#exterior building maintenance | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

b0xerdancer-writes · 26 days

Text

The Rockrose and the Thistle

Tamlin x Reader

Summary: After Feyre had destroyed Tamlin's life he had just started to piece his life back together when he discovers his mate, sadly the mother has a sick sense of humor for Tamlin.

Prompt: Mates/Flower Language

Warnings: Angst, graphic violence, death, war, not a happy ending at all.

Word Count: 3,342

Notes: Short but its angst and I made myself cry thinking about this one so here we go!

Based off the song of the same name by The Amazing Devil. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rockrose, a low maintenance plant that is drought tolerant and can survive with minimal attention; they are seen as symbols of endurance, strength, and determination.

Thistle, a sharp flowering plant that is characterized by the prickles that cover its exterior, sometimes seen as terrible weeds but particularly amazing for pollinators; they are seen as symbols of protection, strength, devotion, bravery, determination, and victory.

Tamlin strolled through his garden, new additions had been added as he tried to rebuild the manor for her. His darling mate. A dull ache throbbed in his chest, there had been no good days since she had been injured in the war, before Hybern he had just begun to put himself back together after Feyre’s departure.

He had met her, a lesser fae that was half forest nymph, in one of the villages close to Rosehall; he had rode out to see what damage had been done and what repairs needed to be made around his court, when he had seen her kneeling beside a crying child offering him a dandelion.

“Make a wish Percius, don’t say it out loud, hold it in your heart and wish upon the flower.” She spoke softly.

The boy's sobs slowly turned to siffles as he nodded to what she said and blew the small white specks of dandelion to the wind. She rubbed his back and helped him to his feet, the child thanked her before he ran off.

The white mare made a noise as he entered the village that drew the female’s attention, her eyes had struck his soul and he clutched at his chest; a golden thread attached the two and her own eyes widened.

He jumped from his horse, the white mare following obediently behind him. “Its a pleasure to meet you my lady, I’m Tamlin. I come to your village to aide in any recovery efforts you may need. It would be a pleasure to have you escort me around so I may get to know my mate.”

“A pleasure to meet you my lord. Your recovery efforts are not needed thankfully. We have a good relationship with the dryads and nymphs in this area, they helped us with rebuilding.” She introduced herself with a pleasant smile. “However, if you still wish to get to know me, I can give you a tour.”

“It would be a pleasure, my lady.” He bowed.

He had toured the village, impressed by the unique style and structure the nymphs and dryads had weaved together with the ruins of the older building.

“If you don't need to move on yet my lord, would you be inclined to join me and my family for dinner tonight?” She offered.

“I would like that, my lady.” Tamlin responded.

“There is something about my family you should know before we head to the house, my father is a forest nymph. I'm half nymph and so are my little brothers.” She chirped anxiously.

“How fascinating, though I think nothing of it.” Tamlin replied.

“My father can come off as a bit protective.” She noted.

“As any good male should be over his family.” Tamlin smiled.

“Okay. I think that is all I have to warn against in my family.” She huffed dramatically and Tamlin snorted in amusement.

“Then let us join your family for dinner.” Tamlin mused.

She led him through the dirt streets to her family’s home, a small farm on the outskirts; she led the white mare into the barn and removed her tack before letting her back into the field, she had seen the fern green hair of one of her younger brothers dart into the house and sighed.

“We have company, we better head inside now my lord.” She mumbled, enjoying her time alone with the pleasant male.

He smiled and cupped her face gently in one hand. “Don’t let the boys bother you darling, they are young and inquisitive.”

She nuzzled against his hand before leading him inside, the two small boys peaked from behind the counter before scrambling to hide in their mothers skirts.

“Welcome home dear, the boys told me you have brought a guest.” The female, heavily pregnant, looked up from the pot on the stove.

His mate cleared her throat ready to introduce him and their newly formed relationship, she was soft, gentle, and everything she was not. “Yes mother, sorry I did not inform you sooner. This is Tamlin, our high lord and my mate. I invited him to get to know you all.”

Her mother looked up quickly, excitement evident in her eyes. “Mate? Oh that's wonderful love! It's a pleasure to have you dine with us tonight! My husband Siriden will be home soon, he went to help the Hawkley family with some repairs to their animals coop. My name is Renata, the twin boys are Caius and Kyren. Please make yourself at home my lord.” She ushered him to sit, the multi-green nymph eyes of the boys stared around the edge of the cabinet.

“Please lady Renata, Tamlin is fine.” He smiled sitting in the carved wooden chair Renata had pulled out for him.

“Please my lord, Renata is fine.” She blushed and patted his back.

The second Tamlin was sitting, the boys stared him down from around the edge of the counter. Tamlin flashed them a fanged smile and they came running over, surrounding him and asking question after question about what he did as a lord, how cool it was to fight naga, his beast form, any and all things little boys could think of asking someone like Tamlin. His mate however joined her mother in the kitchen helping her set the table and plate the food.

Siriden pushed the door open and the boy's attention jumped from Tamlin to their father and they swarmed him. “Caius! Kyren! My boys! How good it is to see you.”

The male's nymph blood was evident, his skin tanned and faded into dark green at his knees and elbows; his eyes the same as the boys at his knees, a dark green sclera and a leafy color iris. Dark fern green hair mixed with vines and leaves was pulled half up in small braids. Tamlin could understand Renata’s appeal to the male.

Tamlin watched as his mate dried her hands on a cloth and moved towards her father, taking his coat from him. “Welcome back father, I hope everything went smoothly at the Hawkley's farm. We have a guest with us this evening.”

“Thank you dove, everything went smoothly besides having to herd the hens back up.” The male's eyes moved from his daughter to Tamlin. “My lord! Apologies for not greeting you sooner, it is an honor for you to join us but may I ask why?”

Renata lit up and came to stand behind Tamlin, her hands resting on his shoulders. “The High Lord is our daughter's mate.”

Siriden’s eyes widened. “Really! Well I must know how this revelation came about! I'd love to hear the story over dinner.” He took his seat at the head of the table, the boys to his left.

“It's nothing that exciting sir, as I’m sure you're aware, I've been making efforts in restoring the court.” Tamlin explained, “I was riding into town and she was knelt down by a small boy who was crying, she offered him a dandelion to wish away his worries. It reminded me of something similar my brothers would do when I was a babe. Then the next thing I know is the Golden thread connecting me to her. She offered to introduce me to everyone here after showing me around the village.”

“Dryads and nymphs are tight family groups, we normally stay with our parents till we marry; as a way to help raise our siblings since numbers within a family can become so large for us, we normally are all incredibly close till we die.” Siriden chimed, “it's why she wished to introduce us so early.”

Tamlin nodded, Renata brought Siriden and the boys’ plates, his mate brought him his before sitting beside him. The evening was great, Tamlin had laughed so hard tears had found their way into his eyes and his ribs were sore; it had been so long, he thought, since he had laughed like this.

The next day he brought her and her family up to the estate. The boys ran around the garden all afternoon, while he discussed courtship and marriage with her father. He led her around the halls on a tour like she had with her village and then they had dinner in the grand dining room, they joked and laughed till the boys collapsed on the couch; Tamlin hada carriage take them back to the village, he had helped her in and kissed her hand before closing the carriage door.

The two were married within the month and the bond had been consummated the night they were wed. He had worn a dark emerald green tunic and riding pants with his knee high boots, crown, and tabard. She had worn a sleek lace dress traditional in Nymph and Dryad communities, it was off white, the lace made images of flowers and nature, it was off her shoulders and Tamlin couldn't imagine her in anything better.

She supported him when he explained his plan with Hybern, he needed the intel and he needed her to play along as the oblivious doting wife but be present amongst the dryads, nymphs, wraiths, and other elementals incase he needed them to join his army in the war. And play the doting wife she did, Hybern never even suspected a thing until the night Tamlin helped Feyre and her sister escape his camp; she had been ‘kidnapped’ by Rhys and Feyre, when really she was rallying the forest folk and the ancient fae that were rumored to exist in the woods around them. When Tamlin had defected she tucked herself right into his side, a deadly glint in her eyes. Feyre would admit the female had scared her when she had first seen that glint and was just happy that the glint wasn’t pointed at her, even though she definitely deserved it.

One thing no one had expected was the fae bane antidote barely working for the elementals. Something Hybern had put in the bane had the potential for fatality if an elemental came into contact with it, but thanks to the antidote it kept them from immediately dying but immediate action needed to be taken to save the fae. In the throws of battle several elementals had fallen before they realized what was happening; they had lost approximately 70 nymphs, dryads, wraiths, and other variants of elementals. There had been a meeting with the healers to determine why the elementals had taken such a massive loss in comparison to the others that had been hit with the bane, at least the cause had been evident due to the pronounced purple veins. Tamlin had rocked her to sleep that night as she wept, she had felt like she let her people down.

The next fight had better results, an emergency squadron had been implemented with every battalion; if any fae went down it would be treated as an emergency and if it was an elemental triple antidote concoctions had been implemented until they could get them to the med tent. The plan had been working, Tamlin and his wife had been thrilled, his battalion had consisted of him, his mate, her father, 6 members of the spring court guard, and 4 other elementals. Their squadron had been on foot when they were ambushed, a barrage of arrows had come their way, the familiar purple glow of bane on the tips of the arrow heads.

Her father had been in a close combat fight with one of Hybern’s soldiers, she had seen the first arrow of the barrage before the rest had; she had howled out the warning for the barrage and rushed towards her father, he had cut down the soldier and turned to see her just as she pushed him out of the arrows path.

Tamlin felt his world shatter as his mate’s scream echoed in his ears. His blood roared as he ran to cover her collapsed body as the arrows buried themselves into his own back. Once all arrows had hit the ground she had been rushed to the med tent and he had all of the arrows pulled from his back, then his rampage had begun; he had ripped a wound through Hybern’s wall of soldiers so he could get back to her, back to his wife.

Unfortunately, the healers in his battalion were ill equipped, they were short two vials of antidote. They had been able to inject her with one additional vial of antidote, the bane had found its way far enough into her bloodstream before they made it into the med-tent and injected another dosage into her that it had caused permanent damage. When Tamlin pushed through the privacy curtain his heart broke further as he fully felt her pain through the bond; he had wanted to scream and break down for her since she couldn’t, they had to restrain and gag her as the bane burned its way through her body.

The healers had to pull Tamlin from the room as her body began to convulse in reaction to the bane in her blood. Siriden had comforted the male as they waited for news of the female’s wellbeing. Eventually, a nurse came out to the awaiting males, a sad look in her eyes.

“She’s pulled through, unfortunately the bane was in her system strong enough and long enough to permanently affect her.” The female sighed. “We don’t know how it will affect her, she's asleep right now.”

Both males had thanked her and slipped into the room, one on each side to hold her hands and ask the mother for help. A silent look between them of complete agony, the atmosphere of the room was an embodiment of sorrow itself and the on edge tension was palpable to anyone who walked by.

Tamlin had hoped she would pull through, but as he stood in the garden arranging a bouquet for the vase of her room. She had never fully recovered, the bane burned her veins so badly she had been bound to the bed of her room in agony. Every move she made, even breathing hurt her, he had to step out after her screaming and begging had become too much for him, the dull throb of her pain in his chest numbed every day as he had gotten used to it; he truly hated what he was doing, hoping if he made her endure it eventually light would show at the end of the tunnel and they could begin working on getting her back to her feet.

The flowers in his hand echoed back at him as tears began to well in his eyes, Rockrose, a promise of endurance and his determination to see her through this; and thistle, a promise of his protection over her and his devotion to her.

He wiped the tears from his eyes and he tried to push her begging to let her go from his mind. She had given up, he knew all the fight she had was gone, but he just couldn’t let her go yet. He had lost one love, he couldn’t lose his mate too. He sighed and slipped back inside, he had instructed a healer to slip her some milk of the poppy to get her to sleep; she slept softly almost like she wasn't in pain at all but the purple of her veins was a brutal reminder of her waking agony. Tamlin set the combination of flowers into the vase, pressing a kiss to her forehead he pulled the thin quilt over her body.

He had kissed her goodnight, opened her window to let the soft breeze into the room, and disappeared into their old bedroom. Tamlin tossed and turned every night now that her side was cold and barren, the blanket was never messed up now and it was agony to him. In the middle of the night he had been awoken to the screams of his love, he let the nurses go every night so he slipped back down the hall and into her room. She was sitting up and sobbing, the blankets pulled back and her legs dangling from the side of the bed; Tamlin moved a few steps into the room and tried to comfort her but she shoved him away.

“I can’t do this anymore Tamlin.” She sobbed.

“Love please, you can make it through this.” He begged.

“It's been a year Tam, I should have recovered from this already if I was. The bane should have been deadly, Tamlin let me go please.” She broke down.

“We can talk about this in the morning, love.” Tam soothed trying to coax her back into bed.

“There won't be an in the morning Tam, I’m done fighting through this. That's why I’m asking you to let me go now.” She sobbed and sniffled.

“Sure there will be love. It’s just the fever and delirium speaking.” He crooned and picked up the small pitcher of poppy milk and poured it into the serving glass.

She drank it with a sigh. “Okay Tam.”

TAm kissed her head, and tucked her back in; when he got back to his room he broke down into a sob, her asking him to let her go was the final straw for him. He knew the day would come when every ounce of fight left her but he would give her his fight, he'd guide her through this. Eventually he had cried himself to sleep only to be woken by a panicked nurse. A small female, whose face had paled; an ache in his chest was the answer to his question before he had even asked it.

“Prepare her body then, I’ll be there to see her as soon as I get dressed.” He had taken a sharp breath, tears biting at his eyes.

The female had nodded quickly and ran from the room, Tamlin dragged himself from bed slowly; he pulled the only black tunic from his closet and threw his tabard across his chest. He leaned on the door frame, and tried to breathe through the pain in his chest; he slipped from the room and out of Rosehall, down to the priestesses temple. His lover laid on a stone slab, he bit his tongue as all of the females gave him sympathetic looks.

“Decorate her body in thistle and rose rock please.” Tamlin had to fight the sobs from his throat.

“Weeds? My lord I-” a female had interrupted.

Tamlin roared. “I said I. Want. Her. Body. Decorated. In Roserock. And Thistle. They are symbols of strength and protection.”

The females squeaked and the one who had called them weeds apologized profusely, the rest of the females began work immediately. Tamlin pressed one last kiss to her forehead before he stepped back through the grand doors of Rosehall. At a loss for words Tamlin climbed the steps to the room she had occupied since her return from Hybern.

The window he had opened for her the night before was still open, the sheer curtains blowing in the wind, the room was sterile and medical except for the vase that sat on the end table; full of the rockrose and thistle he handpicked yesterday, the wind blew across the vase and the flowers. A whistle echoed through the room as he watched the flowers shift in the wind. The whistle sounded so much like that of the arrows that ruined their lives, he couldn’t fight the sobs any longer. He sat on the floor and let the sobs rack over his body as he thought back on every moment he had gotten to share with his darling little mate, the rockrose to his prickly thistle. Taglist:@tamlinweek

#acotar x reader #acotar #a court of thorns and roses #tamlin x reader #tamlin acotar #tamlin #tamlin week

54 notes · View notes

dayseternal-blog · 5 months

Text

Summary: When Naruto finds out Hinata is weird...

Written for NH Fair, NH Month 2023 Day 2 Prompt: Maid Cafe

Rated T.

Unexpected Miracles - Short One-shot

So there’s this classmate. New friend. She’s pretty.

Glossy hair.

Cute smile.

Squishy cheeks.

Shiny eyes.

Clear skin.

And always put-together. Talks nice, laughs nice, well-mannered.

She’s just simply nice, never a bad thing to say about anything or anyone. And so pretty, he feels like he should try harder to be fashionable and cool if he’s going to try to act on his attraction.

As a nerdy gamer and manga fan who’d rather spend money on building a good computer, he only puts in passing effort to look presentable at school. A low maintenance haircut, a good collared shirt, and basic jeans.

He can tell they probably run in different circles of people. To be honest, he wouldn’t have thought to notice her if she hadn’t sat next to him in their literature class. He wouldn’t have even tried to talk to her if they hadn’t needed to do partner discussions. He would have never thought to exchange contact information and message her if she hadn’t offered to split the cost on textbooks with him.

And this, too, is something he never expected.

He’s standing across the street from a maid cafe.

He’s watching his nice, pretty classmate walk around in there, and she’s dressed in a fluffy maid outfit, complete with the fluffy little headband-thingy, the fluffy wristbands, the fluffy apron, the knee-high socks…

When he found out she works part-time at a cafe, he boldly suggested he stop by to visit, and she sweetly said, “Oh, no, you don’t have to do that, Naruto-kun. I’ll just be working, so it’s not worth your time.”

He didn’t think much of it, other than that it was kinda weird she didn’t tell him the name of her workplace. And by some miracle, he just happened to see her while heading back home from shopping for a new external hard drive.

His pretty classmate is actually on a whole other, previously unknown level of weird.

Who’d have thought that behind her picture-perfect fashionable exterior lay the type of girl who adores the maid aesthetic?

The traffic light changes, he crosses the street quickly, and without hesitation, he pulls the door open.

The little bell above rings, and a maid greets him with a joyful smile.

But he only has eyes for his classmate-friend, and seeing her much closer in all her fluffy glory is absolutely amazing. And it’s crazy how the uniform makes her seem even curvier than he thought.

She doesn’t notice him at first, but eventually she does, and the angelically shocked look on her face is priceless.

This is the first time they’re seeing each other outside of campus.

In his worn t-shirt that proudly spells out the name of the RPG game he loved two years ago and in decidedly comfy yet dorky khakis, he is absolutely not the same Naruto she usually sees.

“Hi, Hinata.”

“N-N-Naruto-kun?” She steps up to him quickly, and the blush glowing over her face and neck is really the most incredible sight. “What are you doing here?” She’s blinking quite a bit, unable to meet his eyes, and he realizes she might be stressed out. Or embarrassed.

“I was shopping for a new hard drive.” He notices how she’s starting to look a little upset, so he admits, “You look really cute.”

To his relief, her eyes dart up to meet him, and she smiles a tiny bit, the blush at her cheeks deep and red. She bites her lips and her shoulders wiggle, the movement accentuated by the puffiness of the sleeves and the ruffled apron straps.

“Are you a friend of Hina-tan’s?” the other maid asks.

A gleeful smile wiggles out onto his own face, and he glances back to his classmate-friend. “Hina-tan?”

Hina-tan’s hands come up to hold her cheeks. She bends over to whisper in her coworker’s ear, “Yes, Naruto-kun’s my friend,” and the other maid’s lips purse together in a thrilled sort of expression.

“Well, will Naruto-sama be dining in with us today?”

So he’s officially a friend, not just a classmate! He quickly glances at the pink menu on display that shows sparkly photos of uber-cute food and desserts. That are a little pricy. “Maybe another day. I just wanted to stop in to say hi.”

“Okay. We hope you come again soon!” The other maid bows, Hina-tan bows, and he gives her a lingering look and smile before leaving.

So there’s this guy she’s been sitting next to in class. Heart-stoppingly cool.

Tall!

Short, light hair. Like that “best friend of the emo-love interest” type of characters in all the shoujo manga she read growing up.

Strong eyes and warm smile. Like he always seems to know what’s going on in class, participating a lot, but it turns out he’s just really good at faking it. “Yeah, I don’t do the readings very often, but the discussions are always interesting! So I’m really enjoying the class!”

Healthy, tan skin. Call it her dreamy-rebellious side, but she has a thing for guys who look like they don’t care about traditional beauty standards. (Don’t expect to catch her without sunscreen on, though.)

He talks with a kind of roughness that also just sounds of sunshine and carelessness, but everything he says seems sincere. Like whatever comes out of his mouth is thoughtlessly flung out into the open while also being the most kind encouragements or clever jokes.

He’s funny. Nice to mostly everyone. When they’re together in class, she can almost forget about all the stress of college life, all the stress of the expectations from her father.

Naruto’s just so cool, it’s a miracle he even talks to her. It’s a miracle he includes her in his conversation, despite how quiet she is. It’s a miracle he even messages her, and she supposes that he must just be that nice and sociable.

Just absolutely one of the coolest people she’s ever met, and so she knows he absolutely would be weirded out by her secret hobbies.

So.

Why was he here in her workplace calling her “really cute” and “Hina-tan” with a huge smile?

How did he find out her secret so quickly after asking her about her part-time job??? Isn’t that coincidence too much? Why must the world do this to her???

To her great relief, she finds his message soothing her worries after her shift is over. “Sorry to surprise you like that today. I was really just passing by and happened to see you. Btw the maid outfit really suits you!”

Pleased heat rises to her cheeks. A kind of giddiness flits about her heart. “Thank you 😊 I was happy to see you” On reflection, yes, she was surprised, and she would’ve liked forewarning, but of course she was still glad to get to see him. Outside of the classroom. So it feels like their relationship has deepened past an initial friendship. Afterall, only her childhood friends know about how she likes to dress up and pretend she’s in a different world. None of her family knows. And…based on his reaction, maybe he’s not weirded out at all? “And I hope I didn’t make you feel like you couldn’t stay. You are welcome to visit again”

Surprisingly, he responds fairly quickly. “Only if Hina-tan is my server!”

He’s calling her by that nickname!!! “🙈 Okay, I’d be happy to! I work on Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday”

The following week, he’s got a huge grin on when he greets her in class. He’s even more open and friendly to her. And, as expected, he visits the maid cafe that Saturday with an antisocial-looking boy who seems like he’d rather not be there and a fashionable girl with pink hair.

She hopes the girl is just a friend of his and not something more. He hasn’t said anything about a girlfriend…

After she’s taken them to a table, he introduces her to them. “This is Hinata, my friend in my lit class. Hinata, this is Sasuke and Sakura.”

“Hello,” she greets, noticing how Sakura has a big smile. “Thank you for coming today.”

“Ohh, it’s my first time in a maid cafe! I’ve always wanted to try one. I’m so glad Naruto invited us to come here! You look so adorable!”

“Thank you,” she replies. If Sakura actually is Naruto’s girlfriend, she can’t be too upset about it when it seems like she’s really nice.

They order the only meal items, the nya-nya cat omurice, sweet curry doggy, and sleeping bear croquette, and when it comes time to pay, Naruto pays for his own dish. Sasuke pays for Sakura’s.

Hope rises in her heart once more.

“If you’re not busy tomorrow, you should join us at the movies!” Sakura invites.

“Oh! I might be able to.” She chances a glance at Naruto and he’s nodding.

He smiles. “I’ll send you the details. I hope you can join us.”

His warm tone makes her feel all fluttery inside. “Okay.”

As they’re leaving, she notices Sakura giving him a light punch on the arm, and they’re elbowing each other in a friendly way. He turns, catching her stare, and he gives her the cutest smile, yet.

“I hope you can join us.” His words replay in her mind even after they’ve left the cafe.

She might be jumping to conclusions…she may be making wild assumptions…but she thinks… She thinks that maybe…she was just invited to something like a double-date.

To Naruto’s message with the movie details, she replies, “I can come. Thank you for inviting me!”

“Great! See you tomorrow!”

“See you tomorrow :)”

Thanks to Sakura and Sasuke’s cooperation, he’s been able to hang out with Hinata this weekend. It turns out that Hinata enjoys anime, too, and she had been wanting to see this live-action adaptation.

And now that the movie is over, the couple is pretending they have to leave, and he’ll be able to ask her out on a real date.

“Thank you for coming out with us today, Hinata! Sasuke-kun and I have to go, so we can’t have dinner with you guys, but this was really fun!” Maybe Sakura should be trying to be an actor instead of a doctor.

“Thank you for inviting me. The movie was really good.” Hinata is picture-perfect polite and soft-spoken as usual.

“It was fun. See you guys.” Even Sasuke is approving of Hinata, having commented after the maid cafe that she’s not annoyingly try-hard cutesy the way he worried she would be.

“See you guys later! Thanks for coming out!” He bids goodbye to his childhood friends and turns to face Hinata.

She turns a shy smile up at him.

“So…would you like to get dinner with me?”

“Okay,” she agrees quietly, smiling, and the hyper-awareness surrounding them in their new solitude is too much for him.

He decides to just address it, and with adrenaline running smooth in his veins, he asks, “Can we call it a date?”

Her eyes widen, her cheeks pinken, and she nods with a bigger smile. “Yes, I’d like that.”

He finds himself mirroring her expression. “Alright,” he cheers. “Anywhere you want to go?”

“Mmm… how about we just walk around to look first?”

“Sure!”

He’s glad he happened to find out about her part-time job. Because, to be honest, he thinks he wouldn’t have thought they might be a good match. He wouldn’t have known she’s more than just a pretty face and a nice attitude. He would’ve been content to exist as her classmate-friend, just a friendly face in their literature class.

He wouldn’t have found out that she’d like a date with him, too.

And now, he can’t help but wonder what other unexpected miracles await him with her.

#thank you for reading!#nhmonth2023 #“Cookies” because I can only write small things

36 notes · View notes

sims4rococo · 5 months

Text

The Belvedere Pavilion at Versailles was built for Marie-Antoinette, who made use of the octagonal building as a music room. Under her instructions, the pavilion was designed in the newly popular neoclassical style, with its landscaped garden reflecting the passion for English gardens at the time. The pavilion’s architectural lines show a classical balance of proportion, and its interior reflects a studied refinement with its sculpture and the richness of its paintings. Over the centuries, the interiors and exteriors of the Belvedere suffered from aging materials and lack of maintenance. In recent decades, the exterior was threatened by impaired drainage systems that allowed rain to stream along the façade and reach the lower parts of the building. Moss and lichen grew on the surfaces and some elements of the decorative balustrades were lost. The interior also showed cracks along the walls and on the floor.

#sims 4 #versailles #rococó #felixandre #architecture #petit trianon #marie antoinette #ts4cc #baroque #gardens

29 notes · View notes

aksannyi · 2 months

Text

Left Behind (1/1) - Captain Swan

Emma and Killian are urban explorers, taking camera crews and checking out abandoned spots to get footage of these liminal spaces for their docuseries - Emma's on YouTube, and Killian's on Netflix, when they converge on one location by complete coincidence. They argue over who has the rights to film this location when they find themselves trapped, and they come to realize that they’re more alike than not.

(I have been more than a bit obsessed with watching explorations of abandoned locations and learning their history and I just needed to put Killian and Emma in one of them.)

“Whoa, look at this place! This is so creepy!” Mary Margaret lowered the camera she’d been holding to take in their surroundings, her jaw dropping as it came into view.

The building loomed before them, its dark, brick exterior peeking out from behind the thick overgrowth of trees and vines. It was massive, so massive that they couldn’t see the full length of it from where they stood, and its dark, partially broken windows gave only the suggestion as to what the interiors once held.

Emma Swan, of YouTube fame, along with her friends (and camera crew) David and Mary Margaret, had always had a fascination with abandoned locations. There was something so unsettling about these liminal spaces, as though she could step within and be transported to a different time. Perhaps even be someone else for a while.

“How long has it sat here?” David was always amazed by just how much a space could decay in a short period of time, particularly with no upkeep.

“2005, I think?” Emma chimed in, taking her phone out to do a quick search of the location. “Yeah, 2005.”

“There’s no way this building is only 20 years old, Emma, look at it.” Mary Margaret said it with a wave of her hands, as if to punctuate her statement.

“No, that’s just how long it’s been abandoned. It was built like, a hundred years ago. But it’s only been left to rot since 2005.”

They walked toward the building, taking care not to trip over the cracks in the pavement. They’d parked Emma’s car a bit further away, so as to not arouse suspicion. It was best not to draw anyone’s attention to their excursions. “A hundred years old,” David mused. “That makes more sense. They were probably doing a bit of maintenance when it shut down, but couldn’t keep up with all the problems such an old place would have.”

“Okay, Bob Vila,” Emma teased. She always joked that David must have been a carpenter in his past life ‘or something,’ because he was always talking about the structure and maintenance of these places.

“I’m just saying. If this building was only twenty years old, it wouldn’t look like that. Even if no one so much as picked up a broom.”

“All right, all right,” Mary Margaret intervened. “Let’s hurry up and get inside before someone sees us.”

“You see anyone?” Emma had been keeping an eye on their surroundings as they approached, but it was always a good idea to make use of everyone’s senses.

“No,” David said, taking another glance around.

“Not a soul,” Mary Margaret confirmed.

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54187552

They didn’t approach the front entrance of the building – that was almost certainly closed off, boarded up tight. Anyone wanting to keep someone out would have closed off the front door as their first line of defense, and it was probably the most heavily watched. Emma didn’t see any cameras, but if there were any, they’d be toward the main entrance of this dilapidated former hospital.

Instead, they headed toward an entrance to the side, which sat hidden under an awning of sorts, almost like it had been a hotel. She could see cars driving through here, picking up and dropping off patients, or perhaps ambulances. She shivered at the thought. Hospitals were not exactly her favorite place to be, even when they weren’t abandoned.

“Can you get it?” Mary Margaret was saying, watching over David’s shoulder as he used a crowbar to pry the doors apart. They had clearly been glass doors once. The glass was long gone, of course, but the doors were firmly boarded against trespassers.

Such as themselves. “Almost…” he grunted. “There!” The crowbar clanged to the ground loudly, startling all three of them as it echoed through the quiet space.

“Come on,” Emma beckoned, prying the doors a bit further apart and stepping carefully inside. They would have to try to close them when they left, so it would be best if they didn’t break anything.

“Oh my god,” Mary Margaret breathed as she took in the space.

It was a mostly empty room, save for a few thick support pillars, all of which had peeling paint and graffiti. “I FUCKED UR MOM” one of them proudly proclaimed, while others were considerably less coherent. There were a good number of swastikas and racial slurs throughout, and Emma rolled her eyes at the amount of blurring they’d have to do so that kind of crap would get minimal exposure. There were already enough assholes on the internet, no need to stoke those flames. She continued looking around, noting that the walls looked much the same, although there had clearly been a two-toned paint pattern, with some peeling wallpaper in a few spots.

A handful of chairs were scattered about, two of which were joined together, as waiting room chairs often were. One was turned on its side, and papers were scattered all around the floor – almost none of them containing anything legible, though a poster reminding patients about skin cancer still warned against the dangers of UV rays, even from its crinkled spot on the floor.

Some ceiling tiles were missing from the space, and stripped wires hung down, unimpeded. Some of the tiles lay broken on the ground, while a few others leaned against a wall. All of the fluorescent bulbs had been taken out, leaving only the shell of what was undoubtedly a bright, buzzing interior. A few boxes sat in the corner, their age apparent by the way they sagged beneath their own weight, and a lamp sat overturned, its lightbulb and shade both long gone.

“Wow,” Emma breathed, impressed. The first sight of any of these places was always the most breathtaking, and this was no exception. She knew that David had gotten her reaction, while Mary Margaret was busy filming the scenery.

“Smells kinda…musty,” Mary Margaret said, crinkling her nose at the smell.

“That’s an understatement.”

David was sure to keep Emma firmly in the frame, the light from his camera casting unnatural shadows in the darkened space.

“You’d think, with all the broken windows…” she trailed off. Would it really air out that much, with such a small amount of exposure to the outside air? Sure, there were plenty of broken windows, but many of them had been boarded up, and the ones that weren’t were quite a way off the ground.

“Well there’s a lot of dust,” David said, kicking at the dirt on the ground. The building seemed to hear them, as one of the ceiling tiles that had been leaning against the wall fell over, kicking up a cloud of dust that caused all three of them to start coughing. Sometimes, Emma wondered if it wouldn’t be a good idea for them to wear protective masks or something.

Emma cleared her throat, reaching into her backpack for a bottle of water. “You’re getting all of this, right?” She took a swig, then tossed it over to David, who caught it deftly, even with the massive camera on his shoulder.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” he confirmed.

“Good.”

Emma continued to walk around the space slowly, taking in everything. This was only the first room, a waiting area of sorts, and she knew there would be plenty of other spaces to explore. This type of abandoned building was a gold mine for decay junkies like her viewers. (And herself, obviously.)

“Look, some of the furniture is still here. Ugh, look at all that mold on the cushions. It amazes me how they just leave these places. It’s like one day they just…stopped coming here. Like they just locked the doors one day and never came back. Everything just left here.”

“That’s actually true though. This part of the building was never used as anything after the hospital closed.”

“Yeah, I think they wanted to use it but couldn’t find a tenant.”

“Hard to imagine why,” Emma murmured dryly. The building was in horrible condition, that much was clear.

“Well, it looks like looters did pretty well for themselves,” David commented, noting the obvious lack of furniture, fixtures, and even coverings for the electrical outlets.

A shrill, quick beep sounded from down a hallway, and all three of the occupants jumped in surprise.

“Oh Jesus! Was that a fire alarm? Low battery?” Emma would never admit it to a single soul, but the mournful chirping of a dying smoke detector was probably one of the most unsettling sounds in the universe. She hated that sound. She always changed the batteries in her smoke detector well before they could ever hope to get to the point of alerting her that they were barely clinging to life.

“I think so, yeah,” David confirmed.

Emma was unnerved. “How long has that thing just been beeping every few minutes?”

“Probably as long as the building has been vacant.”

“That’s so creepy,” Mary Margaret breathed, and Emma nodded in agreement. Glad I’m not the only one who thinks so.

The alarm chirped again insistently, and all three of them startled again, despite knowing to expect it.

“Case and point,” Mary Margaret added unnecessarily.

“Like they just up and left! Those things have battery backup, but they’re mostly electric, right David?” He nodded. “But the electricity has been off for years, and that thing has been beeping pitifully ever since?”

“There’s no way,” David supplied. “No batteries are that good. I wonder if they just keep a few smoke detectors rigged up in case of fire?”

“Ooh, yeah. Arson is a problem at some of these places.” Mary Margaret began to rattle off a list of other abandoned places, some of which had been burned to the ground by vandals looking to get a cheap thrill.

“But why would they care? The building is condemned. What difference does it make if it gets torched? They could rebuild something better.” Emma kicked at the ground, scoffing. “It isn’t like this place can be repaired.”

David shrugged under the camera. “Beats me.”

“Maybe it’s an insurance thing.” They would have to have smoke detectors on the premises to get an insurance settlement, right? That had to be it. The alarm chirped again, and Mary Margaret took a deep breath. “So how long would this one have been here before its battery dies?”

Emma set her backpack down on the ground and reached into her pocket for her phone. She clicked on a few things, then rattled off the answer: “This site says anywhere from a year to like, five years. Depends what batteries they used?”

“Really?” David seemed intrigued, and Emma knew that he would do some more research into this topic when they made it back to their hotel.

“Yeah, today I learned that smoke detectors work better with specific batteries.”

“Huh,” he responded, confirming that he, too, had learned this very thing today.

Beep

“That’s gonna get old,” Emma said, heaving a deep sigh.

David shrugged again. “Well, do you have a nine-volt battery?”

“Of course I don’t, David! Who the hell ever has a nine-volt battery?”

“Well then let’s just try to ignore it and keep going.”

Mary Margaret changed the subject. “Oh my god, look at this. That’s the reception desk.” She had walked across what had to have been the waiting area to a curved counter, faded turquoise, the formica cracked – and in some places, gone entirely. Above the counter, the outline of the letters RGEN Y were still visible, although many had been painted over by vandals, obscuring their original verbiage. “Look, you can still see the outline where the letters were. Wow, this was the ER.”

“Well, the ER waiting room. Or like, triage,” Emma corrected. The actual emergency rooms would be down the hallway a bit. She wondered if any of the beds or curtains were still there. Probably not.

“Wonder how many people died here?”

David coughed. “Good lord, MM, why are you so macabre?”

“Like seriously! I’m just saying! This place has got to be haunted.”

“We’re not Ghost Adventures,” Emma reminded her. While it would be cool to have a show on the Travel Channel alongside big name shows like Ghost Adventures, she wasn’t sure that their particular brand of entering – which often involved the “breaking” part of “breaking and entering” – would be palatable for TV, even for cable television.

“Oh, come on, Emma, they’d love this!” Mary Margaret’s eyes were shining. She loved the show, and even Emma had to admit that it was fun to watch late at night with the lights off. Even if Zak Bagans and his team were overdramatic as all get-out.

“All right, all right, now can you stop fangirling and get over here with the damn camera?”

She picked up the pace with a huff. “Coming.”

Emma was standing behind the reception desk, poking around. There had once been drawers, but they were long gone. A small piece of corroded wire stuck out from inside one of the recesses where the drawers used to be, and some broken glass sat atop the desk, covered in dust. “Look, there’s some files.”

Mary Margaret zoomed in on the small pile of paperwork. It was a stack less than a centimeter high, the file folders warped with moisture damage and mold. “Do they have anything important?”

“They’re all stuck together. But I’d really doubt that they were personal medical files just…left here.”

“That’d be one hell of a HIPAA violation. Did HIPAA even exist when this place was still operating?”

“Nice pun. And I think at the end? Maybe?” Emma shrugged. She didn’t really feel like looking it up this time, and the signal here was weak anyway. “These were probably like protocol files or something.”

“I guess we’ll never know,” David replied with an exaggerated inflection. “One of the great mysteries of this place.”

“Oh, not you too with the dramatic haunted house crap,” Emma grumbled. “You guys-“

Suddenly, there was a loud banging noise coming from somewhere else in the building, followed by a shuffling sound and a couple of thumps. All three of the explorers jumped before freezing, their eyes wide with fear.

“What the fuck was that?” Emma whispered, her voice wavering slightly.

“I told you this place was haunted.”

“Mary Margaret, I swear to-“

“A rat?” she supplied, keeping Emma from finishing whatever threat she’d been about to level.

“Would a rat have been that loud?” David asked, and they all knew the answer.

“No, but at least a rat wouldn’t be the worst thing we’ve encountered.” A few years ago, they’d come across an angry, terrified raccoon. They had no intention of harming it, but the wild animal certainly hadn’t known that, and it looked like it wanted their blood. Instead of exploring further, they’d turned around and explored other parts of the building, hoping it’d leave them alone.

It had.

Emma, David, and Mary Margaret still stood in place, not moving. Just as Emma was about to shake it off and get them back into the exploration, another series of noises wafted toward them.

It was voices, and they were muffled. Emma could only make out every few words or so. “We’re on…Haven … Hospital … 2005. … 1987 … was built, and it … the years, but nothing … building, who had hoped … hotel, … to rot …fell through.” Whoever it was had quite a monologue going, Emma mused.

Mary Margaret sighed. “There are other explorers in here?”

“Who the hell?” David asked.

“I think I know who that is,” Emma said, and she hoped she was wrong. “Hello?” she called out, alerting the others to their presence.

From the distance, she could vaguely hear another voice saying something about reshooting.

Emma wasn’t amused. She knew they had heard her, so why were they ignoring her? “Who’s there?”

“The last thing we need…” they heard, as the voices inched closer, “…some amateurs out here causing trouble.”

The voices were nearing, and there was one she definitely recognized. Damn it, not this guy. “Yeah, we need to get these trespassers out of here. They’re a liability.”

Emma heard the word trespasser and her blood ran cold. Shit. She couldn’t afford to get another trespassing charge. While she and her crew were always careful, that didn’t stop curious, concerned citizens calling in on them, which resulted in their getting citations more often than not.

But another group of urban explorers wouldn’t rat them out, would they?

Suddenly, an entire entourage came around a corner, three men and a short woman. Emma knew all of them. Killian Jones, the star of a Netflix documentary series about abandoned places, and his crew, Robin, Will, and Belle.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” she groaned as she spotted him, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms around her chest.

“Emma Swan,” Killian Jones said, looking as though he had just discovered buried treasure. Emma was far less amused at the sight of him, but then she realized that he’d said her name.

“You know me?”

“Of course I know you. We seem to explore quite a few of the same places. Killian Jones, at your service.” He stepped forward, offering his hand.

Emma didn’t take it. Instead, she stared him down. “I know who you are.”

He lowered his hand, wiping it on his jeans. “So then you understand why we’re here, exploring this place,” he said, as if that made the fact that he’d encroached on their shoot any less obnoxious.

“It’s a cool location that I’m sure will be extremely popular with my viewers.” Behind her, David coughed again, and she could practically hear Mary Margaret thinking, but neither said anything. They both knew about Emma’s dislike of Killian Jones and had listened to the way she’d rant about him after hate-watching his show. Neither David nor Mary Margaret understood Emma’s vitriol toward the man – or his series – but they were her friends, and friends let friends rant about Netflix docuseries and the smarmy British narrators who made them.

Or so Emma had said, once upon a time.

“I would say the same, which is why I’m here.”

Emma wasn’t budging. “Well I heard you talking about kicking us out of here. You don’t own the building, so you have no right.”

He stepped forward, and Emma steeled in her resolve not to move. She wouldn’t let this guy push her around. “Given how nervous you were when we came around that corner, it seems that you felt as though you were caught. Breaking and entering, Swan? Is that how you get to all these places the other YouTubers don’t ever seem to hit?”

“It appears that way, doesn’t it,” she said, leaving the last word to hang between them for a few minutes.

He shook his head. Behind him, she watched his crew stand silently, though a look passed between Belle and Will. “Tsk. Do your viewers approve?”

“I’m not stupid! I would never put anything incriminating on film. Which reminds me – you’re going to need to delete that footage.”

“Well this certainly got a bit more interesting,” he mused, and there was that look passing between his crew members again. Emma felt her hackles raising.

“Listen, we’re just here exploring. How we got in here is irrelevant, isn’t it?” David chimed in from behind Emma, sensing Emma’s growing annoyance. She turned her head and looked back over her shoulder, shaking it slightly. Let me handle this, was the message.

Killian was already replying. “I wouldn’t say that it’s irrelevant-“

“Isn’t it? We’re here now.” She shrugged slightly, scuffing her boot on the dusty floor. “But it also appears that you’re doing the same exact thing, so I don’t get why-”

“Not quite. You’re going to have to leave.”

“Hold on a minute, we were here first! And if you’re breaking in, too, I don’t see how you have the right to tell us we’re wrong. A bit hypocritical,” she pointed out. Killian rolled his eyes, but didn’t address the accusation.

“Ahh, but you see, I’m filming a professional production,” he supplied.

“What the hell do you think we’re doing?”

He shrugged. “Being amateurs,” was his response.

“Asshole,” she spat.

“An honest asshole.” Emma’s YouTube channel was very popular, and her videos got hundreds of thousands of views, but they weren’t, strictly speaking, professionals as far as the industry was concerned. It was one of the pitfalls of content creation platforms – it was a job, but at the same time, it wasn’t. And it pissed her off that Killian was right. They were amateur filmmakers. Talented amateur filmmakers, but amateurs nonetheless. That still didn’t give him the right to be a dick, though.

“Honest my ass! You don’t get to come in here and kick us out when you’ve just done the exact same thing you’ve accused us of doing. “

“I-“

She put her hand up to stop him, gesturing with her finger as she spoke. “So just turn around, walk your ass the other way, and get the hell out. We were here first.”

It was clear that she wasn’t going to listen to his explanation, so he decided he’d try to be diplomatic. This space was enormous, surely they could get enough unique footage to satisfy both of their audiences.

“Look, we’re both here now, why don’t we just do this together? You don’t have to get me in any shots, and I’ll keep you out of mine. We can agree to be silent while the other team is talking, aye?”

“Why would I do that? You’ll get all the same footage as us.”

He drew in a sharp breath. “While I might get some of the same footage as you, you may have noticed that this building is massive. And besides, why are you so worried about overlapping footage when your video will be posted before my film is edited and released?”

“Are you saying we don’t edit our footage?” Emma was rarely this easily angered, but he’d managed to strike every nerve he possibly could in the short time they’d been speaking to each other.

Killian drew a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Emma waited silently, giving him the opening to answer her question. She could tell that he was getting aggravated with her. Good, she thought. Maybe she’d piss him off enough that he’d get tired of arguing and just leave so they could get back to filming.

“I’m saying you’re not professionals. We are. And professional productions take time.”

“Fuck you. “

“Perhaps later, you may wish to clean yourself up first.”

She balked, resisting the urge to repeat her previous statement, lest he take it even further. “Listen, just because you’re some bigshot Netflix star doesn’t mean you get to treat everyone else around you like shit. My channel has been steadily growing for the past ten years, I have a solid viewership, and I know what I’m doing. So why don’t you take your big, expensive camera crew back around that corner and go fuck off to somewhere else.”

He shook his head. “After all the work I’ve done on this location? You’re mad.“

“All that work and yet, we still got here first.”

“Fine. We’ll do this the hard way then.” He nodded his head to one side, indicating that his crew should follow him. Robin had set his camera down, and he picked it back up, following Killian’s lead. “We’re on the site of the Mist Haven Memorial Hospital, which closed in 1987. It saw a few ownership changes in the time since, but fully closed – and was left abandoned – in 2005. When the-“

Emma started speaking over him. “We’re going to head down the hallway-“

He raised his voice, continuing, “they thought they could transform the building-“

“remnants they’ve left behind-“

Killian stopped, rolling his head back and interrupting her. “You’re polluting my footage.”

“You’re polluting my footage.”

They were in a standoff, staring each other down. Behind them, both crews stood quietly, watching but unwilling to interrupt. Emma narrowed her eyes, then Killian narrowed his. They both took twin deep breaths, and Killian tilted his head slightly with a saucy wink, knowing it would irritate her.

“Ugh!” This was going to cost so much extra time in editing, to remove all traces of Killian fucking Jones and his stupid fucking documentary voice. She turned around, motioning for Mary Margaret and David to follow her.

“Come around this way, look down this hallway! One of these rooms is where a nurse was stabbed.”

“Guess it’s a good thing they were already in the ER,” David supplied, and Emma let out a slight puff of air, amused. She was still annoyed, and she couldn’t seem to get a natural flow back knowing that Killian Jones was there, probably overhearing everything she said. She kept speaking, but despite her best efforts she couldn’t shake the feeling of being observed. She hoped that their footage past this point wouldn’t look forced or unnatural.

“This hallway is creepy,” Belle spoke up behind her, after having been instructed to also continue observing the space as though the other team was not there.

Killian continued into a nearby room, continuing his history lesson. “Back in this room, the founder of the hospital died, which was the first death knell in the lifespan of this hospital. A series-“

“Look at how this handrail is falling off!” Emma exclaimed, much louder than she’d have normally pointed out a feature of a location. Her team was still in the hallway, but she knew that her voice would carry and the other team would have to reshoot. She gloated inwardly. “David, zoom in on that.”

“Oh gross, it’s moldy,” Mary Margaret added, getting a different angle.

“Christ, that stinks,“ Emma continued, wrinkling her nose and stepping back.

“Opened back in 1927, this hospital saw the worst parts of the Great Depression, as people suffered from easily curable diseases they simply had no money to pay to eradicate. Suicides were at an all-time high, and many of the nurses sat right here on watch, trying to ensure-“

“This room is freezing,” Emma interrupted again, and Killian glared at her.

“Reshoot,” he said with a sigh, the obnoxious chirp of the dying smoke detector punctuating his statement. “You know, we could take turns-“

She interrupted, pretending to ignore him completely. “All these patients, all these rooms, now empty. Left to rot, like-“

“Water damage,” Killian pointed out, stepping in front of Emma’s crew and crouching near the baseboard to get a closer look at the line that indicated that there had been some type of flood.

“Really?!”

“What? You interrupted me, I feel it only right that I should do the same.”

“You’re the most aggravating-“

He stood back up, turning to face her, gesturing with his hands as he spoke. “Hey now, I offered to share the space. You wanted to do this the hard way. So by all means, keep going. I’m going to do my job. My editors are going to charge me double for this.”

“Then get the hell out of my shots.”

“My shots.”

They stared each other down, but neither of them wanted to concede even an inch. “I’m wasting time,” Killian said to his crew, turning and continuing to talk about the location. “It’s eerie, isn’t it, the way this bedframe is just situated at an angle? It certainly wasn’t like that while the hospital was operable-“

“Oh my god, look at the writing in here! What the fuck does that even say?” She ran her fingers along the letters, faded from years of wear and tear, and unintelligible.

“Swan, you can’t curse on my footage,” he growled.

“I’m not on your footage.”

“Unfortunately, you are.”

“Emma-“ Mary Margaret began, but Emma ignored her, focusing solely on getting Killian Jones out of this damn abandoned hospital.

“Could you just go away?”

“No can do, Swan. I’ve a deadline to meet.”

“Killian-“ Robin spoke up, but he was also ignored.

They were standing at a doorway, and Emma turned to enter the room at the same time as Killian did. The doorway was not narrow, but they jostled for position all the same, Emma bracing her hand on the doorframe and standing with her legs far apart, raising her elbows to shove him when he tried to pass. “I was here first!”

He elbowed her back. “You keep saying that, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve got a film to make.”

David spoke up again, sighing. “Come on, Emma, we can go to the other side of the building.”

“Why should I? We got here first. They can go shoot over there and come back here later.” She stepped on Killian’s foot, and he kneed the back of her thigh. He was now bracing himself on the other side of the door frame, refusing to give an inch. It was childish, and they both knew it, but neither wished to be the one to forfeit.

“When there’s less light? Hardly.”

“Jones…” Will tried, as unsuccessfully as the other crew members, to get them to stop.

“Bugger off,” was Killian’s response as he took an elbow to the back.

“Let me in the goddamn room!”

“Watch your elbow,” he grunted out after she hit him with it a third time.

“Well, if you’d let me in the room I wouldn’t have hit you!”

“Listen, I offered for us to share-“ They were both bracing on the doorframe still, and he heard a slight cracking sound, as though the wooden frame was faltering. They both stopped, their limbs still half-entangled from their battle.

“What the fuck was that?” There was another crack, and Killian released the doorframe.

“We should probably-“

It was as if everything happened all at once: the building was creaking and groaning and the next minute, the foundation above the doorway was falling away, causing the beams from the ceiling to fall. He didn’t even think, just jumped toward her, pushing her toward the ground and out of the way of the falling beam. He landed on top of her with a grunt, but they seemed to have avoided the biggest pieces of debris.

A few more rumbles and they heard more of the building crashing down around them. He could hear Emma beneath him, screaming, and he couldn’t exactly blame her.

The dust settled. A small bit of light peeked through a crevice in the debris, and he could see that the space they were in was pretty tight – they’d narrowly missed being crushed to death.

They both spoke at the same time.

“Ahh, shit!”

“Bloody hell.”

“You can get off me whenever.”

He shuffled away carefully, trying to make sure he didn’t disturb anything that had fallen around them, in case the building wasn’t done yet “Sorry,” he apologized awkwardly.

“No… thank you.” He could tell what a supreme effort it took for her to thank him, but even Emma Swan couldn’t be so crude as to refuse to thank someone for saving her life.

“I do suppose gratitude is in order.”

“Yeah that’s why I thanked you. And I don’t think this is something you can flirt your way out of, hotshot. Unless those pouty lips can lift this door frame.”

He chose not to comment on the descriptor she’d chosen for his lips. “Unfortunately, my lips lack the skills to lift heavy wooden beams out of the way. They do, however, have other skills…”

“Ugh! Stop!”

“Fine, fine, I’ll stop,” he said, laughing slightly. “You do realize that I’m just trying to get a rise out of you?”

“You succeeded. Now we need to find a way to get out of here.” She looked around, surveying the damage. The space they were in was just barely big enough for the two of them to sit up, and neither dared to lean on anything. “How the fuck did this happen?”

“We’ve both been exploring for years. These buildings are all falling apart. It’s a wonder it hadn’t happened sooner.”

“Well that’s comforting,” she muttered. “Don’t you have people who come out to check these places first? Like, for safety? For your big, professional productions?”

“Of course I do, and I’m given specific instructions on places I should avoid for this very reason. This part of the building was determined by the insurance adjuster to be sound.”

“Well, someone fucked up.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Us.”

She was immediately on the defensive. “You think that our argument caused this?”

He looked at her, his eyes glinting mischievously. “Perhaps it was your yelling, it disturbed the delicate foundations of this place.” She narrowed her eyes.

“Perhaps it was your gigantic ego being incapable of fitting through the door.”

“Perhaps- “

She sighed. “Perhaps arguing isn’t fucking getting us out of here. Come on, if we reach up here we can probably-“

He shook his head, taking another long look around the space. He couldn’t be sure that they weren’t under several layers of debris down here. If they moved one thing, everything else could come crashing down. “Love, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

She glared at him. “You got a better one?”

He took his phone out of his pocket, clicking the home button and seeing that he had no service. Emma mirrored his action, seeing her phone screen was cracked.. She groaned as she attempted – unsuccessfully – to turn it on. Calling for help was out of the question.

“Wait for rescue?” He asked, and even he knew it sounded pathetic. She let out an incredulous huff.

“From who?”

“The crew?”

Oh God, the crew! In their current predicament, she’d forgotten that she’d brought two other people in here with her, and that Killian had brought his team, as well. “Do you hear them? What if they- oh god, what if they’re all… it’d be my fault, I dragged them here…”

“Shit.” It was quiet. He thought they’d have heard some yelling by now. What if he’d been responsible for killing his entire crew?

“If they’re… and we’re stuck here… how long…?” She found it hard to speak the word. If they were dead. Dead. She felt tears welling up in her eyes. These were her best friends. She would never live with herself if she survived and they hadn’t.

“I don’t know.” He let out a long breath. Emma could tell that he, too, felt the weight of responsibility for the people he’d brought with him.

“Would anyone nearby be able to hear the crash? Would they think to look for people?”

“My truck is parked outside, so I’d hope so,” he replied. Sure, they hadn’t parked directly in front of this exact location, but eventually someone would find it odd that there was a car parked in front of an abandoned hospital.

“Mine, too.“

“That ridiculous yellow contraption?”

She felt her irritation rising again at his tone. “I like it” The Bug was old, but it was hers – one of the first things that she’d ever bought for herself.

“It fits you, I guess,” he said, and she snapped her head to look at him.

“And what does that mean?”

“That thing looks like it’s held together by duct tape and dreams. Kind of like-“

“Do not finish that statement,” she warned. She didn’t know what he’d been about to say, but it couldn’t have been anything kind, judging by their conversation so far. She sighed. For a moment, it had seemed like they were starting to get along, but now he was antagonizing her again.

“Fine,” he snapped.

“Fine,” she snapped back.

The silence enveloped them, and Emma realized at that moment just how little space they had. She could see that there were some small openings in the debris – she could barely see the light from one of the windows – so it wasn’t like they would run out of air, but the space was not a comfortable one by anyone’s definition. She wondered what would happen if they had to sleep here – if they had to spend the night, waiting for rescue, in a tiny space where perhaps one errant move could send the rest of the building upon them.

It was only when Killian spoke again that she realized she’d started breathing a bit more rapidly. “Your breathing is disrupting my thinking.”

“Oh, I’m sure your thoughts are exhilarating,” was her reply. As much as she’d tried to sound sarcastic, she was secretly glad that he’d drawn her out of her headspace.

“They are, actually. Not that I can hear myself think over the sound of you hyperventilating.”

“Well excuse me for panicking! We could die in here, and you’re hellbent on antagonizing me!” He recoiled, realizing that his attempts to lighten the mood with teasing had not been taken in jest. “This is your fault!”

It was his turn to be defensive. “How in the hell is this my fault?”

“If you hadn’t come around that corner and bothered us while we were filming…” she waved her hand, seemingly showing the result of him walking into the hospital.

“Oh, so I was supposed to just know you were here?”

“You could have just seen us and turned around. Let us do our thing. It isn’t like the building is going anywhere.”

He turned his head toward her slowly, giving her a pointed, incredulous look.

She swallowed. “Okay, so the building was going somewhere. How were we supposed to know that?”

“Exactly, love,” he nodded. “How were we supposed to know that?”

Emma huffed, a short breath pushing a few errant strands of hair away from her face, and she reached up to brush her hair back behind her ear. As much as she wanted to blame Killian Jones for all of her current woes, she knew as well as he did that they were both responsible for their predicament. Had they not been shoving each other like a couple of five-year-olds, the building probably would still be mostly intact.

He was still talking, she realized. “And we could have collaborated, if you’d been amenable to it.”

“Could you cut out the proper British guy act? This isn’t fucking National Geographic.” Who the hell uses words like amenable?

“I hate to break it to you, love, but this is my natural accent.”

“I mean your stupid vocabulary,” she amended, and he snorted, trying to keep from laughing.

“The mere fact that I have a vocabulary indicates that it is not stupid.” And damn it, she hated that he was right. Again.

She sighed. “This sucks.”

“On that, I am in agreement with you.”

“Fuck, I don’t even have my backpack on me.” Killian raised an eyebrow, silently asking her to elaborate as to why that mattered. “My backpack has water. Some snacks.”

“Planning on getting trapped?”

“No. But you so eloquently pointed out my ‘yellow contraption,’ which is kind of old. I like to be prepared. Plus, I like to snack. We spend hours in these places. You mean to tell me you don’t bring snacks? You don’t have anything to drink?”

“We keep a cooler of water in the truck, but snacks, no. Not on location,” he mused. He’d never thought to bring snacks into one of these places; they would shoot different parts of the documentary at different times, and they could always grab something to eat while outside the venue.

“On location,” she mimicked, her horrible rendition of his accent making him snort with laughter. “You sound so pretentious.”

“I’m a filmmaker, love. That’s what it’s called.”

“Totally pretentious.” He couldn’t stop himself from laughing, snickering softly under his breath.

Emma was less amused. “What’s funny about this?”

“I’m laughing at you,” he replied with another shake of his shoulders, though he at least managed to contain his grin.

“Yeah, sure, laugh at me, kick me while I’m down! We’re both in here, we’re both gonna die! Why aren’t you taking this seriously?”

“I am!”

“No you’re not!”

“Okay, well, first of all, we’re not going to die, and I was just trying to make you feel a bit better,” he said with a shrug, his tone apologetic. He realized that his approach with Emma had been wrong. She was far too guarded to find the humor in a situation such as this, and he should have contained himself, at least more than he had.

“Why should I?” She asked, throwing her hands up. “Feel better, I mean?”

“What’s the use in panicking? You’ll use more energy,” was his response.

“Why should that matter? We’re not going to be pushing our way out of here, we’ve already established that.”

He reached to push her hands down, keeping a grip on her wrist. He was surprised when she didn’t push his hand away. “When a crew comes to let us out, you might need some strength.”

“When. You seem awfully confident,” she retorted, her eyes betraying the worry she’d been trying to conceal. Despite her tough exterior, he could tell that Emma was more afraid than she’d let on.

“People know I’m here,” he said, hoping to provide an extra bit of reassurance. “They will be expecting to hear from me.”

“People other than your crew?” She swallowed again, trying not to think too hard about what might have happened to their friends.

“Yes, believe it or not,” he replied. “People actually care about me. People who aren’t on my payroll.”

At that, she cracked a smile, but decided to keep playing the role. “Like who?” she asked, as if she didn’t believe him.

“Like my brother, who will no doubt gloat about my idiocy in getting trapped in here, and who will be sure to tell me to stop my ‘foolish dangerous hobby,’ as he calls it.” Emma dropped the façade immediately, becoming indignant on Killian’s behalf.

“It’s not a hobby if you get paid for it.”

“Exactly. I told him that. This is my job. A job I quite enjoy.” As an afterthought, he added, “most of the time.”

“This is mine, too.”

He was surprised by that. It wasn’t easy to be able to support oneself with a career in content creation. “Really?”

“It’s almost impossible to produce good, quality YouTube content like this without committing to it. I worked for the first few years while I ran my channel, and you can tell by the quality of my videos, because I didn’t have the time to devote to the locations, or the time for editing them the way we do now Then I…I lost my mother,” she took a shaky breath and felt him squeeze her arm, “my adoptive mom, I never knew my real mother – and I decided then that I’d pursue this for real. She left me a bit of money, so I could comfortably quit and try to make this happen. If it didn’t work out, I’d at least know I tried. If it did – well, I’d be where I am right now.”

“Trapped in a collapsed building with me.”

“Maybe I should have kept my job,” she joked, but there was no bite behind it.

“Am I all that bad?”

No, she wanted to say, but somehow couldn’t form the word. It had been hard for her to let people in, to trust people, and she was already trusting him a lot more than she’d ever intended upon. True, she hadn’t expected to meet him and then become trapped in a tight space under a partially collapsed building, but she still wasn’t ready to be completely open.

He could see her warring with herself, so he continued. “I think we’ve got quite a bit in common, love. You say you never knew your birth mother, I’m assuming that extends to your birth father, as well?” He paused, and she nodded in response. “My mother died when I was four, then my father abandoned my brother and I when I was five. Liam was fifteen. One of his friends’ mums took us in so we wouldn’t get separated from each other. She kind of became my second mum.”

“What happened to her?” Emma asked, though she sensed there was no happy ending to this story.

“She died,” he said, swallowing hard. “Last year. Cancer.”

“It’s a bitch,” she said softly.

He chuckled darkly in response. “Indeed.”

Emma didn’t know how to respond, other than the usual platitudes and sympathy, and she had a feeling that he wasn’t one for wallowing. She was the same way. Hearing people offer sympathy to her forced her to think about it, and she didn’t want to think about it.

“Let me ask you something, Swan,” he said softly, and she lifted her head up.

“Hmm?”

“Is that why your series is named ‘Left Behind’?”

“Um. Yeah, actually.” She was surprised. There were so few people who understood the double meaning of her series title, and in mere hours he’d picked up on it.

He nodded sadly. “I knew I saw it in you. The look of someone who had been abandoned. You put so much love and care into these explorations. You’re fascinated by things left behind, but you recognize the tragedy in it all..” She was too stunned to reply. “We’re more alike than you think.”

That shook her out of it. “I suppose. And what about your series? ‘Desolate and Deserted’?” She watched him reach to scratch behind his ear, a nervous gesture that made him seem oddly endearing.

“Aye, I was in a kind of rough patch when I came about the name. My girlfriend had just left me to go be with one of my mates, and I felt pretty much desolate and deserted.” He stopped for a moment, then continued. “Looking back, it never would have worked out, so I guess I should thank her for it, but the name is rather unfortunate, at that.”

“Ugh, I’m sorry. Cheaters are the worst. No one should have to go through that. It’s a shitty feeling.” Feeling like you’re unwanted, she didn’t add, but she didn’t have to. He understood.

“I told you. We’re more alike than you think.”

“I suppose we are.” It was weird, realizing that she may have been wrong about him, and that for all his bravado as portrayed on TV, he was just as flawed and broken as she was. “Look, I’m sorry for all of that, back there. Being the first to explore a location, that’s kind of my whole thing. Audiences are fickle, and I’m terrified of losing everything I’ve built.”

“I understand, Swan. More than you think. When you come from nothing-“

“Do you hear something?” They both sat silently, listening for something out of the ordinary. Then he heard it – some faint yelling. Were people here already, looking for them? Should they begin yelling?

The yelling was getting closer, though they couldn’t make out what the person was saying. Whoever it was didn’t seem to know where they were. “Is that-“

Mary Margaret interrupted him, her voice calling loudly from what must have just been outside the room they were in. “Emma! Killian! You guys in there?”

“Jones!” Robin’s voice called, and he heard Belle and Will calling further off in the distance.

“They’re alive,” he breathed.

“Oh thank God,” Emma replied, heaving a huge sigh. Not only were the people she loved alive – and probably fine, but they were actively looking for them.

“We’re here!” She yelled as loud as she could. Killian flinched and tried not to cover his ears, despite the volume of her voice. “We’re both fine! A few scratches!”

“Killian?” Will shouted, apparently needing to hear him.

“I’m fine! What took you lot so long?”

Even through a thick brick wall and a mountain of debris, Killian could hear Will’s biting tone: “We were trying to get out, you wanker!”

“We thought you were dead!” Mary Margaret yelled. “You weren’t calling for us, so we assumed…”

“We thought you were dead!” Emma shouted, and wiped a tear that had started rolling down her cheek. When they got out of here, she was going to give Mary Margaret and David the biggest hug imaginable.

“We’re calling 911! Don’t kill each other!”

“WHAT!?” Emma bellowed, her face turning to panic. The group outside didn’t respond, so she assumed that they were already in the process of calling.

“How else do you think they’re going to get us out of here? Divine intervention?” Killian asked.

She rolled her eyes. “The cops will come.”

“So?”

“We’re trespassing. Why are you not freaking out? We’re trapped under all this shit, the foundation is probably not that sturdy given… everything… and we’re going to get arrested once they pull our stupid asses out of here. How can you be so calm?”

“I have a permit, along with liability insurance,” he replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“You do?” Now it all made sense, the way he’d reacted to her crew breaking into the location.

“You mean to tell me you don’t?”

“Would I be freaking out if I did?”

“Fair point,” he conceded. He had been teasing her earlier, but now it seemed that their explorations were a lot more amateur than he’d thought. When they got out of here, he’d try to convince her that she should start doing things the legal way. That wasn’t a conversation to be had at this particular moment. “But anyway, my insurance specifies ‘Killian Jones and his crew.’ None of their names are listed on the document.”

What did that have to do with anything? she wondered. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that you could pretend to be a part of my crew – you and your own crew – and you can avoid the charges associated with trespassing.”

It was a generous offer, one Emma couldn’t believe he would make. “Why would you do that? After all the shit I’ve given you today?”

“What kind of person would I be if I didn’t?”

She didn’t respond, because she realized that everything she’d said about him earlier had been borne of assumptions, almost all of which were wrong.

He continued. “An asshole?”

“Listen, I didn’t mean…I mean…” she pursed her lips together. She knew she had to apologize, but Emma wasn’t always the greatest at admitting when she was wrong.

“No, no, I’m your competition, after all. That’s why you were so upset that we were here. You don’t want to lose half your viewers to my episode.”

“I mean, you’re not really my competition.” His eyebrows shot to the sky, and she quickly amended, “You’re not a YouTuber. Our audiences are not the same, and people expect different things on YouTube than they do on Netflix.”

“So then you really shouldn’t have been so upset about us being here,” he pointed out, and she shrugged. He was right.

“But to be fair, we are often covering the same locations, a fact that you have mentioned more than a few times in your videos.”

Emma was shocked. “You’ve watched my videos?” It shouldn’t have been such a surprise, given that he’d recognized her on sight, but she still felt flustered at the knowledge that someone as prominent as Killian Jones, a renowned documentary filmmaker who had a non-zero amount of Emmy nominations throughout his career, sat down to watch her videos.

Suddenly, she wanted to know more. Did he subscribe to her channel? Was he familiar with her posting schedule? Had he ever commented on one of her videos before?

“I’m just full of surprises, aren’t I? They’ll get us out of here, I’ll give them my insurance information, I’ll say we were all here filming together, and we can go our separate ways. Nothing to worry about, Swan.”

No one had ever called her by her last name before, and she kind of liked it, loathe as she was to admit it to herself. “Thank you.” She waited for him to make a snarky comment, or to make another flirtatious remark about how she could properly show her gratitude. When he didn’t, she turned to look at him, noting the way his eyes had softened.

“And when the firemen finally get us out of here, I’d like to take you to dinner.”

“Can’t just let a favor go for free, can we?” she snarked, immediately regretting her words when she saw him flinch slightly. She let out an apologetic breath, giving him the space to continue.

“Well you see,. I quite fancy you, when you’re not yelling at me.”

If someone had told her this morning that not only would she meet Killian Jones, but she’d be sitting next to him under a pile of rubble while he confessed to liking her, she’d have called that person a dumbass. And yet…

And yet.

He watched the surprise play across her face before continuing. “I’ve watched your videos for years, Swan. Not to copy your locations – we have similar tastes, is all. I actually enjoy your content. You have a fresh enthusiasm that my documentaries lack. A – youthfulness, a feeling of whimsy.”

“Yours are kind of clinical,” she agreed, a smile playing at the corners of her lips. “How old are you anyway? Fifty?” Emma Swan was not one for sincerity, but teasing? That, she could do.

He ignored the age comment, pointing playfully. “I knew you watched them!” His wide grin was perhaps the most endearing thing Emma had ever seen.

“Sometimes there’s nothing else on Netflix,” she shrugged. He narrowed his eyes at her, letting her know that he didn’t believe her for a second.

“Okay, okay! I’ve watched them! The history you dig up is really interesting. I sometimes wish I went through all the trouble before getting to these places. I mean, we do get a little bit of background, but you’re like an abandoned building archaeologist. The stuff you find out about these places is fascinating.”

“It does give the exploration more depth,” he agreed. It was a lot of work, the research that went into each of his videos, not to mention the interviews and location shots. He was glad to hear that someone he admired as much as Emma appreciated it.

“Tell me the history of this place.”

“Now, now, Swan, no spoilers.”

She rolled her eyes. “I think I know how this episode ends already,” she joked, and he had no response to that.

“All right, so, George Mills made a fortune in the steel industry at the turn of the century. He was one of the first to open a steel mill just outside Pittsburgh, which – as you know – is well-known for steel production. He met his wife there, a woman half his age by the name of Regina Barnes. She was, according to many accounts, a tyrant, and just prior to the first World War, she forced him to sell the mill and move their family – they had three kids at this point – and settle in this area.”

“Why here?” Northern Maine wasn’t particularly close to Pittsburgh, so it seemed an odd choice.

“She had ‘a feeling about this place.’ A small, unincorporated area of the country, well off the beaten path, and she wanted to live there. She packed up her family, ‘convinced’ dozens of families to leave Pittsburgh with them, and they all settled down and incorporated the town of Storybrooke, which holds its name to this day.”

Killian’s use of air quotes had not gone unnoticed. She imitated the motion, asking, “Convinced?”

“Coerced. Allegedly.” Emma gave him a pointed look, urging him to continue. “She was apparently great at getting dirt on people, which was an excellent means for her to get her way. So she basically brought a small town’s worth of people with her to settle down, got them all to build her a mansion which, sadly, burned down about ten years ago, and appointed herself mayor of the town.”

“Her husband wasn’t bothered by this?”

“He was very enamored of her, it seems.”

“Or she had something on him, too,” Emma suggested, and he nodded slightly.

“We’ll never know, I suppose. Anyway, that’s how this hospital came to be. One of their children developed a chronic illness, and rather than travel to another city for healthcare, she blackmailed a doctor out of Boston and had the hospital built. They began construction in 1920, and the first wing of the hospital opened that year. This whole massive building was built and operational by 1927, funded in part by the number of disabled war veterans needing continuous care. Storybrooke was a thriving small town at that point, and the hospital was the largest for miles for over thirty years.

“It saw the tail end of the depression, had a major boom during the Second World War, as did the town. George Mills died shortly after the war, and Regina inherited his fortune. She ran the town, and the hospital was part of the town. She wasn’t mayor anymore, but every subsequent mayor answered to her. She had the money, and with it, the power. There is a lot of scandal surrounding Regina Barnes-Mills, so much that I can’t possibly put it all in the episode. I could do an entire documentary on her alone.”

“Why don’t you?”

“I don’t have time, for one. Perhaps I will revisit her story someday.” He paused, heaving a slight sigh. “Anyway, she died in 1983. She was 102 years old then, and held onto control right up until the end. Following her death, her children had a huge battle with each other over inheritance. Our lovely Mayor hadn’t been too clear about her intentions. Some local historians say that she didn’t intend to die.” He paused, giving Emma a chance to giggle. “The familial in-fighting and lack of leadership at the hospital was essentially its death warrant, though there were many other factors. Newer, more state-of-the-art facilities, people leaving the town, and the questionable decision to convert the hospital – well, a wing of it, at least – to a mental health facility. Problem was, there weren’t enough patients locally, so they kind of… outsourced.”

“I take it that didn’t go well?”

“Not as such, no. There were some lawsuits over the mistreatment of patients, and the hospital closed in 1987. A wealthy investor bought this place hoping to turn it into a hotel, and some parts of the building were converted into rooms. That lasted a couple years. It’s not like this area is a tourist hotspot. Except, you know, for people like us who want to explore decrepit, abandoned places,” he joked.

“I know the rest, I think. They couldn’t find anyone else to buy it and there was a huge fire all the way on the other side of the building. People wrote it off, right?”

“That’s essentially it, yes. And here it sits.”

“And here we sit,” she grumbled, heaving a deep sigh. He responded with a sigh of his own. They sat in silence for a few moments, and Emma pretended to be supremely interested in her cuticles.

Killian broke the silence. “So, have I made this place more interesting to you?

“Nah,” she said, shaking her head and trying to hide her smile from him.

“I beg your-“ He grabbed her wrist, causing her to look at him. “You were hanging onto my every word!”

Emma couldn’t help but laugh. He was so offended at her feigned disinterest. “Perhaps I was merely appreciative of the messenger.”

“And not the message?”

She huffed out a breath, pushing an errant strand of hair away from her face. “I was trying to compliment you.”

“You were?” He raised an eyebrow at her, waiting for her to continue. When she didn’t, he cleared his throat slightly. “All right then. Thank you.”

She opened her mouth to respond, but didn’t get the chance. “You guys all right in there?” Robin’s voice carried over the rubble.

“Fine!” Emma called, trying not to be too annoyed at the interruption from outside. They were just trying to help, after all.

Killian seemed to sense her frustration. “But you could get us out, yeah?

“The firemen are on their way. Try not to kill each other,” Robin advised. Killian made a mental note to remind Robin later that he didn’t need a second over-protective older brother.

“No promises,” Killian shouted back, winking at Emma as he did so.

Right then, she seemed to make a decision about something. “Okay,” she said, agreeing to an unknown prompt.

“Okay what?”

“Okay I’ll go to dinner with you,” she replied, her eyes glinting with amusement at the way his face lit up.

“Really Swan, what changed your mind?”

“I quite ‘fancy you’ as well,” she replied, in a poor imitation of his accent.

“Emma Swan, were you watching my documentaries to admire the locations, or just to admire me?” he teased, wiggling his eyebrows in an animated fashion.

“You really are such a dick sometimes.” The insult was spoken, but it had no bite.

He shrugged casually. “It’s part of my charm.”

“I suppose.”

“But you didn’t answer my question,” he pressed, and she looked down at her fingers again, picking at one of her nails.

“Both,” she muttered.

“Both?” He repeated, wanting to be sure he’d heard her.

She threw her hands up exasperatedly. “Both the locations, and you. All right?”

“Was that so hard?”

“Admitting that I’ve been a bitch to you all this time because I didn’t want you to know that I liked you?”

And there it was, out in the open. Sure, there had been the worry about him getting all of the prime bits of footage before she could manage it, but the real reason she was being so prickly was that she hadn’t wanted to admit to him – or to herself, for that matter – that she liked him. Kind of a lot.

“I wasn’t going to say it.” He knew better than to use that particular word in reference to a woman. She smiled then, surprisingly relieved that it was out in the open now.

“So what do you say, Swan, care to plan a collab? Starting here?”

What did she have to lose? “Okay,” she said. “But I still get to release my video on my schedule.”

“I wouldn’t dream of trying to manage how you run your channel, love.”

“Good.”

Inwardly, she wondered how it would all work – would they have contracts? As much as Killian said he wouldn’t want to meddle in her production, she knew that the folks over at Netflix would probably have a few more stipulations.

As if reading her thoughts, he continued. “I can’t promise that my agents will appreciate me bringing another personality onto the team. Especially one as volatile as you,” he said, shaking his head slightly.

“Don’t make me find something to throw at you.”

He grinned. It really was too easy to get a rise out of her. “But. If we were to collaborate with each other, even if it’s only on this location - I think we could really have something. Your videos are good. And I daresay my documentaries are good. But together…”

“We could be great,” she finished, letting her mind wander beyond just their filmmaking endeavors. They could be great. What would it be like to get to know Killian Jones on a personal level? How much of his narrative charm was genuine? The more she got to know about him, the more she wanted to learn.

She startled when he spoke again. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re quite fetching in that tank top.”

“I’m sweaty,” she protested, her face beginning to flush. “And covered in dust. And I probably smell terrible.”

He was close enough to dispute that assertion. “You smell nice, actually.” His voice was lower, huskier. He reached to brush a strand of her hair away from her face, and she shuddered at the gentleness of his touch.

She turned her head then, meeting his intense gaze. She leaned ever-slightly toward him, noting that he did the same. A pang of longing shot through her, and she parted her lips in anticipation of what was to come.

They closed the distance slowly, their lips barely grazing when a loud cracking noise pulled them from their reverie. “Y’all just sit tight in there, we’ll have you out in a few,” came the reassuring voice of what could only have been one of the firemen over what must have been a megaphone.

“All right,” Emma yelled weakly, barely trusting her voice. A loud motor roared to life outside, and the moment was effectively broken. The faint sound of rhythmic beeping, signaling that a vehicle was backing up, seemed to draw closer. She wondered how much work the rescue crews would have to do to pull them out of there. Exactly how much of the building was piled on top of them?

“We’ll finish that later,” Killian promised, grazing her cheek with the back of his hand. How he desperately wanted to pull her into him and claim her, but the background noise of the rescue effort was especially jarring. They may as well have doused him in freezing water.

He and Emma hunched over, keeping their eyes shielded in an effort to avoid any falling debris. There was a constant din – between the motors of vehicles, the yelling of workers, the beeping, and the sound of the building being lifted, Emma would be surprised if she left without a headache.

Be grateful that’s all you’ll have, she reminded herself. She grasped Killian’s hand, and he squeezed it reassuringly. “Bit loud,” he commented, and if she hadn’t just been thinking the same thing, she’d have made some sarcastic comment about him being Captain Obvious.

The fireman had said, “a few,” but they had no frame of reference for that statement. A few minutes? A few hours?

The noise was such that they couldn’t really converse, so they sat beside each other waiting for their eventual release, trying to be patient. Periodically, one of them would look up to check the progress, but that didn’t really give them any indication as to how much longer it would be, and the rescuers weren’t stopping to give them any updates. Eventually, though, the firefighters were pulling them out – Emma first, followed shortly thereafter by Killian. The sky was slightly darker, but night hadn’t quite fallen.

There was a flurry of activity as everyone rushed to hug each other and express their overall relief that this ordeal was over. The police had already questioned both crews, and they gathered statements from both Killian and Emma.

Emma must have seemed worried, because the officer reassured her that the questioning was merely for insurance purposes. The firefighters left first, and before long, the police officers were leaving, as well, leaving behind a construction crew, who had been tasked with ensuring that they got everything cleared from the site. They were all given strict instructions not to reenter the building by both the police and the construction workers.

“Good thing we got all of the cameras then,” Will grumbled, though Emma suspected that Will – not unlike herself – would have had very few qualms about disobeying the police.

“You’re sure you’re all right?” Mary Margaret fussed over Emma, and Emma could only respond with a pointed look. A few meters away, Killian was subjected to similar treatment from Belle, and he met Emma’s gaze as he repeated – much like she had – that he was fine.

“I’m fine, Mary Margaret,” she said again, not even looking at her friend as she did so. In the waning daylight, Killian’s slightly mussed form seemed even more enticing, if that was even possible, and she caught his eye, noting how his gaze darkened with lust. “I’m fine,” she breathed, hardly aware of anyone – or anything – other than Killian Jones.

He raised an eyebrow at her and that was it. She stalked over to him, grabbed the collar of his still-dusty leather jacket, and practically crashed their lips together. Within seconds his hands were tangling in her hair, pulling her possessively closer and groaning deeply into the embrace. She felt her knees go weak as he kissed her passionately, his toned frame seemingly the only thing keeping her upright.

They breathed each other in, their hands clinging, groping, desperate, their breaths hot against each other when Emma finally – reluctantly – pulled away slightly, her lips trembling and a shudder shooting through her. She had never been kissed like that.

“Would you like to have that dinner date now?” Killian asked softly, his words low and gravely. For as long as she lived, Emma was certain she would never, ever forget how absolutely fucking sexy he sounded in that moment.

She giggled against him, pressing her lips to his in another short, quick, kiss, giggling again when he chased her lips with his own. “Maybe we should just skip the dinner part for now,” she suggested.

“I like the way you think,” he murmured against her, “But I do still want to take you out on a proper date,” he added, closing the distance between them again as she nodded her agreement.

“Mate, you gonna keep snogging her there all night?” Robin teased, and they stepped back from each other, noting the various states of amusement on the faces of their spectators.

“Right,” Killian said. He wasn’t going to stand here so his mates could give him the third degree, not when Emma Swan wanted him to take her somewhere more private. “Shall we, love?” he asked Emma, nodding slightly toward where his truck was parked. The crew could take care of the equipment and get the van back to their hotel.

Emma reached into her pocket and grabbed her keys, tossing them toward her friends. “M&Ms, take the Bug, would you?” Mary Margaret caught the keys, just barely, jingling them a few times with a pointed look, one that very clearly told Emma that they were going to have a long talk about this, and Emma felt Killian put his arm around her waist, leading her away from the stunned onlookers.

“Told you,” they heard Mary Margaret whisper loudly as they began to walk away, and Emma could only smile as she let Killian lead her to his car.

A few years later

“For Deserted and Left Behind, I’m Killian Jones,” he began the sign-off.

“And I’m Emma Swan,” she continued.

“And we’ll see you in the next exploration,” they finished together, holding their final pose until the camera crew gave them the all-clear. They’d probably reshoot that a few more times, but Emma personally felt that it was satisfactory.

It was one thing she’d had trouble adjusting to when she’d agreed to these periodic special collaborations with Killian – Netflix’s need to have them constantly reshoot everything. It was for camera angles, or lighting, or just a different tone of voice. She’d never known how exhausting it all could be.

“Hey, don’t go anywhere,” he said as she turned to leave, grabbing her elbow before turning to one of the cameramen.. “Can we get some more footage real quick?”

“Killian, I’m hungry,” she protested. “Can’t it wait?”

“This won’t take long, love.” He nodded to the cameraman, who started recording again before nodding back, indicating they were rolling.

“Three years ago, I ran into this lovely yet infuriating lass when we both stumbled upon the same location-”

“They know all this-“ she began to interrupt, but he silenced her with a finger on her lips.

“Like I said, infuriating.” She tilted her head to the side, giving him that affectionate-but-annoyed look she’d perfected since they’d begun dating. “Little did I know, however, that I would find not just a partner in exploration, but one in life.”

He took her hand, dropping to one knee. “And I’d like to ask her to continue to be my partner, for the rest of our lives.” Her mouth hung open, tears welling up in her eyes as he took out a small ring box, opening it to reveal a perfect, beautiful ring.. “Emma, will you marry me?”

“Infuriating?” she teased as a tear rolled down her cheek. “Takes one to know one.”

“Emma…” he warned with a groan, squeezing her hand. Only Emma Swan could take a proposal and make it sarcastic.

“Yes, Killian. I’ll be an infuriating wife to an infuriating husband,” she agreed with a huge smile, and he slid the ring on her finger before standing up and pulling her in to a searing kiss, oblivious to the cheers – and tears – around them.

“I’m never going to live that down, am I?” he asked against her lips, and she shook her head slightly before diving back in.

“God, I hope not,” she replied, and kissed him again.

#ouat #captain swan #captain swan fanfic #captain swan fanfiction #emma swan #killian jones #my fanfiction #also hi hello this is my first published captain swan fic

17 notes · View notes

clearviewbuild · 3 months

Text

Clearview Building Services | Mid-Rise Building Services in South Florida

Clearview Building Services is a Florida-based company that specializes in mid-rise building maintenance. We'll keep your mid-rise property in tip-top shape thanks to our significant experience in building maintenance. Every project is handled with professionalism and skill by our staff.

Building maintenance services must be safe and dependable. Clearview has a highly qualified team of professionals, privately owned equipment, and extensive industry knowledge to provide the best service in the industry. We understand the requirements of mid-rise buildings and can devise a maintenance strategy to achieve the best outcomes. For more information call: 305-485-2400

#exterior building maintenance #official window cleaning company #south florida window cleaning #professional window cleaning

1 note · View note

nycerny · 1 year

Text

Preserving New York's Past: The Importance of Historic Preservation and Restoration Services in NYC

Preserving the rich history and heritage of New York City is an essential part of maintaining its unique character and charm. From the iconic brownstones of Brooklyn to the towering skyscrapers of Manhattan, the city is home to a wealth of historic buildings that tell the story of its past.

However, preserving these historic buildings is not just a matter of maintaining their physical appearance. It requires a deep understanding of their historical significance, the materials and techniques used in their construction, and the challenges that come with maintaining them in a modern urban environment.

That's where historic preservation and restoration services come in. These specialized services are designed to help property owners and managers preserve the historic character and integrity of their buildings while also ensuring they meet modern safety and building code requirements.

Historic preservation services in NYC typically involve a thorough assessment of a building's historical significance and condition. This may include researching its history, analyzing its architecture and design features, and identifying any areas of deterioration or damage. Based on this assessment, preservation professionals will develop a comprehensive plan for restoring and maintaining the building's historic character while also addressing any necessary repairs or upgrades.

Historic restoration services in NYC, on the other hand, are focused specifically on restoring buildings that have suffered significant damage or deterioration. This may include repairing or replacing damaged materials, restoring historic features and finishes, and ensuring that the building meets current building codes and safety standards.

Restoration of historic buildings in NYC requires a high degree of expertise and specialized knowledge. Historic buildings often require specialized materials and techniques that may not be used in modern construction. Preservation professionals must also navigate a complex web of regulatory requirements and approvals to ensure that the restoration work meets all relevant standards and guidelines.

Overall, historic preservation and restoration services are critical for maintaining the unique character and charm of New York City's historic buildings. Whether you are a property owner, manager, or preservation enthusiast, these services can help ensure that these important landmarks are preserved for future generations to enjoy.

Contact us at 212-279-0000 today or Use our quote form to submit all details of your project. Get your Free Estimate - https://nycerny.com/quote/

#historic building preservation services #restoration of historic buildings in nyc #structural engineering design services #architects and building designer #architects and building designer in nyc #architecture building design #structural engineer #structural engineering #architectural design firm in nyc #building structural engineering services #best structural design engineering firm in nyc #building design #historic preservation services #historic preservation services in nyc #historic preservation and restoration #historic restoration services in nyc #facade restoration nyc #facade repair and maintenance services #exterior facade repair and restoration #facade restoration company nyc #facade restoration services in nyc #structural engineering design firm #structural engineering and architectural design firm #architectural design firm #architectural design

3 notes · View notes

izumi-fanclub · 6 months

Text

A3! Event Story Translation “NEW ERA GARDEN” [Chapter 2]

A certain pair reveal the grand prize of the new Fleur Award.

Kazunari

Oh, “New Fleur Award Executive Committee Member” is trending.

Itaru

I didn’t expect something from a video channel.

Kumon Are they gonna announce stuff on the new Fleur Award?

Itaru

Iirc, that one’s still undergoing maintenance.

Banri

Stream should be starting soon.

Yukio

“…”

Reni

“…”

Izumi

Ah, it’s dad and Kamikizaka-san.

Tenma

It’s kinda weird seeing them stand besides each other.

Yukio

“Nice to meet you all on our official video channel. I’m Tachibana, a member of the Fleur Award Executive Committee.”

Reni

“I’m Kamikizaka.”

“On this channel, we’d like to show you our efforts towards a new Fleur Award.”

“Please wait a little bit more as we shall have another formal occasion to go in-depth on the details of the new Fleur Award.”

“So for now, for the new information on our first stream, please watch this video.”

Izumi

Eh!? Is that a theater!?

Kumon

Is it under renovation or being built from the ground up!?

Muku

Oh yeah, I did see some construction on Veludo Way!

Yuki

Ah, that one.

Taichi

You mean that’s a new theater for the new Fleur Award!?

Reni

“We are pleased to announce that we are in the process of building a new theater complete with streaming equipment for the new Fleur Award prize.”

Tasuku

To think they’d build a whole new theater…

Sakyo

Does the fact that there’s equipment for livestreaming mean that the next Fleur Award will be primarily streamed online?

Kazunari

Is that Yukio-san’s idea?

Izumi

Probably…

(MANKAI’s built from dad’s idea after all… This wouldn’t be unlike him.)

(I hope Kamikizaka-san’s not having a hard time with dad’s reckless behavior again…)

Reni

“The seating and exterior are still under construction, it’ll still be some time before the official opening.”

“Though, the foundation of the stage has already been assembled.”

“I shall have Tachibana explain the schedule for the new production which will also be the unveiling of the new theater and rehearsals using the equipment.”

Yukio

“Next month, the new Fleur Award will be on the foundation of the new theater, marking our new beginnings.”

Taichi

Eeeh!?

Izumi

Dad’s making a comeback!?

Yukio

“The livestream will be free of charge as it will serve as a test for the equipment.”

“In regards to the content and the cast, it’s still a secret, so please look forward to it.”

Kumon

Who’s it gonna be?

Kazunari

Maybe it’s the first gen guys?

Banri

It’ll be next month though. Don’t really think they got the schedule for that.

Tsumugi

Maybe they’ve been preparing beforehand.

Sakyo

I wonder. But since it’s Yukio-san, there’s a possibility it was just an on-the-spot idea…

Izumi

(Whatever it is, I’m just excited to see dad working again!)

Yukio

…That’s why!

Kasumi

Yeah!

Hiro Why what?

Zen

…

Syu

…Sigh.

Zen

Just how did you get all of us together, musn’t be a busy season, so it’s whatever…

Kasumi

I’m a part of the work that’s allowed to write an exclusive “Spotlight” feature article on the stage up close.

Yuzo

You were so against it last time, now you just came stumbling in.

Kasumi

Oh shut it. Then and now are different.

Syu

Now how’d a popular actor like you fit this into his schedule?

Hiro

If I got told that I’ll be in a play with the first gen troupe on the stage of the new Fleur Award, it’d be top priority no matter what.

The agency’s got a lot of buzz lately so I managed to make some adjustments. What about your own theater company, Syu-san? Syu

I’ve got some young talent I got my eye on, so I asked that person to take over the role for next month’s show. And Reiji?

Reni

As a board member, I don’t really have a choice but to take it on.

Yukio

Looks like Yuzo’s the only one participating comfortably.

Yuzo

I’m right here you know!

Yukio

Thanks, everyone. I’m really happy that we can do theater together again like this.

Yuzo

What are you planning on now that we’re all here?

Hiro

A remake of an old show?

Yukio

Fufu, you’d be surprised. It’s a new show… on Shinsengumi!

[ Prev. ]

[ Next ]

37 notes · View notes

beefromanoff · 7 months

Text

Project Mockingbird Ch. 2

summary: they arrive at the compound, where some are eager to meet the new girl and others...not so much.

pairing: Bucky Barnes x OC

author's note: this got so much more traction than I was expecting with the prologue and chapter one, I tried to get this one up quicker to keep it going! thank you so much for reading, xoxo

chapter list

_________________________________________________________

It turns out that flying on a jet was a hell of a lot faster, and smoother, than flying commercial. Or as a stowaway on a cargo plan. Neither of which Charlotte enjoyed, but sometimes you just have to make do. It was around 7:30am when the jet touched down on a long airstrip in the middle of a vast forest.

Both women had dozed off during the flight, the pancakes and alcohol lulling them to sleep with the hum of the engine making it nearly impossible to resist. They taxied through down the runway under the cover of the woods before entering a clearing. There was a massive hangar open before them, several different types of aircraft visible through the open garage door. This seemed to be the most corporate of the fleet, with the rest ranging from tactical to full blown heavy artillery.

Charlotte sat up in her seat, peering out the window. The nerves were hitting her for the first time. She saw a handful of uniformed men and women working in the hangar, performing maintenance on the aircrafts.

“Good morning sunshine,” Natasha smiled, still tucked under a blanket.

“Morning.”

“Welcome home.”

When the ramp opened, an eager uniformed man scampered into the cabin. “Agent Romanoff.” He saluted, waiting for her to nod before he continued. “How was the flight? Can I take your bags?”

“Don’t know, I slept through most of it.” She gestured to the duffel bag and small suitcase Charlotte had retrieved from the hotel before they left. “You can help Ms. Rossi with her bags.”

Giving a tight-lipped smile, Charlotte followed Natasha down the steps. Unabashedly holding her heels by the straps, Nat strode across the concrete floor to a set of sleek looking doors. Doing her best to ignore the questioning glances, Charlotte kept her eyes straight ahead and followed the one person she knew into unfamiliar territory.

The doors led to a hallway with elevators to their right. The noise coming from the end let her know the hallway opened up to a larger room, one that sounded like it was already bustling with activity. To her relief, Natasha hit a button on the elevator instead of continuing towards the noise.

“I’ll show you to your room first. I figured you’d want to get settled in, get cleaned up.”

“Thanks,” Charlotte nodded. “I think I have glitter in more places than I even knew existed. And I smell like tequila.”

“There are worse things to smell like.” Natasha grinned as they stepped out into another lobby area. “This is the training side of the compound. The hangars, weapons manufacturing, shooting range, training facilities, it’s all over here. This is where the SHIELD agents work. It’s the more…populated side.” She gestured out the window at a dozen trainees jogging. “They don’t live here. The only ones that do are the ones on the team.”

“You mean The Avengers?” Charlotte raised an eyebrow.

“You could say that,” She gave a wry smile. “I prefer to say roommates.”

They stepped out into the fresh air and Nat pointed out a black ATV. The breeze felt nice on her cheeks as they drove down a paved path across the grounds. The entire thing seemed to be completely secluded, as if it were dropped in the middle of the woods. Charlotte couldn’t even see the entrance to the place. They passed a few smaller buildings, which Natasha dubbed storage and “room to grow”; as well as a beautiful lake off to the left. Marveling at the fog spread across the water, she didn’t realize they’d made it to their destination.

The building in front of them had a similar exterior to the last one they’d come from. It was gray, very modern looking, though smaller than the training side. This one seemed to be only three or four stories tall, but it extended out over the water with balconies jutting from the higher levels.

“This is the residential building. Most of us stay here full time, but some of us have rooms at the Tower in New York City, too. You can come next time I go up there, if you want. It’s more peaceful here, though. Personal preference, I guess.” She opened the door for Charlotte to walk through. “First floor is a private training facility, second is storage and a theater room, third and fourth floors are rooms, and the fifth floor is a common area, kitchen, and a meeting room.”

They stepped into another elevator where Natasha punched the button for the fourth floor. “I put you on my floor. Just so you’d have a friendly face.” She paused. “Although, sometimes the team can be a little too friendly in their own right. I don’t see an issue with them warming up to you.”

The doors slid open and they entered a small common area with doors on every side. Natasha led her to a door on the far wall and gestured for her to enter. “We can set up your keypad in a minute, everything here is print based. Some people had trouble keeping track of their keys.” She rolled her eyes, but Charlotte was too enamored with the room to notice.

It was plain, just the bare bones of a room, but it was perfect. A big, king-sized bed bathed in sunlight from the window behind it. Large closet and an even bigger bathroom. She dropped her duffel bag on the floor and looked around.

“You’re welcome to decorate or do whatever you want, it’s all yours.” Natasha smiled as she watched her take everything in. “Here, let’s set up your keypad so I can give you some space. I’ll leave my number, just let me know when you get bored or hungry or feel like socializing.”

She closed the door behind her, leaving Charlotte to settle in.

I think this will do. She thought as she sank into the plush bedding.

__________________________________________________

“I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell me.” Bucky grunted as he slammed his fist into the punching bag.

“I did tell you,” Steve protested before being interrupted.

“No, you told me we found someone with potential HYDRA affiliation. You said the team was working on tracking her down and making contact.” Bucky stopped hitting the bag to snarl his words out. “What you didn’t say was ‘Hey buddy, there’s a chance we found someone kept in the same hellish lab as you and we’re trying to get her to come shack up with us. Oh, and she may or may not have been bred to kill you.’”

Sighing, Steve sat on the bench next to the sparring ring. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I just didn’t know how to say it.”

“You mean you didn’t know how I’d take it.” Fists slammed into the bag.

“Well,” He raised an eyebrow. “Is that such a stretch?”

“I think I’m handling it pretty well.” Bucky gave a forced smile as he stepped away from the punching bag, beginning to unwrap his right hand.

“It was my idea to keep the details under wraps,” Nat’s voice echoed from across the training room as she walked toward them, wet hair darkening the collar of her sweatshirt. “I didn’t mean for it to seem like we were keeping things from you. There’s just so much we don’t know.”

Bucky frowned. “Seems like there’s quite a bit you do know.”

“I’ll tell you anything you want.” She smiled, always able to walk the line between cold sarcasm and genuine warmth.

Natasha took a seat on the bench next to Steve, both of them watching Bucky as he threw the sweaty tape away. He stayed quiet for a moment, thinking.

“What’s her name?”

“Charlotte. Charlotte Rossi.”

“Where’d you find her?”

“Most recently, the high stakes room at the Wynn.” Nat smirked. “Prior to that, I saw some patterns that caught my interest and dug a little further.”

“I read the file.” Bucky’s face was stoic.

“Do you have any memory of her? Any recollection?”

His brows knit together, thinking. “No. I don’t remember much from that…from those years. Fragments, maybe. If I saw her face it might, I don’t know, might bring something back.”

Steve watched his friend carefully, looking for any sign of distress. Bucky seemed calm, controlled, albeit a little strained.

“Where is she?”

“Upstairs.”

Bucky nodded slowly. “She’s here…for good?”

“To be determined. My offer wasn’t exactly for a week’s vacation.” Natasha stood, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry I wasn’t up front with you on this. I promise not to go around you again.”

“I get it.” He looked at Steve. “I know I don’t have the best track record for handling questionable information.”

Grinning, Steve stood to join them. “What? You think throwing Sam out of a moving Quinjet because he told you he’d be leading point on the mission was an overreaction?”

Bucky ran his tongue over his teeth, suppressing a smile.

“No, totally reasonable.” Nat elbowed him. “Just like when he ripped the arm off of Tony’s last suit because he said Bucky’s arm was a ‘war relic’,”

“Alright, point made,” Bucky groaned, shrugging her hand off and walking towards the door.

_____________________________________

Charlotte: is it too late for breakfast?

Natasha: I know I said there are no stupid questions…..but ;)

Charlotte: music to my ears

Natasha: meet me outside the first floor elevators in 5.

Charlotte slipped her phone back in her pocket, grinning. Thank God superheroes have a sense of humor. Well, at least one does. She made a mental note to ask if FedEx delivered to the compound, as she was in dire need of an online shopping spree. The majority of her clothes were tailored to Vegas, where she’d taken up residence the past few weeks. With the way she drifted from place to place, it wasn’t uncommon for her to leave an entire wardrobe’s worth of clothes in a hotel closet when she left town. For this trip in particular, she’d brought a few of her absolute favorite dresses, three sets of heels, and two designer bags she’d treated herself to after a particularly lucrative poker win.

Unfortunately, not much of her attire lent itself to casual daytime wear. She had a pair of jeans and trusty white sneakers, and luckily a plain white tank top shoved deep into her suitcase. Unless there was some kind of Avengers’ gift shop on the premises, she’d be repeating this look pretty much daily.

She made her way to the elevator and when the doors slid open on the first floor, Natasha stood waiting for her. A tall, clean cut blonde man stood next to her, who Charlotte recognized instantly.

“Hi…” She stepped out cautiously as the duo grinned.

“Charlotte, you remember Steve.” Nat seemed to be the most amused of all three of them. The man nodded, holding his hand out for her to shake.

“We were never officially acquainted.” His handshake was firm but his eyes were kind. “Steve Rogers.”

“Sorry about that,” She pursed her lips. “I thought you were coming after me for my lack of patriotism.”

Steve chuckled. “From what I’ve heard, you tried to represent our country too. Maybe we’re not so different.” The sharp look Natasha shot him as he referenced her Team USA mishap didn’t go unnoticed. Charlotte didn’t seem to take offense, simply raising an eyebrow as she carefully considered her response.

“I think I can stick a landing a little better than you.” Her face was blank, but her eyes crinkled at the corners ever so slightly, an almost-smile.

“I don’t doubt it.” Steve smiled. “Welcome to the compound.”

“Thanks.” Charlotte kept her eyes on him as he led the trio through the doors.

Natasha fell into step beside her, showing her unspoken camaraderie. Years of undercover work had honed her ability to read body language and pick up on cues undetectable to anyone else. As she watched Charlotte over the past twenty-four hours, she noticed several things. She was calculated, but not cold. Her humor was dry and she kept a poker face throughout most of her interactions, hints of a smile showing through as she warmed up to someone. She was quick-witted, but seemed to think through her replies thoroughly as she decided if someone was trustworthy or not. A familiar tactic for someone who wasn’t sure who they could rely on. Her persona was confident, relaxed, assured. Her body told another story.

When she stood, her posture was erect. Her weight was slightly shifted forward on her toes, like someone prepared to cut and run at any moment. She could stand still, facing the person in front of her, but her eyes would flick around to every detail happening around her. She presented herself like a predator, but her behavior was that of prey.

It made sense. She was taken, put through horrors beyond comprehension at the hands of HYDRA. Prey. She was altered, trained, brainwashed to be an elite fighter, an assassin. Predator. But now? She was somewhere in between. Not quite a predator, not quite prey.

As Natasha strode down the path towards the main building, she couldn’t help but feel like even Charlotte didn’t know which category she fell into.

“This is the cafe,” Steve gestured when they walked into the largest building. Charlotte recognized it as another entrance to the same place they’d left earlier that morning. This was where all the noise was coming from. It was a large room, flooded with natural light from the floor-to-ceiling windows. There were two dozen circular tables in the middle of the room, most of them empty. A few had small clusters of people in navy blue windbreakers or jackets, all emblazoned with the trademark “A” of the Avengers. There was a kitchen area to the right, a long countertop spanning part of the wall. “They serve three meals here every day, it’s all up for grabs. This is where all the agents and recruits eat while they’re here. We have a kitchen back in our building, but unless one of us feels like cooking, there’s not much more than dry cereal there.”

They walked towards the kitchen, a few agents pausing as they walked through the room, looking at Charlotte over their clipboards and conversation. Natasha pulled open the door to a commercial sized refrigerator, revealing a massive selection of food. Everything from fresh fruit to Smucker’s PB&J sandwiches. Eyes wide, Charlotte glanced at Natasha.

“Have at it,” She nodded, grabbing an apple and biting in.

When they’d sufficiently raided the kitchen, Steve led them out another set of doors to a patio area. To the right, they could see the edge of the lake peeking around the treeline. To the left, there was an open field, the targets on the far end indicating a shooting range. Charlotte lowered her arms and let the barrage of snacks tumble onto the table.

“I didn’t think superheroes ate junk food,” She raised an eyebrow, pulling open a bag of mini-donuts.

“Superheroes don’t, Avengers do.” Nat winked and stole one from the packaging. “Plus, not all of the agents here are combat focused. There are plenty who work in the control room or in tech and engineering and don’t have to give a shit about being mobile.”

“Well here’s to not being mobile.” She held her chocolate milk in the air and the three of them toasted, just in time for a dozen agents to jog by on the path out in front of them.

Bucky stood on the path around the lake, hidden under the cover of long morning shadows. He watched as Steve raised his plastic chocolate milk into the air, appearing to cheers with the two women at the table. One was Natasha, the other he assumed was the new girl. Charlotte.

She was around Natasha’s size, a little more overtly muscular. He could see her toned arms clearly thanks to the tank top she was wearing. They seemed relaxed, talking and laughing. He took a deep breath and looked down at his phone.

Five Minutes Ago

Steve: Come meet us on the patio by the range. You can meet Charlotte. We’re showing her around.

Sighing, Bucky shot back a reply before shoving his phone into his pocket.

Bucky: Sorry - told Sam I’d help him with something. Next time.

He turned and resumed his run around the lake, going the opposite direction of the compound. Steve glanced up from his phone, brow furrowed, just in time to see black hair disappearing around the treeline.

#james bucky barnes #bucky barnes #avengers #bucky barnes x oc #bucky fanfic #bucky fluff #winter soldier #sebastian stan #winter soldier fluff #avenger!reader #avenger!reader x bucky barnes

34 notes · View notes