself I ever objected to. How could it be, when I had not met him?”

“I am very pleased to hear that,” Marco said, “and if you have not told him these things yourself, you should, because he is very badly in love with you and it would please him to hear it.”

The prince went a little red around the ears, which was not what Marco would expect, in a man who had faced his own lover with a sword in hand, unflinching. “I think you must be mistaken. This is a political marriage; neither of us is unaware of that.”

“He’s my brother,” said Marco. “I’m not mistaken. He is pining after you and frankly if you were both in Genoa it would be a bit tiresome. You should speak to him about it.” He clapped Tayyib – no, Yusuf, it was so hard to keep that straight in his head – on the shoulder, and left, so he would not have to listen to the prince protesting. Having lived through the courtships of several of his siblings, he knew that sort of thing could go on for hours. Still, he was quite pleased with himself; that had been a much better choice than trying to talk to Nicolò again.

He felt less pleased with himself when he walked in on them three separate times in the two days before he returned to Genoa, because there were some things he did not need to know or see about his younger brother. But outside of that, Nicolò had stopped being so stiff, and the prince kept smiling, and on the whole, Marco thought, he didn’t mind it so much, these things he had to do for his family.

#my fanfic #joe x nicky #the prior probabilities follow-up nobody asked for #look it's a version of my AU where Nicky has great family dynamics!#it can happen!#Anonymous

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starshipsofstarlord · 4 years

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Vargulf |Roman Godfrey

Summary: There have been another set of murders in Hemlock Grove and all the evidence is pointing to it being another vargulf. Your brother Peter, your boyfriend Roman and yourself are all on the hunt for it so that the deaths come to a stop.

You listened quietly, sat on the sofa in your little old caravan as Peter and Roman spoke. There had been deaths, a dozen or so. They were murders, of boys and men. None of them seemed to have a strong link that connected them. Death wasn’t unusual in Hemlock Grove, but most of this evidence wasn’t adding up.

“It’s a fucking vargulf, I'm telling you man." Roman was clearly stressed about the situation, they had already dealt with one sick werewolf. And now another was ripping male anatomy off, letting them bleed to death. It couldn’t have been more inhumane.

"Shee-it, I think you're right." Peter raked his hands through his hair. Christina had became a werewolf because of him, and now someone else decided to proceed with the transformation. It was always a risk for a newcomer into wolf territory, they had already been sick enough to turn themselves into a monster.

You frowned. Christina had been a nice girl, and it made you think that this new Vargulf could be disguised as anyone. "How are we supposed to find it?" You hated the thought of having to search for a blood thirsty monster, but it would be the only way to stop it.

“Bait.” Roman answered, coming to sit down beside you. Peter only shook his head in thought.

“We can’t do that, at least not yet. We don’t know why it’s targeting these guys.” Roman only smirked, and then commented.

“Then we’ll just have to find a way to piss it off.” That would be difficult, seeing as none of you knew who it was, but Roman did a pretty good job naturally at annoying people. His rich boy attitude got to everyone.

“Great idea, and then you’ll get killed.” You said, rolling your eyes at his stupidity. “Maybe it’s after revenge of some sort, it might know the victims.”

“Well there’s a wide gap between all of them, so we can’t be certain.”

…..

Destiny stiffened from where she stood leaning over the table that held a newspaper. The paper detailed all of the recent deaths, the ones the assumed vargulf had committed. She looked at Roman in particular.

"Can you clear your mind Godfrey, your thoughts are distracting." This only built confusion in Peter's mind. How could ones thoughts be that loud. "

“What's he thinking about?" Your brother asked, opening his blue eyes to look at Destiny. It was bugging her enough to implement her magic.

“You don’t want to know.” As she said that she looked in between of you and Roman. His imagination was very vivid, too much for her liking. It was creating a barrier in the room so that she couldn't access the things that the pair of boys had missed in their freaky dreams.

"Is it relevant?" Peter held out hope. They couldn't miss a trick, even if it was of the mind. There could be a clue, a detail of aid, something that could point them in the right direction to search.

"No." Destiny cringed, not being able to help seeing Roman's desire to have his hands all over your body. You were her cousin, she didn't want to see the intimacy that was strung between you and your boyfriend. That was for you too alone, but it was Godfrey's fault for keeping it replaying in his mind.

She knew she'd regret it, but she searched as Peter had wanted her to. And then she saw it, on your naked body. Roman clearly hadn't noticed it, his mind was too preoccupied with the thought of fucking you. But there was a scratch, running down your side. It looked as though it was given by another wolf, a viscous one that had turned on its own kind.

“Maybe.” Then your cousin turned, looking at you. “Lift your shirt.” When you hesitated, she did it for you, seeing the mark against your skin.

As she looked, so did you and the others. It was a wound, thinly dug into the skin but still there.

"What happened?" Roman asked quietly. He really hadn't even noticed it when he had been thinking about the nudeness of your body bit now his eyes were trained on it.

"I don't remember." You frowned.

Peter came closer, inspecting gashes in your skin. They weren't just cuts, they were claw marks.

The vargulf did this. It had to be it.

…..

It was a dead end. It all was. The pattern was broken for there was another body, and it was a girl. The first girl to have fallen victim to the vargulf.

Peter throws the newspaper onto the coffee table, Roman staring at it with beady eyes.

It held no answers, it only threw you all further off track. Perhaps there were no answers. Maybe it just wanted to drain the blood from the humans by clawing at their necks.

"This doesn't make any sense!" Your boyfriend exclaimed, reaching into his coat pocket for a cigarette and a lighter.

He lit it, taking a deep drag to calm himself. You wished it was that easy for you, but it really wasn't.

"When does anything make sense in this town?" You asked rhetorically.

Although you werent seeking a counter response, you received one from your brother anyway.

"Go on." He gestured with both his voice and hand, taking a cigarette from Roman.

"Maybe it isn't supposed to make sense." You suggested, snagging a cigarette. You refrained from lighting it until your point got a cross. "I mean Christina killed because of different emotions. She was sick, and angry at her so called friends, and jealous of Letha. Perhaps this is the same."

The mention of Letha Godfrey dulled the room, but opened a chance for some optimism in the case.

For all any of you knew, you were right. There was a murderer, but it's intentions were not clear yet.

…..

Shelley aimlessly wandered her family's grounds, admiring the beauty in nature. The roses were just beginning to bloom from the bushes, their frames hardened by the sight of protective thorns.

Out here, away from the world, it was quiet. Peaceful. There was no one to make judgements about her, or a reason to feel insecure. Like the roses, Shelley's appearance was toughened by thorns. No one liked the spiteful pricks but they tolerated them for the flower.

The girl continued to walk, but stopped once she had a twig snap. The sound was not the doing of either of her large feet.

Looking up, she saw a beast she had ran from before. A white wolf, watching her with its yellow eyes.

It was truly beautiful, but danger poisoned its aura. The animal tilted its furred head, licking its black lips before trotting through the hedges, presumably returning to its den in the woods.

Once it was gone, she went inside of her imprisoning home, rushing to the kitchen, the private one where her mother was smoking a cigarette.

"There was a wolf in the garden." She typed out, allowing the machine to talk for her.

Olivia hummed in reply, flicking the ash from the tip of the fag.

"It is a wild animal dear." Her voice was clear. "Let it do what it must to survive, even if it means crossing out land in the meanwhile."

This confused Shelley. Any other time, her mother would have called in a hunter to shoot the pest dead.

But not this time.

…..

A man rapped his fingers against the door of Godfrey manor, well aware of the badge that was tucked in his pocket. In response to his knocking a woman came to the door,slinking her slim and long frame upon the case of the doorway.

Olivia Godfrey. He had heard of this woman. Fierce. Beautiful. Enticing. Extremely wealthy. Dangerous.

There had been whispers in the woodwork of the town of her being the cause of missing persons. It seemed absurd to suspect a widow of such horrors, but she was not just a mourning wife.

She was a mother, not only to her children but to an extraordinarily large company. It was known as the white tower, but it held no purity in its blank walls. Only secrets in hidden rooms and a whole team serving away at her whim of command.

The front door opened, revealing a middle aged woman, glorified in a lacy black dress, unashamed of how she appeared to the stranger. Olivia could see his badge that was attached to his belt. It was clear that she had glanced at it, but she brushed her hair away from down the front of her shoulder and focused back on his face.

“What can I do you for officer?” She was suspicious of his presence, she leant against the door, making sure he was unable to peak inside of her home. But at the same time, she could not be seen as the villain. She had done nothing wrong anyway, or had Olivia had some involvement?

“As I’m sure, you have heard of the recent deaths.” Olivia’s cheeks hollowed and her arm trailed down her body and pulled the skirt of her dress down.

“Such a shame.” She admitted she had, shaking her head in pity. The investigator nodded his head in agreement, having felt the loss of the young lives when going over each piece of evidence of the victims.

“There has been word of people seeing a white wolf - again. You haven’t happened to see it prowling your grounds by chance, have you?”

Olivia furrowed her brow, thinking tentatively. “I can’t say that I have.” She answered, watching as hope fell from the stranger’s face.

“Would you call the station if you hear anything? As soon as we get a sighting, we’re going to put a bullet through the beast.” It almost sounded like a threat in Olivia’s eyes, but she knew it wasn’t. This man was scared of the dangers that hunted in nature, and was now creeping into the town and murdering humans.

“Of course I will.” She smiled at him, Once he turned and began walking away from her house, she shut the door, peaking through a window before returning to her guest, “Where were we?”

She discarded of her robe, as Norman sat on the couch, with a glass of scotch in his condemning hands.

Shelley lightly stepped back up the stairs, confused by her mother’s truth. Only mere hours prior she had told her mother of what she had seen in their large garden. A wolf had been looking at her, and then ran back off into whence it came. The woods.

Olivia had lied. But why?

….

A young man lay on the metal table, with ambient lights reflecting down onto his fatal wounds. Price took note of the individual teeth marks that were visible in his skin. He had heard of werewolves, via Olivia, who had told him of the pest that Peter was.

He was fine, examining the body in complete silence, other than his recorded points, but he shouldn’t have expected it to last. At least not in the Godfrey Tower.

The door to the private space was slammed open, by none other than the heir of the company himself. Roman. He had no regard for manners, Price thought. He did as he pleased, although he wasn't inherently to blame for that, he was raised under a roof where he was taught that was acceptable.

“Is that the last victim?” Roman had to ask, he could never be sure with Price’s experiments.

“You shouldn’t be here Roman.” His voice was monotone, unsurprised from the boy’s intrusion. It definitely wasn’t the first time that he had just waltzed into his workspace, that was for sure. Price sighed, looking at the teenager who was peering at the large bitemarks in the corpse. “Why are you here, did your mother send you?”

“No, I need answers.” He only earnt a shake of the head from the scientist.

“This matter is confidential Roman, I can’t tell you anything.” It was a part of the code that he had taken. This was business elevated in the roles of silence, and he wasn’t supposed to share the details that he had found or would find.

“Please.” It was a foreign word for him. “If that thing is out there, and it is a vargulf, the cops aren’t going to know how to stop it. But me and Peter can, so if you discover anything that could remotely help, you have my number.”

A knock came on the door. “Sir, there’s an officer here to see you.”

Price turned to Roman, looking at him with nervous eyes. “It’d be best if you left Roman, we don’t want you getting yourself into any further trouble.”

Huffing, Roman took one more glance at the body, sporting a disgusted expression as he did so. He was eager to find this mutated, sick werewolf and end it, not only for his family’s safety, but for the creature’s own mercy.

…..

Roman walked through his door way into his bedroom, throwing his black coat to the floor. But when he looked up his bed wasn’t empty, you were seated on it, sporting one of his shirts and a worried expression.

“Where were you?” You stood, slowly gliding over to him, reaching up to cup his face. He was visibly tense, it was easy to see that his back wasn’t completely straight and his cheeks were puffed out from his vigorous breathing.

“Went to see Price, who is fucking useless like usual.” He went and sat on his bed, which you joined him on, stroking his tense shoulders. “He’s not even paying mind that it's a vargulf, how fucking dumb can one person be?”

“Maybe he doesn’t want you involved, because if you go headfirst into this mess, there’s a chance that Shelley will be pulled into it eventually as well. He cares about her, and in his own, silent way, about you too.”

Roman let the corners of his plump lips turn up at your words. “You really do know how to cheer a guy up, don’t you?”

At that you smirked, leaning closer to his porcelain ear, whispering into the suggestive canal. “Honey, there’s plenty of ways that I can cheer you up.” You tugged his earlobe between your teeth, prompting a growl to spark from his mouth.

“Get to it then Romaneck.” You shoved his shoulders from the front so that you had room to straddle the tall boy.

“Gladly.”

…..

When you awoke, Roman was still asleep, softly snoring into the pillow whilst his nude body was covered by the white duvet. It brought a smile to your face to see him so relaxed, with the vargulf on the loose, he was stressing again. He thought he had to find it, that it was his responsibility to keep the whole town safe from any mythical threats.

But it wasn’t. He deserved to be a teenager, have no worries about the fact that you lived in a mobile home in the middle of the woods, or the fact that one day someone would try to hurt you or use you for what you were.

Groggily, you got up, making sure that Roman was still covered so that the cold wouldn’t wake him up. You went to the bathroom attached to his bedroom to brush your teeth, but you paused that thought as you looked into the mirror to see a part of you had somewhat aged.

A streak of white was in front of your face, it was a large section of your hair. This needn’t have worried Roman, and so you manoeuvred yourself out of his room quietly as to not wake him, and hurried down to the kitchen where you were met with the woman of the household sat, stirring her tea.

“Sweetie.” She gasped dramatically at seeing the strands. She stood walking towards you and taking the hair between her fingers. “We can fix this before anyone sees.” She reassures you, guiding you to the bathroom, grabbing a gold box from under the sink.

“Were you anticipating this?” You asked warily, watching as she emptied the (Y/H/C) dye into a small bowl.

“Of course I was, we have to delay this. You know what, after we sort this mess, I will arrange an appointment with Norman for you. He’ll help.”

She got a dye brush, and began combing the colour through your blank piece of hair.

To the both of your dismays, neither of you had heard Shelley coming down the stairs and into the kitchen. It was untimely, and unknown to the pair of you.

…..

The scientist gripped his tweezers, plucking the ounce of evidence from the body. From initial sight, he could tell that the lost hair that he had discovered was human, and the complete opposite colour from the dead boy’s. His actions were glorified through speech as he recorded his process, ending with a full stop to complete his sentence.

He would have to get it analysed, so that the owner could be uncovered, and the monster behind the murders revealed. Once he removed his gloves, he took a hold of his cell phone, and called someone that he felt indebted to.

“Roman, it’s Price.” That was his opener, quite simple for the information that he was about to reveal. “I found a human hair on the body, belonging to another that is not the victim. I’m getting it tested, I will let you know the result later, once it has been processed.”

As he put the phone down, the door to the room was opened, by none other than the wolf that walked upon the sheep. “Yohan.” She greeted him broadly, and so he replied just as dryly.

“Olivia.” His voice drawled out her name, unimpressed with her timing. A Godfrey always managed to show themselves at the worst times, perhaps it was on purpose. It was in the majority's nature to be filled with the thrill of darkness and deceit.

“A little birdy told me that you found something on the body...” She didn’t clarify whom said snitch was, but she dragged her manicured hand along the counter, until she came to the see through bag that contained the single (Y/H/C) hair.

“Olivia, I cannot let you take that, it’s evidence.” He tried to reason with the woman, but he should have realised that that would have little to no affect.

Instead, she rose thin eyebrows at the man, and put her foot down with her ample excuse. “Is this not my company Price?” She used the power spell of control, and before he could divulge that her ownership only came through marriage, and that Norman and Roman were the true heirs, she was gone.

The evidence went with her.

…..

The site of the caravan was an alienated space to Olivia, yet she still walked through the dead leaves and mud in her heels, until she reached the hammock, which you so happened to be seated in.

“It is done (Y/N), and now you can continue working for me, and earn yourself a little money.” She sat beside you on it, making it sway. “This was never my intention, to get you sick, I told you that you could stop anytime little one.”

She stroked your hair, resting her head upon it stoically. It was a strange exchange of contact for her, but she found herself not minding it. “We can try and get treatment for you though, to either delay or erase the aftermath of your forced transformations.”

At that you finally spoke up. “I don’t trust Price.” Yet somehow you trusted Olivia herself... “And that would be unnatural. Running off into the woods as a completely wild animal doesn’t sound so bad anyways, it would be like starting a new life and leaving this one behind.”

Your confession saddened her just a little. “If that is what you want, but I will tell you this now. I liked you the second that my son brought you in that door, you were better than any of those other girls that he dragged in for pleasure. He was enamoured with just the sight of you, sitting there at the kitchen table, thanking the butler and laughing with his sister.”

That would be one thing that you knew that you would miss. Roman. And then also your brother, Peter. But they could survive without you, they were both strong. They had moved on from Letha, so they could do the same with you.

…..

Roman frowned when his phone call with Price ended. “It’s gone, our lead is no more.”

At his statement, Peter spoke up from where he was seated at Roman’s bedroom desk. “Surely it couldn’t just disappear.”

“It didn’t.” Was all Roman said before he stormed out of his room and began rushing down the stairs, to see his mother just walking in the front door. “You.” He accused her.

“Me?” She acted offended, placing a hand above her heart.

“You took the evidence of the vargulf.” Price had told him as much. The man had seen it with his own eyes, she couldn’t lie her way out of this one. Nothing said that she couldn’t dodge it though.

“It’s been pleasant to chat boys, but I have an appointment with your uncle.” And with that, she had retreated back through the front door.

Roman turned as he heard Shelley walking down the stairs, closest to Peter.

“Go back to your room Shells.” He sighed, annoyed with the fact that they had hit a dead end. But Shelley made no attempt to move, instead she took the tablet out in front of her.

“I’ve heard mother speak, I know who the vargulf is.” Both of their eyes went wide. Maybe they didn’t need to interrogate Olivia after all.

…..

The man in uniform, that had started his career on a peculiar case rapped his knuckles against the gypsy’s door. This far out into the woods, someone would have been bound to see something.

The line was still faded to whether it was a person or an animal. But he was determined to find the truth, because no matter what was at fault, people were still dying.

The door opened, revealing a teenager with stark white hair. “Can I help?” Your legs bounced as you leant against the door frame. Your body was itching to transform again.

“Are your parents in?” At that you shook your head, thinking about the fact that your father was no longer in the picture. That made Peter the man of the house, the dominant one. You’d show him...

“No, but is there anything I can do to help?”

The inspector got out his notepad, preparing to scribble on it with any information that he could extract from you. “Do you know anything about the deaths? Like, have you seen a wild animal lurking around or such?”

With that, you stepped away from the door, allowing him space to enter, to which he did. “I’ll tell you everything that I know.” You smiled.

Or maybe you could show him.

…..

Peter ran to his home after getting out of Roman’s car, seeing the inspector’s body mauled in the doorway, blood falling down the steps. But the body wasn’t alone, the wolf - you, were growling from inside the caravan, your newly white fur smeared with marks of red.

“(Y/N)?” Peter cautiously spoke. They had wanted to find the vargulf, but not like this. It was supposed to be someone else, not his sister.

You had no response to the name, but your head perked up at the sound of your boyfriend’s voice.

“Baby, it’s me. Roman.” He took a couple of strides forward, even though Peter had tried to pull him back. You tilted your furry head, slowly leaving the caravan and walking towards Roman. “Hey, it’s okay.” He told you, and you sniffed his hand, nudging it with your wet nose. “We can get you help, fix you.”

Roman pretended that he wasn’t crying, and went to kneel down in front of you, but Peter stopped him, triggering backlash from you. He had grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling him up, and in a quick motion, you bit Peter’s hand.

Blood was drawn, and you were spooked, and so you did the only thing your wild mind though to do. Run, deep into the forest, away from the pests that thought that they could treat you like a domesticated animal.

#roman godfrey x reader #roman godfrey imagine #roman x reader #Roman Godfrey #roman #hemlock grove imagine #hemlock grove #bill skarsgård imagine #bill x reader #bill skarsgård x reader #bill skarsgård fanfiction #bill skarsgard #bill skarsgård gif #bill skarsgard x reader #bill skarsgard imagine #bill skarsgard oneshot

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nitannichionne · 4 years

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Henry Cavill Imagine-If He was YOUR Fan 3: Good Night, Good Day

It is pre-dawn.

Henry insists on driving you to where you’re staying in London on one of his motorcycles. It is nice to cruise the semi-deserted streets of London. You had fallen asleep after playing Witcher 3 and Cleopatra while watching Doctor Who. He takes off his helmet as you take off yours.

“So you’re at the Palmer’s Lodge,” he says, pulling up in front.

“Yeah,” you say with a smile, sliding off the bike. You can’t resist letting your hands slide over his torso, feeling your cheeks heat. “It’s so damned British, I couldn’t resist.”

“This is a hostel,” He seems to be assessing the place. “Like a dormitory?”

“Right,” you nod, putting your hands behind your back sweetly. “which means if you come upstairs I’ll be in big trouble.”

You both laugh at that, feeling like a couple of kids who stayed out too late. Well, at least you did.

“Do you like it?” he asks.

You realize that he is probably wondering why you aren’t at a hotel. “Staying here is an experience,” you say. “I meet different people from different places, write and relax in a creative environment, and well, it’s affordable, you know?” You feel a little self conscious about that, but it was the only way to make it there and meet him. “It’s actually very safe and friendly here.”

He slides off the bike, surprising you by the look in his eyes, the set of his jaw. He is up to something. You feel your heart flutter as he steps directly in front of you. “I’ll be in touch.”

“How can you be in touch—”

“You really shouldn’t open your phone in front of people,” he purrs shaking his head, a glint of mischief in his eyes. “You never know who’s watching for your code.”

You swallow hard, but can’t help but smile at him shyly. “I’ll have to remember that.”

“I put myself in as Dal.”

“Ah, your middle name.”

“Yes,” He nods, his eyes warm and inviting as he looks down at you.

“Thanks, I had fun.” You’re breathless, damn it, you’re breathless! Stop it, just stop, you try to tell yourself, but how can you say it’s been awhile since you had so much fun or how long it’s been, period? You simply can’t.

“I should be thanking you,” his voice is smooth and soft as he puts his hands behind his back mirroring you. “I guess, in proper fashion, keeping you out so late, I should do that last thing that seals your fate.”

“Wha—”

His lips come down on yours, soft in texture, but firm in pressure. Your mind reels, and you feel your knees buckle. His arm goes around your waist as he holds you closer, coaxing your mouth to open wider with small nibbles on your lips, particularly the lower one. A small moan escapes you and his other arm captures your body as his tongue gently surges into your mouth.

Locked in his embrace you dimly realize that your arms have gone around his neck. Your face tilts up to him like a flower in need of rain and you suck his tongue when he almost withdraws. He moans softly, continuing the kiss, the sound tantalizing your nerves and vibrating of his chest making you tremble slightly and causing a wave of heat to overtake you. You arch to his body as his lips brush your jawline and you instinctively rake his back under his jacket.

Suddenly you hear the door to the place open and you both break the kiss.

“You’d better go,” you say shakily, your hands sliding down his chest.

You see his breathing is faster, his jaw slightly tight as if he doesn’t want to go. “Yeah.” He presses his lips against yours once more. “I’ll be in touch, alright?”

“Alright,” you echo breathlessly, feeling a chill as he steps away from you slowly. You don’t want to believe that, but suddenly you felt like that kid at Christmas waiting for Santa Claus. “Okay.”

He slips on his sunglasses and puts on his helmet. He slides on his bike, gives you one last look and starts his motor, then revs off down the street.

You turn to see women approach you, one of them an Irish artist named Hannah, who is a Cavill fan. You flinch as her eyes zero in on yours. The other is Stella, who is backpacking across the country from Germany.

“Hey, that guy looked like Henry Cavill!” Hannah says, wide-eyed. “That was him, I know it!”

“A look-alike,” you say quickly. “Met him at the con.”

“Does he look like him, really like him?” Stella asks.

“Oh, he’ll do,” you shrug.

“How did you meet him?” Hannah asks almost accusingly.

You shake your head and shrug. “Serendipity.”

“No walk with us today, then?” Stella asks, but Hannah is studying you for tells.

“No, definitely not,” you laugh, hoping you aren’t looking as nervous as you feel. “Maybe later, though.” You start up the steps. “Good night-uh, morning, ladies.”

You share a laugh and you head inside, yawning. With an eye roll at the front desk you put your mask on, an appropriate ending to a fantastical night. You check your watch. You must have slept a couple of hours at Henry’s. You remember awakening on the floor with his arm around you. You remember how it seemed his stubble had gotten thicker overnight, how long his lashes unfairly are, the fullness of his lips and that they are just slightly open as he sleeps. His body is warmth against the air conditioning, and that is welcome since you get cold easily.

You head to your room. You see that a few bunks out of the six in your room are indeed empty, meaning it’s just you, Stella and Hannah now. You take a shower and get into bed, opting to sleep till almost the end of breakfast time before you get up to go eat at the last minute.

Done with a late breakfast, you don’t feel like going out. You feel like reliving what happened in the last twenty four hours. You feel like journaling about it, but you’re a little scared to. You want to protect the experience from everyone. You want to just keep it near and dear to you, yourself. You spend the afternoon working on your stories and poetry, and even answered some emails and messages.

Did Henry feel anything?

You suddenly get a text from the front desk asking you to come down. Your heart races as you make your way there. Upon arriving you see a messenger with a beautiful floral arrangement. “Hey!”

You look to see one of the hostel employees nod to you, “Hey!” he smiles and glances the messenger. “Looks like you’ve got an admirer!”

“If you would just sign here, ma’am?” the messenger says politely, handing over the clipboard.

“Thank you—"

“You’re welcome, miss, and this is yours as well,” the messenger nods handing you an envelope.

“Oh, okay, thanks again.” You tip him and he leaves.

“Your mission should you choose to accept it?” the front desk guy teases.

Your head snaps up, and you realize he has no idea who sent it, that he was just cracking a joke. “Well, I’d better read it before it starts catching fire.” You put the envelope and vase on top of your laptop and carry it out to the courtyard.

You look at the arrangement. Henry had been listening when they walked from the car to Godfrey’s yesterday. You went by a flower shop and you commented on how beautiful the tiger lilies and spring bouquets looked. He laughed when you told him roses were overrated, but nice.

With somewhat shaky hands you open the envelope. It’s a job description for a junior assistant to an assistant for a movie. Your breath catches. No…! Unbelievable! You open your laptop right away, and go to the site to apply, updating your resume before you submit it. You might even get it. You’ve worked as an executive assistant and office manager in the past. You just might get it. This is supposed to be a vacation. You were supposed to stay here, see if you could get to Paris, get back, and go home in a week or so. But now…

“Serendipity,” you whisper to yourself.

You look at the flowers again and notice the card. You take the small envelope and open it. You smile at the handwritten message.

Thinking of you, Dal.

You text him. Thanks for the flowers and for the heads up, I applied.

As you pick them up and sniff them, your phone howls! All you see is one word.

Perfect.

@mistress-of-ward @messy-insomniac-bookgirl @nuggsmum @sweetdreamsgelato @jencanbeyourgeralt @omgkatinka @vikingraider @keanureevesisbae @tumblnewby @mistress-of-ward @nuggsmum @messyinsomniacbookgirl @jencanbeyouryengeralt @sweetdreamsofgelato @maryann84 @omgkatinka @the-soot-sprite @vikingraider @keanureevesisbae @henryobsessed @summersong69 @kinbhot4henners @sunshine96love @michelehansel @radofrivia @thelastsock

(If your name is there, confirm you want to be tagged, if not, let me know if you do. Welcoming feedback! Wisdom and wellness to you all!)

#henry cavill #henrycavill imagine #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill x you #romance #superman #geralt #henry cavill fluff #henrycavill x reader

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ratingtheframe · 3 years

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So 2020 sucked... but the films didn’t! The top twenty films of 2020 (in my humble opinion).

AT LAST. This godforsaken year is over and as we venture into a new year, let's hope and pray that the art’s industry finds a way to build themselves back up again, in a way that is safe and necessary for them to bring us the entertainment we so crave. It has been a crazy and unprecedented year for the film industry, a year that it has never seen with losses of an estimated $5 Billion at the end of March. Some of the most anticipated blockbusters of all time had to be put on hold and postponed for hopefully next year with No Time to Die, A Quiet Place II, Wonder Woman 1984, Dune and Black Widow being a slim few that never got onto a silver screen this year. However, there is no reason to fret or relinquish the loss film has had this year, as hopefully next year once we’ve had a better understanding of this virus, these films along with many others will have their audience. Amongst the postponed releases, many films have been resilient to the virus and still managed to gain a spot in the cinema despite the circumstances.

Christopher Nolan’s Tenet was the only multi-million dollar film to be released this year and even though the risk of release could have meant nothing for the film, it still managed to rake in a staggering $361 million, an expected profit for a film of its size. However, despite the film's success, Nolan made it clear that this shouldn’t be taken lightly and that the safety of film consumers comes before the profits themselves.

Even though we will have to be more cautious in the cinema, films will return, once we have regulated safety measures in cinemas and film festivals to ensure that customers can feel comfortable. For now, HBO has planned to put many releases from Warner Bros. straight onto its streaming platform as well as in the cinema next year, in an attempt to prevent the spread of COVID whilst still being able show the films we’ve been craving. There’s no telling what next year will bring, what the Oscars will look like or if filming for the next Batman film will ever end, however it's clear to see that the film industry has shown resilience amongst this pandemic and will continue to do so in years to come, no matter the challenges.

Here are twenty of the films that made it to the cinema (or streaming platforms) this year, that proved the durability of the film industry during this time.

20. Tenet directed by Christopher Nolan

We can all agree that Chrisopher Nolan’s Tenet should be handed the award of Most Confusing Yet Entertaining Film of the Year, or ever made in fact. The sci-fi epic adventure that sees its lead (named “the protagonist) travel back in time and then forward in time and then back in time again (?)... yup, I didn’t get it either, but I’m not the only one seeing as Robert Pattinson who played alongside John David Washingston hadn’t a clue what was going on either. And he was in the film. However, despite the film's confusion, it doesn’t make it a bad or “lazy” film, for every aspect of this film from lighting, sound design, casting, direction, stunts WAS ON POINT and those elements are truly what sets this film apart. The story may have been perplexing but at least there was one.

19. Nomadland directed by Chloé Zhao

It is such a shame that Nomadland may not get the audience it deserves due to the COVID-19 pandemic as it is a truly moving and rich film. The Nomads are a group of real Americans who’ve hit the road in various mobile homes after the Great Recession in 2008 caused millions to be homeless and redundant. Frances McDormand plays Fern, one of these Nomads and child of the road whilst the film follows her simple, yet melancholy journey across Western America. Chloé Zhao has been tipped several times for an Oscar with Nomadland after winning the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival. Let’s hope that if this goes onto the Academy Awards, Nomadland will find the audience it so craves.

18. Uncut Gems directed by the Safdie Brothers

YES, Uncut Gems came out THIS YEAR, which is an insane thought seeing as I saw the film in a packed cinema before it was released onto Netflix. The Safdie Brothers, Josh and Benny brought us Uncut Gems this year, a declining tale of a man’s test with fate and the many many second chances he gets at life, only to f*** all of them up. Adam Sandler plays Howard Ratner, a pawn shop owner and frequent gambler. This is Sandler’s best ever role and the multifaceted, gritty work of the Safdie Brothers (Heaven Knows What, Good Time) really brought something brilliant out of him.

17. The Half of it directed by Alice Wu

The Half of It wins the Most Surprising Film of the Year. A highly credible film directed by Alice Wu, The Half of It is EVERYTHING we want and need in this world. In fact, it’s everything we kind of already have in this world, but hardly see on screen. Non white leads, queer non stereotyped relationships, unpredictable endings; The Half of It was an all rounder for me. Some may roll their eyes at the amount of diverse elements to the film and see it as a way of gaining brownie points, but why does that have to be a thing? Why can’t having active and authentic representation across all films just be normal rather than political? If anything, it should be encouraged. The story was brilliant (and made me cry) as it had so many layers to it as well as the characters.

16. 7500 directed by Patrick Vollrath

Definitely the wildcard of this list, 7500 is an Amazon Studios film starring Joseph Gordon Levitt. I’ll admit, my hopes weren’t high, but after taking the time to watch this film I was truly blown away. And who KNEW Joseph Gordon Levitt could be so deep and in tune with his emotions on screen. He plays a pilot whose plane gets hijacked mid flight. There. Enough said. I could hardly BREATHE throughout this film in apprehension of what was going to happen next.

15. Kajilionaire directed by Miranda July

2020 thus far has been the best year for female filmmakers. From Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Josephine Decker’s Shirley, Rose Glass’ Saint Maud and Miranda July’s Kajilionaire, a clear cut foundation has been carved effortlessly for female filmmakers this year. Miranda July’s Kajilionaire especially rocked my senses a little as I saw so much unfamiliarity yet beauty within this film. A simple storyline that follows Old Dolio (Evan Rachael Wood), a young woman trying to feel more connected with her parents. A certainly bittersweet tale that has this rose tinted like vibe to it that attaches itself to the visuals and music of the film, that make everything feel light and playful. This contrasts well with the story itself as being sad and melancholy, further proving the fact this film is more than face value. Face value films have never gotten us anywhere and its films that go beyond entertainment that truly last in the industry.

14. Bombshell directed by Jay Roach

Bombshell is a PERFECT title for this film; a film that left me angry, sad and questioning the immorality that is still prevalent in the mostly male dominant society we live in. Charlize Theron, Margot Robbie and Nicole Kidman (best trio ever) star as three news anchors on Fox news whose lives are brutally torn apart when the Head of Fox News, Roger Ailes is accused of sexual harassment on many different occasions by female members of the workplace. Despite the silence being now broken, these three women still face a whole load of other problems that come in speaking up against a powerful, white and rich male. Threats of permanent job losses, victim blaming and a weak image are the consequence of speaking up about sexual assault as a member of Fox news. The brand itself has an incredibly misogynistic view of women and continues to have an idealised image of how women should be on the news with those working at Fox actually admitting it brings in viewers. Women with tons of makeup and dresses shorter than is comfortable is Fox news and Bombshell went above and beyond exposing this scandal that truly shook American broadcasting forever.

13. Borat Subsequent Movie Film directed by Jason Woliner

Borat Subsequent Movie Film wins the award for Most Jaw Dropping Film of the Year, as its protagonist and creator Sacha Baron Cohen, went above and beyond to show us the true dark depths of America. Ballsy, outrageous, jaw dropping, scandalous; every bold word can be used to describe this film and the lengths it went to get right to the heart of American society. The ugly heart. By now you should be aware that the ex president’s attorney was shoved right into the firing line after he was taken into a hotel bedroom by a reporter who happened to be an actor. Rudi Gulliani was left red faced after Borat bursts into the hotel room proclaiming the young reporter is his daughter, with Gulliani still unaware the entire outrageous event had been caught on camera. And not just any camera. A MOVIE camera. A true triumph in free speech and comedy, Borat Subsequent Movie Film will live on forever as the most outlandish film there is.

12. Miss Juneteenth directed by Channing Godfrey-Peoples

A real eye opener into current American society using a touching story between mother and daughter as a backdrop. Turquoise is a single mother struggling to get by and support her daughter Kai through the Miss Juneteenth pageant, held annually in Fort Worth, Texas. A real competition, the Miss Juneteenth pageant promises one lucky young woman of colour a full scholarship to a black historical college of their choosing. Turquoise desperately wants this for her daughter as it’ll give her the opportunities in life she never had. A truly moving and authentic film, this scored 100% on Rotten Tomatoes which is a highly impressive and deserving score.

11. The Trial of the Chicago Seven directed by Aaron Sorkin

Aaron Sorkin’s lyricism in words was again brought to us on screen this year with his depiction of the Chicago 7 (eight if you count Bobby Seale); seven men who were accused and put on trial for eliciting the Chicago riots of 1968. When in actuality, the police themselves had more to do with riling up the protestors than anyone else, even pushing a crowd of protestors through the front window of a restaurant to make it seem like they had vandalised the property. If anyone was going to make such a film, Sorkin would be the one to do it as with any event or idea he covers, Sorkin’s words as a writer MAKE YOU CARE. Even when you had no recollection or understanding of something, the way Sorkin depicts these events on screen has you absorbed into the story till the last second. An incredible and powerful story and a film that I could constantly go back to in order to learn about the injustices of American politics.

10. The Devil All the Time directed by Antonio Campos

I feel like The Devil All the Time still hasn’t got the recognition it deserves. There is something incredibly powerful and priceless about having a group of exceptionally talented people come together to create something for screen. This film wins Best Casting of the Year (if you don’t count Dune) as the likes of Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Eliza Scanlen, Sebastian Stan, Bill Skarsgård, Mia Wasikowska, Harry Melling, Riley Keogh, Jason Clarke and Haley Bennett graced our screens in this dark and ominous tale. Any story that is set in a small town and is about stories interweaving is bound to be interesting and thought provoking in it’s telling, with this adaptation being no different. The star of the show was Robert Pattinson’s thick Tennessee accent along with his clean yet filthy character interpretation of a perverted priest. Not one line in this film was thrown away and every single moment held a weighty tension, further confirming to us each character’s downfall by the end. An amazing adaptation and something you will reeeeeally enjoy.

9. Soul directed by Pete Docter

What was supposed to be Pixar’s second release of the year, Soul is Pixar’s most highly executed film to date. The amount of detail and care the animators and creators of Soul had taken to this picture is INSANE; insanely beautiful. With the black community going through so much this year, having something like Soul be put out to audiences shows support of this ever changing and growing movement. Even though having black representation on screen isn’t on the top of everyone’s priority list, it’s still important that the effort is there in order to really show what the world is like on screen and to cater to more audiences. Soul itself had everything; diverse, three dimensional characters, a clear and heart warming story and comedic, uplifting points that only strengthened the important message of this movie; life itself.

8. The Lighthouse directed by Robert Eggers

Again, another film that came out right at the beginning of the year, Robert Egger’s The Lighthouse was a whole new world that we had never seen before. Shot on a Panavision Millennium XL2 using a lense from the 1930s and black and white film, The Lighthouse was a decrepit, eerie and brilliant movie to watch throughout. It just makes me satisfied as a viewer when a director not only creates a film, but creates one that is so beyond anything we’ve ever seen and could likely have been made in an entirely different era altogether. Robert Pattinson KILLED IT in his role as a surly drunken sailor alongside Willem Dafoe, whose Irish accent was enviable. Overall a highly executed film that exudes brilliance and a creative mind.

7. The Hater directed by Jan Komasa

I would say The Hater is the second wildcard on this list. It’s a Polish drama that hasn’t had a lot of rep in the media, however, this doesn’t detract from the film’s execution and drama. A real downfall story that sees a jealous ridden man go from a media intern into illicting terrorism. Like, HELLO how does one go to such an extreme? The only way to find out would be watching the film...The film really spoke to the dangers of social media and the ease of getting someone to insight violence onto someone else, all through a computer. My mouth was hanging on the floor during several moments of this film and I can 100% guarantee the Netflix film will have the same affect on you.

6. La Belle Époque directed by Nicolas Bedos

La Belle Époque (or “The Good Times”) wins the award for Most Heart Warming Film of the Year. A surprisingly unique concept that follows a man trying to relive the best moments of his past after his wife wishes to divorce him. A company that specialises in creating your past memories offers him the opportunity to go back to the time when he and his wife first met, using actors, set design and music to recreate the moment. The French film emits a strong sense of nostalgia throughout with brilliant music and set design. It’s just one of those films that heavily expresses the idea of “what if” within a film whilst answering it boldly through its unique story.

5. Ema directed by Pablo Larraín

Ema took me a few days to fully absorb and appreciate as an experimental film, rather than one with a clear cut narrative. It's a film that expresses an idea, a feeling as opposed to a story which is completely okay and doable in this day and age. Ema is a liberating, freeing and psychedelic world of a film, with the message of the film being wrapped up in Ema’s attitude as a woman and the way she sets fires to things wherever she goes. Literally, as the opening sequence is of her setting alight a basketball hoop. There is some strong, vivid imagery within this and the MUSIC...definitely the best sound track I’ve heard this year. Ema’s in my top five for its uniqueness, rawness and the weird sense of liberation it gave me after watching it.

4. Saint Maud directed by Rose Glass

Probably the biggest breakthrough film of the year and despite the pandemic, Saint Maud certainly got the rep it deserved. An entirely new perspective of horror was brought to use in troves in the form of this Irish film created by first time director Rose Glass. I cannot express how brilliant and revolutionary Saint Maud was for its simplicity, story and filmmaking techniques. An ambitious and all round brilliant film that sits prettily in my top five films of the year.

3. Portrait of a Lady on Fire directed by Céline Sciamma

Portrait of a Lady on Fire wins the award for Best Foreign Language Film and it still hurts to think it never even made it to the Academy Awards this year. One of the most moving and earthy films that I’ve seen this year, Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a slow, sensual and ambiguous picture that shows a love story between two women through the form of art. I became quite obsessed with the music of Antonio Vivaldi after seeing this as the time period and music intertwined really well in this film. Exceptionally made and incredibly raw, Portrait of a Lady on Fire went straight for the heart in this film by also putting the grievances of love at the forefront of this film.

2. Parasite directed by Bong Joon Ho

You are probably extremely bored and tired of hearing of the success of Parasite as a breakthrough picture, however there are an abundance of reasons for it! Winner of Six Academy Awards including Best Picture, Parasite really pulled the rug beneath the Academy Awards feet and certainly proved that no matter your race, it's the story that sells and that will bank you an Academy Award. A wonderfully crafted story, one that could have been found in theatre or even opera and those sort of structured narratives are what really grab people’s attention.

1. Another Round (Druk) directed by Thomas Vinterberg

And finally, my favourite, Most Enjoyable Film of the Year had to be without a doubt, Thomas Vinterburg’s Druk, which I had the pleasure of seeing at the BFI London Film Festival this year. The theatre-like structure of a narrative has been implemented seamlessly into this film and even if structure means nothing to you, you can feel when a film has been crafted differently to bring about a dynamic and earthy narrative. I’ve previously watched two films of Vinterberg’s; Festen and The Hunt and even though those two films hold a high rating, Druk is definitely Vinterberg’s best film yet. Extremely entertaining whilst also carrying a rather dark side to it, Vinterberg sells you the best and worst of two worlds whilst exposing the effects of alcohol consumption.

And that’s it! 2020 in films! If you agreed or disagreed with anything on this list or think something else should’ve made the list that came out this year, be sure to leave me a comment on this post or via instagram on @ratingtheframe. It’s crazy to think that this obsession of mine turns two years old next year and there are still so many amazing pictures to be seen! And as always, you will find each and every one of them right here on @ratingtheframe.tumblr.

Bring on 2021!

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anjanettexcordonia · 3 years

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Chapter 4: Psycho

Book: The Royal Romance A/U

Catch Up Here Ties That Bind Masterlist

Rating: Mature (18+); NSFW; Dark; Torture; Rape; mentions of child abuse; Death

Pairings: Liam x Riley; Drake x Olivia

Word count: 2,922 (+/-)

A/N: Please excuse any grammatical errors.

A/N: Please Read With Caution!

Thank you @texaskitten30 for bouncing ideas with me & beta-reading! If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have finished this chapter anytime soon!

Thank you to @yourmajesty09 for Godfrey! ;)

Disclaimer: Some characters & some scenes belong to Pixelberry. (This is not based on any actual events!)

Tags: If you would like to be added or removed please let me know.

PermaTags: @yourmajesty09 @gkittylove99 @kingliam2019

Series Tags: @cordonia-gothqueen @mom2000aggie @texaskitten30 @hopefulmoonobject

Clink. Clink. Clink.

Celeste winced at every snap against the bars in her small confines.

“Uh what’s going on Li? Why is she in there?” Drake choked out. Drake's eyes darted around the dimly lit room. He saw Celeste curled up a small cot in a jail cell.

“Shut up Drake.” Olivia snapped.

“Olivia Nevrakis, Drake Walker.. is.. is that you?” Celeste choked out. Liam pressed his finger to his lips to silence them.

“Hello, my dear Little Sister” Liam hissed. Riley could feel the heat radiating off his naked body as she stood next to him.

“Hello brother, I had a feeling my abduction had something to do with you & her,” Celeste pointed in Riley’s direction with her long bony fingers,” when I was left in this filth of country.” Celeste eyed Riley. Celeste always felt a slight connection towards Riley. Not friendship but kinship. They shared demons, not the same demons different traumas but demons all the same. Celeste craved power. Power at any cost no price wasn’t worth paying. Riley craved blood, the blood of the powerful. Blood of those who had wronged her or Liam.

Liam scoffed at her remark. “Cece, of course you know why you’re here?”

“William, You know I had nothing to do with what happened to Leo. Or you. I had no idea anything was going on. Madeline she.. she.. forced me. And Regina & Adelaide.”

“Ya know Cece, I don’t care what lies you tell yourself to clear your conscience. Better yet you're more like me than I like to admit. We don’t have a conscience, do we dear sister? Madeleine’s blood is on your hands.”

“Go cover your dick and get out William, I’m done with this conversation. And take your whore of a wife with you.” Celeste mumbled as she turned to face the wall away from the group standing on the other side of the bars. Riley could barely contain her excitement the more defiant Celeste became.

Riley walked over to a scanner mounted on the wall. She presses her thumb firmly to the scanner. The wall retracted into a much larger room. The room had a large bed in the center and large ornate thrones for the King and Queen. The thrones were positioned against the wall with a perfect view of the entire room. Surrounding the bed were.. torture devices to say the least. Riley grabbed a catch pole and large hook and joyfully walked towards Liam.

“My King,” Riley knelt to one knee in front of her husband holding the pole and hook above her head, her arms outstretched towards him to take the pole from her hands.

Liam leaned down taking the devices from Riley and caught her pouty lips into a passionate kiss. Riley wrapped her arms around his neck and her hands finding the hook in Liam's hand. Still locked in a heated kiss, Riley and Liam rose to their feet. Riley suddenly broke the kiss and snatched the hook free of Liam's hand. In a flash, she put the shaft of the hook through the iron bars and hooked Celeste around her neck pulling her towards them. Riley pulled the pole as hard as she could causing the cable around Celeste’s neck to tighten. With Liam standing behind her with a wicked grin appearing on his face she pulled Celeste flush against the wrought iron bars. Liam pried the pole from Riley’s fingers and brought his face as close as he could to Celeste.

“Sit.” He commanded Olivia and Drake. Both of their faces twisted in fear and confusion. “I understand you’re both curious as to what’s going on. Right now, you will observe and your questions will be answered. Please be assured neither of you will come to any harm at my or Riley’s hand.” In typical Olivia fashion, laughed at Liam’s remark, “Me, harmed by either of you, I'm interested in what game you two are playing.” “Liam, I don’t know about this. Can I at least have my pants back?’ Drake runs his fingers through his thick dark hair nervously. Liam gave Riley the catch pole that held Madeline flush against the cold bars. He sat down on his throne, Olivia and Drake took their seats on a bench on the far side of the room. “Bring her to me, my Queen.” Riley bowed her head, she opened the door to the cage and jerked the catch pole pulling Celeste hard. Riley pulled her infront of Liam and slammed her to her knees on the floor. “What the fuck, you bitch?” Celeste yelled at Riley. “Let me out of here Liam NOW!” She bellowed. Riley drew her hand back to hit Celeste for her outburst “Riley stop.” Riley froze at Liam’s command.

Riley knew, right now her and her husband were not equals. He needed her to do this for him and she was more than willing. He needed to heal and she would heal his wounds. She would save him from himself. She is saving him from his torture and hate. She will fill the void that they left behind. What’s love without obsession?

“Celeste, the more you fight, the worse it will be. Riley come here my Queen.” Riley dropped the pole and went to sit on Liam’s lap. Liam pulled her into a tender kiss. Liam kissed her down her chin to her neck and up to her ear, “Get the knives.” Riley walked over to a safe built into the wall. She typed in the password and scanned her palm. The safe opened and she pulled three small daggers out. Each dagger was adorned with a large jewel.

“Olivia, Drake here.” Riley handed them each a dagger. “These daggers are of importance. Each one has a specific crown jewel encrusted in the hilt. Olivia, red obviously for the scarlet duchess and House Nevrakis. Diamond for you Drake. You’re a true diamond in the rough and a pillar in our reign.” Riley explained. “Riley, Liam I don’t know what to say.” Olivia thanked them as she looked at the dagger in her hand. A large red ruby was encrusted in the hilt along with Nevrakis Justice engraved along the blade.

Liam stood from his throne. “Let’s get on with it. I’m tired of waiting. Riley Rhys, Olivia Nevrakis, and Drake Walker, today I am judge and jury. You are executioner.”

“Jesus Christ Liam, you are such a drama Queen. You’re not going to kill me and neither will these bastards. It’s treason.” Celeste snapped.

Riley couldn’t control her blood lust any longer. She walked over to Celeste and sliced her across her back with her Rhys sapphire encrusted dagger. Riley froze as she watched the blood pour in small estuaries down Celeste’s back. “Fuck you really are a crazy bitch aren’t you!” Celeste screamed in pain. “Liam stop this NOW. I’m the mother of your first born child!” Liam’s lips curled at the sound of mouth forming the words mother. “YOU ARE NOT A MOTHER OF ANY CHILD OF MINE.” His voice boomed. “Regina forced me and so did father. You know that Liam!” “Shut up. You’re a liar.” “Do you think I WANTED to fuck my half brother over and over?” Liam sat down quietly. “Maybe, maybe not. But your natural response spoke otherwise. Every time I fought, you came harder. And what about Savannah?”

Drake's eyebrow quirked at the sound of his sister's name. “Savannah? Li what?” “Tell him Cece. He knows you raped me. But does he know that you are the reason for his sister's death? And his father’s death? That had Jackson Walker executed for false allegations of rape. That you found out about Constantine,our father, abusing Savannah and impregnating her? Instead you helped Regina take her son away.”

“Son?” Drake screamed. “My father… my sister… because of you..” Drake charged at Celeste. Liam grabbed Drake by the throat. “Stop. I’m not finished.” He calmly spoke. “Get the fuck off me Liam. This bitch… she.. she..” “There’s more,” Liam directed his attention back to Celeste who sat in complete silence. “What about Olivia, Celeste?” Olivia's face drained of all color. She knew exactly what Liam was about to say. She had never spoken a word to anyone before. “No Liam, stop. Don’t…” she whispered. Drake eyes his wife. “What’s he talking about Olivia?”

“Liv I’m so sorry. I tried to stop it.” Celeste sobbed. “No, no, Cece tell the truth.” Riley interrupted. Celeste’s tears stopped abruptly as if she could control her tears. A smile formed across her face. “You’re right Riley. I’m lying. I knew what Constantine was doing. Why do you think I was your best friend, Livvy. He said he would fuck the traitor out of you. I guess he didn’t do a very good job.” She shrugged. “None of you are worthy of the crown. You’re weak. You allowed the torture. You weren’t strong enough to fight back. Liam, your own father destroyed you. I stole your illusion of innocence. No one may have touched you Drake but your poor sister and disgraceful Kings Guard of a father got it enough for you. And Liv, you were the most trusting. You are the most weak. You don’t rule Nevrakis with an iron fist. You all got what you deserved.”

Liam returned to his seat on his replicated throne. “Riley. It’s time. We will let Drake and Olivia work out their aggressions. Drake, Liv… you may do as you please to her. Do not kill her and make sure when you are finished she is fully concious.” Drake felt the anger rising inside of him. He felt as if his skin would burst into flames at any moment. He had never felt hatred in his life until this moment, listening to the evil drip from Celeste’s lips. The hatred engulfed him and he understood. He understood Liam in a way he had never before. Drake darted from his place on the other side of the room. He felt himself losing control until he pounced on Celeste. “You stole my family. You murdered them.” Drake screamed as his arm drew back to hit her hard across her jaw. Celeste screamed as Drake pummeled her. “Enough.” Liam’s deep baritone voice boomed through the room. “Sit Drake.” Drake immediately turned to look for Olivia. Celeste lay balled on the floor. She was badly beaten and bloodied from the brutal beating Drake had given her. “Well deserved. That was for my father and my sister. And for my nephew and my mother.” Drake hissed at Celeste. Olivia kissed Drake deeply. Drake poured his anger and relief into the kiss, emotions he never knew he felt for the loss of his family and finally knowing the real truth.

Celeste lay on the floor breathing heavily. She closed her eyes and laid her head back on the cold tile floor. “Princess CeCe..” a smooth yet sharp voice poured into the completely silent room. She felt her breath hitch in her throat. She felt the cold sharp lightly touch the sensitive skin of her throat. She felt the sharp scratch of the dagger glide down her chest between her breaths and stop abruptly at her pubic bone. She felt the dagger press harder until she felt the pierce of her skin and the blood coming to the surface. Celeste’s eyes opened in a flash. “Nevrakis” she hissed. “No need for words.. shhh.” Olivia pressed her finger to Celeste’s words. Olivia continued running the dagger down her thighs drawing the slightest bit of blood.

Liam, Riley and Drake watched in awe of Olivia. Liam felt his cock twitch at the sensual torture taking place in front of him. He took Riley’s hand and placed it gently on himself. She gripped him hard and slowly pumped his shaft. “Bring her in. She’s going to watch.” Riley nodded her and released her husband from her grip. She disappeared into another room.

Olivia continued to make the small cuts over Celeste’s body. Celeste was crying out for the pain to end. Olivia pressed deeper and deeper into each cut. Liam was getting more and more excited as more and more blood pooled on the floor beneath the vile creature before him. He watched as Olivia’s naked body hovered over Celeste, Olivia’s hands were deep red from the blood of Celeste. Liam snapped his head when he heard the muffled gasp. “Regina, join us.” Liam grinned a sinister grin at her before he turned his head back to Olivia and Celeste. Riley pushed Regina down against the wall to sitting position.

“Enough Olivia,” Liam barked.

He stood from his throne and reached for his wife’s hand. Riley placed her hand in his, both of them transforming themselves into their regal Queen and King stance. Olivia slinked back to her place beside Drake. Liam looked at Riley, an unspoken conversation happened between them. Riley knew exactly what to do by her husband’s expression. She knew the depths of his tortured soul better than anyone. She knelt down beside Celeste’s head. She pulled Celestes arms above her head and held them in place. The catch pole cable still wrapped tightly around Celeste’s neck. Liam knelt down between Celeste’s legs.

Regina cried out, “Liam please no.” Liam ignored Regina's pleas. “Did you stop when he begged you to stop Regina?” Riley spoke through gritted teeth. “Did you Celeste? When you forced his seed into you? Did you think he would never come for you?” Liam slammed his cock into Celeste as hard as he could lurching her forward. She let a scream, “No.” “How does it feel to to be the one vulnerable?” Riley whispered into Celeste’s ear as Liam continued to violate her body. “Hold her My Queen.” Liam commanded his wife. Her grip on Celeste’s wriggling body tightened holding her in place. Liam leaned into kiss his wife deeply as he continued his assault on Celeste. “Dagger.” He whispered. Liam could feel his orgasm building within his body not caring about the sandpaper feeling that enveloped his cock. Riley released her grip on Celeste and went to retrieve the Rhys dagger. Liam grabbed a firm hold around Celeste’s neck. The sweat dripping from burned her wounds. She looked at her mother, who was crying watching her daughter's assault, helpless. “This is your fault you fucking cunt.” Celeste whispered, as she gasped for breath at her mother. “Now Riley.” Liam removed his hands from Celeste’s neck, Riley immediately replaced his hands with the dagger. Riley watched her husband’s face twist and contort as he reached his climax. Riley pushed the knife deep across Celeste’s jugular vein. Blood sprayed over Liam as he released himself deep within Celeste. Her body jerked as more blood poured from neck. Liam slowly pulled himself out of Celeste, wincing in pain. They stood both covered in Celeste’s blood. Neither making eye contact with each other.

Regina sobbed at the sight of her daughter's life leaving her body. Celeste became who she was her fault. The twisted monster before her, Liam, she knew was her fault. All of it was her fault. “Liam if this is what you need to lead our country, so be it.” Regina whispered through hushed sobs.

“Our country? MY COUNTRY.” Liam thundered. “It is your fault. Celeste, my father EVERYTHING WAS YOUR FAULT. A child I can’t love like mine and Riley’s children.” A fresh anger coursed through his veins. A rage he needed satiate one last time for himself. He snatched the dagger from Riley’s hand and marched to stand directly in front of Regina. “Look at me.” He commanded Regina. “Liam..” “Your Majesty. You will call me your majesty. I am your King. You tried so hard to remove me from my rightful place. You destroyed my brother, you took everything from me. But I took it back. I have MY Queen. My family. And MY COUNTRY. And you will die here in a foreign country, and forgotten in your own.” Liam plunged the dagger into Regina’s heart. “Today I’m taking back MY power, not for me. But for her and my children. All of them.” Regina whispered, “I’m sorry.” Liam pulled the dagger out of her heart. He plunged it back in again. “DO.” The squish of flesh beneath the dagger was the only sound in the room between Liam’s cries. “NOT” “APOLOGIZE.” Liam had tears running down his blood spattered face. Riley ran over and placed her hand on his, “she’s gone, baby.” She wrapped her arms around him to hold him. He sobbed into Riley’s shoulder.

“I’m so sorry Riley, I love you so much.” “Shh shh.. it’s okay, I love you too.” Riley comforted him.

Drake and Olivia sat in a stunned silence at the scene that just played out in front of them. They could sense a flood of relief flow in the room. The room was covered in blood, two women lay deceased on the floor.. but somehow they sensed a peace. Evil had been exterminated and replaced with a light.

A dim light, is still a light nevertheless.

#trr #theroyalromance #alternateuniverse #dark #exteme #kingliam #liamxmc #liamxriley #evil #evilliam #evilriley #evilmc #drakexolivia #trauma #fanfiction #choicesfanfiction #fanfictionwriter

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paceypeternathanslawyer · 4 years

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Iconic things about The Dick Van Dyke Show

-For the time The Dick Van Dyke Show was incredibly diverse. You got to remember this was the early 1960s, back in the day you were lucky to see African Americans in any capacity and when they were in shows or movies they were strictly in the service industry. That started to change in the late 50s to early 60s and TDVDS was kinda the start of that in Television. People of color were depicted in different capacities than usual. In the episode “That’s My Boy??” the actors Greg Morris and Mimi Dillard played a normal upper middle class family. In this episode Rob thinks that Laura and himself were sent home with the wrong baby from the hospital and he believes that their baby was taken by a family with the last name Peters. The Peters ended up being African American and they were depicted as well dressed and well spoken people who seemed to live in a similar area and walk of life as the Petries and in that episode the black couple is funny and completely sane whereas the white man (Rob) is depicted as the butt of the joke. Also at the end of the episode Rob subtly mentions how their son Richie is getting horrible grades and the Peters’ son is at the top of the class. It’s small things like that, that had never been seen on Television. In a episode named “The Man from My Uncle“ an actor by the name of Godfrey Campbell played an FBI agent. And that’s not counting the numerous POC in smaller roles or as extras in scenes. This was a time where you were lucky to see POC even as extras. -The feminism in TDVDS took amazing strides as well. There were times where Rob is shown to be very insecure, and I think that’s some of the most of it’s time aspects of the show. It’s not great, but it’s realistic. One of my favorite character choices for Laura Petrie is that we find out that she is proficient in self defense.... she learned self defense techniques when she was an entertainer for the troops. In the episode “My Mother Can Beat Up My Father,” a drunk at a bar harasses Laura and Rob tries to defend her and he gets laid out by the drunk. Laura then does a judo throw on the guy and lays him out. It becomes a big thing for Rob in that episode and he’s very insecure about the fact that Laura can take a guy that Rob can’t. But Laura does not apologize for that fact, and in one scene Rob is trying to prove that he’s all tough and so he challenges Laura to do the same throw with him. Laura doesn’t pretend she can’t do it to spare his fragile masculinity, she lays him out and if I remember correctly he broke a few bones. Also the character of Sally Rogers has been touted as one of the first women’s lib characters. She’s a Television writer alongside Rob and Buddy and she is treated with respect and is presumably paid the same as Buddy who is a writer on her same level. She is a proud career woman who is damn good at her job, and is an equal to the men in her workplace. Another big way that TDVDS broke ground was the fact that Laura wears capri pants. Believe it or not that caused a firestorm of controversy.... up to that point housewives had been shown as wearing dresses and skirts on TV and once the dust settled the fact that Mary Tyler Moore wore capri pants on TDVDS caused those pants to become a huge fashion craze in the 60s. -TDVDS became a huge hit starting with the second season against all odds. First off Carl Reiner had created the show a couple years prior and had actually shot a pilot with an entirely different cast and with himself in the lead, at that time it was called “Head Of The Family.” It aired and did not get picked up. Carl just gave up on it and it lay on a shelf collecting dust. A couple years later someone with the William Morris Agency tried to get Carl to retry it and he refused. That agent then went to the most successful producer at that time, Sheldon Leonard. Sheldon was known for having a perfect record for his pilots, absolutely all of them had been picked up to series, some of which were huge hit shows. Sheldon saw the show and immediately saw the potential. He approached Carl about the idea of retrying with an entirely different cast and name.... once a famous producer says they have faith in your show, how can you say no. So they set to the task of finding a cast. Dick Van Dyke was one of the first people to be cast in the show, and at that point Dick was in the middle of a successful run on Broadway in the show “Bye Bye Birdie” which he’d won a Tony Award for, but being successful on Broadway doesn’t usually translate to fame with the general public (up until Lin Manuel Miranda that was true). So not only did they cast an unknown in the lead role but they then turned around and named the show on the said unknown actor. That was an extremely ballsy and risky move. At the time there were a lot of shows named after actors but they were all famous stars like Doris Day etc. To name a show after an unknown actor was unheard of!! They then cast Mary Tyler Moore (who was an unknown), they cast Rose Marie (who was never hugely famous, but had a really good career on radio and in night clubs. But even if you consider her to have been famous, she was kind of a has been), Morey Amsterdam was cast (an unknown), Jerry Paris and Ann Morgan Guilbert were cast (also unknowns). It was really a cast full of unknowns in the leads. There were no big names. Which was really a disadvantage going in. The first season bombed, it was near the end of the Nielsen ratings and morale was severely low at the end of the season. Sheldon Leonard actually got word from a friend who was on the committee that decided which shows were cancelled and which her renewed, that the show had indeed been cancelled and it just hadn’t been announced yet. So Sheldon went into problem solving mode. He knew that going to the network wouldn’t get him anywhere. At that time sponsors were king and TDVDS had one of the biggest sponsors in the game, Proctor And Gamble. So Sheldon flew to Proctor And Gamble’s headquarters and in his own words he “sang mammy” in other words he begged and he charmed their pants off (figuratively) :) At the end of his pitch, they agreed to go to bat for the show... on one condition.... that he found a sponsor to sponsor the second half of the season. So he raced from sponsor to sponsor pitching his show and begging them to co sponsor them. He was in the middle of a pitch when he was alerted that Kent Cigarettes had decided to sponsor their second half. Proctor And Gamble and Kent Cigarettes went up against CBS and demanded that they renew TDVDS or else they would withdraw support from all their other popular shows. And CBS caved and renewed the show. With S2, TDVDS became a massive success and by the end of S5 the network was begging Carl Reiner to make another season but Carl wanted to end the show while they were still on top. TDVDS also became the darling of the awards shows. They continually swept the Emmys every year starting with S2. They won for writing, directing, and acting, it also won Best Comedy in 1966 with it’s final season.

-The scripts were largely based off of real life. Nowadays it’s more common for shows to take ideas from real life, but at the time Carl Reiner’s wish for authenticity was largely unheard of. Writers on the show described the writing sessions as therapy sessions because it would start with Carl probing into their life and them talking about embarrassing things that happened to them. Carl and the writers would take those ideas and make them bigger and crazier but there was always that nugget of truth in there.

-The marriage between Rob and Laura was also iconic. You gotta figure that I Love Lucy was a huge show of the past decade and it really shaped most future shows. In some ways TDVDS was the antithesis of that. Carl wanted to create a show where the main married couple was united... it was them against the world. He shied away from battle of the sexes storylines whenever possible. He wanted Rob and Laura to be clearly in love. And it’s a unique relationship where you can tell that those two have an active sex life... and that was really unique for the time.

-Carl Reiner made a decision at the beginning of the show that he would never use popular slang terms of the 60s. In fact if you watch beginning to end, only one slang term slipped in, in S5. Otherwise, he remarkably kept to that. Because of that crucial decision, TDVDS is not as dated as it could be and it has a very timeless feel to it.

-The cast was known to get along famously, there were only a few moments of tension, otherwise the set was known to be very light and there was little tension. They were all pranksters and the set was alive with hilarity, laughter, and pranks. They used to haze guest stars... most of the guest stars were fine with being hazed but there was one who did not take it so well. During the filming of one episode Robert Vaughn was the guest star and he was on the outskirts of the set waiting for his cue to come in. The actors led the entire cast and crew off the set and turned off the lights and left Robert waiting for his cue for about an hour, until he walked in to see what the holdup was only to find the entire cast and crew gone. It’s hilarious, but he wasn’t too happy. The cast was like a huge family, but most guest stars described them as being very welcoming as well.

Edit. Another iconic thing I almost forgot is the fact that certain episodes are used in film classes as examples of how to write comedy. It’s so funny and iconic that it is the textbook case of how to write comedy shows!!!! When will your favorite show ever... ;)

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heauxplesslydevoted · 4 years

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When The Shark Stops

Summary: Liam and Kendall have a long overdue talk. Follow up to my Liam x MC fic, posted here. I didn’t intend for this to become a multi-part thing, but I think I’ll make it a trilogy.

Tags: @senseofduties @lapisreviewsstuff @akacalliope @badchoicesposts @drakewalker04 @canknot @sirbeepsalot @hopefulmoonobject @texaskitten30 @eadanga @the-unconquered-queen @flyawayboo @aestheticartwriting @ao719 @zaffrenotes

~v~

A full night of sleep is something that Liam typically considers a luxury. He’s a king, responsible for the lives of tons of people, he has work to do. “Sleep is for the weak and the dead,” Constantine used to say. Crawling into bed late and waking up early is the routine he’s grown accustomed to.

But right now, he can’t sleep. His queen is tucked in beside him, snoring softly and their newborn is comfortably nestled in their bassinet right next to their bed, and he’s staring at the ceiling, unable to move.

He feels disjointed, in a way. He knows he should be happy right now, ecstatic even. He has a beautiful baby girl, and she’s healthy and Kendall is as well, but he can’t shake the melancholy. The overwhelming sense of dread crawls up and down his spine, makes a playground out of his mind, and disrupts any sort of peace.

It’s been like this for the past 4 days, ever since Eleanor was born, ever since he found out what Godfrey did to his mother, ever since he agreed to an alliance with Auvernal. If he’s not helping Kendall with their daughter, he’s in his study trying to formulate a plan. The other part of his time is spent like this, trying but failing to sleep. Now that he’s not actively doing something, his thoughts have ample opportunity to run rampant.

Your parents were murdered, one of you advisors has fled, Kendall is upset with you, and you’re one false move away from starting a war with Auvernal.

His breathing is hard and labored, his heart is beating 130 times per minute, and he can actually feel his pulse painfully throbbing at the base of his skull.

He turns and looks at Kendall. He envies the fact that she’s sleeping peacefully even though their daughter will be waking her up in the next hour or so. Her entire body is relaxed, and her hair is out of the way, fashioned in a bun so he can look at her gorgeous face. He gently runs a thumb along her cheek, careful not to wake her. She sighs in content, but thankfully she doesn’t stir.

She almost died because of you, you know, a thought flits into his mind. Multiple times. Assasination attempts, kidnappings, hell, she almost died bringing your child into the world.

Liam shoots out of bed, jumping away from Kendall. The adrenaline of the action makes his head pound harder and he doubles over in pain, wincing. He stumbles out of their bedroom on wobbly feet until he reaches their kitchen. His entire body trembles and he can’t pinpoint the cause.

“Pull it together,” He hisses sharply to himself. He rummages through one of their cabinets to retrieve a glass, hoping some cold water can calm him down. “You’re the king, for Christ’s sake!”

But he can’t. Now that he’s up, he’s opened the floodgates, the thoughts coming faster, each one more pervasive than the last.

You’re a horrible King, why do you think you can psych yourself up with a sudden reminder of your station? What was everything thinking when they told you that you deserved this job? That you would make a better ruler than your brother?

What type of King lets innocent people suffer through multiple assassination attempts? Why haven’t you learned your lesson yet?

You couldn’t even stop an old man—the man that murdered your mother—from leaving your own home! He was able to get the jump on you, and leave you trapped for good measure.

No wonder Bradshaw and Isabella were able to manipulate you so easily. Look at you. You’re weak-willed and pathetic. No wonder Kendall is so upset with you. She deserves a better husband, one who can actually protect her, and Eleanor definitely deserves a better father. Not even a week old, and you’ve already doomed her.

“SHUT UP!” Liam yells, to no one in particular. The glass he’s holding shatters, his grip on it entirely too tight. Tears prick the corners of his eyes and he laughs humorlessly. Why is this the straw that breaks the camel’s back? “Dammit!”

He hears shuffling and a few moments later, the light to the kitchen turns on. He sees Kendall out of the corner of his eye.

“What’s going on?” She asks. “I thought I heard yelling.”

“It’s nothing, I promise.”

She sees the shards of glass littering their floor. “Did you drop that?”

“Yeah, I got up to get some water and I’m just a bit clumsy right now.”

Kendall doesn’t believe him. Something doesn’t feel right.

“I can help you clean it up.”

“Nonsense. I made this mess,” his voice cracks slightly betraying his facade, “I’ll clean it up. I always do.”

“Liam, what’s wrong?” Kendall asks.

“Nothing is wrong.”

“We’ve been married for almost a year. I know all of your tells. I know you like the back of my hand, and I can tell when something is wrong.” She takes a step towards him. “So I’m going to ask you one more time, what’s wrong?”

He clenches his fists together tightly, willing himself to calm down. But it’s no use as the tears start streaming down his face. “I’m a failure.”

“What?”

“I’m a failure,” Liam repeats. “I can’t protect you, I can’t protect our daughter, I can’t protect this kingdom. I can’t even properly avenge my mother’s death.”

“You’re not a failure,” Kendall argues.

“Look at my track record, Kendall! It’s been one horrible mark on my reign after another ever since I took the crown. Drake got shot, Kiara got stabbed, my father was killed, Applewood is barely starting to recover from the fire. I couldn’t even keep you safe on our wedding day, you had to encounter not one, but two assassination attempts. I blindly trusted Godfrey to handle our security, not even knowing he was the reason I grew up with my mother and a younger sibling, and look where that got us. Now for my latest fuck up, I entered us into an alliance with Auvernal, and you hate me for it. Every bad thing that’s happened to us is a result of my poor leadership.”

Liam slides down to the floor and drives a thumb into one of his temples, hoping to rid some of the tension. Kendall gets down on the floor with him, wincing as she does so. Liam stares at her oddly. “What are you doing?”

“You got on the floor, so I’m getting on the floor.”

“Kendall, you need to rest.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Kendall says stubbornly. She grabs Liam’s face and forces him to look at her. “I made a vow to you, in that fancy cathedral, in front of our friends, families, and God and I promised that I was going to be your best friend, your fiercest protector, and your soft spot to land.”

“You don’t need to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders all by yourself,” she continues. “I am right here with you. You know that, right?”

“Yes,” he answers.

“But do you believe me when I say it? There is nothing too heavy or too intense for me to tackle, not when I’m right here, right by your side. I’m not going anywhere, Liam. You aren’t alone.”

Kendall’s wipes away one of his tears. “What brought this on?”

Liam shrugs. “I don’t know. I think everything that happened the other night has really been weighing on me, coupled with everything that’s happened in the past year and a half. I can’t even get through writing our daughter’s birth announcement without spiraling into a panic.”

“I feel the exact same way. That 7 pound infant came here, and she’s made everything feel so much more...real. I can’t even get a glass of water without my mind instantly going to her.”

He nods. “I’m gad you understand. Her birth has brought up a lot of previously buried...stuff.”

“You’ve been through a lot, Liam. You aren’t Superman, traumatic things are going to weigh you down. And despite the privilege, you’ve been dealt a hand that most people couldn’t even fathom. Every person who doubts you or judges you couldn’t walk half a mile in your shoes. And in my biased opinion, I still think you’re doing an excellent job.” Liam manages to smile at that. “You aren’t a failure. You are strong, and brave, and loyal. You have compassion, you have integrity, you care about everyone, and while some people think those are weaknesses, I say they’re your biggest strengths.”

Liam leans forward, resting his head on top of his wife’s. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. You know you can always come to me if you’re feeling overwhelmed.”

“Sorry. I’m used to dealing with things alone. It’s still an adjustment, having you at my side.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?” Kendall asks. “Go over speeches with you, write something, call someone?”

“No. No, you’ve done enough for now.”

“Now, can we go to bed?”

“Yes, my queen.” Liam stands up, helping Kendall as well. “But first, I need to sweep up this glass.”

“Leave it,” Kendall orders. “We can get it in the morning.”

~V~

When Liam wakes up later, their bedroom is dark. The heavy curtains leading draped over the windows are drawn, blocking out any light. He rolls over and notices the time on the small clock on his nightstand. He jumps up. It’s almost 1PM! That can’t possibly be correct. He’s never slept this late.

Kendall and Eleanor aren’t in the room with him, but he hears noise coming from their living room.

After taking a second to gather his bearings, he gets out of bed and leaves the room. But instead of seeing his wife, he sees Regina and Leo. She’s holding Eleanor in her arms, gently cooing at the baby and Leo is in the adjacent kitchen making himself a sandwich.

“Regina! Leo! This is a pleasant surprise.”

Regina smiles at Liam. “Hello, Liam.”

“What’s up, little bro?

“Sorry, I’m still in my pajamas. I didn’t expect to sleep so late.”

“Kendall said you needed some rest,” Regina explains. “She turned off your alarm and let you sleep in.”

“Speaking of my wife, have you seen her?”

“She’s in her study, getting some work done.”

“Work?” Cordonia has a pretty decent maternity leave, which extends even to nobles and royalty. No one expected Kendall to return to work until Eleanor was 4 months old.

“Yes, she said she wanted to meet with Olivia and discuss some things. I took it as the perfect opportunity to hang out with the newest member of our family. And the cutest.”

Liam walks over to the couch, where Regina and Eleanor are sitting. He smiles down at his daughter, who’s silently looking at her surroundings. “Hello, my gorgeous girl. I hope you’ve been good for grandma Regina.”

“She’s been an absolute doll.”

“Yeah, you made a pretty perfect baby,” Leo adds. “She clearly takes after her mother.”

“I know that’s meant to be a dig, but I actually agree with you. She looks more and more like Kendall every single day.”

After catching up with Leo and Regina for a few more minutes, Liam returns to his bedroom to take a quick shower and changes into actual clothes for the day. He steps out of their personal quarters and heads downstairs to Kendall’s personal office.

He finds her and Olivia at her desk, papers, a laptop, and coffee cups spread around them. “Kendall, Olivia, What are you two doing?”

“It’s about time you woke up,” Olivia quips with a smirk.

“Leave him alone, Olivia,” Kendall chides. “He wakes up before the sun rises every single morning. He deserves a break.”

Liam kisses the top of Kendall’s head. “Thank you. So, when I was walking down the hall to get here, I didn’t see Mara stationed at your door.”

“Because I fired her.”

“You did what?”

“Liam, let’s not pretend for one second that she deserved to be security for the Queen of Cordonia,” Olivia says.

“She has a new station, at the American Embassy in the capital. I told Bastien that I need a new guard, someone who makes sure I don’t get kidnapped. Or shot at. And can keep paparazzi at bay. And actually oversees security at the palace so a random noble doesn’t have a kill switch.”

When Kendall runs down all the transgressions they’ve dealt with in the past year, he can’t really blame her. “Very well. What else are you working on?”

“I sent a few guards to Krona, in case Godfrey shows up. Madeleine and Adelaide are still at their home in Fydelia, and are cooperating with law enforcement and the King’s guards...for now at least. I don’t trust them. I’ve also called Betty…”

“Betty?”

“Queen Elizabeth,” Kendall clarifies. “I informed her and the Prince of Wales that Godfrey might try to flee to Karlington, and if he does, they have to tell us right away. They can’t afford to protect him and piss off a powerful ally, with all the drama their monarchy is facing, so they promised to comply. And all major European airports know to detain him immediately.”

“You’ve done all of this in the…” he checks his watch, “7 hours that I was asleep?”

“Yes. After you went to sleep, I breastfed Eleanor and got to work. I know you said you didn’t need me to do anything, but this is my home and this is my family, so I had to do something. You know sitting idly by isn’t my strong suit.”

“Well, it seems like the two of you have got a lot accomplished.”

“Oh this was all Kendall’s doing,” Olivia says. “But I did help her with phase 2.”

Liam narrows his eyes at the redhead. “What’s phase 2?”

“Olivia told me that you had her spying on Auvernal,” Kendall explains. The color drains from Liam’s face and he opens his mouth to explain, but she holds up a hand to silence him. “Save it, I don’t mind, and I don’t need an explanation. But she did reveal some interesting information about their King and Queen.”

“Like what?”

“Well darling, you’ll find out soon enough.” Kendall takes a sip of her coffee. “Because I invited them over next week so we can have a nice chat.”

#playchoices #choices: stories you play #the royal heir #the royal romance #king liam #king liam x mc #pixelberry

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wetwellie · 4 years

Text

Your Name AU

(because i’ve seen this movie a bajillion times and it makes me feel things and i am FEELING THINGS about zimbits rn) (It probably won’t work, but i’m gonna make it work)

Bitty is a guy who is trying to peacefully spend his last summer before heading off to college in peace.

He spends his days working his part time job at his Aunt’s produce stand.

and Baking

and playing club hockey twice a week

Fairly peaceful

and...boring as hell

Until the dreams start

Jack has just started his third year at Samwell university

he’s still broken

still anxious

still the “golden boy” --even if he doesn’t feel like hes polished and shining

but he’s making do

and making friends

just a year or two left until

until what?

graduation? getting signed?

wasting away?

Jack doesn’t know. But he’s resigned to focus on hockey and let the rest of the world pass him by

Until the dreams start

Jack wakes up and it’s too hot

He shifts to get out of bed and finds that the covers he is tearing away from his body

are not his

or Shitty’s

or any of his roommates’

also. uh

those skinny legs and short shorts are not his

his hands look different too

and his face feels different

and the voice that calls to him from downstairs is not one he knows

huh

well

weird dream

hope it’s over soon

Bitty goes downstairs to eat the next day

His parents are both fairly silent

“I see you got over whatever mood you were in yesterday, young man”

“mood?”

“it doesn’t matter.”

That’s all he gets out of them

When he drives to the produce stand his cousins run up to him smiling

“I see that you actually remembered how to drive that thing”

“What?” says Bitty

“yesterday you were all over the place. almost knocked over the stand. if you were anyone else I’d think you were drunk”

“Aunt Judy figures you might have been possessed” the other cousin says

“With a fit of stupidity”

“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about” Bitty says

“It doesn’t matter. Just don’t ‘get lost’ or forget ‘how to drive stick’ again, Dicky” she says using finger quotes

Later in the day, Suzanne asks Bitty if he’s really feeling ok.

She was really worried about yesterday’s behavior

Bitty replies that , despite evidence on the contrary, he feels normal

They finish up some jars of jam and Bitty returns to his room for the night

There is where he finds it

Tucked under his pillow there is a note in scratchy handwriting

“Who are you?”

Bitty wakes up cold, in a bed that is too big for him

an alarm he doesn’t remember setting, or ever having, is blaring next to him

he looks to see the time

4:30 am

oh.

hell no

bitty gets up to unplug the dream alarm clock, and returns to sleep

Bitty wakes up 6 hours later with another man coming into bed with him

This man is naked

and moustached

one of those dreams? huh

never would he dream about this kind of guy though

because this guy doesn’t crawl into bed, like he thought

he wraps bitty in a burrito made out of comforters and yanks him onto the floor

“I know you needed to a break, but let the coaches know before you sleep through morning practice like that”

“practice?”

“yeah. and you’re lucky that I’m waking you up in time to go to your 11am.”

“but it’s summer”

naked moustache man just looks at him and rolls his eyes

“we’ll grab lunch after class”

“Wait!”

“What”

“...where is my class?”

Jack wakes up the next day

and is dragged to the doctor to test for a possible concussion

“the things you were saying and doing yesterday were crazy”

“you skipped morning practice”

“After class you threw down your notes and said you’d never major in History”

“You baked seven as an apology for skipping morning practice”

“And then you dropped into fetal position in afternoon practice when Ollie was about to check you”

“And you took, i don’t know, 7000 selfies of yourself and called yourself handsome”

“have you ever taken a selfie before in your life?”

jack just shakes his head

“yeah. like i said you’re getting checked for a concussion”

Did I hit my head? , Jack asks

“no. but it can’t be” Shitty pauses “It wouldn’t be your other thing would it?”

I don’t think so he says.

Jack has never really had memory problems. and his anxiety and panic never particularly affected him in the way described

faintly, he recalls a young boy at one of his games right before the draft, voice broken as he says “Jack, don’t you remember me?”

it leaves his mind as quickly as it entered

because he had bigger problems to figure out

namely how he had new entries on the journal on his phone

it was a summary of all of the things that “Jack” did the previous day

“Thanks for a long day of being a Big Shot on campus, handsome!”

signed Eric

Eric??

Who the hell is Eric?

it happens again

Jack spends a day as bitty

and Bitty spends a day as Jack

and they wake up not remembering too much about what happens

the only thing that cements that it’s not just a weird dream is that

well...real life consequences

Jack becomes a lot more...spinny and less up for contact when he plays hockey

and ends up enjoying time with his teammates a lot more

and has a huge country dialect now

and one time someone came up to him speaking french and jack had no idea what was going on???

and he smiles sometimes???

and at the end of the day he’s almost always on his phone typing away

Bitty is able to kick ass into gear with hockey

but can’t bake worth shit

honestly, suzanne hasn’t seen anything of that quality since bitty was seven

AND he had to check a recipe

also, he’s started to bike to work

driving stick is impossible

he’s very serious on some days

he spends his evenings watching history documentaries and writing in a journal

Well. It seems like this is just gonna be life for a while, they both figure

best set up some rules

Bitty, as Jack, is NOT ALLOWED TO DITCH CLASSES

no use of the word y’all

no beyonce

no short shorts

don’t drop like a brick when someone comes to check you

seriously Eric it’s fine

Eric it’s my body that would get hurt don’t worry

also please don’t drink or use drugs in my body

it’s a long story but again

it’s my body

Jack-as-Bitty is asked to be polite to his friends and customers

and please never bake anything ever

don’t leave the house dressed like some weird clothing outlet exploded

if you yell at my teammates i swear to god, mr. zimmermann.

don’t disrespect senor bun

or anyone

stop frowning so much, even Coach has asked me about it and i don’t know what to say

don’t watch stuff on my netflix account. your history documentaries are messing up my recommendations

Despite the rules

They find ways to keep bothering each other

But also trying to make each other better

As captains of each others teams, both teams are able to benefit from their guidance

Bitty’s team gets a lot stronger technically

but kind of hate how much of a hardass Bitty is 3 times a week

The SMH is more in synch with each other than ever

and Bitty is able to help out a lot more

But Jack ends up having to put a lot of money in the sin bin for

‘acting off’

Jack is very upset to find a picture of himself in the swallow, sitting on the roof of the Haus shirtless and wearing short shorts chilling

what the fuck Eric

But they get a little routine down, and nothing changes except for minor nuisances

so whatever

It all works good until one day, while Jack and Suzanne are bonding over making jam, Suzanne looks Jack right in the eyes and says

“oh...you’re not my dicky. you’re dreaming aren’t you?”

Jack snaps awake in his bed

not Eric’s bed. His bed

Huh. weird.

He goes to check his phone and of course, there is a long journal entry left over from the day he didn’t get

It’s all mostly ok until he gets to the end

“It looks like your first big hockey game is tomorrow night! Be sure to have fun. Enjoy it!”

“There’s a comet tonight for me. I’ll take lots of pictures so that you can see it next time we ...do whatever we do”

Jack and the SMH win the game. and he actually tries to have fun. but the only person he wants to celebrate with is

well

he’s in georgia

bUT

Jack has a phone

He dials bitty’s cellphone number that has been saved in his contact

his heart is beating quite fast.

and then he hears

“We’re sorry. The number you have dialed is no longer in service”

Jack stops switching after that

He should be relieved. overjoyed

but he’s not

he doesn’t miss the humidity

or the dirt roads

or the bugs

but he does miss something

and he’s forgetting all about it

so he tries searching online for the town

the town he can’t remember the name of

he doesn’t want to forget, so he starts drawing sketches of what he remembers

they’re not bad

pretty darn good, even

Not as good as Lardo’s, but she’s still abroad

He tries to call Eric’s number a couple more times. He gets the same results

Jack can’t take it anymore

During the winter break, Jack flies down to Georgia for a weekend, rents a car, and drives himself in the general area he remembers the town

he stops locals and shows them sketches

“is there any town nearby that looks like this?”

they all respond in the negative

he does this for hours

the sun is starting to set when he resigns to give up

he pulls into a diner in the town he’s in, orders, and looks at his sketches again

maybe it’s possible that the town isn’t...even real?

it really could have just been his dreams

that is what he thinks when the server returns with some water

“Hey. that’s a pretty good picture of Godfrey”

“Godfrey?”

“Yeah. I grew up there.” he says looking a bit sad

“Can you tell me how to get there?”

The server pauses and gives Jack a mourned, but puzzled look “ it was about a 15 minute drive from here but-”

“it was?”

“you didn’t hear about what happened?”

Jack shakes his head.

“If you don’t mind,I’ll take you to it after you finish your dinner”

It’s all gone.

Oh God.

Everything from the small ice cream shop to the old creek where Bitty’s cousins would hang around

It’s all rubble

and mounds of dirt

Literal miles

Jack can’t breathe

he can’t

breathe

just breathe

just

breat--

#au #a shitty au #omgcp #check please #it's really nothing like the story except for the couple of major plot points #because honestly how could i bring in ancient forgotten japanese concepts into an american context #fic #wipitgood

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fanfickittycat · 4 years

Text

The Price

TITLE: The Price CHAPTER NUMBER/ONE SHOT: Chapter 10 AUTHOR: fanfickittycat CHARACTERS/PAIRING: Roman Godfrey x OC GENRE: Romance, Smut FIC SUMMARY: Ginger makes a deal with popular bad boy Roman, if he helps her up the social ladder by pretending to be her boyfriend then she’ll be his dog in return RATING: M AUTHORS NOTES/WARNINGS: Spitting in people’s mouths and Christmas

The news of my parents getting snowed in at a relative’s house came as a huge disappointment. I had waited for the annual tradition of decorating the house and tree to come around and the weather had postponed any chance of doing so.

“You can do it by yourself” my mother had suggested, and I had been appalled by the suggestion.

“It’s a family tradition” I insisted “it needs to be done with the family.”

“Maybe invite some of your friends around instead” she sounded irked by my protests “or what about your gentleman caller?”

I groaned at the term and then proceeded to listen to my father in the background of the call object against Roman and I being home alone together. After a few minutes of listening to my parents (and then my aunt and uncle) debate if I was mature enough, or if Roman was to be trusted I hung up the phone and wandered around my depressingly empty house. The tree stood naked in the living room; only a smattering of pine needles embellished the floor and served as the sole Christmas adornment in the house. The whole scene only became more pathetic and dismal when I tried to play seasonal music.

So my fingers ended up twitching. My new friends who were much nicer had plans already, or the snow had meant that travelling all the way over to mine would have been too much. Only Roman was left to contact and he didn’t pick up when I called.

“I’m an adult” I reasoned, even though I was far from being grown up in any sense of the phrase. The reindeer sweater my grandma had made for me three years ago didn’t help, but dammit, I was not going to let it stop me from trying to retrieve the boxes of dusty decorations from the attic. Now, me tripping with the box almost stopped me, and the tears the threatened to fall after the accident made it almost possible for me to give up but I didn’t. Mostly because a rapping at the door meant that I couldn’t cry, lest I wanted to scare away the carollers, or children from the elementary school who always sold wrapping paper door to door this time of year.

I looked through the peephole like I had been taught to do when someone knocked on the door and my parents weren’t home. It was Roman, with a light coat of snow decorating his hair.

“Wow,” he said when I opened the door “you go out in that thing and I’ll have to start fighting guys off left, right, and centre” he poked the knitted red nose on Rudolph, and I felt the cold of his glove on my abdomen. I shivered and quickly pulled him in to get him out of the cold.

“I like it. It makes me feel Christmassy.”

“How old are you again?” I swatted his arm playfully and he laughed, dodging my attacks easily “are your parents in? I didn’t see their car in the drive.”

“They’re stuck at my aunt’s,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest as we walked into the living room where the box who tried to kill me sat.

“Home alone, huh?” He tried to sound nonchalant about it but I could practically hear the grin in his voice.

“I didn’t call for that,” I said, fiddling with my hair “I just… Look, nobody’s home and we were meant to decorate and now we can’t.” I tried to avoid Roman’s gaze “I guess I thought that maybe you’d like to help decorate.”

He was quiet for a moment which was surprising when you truly considered how much Roman loved making fun of me. I peered at him cautiously, confused by his silence as his eyes moved around the room.

“I don’t know how much help I can be,” he said, sounding remarkably earnest “I’ve never decorated at Christmas.”

“What?!”

He looked down at his slacks and brushed them with the palm of his hand “my mom always paid people to professionally decorate the house so…” he trailed off, only punctuating the sentence with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Well it’s not hard,” I said, trying to sound encouraging “you just have fun and try to make things look pretty. You should be good at that, you always look pretty.”

He finally cracked a smile “you better not tell Peter that otherwise, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Can’t help it if you’re a pretty boy” I teased “Roman Godfrey: the prettiest boy in Hemlock Grove; no, in Pennsylvania; no wait, the prettiest boy in America.”

“I can always leave” he mock threatened, standing up again only to have me join his side and squeeze his hand.

“Please don’t.”

He pursed his lips and considered me thoughtfully “fine. Show me how Christmas decorations work, puppy.”

Roman, it turned out, was terrible at arts and crafts. The paper snowmen that I had shown him how to make were meant to look whimsical, with a little bit of string tied to them so that they could be hung with ease. Roman’s looked like Frosty had been hung. The stringing of popcorn onto thread had ended with Roman licking pinpricks of blood off of his finger.

“Are you a vampire?”

He smiled slyly “duh.”

He ended up finally being useful by being tall enough to put the star on top of the tree, though he didn’t see it as a big deal. He was better at decorating the tree, and clearly had an eye for aesthetics. The way his forehead creased as he debated where to hang the ornaments was a sight to behold, and his cautious hand moved carefully around the tree to find the best place to put the stars and baubles.

“It looks great” I clapped my hands in excitement, unable to contain my glee when Roman plugged the twinkling lights in.

“It’s… okay, I guess” he admitted, “but only because I‘m such a natural at this.”

I rolled my eyes, earning me a playful nudge in the side.

“Do you want anything to drink?” I asked, “I have a hot chocolate mix.”

“Only if we can add this” he pulled out a bottle of bourbon and I wrinkled my nose.

“My dad drinks this kind of stuff,” I said, giving it a cautious sniff.

“Then your dad has good taste,” he said flippantly “come on, live a little puppy.”

I ended up letting him add a splash into the hot chocolate, and I had to admit that it paired well with the drink. The warm milk and added alcohol made my throat warm, and I leaned my head against Roman as we drank.

“Does your mom really pay for people to decorate your house?”

“You’d be surprised where money can get you.” He stroked my hair absentmindedly, telling me about one year where a decorator had accidentally dropped one of the artisan glass baubles that had been flown in from Venice, and his mother had lost it. His impression of her was uncanny.

“Yikes… I was really about to quit scooping ice cream to decorate your house” I teased, lapping up the last of the hot chocolate, and placing my mug next to Roman’s empty one on the coffee table.

“Hmmm,” he mused, letting his fingers trail down the side of my neck to play with a tendril of my hair “maybe you should quit your job and be my personal, full-time pet.”

“I’m already your pet” I mumbled, still feeling halfway between pleased and embarrassed to be saying the words.

He was contented by the words but continued “yes, but think how cute you’d be curled up at the end of my bed. You could bring me my slippers in the morning.” He curled a strand of my hair around his finger and then let it go before repeating the action.

I scoffed “Oh yeah? What else? Feed me scraps of ham when I give my paw?”

“See” he squeezed my cheek “now you’re getting the gist.” I rolled my eyes, attempting to shake his hand off of my chin but he didn’t let go. His fingers gripped lightly, and I watched with a dry throat as his eyes lingered on my lips.

“You know what I’d do if I got to come home to you, my little pet?” He mused, and I bit the inside of my cheeks, waiting for him to tell me.

“Well, let’s see…” He started, letting his finger trace my collar bones “I would come home and you’d be waiting by the door like a good girl. I’d have to praise you, wouldn’t I? How could I ignore you when you’re being so sweet for me? I’d just have to let you sit on my lap.” His hand trailed down, landing on my hip and curling around. He tugged, gently at first and then more forcefully. I crawled onto his lap, straddling him as though it was second nature. My Christmas playlist had since finished, and the only sound was the crackling of the fire I had insisted we turn on. One of his hands remained curved around my waist, whilst the other snaked up my back, petting my hair. I relaxed against his touch though I trembled in anticipation.

“Just like this” he ghosted his lips over the side of my neck, pleased when he heard me gasp. His tongue darted out, drawing a tantalisingly slow circle on my skin. He pulled back and admired the blush he had managed to draw out from me.

“Puppy” he crooned, silently commanding me to meet his gaze. His pupils were blown, and a wolfish smile on his face only further complicated my breathing. The navy turtleneck he wore that I had admired before now irritated me. I pawed at it.

“Take it off, Roman.”

“You first,” he insisted, letting his hand slide under my jumper and rest on my side. He drummed his fingers lightly, taking pleasure in me clumsily trying to take off the garment. He watched, eagerly devouring my new found flesh with his eyes. He hummed in approval, caressing up along my back; feeling the sharp edges of my shoulder blades; revelling in the softness of my abdomen; pressing his lips to the area below my collar bones. My hips began to writhe crudely, enjoying the new sensation with no abandon. It was only when Roman began to fiddle with the clasp of my bra that I pulled back a little. He tossed the article of clothing to the side carelessly.

“Roman…” I murmured, looking down at my exposed form.

“You’re so pretty” he mumbled, lowering his head as his tongue pressed itself against my nipple, coating it in wetness. I couldn’t help but gasp louder, surprised by how the feeling shot down to between my legs. He retreated a little and blew on the damp skin, enjoying the way I shivered. I clawed at his back again, prompting him to meet my gaze.

“Roman you promised” I tried to pull up his roll neck again, only to be pinched suddenly by him.

“Remember your place, dog,” he said, though not unkindly “you have to do something for me first.”

I groaned “isn’t this enough?” I looked down at my half-naked body. He laughed and tutted.

“Oh trust me it’s very much appreciated, but I wanted a little something more. Surely a good, little pet like you doesn’t mind? Don’t you want to do this one tiny thing for your owner?”

“Yes,” I admitted quietly, biting my lip when he asked me to repeat it louder “yes, I want to.” He closed the gap between our mouths, kissing me in a way that had me curling my toes in mere moments. His lips moved so effortlessly with mine I lost myself easily. His mouth opened a little, persuading mine to do so too.

He pulled back again, earning a groan from me. “Open” he commanded, and I did so without thinking. He leaned in again and spat in my mouth. “Close” he directed and then said, “swallow”. I was so shocked I couldn’t help but follow his instructions. He watched, gauging my reaction to the act. I was caught between being turned on by the gesture and being disgusted at myself for enjoying something so lewd.

“Again,” I said, feeling more brazen than before, pressing my palms into his chest and leaning in desperately. He grinned in victory, stroking my hair in appreciation. He looked almost proud.

“I thought you were trying to get under my shirt.”

I whined, “why can’t I have both?” I was stopped when the garment was taken off and observed, entirely enthralled with the vision of Roman’s body. His skin was such a pale shade that if he was still enough he could easily be a statue. I smiled, biting my lip to hide my giggles.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just…” I shrugged “do you need to wear like, SPF 5000 or what?”

“Bad dog,” he said, pinching my side again but he was smiling too.

“No really, what’s it like to know that Jack Frost is your real dad?”

“Stop. I’m warning you.”

“Sorry, I know how much it hurts that they turned you down for the role of Edward Cullen.”

“That’s it.” He turned us over so my back was against the floor and he was on top of me, pinning my wrists above my head. I yelped and laughed, struggling against his hold on me. I panted, aware of our state of undress, but not caring all the same.

“You’ve had your fun” he warned, smiling wickedly “but don’t forget who’s in charge, dog.” He reached over for a leftover piece of ribbon from decorating and tied my wrists with a practised hand.

“You’re no fun” I complained but stayed put. We both knew I could easily manoeuvre out of the flimsy bow but I was excited by the move and I knew he was too. He reached under my skirt and pressed the pad of his finger against the soaked material. I bucked against his touch, seeking something more but he refused.

“See what happens when you disobey me,” he said, with a smug smile on his face. He lightly danced his fingers up and down the small pathway of cotton, and I exhaled sharply making puppy eyes at him in an attempt to convince him. He shook his head.

“Please” I begged, looking at him up through my eyelashes.

“Aw,” he said, his voice dripping with mock sympathy “you’re all wet, puppy. I bet you’d love it if someone was able to help you out with that, especially seeing as you’re all tied up.” He laughed darkly.

“Roman, please.”

“Please what?” He continued, moving his digits lethargically over my centre. I whined again and he blinked innocently, moving his face closer to mine as though inspecting for the cause.

“Please touch me.”

“I was under the impression that I was.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No… No, I don’t think I do.” I pouted and he sucked my bottom lip, even daring to bite once or twice. He pulled back, looking at my swollen lips and the frustrated tears in my eyes.

“Alright,” he conceded “let me throw this dog a bone.” He hooked his fingers onto my panties, dragging them off before giving me the direct pressure of his finger against my clit like I so desperately wanted. He tried drawing different patterns; circles, lines, zig zags before he could judge which one would be best. The fire beside us was already hot but the blaze burning inside of me threatened to be brighter. Roman added one finger and then another, working up a rhythm that my body craved. I could feel the tightness in my stomach and the curling of my toes telling me that my orgasm was approaching, but it felt as though I had lost grasp of it and I wasn’t able to reach completion. I was annoyed but opened my eyes when I heard Roman shift to remove my skirt and his trousers.

“I want you to cum with me inside you,” he said in explanation to my bewildered face. A wave of affection flooded me. He drew up one of my knees letting it press against his abdomen. I could feel him, hard and hot against my opening. He looked to me and I swallowed, nodding my consent. He pushed in, and my head fell back giving way to a moan. He took a moment to let me adjust to him. My walls fluttered around him, making him mutter ‘fuck’ under his breath. Just as easily as before he found the right rhythm, and my knee untucked itself and wrapped around his back. He took the hint when my heel pressed into him and started to go harder than before. His name became the only word I could say, and even then I couldn’t always manage to say it in full. The feeling in my stomach returned.

“Roman…” I warned, listening to the sound of his thrusts become more erratic as he reached his climax too. I couldn’t be sure if we came at the same time, but I remained dazed and dazzled as my orgasm crashed upon me. My mind was totally, perfectly blank. Roman’s hot breath on me and the pounding of my heart were the only things keeping me from floating away.

I watched, listlessly as he fumbled to remove my restraints. He kissed my cheeks and the tip of my nose, making me giggle.

“You there, Ginger?” I butted my head against his chest, and he put his arm around me. He talked a little, making sure I was okay before retrieving us a glass of water and some Christmas cookies I had baked that morning. He let me lick the icing off of his fingers before I relaxed against him, savouring the bliss I felt.

“Hey,” he said softly, prompting me to look at him. The sweat had made his hair stick to his forehead and he looked uncharacteristically defenceless. He looked down and then back up at me, clearing his throat nervously as he did so.

“I…”

“Are you blushing?” I asked, watching in amusement as he flushed a pink that I knew wasn’t sex or fire-related.

“Shut up dog, I need to say this.” He rubbed the back of his neck and then exhaled audibly before speaking “I love you.” He crinkled his nose “God, that’s cringey to say out loud. How do they do it in movies? I-”

I cut him off with a kiss “I love you too Roman.” He opened his mouth and then closed it again, leaving his sarcastic comment to the side. I basked in the light of his love, feeling more than I could have ever hoped to.

#the price #chapter 10 #fanfic #fanfiction #fanfickittycat #my fanfic #updates #hemlock grove #hemlock grove fanfic #hemlock grove fanfiction #Roman Godfrey #roman godfrey x oc #roman godfrey fanfic #Bill Skarsgård #bill skarsgard fanfiction

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lizzybeth1986 · 5 years

Text

Quick Thoughts on TRH Book 1 Chapter 14

• Funny how the TRH team so desperately needed to spend close to half the book on mindless nonsense with Drake's family...and just a single chapter on the MC's entire first trimester. Via a 6 minute long time jump. Truly funny.

• So now that we're back in Cordonia, the pregnancy is underway, and we're finally getting into the meat of past intrigue, most of the fandom has this for a reaction:

It's a legitimate reaction, the story is moving forward...but the denim-clad, whiskey-guzzling problem that is the root of this whole mess - and the reason why the Walker Ranch portion took so long the way no other place in the series ever has...that problem still exists. It exists in a large, insidious way, and even while we're rejoicing the return to intrigue we might not always notice how even that is rife with issues. But more on that later.

• If you want avoid seeing these posts on your dash, these are the tags to blacklist: #trh quick thoughts, #trh qts, #trh qt reblogs, and #long post.

• Screenshots:

Hana: @aestheticsayeed (photoshoot) and the Abhirio YouTube channel.

Maxwell: @itsbrindleybinch and the rash rec YouTube channel

Drake: @thefirstcourtesan

Liam: @callmetippytumbles (photoshoot), the SavageLordBarlow YouTube channel, and me.

• Title: The Announcement

Alternative Title: Let's Cram One of The Most Important Part Of The Book Into A 6 Minute Montage!

Alternative to Alternative Title: What We Really Wanted to Title This Book - The Royal Yeehaw.

• I'm hoping that with each chapter where you're shown a scan or something that's considered a milestone in pregnancy, I can come out with a corresponding tiny story of my own! Let's see if that works out.

• So...I had my first actual ultrasound at 7 weeks (first time we heard a heartbeat) but the real fun one was the 12 week scan! By then you can see hands and legs (the ultrasound pic the writers chose for this chapter was...eh), and the kids can definitely feel them (not see - yet)...and they're going to use those limbs like nobody's business starting from then 😂

My 12 week scan took around 45 minutes to happen coz Baby V was jumping and kicking all over the place (not that I could actually feel any of it yet lol), and the poor doc wasn't getting clear enough images of her as a result 😅 When we finally saw her she was in all her energy-fueled glory, kicking up a storm (she's a cat-loving kindergartner now and she still kicks exactly like that 😅😅)

My mum had come down to visit and for some good ol' TLC, so she accompanied me inside the room. To date she insists she saw V wave at her 😁

• Back to the story - Madeleine has booked a press conference without our approval (still sucks at her job, I see) and we're left hoping to make lemonade out of those lemons she's thrown our way.

• We can choose to either be excited about announcing it, or worrying about putting the news out too early in case something happens in the first trimester. With the last option, the answers vary depending on who you married and therefore what your title is. If you are Queen, Liam reminds you that a public and accelerated timetable is a part of the price of royal life (still not a good enough excuse for Madeleine to fix this press-con without our approval). If you are Duchess, either Maxwell (or Hana in Maxwell's playthrough) tell us it's too early to start worrying. Bottomline is the MC is persuaded to view this as a good opportunity to celebrate.

• We are give three options for venue, suggested by Liam, Drake and Hana respectively - Hana suggests the royal ballroom since it's where the most important announcements are done, Drake suggests the less-stuffy palace grounds and Liam (of course, since that garden was his mother's pet project!) suggests the gardens. You then get to choose how you want to make an entrance:

(The screenshots are from the following:

1st row - @itsbrindleybinch Maxwell playthrough

2nd row - Mine

3rd row - The SavageLordBarlow YouTube channel, Liam playthrough. Their Liam is called "Dennis")

• Madeleine balks at the idea of a royal event turning into a rock concert, as if one of the most iconic images of Buckingham Palace in the 21st century wasn't Brian May of Queen rocking it out on his homemade guitar on the rooftop.

• Arrangements done, now it's time for THE DRESS. We have a wine-red chiffon ensemble with pearls on the neckline and a jeweled belt. It's called "Apple of My Eye", because presumably no one does apple analogies to symbolize fertility quite like Cordonia does.

• In addition to being Duchess, if you are Queen, you have the additional option of choosing a tiara. We were last able to do this during the ball in the TRR Book 3 finale, before we were honoured with the Champion of the Realm title. This is something you can only access if you are Queen.

• We reach the venue we have chosen, with the entrance we have chosen, and we can either choose to announce formally, or yell it from the top of our lungs. Nobody cares coz they're too happy there's an apple pie baking in that oven 😅

• Among the press we see the usual people: Ana, Donnie, Samir aaaaaand Brad from PM/Smoothie Star Thad from Platinum. He expects pregnant women to have baby bumps from the moment of conception.

• What's he going to be called this time? Chad? 😂

• For a dude who is mostly a spy-journo, he's doing a terribly poor job of hiding it. He doesn't do his research on pregnancy timelines, immediately jumps up to ask a question when the topic turns to that of the alliances with Auvernal and Monterisso, and gets caught pretty easily. He's probably also the dude who was upto something on our honeymoon, taking pictures of us and gathering information on our whereabouts. Whichever country got him on board for this, really needs to rethink their hiring process.

• Donnie has the one brain cell existing among the press and uses it to ask us why we're announcing so early. You can either choose to claim that you wanted the Cordonian people to know asap, or be honest if you didn't want this to happen (to which Madeleine gives you an "apologetic shrug"). The third option has the MC claiming she wants to shed a light on, and be honest about, the entire experience of pregnancy, even if it does result in a miscarriage - which Samir notes as being a noble endeavor.

• With regards to the alliances, we don't give a clear answer yet, but we do hint at what we're looking for when we finally take that call (strength, understanding, advantage for Cordonia). The LI also gets to briefly highlight their sentiments at this point, and show different reactions - Liam has tears in his eyes, Drake can't stop grinning, Hana squeezes her wife's hand and Maxwell screams WE'RE HAVING A BABYYY.

• Additionally, if you're married to an LI other than Liam, the press asks him what will happen if he decides to have children somewhere down the line. He maintains that the MC's child will have the first right to the throne, even over his future children - effectively writing his own bloodline out of that throne if he isn't married yet. Which...well, we knew this was coming. We knew they weren't going to change this. It's disappointing, but not surprising, that they chose this route.

• Once the press meet is over, we get felicitations from different guests, mostly from the Council:

- Duke Landon of Portavira: Compliments the couple by calling them 'glowing' and wishes them well. Penelope plans to design something for the child, and Kiara promises to talk her out of placing too many dog motifs.

- Duke Godfrey of Karlington/Krona: Gives the couple a formal paying-of-respects, and hopes for more dignified attire for the heir (shut up Godfrey Not Gao, I had to waltz in a MINI-DRESS at your goddamn home 🤬).

- Queen Mother Regina: This varies between the Liam playthrough and other playthroughs, obviously, because in the Liam one she is his stepmother and obviously there is that closeness. In all the others, she is warm and friendly, congratulates the happy couple, insists they call her Regina rather than "Your Majesty" (there is a brief moment where married!Maxwell is confused about whether to call her "Your Majesty" or "Your Grace") and assures them that she will always be ready to provide for the "kingdom's heir". Liam's interactions require a more personal touch, so he hugs Regina before the MC can opt to, and she calls their child her grandchild as well. Liam and Regina moments are rare to come by, so I'm happy whenever I get to see them. I also haven't seen her since the book has begun, so I'm chuffed that she's there (pls don't make her knowingly part of the plot pls pls).

- Lord Barthelemy of Ramsford: Has to make everything about him wherever he goes! His felicitations to us lasts all of ten seconds while his attention towards Donnie and Samir takes up all of his time. He manages to score an interview with both of them. The most interesting part isn't that, though. It's the comment he makes about Regina as she leaves: "she always was a generous one..." - now what's THAT supposed to mean?

• Hakim is neither on the Council, nor is he shown here. I'd like to believe Kiara's family have distanced themselves from the group because the MC doesn't deserve the honour of their presence, but we know it's more likely coz the writers would much rather write Kiara and her family out of the story. Which is a pity because they're the most amazing family Cordonia has.

• Madeleine now comes forward, suggesting to us to follow the tradition of getting a royal announcement of their pregnancy done. This is done in a fashion similar to our Engagement Photoshoot, but with our own choice of clothes and less variations overall.

- Our attire is pretty much anything we'd like to pick out from the closet, as long as it's been already paid for. The LIs on the other hand have three different options for their outfits:

Liam gets his outfit from the TRR3 finale, his Costume Gala outfit and his official outfit. Oddly his outfits have titles like the MC's does.

Hana gets her Costume Gala flower dress, her plain black dress and her usual pink one.

Maxwell gets his Costume Gala squid outfit, his black suit and his usual Gucci shirt.

Drake gets his Costume Gala blue brocade, his official grey suit and his usual denim.

- What I can't understand is why her muted black dress is always touted as the formal garb for Hana, when they could easily allow her to wear that gorgeous black traditional outfit of hers. That could have been an option for this shoot. But no, they decided to arbitrarily code that one and block access to it if you didn't pay, even though Lorelai had apologized to Hana and therefore her outfit should have been coming back to her!

- I've said it before and I'll say it again: the decision to pay wall that entire outfit, considering it was taken away from her in an act of abuse and intimidation - and it should have been by all accounts returned to her when Lorelai apologized whether we paid for that scene or not - is sickening. Shame on you PB.

- Once we are ready with our outfits, we meet Ana in the throne room, and she's busy preparing an announcement sign to place in front of the couple. We take a couple minutes to admire the sign, then proceed to posing for Ana. If you took the engagement photoshoot in Book 2 or 3, it's referenced at the beginning. Each couple's scene here is unique:

(Screenshots: Hana's from the Abhirio YouTube channel, Maxwell's from the rash rec YouTube channel, Drake's from @thefirstcourtesan and Liam's from mine).

Liam

Ana begins by suggesting the couple take their places in their thrones, looking at each other. Though the photo is great - glamourous and dignified - Liam and the MC aren't quite feeling the shot. The MC isn't fond of the idea of sitting so far away from Liam, and Liam agrees, telling Ana that he finds the pose too stiff - and that above being King and Queen of the country they are also a couple deeply in love, and their child is not simply an heir but a sign of their love for each other. So the ensuing picture is warm and filled with joy.

Once Ana leaves, Liam tells the MC about how his own parents did exactly such a photoshoot when they were expecting him, and how much more he understands them - now that he is going to be a father.

Hana

There is a warmth and a sweetness to the first shot itself - a simple one that has them simply looking into each other's eyes - that Ana tells them she knows their child will be brought up in a loving home.

For the second shot, Hana asks the MC whether she'd rather have a shot alone, and offers to move out. Possibly because the MC - married to Hana or not - constantly makes everything revolve around her and constantly pushes Hana and her issues to the background like they're not important. I'm sure Hana got that impression from you somewhere, MC.

The MC, however, is surprised by this and insists she be part of the picture. She can choose to either say that this baby belongs to both of them or that without her it wouldn't be a good picture. The MC who is married to her insists she understand her value in their relationship (yeah it took you three and a half books to realize that LMAO), and that Hana belongs with her. She should never think of herself as belonging to the sidelines again, ever (maybe you should work harder on convincing her, MC, because everything you've done until now was mostly all about you and very little about Hana).

The dialogue after Ana leaves is sweet and romantic, with the MC telling Hana her hair smells of roses and Hana and the MC clinking imaginary champagne glasses, before Hana stops her in mock-surprise and promises a real (non-alcoholic) drink back in Valtoria.

Maxwell

Ana finishes the sign and gets ready for the shoot. Maxwell holds a formal pose on his knees that places more attention on the MC, adopting a severe, sombre expression. This surprises Ana, but the MC clearly knows what's up and wants him to relax. To help him, the MC distracts him (pretend you're Bertrand/imagine me naked) and that mental exercise energizes him enough so he can do this shoot in a more relaxed manner.

Once Ana packs up, Maxwell and the MC stay behind to talk, chatting about the excitement level in the kingdom and (optionally) how that excitement can't match their own (Maxwell speaks of constantly having adrenaline at this point). They jokingly speculate on the unsolicited advice they will get, and Maxwell cracks a joke about how as Bertrand's brother he was brought up on a diet of unsolicited advice. Relaxed and happy, the couple return home.

Drake

The couple see the sign Ana made, and like it because it's dignified but not too much. To which Ana responds that she didn't want to presume too much about their tastes. The shoot begins with the MC trying to think of all the pregnancy announcements she has ever seen (including one where a man yells into a breast pump like it's a telephone) and worries and becomes nervous over how to do this - and Drake calms her down by telling her a simple pose would do the trick, and most of all, to "focus on us". This calms the MC down, and she nails the simple pose alongside Drake.

The ensuing conversation between the two expands on what Drake said, where they refer to themselves as a good balance between dignified and "regular". There's a clear indication of how far they have come from that first photoshoot in this scene.

Aaaaaand...CLICK!

(Screenshots: @callmetippytumbles for Liam, @aestheticsayeed for Hana, the rash rec YouTube channel for Maxwell and @thefirstcourtesan for Drake)

• This scene is good in two routes, and not so great in two.

• The MC and her spouse go back to Valtoria, where the MC takes rest and the LI takes care of her. She can give in to her cravings (huge turkey leg, cheetah cakes, omelettes or fancy unpronounceable food), but a few weeks later she experiences a lot of nausea, to the point where she might (optionally) tell the LI that it's the worst thing they've ever done (completely normal, I assure you. A pregnant woman's hormones are unpredictable af). Both corgis (if you've bought them) help her and do their fair share of doting on her, and the LI in their own way tries to help.

• Based on who you haven't married, you get various scenes of your friends helping out:

- Liam: offers all kinds of help but the suggestion that stands out is a chicken soup recipe that belonged to his mother.

- Hana: makes a playlist of all kinds of music tracks to get mother and baby through the first trimester, including the TRH Lullaby tune which is now canonically Hana's composition. She's chosen artists from all over the world, and recorded a few of her own tracks in cases where she isn't satisfied. She also has a second trimester playlist coming up!

- Maxwell: aka the man who wrote a story about the MC but put HIS face in the cover, offers to let the MC vicariously live through him by giving her a voucher (the Maxwell Vicarious Vivacity Simulator 3000) that ensures that whenever she craves to do or have something not allowed for her, Maxwell does it on her behalf. The LI jokes about how that's a lot of power to give a person.

- Drake: Asks after the MC's welfare, and is given a choice of two things to do - either he can bring her ice-cream, or tell her the story of how the boys created their barbershop quartet so many years ago. He's perhaps the only LI who is given options for pampering the MC as a friend.

- Madeleine: The only person outside of our LIs (and later Olivia) who has an extra scene prior to the MC's ultrasound scan, is Madeleine. She gives the MC a Cordonian Ruby, explaining that it helps with nausea and that Liam's mother would swear by it. She looks concerned...and her words to the MC about making sure she takes care of herself, almost sound a bit of a warning.

Given what we find out later on in the chapter, both this sequence and the sequence where Bartie Sr comments on Regina have been placed there for a reason. Madeleine definitely knows something and there's a possibility she will have a flashback scene of her own.

If you bought the red pandas in Book 3, they will be clamouring around Madeleine for the apples as well.

• I have to laugh at how completely written out of the larger story Kiara and her family are. Even Penelope who is a non-entity and who only had something of value to give to the story when she was being a lying backstabbing snake, somehow manages to have a father in the Council and a promise of a future storyline. After all that the TRR team put Kiara through, I wouldn't even say Kiara deserves a better story. No, what I'd say is she (and Hana, definitely Hana) deserve better writers.

• I mean, you can call it a coincidence anymore, the fact that the women that the story gives the most material and most attention to, are the white women.

• This thread of sequences comes full-circle with a scene where the MC and LI sit by the lake, and where they're both shown finally coming to terms with the MC's nausea and using the tart apples as a way to make things better for the MC. There's a sweet scene in there where the LI kisses both mother and baby.

• We're finally ready to meet Dr Ramirez, and to get an ultrasound done. Olivia and her new...chauffeur, Roy, will be serving as security detail for this occasion. Wonder when we'll find out what Roy is helping her with.

• She gives you a dagger...which we might maybe end up threatening to use the next chapter? I'm guessing Olivia already has an inkling of something going down at the doctor's, since she indicates that we will know when we'll need to use it.

• Depending on whether or not you revealed the pregnancy to her last chapter, her dialogue changes. She makes a mention of it if you have. She's genuinely happy about the pregnancy, and wanted to wish the MC in person.

• Both Liam and Olivia wait outside while the MC and LI have their time with Dr Ramirez, if you're married to one of the other LIs.

• Dr Ramirez mentions that "the first few months have been treating you well"...which indicates that the MC is at least 12 weeks along (10 according to the calculations of certain countries, that count from conception onwards. Dr Ramirez also confirms this during the scan), since that's when you do the nuchal translucency scan. It usually takes place at the end of your first trimester. Which means we've effectively covered the MC's entire first three months in the span of 1/4th of a chapter, actually (considering the entire montage is approx just over 6 minutes).

• Dr Ramirez then lets slip a little factoid about Liam's mother, which baffles the couple because Liam himself never had any knowledge of this. She speaks of Eleanor's fondness for apple tea during her pregnancy and how much trouble she had with her nausea.

• Cordonian Rubies and apple tea have both been mentioned on the TRH loading page.

• If Liam isn't your LI, you call him and Olivia back to the room and ask him about this new development, and he confirms that Dr Ramirez was never mentioned in the official records, as well as the fact that she had a relatively easy pregnancy with Liam (if your LI is Liam, though, Olivia returns to the room on her own, stating that the doctor mentioned something about tea to one of the interns). But the conversation takes Olivia back to a very vague memory, and of course she needs us to go back and make sense of it. Which leads us to our first Olivia flashback!

- I have a feeling Olivia's childhood gown might be the groundwork for maybe a Theodosia outfit in TRM? Just a small guess. IDK.

- Olivia gives us a timeline for this particular incident - it was a few months after they left the Walker Ranch. As we recall, Eleanor was showing some early signs of not feeling too well, and had arguments with Constantine at the time. So if Eleanor was already pregnant by that time, she was clearly close to finishing/past her first trimester by this point.

- The setting of the scene is a mock-battle between Olivia (who plays a knight) and Drake (who plays a dragon, and they use TCaTF Dom's dragon sprite to establish how Olivia imagines him in this game). Some Dom-Drake parallels going on there.

- No matter what you choose, Olivia wins. She can either destroy the ice blast or deflect it with a fan, defeat + kill the dragon or feed him meat so he will forever be beholden to her. Either way, the options work out for her.

- At this point, possibly because nothing has really happened to Drake yet, Olivia and Drake share a pretty decent rapport. They're not thick as thieves or anything (and Olivia confirms that they were "barely" friends and turned to each other as playmates only when Liam wasn't around, if you choose to ask), but they tolerated each other enough to have fun playing while Liam is away.

- During this time, conveniently, Liam is having "lessons". Nice job writing Liam out of his own story yet again, PB (I'll explain this later). The scene is clearly centered on Olivia, with some focus on Drake via the mystery of Jackson's talk with Eleanor.

- Liam is with his mother, worried about how sick she is and wanting her company since he gets so little of it these days. And it is likely not too long before he loses her forever. My heart breaks in advance for the little guy.

Loads to unpack here!

* The first time I read this scene, it gave me serious Adriana-Leon vibes. It still does. Adriana has that scene where she wants to be open about her affair with Leon, and Leon declines. There's a familiarity between the two - notice how they address each other on a first name basis even though she is a queen and this was likely a time when titles and station were even more important. There is a familiarity in the way he insists on her time while Constantine is away, and despite the fact that Liam hasn't been able to spend much time with her.

* True, that familiarity is something that could also exist between close friends, the "sneaking around" could be Jackson trying to keep his BFF's secret from the king of the country. But you can't deny the Adriana-Leon parallels there.

* There is a possibility that someone else could be the father. One possibility that comes to mind for me is Bastien, mostly because his fondness for Eleanor and disdain for Regina don't exactly add up if he wasn't King Guard until Jackson died, and clearly didn't seem to have much of a relationship with the royal family otherwise that we know of. But it could work with his storyline: he gets Eleanor pregnant, she dies shortly after, Jackson takes the fall for keeping her secret and his family doesn't get the compensation they deserve, Bastien helps the children and maintains a close relationship with Drake partly because he feels responsible for Jackson's death, and he atones by following every order of Constantine's, including one that harms the foreign commoner woman that Liam was about to choose.

* Buuuut. The fact that Bastien has pretty much disappeared and is hardly even mentioned, makes this even less of a possibility, because buildup is important.

* In Jackson's case I guess the thing that doesn't entirely add up is how close Jackson and Bianca are spoken of as being. We never actually see them as a couple, but Drake gives us plenty of stories about them and their love for each other - to the point where Drake tells his dad he wants to find a girl to love as much as his father loves his mother...and Jackson unironically agrees. It's a small detail, but I think it's something that may indicate Jackson is a red herring as well.

* In conclusion, I don't know 😂

* "It's likely just hyperemesis gravidarum" 🤦🏽‍♀🤦🏽‍♀. Just? Juuuuust? That's...a serious condition. It's not just extreme vomitting or morning sickness (though that is awful too) - oftentimes it means you can't even hold fluid down, it means dehydration, it means a loss of electrolytes and even nutrient deficiency...to the point where you might even need to be hospitalized (Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, had this condition with all three of her pregnancies and was hospitalized in 2012 when she was pregnant with Prince George). I'm guessing Jackson doesn't know what the fuck those words even mean if that's his reaction!

* What should Eleanor and Jackson be prepared for?

* What are these two fearing besides Constantine discovering about this child?

* Do they know Godfrey and Bartie Sr have something or the other planned? I mean if Madeleine knew about the pregnancy there is clearly a chance she heard it from one of them. Were those two guys their main concern, and why they went alone to talk? Eleanor doesn't seem to have much trust in the Great Houses the way Constantine does, and seeing Bertrand's flashback scenes she'd be right to worry.

* How long after this did Eleanor die? Because yes there is a possibility that her second child may exist, but that depends on when the plot to poison her succeeded. And if she was far along enough to carry the child to term, or even give birth prematurely, how is it that not even the children in the palace had a clue? (the adults I can see as covering this up but it's possible to have SOME hint from the kids!). So I'm having a tough time with the idea that she managed to give birth before dying, or even that she managed to survive - unless someone was out there acting like Monte Cristo and giving her something that appeared to have the same symptoms as poison but was actually some lifesaving elixir idek. This team is capable of anything. They've retconned a zillion things so far so I wouldn't put it past them to completely retcon this as well.

- The kids have a chance of being caught by Jackson, if Olivia doesn't manage to find a good hiding place and hides behind Drake instead. But if you do succeed in hiding, we get to see Eleanor promise to spend more time with him, which Liam accepts with the grace he is usually known for.

@thefirstcourtesan has spoken before about the Nevrakis family's views on openly showing your pain in public, citing Diavolos' dialogues, but it also reminds me of that scene where we can defend Olivia against Lucretia, stating to her that having allies and friends to fall back on is not weakness, but common sense. The fact that little Olivia views crying as the worst thing that she could be doing, and the shock the adult Olivia shows at the MC's matter-of-fact statement on the value of support - as if such a thing had never even occurred to her - says plenty about the impact of those initial five years being the Nevrakis heir.

* What amazes me just as much, is how quickly Liam understands what is going on in Olivia's head, and how quickly he makes the situation safe for her before Drake can say anything. He's young, but perceptive enough to know not only that Olivia doesn't want to be seen crying, but also what she'd be most comfortable using as a cover for her tears. Those wounds are still fresh for Olivia at this point, making it even harder for her to stand back and rationalize - which is why it's a relief when Liam offers her an out.

* I honestly fail to understand people who claim he never cared for Olivia. It was clear from the get-go how much he valued her, he's vouched for her when very few would, he's shown concern for her multiple times - and I find it so weird that he's perceived as not concerned for her only because he doesn't return her feelings, whereas Drake can suspect a traumatized woman and never feel any remorse after she tells them the truth, and somehow that's okay (oh...I forgot. This is the Almighty St Drake we're talking about. Of course he can get away with anything).

• Is it just me or are the only scenes where the children are given extra focus and care...are the ones belonging to Drake and Olivia? The first scene, though advertised as Liam's, was really more of a group childhood scene - it was less about Liam himself and more about introducing the childhood gang. Maxwell's scene basically wrote him out so Bertrand could take centerstage! In contrast, Olivia's gives us important facts about Liam's family but focuses heavily on her grief and loss after her parents' death, and Drake's is not only intensely personal to him but also is the only childhood scene so far with variations if he is married to the MC. I shudder to think of what they will give to Hana in the name of a childhood scene, if she ever manages to get one that is.

• I honestly hope Jackson isn't the father of this child - even though there are enough hints to suggest it as a possibility (or to establish that he is a red herring). If that does transpire...then the story that should be about Liam, his mother, his family, will revolve even more around Drake. It will be about his angst. His feelings of betrayal and sadness at what his father did. His heartbreak at his hero having feet of clay.

How do I know this? Well, look at the sheer volume of things Drake has told us about Jackson over the course of these four books. Especially in playthroughs where he is getting married, you get stories upon stories upon stories about the man, one after the other. I had to wait till TRH to get even half that much information about Liam's own mother!!!

Enough. I've already seen this man eat up space that should have gone to Liam for his story, and make it all about himself (the assassination attempt, for example). At least let this one thing be just Liam's to grieve, not Drake's to take over and to make it all about him and his feelings. I've already seen him do this for every LI - the truth of Hana's return had to come from him, we spent most of Shanghai cajoling him into fixing his relationship with Maxwell instead of learning more about Hana, the entire Beaumont story was swallowed whole just to accommodate more story for his sister.

Of course, if Bastien is a possibility, the same problem would still arise because the writers were somehow desparate to make him close to Drake, than to Liam who would have been one of his wards to do security for.

• Olivia, Liam, the MC (+ LI in other playthroughs) discuss what the discussion between Eleanor and Jackson could mean. If the MC doesn't figure out that Eleanor was pregnant, Liam does - having read up on Hyperemesis Gravidarum (at least in my playthrough).

• Olivia's choice of words about Constantine is interesting - "Constantine never caught whoever killed Queen Eleanor"...which, well, most of us have an idea that Constantine might have done some covering up with regards to Eleanor's pregnancy and death - but does Olivia suspect this too? The wording makes me feel like she has some idea.

• Anyway, it's time for our scan! Dr Ramirez speaks of this as the 10 week mark (over here in India it's referred to as the 12 week mark - so we wouldn't say 1 week when we find out, we'd say 4). I was initially surprised the MC didn't opt for the 7-8 week scan, but I've been told in some places it's common to start with the nuchal translucency scan (which is this one).

• It's a lovely scene overall in terms of how the LIs react to the experience - each option (both to the initial image of the child on the screen, and to the photograph later) comes with varied dialogue depending on the LI. They're all happy, emotional, and in some cases (like Maxwell's) it's sinking in that there's an actual baby coming out from all of this.

• Around this time, the foetus also has hands and legs and you can see them kicking around like nobody's business coz "o wow, what's this" is probably what they're experiencing at this point 😅

• The dude from the press conference tries really hard to pretend he is an intern and not a dude we met in a press conference - but his acting skills are about as good as his knowledge of pregnancy in general.

• I have a feeling that if we don't catch him next chapter, Liam and Olivia will, and we may get some answers at least on the score of all the paparazzi related suspicious stuff that's been happening - therefore leading us to a hint about one of the places we are "allying" with?

• I also have a feeling that both places - Auvernal and Monterisso - will be established as suspicious eventually, for varying reasons. Right now we're getting signs via Olivia that the Auvernese are planning something big, but I doubt Monterisso is going to be left behind in all this. Perhaps the journalist might offer some hints/leave behind some clues as to where he was from...and it might warrant a visit to that place just to investigate? I'd see Monterisso as more likely, if that is the case. Because I do believe the team will have us visit this place just once at least. I may be wrong, but let's see.

• General Thoughts:

- Sigh. We knew this would happen, wouldn't we. The team would spend nine whole chapters on largely irrelevant shit that could have been cut out and pared down to maybe 4 chapters max (but 2 chapters would have been perfect. After all, Hana's Shanghai segment was only two chapters, and we spent one of them trying to make Drake behave less like an angry toddler. It's only fair that Drake gets as little space, yknow), but now we're at the point where we're rushing through the first trimester alone.

- The announcement shoot scene was nice...but again extremely uneven across playthroughs. Both Liam and Drake's scenes were written largely as callbacks to their engagement shoots. In Liam's engagement shoot there was a pressure to represent both decorum and warmth - but in this shoot they explain to Ana that they clearly lean more to the side of warmth, and want to show that side of themselves. In Drake's engagement shoot, Drake is the one who is nervous and trying to fit in, with the MC helping him loosen up and be his natural self, while in the baby shoot he fulfils that role for her by stating to her that they could be having fancy trimmings but simple in their way of delivering the news. Do Maxwell and Hana get this kind of effort in their scenes? No. Not at all.

- Maxwell's engagement photoshoot scene was about the couple getting used to their relationship, and remembering what made their love blossom (pun fully intended). By the logic of the other two scenes, this one should have explored in some way how they've grown as a couple, but it doesn't. They didn't even bother to put half the effort into this scene that they did in the other two.

- Hana's engagement shoot initially explored her fears of turning into her parents, that she is not taking the MC's opinion into account. The MC gets to reassure her then. Unfortunately, they dropped that arc completely after that scene. So I can get an idea of why this particular scene is different, but I hate that they chose to drop such a compelling story for Hana and I would have honestly loved to see a parallel to that.

- The fact that the MC could tell Hana that she should never be in the sidelines is kinda sweet, granted, but actions speak louder than words, and most of the MC's actions re: Hana so far have been the exact opposite of what she's saying there.

- The team should have at least nailed this one scene for everyone, if not anything else - since this had the biggest variations. Yet they couldn't be bothered to do a good job of all of them?? Only two???

- Come to think of it, if the plot actually culminates in the presence of this extra child, there is one scene in Book 3 that could hint at it. The film that Liam takes the MC to watch at Castelserraillian, revolves around a couple named Lionel and Ramona (geddit?? Liam and Riley!) and their romance amidst a plot from a half-brother to usurp the throne (the name given in the movie is Percival, which coincidentally is Maxwell's middle name).

- The intrigue is nice, it does its job of raising more questions while offering a few answers, but I find it ironic that even in a plot that's about Liam's family, Liam himself seems unimportant and his feelings unexplored. You'd think that with an experience like that, where we've just heard about his mother not being able to spend a lot of time with him (perhaps months before her death)...you'd think that would elicit more of a reaction than "okay cool let's investigate". I know for a fact that if it were Drake there would be a whole extra set dialogues unlocked in the romantic route. I know that, because that's exactly what happened at Walker Ranch. Again, no other character who had a childhood flashback scene so far, got any opportunities to weigh in on how they felt after the narration was done.

- Other people's feelings and experiences taking precedence over Liam's own, in scenes/events that should be about him, is nothing new. In Book 2, we get to know about an assassination attempt on Liam...but that story revolves around Drake's pain and Drake's sacrifice. We never get to know how Liam felt about this, ever. In Book 3, when we should have been learning more about his mother, she's mentioned only a handful times instead. Again in Book 3, Liam sees his own father die, but his feelings are largely brushed aside to make space for more Drake hypocrisy (like his behaviour towards Kiara in Lythikos) and Drake observations (like the chat about Liam's hurt feelings in his playthrough, which only Drake is allowed to talk about).

- And this is the root of the current problem really. That they need to involve and include Drake and his family in everything that they can possibly involve him in (I mean, the only childhood scene he is out of, is the Beaumont Brothers one, and even then the brother that gets all the focus is the one that is marrying Drake's sister). That they probably might write the story in such a way that it's skewed in Drake's favour, will explore Drake's issues the most, before they even bother to explore anyone else's. Even now that we're out of the Walker Ranch storyline, the writing still shows a possibility that Drake's feelings (whether Jackson is the father of Eleanor's second child or not) may be explored more - just by virtue of there being way more material about Jackson than there ever was on Eleanor. Both Liam and Drake look up to Eleanor and Jackson respectively, but just by what I've read so far I already have an idea whose truth may hit harder.

- I still can't get over the fact that the writers have coded Hana's traditional black outfit in the way that they have...so that now, even if you did buy it, it's nowhere to be seen. The plain black dress is pretty but I can't stand to even look at it now.

- Perhaps the reason why Lorelai is being depicted negatively in this series, is not really her treatment of Hana (that should have been reason enough IMO) - since this very team has proved already that they don't exactly care that Hana was abused in that home and had her forgive the likes of Lorelai and Xinghai instead. There's a possibility that they're pushing for a more negative portrayal because she has some involvement or other in all this, and that is how they may create a Hana flashback scene as well. Though I'm not convinced they will place even half the effort on such a scene as they have on Olivia's scene this week.

- If that is the way the story is going, perhaps the larger theme of family then will involve the LIs seeing the family members they so respected, with actual feet of clay that will be hard for them to handle emotionally. Besides intrigue, it will also be a lesson to those very LIs to not repeat the mistakes their families made.

- I find the scene post press conference interesting, since there are tiny hints there that I feel we shouldn't be ignoring. The convenient placement of Godfrey, Regina and Bartie Sr, Bartie Sr's side-comment on Regina who is after all from the Krona duchy and who is related to Godfrey by marriage, Madeleine's offering of apples and her cryptic message to the MC to take care of herself...all of that adds up to something.

- Too bad only white people are allowed to take centerstage in this story.

• Anyway, that's for now from me. Until Saturday, guys!

#long post #trh quick thoughts #trh qts #the royal heir #king liam #hana lee #anti drake walker #maxwell beaumont #olivia nevrakis #trr madeleine

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fialleril · 5 years

Note

Oh man I would watch the SHIT out of all of those JLA/JLU sequel shows you pitched. But I have to know: will John Stewart's terrifying landlady be making an appearance? (Also you reminded me of just how much I desperately wanted J'onn's human wife's backstory. Or like, even a name?)

(Original post is here for those just joining in.)

John’s terrifying landlady would be a recurring character. At least once per season she would get to wail on a supervillain or five, but there would also be a running gag where she keeps beating on other members of the Justice League. At one point John even introduces her to Flash, but she still whacks him over the head with her broom the next time he comes by and John isn’t home. Once she even beats up Batman.

I keep thinking that J’onn’s wife was named Ming, and then remembering that was just fanon… But yeah, I would really love to know the story of how they got together. I’m imagining a situation where they’ve been dating for months and J’onn has been agonizing over how to tell her the truth about who he is and finally after some harrowing adventure or other he just kind of blurts out, “I’m an alien,” and to his shock she just pats him on the hand and says, “I know, dear.”

Other things that definitely happen at some point on these hypothetical shows:

Remember the Flashmobile? Wally’s…very expressive van? Yeah. Wally, John, and Shayera absolutely go on a road trip in the thing. John complains about the van the entire time. Shayera genuinely likes the leopard print cushions. At some point Wally installed a karaoke machine, and John very much lives to regret this. Shayera sings death metal, which honestly isn’t that surprising. Wally also sings death metal, which…kind of is. John insists that he doesn’t sing, but eventually the other two wear him down and he does a decent riff on Ray Charles.

One time Queen Audrey is taken hostage by a Kasnian nationalist group that wants to see the country leave the World Assembly and rebuild their military might. Diana for some reason can’t get to her for most of the episode, so the plot is just Audrey playing her captors to keep herself and the other hostages alive until Diana can show up and punch some fascists.

Shayera still gets a lot of hate and distrust as a result of the Thanagarian invasion, and although she tries to ignore it, sometimes it still gets to her. In one episode she’s sunk particularly deep in self-hating thoughts, so Wally decides that she’s gonna spend the day with him in Central. She’s not really interested in socializing but he’s insistent and weirdly excited about the idea and it’s kind of impossible to say no to that puppy face, so she goes along. And then the whole episode is just about how the people of Central City absolutely love Shayera. Like they’re stopping her on the street to say thanks, asking for selfies and autographs, kids are shyly giving her pictures they drew of her looking badass and saving the day. It’s wild. Finally she just straight up asks a woman why everybody is being so nice, and the woman looks at her like she can’t imagine why they would be anything but nice and just says, “Well, you brought Flash back from that vortex, after all that business with Brainiac. Of course we love you.”

One time John gets called back to Oa for a couple of weeks and the Guardians send Guy Gardner to cover for him on Earth. It’s a two part episode and half of it is John being a badass and fighting off an invasion of Oa, and the other half is just…people on Earth dealing with Guy Gardner. Like nothing momentous happens on Earth at all. It’s just…Guy Gardner.

The Glorious Godfrey tries to make a big TV comeback by announcing that he’s discovered the Flash’s secret identity. Wally spends half the episode worrying about this but there’s not much he can do. Then Godfrey’s big moment comes and he reveals that the Flash is, in fact…Bruce Wayne! The evidence is all there. They’re both fun-loving playboys, and the fact that Wayne lives in Gotham obviously wouldn’t be an obstacle for the fastest man alive. Wayne’s vast wealth would also explain how the Flash can afford to keep himself fed with that outrageous metabolism, and as the Flash is a founding member of the Justice League, that also answers the question of how the League could afford to build not one but two incredibly advanced space stations, not to mention all the other tech they have. And, says Godfrey, it explains why the other founders continue to hold Flash as an equal even though he’s clearly not on their level - because he’s bankrolling them!

Batman is completely disgusted by this entire production. Wally assumes it’s because Bats feels insulted, and Bruce lets him think that, but tbh he’s most annoyed that Godfrey would say Flash isn’t on the same level as the rest. He will never admit that, though.

Wally, meanwhile, finds the whole thing absolutely hilarious, and gleefully tells Bruce that there’s an obvious corollary here: Batman’s secret identity must be Wally West! After all, he is a detective.

In one episode of John and Shayera’s show, there actually is an alien that sucks out people’s brains. It’s finally stopped by John’s landlady and her broom.

About a week after J’onn finally settles into an identity and an apartment for good, Agent King Faraday moves into the apartment just down the hall. It’s an open question for the whole of the show’s run whether Faraday knows J’onn’s true identity or it’s just a really wild coincidence. This question is never resolved. King Faraday and Jon Jones become friendly acquaintances and every now and then they stop to chat in the hallway about their respective days. Faraday talks about what J’onn knows to be his work with the League as if it were a humdrum office job. J’onn talks about his retirement as if he had retired from an equally dull office job. Neither is ever sure if the other knows they’re lying.

There’s a Batman and Flash crossover episode in which the Joker and the Trickster team up to do something nefarious, so Flash and Bats have to stop them. Flash doesn’t seem at all worried about it, though, and Bruce knows Wally well enough by now to get curious rather than annoyed. In the end it turns out that Trickster was working with Flash all along, solely for the joy of seeing Joker’s face when he reveals the trick.

Aquaman appears for a cameo once per season on every show. Every time he’s riding on the back of an increasingly enormous and terrifying sea monster. He says something suitably badass, and then returns to the ocean.

Diana takes Audrey home to Themyscira to meet her mother and sisters. Audrey is suitably impressed with everything except the party scene, which is pretty nonexistent. She sets about fixing this. Hilarity ensues.

Lex Luthor somehow gets out of his happy fun anti-life adventure time with Darkseid and is pretty pissed about once more being denied godhood. He shows up in Central looking for revenge on Flash for the Brainiac incident (not to mention that time they switched bodies). But it turns out Flash isn’t even home, and the whole episode is just the residents of Central kicking Lex to the curb.

Several old Cadmus files that were meant to be destroyed are stolen and sold on the black market, and there’s a massive crossover finale where all of our heroes have to team up with Amanda Waller to get the data back and undo as much of the damage as possible. Aquaman shows up at the climax riding on the world serpent.

#replies #anon #justice league animated #hypothetical jlu sequels #if anybody wants to write any of these ideas in fic form feel free!#i would be delighted #the people think flash is bruce wayne is a fanon thing i've seen in several places before #but it never gets old #because bruce and wally are basically doing opposite acts and i think that's wonderful #also i know that jlu is a small fandom but still #i don't understand how there isn't an entire genre of 'they go for a roadtrip in flash's van' fics #i have a lot more ideas for the flash show in particular because of course i do lol #but i tried to keep this at least kind of balanced in terms of characters #not sure if this counts as meta or fic so i'm tagging it both #i write things #my meta #j'onn j'onzz #john stewart #wally west #shayera hol #wonder woman #batman #and a whole bunch of other people but i'm not tagging everyone #long post

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bobasheebaby · 5 years

Text

Windows- Behind Closed Doors chapter 1

Pairing: Bastien Lykel; Garrett Byrne (OC); Queen Elora Rhys; Duchess Adelaide of Krona

Word count: 1,994

Warnings: sexy light (stealing from the wonderful @sirbeepsalot), angst

Summary: A chat with Adelaide ends with unforeseen revelations. Midday rendezvous for one couple.

A/N: We are picking up a few months after the prologue. Thanks for putting up with me and giving me your insight @sirbeepsalot you and DoE rock! And thank you for the chapter name!

Series warnings: mentioned character death, potential threats, referenced (past) adultery, potential violence, NSFW content, orgies. By asking to be tagged you acknowledge that you are at least 18 years old.

Let me know if you want to be added or removed from my taglist.

Disclaimer: I only own my OC’s, the rest I’m borrowing from PB.

“Elora dear, just how long are you going to mope over your dead husband?” Adelaide tilted her head as though she was appraising the other woman. “Oh so sad, he died.” She pushed her plush lips out in a mock pout. “If you are going to get over him, you need to get under someone new. Stop frittering your life away pining over a dead man.”

Elora stared unblinking at Adelaide, unsure how to respond. She had put up a front, one of sadness over the death over her husband, only a few knowing the truth of what happened on the boat, how Constantine really died, and she intended to keep it that way for the sake of the children. She couldn’t tarnish their image of their father, no matter what he did to hurt her, she refused to have her children bare the weight of knowing the truth. She was determined to try to keep things as normal as possible for her children, refusing to upheave their lives more if she didn’t have to, all while running a country on her own. “Adelaide, what are you doing here?” She drummed her fingers against the mahogany desk, his, no her desk, anxious to get to the point so the other woman could leave. “And don’t tell me you brought Madeline to see Leo, I know she went with Godfrey to Karlington.” She found the Duchess to be tiring and wanted to finish her day so she could attempt to try to keep some semblance of normalcy for the kids. She’d been thrown into a more hands on role as queen but she refused to allow that to mean the children had to lose out on time with her. Just spit it out already woman so I can leave.

Adelaide threw her head back, golden blonde hair flying in an arc as she let out a shrill laugh. “Oh no dear.” She looked around the study as if she were trying to conceal a secret. “The new guard are training, and you know how much I love looking at a strong, muscular, sweaty man.” She dropped her jaw, sea green eyes rolling to the back of her head as she pretended to fan herself with her hand.

“Adelaide aren’t you married?” Elora questioned half heartedly. She was tired, tired of talking to Adelaide, tired of pretending, tired of being alone, tired of stretching herself thin to be both a good queen and continue to be a good mother.

Adelaide let out a mock gasp. “Oh Elora, I’m married, not dead!” She missed Elora wincing at her word choice. “There is no harm in looking.” She lowered her voice. “Or touching.”

Elora arched her brow in question.

Adelaide shook her head. “Please tell me you heard of a Cordonian arrangement!”

Cordonian arrangement. The words pricked at her heart like fiery hot pokers. She knew all about the understanding some spouses seemed to have when it came to lovers, she was well aware her husband had taken it upon himself to keep her out of the conversation, choosing to make an arrangement without her consent. She nodded her head in response.

“Well then, what’s the harm in looking and touching?” She leaned forward in her seat. “I normally would just watch the guard train, flirt a little and leave, but I’m having a party, or some acquaintances are having a party at the duchy this weekend. You should come, shake off the cobwebs.”

“What kind of party?” She was afraid she already knew the answer, she wasn’t even sure why she asked, it wasn’t like she had any intention of attending.

“Let’s just say it’s the kind of party you can get under someone new at, and leave it at that.”

“Well, thank you for the invite, but I don’t think I’ll be attending.” Was she out of her mind? How could she think it was appropriate for the queen to be seen at a party like that?

“If you’re worried about being recognized, don’t be. The hosts are very discreet, they kind of have to be. They host parties frequently and I finally managed to convince them to have one in Krona.” She leaned in closer. “I’m hoping with the home turf advantage I can finally have a little fun with them.” She sat back in her seat. “Anyway, with it being at my duchy, more of a reason for discretion. It’s a masked party, you only have to reveal yourself if you want to.”

Well at least she thought about her reputation. Who are these friends she keeps mentioning that they need discretion themselves? Nope, don’t want to know. “I still think I’ll sit it out Adelaide, but thank you.”

Adelaide frowned. “Boo! Oh well, more hot sweaty guards for me!” She feigned a gasp. “I forgot the best part! Don’t tell anyone, but.” She lowered her voice. “I think they are together, not that it stops them from getting around with the ladies, and they are members of the guard! Could you imagine if that got out?!” She stood from her seat. “Well, I’ve taken up enough of your time, time for me to go check out the guard.” She turned with a whirl of green silk.

Members of the guard?! “Who?” She asked before she could stop her curiosity. A nagging feeling gnawed at the pit of her stomach, surely it wasn’t him. He wouldn’t show interest in me if he’s with someone else would he?

Adelaide turned, wide smile on her cherry red lips. “I knew that would get your attention! They are both young members, but extremely yummy!” She glanced around the empty room. “You didn’t hear it from me, but Bastien Lykel and Garrett Byrne. Ta!” She turned and left the room in a swirl of colorful silk.

“We have to stop meeting like this.” He teased as he felt his lovers arms slip around his waist, hot breath fanning against his neck as his lovers lips pressed fiery kisses along his tanned skin.

A deep rumbling chuckle reverberated through a hard chest. “Isn’t that usually my line?”

“Only because I’m usually the one catching you by surprise.” He turned in his lovers arms, steely eyes locking on blue so deep they rivaled the depths of the ocean. He leaned forward, claiming his lips in a kiss full of need and longing. His hand wound around his lover gripping the base of his head pulling him closer, fingers gripping short rust colored hairs, tugging gently. His lover moaned into his mouth before pulling away abruptly, quickly glancing around the hedge maze to ensure they hadn’t been seen.

“I thought we agreed we wouldn’t do that in public anymore.”

“I’m not the one who started it.” He pulled their hips flush, his pants only growing tighter as he felt his lovers hardening length pressing against his. “It’s not likely someone will stumble upon us this far into the maze.” He ground his pelvis against his lovers. “Besides, if you were really worried you wouldn’t have kissed me in the first place.” The words said into his lovers neck as he trailed his lips along it, gently nipping at his ear.

Elora leaned back in her chair, digesting the information she just heard. Two members of the KingsGuard, or her Guard were in a relationship together? Not only that they held parties at Adelaide’s duchy, she had trouble processing what it meant. She now understood the reason they would want discretion too, if it were uncovered that they were in a relationship both would lose their jobs. Her heart had sunk as she had heard his name, he was the only one who she had thought about since Constantine’s passing, she now saw that would never be a possibility, and not only because she was queen. Had every interaction been completely one sided? Was the intensity of his gaze all in her head, or was there something there? Surely she couldn’t have made up how kind he was to her, even before Constantine’s death. The way she’d catch him glancing at her, the way he made her feel couldn’t simply all be in her head. Had her need to feel desired embellished innocent interactions to make them seem more than they really were?

She stood, crossing to the window overlooking her gardens. She pulled back the thick curtain. I wish I could go take a walk to clear my head. So much had changed since Constantine’s death, the gardens she designed as a little place of calm for her and her children she no longer got to enjoy.

His lover gave one last cursory glance over his shoulder. Fuck it. His lover pushed him backward, his back pressed against the hedge, his grey eyes going wide in surprise as a growl escaped his lips. He lunged forward, their mouths coming together in a clash of tongues and teeth, their hands roaming over the familiar plains of their bodies. His heart hammered in his chest in need as his hands drifted over the sculpted plains of his lovers chest. He pulled back, drawing his lover’s lower lip between his teeth. “Fuck I need you.” He groaned as he ground his length against his lovers.

His lover leaned back in capturing his lips once more in a heated kiss, his hands drifting down to his waistband.

Rustle. Rustle.

His lover froze, pulling away, his eyes wide with fear as he looked for the cause of the sound. His deep blue eyes drifted around the dead end, finally landing on a bird hopping in and out of the base of the hedges.

“It was just a bird Garrett.”

Garrett ran his hand through his rust colored hair. “This time, we can’t be this out in the open Bas.”

Bastien nodded, allowing Garrett to take his hand leading them out of the complicated maze.

What was I thinking, of course it was nothing, he was just being kind like all of the staff. She stared out over the rows of perfectly trimmed hedges, days spent chasing Liam and Olivia through the maze or reading by the fountain becoming a distant memory. Why would anyone want a widowed queen anyway? I heard some of the staff calling me a black widow, who would want that? She moved to turn when movement at the entrance to the maze caught her eye. She watched as the two gentleman dropped hands before turning away from each other. Of course she was right! She let out a gasp as he looked upward. Oh shoot. She ducked away from the window, allowing the curtain to flutter back in place. I think they are together, not that it stops them from getting around with the ladies. Adelaide’s gossip pinged around in her brain, maybe she could make an appearance, it’s not like anyone would ever know it was her. I just need to be sure.

Bastien released Garrett’s hand as they reached the entrance to the hedge maze. They broke off in different directions as to not draw attention to their activities. Movement in the study window drew his grey eyes up. He eyes went wide as he watched her jump backwards to conceal herself. Did she see? His heart hammered in his chest. He feared what it would mean for him and Garrett if she had seen them holding hands. Would she support the current rule and fire us? He sighed shaking his head. He’d been allowing himself to read more into her kind behavior, the idea sparked in him that she might understand, but that spark. It doesn’t matter, she’s the queen, her job comes first, and so should mine. They were worlds apart, she’d never understand or allow their relationship to continue, no matter how kind they were to each other. Is that the only reason you’re kind to her? It doesn’t matter, it can and will never be more.

Feedback fuels me, please like, comment or reblog to let me know how much you like it. I can handle the screams, so scream away.

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