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inadaydream99 · 2 years

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10 Things I Hate About You

Renjun x fem! Reader, angst to fluff, high school au, feat. NCT dream

A/N - inspired by one of my all time favourite movies! Also, this is a high school au, which is not usually my best, but it felt wrong making it anything except that consider what it’s inspired by 😂

Additional note: this is not trying to replicate the film.

Disclaimer: this does not represent any of the members in real life and is for entertainment purposes only. Mentions of alcohol/ drinking. Some explicit language. Any more I’ve missed, please let me know!

How did it come to this?

A person you used to find so much comfort in; used to want to be around all the time; used to care for more than anyone else in the world, now ignores your existence. To say that you don’t resent him a little would be a lie. But that doesn’t mean it hurts any less.

You used to be best friends, two fearless kids dreaming about their futures together and never once thinking anything could tear them apart. You fell in love with the way his smile would reach all the way to his eyes and the little crinkles that would form because of it. You fell in love with the sound of his laugh and the muted grumbles that tumbled past his lips whenever something annoyed him. But, most of all, you fell in love with him. Your best friend.

You knew you weren’t supposed to. But it felt like every coming of age movie showed the best friend as the knight in shining armour and the protagonists’ happily ever after. You believed Renjun was just that for you. He was your everything.

The problem was that you got tired of waiting for Renjun to notice you. He was always the more popular one, the one with good grades and many admirers. And as you grew older, you grew apart. In 9th grade, he began getting distant, only hanging out with you a few times a week. 10th grade, Renjun joined the football team and so you’d only get to see him if he didn’t have practice, which was a rare occasion. But by 11th grade, football had completely taken over his life. He was the promising future for the schools team and the most popular guy in the entire school. That was also the time he got a girlfriend, Elle. I mean, what’s the most popular boy without the most popular girl, right?

You on the other hand, had been completely outcasted by your so called best friend. So by the time you were in senior year, you were still a nobody, the shy girl in the corner. Completely unseen.

“I can’t believe Mr. Payne gave me a 84.” Mark complains beside you. The most studious person you’ve ever met and top of the class, he’s your only proper friend. You’re thankful to have Mark. Outcasts together, you always like to say. But, truth is, high school has never been that kind to either of you. “He’s such a-”

“Pain?” You smirk, finally lifting your head away from picking at the soggy fries on the table in front of you. Mark only rolls his eyes at you, letting out a dissatisfied huff.

“I’m just glad we don’t have long left in this hell-hole of a school.” He bitterly mumbles. Normally you’d find Mark amusing, but right now you’re too distracted.

From across the cafeteria you hear an eruption of laughter, your attention being drawn onto the left-hand corner, also known as the football teams table. From amongst the crowd of adoring people, there in the centre sits Renjun surrounded by his fellow members: Jaemin, Jeno, Donghyuck, Chenle and Jisung. While everyone else is having a great time, he looks heartbroken, but that’s not surprising considering he’d recently gotten dumped. Yes, Elle had dropped him for some college guy she’d met while on spring break. Apparently she’d dumped Renjun over text the day before school resumed.

You know you shouldn’t, but there’s still a part of you that clings onto the hope of him. That maybe if you look for long enough, he’ll look up and notice you, maybe even send you a small smile. Ever since he’d become single, you’ve found yourself fantasising about it even more.

“(Y/N), you’re staring again.” Mark sighs, snapping you out of your daydream. “I don’t know what you see in him.” Mark continues, watching as a frown overtakes your face.

You pick up a fry and begin playing around with it on your plate. “I just,” you sigh. “I know what he’s really like. And that is not the real Renjun over there.”

“(Y/N).” Mark grabs onto your wrist. Your eyes flicker up to meet his sympathetic look. “He got dared to put itch powder in my gym shorts last week.”

You wince at the thought, shaking your head. But you’re adamant that’s not a reflection of the person he is underneath. The football team are notorious for their pranks. He’s just lost himself in all the popularity.

“So prom isn’t far away.” Jaemin wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.

“Ugh. Don’t even go there.” Renjun complains. “I was meant to go with Elle.”

“Oh forget about her.” Donghyuck pats his sulking friend on the back a little too harshly, earning a glare. “We’re going to find you someone much better.”

He looks a bit too confident in himself, but that just about sums Donghyuck up in everything really.

“You’re going to find someone better than the most popular girl in the school?” Chenle almost spit-takes his drink upon hearing Jeno’s disbelieving tone.

“No, but we can make one.” Donghyuck grins.

Renjun sends an unsure glance around the table. It seems that everyone gets what his friend means except for him.

As it turns out, Donghyuck’s plan is to find someone under the radar who the group can turn into one of them. It should be easy considering they know everything it takes to be a popular. Renjun only has to show slight interest in someone and the school will be all over them. It’s just, he needs to figure out who has the most potential…

“(Y/N)!” Chenle almost makes you drop your books as he jumps out from behind your locker door.

“Shit Chenle, do you want to give me a heart attack?” Your breathlessness makes Chenle feel triumphant.

Chenle knows so many people, he’s practically friends with everyone in your school, so you never really thought too deeply about it when he first took an interest in you. He’s one of the few people that makes you feel seen and so you’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for him.

You were actually seated next to each other in biology a few years back and, from then on, you’ve always been friendly with each other in passing. Like right now.

“I wanted to know if you’re free this Friday? I’m having a party.” He beams. You’re flattered to be invited, but knowing the crowd that will be attending, you don’t think it’s the right place for you.

“I would, but I- uh- have to-” your eyes glance around the hall, searching for anything to help you with a viable excuse. “I have piano practice.”

Really? That’s that best you could come up with?

Donghyuck sneakily observes from his locker a few doors away. Initially, he’d been curious as to why Chenle is giving you the time of day. But, as he sneaked glances, he finds your shyness quite endearing and that you are actually kinda cute in a subtle sort of way. He remembers from way back, when you and Renjun used to be close, and you’d wear the same braided piggy tails to school everyday. You’d always had a soft nature. Very approachable. Very likeable.

Very promising.

“Sup Chenle, (Y/N).” Your eyes widen when Donghyuck approaches, leaning on Chenle’s shoulder and turning his attention onto you. You feel yourself shrink under his confidences stare.

“(Y/N) here was just trying to get out of my party on Friday.” You suck in a breath at Chenle’s words. Why did he have to tell one of the loudest people in your school that information!

“Yeah, piano lessons, right?” Donghyuck smirks. “Can’t imagine anything more exhilarating!” The faux enthusiasm almost makes you laugh. Emphasis on almost.

“What’s going on here?” his voice hits you before you see him. Renjun joins Chenle and Donghyuck, seemingly blocking the only space you could have used as an escape route if needed. Now you’re just crowded into the wall of lockers.

“I’ve found some potential.” Donghyuck states like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. And it seems that maybe it is, because you’re the only one who’s confused.

“Absolutely not!”

“But why?” Donghyuck makes a scene as he chases after Renjun.

You’d managed to escape your entrapment against the lockers by the bell for final period. During which, is when Donghyuck had sneakily sent a text to Renjun explaining to him the reasons why you were the perfect choice.

The second class was dismissed, Renjun had bolted out of the classroom, through the corridors and out of the back exit towards the fields. Of course, Donghyuck was hot on his tail the whole way, both of them shouting back and forth to one another as Renjun desperately tried to get away.

“Give me one good reason.” Donghyuck stops Renjun by grabbing onto his shoulder, both of them now stood in the middle of the empty football field.

“Because!” Renjun’s fists are clenched, teeth gritted, unbelievably angry with his friend. “Because we have history.”

“Which is exactly why she’s perfect!” Donghyuck tries his best to convince. But it’s to no avail, Renjun letting out a huff of laughter as he begins to walk away once again.

“Think about it this way. (Y/N)’s invisible, we can literally shape her into anything we want.” Renjun stops in his tracks, looking over his shoulder to see his friends pleading expression. “We- you know her better than anyone in this school. We can make her your dream girl, you’ll be back in a power couple, win prom king and leave the legacy you’ve always wanted…”

Prom king, football captain, scholarship to his choice of college…

Renjun hates that Donghyuck always seems to be right. Manipulating you into popularity would be easy considering his social power, he could still get his dream ending to high school.

“This isn’t me agreeing, but how exactly are we going to achieve this?”

Donghyuck’s smile is almost too elated over Renjun’s intrigue. The excitement is too much to contain.

“I thought you hated parties?” You raise a brow in Mark’s direction.

“That was before I’d actually been invited to any…”

You chuckle at him, lightly rolling your eyes at his reasoning. It seems funny but you understand where he’s coming from.

“Have you been to any?”

Mark’s question makes you feel a little uneasy. Similarly to him, you’re not really that into parties because it’s rare you’re invited. The last one you attended was when you were 13; the exciting, and definitely not awkward, time when you’ve just become a teen. It was also around the time that you noticed some of the people in your grade had become interested in relationships.

You remember you’d been roped into a game of spin the bottle - daring for you at the time - and everyone was giddy with the anticipation of kissing their crush. Of course, you were secretly hoping you’d get to kiss Renjun. So when Elle had spun the bottle and it landed on him you had tried your best to hide your disappointment. Of course, back then you weren’t mature enough to realise the depth of your feelings towards your then best friend Renjun. Nor were you too happy over the fact that the bottle had decided your first kiss would with with Donghyuck.

“Not really.” You hesitantly laugh, deciding you’d rather not relive that memory out loud.

“Then we should definitely go!” Mark enthusiastically tries to persuade.

Your mind flashes back to your earlier encounter in the hall, the obnoxiously cocky look on Donghyuck’s face and the way he’d made you feel pressured to attend. Then Renjun flashes into focus, the momentary concern behind his eyes before he realised it was you being practically held hostage by his friends. You know the sweet and caring person is still underneath the layers of his persona somewhere…

“Ok.” You nod. “Let’s go to Chenle’s party.”

Friday morning sees a fresh wave of anxiety wash over you. You’re exhausted; it feels like this week has lasted for an eternity…

On Wednesday, Chenle had sought you out while you were walking to history with Mark - who’s eyes had lit up when Chenle patted him on the back and began talking to him about Friday. Although, you have to admit, it was kind of cute seeing Mark and Chenle’s friendship blossom.

And yesterday had just been completely strange. What had started with Chenle joining you for lunch, had then introduced Jisung to your table, which then bought over Jeno (who cannot live for a second without Jisung). This meant that Jaemin joined your newly forming group, because you don’t get Jeno without him. Donghyuck then rushed over to join because he didn’t want to sit alone. Which, finally, led to a confused Renjun approaching his (now empty) usual lunch table, only to be called over to where you were all sat by the person who started it all; Chenle.

It felt weird and wrong and all sorts of awkward to have any of them hanging out with you in such a public place, no less being sat at the same table as Renjun himself. You could practically feel the eyes burning into you from onlookers around the cafeteria as he approached your table and took the last seat, right beside you. You’re too shy to even sneak a look at him, particularly with so many chances of getting caught by someone. So you remain quiet, head ducked down to keep your focus on the food you’ve now lost your appetite for.

But then the unexpected happened.

You felt a light nudge to your arm, flickering your eyes up to find Renjun already look at you. It feels as though time freezes as you make eye contact with him for the first time in years. His ebony eyes shimmer under the artificial lights, projecting a glimmering honey swirl that ignites a warm, fuzzy feeling in your stomach. The small smile that slowly stretches across his lips, although subtle, is inviting and you find yourself instinctively reciprocating with one of your own. “I’m sorry, didn’t mean to elbow you.” His velvety voice washes over you and your heart hammers in your chest. You simply replied with an “It’s ok. Accidents happen.” Before the little bubble between you was burst and Renjun’s attention was pulled onto his friends.

“(Y/N)!” You jolt back into reality, feeling heat quickly raise up your neck. “You zoned out again.” Mark chuckles. It’s embarrassing enough how many times you’ve found yourself replaying your interaction with Renjun to yourself, let alone getting caught by anyone else and them figuring it out.

“Is she always like this?” Chenle teases and you let out a noise in protest when Mark nods yes back.

“It’s too early to focus!” Your justification seems pointless, Mark and Chenle simply laughing together.

As they begin to walk down the corridor towards first period, you find yourself third wheeling, quickly grabbing the books you need from your locker, slamming it shut without a care for how loud it is, and rushing after them to math.

“Do you really think this is going to work?” Renjun anxiously questions Donghyuck. The closer to math they get, the more nervousness Renjun feels bubble in the bottom of his stomach.

After hearing out each step of Donghyuck’s plan, he’d found himself convinced by his charismatic descriptions, painting the perfect outcome for Renjun. He knows Renjun too well, almost better than himself at times.

All Renjun has to do this morning is sit near enough to you to pass you a note during class. A little old school, yes, but Donghyuck is adamant that it’s a romantic gesture. Or at least, it’s sweet.

Entering class, Renjun immediately spots you sat on the desk directly behind Mark and Chenle. He can’t help the smile that adorns his face when he notices that the seat right beside you is empty.

“Is this seat taken?” Your head snaps up, mouth hanging agape when you hear his unmistakable voice. But the suddenness is too unexpected for you to be able to form words, shaking your head no instead.

You half expect Renjun to pick up the chair and take it to a different spot. But he simply slides it back and sits himself beside you instead.

From his peripheral, he can see how taken aback you are. He’s not surprised by your reaction to him, seeing that yesterday’s lunchtime encounter had you so flustered and tense. Although, it does kind of hurt a little to see you feel so awkward. He hadn’t realised how much space your time apart had created between you.

You’re thankful that the class begins almost immediately after Renjun has sat beside you; given any more time than a few seconds would have just been painful. It’s rare that you’re thankful to be studying algebra, but as your teacher begins talking through equations, you’ve never found yourself more immersed in the topic.

It’s about half way through when Renjun finally musters up enough courage to carefully nudge your elbow with his. He lets out a quiet chuckle, smiling hopefully as you look away from making notes. Without exchanging a single word, he extends his hand which holds a folded corner torn form his book between his fingers.

You sheepishly take the note, pursing your lips and narrowing your eyes in suspicion as you unfold it and read the message.

Are you going to Chenle’s tomorrow?

While it’s still the same Renjun that makes you feel on edge in his presence, there’s something adorable about the note. A simple question signifying the beginning of a conversation; an olive branch offering fresh friendship.

Maybe. Are you? You write back and slide the paper across the desk to him without bothering to fold it. You watch as he smiles, immediately writing a response.

I am and you should.

Why should I? Now he laughs.

Deciding to whisper instead of passing the note again, and because there’s no more space left, Renjun leans into your side: “Because we can hang out.”

You pull back a little after hearing his words, eyes wide. You’re a little sceptical but his smile seems genuine enough for you to give the benefit of the doubt.

Besides, how can you turn him down when he looks at you like that?

“Okay.” You whisper back.

Friday’s lunch is somehow even stranger than Thursday’s…

As you leave physics and step out into the hall you feel an arm wrap around your shoulder and find Donghyuck with a wide grin. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

“You have?” your voice conveys more bewilderment than anything, but it really is odd for Donghyuck to give you the time of day, let alone want to talk to you.

“Uh-huh.” He nods. “Saw you passing notes with Renjun earlier. You guys looked very cute.”

You’re unsure why the fact you’d been caught passing notes with Renjun makes you feel so flustered, but it feels like you got caught cheating on a test, or scolded by a parent, or fraternising with someone way out of your league… wait, the last one isn’t untrue…

“It wasn’t really anything.” You hesitate, feeling ashamed. You don’t think Renjun would want word getting out about it, as the resident no-body, you feel like being friends with you would cause quite a detriment to his status.

“Well, it looked like you were pretty close to me.” His tone insinuates something suggestive, rather than platonic, and you feel a strong urge to reject everything Donghyuck says (nothing new there…). “And anyone who Renjun is friends with has to be cool.”

Surprised? No, astonished is a better word to explain the pure adrenaline kick that courses through you upon hearing the words “you” and “cool” in the same sentence. But nothing, I mean absolutely nothing, could have prepared you for what he says next:

“You’re one of us now (Y/N).”

After that it’s all a blur. Donghyuck led you to the popular table in the cafeteria, sat you between him and Renjun - who gave you a smile as you joined them. Had you been knocked out and woken up in a parallel universe?

It dawned on you seconds later that the seat you had wound up in used to be Renjun’s ex girlfriends, the very one you’d dreamed of being in so many times before.

It seems as though Donghyuck was right about Renjun’s status, because you found yourself suddenly thrown into the limelight. Walking down the halls, you were being acknowledged by people you were certain didn’t know you previously existed. In your final period, you’d had many offers for seat partners, and to top it all off, Renjun had called you over to sit with him. Literally. Called your name. In front of everyone.

You can’t imagine you’d looked anything less than the ripest red tomato to ever exist as you’d swallowed the lump of nervousness in your throat and complied to his request.

“I can not believe you!” The second you’re outside of the school gates, Mark rushes over to you in pure excitement, holding you by both shoulders and jumping up and down.

“I think there’s been a glitch in the matrix.” You snicker. Mark rolls his eyes in response.

“Can you not just enjoy this?” He chastises. “You are the moment.” Now it’s your turn to roll your eyes.

“It’s crazy how one person can hold so much power, don’t you think?” Your tone conveys displeasure. But inside, you do feel quite giddy with your newfound popularity.

“Yeah, and you’re his obsession.” Mark states like it’s the best thing in the world. But being an obsession is a little frightening. There’s something about it that seems temporary and pressuring; you’ve been chosen and you could be dropped at any moment. You don’t know if you can face being dropped by Renjun again…

Mark being as eager as ever had dragged you to the party so early that you were the first to arrive. Of course, Chenle was ecstatic when he swung open the front door of his mansion to reveal you and Mark.

Chenle is the most unsurprising of the whole popular group. Rich, lives in a mansion, owns all the of the latest designer fashion and has a huge pool in his backyard. Just as you’d expected.

“Dude!” Mark exclaims the second his eyes set sights on the chocolate fountain; rushing over immediately.

“I’m sorry about him.” You chuckle along with Chenle. He doesn’t seem to mind at all, if anything, he’s more amused by Mark’s joy than you are.

“Trust me, it’s not the first time I’ve seen someone get that excited over a chocolate fountain.” Chenle shakes his head. He recalls the first time Jisung had attended one of his parties and spent most of the evening walking around with a chocolate moustache… that was the moment Chenle knew he had to become best friends with this guy. “You look phenomenal by the way, really living up to your newfound fame.”

“Thanks.” You self-consciously look down at your dress, brushing your hands along the fabric to press out any creases. It’s a never seen before outfit of yours, one that you bought last summer when you’d hoped of having a glow-up but then never felt confident enough to actually wear.

Before you have a chance to compliment Chenle’s outfit, the doorbell has rung and he’s rushed off to answer it. It doesn’t take long for the party to become crowded with people. Now you understand why Chenle has such a huge house - or, you should say, why he takes advantage of the fact his parents do.

You’d lost Mark as soon as people had arrived, being swarmed around by power-hungry classmates. It even took Renjun ages to find you. But when he did, he wasted no time in saving you from the overwhelming sea of admirers.

“It’s intense isn’t it?” He jokes, but half of him is a little concerned for you. He’s used to receiving lots of attention, but he knows you’re naturally more reserved. He kind of feels bad.

“Just a bit.” You breathlessly laugh, just thankful that he’d helped you escape.

It’s funny how people don’t seem to approach you while you’re stood with Renjun. You always thought he must have been really approachable to be so popular, but it seems as though most people choose to admire from afar. Reality is he’s perfected being the exact right amount of approachable and off limits. Most don’t talk to him unless he initiates it, other than his close circle of friend of course.

“Well, I’m here now. No need to worry.” There’s a protectiveness in his tone that makes you feel safe. It’s a glimpse of the old Renjun. He always used to make you feel safe when you were younger.

You remember when you were six, playing in the park together. You’d fallen off the swings and grazed your knees pretty badly where you’d slip across the rough tarmac of the playground. Falling into a blubbering mess, Renjun had been by your side the whole time; taking your hand in his, calming you down until you’d stopped crying by trying to make you smile and laugh. He’d eventually coaxed you into standing up, and helped you hobble back home. He was so caring like that.

Looking at him now, it’s almost hard to believe it’s the same person. Gone were his large-rimmed glasses and cute snag tooth. He always kept himself immaculate, hair neatly parted and brushed away from his forehead, clothes always the latest fashion and perfectly matched to his pristine image. Not one thing out of place.

“I know this all seems so sudden.” He confesses. “But I’m here for you whenever you need, always have been.”

The depth of his words hit you like a ton of bricks, rendering you speechless. High school may have sent you down different paths, but now you know he never stopped caring for you, just like you had never stopped caring for him.

Nothing more is needed to be exchanged between you, both of you sharing infatuated smiles.

To others around you, it looks as though you’re falling in love, spellbound by the person in front of you. Gossip never takes long to spread and before you know it, everyone is talking about the new golden couple in the making.

“Last one in the pool has to stay up and clean this mess.” Chenle’s words make you all shoot up and launch yourself into the pool as quickly as possible.

It’s the early hours of the morning and the party had fizzled out hours ago at this point. Now, the only people left other than you and Chenle are Renjun, Mark, Donghyuck, Jisung and Jeno. Jaemin is technically still here, if you count the fact that he’s fast asleep on the sofa inside.

You resurface from the pool in fits of giggles only to be splashed in the face by a person on your left.

“Whoops.” Renjun smirks. There was no way it was unintentional, hearty laughter emitting from him when you send a splash of water to his face in retaliation.

“Hey!” He feigns offence, splashing you back again.

“Water fight!” Donghyuck announces at the top of his lungs, launching everyone into a frenzy.

A particularly strong wave of water shoots up your nose, leaving a painful sting in its wake, and you find yourself blindly trying to manoeuvre your way to the edge of the pool for some air.

You squeak when someone comes up behind you, pinching their fingers into your waist and making you jolt.

“Where’d you think you’re going?” The culprit, clearly Renjun, keeps you in his hold. You force a huff through your nose to clean out any remaining water before turning to face him.

Seeing the way you look pained makes him worry, his hand cupping your cheek as he leans his face in closer to get a good look at you.

“Too much?” His concern makes your stomach flip, literally peering into your soul with his intensely troubled gaze. You nod. “Let’s get you out of the pool.” He affirms, keeping you close to him as he carefully leads you towards the steps.

The cool nighttime air makes your bones shiver, your dress soaking wet and clinging to your trembling frame. Renjun tells you to wait where you are, momentarily leaving you to reach for a towel that had been discarded on one of the sun loungers. When he returns, he wraps is around your shoulders, gently untucking your hair from beneath.

By this point, the water fight had stopped and, unbeknownst to you and Renjun, everyone had been watching. It’s not until after you have wiped your eyes with the towel that you take notice of the silence and slowly shift your gaze in the direction of the pool.

“Don’t mind us!” Jeno shouts from the opposite end; dunked under the water by Mark beside him straight after.

“Let’s get you inside.” Renjun suggests, not really caring much for the audience who have now turned their attention onto Jeno’s retaliation towards Mark.

Watching as you take a seat by the kitchen counter, Renjun is reminded of Donghyuck’s ingenious next part of the plan.

“I’m sure Chenle keeps herbal tea or coco somewhere around here.” Renjun begins to search through every cupboard, but he’s stopped by your hand reaching across the counter and grabbing onto his, meeting your thankful smile.

“I promise I’m fine.”

It seems to be enough for Renjun to settle, dropping the idea of making a warm drink.

Moving his hand so he’s able to interlace your fingers with his, Renjun watches your expression carefully for any sign of discomfort or rejection. He feels relief wash over him where he finds none.

“I’ve been wanting to ask you this all night,” he nervously begins. “Would you want to have lunch together, just us, on Monday?”

The hopeful glint in his eye and the way he subconsciously chews on his bottom lip is adorable. It’s a little funny that he looks so nervous considering you’ve literally sat at the same lunch table with his group for the last two days.

Of course, you understand that this is another level in your growing friendship. It’s not just an offer to spend more time together, it’s to make a public statement about your friendship - relationship - whatever this is.

“I’d love to.” You beam, giggling as you watch the overjoyed excitement that consumes his previously nervous look.

Monday rolls around quicker than you’d expected, although you’re not dreading it like you usually do. Saturday and Sunday were pretty uneventful, if you excuse the copious amounts of follows on social media, which you hate to admit was actually quite exciting. You liked being seen.

You’d also been exchanging messages with Renjun for the duration, sending different memes and poking fun at each other, which you had enjoyed. It felt like you’d resumed the friendship you were always meant to have together.

The first thing you do every morning when you get to school is head to your locker to get the books you need for your first few classes. It’s usually a very mundane, but necessary exchange. So what you don’t expect to see is Renjun leaning against your locker, flicking through his phone with one hand and holding a flower in his other.

His attention is directed away from his social media feed when he hears someone clear their throat, a smile forming across his face when he looks up to find you, arms folded across your chest and one brow raised, waiting for him to move and trying to suppress the happiness your feel from seeing him in person again.

“For you.” He holds out the flower, a small pink rose.

There’s something timid in the action, the vulnerability maybe? Whatever it is, Renjun feels so glad when you accept it, the pink of the rose petals matching the colouring of your cheeks perfectly.

When Donghyuck had suggested that this should be Renjun’s next move, he’d wanted to curl up in a ball and hide. He’s never been one for romantic gestures, finding them more cringy than anything. But, he was reminded of what he could achieve. The few seconds of embarrassment would surely be worth his dreams. And so he’d caved in and stopped at a florist on his way to school that morning.

“It’s beautiful, thank you.” You look from the rose up to Renjun, beaming in his direction. Opening your locker, you place the rose on top of the books you don’t need for safe keeping.

“Ready for class?” You nod, before walking through the hallway side by side.

“Hey guys! Here’s the nominees for prom king and queen!” You’re given a poster announcing the event, featuring a list of all those who are in the race to win. You’ve never understood why it’s such a big deal to win such a temporary title, it’s only for one night. Although, you assume there must be something more to it than that. There’s got to be, right?

Renjun doesn’t look at the poster, screwing it up in his hand and chucking it in the nearest trashcan. There’s no need for him to know who he’s running against, they’re no competition for him.

“You going?” Renjun raises a brow, casting you a shy side glance. He’s hoping you’ll say you are so he won’t have to try and convince you.

“Where?” You look up at him. You hadn’t payed full attention to what he had said as you had been judging the poster, folding it and putting it in your bag quickly.

“To prom.” He clarifies, fighting back his amused smirk.

“Oh!” Your eyes widen in realisation. “I’m undecided.” You shrug.

Truth be told, you weren’t really planning on going. But, that was before there was any possibility of being asked by someone. As pathetic as it sounds, you wanted to feel wanted, if that makes sense. Now, however, you’re undecided. If someone was to ask you then you’d consider going. But, if there was a chance that Renjun would ask you, you know you’d say yes in a heartbeat.

“Are you going?” You ask back.

“I’m in the running for prom king, so I kind of have to.” He teases, watching as you realise how dumb your question was.

Of course he’s going! You mentally face palm.

By this point, you’ve reached class and taken a seat, Renjun still beside you. Not knowing what to say next, you fiddle with your pen as a form of distraction.

“I have football practice fourth period.” Renjun begins as your teacher enters the classroom. “Meet me on the fields at lunch.” He leans in to whisper the last part to you.

When fourth period ended, you made your way to the sports fields just like Renjun had told you to, finding him exiting the locker rooms just as you arrive.

“How was practice?” You ask as he approaches you, reaching out and capturing your hand in his. The unexpectedness of this action makes you suck in a breath.

“Good.” He looks over at you so casually, as if nothing out of the ordinary has just happened; which maybe to him is true, but for you, this isn’t something you’re used to at all. Not that you mind holding his hand though. You actually, kind of, maybe, like it… just a little bit…

“Coach made us run five laps of the field because Jeno was late. But other than that, my game is still strong.” He laughs, thinking about all the stick Jeno is going to be getting from the rest of the team.

“That’s a bit harsh? Couldn’t he have just punished Jeno?” Renjun shakes his head.

“The rule is to work as a team. If one messes up, we all do.” He explains like it’s not a big deal. You understand what he means, but it does still seam a little unfair. “As captain I have to uphold expectations, including the importance of teamwork.”

“That sounds like a lot of pressure.” You more so say to yourself, but Renjun chuckles beside you.

“Only if you see it that way. The team means everything to me.”

Having made it all the way back to the main building, Renjun asks where you want to eat lunch today. You both agree that it’s such a nice day, you should enjoy it outside while you can. And so, after grabbing some food, you spend the entire hour at one of the picnic tables together, laughing and enjoying each other’s company without a care in the world.

There’s been a lot going on over the last few weeks. So much so, you’re not even sure where to begin. You and Renjun have been spending time together everyday, whether it’s been having lunch just the two of you or hanging out after school, you’ve both been making plenty of time for one another.

As the semester edges closer and closer to the summer; to prom and the final of the football season for Renjun and his team, things have only been getting more hectic. There doesn’t seem to be enough hours in a day to complete all the studying for finals, attend practice after school and have a social life. And so, unbeknownst to you, Renjun has been making a few sacrifices in order to not jeopardise your budding relationship.

Everyone is talking about what’s going on between you. Are you together or just really close friends? That’s the debate that seems to be dividing everyone. Because of which, your popularity has continued to grow. Everyone wants to become your best friend, to be the first one to know about your relationship with Renjun and sit with you at the top of the social ladder. Of course, your loyalties are with Mark, the only best friend you need.

Although, you’ve not had as much time to hang out with him recently; you being occupied by Renjun and him having formed a great friendship with Chenle and some of the others from their group.

Everything seems crazy, but perfect. And you couldn’t be any happier. It’s almost too good to be true.

“Guess who finally decided to show up to practice.” Donghyuck’s sarcastic tone falls bitterly on Renjun’s ears. “You’re half an hour late.”

Renjun faces his team, who all look as pissed off with him as Donghyuck does. It wasn’t intentional on his part. It’s just, he was hanging out with you and lost track of time; you had a free period after lunch and so, it’s not like you’d realised classes had begun again.

“Sorry guys, I got caught up-”

“With (Y/N). We know.” Donghyuck flatly cuts off his friend.

“You know coach made us do press-ups until you arrived.” Jeno huffs.

“Yeah, new recruit over here almost passed out because of you.” Jaemin points over to the new addition to the team, Sungchan, who is still doubled over, hands on his knees as he tries to regain his breath.

“Sorry?” Renjun shoots them a guilty look, but none of them seem to be ready to forgive him.

“Sorry? That’s all you have to say? Some captain you are.” Donghyuck stakes a step towards Renjun as though he’s about to square him up.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Renjun broadens his chest.

“It means, you’re a shit leader. Prioritising some girl over us.” Donghyuck spits back.

“Some girl? You’re the one who told me to go for (Y/N)! You came up with the plan!” Renjun’s on the edge of rage now, fists clenched by his sides and teeth gritted.

“Yeah, but I didn’t say to abandon your team.” His voice is calmer than Renjun’s, but it spits just as much venom. “Why’d you even hang around with her so much anyway? You’re only using her so you can achieve the legacy you want to leave behind.”

When Renjun doesn’t respond, it dawns on Donghyuck the reason why.

“Wait a minute- you actually like her don’t you?” He begins to laugh, finding the whole ordeal hilarious.

“No I don’t.” Renjun bites back. “She’s a loser, why would I like her?” He doesn’t know why he’s saying that about you, why he’s putting on a front to his teammates and lying to their faces about how he really feels. What’s so wrong with liking you?

“It seems like you do.” Jaemin pipes up. However, he’s not being obnoxious like Donghyuck is, more so just voicing what every one of the team is thinking.

“You’ve got to be joking!” Renjun throws his hands in the air. “I would neve-” his words cut short as he begins to spin around from the force of his exasperation until he find you, stood behind him with tears in your eyes, looking absolutely heartbroken.

You’d heard it all…

Renjun feels like the biggest idiot alive. Watching as you run out of the locker rooms, dropping the jacket he’d let you borrow onto the floor as you leave. All you’d wanted to do was return it before your next class.

“Oh no you don’t.” Donghyuck has a hold on Renjun’s shoulder before he has a chance to run after you. “You’ve got a team to lead.”

You rush into the restroom, blurry eyes and tears streaming down your cheeks.

It feels as though all the air has been sucked out of your lungs and life drained from your body as it begins to weakly tremble. Holding onto the sink as you try to calm yourself, you take a few deep breaths until you’re feeling steady enough to stand properly again and fish out your phone from your back pocket.

It’s about 10 minutes into the next class now and you really don’t want to turn up late. It’ll be impossible to hide your red blotchy eyes and tear stained cheeks and everyone will know something has happened.

Instead, you begin typing a message to Mark, telling him you’re in the girls restrooms by the science department and for him to meet you there after class.

However, seconds after you’ve sent the message, your phone buzzes with a reply from him simply saying he’s on his way now.

“(Y/N)?” A timid knock sounds from the opposite side of the door, Mark’s hushed voice just about seeping through.

You step out into the empty hallway, noticing how his eyes become soft and worrisome the second he sets them on you.

“What’s happened?”

You guide Mark out of the building and into a secluded corner of grass, settling on the ground with your backs against the brick wall as you begin to relay everything that you had heard Renjun say.

To say Mark is shocked would be an understatement. But, most of all, he’s disappointed in Renjun. He really had begun to believe all the things you used to say about the ‘real’ Renjun you knew as a kid. But now he realises that he never should have, and he also never should have let you get so close to him again.

The second Renjun is able to get out of his final class, he rushes to your locker in hopes you’ll need to go there before heading home.

After you’d run away and Donghyuck hadn’t let him go after you, Renjun had spent the rest of practice being scolded by his teammates. He made a promise to them when he was elected captain; nothing is more important than the team.

He’d managed to get away with doing hardly any work during his final class, instead replaying the way you looked at him. So hurt, so heartbroken, all because of him.

As he speeds through the hallway, weaving between other students, he feels as though luck is finally on his side. There you are, stood at your locker. He feels the desperation raise within him.

He needs to get to you before you spot him. Before you leave.

“Oh, Renjun!”

He panics.

There, stood in front of him and blocking his way is Elle.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you.” She smiles.

Damn. Why does she always have to be so friendly, even towards her ex!

See, Elle isn’t your typical popular girl. She’s actually really sweet and kind towards everyone. That’s why she’s got so many people who look up to her.

“Yeah…” Renjun uninterestedly sighs, keeping his eyes on you from over her shoulder. He notices how your face lights up as a girl approaches you - Rina he’s thinks her name is - and you begin talking and laughing together.

“You left these at my house.” She fished out some random, unimportant, items of his from her bag: an old t-shirt, phone charger and some photos of them from when they were together.

“Oh…” His shoulders slump when he watches you shut your locker and make your way outside with Rina. “Thanks…” Renjun’s eyes flicker onto Elle’s for the first time in this conversation, forcing a meek smile as he accepts his (in his opinion, useless) possessions back.

“I heard about what happened with (Y/N).” His eyes widen, back tensing up as she extends her arm and places a comforting hand on his shoulder. To be honest, he’s not surprised she knows, the whole school probably does by this point. But he’s sure there’s nothing more horrific than talking to his last girlfriend about the one he hopes will be in the future… “She’ll forgive you, I’m sure.”

Sending one final smile his way Elle walks away, leaving Renjun feeling frazzled from the, quite frankly, odd conversation they’ve just shared.

“It’s (Y/N)‘s.” Renjun blocks Jeno from sitting on the seat beside him at their lunch table.

“But she hasn’t sat with us this week and, besides, she’s over there with Mark and Chenle.” Jeno complains.

It’s true, Renjun had saved the seat beside him at their lunch table every day for the entire week so far and you hadn’t even acknowledged him once, let alone even thought of sitting at the same table as him. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to give up. No, all he wants is to get you back beside him and in his life.

He doesn’t blame you for wanting nothing to do with him after everything he said. He knows he was completely in the wrong. Yes, he may have only started talking to you again for his plan, but he definitely didn’t feel that way for long. He just wishes he could have an opportunity to talk to you, to get to explain everything.

“Just sit here and shut up.” Donghyuck rolls his eyes as Jeno, who grumbles under his breath about how it’s just a seat, complies with Donghyuck’s orders. “And stop mourning her, she’d not died.”

Renjun scours at Donghyuck, feeling himself become so agitated by his constant flippancy towards the whole ordeal that, need he be reminded, he started!

Renjun is so done with him, he can’t even find the right words to express it. Instead, stands from the table, grabs his things, and walks away.

Over where you are sat, you haven’t lifted your head up from looking at your lunch; none of which looks particularly appetising, but it’s still the best option to suppress the desire you have to look in Renjun’s direction.

“Prom’s next week… you gonna go?” Mark tries his best to think of something to distract you with, but everything seems to remind you of Renjun.

“Not planning on it.” You mumble. You’d hoped to go with Renjun, but now that all feels so stupid. How could you have believed in him so much?

“Oh no,” Chenle laughs. “I’m not letting you sit and wallow in your self pity when you could be having a great time with us at prom.”

Yes, Chenle had been by your side the whole time. Even though he knew about Renjun and Donghyuck’s plan and had bared witness to the horrific moment you found out about it all, he wanted nothing more than to be there for you. So, you didn’t really have a choice when it came to icing Chenle out, he simply wouldn’t allow you to; which, after this week, you’ve been incredibly glad about. Him and Mark have been so amazing.

“I’d rather have the ground open up and swallow me than go…” you fight back a smile when you finally look up and meet Chenle’s unimpressed stare.

“You’re going.” He asserts.

Looking over to Mark, you swallow thickly, because you know that neither of them are letting you get out of this.

Maybe the ground really could open up and swallow you. At least, you’ll be hoping it does…

The eve of prom has arrived and you find yourself staring at your reflection in the full length mirror.

This is it… the dreaded night has come…

You’re yet to have spoken to Renjun, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t tried relentlessly to get you to. Between all his messages and attempts to catch you between classes, you feel like you’ve had no chance to get any time alone to think everything over. Yesterday he’d even resorted to getting Jaemin to pass you notes during class. Although, you didn’t respond to any, simply reading his message with an unimpressed frown etched onto your face before scrunching each piece of paper up into a ball in your fist.

You don’t understand why he wants to talk to you so bad when he’s the one who was using you. He never really cared for you, he just wants to clear his conscience.

The front door rings and you rush to answer it, swinging it open to reveal Mark and Chenle looking incredibly handsome. Mark’s suit is a navy and Chenle’s classic black.

“Wow you guys look amazing!” You beam, pulling them both into a quick hug.

“Us? Look at you!” Mark takes your hand. “Stunning.” He muses.

You bashfully roll your eyes, trying to hide how flustered his compliment makes you.

Despite not wanting to go, you really had put effort into your appearance. The floor length dusty blue dress hugging your figure in all the right places. After all, you’re aware eyes will be on you tonight, now that people care for your existence.

“Ready to go?” You take a deep breath and nod at Chenle.

It’s now or never.

Renjun stands by the sidelines, hoping to spot you somewhere in the crowd. He knows you’re here tonight, Chenle had mentioned it during practice last week. In fact, every practice, Renjun finds himself asking Chenle how you’re doing. Of course, Chenle has said the same thing every day for the last week. He’s not given too much away, or anything at all, which is unfortunate for Renjun.

He feels pathetic really. Never has he had to chase after someone before, he didn’t even beg Elle to not break up with him when she dumped him. But with you it’s different. He felt happier in the three weeks he’d spent with you than in a year and a half of his last relationship. He didn’t need to hide any parts of himself when you were around, he could just be unapologetically himself. He wasn’t the unapproachable captain of the football team, the (hopefully) future prom king or widely admired person he was to everyone else in the school. With you, he was simply Renjun.

…Until he messed all of it up by trying to convince his teammates you didn’t mean anything to him…

Looking absently around the room, he spots Mark standing by the drinks table and feels some hope begin to bubble in his stomach. Surely it will lead him to you.

“Is (Y/N) here?” Mark is caught off guard by Renjun approaching him, but he’d had his suspicions he’d want to try and talk to you tonight.

“I think she’s somewhere on the dance floor.” Mark shrugs. He feels bad lying, but you’d explicitly told him that if Renjun asked where you were then he’d need to send him in the wrong direction.

“Ok, thanks.” Renjun reluctantly looks back over his shoulder to the crowded dance floor behind him. Sighing, he begins to weave his way through the sea of people. This is gonna take some time.

“You’re getting better at lying.” Chenle casually strolls up next to Mark, sending him a sly smirk. “But, what can I say, I’m a great influence.”

With no luck, Renjun eventually left the dance floor and instead found refuge in standing with some of his teammates.

“You look like you need this.” Jisung hands him a drink.

“What’s in there?” Renjun sniffs, scrunching his nose up at the unfamiliar scent.

“Jaemin spiked the punch.” Donghyuck whispers. Ah yeah, he’d almost forgotten about Jaemin’s dare for tonight. Part of his punishment for being the slowest time to run a lap of the field was to carry out the teams choice of dare, which for Jaemin meant he had to break a rule of prom; spiking all drinks with alcohol seemed the least amount of effort.

Knowing this makes Renjun find the drink a little more appealing… he might need it to get through the night, shrugging as he begins to tip the contents of the cup towards his mouth.

Just as he is about to chug the drink, however, the music cuts out and the principle clears her throat.

“It’s time to crown your prom King and Queen.” She announces. “So let’s get down to business.”

“With 80% of the votes, your queen is…” theres an electronic drum roll sound played from the dj set; the audience waiting eagerly for the suspense to end. “Elle!”

Everyone claps and cheers as she makes her way up on stage to claim her crown and say her thank you speech; proceeding to thank so many people that she might as well have just thanked everyone in the school.

“And now, for your prom King.” The principle resumes after finally reclaiming the mic. The synthetic drum roll sounds again. “With 92% of the votes, the biggest win for prom king ever… Renjun!”

Before he can make sense of what’s going on, his teammates have pushed him towards the stage, cheering and chanting ‘King! King! King!’ in his ears.

Standing up on the stage, wearing his crown proudly, Renjun looks at the crowd of cheering students below.

“Thank you to those of you who voted me as your king.” Renjun begins. “And thank you for this.” He chuckles, pointing up to the crown that adorns his head. “I really appreciate you all.”

“But there’s one person in particular who means the most. Someone I care about so deeply, but hurt because I’m the biggest idiot alive.” He takes a breath, scanning the crowd until he finds you. “(Y/N)?…”

You stand frozen, shell-shocked, in the middle of the room, your gaze locked on Renjun’s. There may be hundreds of people surrounding you, but to Renjun, you’re the only one he sees.

“… I know what I did was completely wrong, and all the things I said about you were out of order...” He pleads. “…But, please believe me, none of it was true...”

“…I’ve fallen head over heals for you and I want everyone to know it.”

You can’t believe it. The audacity.

Does Renjun really think that by declaring his so called love for you in front of everyone that he will win you over? After all the hurt, all the public humiliation he caused?

You scoff, shaking your head in disbelief before trying to weave your way to the back of the room.

“(Y/N)!” Renjun drops the mic, rushing off the stage to try and get you before you leave.

“What?” The tears stream down your cheeks, turning to face him when his hand grabs your arm. “What do you want from me?”

“I said-”

“I know what you said!”

With the way he looks at you, it’s clear he really believes you should say it back.

It’s silent, everyone watching the two of you and it’s so suffocating. You can’t do this, rushing out of the room as quickly as you can.

You wish you’d never attended this stupid prom. You wish you had never become friends with Renjun again. You wish you were still invisible to everyone. It was so much easier.

“Wait, please!” Renjun chases you outside, stopping you in the middle of the school parking lot.

It’s just the two of you now.

“Tell me how I can fix this.” His voice is mellow, puppy eyes staring into your soul.

“How you can fix this?” You exasperatedly cry. “You seriously don’t think this,” you frantically point back and forth between you. “isn’t beyond repair?”

“You dropped me like I was nothing to you for a shot at popularity and treated me like I didn’t exist for three years.” You begin. “Although, somehow, I didn’t hate you for it. I still cared for you the whole time.” You continue to rant, tears now streaming down your cheeks as Renjun simply stands in front of you, speechless.

“When we started hanging out again, I was stupid enough to actually believe it was because you wanted to be friends, that you really cared.” You bitterly laugh at yourself.

“I do care.” The second he speaks up, you feel yourself soften. You don’t like the control his voice has over you, it’s one of the reasons you’ve avoided talking to him for so long.

“And, yet,” your voice retracts, trying to catch some of your breath back. “Regardless of all the shit you put me though,” you’re completely serious now, all forms of hysteria faded away.

You go to speak your next words but they don’t seem to come out.

“What…” Renjun’s voice is practically mute. He’s pretty much lost all hope by this point, eyes filled with sorrow.

“You still made me love you.”

The silence that settles in the wake of your words is hollow. Neither of you move.

Renjun’s mind replays it repeatedly, almost as though he can’t quite believe what he’s heard. You… love… him… You… love him.

You love him.

He springs to life the second it registers, grabbing you by the waist with one hand and cupping your cheek with the other. He wastes no more time, smashing his lips against yours in a haste of passion and pure adrenaline.

You feel him smile into you when he feels you kiss back, your arms snaking around his neck and fingers threading through the hair at his nape.

“I love you so much.” He pants, pulling away just enough to get the words out.

Renjun refuses to kiss you again until he hears you say it back. Although, he doesn’t actually voice this. Instead, trying to get the message across by staring at you intently and tauntingly keeping your lips apart enough so they are only able to brush against one another.

He wants you to say it. But he needs you to want to say it too.

“I love you.” You smirk as you whisper the words you can tell he’s so desperate to hear.

“Okay, we get it! You love each other!”

You hear the unmistakeable voice echo from the opposite end of the parking lot just as Renjun was about to delve back in and press his lips to yours.

Donghyuck.

He lets out a whine when you pull back, lowering your face to hide your embarrassment at having an audience.

“I’m gonna kill him.” Renjun complains. Although his words lose their threat when he hears you laugh at him, unable to stop the smile that breaks out across his lips at the sound.

“Or… we could go somewhere else for a while?” You raise your brow.

“I could always kill him tomorrow.” Renjun shrugs, interlacing your fingers with his before guiding you in the direction of his car. Away from all the prying eyes to somewhere you can be invisible together.

~ Epilogue: A Month Later ~

“Come on Renjun!” Mark shouts at the top of his lungs from beside you, cheering him on as Renjun sprints as fast as he can across the field, ball clutched tightly in his arms.

It’s been a hectic month since the night of the prom. You’ve completed finals and graduated from high school. But to top all of that, you and Renjun are finally official.

Your eyes are glued to your boyfriend as he skilfully dodges the opposing teams players, chucking the ball to Donghyuck so he’s able to run to an open space while the others are distracted.

It all happens so fast, but before you know it, Renjun’s caught the ball once again and has begun the final sprint.

You scream when he makes the touchdown, the crowd around you going wild.

That was it. Renjun scored the winning goal!

He’s engulfed by his teammates and hoisted on top of Jeno’s shoulders, everyone chanting his name in victory.

You watch your boyfriend proudly from the bleachers, your heart skipping a beat when his eyes scan the crowd and stop when they meet yours. And they don’t move from you until he’s placed safely on the ground again, congratulating his fellow teammates as he weaves through the group of players over to the sidelines.

You rush into his arms the second you have made it to the bottom of the crowded stands, allowing him to sweep you up in his arms and spin you around.

“I’m so proud of you!” You press a tender kiss to his lips once you’ve regained your balance, Renjun’s hold not once faltering from being wrapped around your waist.

This was it, the last game Renjun would play for his high school and as team captain. After tonight there would be no need for him to return to this place.

All the pressure of exams, of acceptance into college, to winning prom King and the final football game of the season was behind him. He’s leaving the legacy he’d always dreamed of and now is his time to focus on his future, you.

You’re heart feels so full. There’s that smile you adore so much, the one that reaches all the way to his eyes; the one that’s filled with pure joy.

Maybe Donghyuck’s plan wasn’t the best idea to have ever existed, but neither you nor Renjun can deny that you’d be where you are now without it.

#nct fluff #nct angst #nct oneshot #nct drabbles #nct fanfic #nct fanfiction #nct x reader #nct renjun #nct dream huang renjun #nct dream fluff #nct dream fanfic #nct dream oneshots #nct dream x reader #kpop fluff #kpop angst #kpop fanfiction #kpop oneshots #kpop x reader #kpop drabbles

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goldshitter · 3 years

Text

A Study in Light - Chapter 1

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28095522

Summary: There will come a time when Childe will betray her, and Lumine knows this from the start.

There will come a time when Childe will betray her, and Lumine knows this from the start.

She’s wary of him, from the moment her heart slows its pounding from the chase and subsequent escape from Liyue’s guards. He’s altogether too charming, all easy smiles and fond vernacular, with his closed-eye smiles that she imagines do not quite reach his eyes. She tells herself that even if she did not find out he is a Harbinger, her guard would be up around someone like him. As it is, the memory of Signora is enough to overwhelm Lumine, her memory of her own helplessness and despair colouring her mind’s eye until all she could see was red. Still, as angry as Lumine is, she’s not a fool. There’s no point in picking a fight with an unknown factor like Childe, not until she fully gets her powers back and is able to compete on par with the gods. So she reluctantly accepts his help, his charity even (as uncomfortable as she is when it comes to money - she hates being in people’s debt waiting for them to collect), telling herself that she will keep her eyes open every step of the way.

He wins over Paimon first, wearing down her, albeit minimal, resistances over time and mora. To be fair to Paimon, Lumine knows that despite her greed, should she ever express any discomfort, Paimon would willingly cut off her mora supplier for her friend’s sake. Paimon says as much to Childe’s face, a few days after his timely rescue. Lumine and Paimon have been keeping their heads down with the help of those at Northlander Bank, and Childe has made it a habit of checking in on them in the evenings. He had offered to bring them take-out several times, but Lumine refused, much to Paimon’s chagrin until she reminded her floating companion of their good friend Xianling, who would surely both feed and hide them.

“Why am I not surprised you’ve made friends with everyone of note? Your Anemo god, Acting Grand Master, famous genius this, prodigal talent that.” Childe munches on his own order of fried noodles. Paimon glares enviously at his takeout box.

“I make friends with people of no importance too,” Lumine says drily. “I met you after all, haven’t I?”

Childe chokes, and doubles over coughing.

“How rude, ojou-chan! Had I known of your lack of social graces, perhaps I would have let the guards chase you around much longer.”

“And deprive yourself of such brilliant displays of charity?”

“If I couldn’t tell any better, miss, I’d say you’re almost resentful of my ‘charity’.”

“And risk the wrath of a Fatui Harbinger? Never.”

He looks at her, caught between one of his usual smiles, only this time, she notices that she’s right, they don’t reach his eyes. Paimon’s almost vibrating and drooling at the rapidly disappearing meal across from her, nevermind the fact that they’d had a generous helping of Xianling’s latest invention but a few hours ago. Childe finally sighs and pushes his leftovers in Paimon’s direction.

“Your floaty friend here doesn’t seem to mind, at least.”

“Hey, said floaty friend is right here!” Paimon says through a mouthful of noodles. She swallows, and puts on a show of pushing back the dish. “And Paimon only accepts your charity because all that mora is probably going somewhere less than legal, so it might as well go towards filling Paimon’s stomach - I mean Paimon and Lumine’s pockets!”

“A right good samaritan you are, Paimon,” Childe says without a trace of guile in his voice. Paimon huffs.

“That being said, should you ever do anything to harm Lumine, Paimon will - Paimon will kick you in the shins so hard you can’t walk and you can say goodbye to your sense of goodwill!”

“Well, I’d better never hurt the traveller here then, shall I?”

He and Lumine don’t quite meet each other’s eyes.

A few days later, he calls on them to meet his contact and acquaintance, the quaint Mr. Zhongli of the Wangshu funeral parlour. Lumine’s guards are up so high around Childe, that she barely has any space left to build walls against Zhongli’s presence. He seems an odd enough fellow, with his deep knowledge yet mora-less quirks, and had Lumine not been so busy trying to figure out Childe’s motives in appearing every day and in being so helpful, she might have picked up on Zhongli’s identity sooner. Even so, she senses Zhongli’s presence, steady and grounded, and he is a welcome distraction from the impromptu eating competition between Paimon and Childe.

Childe stubbornly keeps at his chopsticks, which puts him at a distinct disadvantage as Paimon has already cleared her side of the dishes, and is eyeing the others’ still full plates with a gleam in her eyes. When she dashes in to grab one of his buns, he deflects her with a deftness that has Lumine wondering if the earlier clumsiness was just an act.

But no, the moment he goes to pick up his food, he’s fumbling again. Lumine wonders at the speed at which he’d fended off Paimon’s grab, how easily controlled his movements were in not hurting Paimon, and she recalled the frightening precision of his attacks on those Liyue guards. He would make a worthy and challenging opponent in a duel, Lumine thinks.

“Mora for your thoughts, ojou-chan?”

She tears her gaze from his hand holding the chopsticks, looks up to see that Paimon has indeed won the impromptu competition, and is now even taking jabs at Zhongli’s dish. To his credit, the consultant merely sips at his tea, serene as ever.

“Hasn’t anyone ever tried to show you how to use those?”

“Oh, they’ve tried. I just don’t take well to others’ charitable attempts at teaching someone as stubborn as me.”

And yet he doesn’t hesitate to extend that same level of charity to someone as stubborn as Lumine.

She watches him poke and prod at his food for a bit longer, before sighing a world-weary sigh.

“Here,” she says, and reaches over to take his hand in hers, “you’re trying to hold it like a pencil. No, now you’re holding it like your fingers are trying to cut like scissors. Relax your hand will you? I’m surprised you haven’t pulled something holding these for so long when you’re as tense as that.”

“Hahaha,” Childe lets her maneuver his hand around for a few seconds longer, before she huffs and lets go. “See? I’m hopeless.”

“I’m not giving up.”

“Oh?”

“I just need to finish my own food before Paimon takes it all.”

True to her word, whenever Childe takes her and Paimon out to eat, sometimes with Zhongli in tow, Lumine spends time maneuvering Childe’s grasp on chopsticks. Lumine likes looking at people’s hands over looking people in the eye. She can pick up fidgeting or other movements that are descriptive of the person’s personality. Lumine likes to think that Childe’s hands say more about his thoughts than his words or eyes. At least she hopes that’s the case. For all she knows, he’s trained every muscle to do what he wants, just like how his facial expressions or the lilt of his voice never betray his true intentions.

Still, she likes the way his hands look, their precision and deftness, despite his fumbling with chopsticks. Lumine is not naive; she knows that taking someone’s hand in hers can be misconstrued as flirting. Perhaps it had been on impulse that she’d reached out to him. Perhaps she just wanted to see him react. Either way, he hadn’t stopped her or expressed any discomfort, and still showed up in the evenings, and later in the day when Lumine started taking commissions. The Liyue Qixing’s interest in her, now turned less “arrest on sight” and more “grudgingly keep an eye on her”, came at a good time. Lumine had become restless, keeping her head down all that time, and she’s been itching to go out and explore the country, to draw her sword against something other than a few straw dummies the people at Northland bank had put up for her. Childe, of course, had picked up on her restlessness from day one, and even offered to duel her.

“All that pent-up energy has to go somewhere, ojou-chan. It might as well go towards battling someone who will give you a harder time than an inert dummy.”

“Yeah, but at least said inert dummy doesn’t talk back,” Lumine said, the first of many excuses she had to come up with to decline Childe’s offer. Back in Mondstadt, Lumine practiced fighting with various citizens, Knights, friends. Fighting for her was either an act of violence, or a way to get to know someone. She does not wish to fight Childe with the intent of hurting him. She also does not want for Childe to learn her vulnerabilities, even if it was just in her movement or attacks. She does want to spar him, wants to see if his movements are as fluid and refined as his hands, or that glimpse of his fighting those Liyue guards, made them out to be. But seeing as the last person Lumine had sparred with ended up in her bed later that night, she had yet another reason to keep Childe away from her sword’s edge.

So Childe resigns himself to trailing after her during her commissions to clear out hilichurl camps, slay slimes, or even make food deliveries under weird conditions. He doesn’t always stay around for the whole day, off to what Lumine assumes to be Fatui business, but some days he’s there for hours, humming to himself or chattering back and forth with Paimon when Paimon does decide to accompany Lumine. Other days it’s just the two of them, Paimon claiming that she’s too tired or wants to hang out with Xianling or even go bother Xingqiu when he’s around town. It was actually Lumine who suggested for her friend to go off and do her own stuff, reassuring her that if Childe wanted to hurt her, he would’ve already made his move, and that if and when he did decide to fight her, she would hold her own.

“That’s not reassuring at all, Lumi!”

“Yeah, but Paimon, you wouldn’t be good in a fight even if he does turn on me. You might as well go try out that new bakery store or convince Xingqiu to spend his family fortune on you. It’s not like I make for a very entertaining companion anyway. I know you like to talk and actually have someone respond beyond a few grunts of assent.”

“That’s not true!” Paimon says, even as she’s eyeing the direction where Chef Mao’s restaurant lies. “Paimon enjoys hanging out with you even if you’re silent!”

“It’s alright, Paimon. I’ll see you later tonight? We’ll meet to go see the poetry reading.”

Lumine likes her friend, likes having a constant presence by her, and the back-and-forth banter they have. But Lumine is also used to silence, companionable back when she and Aether traversed the cosmos, but solitude nonetheless. She is grateful for Paimon’s presence the past few months, would not ask her friend to be any different than she is, but Lumine misses having her own space, with her own meditative mindset.

So she sets off to pick some violetgrass for a commission posted by Bubu Pharmacy, looking forward to keeping companion to her own thoughts. She travels near Mingyun village, hops and glides across mountain faces, swept by the breeze and the fragrance of wild flowers. She’s hit with a sudden urge to jump, to fall hundreds of feet before sweeping up with her glider. Lumine loves gliding, loves the rush of wind against her skin, her clothing sturdy but insubstantial enough so that she can feel the air through the fabric. She wants to fly again, not just glide, with her own wings that she once had, a perfect match for her brother’s. They had spent aeons sweeping through the stars, their wings fluttering through time and space, and even though she’s been to worlds she’s grown fond of, she always landed with the hope of soaring back into the skies once again.

It’s another reason why Lumine wanted to be alone. She wants to get lost in her memories, has barely given herself space to process the cataclysmic event that tore Aether away from her. She’s been swept along, first by rescuing Paimon, then by all that had happened in Mondstadt, and she’s never been truly alone since. She needs to let herself feel the anguish of being torn apart from her twin, the guilt that she wasn’t doing enough to find him, the sputtering hope that he’s still alive and well, somewhere in this world. Lumine doesn’t cry. She’s not open to being vulnerable enough to cry. But she does let herself rise and dive with the wind, letting out a shout and a whoop as she rides the currents, and drops against the rush of gravity rising to meet her.

She swoops out her glider wings at the last second, floating the last few feet to the grass underneath. Her momentum comes to a halt as she catches her breath, her heart pounding from both exercise and exhilaration. She feels the high off a fight, her every sense alert and pinpointing sounds, smells, sights. There’s a soft rustling coming from behind her, and she whips around, her sword materialized in hand.

“Woah woah woah, girlie. I come in peace.”

Lumine blows hair from her eyes, contemplates for a moment if Childe’s sudden appearance is really as innocuous as he will probably try to make it out to be. But his weapons are nowhere to be seen, his stance relaxed and nowhere near one she’d recognize for fighting, so she lowers her sword but doesn’t let it dematerialize.

“Childe,” she says, “what are you doing here?”

He jabs a finger over his shoulder, up on a ledge some distance away, where Lumine can just make out a few masked figures. They’re looking in her direction, but the shovels and other impromptu weapons aren’t raised, and they seem to be conferring between themselves.

“Fatui business,” Childe says, his stance still casual and open, as if approaching a tense wild animal. “It was going well too, until one of them pointed out a falling figure coming down from the clouds above. It looked like quite the drop.”

“Yeah,” Lumine says, suddenly feeling awkward and forgetting how to ease back into their easy banter, “it was. It was fun. Sorry to have distracted you all. Shouldn’t you get back to your... associates?”

“We just finished up. I’m sure they will be able to find their way back to their hideout without my help. Are you out on a commission?”

“Yeah. Collecting violetgrass. The usual. You coming along?”

Lumine never asks Childe to come along, he usually just inserts his presence into her routine whether she wants him there or not. In all fairness, she’s never asked him to leave her alone. She doesn’t actually mind his presence, his silent companionship when she doesn’t feel up to talking, the ease at which he keeps pace with her movements. She did feel uncomfortable leaving her back open to him, but he’s always so languid in his movements, never a stray or sudden shift, that even if mentally she wants to stay guarded against him, she’s considerably more physically relaxed around him than in the beginning.

The awkwardness she feels this time around comes mostly from her previous mental state, swooping in and above the mists around Liyue’s mountains. Her emotions and thoughts were for her and her alone, and to have to suddenly build her defenses up right after easing herself into vulnerability was jarring to say the least. Lumine is tired of being so tense all the time. She wants to trust, she’s used to having first her brother then her Mondstadt friends having her back, she wants to befriend this easy-going Fatui Harbinger and let her guard down. She just really, really does not want to deal with the emotional shitstorm that will come of their inevitable opposed agendas. Her brain is practically screaming at her to play smart, that in the end she would be the only one getting hurt, but maybe it’s the rush of her earlier flight, the adrenaline roaring in her ears, because she’s holding out the bag she’s been carrying, traces of violet petals trailing from its opening.

“You coming?”

“Yeah,” Childe says, his voice hitched with an emotion Lumine can’t quite place. “Yeah, let me just grab that for you.”

Lumine knows she will regret this. She just hopes she gets something out of this that makes her regret worth it.

#chilumi #genshin impact #for some reason ive been scared uploading this fic onto tumblr #anyway theres 4 chapters now on ao3 #genshin fanfic

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elliemarchetti · 4 years

Text

Red Queen Pride and Prejudice AU (Part 1)

@lilyharvord hope you like it!

Masterlist

Words: 2391

It’s a universally recognized truth that a bachelor in possessing of a large fortune should need a wife. However little you may know about the feelings or points of view of such a man on his first appearance in the neighborhood, this truth is so firmly fixed in the minds of the district’s families that he was considered the legitimate property of one or the other of their daughters.

“My dear Mr. Barrow,” his lady told him one day, “did you know that finally the Hall of the Sun has been rented?”

Mr. Barrow replied no and although his lack of interest was evident, his wife continued with her speech anyway, until, impatient at the absence of an answer, she asked him if he wasn’t interested in knowing who possessed enough fortune to be able to afford it.

"You want to tell me, and I have nothing against listening,” he replied, enigmatic as always. He had always been a bizarre man, but the war accident that forced him into a wheelchair had somehow accentuated his wit and sarcasm, and despite twenty-three years had passed, his wife, a woman with a simple mind, of low intelligence and even less culture, still struggled to understand him, but somehow it seemed enough for the man, and he loved her dearly.

“Well, my dear,” she continued, “you must know that Mrs. Long says the Hall of the Sun was rented by a young man who arrived Monday to see the place, and was so delighted that he will send his servants toward the end of the week.”

"And what’s his name, may I ask?”

“Samos,” replied the woman, innocently. Mr. Barrow knew that name well, as it was that of the family who owned the largest mines in the kingdom, but he didn’t know if their son was a bachelor or not, an answer that soon came from his wife.

“Oh! Bachelor, my dear, you can be sure! What a beautiful thing for our girls! ”

“Why on earth? What do they have to do with it?” he asked, even though he had already guessed his wife’s plan to marry him to one of their daughters. What his spouse didn’t take into consideration was that this might not be the primary interest of the young heir to an industry that seemed to be making him richer and richer: after all, they weren’t a rich nor noble family, and all they had was earned from their work in the textile industry and his and his three sons’ military career.

“Since he’s young, it’s very likely that he can fall in love with one of our girls, and so you must visit him as soon as he arrives,” replied his wife, as if she had not understood that the flow of his thoughts had gone far beyond.

“I see no reason to do that. You and the girls can go without me, or you can send them alone, which maybe will be better, since you’re as beautiful as they are and Mr. Samos could consider you the best of the bunch.”

"My dear, you flatter me. Sure, I had my share of beauty, but now I don’t claim to be anything extraordinary, but don’t try to distract me: you really must go.”

"It’s more than I can commit to doing, I assure you.”

“But think of your daughters. Just think of what arrangement it would be for one of them. The Skonos are determined to go just for this reason, and you know that they generally don’t visit newcomers. You have to go, because if you don’t, it would be impossible for us to visit him.”

"Surely you have too many scruples: I really think that Mr. Samos will be delighted to meet you, and I’ll send through you my cordial consent to his marriage to whichever girl he prefers, although I’ll have to put in a good word for my little Mare.”

"Do me the pleasure of not doing such a thing. Mare is nothing better than Gisa and I’m sure she isn’t half as beautiful or half as jovial as her, but you always prefer her over your other daughter.”

"That’s because I have to balance your obvious preference for Gisa,” the man replied, and not knowing how to win that argument, Mrs. Barrow appealed to her most famous excuse, her feeble nerves.

“Ah, you don’t know how much I suffer.”

“But I hope you will be able to heal, and live to see many young men with four thousand a year arrive in the neighborhood. ”

“It wouldn’t do any good even if twenty came, seen that you are not going to visit them,” she replied, angrily.

“Count on it, my dear, that when they will be twenty, I’ll go and visit every one!” he exclaimed, and walked away, leaving her to wonder if he would go or not, an answer she received the next week, during a conversation that occupied the whole family, in which her husband threw a few clues about his secret visit to Mr. Samos that morning.

“I’m tired of Mr. Samos!” exclaimed his wife, after a while.

“I’m sorry, but why didn’t you tell me before? If I had at least known it this morning, I certainly wouldn’t have gone to visit him. It’s really unfortunate, but since I did indeed visited him, now we can no longer avoid him,” he replied, although it really was exactly what he would’ve wanted; even if he was handsome, with an elegant appearance and formal manners, everything in him seemed forced and his expression wasn’t very nice. Even Shade, his third son, who had accompanied him in his visit, didn’t liked him that much, and it was a very strange event, given his character. Anyway, the two had decided not to spoil the enthusiasm of the women and not to instill in them any bad judgment, so, thanks to the general excitement, they retired ahead of time, followed by Bree, who had no interest in dances and social events of that kind, and which would shortly be called back to serve in the army.

"What an excellent father you have!” exclaimed Mrs. Barrow, as soon as she was left alone with Tramy, her favorite son, and the two youngest.

“I don’t know how you can ever repay his kindness; or mine too, for that matter. At our age, I tell you, it’s not so pleasant to make new acquaintances every day; but for your sake we would do anything. Gisa, my darling, even if you are the youngest, I really believe that Mr. Samos will be your knight at the next ball.”

Mare was used to that kind of preference, and she spent the rest of the evening speculating about when Mr. Samos would return Mr. Barrow’s visit, and deciding when they should’ve invited him to lunch. The visit was returned within a few days, but although Mr. Samos had hoped of being admitted to the presence of the young ladies, of whose beauty he had heard a lot, he saw only their father. The ladies were a little luckier, as they had the advantage of ascertaining, from a window upstairs, that he was wearing a black jacket and was riding a wonderful thoroughbred stallion. Immediately afterwards an invitation to dinner was sent, and Mrs. Barrow had already planned the dishes that would do her honor when a postponing reply arrived: Mr. Samos was forced to be in town the following day, and consequently was unable to accept the honor of their invitation. Mrs. Barrow was utterly shocked: she couldn’t imagine what he could do so shortly after his arrival that requested his presence at Archeon and she began to fear that he might pass quickly from one place to the other without ever stopping at the Hall of the Sun for the time due. Lady Skonos calmed her fears a little by saying that perhaps he had gone to the capital only to gather a large party for the ball, and soon afterwards news came that Mr. Samos would take twelve ladies and seven gentlemen with him to the party. The girls worried about the number of ladies, but the day before the dance they consoled themselves by learning that, instead of twelve, he would take only six with him, the sister, a dear friend and four cousins, but when the party arrived, he made his entry into the ballroom with just four people, being them his sister, a beautiful woman with an undeniable elegance, this mysterious friend, a noble lady with the appearance of a princess, a cousin and another young man., General Calore, who immediately attracted the attention of the room for his tall and refined figure, his beautiful features and his noble bearing : the gentlemen thought him a refined-looking man, the ladies proclaimed that he was far more attractive than Mr. Samos, and he was object of great admiration for about half of the evening, up when his manner aroused a disapproval that reversed the course of his popularity; it turned out that he was proud, that he thought himself above the company and did nothing to make himself pleasant, and not even his vast estate in Harbor Bay could save him from having a hostile and unpleasant face, not to be worthy of comparison with the other guest, who had immediately made acquaintance with more people and was lively and expansive, danced every round and regretted it was over so soon. These amiable qualities spoke for themselves. What a contrast between him and his friend! General Calore, on his part, danced once with Miss Samos and once with Lady Haven, refused to be introduced to any other lady, and spent the rest of the evening wandering around the room, occasionally talking to someone from his group. He was the most haughty man in the world and everyone hoped he would never show up again, more than anyone else Mrs. Barrow, whose disapproval of his behavior was sharpened by a particular resentment, given he had snubbed one of her daughters: Mare Barrow had been forced by the shortage of men to remain seated for two rounds of dance, and during one of these moments, General Calore found himself standing close enough to allow her to hear unseen a conversation between him and Mr. Samos, who had stopped dancing for a few minutes and approached his friend to persuade him to join him.

"Come on, Cal,” he said, “I have to make you dance. I hate seeing you standing there alone in such a stupid way. ”

“I won’t do it for sure. You know how much I hate it, unless I know my lady well. In a place like this it would be unbearable. Your sisters are busy, and in the hall there’s no other woman with whom for me to dance with wouldn’t be one punishment.”

“I wouldn’t want to be as picky as you are,” exclaimed Mr. Samos, “for all the gold in the world!”

“You’re dancing with the only attractive girl in the room,” said General Calore, looking at Lady Skonos, “at the moment the least of your interests is gold, be it in your coffers or in the rest of the world! “

"There’s a friend of hers sitting right behind you: let me ask my lady to introduce you. ”

“Who are you talking about?” asked General Calore, and turning, he looked for a moment at Mare, until, having met her gaze, he averted his and said coldly she was passable, but not pretty enough to tempt him.

“I’m not in the mood to take care of young ladies neglected by other men, so you better go back to your lady and enjoy her smiles, because with me, you’re wasting your time.”

Mr. Samos followed his advice, and General Calore walked away, leaving Mare with far from cordial feelings towards him. However, she told the story to her friends with great wit since she enjoyed seeing the comic side in everything and didn’t wanted to completely ruin a evening that passed pleasantly for the whole family: Gisa had been greatly admired by Lady Elane Haven and she had danced twice with Mr. Samos’ cousin, which made her as happy as her mother, albeit in a quieter way, and Mare shared the sentiment too; Tramy had never been without a lady, and that was all he cared about in a dance, and when they all returned in good spirits to the village where they lived, they found Bree and Shade still up, both very curious about the events of an evening that had raised such amazing expectations. Somehow, Shade had hoped that his sisters’ expectations on the stranger and his retinue were disappointed, but soon he found he had to hear an entirely different story, at least from Gisa’s side.

“It was an absolutely delightful evening,” she was already telling, as soon as she had crossed the threshold of the house, “a magnificent dance. I wish you had been there too.”

“Gisa was so admired that she couldn’t have been more,” explained their mother. “All they talked about was how beautiful her dress was, and Miss Samos’s friend said she would be honored to introduce her to her brother! Also, Mr. Samos’ cousin danced twice with her, just thinking about it makes me shiver with joy; she was the only one in the room that he asked for a second dance! Mr. Samos, on the other hand, invited Miss Skonos and although I was annoyed at first, I must say that I am relieved that a much older man doesn’t think at our youngest in that way. Oh! My dear!“ Mrs. Barrow went on, "I am really thrilled with his family! His sister is so beautiful and charming, I have never in my life seen anything more elegant than her dress. I really think the lace…”

But before she could start rambling about clothing, Mare interrupted her to inform her brothers about the General rudeness.

“But I can assure you,” added Mrs. Barrow, “that Mare hasn’t lost much for not having tickled his fancy, since he’s the most unpleasant man that exists, absolutely unworthy and unbearable. I wish your father had been there, he would’ve made him regret such an attitude bitterly! ”

#pride and prejudice au #p&p au #red queen #rq #mare barrow #cal calore #evageline samos #elane haven #ptolemus samos #wren skonos #shade barrow #bree barrow #tramy barrow #ruth barrow #daniel barrow #lucas samos

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sparklywaistcoat · 4 years

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I find the online version of the 1967 TV Times interview with Diana Rigg unreadable online, so I’m reproducing it here for anyone else who has difficulty with accessibility due to the web page’s design.

The Girl Behind Emma Peel, TV Times, 12/10/1967 (reprinted here from http://deadline.theavengers.tv/tvt1067a.htm)

...the two worlds of actress Rigg... above, as Emma Peel of THE AVENGERS; a series seen in 40 countries; men feast their eyes on her while muttering endearments in 22 languages. Right, Diana as she is to herself...

Diana Rigg has returned to Shakespearean acting - she is the female lead in a film version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream".

As far as she was concerned, it was the most wonderful thing that had happened to her in years.

She had been Emma Peel's alter ego so long she had to get away - - or else.

"I had become paranoid," she assured me, "with an underlying urge to pack and run. It is a curious thing. People who have never been subjected to it can never really understand what it means.

"I can only describe it as a sense of panic that seizes you when you are Diana to yourself and you are walking down the street. An instant later, you are somebody else to a lot of people who behave as if you belong to them.

"If you are quite a private person, which I am, this seems an intrusion on my privacy. I just have to run.

"Mind you," she adds, with an apologetic smile, "I am not ungrateful. I will be the last to minimise what television has done for me. It is a phenomenon, a miracle medium, that can accomplish in six months what takes years on the stage. Suddenly, you are famous. Suddenly, everybody knows you.

"The point is, though, that you are not yourself. Only the other person you portray in the series. That person is, of necessity, imposed by television, one-dimensional. You ask yourself - - is it worth it?

It should be. In the three years that Diana Rigg has spent in THE AVENGERS she has been catapulted into a position of bargaining power.

Hollywood producers have offered £100,000 to work in one film. It seem they would go higher, if that is what she wants. But she has turned them down.

"So far I have not been offered anything I want," she says. "I don't want a long-term contract. As an actress I will work where and for whom I want, if the script is exciting enough.

"If a script is good and they have a director I can trust, then I will do it."

Really it is a matter of time. The big, international film-makers are confident they will have lassoed this high-spirited long-legged English girl long before Emma Peel loses her hold on the masses - if she ever does.

THE AVENGERS is eagerly watched each week in 40 countries, and Emma Peel (Mrs.) is the series' irrepressible whimsical Amazon of the jet set. Men feast their eyes on her while muttering endearments in 22 languages, and their women try to emulate her - - but they never will, of course.

Consumption of champagne the world over has been increasing ever since John Steed and Emma Peel began toasting each other in bubbly stuff, from the television tube.

"Avengerwear" - - Emma's fancy "cat" suits and things - - is reaching the shelves and racks of department stores all over the world.

"Emma Peel's" international fan mail, still growing by leaps and bounds, promises to assume astronomical figures before the winter is out.

Diana never touches this mail and has enlisted mother, in Leeds, to head the Emma Peel fan mail operation.

Says Diana: "We have this room at home, measuring 20ft. by 15ft., and it is full of letters. More are delivered each day - all addressed to me.

"I am supposed to answer them. But I can't, and that worries me deeply. I get persecuted by the mere thought that there's an obligation which I am not willing to fulfil.

"That is where mother comes in. She reads, and she answers. And I feel ashamed. But I can't help it.

"People have made up their minds to identify me with a fantasy of theirs on television. In their minds they want to have a relationship with me based on fantasy which can take any form.

"I have heard from my mother that there have been letters from children saying: "You look like my dead mother and so I write to you." I think that is terrifying."

The story of Diana Rigg is, in a way, the story of two women - the real one and the imaginary one. They are identical twins.

The conflict within this beautiful and intelligent young woman, who is just a little older than 29, reminds me of the case of Sean Connery, alias James Bond.

In Connery's case, though, there was resentment. Connery, the man, gradually developing such a passionate hatred for the image he had created that he refused to continue as Bond even at a million dollars a throw.

He made his last two Bond films under protest. Bond made him a multi-millionaire, but you cannot escape the feeling that he would settle for half this amount if his identity remained - that of himself and not that of the slick, women-loving, superb and deadly Secret Agent 007.

Emma Peel has some of the same qualities as 007, well-screened and suppressed, to fit into a family-watching hour on television.

The innuendo, contained in the name has been a source of Rigg's unconcealed unhappiness.

Asked what innuendo, she blushes and confides in a conspiratorial whisper: "Believe it or not, Emma Peel is a phonetical transposition of "M Appeal", the M in this case standing for Men. In other words, "Men Appeal." Isn't it a scream? Sorry that I blush."

She adds wistfully: "I wanted to be Lady Peel, not for any grandiose reasons, but simply because it seemed to get some rather good comments over on the English aristocracy. Of course they wouldn't do it."

"They" being the producers who have been running the show like a tightly-run ship.

Not unlike Sean Connery after "Goldfinger", Diana Rigg said goodbye to THE AVENGERS on the last day of a contractual stay at an ITV studio in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, last August 31st.

"They" were highly hopeful that she would be back, if not immediately, then later.

The production schedule could be stretched to accommodate her, she was reminded. A new regime was taking command of the series, and this, it was felt, would offer Diana an incentive.

She was not sure. But on the last day of the last batch at the close of shooting at 5.20pm she produced a bottle of champagne to toast her co-star and co-workers.

They had become a closely-knit family, and she would miss them if she were not to come back.

"I am devoted to Patrick," she says, referring to co-star Patrick Macnee, who plays John Steed. "I'm frightened of minimising him by talking about him, because it always sounds so glib, but he's an extremely generous and gentle and marvellous man."

They are comrades-in-arms on television. Off screen they are the best of friends, but that is all. Macnee married a second time during the series. Again to quote her, she is "totally committed" to another man.

Diana is simply devoted to a number of other people on the series, including her stand-in, Diana Enright, and her double, stunt-woman, Cyd Child, who resembles her so much that all three directors of the series have dared to have Cyd perform her stunts in full-face and semi-close-up.

Viewers have yet to write to complain that the girl hurling herself through the air at an adversary is not Diana Rigg.

And then, there's Diana's studio chauffeur, John Taylor, who is also her "Man Friday".

"I wouldn't know what to do without him," she says. A confidante, he also does her shopping while she is working, and has the ability to always be there when needed.

Diana didn't join the series under duress. She was tested for the role, as were others after John Steed's leading lady Cathy Gale (actress Honor Blackman) left the series - - ironically for a Bond flick, "Goldfinger".

Why did a promising young Shakespearean actress offer her services to a television series Shakespearean actors have looked down on with patronising dismay? To quote the lovely Diana: "I did it because I had left the Royal Shakespeare Company knowing that if I renewed my contract and stayed on for three or four years, I would have progressed and played good parts, but I was yearning for additional scope.

"To accomplish this I would have to plunge into the deep end, and nothing seemed deeper than this. I was right. Nothing is deeper."

Before dawn in a delightfully feminine bedroom the phone jangles. The young woman sleepily answers. Then struggles out of bed, just like a scene from THE AVENGERS.

But the call was from the telephone service Diana Rigg instructed to wake her. It is still only 6.30 a.m. She gropes through the house, takes her luke-warm bath, drinks a glass of lemon juice. Into the street by 6.50 a.m. - without a touch of make-up. "I've got no vanity at that time of the morning."

North London's suburb of St. John's Wood is still fast asleep and there's no one to catch sight of Diana Rigg below her perfectly-groomed best. Except John Taylor, her chauffeur. He arrives a few minutes earlier, but his instructions are to wait .... about two lines are incoherent here...

"I'm never late," she shudders, "comatose that I still am, and I hate that sound of the bell - at this ghastly hour."

Off to the studios in Borehamwood, Herts. She reads the morning paper on the way.

"It isn't my paper," she says, "It's John'. I don't like it but it's the only paper there, so I read it. Every morning." Apparently it had never occurred to her to ask John to bring her a paper. And so... another day in the life of Emma Peel.

This has been her routine since she became a television star. Diana moved to this house, a lot more compatible with her status, from an old mews cottage she has lived in for five years. Not that she was so concerned with status symbols. Diana Rigg couldn't care less about such things.

She simply fell in love with the old house in St. John's Wood. And her accountant approved of the move.

At her new address previously lived the artist Augustus John; and once Dame Laura Knight.

There, Diana Rigg now lives in the style and comfort of her private world revolving around a specially designed kitchen and window boxes sprouting home-grown herbs.

The house is out of bounds. Except close friends. Not that she is a recluse. She feels that her life is her "own ruddy business". But when in the mood, she will readily explain that she is every jealous of preserving her own privacy.

She insists on leading a life she considers right for her; not concerned with what she defines as "other people's social consciousness. I like to do because I wish to, not because I ought to."

Diana was born in Doncaster, in Yorkshire, on July 20th, 1938. She had spent the early part of her life at Jodhpur in Rajputna. Her family was in the Indian Government Service. Later, she was sent home to school at Great Missenden in Bucks. Eventually, her parents returned to Yorkshire to settle in Leeds, where they now live.

There, Diana finished her education at Fulneck Girls' School, enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (The RADA) and two years later graduated to an acting career. Was she withdrawn as a child? "No, I don't think so. I had the ability to withdraw and I still have it. But above all I always has a strong sense of personal identity.

"One thing that I never did was dream. I was always very practical. I grew interested in the theatre when I was small but not because it offered me an entrance to a world of fantasy, but because it gave me a chance to assert myself. And I loved its freedom. I thought of it as a challenge."

Diana reflects: "I can still remember the first time I met an audience on these terms. I was an understudy at Stratford-on-Avon, when I was called on to replace the principal in 'Alls Well That Ends Well'. Her name was Priscilla Morgan.

"They gave me maybe an hour's rehearsal. By a coincidence my parents were out front that night. I didn't tell them that I was going on, so that when I came out and started shaking, they thought I was just walking on. Then they realised, and sort of clutched each other in absolute fear.

"My fear was of a different kind. I was simply not sufficiently prepared and so I was annoyed with myself. Still, the audience was very kind as it always is when an understudy takes over and doesn't want to make a complete mess of the play, and I was led forward and allowed to take a solo bow.

"I played it for about a week, I guess. And it was about the end of the week only that I began to enjoy it."

Then Diana was 20 years old and earning £7 10 shillings a week. "To make ends meet, I was living on faggots, scraps of meat put inside intestines you still get at the butchers in the provinces. Poor people's food. They cost fourpence each.

"Four times a week, my dinner would consist of two faggots and maybe some potatoes and another vegetable, and fruit. And you know what? I was very healthy. And very happy."

Diana had an old second-hand bicycle for transport around Stratford. "And not only did I make the £7 10s stretch, but I could never do without perfume. I guess I was so very young and this particular perfume was very heavy and musky and made me feel extremely sensual ... I never changed my perfume in all these years!"

Her faggot-eating period came to an end when she moved to London to appear in the London productions of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

The bicycle went. Now she drives a green Mini. She lived in the mews cottage, all this still modestly. No more faggots, but all the perfume that she felt was required, by a young actress, not too bad-looking.

She took a small bottle when she travelled to the United States, appearing in 'King Lear' and 'The Comedy of Errors' on alternate nights.

The company also toured the Continent, as far as Moscow. From her experience on this tour comes Diana's boundless admiration for actor Paul Scofield.

"He's been my ideal since I first saw him on the stage. I was working with him in 'King Lear' when I became aware of his sense of identity, a strong totally compromising identity."

She says: "The beauty of it is that here is a man who has just won an Oscar in an Oscar-winning film and Hollywood is after him. What does he do? He's gone back to Stratford. Obviously, he doesn't care for the money. And he's right. Of course, it's your beliefs that matter.

"In a way I followed his example when I agreed to film "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Peter Brook was doing it and I believe in him and I grew up with him, so I had to answer his call. Professionally speaking, I am part of his troupe.

"Even though I think I'm too bad for the part. The pay? Obviously a pittance by comparison with what I'm making, but then, money is so transitory ... I will not forget that I could, when forced to, live on £7 and 10 Shillings.

Tourists at Athens airport could swear that the young woman killing time in the long drab waiting room by stopping at souvenir counters to inspect, for the umpteenth time, the pseudo-Grecian vases for sale was... Emma Peel.

She wore her auburn hair loose, letting it flow to her shoulders in the manner of the star of THE AVENGERS. And her mini-skirt revealed a pair of very feminine, familiar and beautiful legs.

"It was not easy to say I was not Mrs. Peel," Diana Rigg recalls, "because I dislike lies. But I would have had to explain why and what I was doing there, and it was a long story."

Actually, she was changing planes, going from London to a little-known place in Western Greece.

Eventually a shaky little plane which flies up into the mountains over some breathtakingly lovely countryside delivered her there, to make the trip worth her while.

Two days later, she took the same route back to London and Borehamwood, Herts., to resume where Emma Peel had left off.

It was an unconventional way to spend two days off the series. "I go to the craziest places for the weekend," she said, dismissing all attempts to explain herself.

In the case of the Greek place, a British film unit was there shooting "Oedipus, The King", and lots of friends were there.

One weekend last winter she flew to Zurich, rented a car at the airport and set out, a map in her lap, for Klosters, the Swiss ski resort.

"I drove through the night, with the craziest Swiss drivers whizzing past me over the ice-covered road," she said. "It twisted its way through the mountains, and I just hung on the wheel and prayed. I could have turned back, but I didn't. Too proud."

Until this experience, she had never motored on the Continent before, much less had snow-covered mountains by herself.

All of which seems to indicate that, not unlike Emma Peel, Diana Rigg is a rather unusual person.

It was she - and not Emma Peel - who helped to launch the mini-skirt, in an attempt to be different.

"The designer and the other men were horrified," she said, chuckling at memories of production executives looking aghast at the abbreviated skirt she was wearing and which she wanted Emma to wear.

"They pulled their hair ... said you can't do that, it's impossible ... I argued that one must look forward and not back and by wearing these brief skirts, one was looking forward.

"In fact, one was creating fashion very avant-garde, rather than remaining at the tail end of last year's styles. And it turned out that I couldn't have been more right."

Not that she has profited financially from the so-called "Avenger-wear" that mirrors her ideas. After all, she's an actress!

Nor does she care to identify with an image. "I never wear the clothes in the series outside," she said.

"But there's a style there that I think is common to both of us, and I have no intention of changing my appearance after Emma Peel is no more. After all, it was I who affected her."

She has no intention either of abandoning the mini-skirt, which, as far as she is concerned, was from the beginning Diana Rigg expressing herself.

Where the tastes of Emma Peel and Diana Rigg meet is champagne. Emma loves it, Diana loves it. And, for the record, she loved it before she became Emma Peel.

"I'm always very well stocked," she said, "but I never drink it at the studio.

"The stuff Patrick Macnee and I drink on camera is bubbly lemonade, very harmless. I don't touch the stuff then. You mustn't when you work. At home, well, that's another story ..."

Diana's secret passion is to cook, and to have friends come to her house in London's St. John's Wood to enjoy her meals, without much ceremony, exquisitely prepared with the help of her home-grown herbs.

"I'm not joking," she proudly expounded on the subject of her herbs. "They are all mine, and they all grow in window boxes outside my kitchen. Every window has its own herbs.

"Left to right, I have sage, thyme, marjoram, rosemary, which is very beautiful, chervil, and two kinds of mint, sorrel and my bay trees.

"Bay tree leaves are marvellous for fish ... true mine are more like baby trees. And basil, and fennel, and chives. And that's it. Except that they all live and prosper, outside my kitchen windows in London." The secret passion of Diana Rigg ...

"I had always wanted to grow my own herbs," she said. "This was my obsession. So I got the address of a herb farm 95 miles out of town, and one morning I went there.

"A little old lady took me around and she muttered under her breath and said they would never grow in the London smoke. I said I'd like to try anyway. So, she shook her head and gave me what I wanted.

"They came in little pots, as I brought them back to London they were all looking sad and sick.

"So I put them in larger pots and stuck them in my window boxes and every day I watered them out of a jug. And the miracle came to pass."

Diana Rigg has become enriched as an actress in the years at Stratford-on-Avon; on tours and the three years that she has played Emma Peel in THE AVENGERS.

She tells about the director she met at a party who told her he had a marvellous script for her. She had it sent over.

"Well, if I wasn't the girl who comes tearing through the door with a gun in one hand and a flame-thrower in the other," she reported in mock despair, "I was the sexy siren sneaking through the door in Veronica Lake style. I lost my temper, for the first time.

"I sent them a message saying that I couldn't do it."

#diana rigg #tv times #emma peel #the avengers

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fanfic-fanatic-28 · 3 years

Text

11th Doctor X Ex-Companion! Reader

(Listen To “Trust Me Not”)

After failing to save and find Y/n after looking everywhere the Doctor takes Amy and Rory back as his companions. For a while he moves on and pretends to have forgot about them. He takes them everywhere until eventually he runs into someone on the planet Romeo. The Doctor finds out about a special party, and he wants to treat Rory and Amy, so they all get dressed up. The party is hosted by the president of the world Roman. Unknown to them there is an assassin kidnapped from the planet Earth during an alien attack. The assassin had been twisted, tortured, and had their body and soul broken and bruised. Everyday after they had finished with them, they prayed and wished and hoped for their beloved Doctor, but he never came... After three years of torture, they had caved into their monsters. They knew the Doctor would never come to save them. What is their name you ask? It is the Doctor’s precious, beloved, Y/n. The very same person who had loved the Doctor more than anything else, the same person who had sacrificed themself time and time again to save him. He never even looked for them. He abandoned them, and for that they resented him. They hated him with a fiery passion but, they still loved him. They hoped one day they could hear the whooshing of the TARDIS as it fazes near them so they could leap into his arms. It never came. Eventually the people who kidnapped them told them if they assassinated the president, they would be free. They would even give them a free airship to look for the Doctor. So out of almost equal love and boiling hatred for the Doctor they agreed. So, they got an astonishing outfit that looked amazing on them and a mask to match it. For the party was a formal ball. Once there they got caught up in the amazing lights and all the excitement. As they danced and swayed, they saw him. The Doctor, laughing and having a good time, not at all haunted by his failure to save the person who loved him the most. They shook their head and went back to focusing on their mission. Unaware the Doctor had saw them too. Shocked he blinked and they were not there, so he figured he was just seeing things. They kept dancing until they got to the President. “Care for a dance Mr. President~?” Knowing how they looked they flirted and charmed him until he asked if he could have a private dance. As planned, they said yes as he led them outside. Unknown to Y/n the Doctor saw them again and knew the president was in danger. Outside they danced and they offered the president a drink. With lust in his eyes, he took it and chugged it down. Then grabbed them by the waist. They both danced over to the balcony where he tried to kiss them. Half out of self-defense half out of need they pushed him over the railing where he fell to his death. Another assassin took his body back to the compound and alerted the boss who then sent a signal into Y/n’s earpiece. “Well Done Y/n M/n L/n, you are free. Go to XXXX Street tomorrow at 3PM to pick up your ship.” Finally free they crushed the earpiece and went to a bench. They had nowhere to stay so they decided to stay there for the night. At 12 that night as almost, everyone was drunk and or heading home the Doctor finally made his way outside to see them. Their H/l H/c hair hadn’t changed a bit but their eyes, peeled on the moon look thousands of years older. Intense pain, sorrow, and so much more reflected in them. Their eyes had become deep pools. He almost cried as he saw how much damage and scars were on their skin. Bruises, cuts, scars, bandages, all of them tore him to pieces. He saw how each hurt more and more and how they just wore them out. Under their eyes there were bags that seem like the darkest thing he’d ever seen. ‘When was the last time they slept?!’ Carefully walking towards them he says, “What are you doing Dear? Aren’t you tired?” They turn around and their eyes are filled with pure anger and love. “God what are You doing here?! I don’t think you were invited.” He reaches for their arm, and they pull away “Here you go again pretending that you love me! When just beneath the surface you’re convinced you’re above me!” He sighs and looks them in the eyes “Dig deep into the past I’ve never been one for doing things half a—ed. If I’m here to save you, I’ll be here forever just take my hand I’ll be your knight in shining armor!” They laugh “You think you’re a HERO?! And they’ll tell you ‘You are’!” They run a hand through his hair “So StOiC aNd HaNdSoMe~” They push him away “And you’ve come so far!” He looks at them in regret and sadness “You think you’re a villain, but I know you’re not. Under all that angst in anger is,” “A Beating human heart/A DYING BROKEN HEART!” The Doctor and Y/n say at the same time. “Hey what about the lonely little kid?!” “I’m sorry!” “What about their monsters who prevailed?!” “I’m Sorry!” “You never came to save my world!” “What about ME?!/What about us?” “I recognize that you’re upset” “I know they did you wrong/Oh you know NOTHING about me!” “But trust me please believe me this won’t stop the hurt for long. We don’t need to end like this!” “Look me in the eyes/here comes the hero complex! / You think you’re a villain, / I know I’m a villain / but we know it’s a disguise / But you’re the one who lies!” The look at him smiling through their anger “So you’re back at it again, twisting and manipulating every word I’ve said?” The Doctor starts to cry “Come on you know that’s not true I’m just trying to help you! LET ME HELP YOU!” The last part he cries in desperation they grab at the top their outfit/necklace “YOU ARE NOT MY HERO!” The back away “You don’t know how it felt... What else could I do with the cards that I’ve been delt...?” Crying he reaches for them “You are not a villain; you once held my hand!” “Stand up, get out. Sometimes things don’t go as planned.” “Y/N PLEASE! DON’T LEAVE ME AGAIN! I TRIED TO LOOK FOR YOU! PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME!” He cries out to them. Tears are streaming down both of their cheeks at this point. “Doctor,” they fall to their knees and start sobbing “I’ve been so alone!” He bends down and picks them up into his arms and they hold onto him. “Shhh shh,” he runs his fingers through their h/l h/c hair “It’s alright Y/n, It’s alright.” Through their tears they look up at him and pull him into a kiss. Surprised his eyes widen but then he closes them and kisses them back. After a while they separate lips. “I love you Doctor.” “I love you too Y/n <3.”

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100storiesin2020 · 4 years

Text

There's a raven in Fox Tower (her name is Chainsaw)

This is chapter 1 in a crossover fanfic for The Raven Cycle and All For The Game! Major spoilers for both series. Enjoy!

*****

Blue exited the court, racket balanced over her shoulder. She was sweating and tired and extremely proud. Henrietta High School had won their rivalry match against Aglionby for the first time since Blue had joined the team, and she was fully aware that she was responsible for it. She had scored 4 of the 7 goals herself, after all, and each one of them had been hard-earned. Her friendship with members of the Aglionby team did not affect the ability to play against each other. Instead, it made all of them fight harder, and made the game that much more satisfying to win.

"Hey Sargent! C'mere."

Blue paused without turning around. "What do you want, Coach?"

"There's a recruiter here to see you."

That got her full attention. Turning around, Blue saw Mr. Moore, her Exy coach, standing next to her mother outside of his office. "Can they wait? I'd like to shower," she said. She did want to shower, but more importantly she wanted to change back into her handmade clothes. They weren't just a fashion statement or a desire to be different. They served as a warning sign, a protective shield against people who might judge her. She didn't want to meet a prospective coach without her armor.

"Come in, Blue," her mother said, tapping her toe on the floor. This morning, during the daily card ritual, Blue had drawn the Knight. Maura had told her that she would be meeting somebody today. This person would open a door for her future, and Blue would need to decide if it was the door she wanted. Blue had asked for more specifics, but Maura had declined, always insisting that Blue's future was her own. "It's time. This is it."

Blue sighed in defeat and stalked over to the door, which Moore opened for her. The office was a bit cramped, because a room that was originally intended as a cleaning closet really shouldn't have been able to fit a desk that size, but somehow it had gotten in here anyway. Behind the desk was a tall man with brown hair and tribal tattoos. She recognized him quickly, because Henry was a dramatic little fanboy who was constantly going on about his sports teams. This was David Wymack of the Palmetto Foxes, and he was here to recruit her.

"You must be Blue."

"And you must have made a mistake, because you only recruit rejects, but I come from a perfectly functional home, thank you very much." Blue started to turn around and leave.

Maura stopped her, because she was standing behind Blue in the doorway. "What happened to your manners?"

The corner of Wymack's mouth twitched upwards. "No, she has a point. My recruiting standards are pretty well-known, and you're correct that you don't seem to fit the bill. But I've talked to Moore, and to your mother. You've had quite the year, haven't you, Blue?

Blue grimaced as she took her seat. No doubt Moore had told him all about the news headlines she had been in this year. If she was to be perfectly honest, it had been rough, and it had affected her and her playing. She nodded a bit. "Alright then. I'll sign if you offer me a scholarship."

"Blue!" her mother exclaimed, as Wymack raised his eyebrows.

"I'm not being rude, Mom. We both know I can't afford college without some help."

Maura sighed. "Yes, you've always been the sensible one."

Wymack had a calculating look on his face, as if he was mentally rewriting her backstory. It was a little too reminiscent of Calla, which made Blue very uncomfortable. What were the odds that she get recruited by yet another psychic? The expression passed and he slid a file across the desk toward Blue, who stared at it. It was a hideous shade of orange and it had her name scrawled across the front in some of the messiest handwriting she'd ever seen, and she'd tried to interpret Ronan's notes once or twice. "Well, then, here's the deal, short stuff. I've seen your stats. I've talked to your coach. And tonight I got to see you play in the biggest game of your year. Aglionby is Henrietta's biggest rival, right?" Blue snorted. With how much the everyday folk of Henrietta resented the wealth of Aglionby, a dramatic rivalry was inevitable. "You were in fine form tonight, and I know some college players that you could run circles around," Wymack huffed. "My striker handpicked you, and I think he made an excellent choice. If a full-ride is what you need to be able to come to Palmetto, I'm willing to pay it to get you there."

Blue turned to her mother to get her input. Maura had the far-away look that came during a reading when she was working extra hard to see the truth. She snapped back to attention and gave a small shrug, which told Blue that the earlier read still stood. This was just a choice. Not necessarily a good one, not necessarily a bad one, just an option that could be taken or left. Blue turned back toward the coach and stuck out her hand. "Deal." They shook, and he handed over some papers. "Thank you, Blue. Sign these and we will be in touch. Do you have any more questions? I'm hoping to catch some of those Aglionby boys before I go."

Blue froze while flipping through the papers, unsure if she had heard him right. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Run that by me again?"

Wymack snorted. "I'm just interested in a few of them. Aglionby is not the type of school I generally would recruit from," he said with a grimace, "but I'm between a rock and a hard place right now. The truth is, I have some seniors graduating next year, so I'm in desperate need of two dealers and a goalie. I've been to several other schools this week, but I haven't managed to sign anyone." He sighed. "Apparently they were already committed to another school or unwilling to deal with the reputation of the Foxes, and now I'm out of time. Spring break ends tomorrow and I need to go back to Palmetto, so I've got to take my opportunities here."

Blue considered that and looked at her watch, which had bands made of several colors of yarn braided together. "The game ended 30 minutes ago, so Gansey, Parrish, and Lynch are probably changed out and waiting by the front door. You can catch them while I go shower."

Wymack raised his eyebrows at that. "I was under the impression that you didn't have your mother's gifts."

"I don't," Blue replied, wondering just how much Wymack knew about her mother's reputation as a psychic. "It's just that Aglionby has a very small Exy team, since apparently upper society frowns upon violent sports." She rolled her eyes. "Those three are graduating seniors and play the positions you need."

Wymack looked unconvinced. "Then how do you know they are at the front door?"

Blue shrugged. "I won today. They owe me pizza." She picked up her racket and walked to the door. "Good luck. I'm going to go shower." She slammed the door shut behind her.

Maura smiled softly at the noisy retreat and looked back at the coach. "It's nice to see you again, David."

"Likewise, Maura." David Wymack leaned back in his chair and smiled faintly. "I don't think I've seen you in a good twenty years, at least."

Maura snorted. "At least. I can't believe you swept your psychic abilities aside to play sports." Her expression softened. "I will admit, now, that you made the right choice."

"I would have been a terrible psychic," David stated. "Trying to impress people? Doing readings for entitled nonbelievers? Useless. Using my abilities to give my kids second chances?" His eyes lit up, and Maura didn't need her second sight to see his passion. "I make a real difference here."

Maura nodded. "You certainly do. So what exactly drew you to Blue?"

He scowled. "I didn't know she was yours, if that's what you're asking, nor did I know she was an amplifier. She's tied to something dark, something that happened recently. A death? Two?" He glanced at her, and she nodded confirmation. "I'm a bit foggy on the details, and I'm not sure that I can provide what she needs to heal, but I can at least open up some doors for her."

Maura laughed. "There's my Knight card." Wymack gave her a blank stare. "Do you have a place to go for dinner? Old friends are always welcome at 300 Fox Way."

"Fox way, you say?" He smirked. "I'm in." They stood, then, and looked at each other for a moment, passing unspoken secrets through the air between them. Satisfied with what they saw in each other, they left: David with a sense that his situation was resolved, and Maura with a promise that her Blue would be safe.

#all for the game #the raven cycle #fanfiction #crossover #aftg #trc #the raven boys #the dream thieves #blue lily lily blue #the raven king #the foxhole court #the kings court #100storiesin2020 #a chainsaw in fox tower

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tobeornottotc · 4 years

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Do you think we're going to get some type of happy (or semi-happy) ending for TKEM? I'm really not convinced either way. I think that the story has been a little too tragic so far for a completely sad ending - I think it'd be too expected. I also wonder if Tae Eul gets pregnant (antibiotics are rarely mentioned for no reason) what would happen. If she is pregnant, I think the likelihood of her death goes down significantly.

I will make a whole post about this tommorow things have been hectic lately. But there is a whole theory about why this won’t be a sad ending

One eternal is in the title meaning will last forever that means that Gon will always be alive and forced to rule over the monarchy for some time we know that as long as he’s alive he’ll find Taeul so we know there’s two ways for this to go a bitter sweet ending like Goblin which is not as bad and a happy one where he finds the way out of the loop

Taeul knows about time travelling Gon she knows he’ll find her again she’ll wait for him to do so so again our couple is supported by time in this way

Fate is on Gons side because his side is the right side I have a post about laws and justice in TKEM that must be followed. Fate supports Gon because he follows these, he’s naturally born with favour same as grim reaper with Goblin. All of this whole event has been put in order for Gon to realise how to defeat Lim, Fate warns him with the scar, warns him with lightning, warns him with cctv in the future, he’s been given the swords by fate, supported by people who know about his fate. He’ll be protected as much as possible

Lastly Gon is the person who saves him self. This is the easiest one I’m sure of because he does this it means that he’ll be okay, and he’ll always find Taeul and bring her back to him eternally. Again bitter sweet or happy not sad or tragic.

All the literature supports that Taeul and Gon will survive and come back again and again. Supporting bitter sweet or happy ending yet again.

Taeul is the person narrating to us in the present it means she’s alive and remembering everything that happened, this proves that she survives whatever happens and Gon saves her like the white knight saves Alice. She’ll be okay just as Gon will be an eternal king until he finds a way out of the loop. Either way again ending is either bitter sweet or happy it won’t be tragic like mr sunshine both our leads will survive. As for the other side characters I’m not sure, I feel like Yeong is destined to die for Gon but I’m not sure about that, and I feel like each dopple ganger have that fight for life for balance but I’m not sure on this give me this week to make a decision

The only issue is the two worlds being separated and the doors closing that’s the only place where we can have an opening to a sad ending, because Taeul is from Korea If she leaves everything for Gon there’d be resentment her family is on the other side her friends etc so it’ll be odd for her to be in Corea when the doors close. But I’m sure fate and Gon will find a way to solve it.

Hope this helps you have a piece of mind

#the king eternal monarch #the king: eternal monarch #kim eun sook #tkem

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emospritelet · 4 years

Note

Sutheracey with Lacey as the Australian ambassador's daughter : “So… apparently we’re in lockdown.” and “Please tell me there’s something edible in there”

I did that second prompt in the first chapter, so here’s the first prompt in the second chapter. I could probably use a third…

Prompt list here

[AO3]

Sutherland marched into the function room as though he was about to issue a declaration of war. Perhaps it might come close to that, with some of these fuckers, he thought. Coming up with an approach that everyone agrees to will be a nightmare.

“Prime Minister?”

Sutherland turned with a smile at the familiar voice.

“Madam President,” he said. “I’d like to say I’m delighted to be here, but I think we both know we’d rather be meeting in less urgent circumstances.”

President Regina Mills smiled. She was an attractive woman, with dark hair and full lips, an accomplished, decisive politician, and someone he considered a valuable ally. And the closest thing to a friend that he had amongst the world leaders, he supposed.

“Pleased to have you with us in this, Robert,” she said, and he nodded.

“Well, it’s a pandemic,” he said. “We’re all in this together, whether we like it or not.”

“True enough,” she agreed. “I just hope we can all find common purpose.”

“Limiting the number of casualties seems a good place to start,” he remarked, and she nodded, an anxious look in her eyes. He decided to change the subject.

“How’s your wife?” he asked. “I understand you just had a son.”

Regina beamed.

“Yes, Henry,” she said, a soft look in her eyes. “He’s perfect. Emma’s at the White House, obviously. I’m hoping to get this done quickly so I can get home to them.”

“I was planning on asking you to visit the UK this year,” he said. “I think perhaps it might be next year, at this rate.”

“So it seems,” she sighed. “We’d be delighted, once things go back to normal. Assuming they ever do. And this is Ms Deville, isn’t it?”

“Well remembered, Madam President,” said Carrie. “We met only once, I think.”

Regina smiled, nodding to her. No handshakes. Not now.

“Well, now that you’re here, at least I know I’ll have sense on my side in this thing,” she said to Sutherland. “Some of the leaders are already baulking at the restrictions and the spending we’re proposing.”

Sutherland clicked his tongue.

“Well, they’re gonna have to follow the science,” he said grimly. “I don’t have time for them to want to baby-step their way through this thing.”

“Agreed,” said the President, and glanced over his shoulder, a crease appearing between her eyes. “Ah. the CDC Director’s here. Would you excuse me?”

She walked off, and Sutherland turned to Carrie, raising an eyebrow.

“She looks worried,” murmured Carrie.

“That’s what I thought,” he said quietly. “I have a feeling whatever news the Director of the CDC is bringing her isn’t gonna be good.”

“Well, I have plenty of contacts here,” she said, glancing around the room. “Let me see what I can find out.”

She slipped away, and he walked over to one of the long tables holding glasses of wine and champagne, silver trays of bite-sized canapes alongside. He ignored the food and alcohol, opting for a glass of water instead. He had a feeling he would need to keep his wits about him.

“Well, if it isn’t Prime Minister Sutherland,” drawled a familiar voice, and Sutherland turned slowly.

The last time he had seen Lacey French, she had been wearing the previous night’s gleaming blue dress, with her hair tousled and her mouth full and red from his kisses. His bed had smelt of her perfume, and he remembered burying his face in the pillows after she had left, breathing her in. That scent was in the air now, making his heart thump a little harder and his cock twitch in memory of her touch. Lacey was wearing a very respectable blue dress and jacket, her hair tied up and simple gold rings in her ears. She looked him up and down very deliberately, fingers tapping the side of her wine glass and her lips curving upward as her eyes gleamed.

“Miss French,” he said evenly. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“I bet,” she said, and took a sip of her drink. “Long time no see, huh?”

“Four months, but who’s counting?”

“You, by the sound of it,” she said, grinning at him. “Miss me?”

Yes. Yes, I missed you, fool that I am.

“I’m glad to see you looking so well,” he said neutrally, and Lacey pouted.

“That’s very - British - of you,” she said. “And I believe Sergeants Knight and Nolan are standing guard behind you. Hi, boys. Remember me?”

Sutherland glanced behind him, and both security officers were staring straight ahead with expressionless faces, although Nolan looked as though he was trying very hard not to think about something. He turned back to Lacey.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” he asked. “I thought you were still at university.”

She wrinkled her nose, pursing her lips a little.

“I was. Dad managed to get me an internship for a few months, so I took a deferral of my studies until September. It’s all good experience, right?”

He inclined his head, taking a sip of water.

“I don’t suppose watching the progression of a deadly disease was quite what you had in mind when you took the post.”

“True,” she agreed, looking sober. “Maybe you can help to stop it, who knows?”

“I think we’ve gone beyond containment,” he said quietly. “Mitigating our losses may be the best we can hope for.”

Lacey’s eyes widened, and for a moment he saw fear in them. He wished he hadn’t said anything. The thought came to him that she could catch the virus herself. The thought of her sick and suffering, far from home with no family or friends around her, made his hand tighten on the glass, and he took another drink to wash away the sudden burst of fear.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the visiting dignitaries start to flow towards the large briefing room that had been set aside for their meeting.

“It seems we’re being summoned,” he said. “Make sure you practice your social distancing, Miss French.”

She gave him a wobbly smile, the spark of mischief back in her eyes.

“Yeah, you too,” she said. “Maybe I’ll bump into you later. Figuratively speaking, of course.”

It was hours later that Sutherland made his way back to his suite. He took off his suit jacket and tie as soon as he was inside, rolling up his shirt sleeves, washing his hands thoroughly in the bathroom, and pouring himself a drink. It had been a long day; there had been presentations by medical experts and pharmaceutical firms, followed by heated discussions between heads of state, and he felt as though his brain wanted to shut down. President Mills had called a halt to the whole thing at eight-fifteen after taking an urgent phone call. Her face, when she returned to the briefing room, had been grim. There had been a spike in cases, at the upper end of the estimates given by the experts, and she had taken the decision to lock down the country for an initial period of three weeks. Which meant that everyone at the conference was stuck there too.

There had initially been uproar in the briefing room, but President Mills assured them all that they would only be kept in the hotel as long as it took for them all to be tested to ensure they were clear of the virus. Those who were clear would be able to leave on their respective planes. Sutherland had remarked that since they had planned to be there for three days anyway, it probably wouldn’t take much longer to get through the tests, so they might as well get on with the business of dealing with the global response. His statement had been met with surly resentment, and eventual agreement, and he had been reminded of the fact that dealing with world leaders and their respective egos was like trying to herd cats.

He took a sip of the whisky in his glass, walking past his open laptop on the table and flipping it closed. Work could wait until he’d had a decent night’s sleep. If that was even possible in the circumstances. God alone knew what would be facing them in the morning. He paced slowly back and forth, statistics and projections running through his head, a seemingly unending list of potential calamities waiting to crash over the world. Some of them would happen, no matter what decisions were made in the next few days. No matter what he decided, people would die, and lives would be ruined. The thought was exhausting.

The sound of Sergeant Nolan’s voice outside his rooms made him look around, frowning slightly, and Sergeant Knight cleared his throat, calm and unruffled in his dark suit.

“I’ll check it out, sir,” he said, and headed for the door.

Sutherland sipped at his whisky again, a suspicion starting to form in his mind about who his late-night visitor might be.

“Hey, it’s Lance, isn’t it?” Lacey’s voice floated into the room through the open door. “D’you mind if I call you Lance? Can your boss come out to play?”

“Mr Sutherland is a little busy, Miss French,” said Sergeant Knight.

“Huh. I bet he’s drinking whisky and pacing the room.”

Sutherland sighed, setting down his glass and marching to the door, nodding at the officers to stand aside. Lacey smirked at him, arms folded and eyes sparkling.

“So…,” she said. “Apparently we’re in lockdown. Care for some company?”

“Look, you can’t come in here!” he snapped. “Haven’t you heard of social fucking distancing?”

Lacey rolled her eyes.

“Duh. I watch the news.”

“So go back to your own room,” he said. “For all you know I could have the virus.”

“Wouldn’t matter if you did,” she said. “I’ve already had it.”

Sutherland blinked.

“What?”

“Last month,” she added. “I was one of the lucky ones. Pretty mild symptoms. Not like some of the poor buggers suffering out there.”

“Oh.” Sutherland could feel himself wavering. “You’ve had it?”

“Uh-huh.” She tilted her head, eyeing him. “So - can I come in?”

#sprite's pandemic promptathon #sutheracey #ripperblackstaff #fic: social distancing #sutheracey fic #rumbelle fic #anyelle fic #my fic #rumbelle

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goldeneyedgirl · 4 years

Text

the fic that does not exist

What you are about to read was the first Twilight fic I posted. In all honesty, I deleted it two weeks after posting it and repurposed it for my degree into a 21,000 word novella that I’m still trying to turn into a decent YA book because, frankly, it has potential and I want to.

But gosh, do I love the original version because I can see exactly where it was supposed to go and it remains one of the best things I’ve written. Because it turned into something that got me my degree. A precursor to how I approached Shadow to Light. To Alice always been a tiny bit bonkers in my fic.

It will never be reposted on AO3 or FF.net. What is posted below is probably 75% of the original. Some parts/lines were removed but nothing that affects the plot. There is a 50/50 chance I may delete this in the future.

But yeah, from circa 2015 (what the absolute fuck, I’ve been at this for five years?!), have “R”.

It begins on a Wednesday. She runs out the front door, in bare feet and a nightdress that is too short, and she keeps running until she reaches Dr Cullen's house.

("It's Aro, Carlisle. We need to find the others, we can fix this.")

Dr Cullen brings her inside and Mrs Cullen gives her a glass of orange juice. They ask her a lot of questions, and she trusts them until the paramedics come to the door and she drops the glass, cutting foot badly and she hopes she bled all over Mrs Cullen's ugly rug.

(She doesn't scream or cry in the ambulance. She answers their questions politely, and apologises for getting blood on the gurney.)

She is put in a tiny cubicle to wait, a nurse cleaning and bandaging her cut foot. She asks for a glass of water the nurse never brings. And then, he's there. Too-long blonde hair, stooped stance, too thin and hollow looking, the circles under his eyes darker than his eyes.

("Jasper," she whispers. He doesn't hear her. He does when she calls out to him, and tries to leave the cubicle. She starts to scream for him when the nurses appear out of nowhere, and hold her down, slide the syringe into her and even as she's crying for him to save her, her world is turning white and quiet. And when she wakes up, she can't quite remember the name on her tongue, the face blurred in her memory.)

Her mother unlocks the door sometime after two, and carries in a tray. Milk, a sandwich and dozens of tiny round pills.

"It's time to eat," her mother says simply, placing the tray on her desk.

She watches her mother fuss around her room, making the bed, gathering the laundry. Doing her duty, and nothing more. There is never an explanation, never comfort.

Just obligation.

Her mother hates the way she stares, with her eyes too big and too knowing. She always thought a mother's love was infinite, eternal and complete. Now she has found the well tapped barren and dry, and she finds it difficult to grieve for that.

When she thinks of a mother, it is not this sour woman who pins her like a butterfly with shame and pity and resentment. No, the mother she images has laughing eyes and hair the colour of caramel. A woman who fixes, soothes, comforts and loves. Who smells of summer herbs and fresh linen, and a laugh like bells.

There's so little to do, now everything has been taken from her. Instead, she sinks into her tiny garden, gathering the pots around her until she can pretend, the scent of herbs thrown into the air, and she watches through the railings. She sees a lot. She sees Miss Hale stealing kisses from the McCarty boy, but turns him away in front of witnesses.

(It upsets and frustrates her, more than she can explain. She watches Miss Hale go out in expensive dresses with men too old for her, watches the dark cars pull up out the front of the prim and proper Hale residence. And every night, she waits. Waits for Miss Hale to get home safe, always waiting and listening for any cry for help.)

The McCarty boy sees her watching, and waves to her every time, with a cheerful grin and a wink. She waves back and blows a playful kiss when she knows Miss Hale is watching.

(She hasn't found her prince; she doesn't get much of a chance to look for him, locked away in her tower. But until she finds him, the McCarty boy could be her knight and rescue her, in a pinch.)

Her dreams are nonsensical, fragments of something larger that she doesn’t know how to decipher.

She dreams of running like the wind, of laughter and happiness. Of her hand clasped around another, but she cannot glimpse a face. Just a presence that anchors her.

She dreams of her hand slipping free and she stumbles, falling an impossible distance. Then there is mud and smoke and blood, and she is screaming hoarsely. She scrambles to her feet, and it is hard to run, the plants and mud tangling her feet. Under the smoke, she smells decay and mud. And she is trapped in her own grave, the darkness a weight upon her.

The smells from her dreams – of blood and smoke – hang heavily in the room when she jerks away from those haunting visions, enough that she thinks she can actually smell them. It’s just her imagination, she tells herself, but in the darkness of her bedroom, with the full moon hanging in the sky, it’s hard to believe it. That the stench isn’t there, blurring the lines of nightmares and memories.

She sneaks out during the summer fair, in a dress that is too long, and she didn't realise how much she has faded away, as she knots the straps tighter. The night is warm, and really, no one is going to notice her.

The fairy lights are woven through the trees, and music is playing softly. Laughter, chatter, fills the park, and it is magical. She wants to live in this moment forever.

He finds her sitting on the front steps of the library, peeling rind from the orange, her tongue catching the droplets of juice, her eyes closed in enjoyment. She is magnificent, with the ribbon in her hair, the oversized dress. She is gaunt, pale, like a tiny ghost and he is entranced and he doesn't know why.

(She welcomes him with a smile; he tastes like cigarettes and stewed coffee, she tastes like oranges and something bitter. Hands slide into pants, under skirts, and for her, it is salvation. For him, it is a drop of water in the middle of a desert. Gone all too soon and never again reclaimed.)

He buys her a blue paper flower that she tucks behind her ear, and she traces her fingers over his track marks so lovingly, he is surprised that they don't fade away.

Dr Cullen is kind to her, but her outburst so many months ago is still fresh in his mind, she can tell. He touches her gingerly, pity in his gaze at the black and blue shadows over her limbs.

(He sees finger prints colouring her hips, from her sweet, lovely prince the night of the summer festival. She wears them with honour, and she meets the good doctor's surprised glance with a cheeky smile.)

After the shot, the world is soft and her mother speaks to Dr Cullen, their words a dull hum. Nothing will change, nothing ever does. She will be returned to her tower, to sleep and pills and watching, for another twenty-seven days, until she is brought back to Dr Cullen.

She has one magnificent nightmare, where she is the princess at a ball, safe in the arms of the prince. But then there is nothing but blood, ghosts with scarlet eyes, her sweet tower a darkened dungeon, and bodies, oh the bodies. Of her beloved prince, her sweet knight, the ones that she watches over. Bodies split like overripe fruit, splayed open like butchered meat.

She screams until she wakes, her throat hoarse and raw and on fire, her mother waiting for her in the shadows, to send her back to the dungeons, the red-eyed monsters and the ocean of blood in weeping silence.

Sleep isn't coming, even with the pills on her tongue, with only water lining her stomach. She gives herself a paper cut and watches the bead of blood well up on her pale finger, and it is obscene and unexpected, and she watches it roll down her finger, over her knuckle with parted lips.

When she can dredge up enough energy, she writes a list. Of names, of people whose faces in her memory are hazy and indistinct. Of things that might have happened and things that did happen, but somewhere else. Of things she cannot allow herself to forget, even as the memories and details fall through her fingers.

Everything is blurring together, and she cannot put it right. She stitches memories together with justifications and logic, but their edges are still uneven, ill-fitting. Nothing is truly wrong – unless you count the crazy girl locked in a tower – but it isn’t right either.

Faces tumble through her memory, but she cannot remember the things she was supposed to never ever forget.

She leaps, leaps to freedom with a paper flower in her hair. It is better than flying. She leaps without regret, with sheer determination and the knowledge that there is nothing left for her in this place.

(The pills are bitter, the tower is quiet. Her hair floats loose around her face, not long, but no longer short. She didn't regret the loss of Mary-Alice in 1919, she doesn't mourn her now.)

The ground is hard, harder than she ever imagined. And she is just a doll of porcelain, already cracked at the seams. She shatters perfectly, the flower tumbling from her hair.

They bury her on a Friday, and it rains. A modest gathering of associated people in black, over an open grave, the only words that are offered are from a man that knows nothing more about Alice than a long illness that curdled her brain and sapped her body.

(Rosalie Hale came home at dawn with a torn dress and haunted eyes, but only screamed at the sight of the broken girl underneath the old oak tree. Emmett McCarty came running, and wept for the sweet dead girl who hid behind the railings and watched; for the necklace of bruises around Rosalie's pale throat. For a sense of utter wrongness he cannot put into words.)

A boy with dead eyes and thin arms waits at the back of the group, clutching a single orange and a bunch of flowers. He stares at the hole in the ground, saying nothing, but leaves his offerings on the fresh dirt with a reverence for something much greater than a sick girl. He is resigned to hopelessness that his salvation has gone, and all that lingers is the memory of enormous blue eyes and a sweet touch.

(Jasper Whitlock pushes aside the roses from the Cullens, the sunflowers from the Masens, the lilies from the Swans and nestles the orange in the dirt. His flowers were plucked from a garden, snow-white daisies and tiny blue flowers he cannot name - Forget-Me-Nots that will outlive anything else left behind.)

Her mother studies the grave sternly, smoothing down the hair of her younger daughter, and accepts the sympathies graciously. Her own pink carnations are already drooping over the headstone, as if they recognize her apathy to her child's fate.

(Emmett McCarty brings three bright yellow tulips in shaking hands. He tried, tried so hard to bring her back, even as his hands felt the sharp edges of bone under cold flesh. It was him that peeled the torn piece of paper from her hand, expecting a suicide note, her final words, but the curling handwriting offers not an explanation but two words 'Aro. Volturi.' And those are words that send a spike of fear through him and he doesn't know why. The note is still in his jeans' pocket and he doesn't know whom to tell.)

The rain turns the cemetery to mud and people begin to leave, petals dragged from stems with the ferocity. By winter, her grave will blend in with the rest, grass having grown over the dirt. Her family will leave her to her quiet sleep. It will be only a shattered girl, a broken prince and a confused knight that keep vigil at her grave.

(Esme Cullen buys pink roses and tries not to cry as she sits alone in her car. She truly doesn't know why, but there is something else there, just under the surface that she cannot quite decipher, that leaves her sobbing for the girl that saw no other way out than throwing herself from her tower, and all that Esme can do is offer pink roses and regret.)

She opens her eyes. And she screams.

(There is no more fear; just purest rage, sharpest anger. She will have her retribution and it will be sweet.)

#the fic that does not exist #nope #text-based mass hallucinations #hah #hallucinations #relevent #establishing my extensive efforts as team get jasper laid #there's actually like five fics with variations on this theme #ahh #hyperfixations #i think it's variation two where human!alice and human!maria both remember everything and alice beats the everloving shit out of her #in a denny's parking lot #look i had to file 189 unnamed documents today my brain is shot

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lovelyirony · 5 years

Note

You said to remind you to write something with Vanilla Twilight and Tony

Tony was never much of a child for the science side of space. He didn’t get over the moon excited learning about black holes and interesting facts about planets, but what he did love was Anna’s explanation of the stars and the moons and everything. She told him every story she could, some even made up ones.

She told him during the silent nights, when the only thing that broke the sanctity of it all was nightmares, was that the stars were there for every happy thought you had. Every happy one you had? Another star added up. Tony would try to think happy thoughts, and Anna laughed as he said he was trying to make another constellation, one that isn’t as lame as Cygnus.

“You will one day,” she says.

She tells him about how when she was younger, she wanted to live in the stars. Anna touches her arms lightly, remembering something that Tony would never hear from her. He tells her that he thinks they should remake the constellations with their own stories.

They make one involving Anna and Tony having a picnic. She laughs silently as they look up. He orders a telescope so they can look at the planets to truly decide what name they should have. (The only one they don’t change is Jupiter, but that’s because Tony doesn’t like that one.)

He looks up to the sky and thinks of Anna always. The way her hair barrettes would be decorated in stars. She had a small picture of when Hedy Lamarr was in that movie, the one with her fancy gown.

“She was the best in that movie,” Anna says. “Edwin was fond of Judy Garland, but that’s okay. He’s allowed to have a less refined palette sometimes.”

“I heard that,” Jarvis calls from the kitchen. Anna looks at Tony and giggles.

As he gets older in life, there is less time to look at the stars. People like facts, and Tony has to learn more things about business and economy and stock and he really just doesn’t want to. But that’s the way of the world sometimes, isn’t it? There are many things one does not want to do, but there are many things the world has to do.

But he still remembers their talks of stars. For her birthday, Anna receives a beautifully embroidered pair of gloves, laughing as their “rose” constellation is designed on the tops of the hands.

“Thank you, Anthony,” she says softly. “I love them.”

They keep in touch, even through all the countless schools Howard sends Tony to. Anna will send him her delicious recipes for scones and soup and everything else, Tony carefully setting the notecards in their own separate box. He can’t let the other boys know about it, but he cherishes them deeply.

(And surprises many later with his culinary skills.)

When he’s seventeen, he comes home. There’s the Christmas break at MIT, and he’s supposed to be having a family holiday or what have you. Maria said he needed to be present for a picture show and then that was basically it.

Tony comes home with three separate bags, one laden with presents for Edwin and Anna Jarvis.

He forgets sometimes that they’re older than he’s always thought. Anna isn’t moving around too much anymore. But he embraces her fully and asks her to sit while he gets the tea. Usually, she would protest. But not this time.

They talk about his college days, Rhodey, and what they’ve been up to. Anna will be retiring in a month, which is news to Tony. But he’s glad.

“More time to stargaze,” Anna says, smiling over her mint tea. “Maybe I’ll make some more constellations.” Tony smiles, and says he’ll join her.

They share Christmas/Hanukkah gifts together. Tony feels the warm candlelight on his face as Jarvis puts on the Tchaikovsky record that is his favorite for the holidays.

Anna dies in her sleep one month later. January 24th. Tony can feel the stars dimming, the constellations reshaping now that their favorite is gone. He can’t look to the planets with their silly names that he used to.

Jarvis grieves heavily. He loved his wife dearly, so much that he would move a country for her.

“In time, there is always healing,” the words say. But Tony hates that phrase. He hates that there has to be time, hates that he still feels so torn. And you don’t get over a death.

Her starry gloves are still resting on her nightstand. Her rose water perfume to the left, right by the first necklace Edwin had ever bought her. There is a picture of her sisters and mothers when they lived in Austria.

When he can’t sleep, Tony goes up. He makes sure Anna’s seat is right by him as he talks. He tells her about how much full of it that time travel movies are. (He never cursed in front of her, and will continue not to.)

When he can’t sleep, he’s looking out at the stars. He buys some, to name them after Anna and her sisters.

As time continues, it’s easier to talk to her without feeling an overwhelming sense of loss surround him. He talks to her about how much he hates that man of the board, but at least he has a personal assistant now. He nicknamed her Pepper, and he’s sure she’ll be the one to stick around for the job.

Rhodey knows about his talks, advises Pepper over a quiet breakfast.

“He’s not crazy, but he’s talking with someone he lost,” Rhodey says. “Leave him be, he’ll be fine. He’s not one to jump over the roof or shit like that.”

“Got it,” Pepper says. She’s curious.

He has a little trellis and garden at the top of the roof, and two faded sun chairs. One has been repainted, taken care of. He talks to a woman named Anna, who Pepper finds out is his oldest friend and one of his most-loved people in the world.

Tony thinks about the stars in Afghanistan. Remaking his own star. He had wanted to grasp at them when he was younger, bring one down for Anna to see. She had laughed, and told him that if anyone could do it, it’d be him.

Well, damn. He was making the fucking star.

He remembers her warm hands on his skin as they talked outside, remembered that he would do anything for her and her memory. He wasn’t going to die in darkness, and he was going to do everything he could to make sure he at least saw stars.

There is another person lost. But Tony makes sure that he is cared for, laid to rest where none can disturb him.

“You’ll see her in the stars,” Tony promises to him, after the talking is all done and he can barely move. “Anna will greet you in the stars.”

He looks up, and hopes to whoever listens to this sort of thing that he gets out of it alive.

As it turns out, Rhodey’s odd fondness for geocashing has its uses. He finds a giant shiny thing, and grins.

“How do we know it’s Tony?” one of the younger lieutenants asks. Rhodey turns.

“No one else has such a stupidly brilliant plan as Tony,” he says. “Let’s bring him home, guys.”

Tony stays on the roof. He doesn’t meet Obie, refuses to. All he tells anyone is that he saw things that have changed him, and the weapons department was shutting down immediately. He saw something in Obie’s eyes, much more than surprise.

“Anna, you’ll never believe the star I have for you,” he says to the empty space. He feels a breeze ruffle his hair as a response. Perhaps a I know, love. I know.

He has to guard his heart, his star. He reforges it, makes it a better star. He builds an iron suit, like the one Jarvis used to tell him about in stories of brave knights and people who needed rescuing.

He remembers all of Anna’s stories about heroes who would go to the stars for their loves, for their worlds. It’s always at the back of his mind.

And then he finds out it’s the main damned role as he falls from space, nuclear warhead exploding in front of stars. He could’ve sworn he left a new constellation afterwards.

Heroes would go to the stars. He really wish he couldn’t be one.

It’s fine, until he’s fighting in cold conditions and he’s thinking at the end so this is what a star feels like. Endlessly cold. He’s thinking about stars as he looks at kids who have all the hope in the world, all the happy endings possible. He sees stars when he looks at Peter Parker, the kid who is so brilliant but so naive.

“Remind you of anyone?” Rhodey teases him over breakfast one morning. “He’s an awful lot like you, Tones.”

“I resent that implication,” Tony scoffs. Because Peter? Oh, he can be better than Tony. He can be the true hero, the hero who gets the happy endings and the families and the retirement.

Then the stars bring Tony something. Or rather, someone. Thanos. The guy who takes everyone away.

Mr. Stark please I don’t want to go I don’t want to go I don’t want to go–

He stops using an alarm clock. He can’t anyway, when he’s stuck in space. Near death. But at least he has Nebula.

He tells her about the stars. About how if you were lucky, you could swing on the moon and get star dust on your clothing. Nebula says nothing as he rambles about Anna and stars.

They’re running out of food. And water. And everything.

The stars, apparently, think Tony isn’t done being the hero yet. Or rather, being alive. There’s a woman outside the window, looking at him strangely.

Her name is Carol Danvers. According to Rhodey, she’s the biggest legend of the Air Force. Tony just thinks she’s okay, she just has weird nineties music taste.

(4 Non-Blondes? Seriously?)

But he gets home to Pepper and her fancy perfume, her loving arms, and Rhodey crying because “holy shit, you’re here.”

But then Steve. Steve, who was never there, who always likes to play pretend until he claims it was a reality.

I needed you.

He leaves. He needs to. He and Pepper buy a cabin that’s rundown. It needs a ton of work. Luckily, Tony can do this after a while. Pepper decorates the whole space.

She’s the one who frames the picture of Tony and Peter, the one of Howard gets dragged out. A reminder of time changing.

Pepper and him have a small, very very unofficial wedding. Pepper wears her favorite white dress, Tony says that she’s his wife, and they go to bed.

Two months later, Pepper comes yelling into the house with

“Holy shit, we’re having a baby!” Tony laughs as she nearly trips over her own foot, then immediately worries.

“You’re not allowed to be a clutz anymore, we grew a human.” Pepper’s eyes widen.

“Oh god, what if we can’t do this?”

“We can,” Tony says. “Baby, if you want to, we can. I know we can do this.”

So they prepare. They think about names. At first, Pepper doesn’t want Morgan to be a name. But then they hate everything else. And Morgan seems like a good fit.

Morgan Anna Stark-Potts.

“Welcome to the world, little star,” Tony whispers.

When she cries, he takes her to the roof and tells her the planets’ names and the constellations. He tells her about roses and stars and heroes. She’ll fall asleep again, but he’ll be there. He talks to Anna while she sleeps.

“Bet you never thought of this one,” he murmurs. “Me living in the forest with my wife and a kid. You told me I’d probably end up being a cyborg with my fascination for robots.” He laughs as he remembers. “I still miss you.”

He looks up, and for a split second, the center of the rose constellation they had made up just sparks a bit brighter.

And at the end of everything.

At the end.

He’ll be in the stars too.

#anna jarvis #edwin jarvis #jarvis #god i love them okay #tony stark #lovelyirony writes #by the way i meant to write a stony fic but then i did not because of reasons #anyway they're god and kind at nice

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alarriefantasy · 5 years

Note

Do you have any historical recs?? I love Victorian era but I’ll take really anything. Thank you!

I have been wanting to do this one for a while, glad you asked me!!! :) Here you go, darling!! :)

Historical Fic Rec

Summer Starlight by LadyLondonderry

Words: 3k

Only of three things is Harry Styles certain of. First, that this is his first summer in the large city and he must make the most of it. Second, that his parents are pledging to have him married off to a wealthy benefactor by the end of the summer. Third, and this is most important of all, Harry doesn’t particularly care for the notion. In fact, he rather has his eye on a very different sort of prospect.

We Gotta Get Away From Here by AFangirlFantasy

Words: 4k

Or a Royal AU where Prince Harold needs saving and Louis is his Knight in shining armor…sort of.

We Never Said Our Love Was Evergreen by PumpkinspiceLou

Words: 9k

OR A Victorian Masquerade Ball AU where Harry is basically the Phantom of the Opera

A Rose, By Any Other Name by iwillpaintasongforlou

Words: 10k

Louis Tomlinson is the head of New York City’s mafia, and Harry is the beautiful boy from Texas who falls in with the wrong crowd (which turns out to be the right crowd).

lead me out on the moonlit floor by scrunchyharry

Words: 12k

Victorian!AU where Louis is a wealthy lord throwing a masquerade ball for his birthday and Harry is a toymaker who’s only confident when he’s wearing a mask.

all i trust, i leave my heart to by prettyoddnjh

Words: 13k

Salzburg, Austria. 1938.

Harry Styles is a young man who, despite his protests, will never be a Catholic priest. He is assigned a summer job as a governor for the six siblings of Mr. Tomlinson, a wealthy ex-navy soldier who runs his household like a navy ship. They fall in love.

The Sound of Music AU that a couple people did ask for, if you can believe it.

Howls Like A Beast (You Flower, You Feast) by indiaalphawhiskey

Words: 16k

Palace of Versailles.

“You don’t love me,” Louis had said, utterly blasé as he callously fractured the heart of a Harry that was just barely eighteen.

“I do,” Harry had insisted pleadingly, green eyes already watering.

Louis had rolled his eyes, exasperated and flippant in the way only beautiful, young boys could be when faced with the affections of a baby prince. He had run his finger down Harry’s cheek then, had forced him to look into his eyes as he delivered the final blow.

“You’ll change your mind once you’ve seen more of the world,” Louis had teased, pressing a brutally delicate kiss onto Harry’s lovely, pure cheek. “Once you’ve been properly defiled.” He had whispered filthily, delighted by the gasp he heard, the frantic pink blush that had rested high on Harry’s cheeks, the power he had felt at knowing he could make the Crown Prince squirm.

Our Stable Heart by Arora

Words: 30k

Louis Tomlinson had it all. A beautiful mansion in the country-side of London, a well known job in the heart of downtown, and a lovely fiance he would soon marry…But what happens when Louis’ world is turned upside down just from gazing into a pair of dreamy, green eyes?

Something Louis could never have imagined himself…

Our Sweetest Memorial by messofgorgeouschaos

Words: 34k

Ever since Harry was forced to break off an engagement five years ago, he resolved to never marry for the remainder of his life. Now his family must move out of his beloved Kellynch Hall to recover some of their debts that their father had accumulated. The last thing Harry expected was for the new tenants to be related to his former fiancee. And for that fiancee to come back to Somersetshire a much more wealthy man that still holds resentment for their past. A Persuasion AU.

Along The Heather by noellehenry

Words: 35k

Jane Eyre AU/Victorian AU

Orphaned Harry Styles grows up with his cruel aunt and cousins, before he is sent away to a boys’ boarding school, which teaches poor and orphaned boys. Even though his aunt tries to undermine Harry’s experience at the school, he does well in school, and stays on at the school as a teacher after he graduates.

When he becomes restless after significant changes at the school, he applies for a job as a tutor at Thorgill Hall, teaching the younger brother of Mr. Louis Tomlinson. Harry develops romantic feelings for his pupil’s brother…

Thorgill Hall,however, holds a secret; it’s becoming slightly more eerie every day and when his life is threatened, Harry makes a drastic decision…

I Sail With You by AFangirlFantasy

Words: 35k

Against his wishes, Omega Prince Harry Styles is arranged to mate with someone he doesn’t love, much less knows. Though he pleaded to his parents incessantly, they not only refuse to comply but force him to depart on a ship days later. Harry prays for fate to step in, to change what’s to come, however, the answer he is given is not exactly in the form he had hoped.

Enter Will Tommo – deadliest pirate captain of all seven seas.

If I Loved You Less by allwaswell16

Words: 36k

Beautiful omega Louis Tomlinson is set to make his come out in London society and determined to find a mate in his first Season. With the help and protection of his oldest friend, Lord Niall Mendes, he takes Society by storm.

Being a wealthy and titled alpha means Lord Harry Styles has grown used to avoiding unmated omegas…until now. This Season he finds himself at every Society event just for a chance to speak with the omega with the flashing blue eyes.

Louis has the aristocracy at his feet and all the suitors he could hope for, but his secrets may ruin his chance at a love match.

All The King’s Men by sacredheart (orphan_account)

Words: 39k

Louis is an arrogant, self assured prince who falls in love with a charming thief named Harry during his youth. However, years later, a revolution is sparked amongst the frustrated commoners… and Louis’s former teenage romance is leading it.

Fool For You by flowercrownfemme, qupecupid

Words: 46k

In which Harry is a brooding prince who’s scarcely smiled since the death of his mother and Louis is the dashing jester hired to change that.

keep this love in a photograph by suspendrs

Words: 48k

Or, it’s 1919, and Harry’s been falling in love with his best friend for his entire life.

the last person on earth i could ever marry by igotfeels

Words: 50k

A Pride and Prejudice AU, where Harry is fed up with rich men and Mr Tomlinson is a very rich man.

For the Sake of Propriety by panda_bear21

Words: 52k

Louis Tomlinson is the caretaker of an estate that is not truly his, and when his Uncle calls upon him to take it back, Louis knows he will soon be out on the streets with four overly zealous sisters to care for. His only solution: wed the eldest two off and pray for the best. When an even better solution unexpectedly presents itself in the form of the charming Mr. Styles, Louis is faced with a difficult choice. But as with all things in the regency era, reputation very well may threaten to outweigh the fleeting matters of his heart.

Paint The Sky With Stars by kiwikero

Words: 62k

Or, the historically accurate Titanic AU with a happy ending.

Liberté by larriebane

Words: 64k

AU. 1647. “Pretending you don’t have a heart is not the best way to not get it broken. It’s just the easiest.”

Lend Me Your Hand by QuickedWeen

Words: 63k

Society has long since decided that the soulmarks everyone is born with are entirely unfashionable. They’re just another way for people of a lower class to scam their way into marrying above their station.

Lord Louis Tomlinson, Viscount Loring, on the other hand, has always believed that he will find his soulmate one day. Despite preparing for a match his whole life, he is entirely unprepared for the arrival of Gemma Styles’ younger brother.

Harry Styles has been traveling and away from society for over a year. Coming back, he intends to spend time with his sister, and slowly reacquaint himself with life in town. He doesn’t need to wait around for a soulmark to determine how his life will play out.

Such Good Luck by casuallyhl

Words: 66k

Or, an Edwardian AU where Harry is a young aristocratic lord and Louis is a working class dairy farmer. Secrets are a necessary part of their relationship, but Louis has one that could topple their whole world.

Si Pudiera Volar by messofgorgeouschaos

Words: 68k

When Harry’s fiancé leaves him for his cousin, he looks the other way for the sake of his happiness. He’ll do anything to forget about him, including joining a monastery. It isn’t until his cousin’s former lover, a pirate, appears that he realizes everything is not as it appears, and an honest pirate might be the only person worthy of his heart.

Or, a fic loosely based on Corazon Salvaje.

Chasing Empty Spaces by Lis (domesticharry)

Words: 79k

The year is 1934 and Harry Styles was to inherent the largest tobacco firm in the south. His parents have picked out the “perfect” girl for him to marry and he has the privilege of receiving the highest education possible. The problem was, Harry hadn’t realized he didn’t actually want any part of that future until he met a mechanic named, Louis Tomlinson.

Coax the Cold by MediaWhore

Words: 86k

England, 1897.

English Professor Louis Tomlinson’s passion for the occult has been a source of mockery and derision for most of his life. When he hears whispers of a travelling freak show newly established in London claiming the existence of a monstrous sea hybrid, half-man, half-fish, Louis sees it as his ticket to credibility amongst his peers. The summer he spends undercover working on the show, however, gives him much more than that.

Victorian Boy by DonnaHaywardsHead

Words: 101k

Victorian AU. Harry the virgin Duke of Somerset knows little of love, while Louis the sly Duke of Warwick knows too much. When the two dukes come together for the Bilsdale fox hunt in York, Harry finds himself drawn into Louis’ bed. But when secrets from Louis’ dark past come to light, Harry fears that the fox isn’t the only one being hunted.

A Taste of Desire by casuallyhl

Words: 104k

Or, a Victorian ABO where Harry is the owner of the most successful cotton mill in Manchester, and Louis is an opinionated social activist about to disrupt Harry’s world.

The Florentine Letters by forreveries

Words: 118k

The edge of summer has just begun to dawn over the university campus, exams are almost over and the dust is just beginning to settle over the desks.Harry Styles, in the last years of his PHD study of The Renaissance, has managed to maintain a safe existence within the walls of his books and classes and late night romances. He’s made a place that’s safe from the expectations of high brow society and the cold stare of his father.That is, until an all too sharp, all too witty, and all too handsome man walks into his life.Louis, the cocky man with the smile, brings with him a strange object - declaring that it’s a puzzle piece from the one and only Leonardo Da Vinci. He speaks of age old mysteries, and puzzles that cannot be solved without Harry’s help. Immediately, Harry is quite literally swept off his feet, and together they take their chances on the find of a life time - Da Vinci’s lost works.But what Louis doesn’t mention is the high stakes game of cat and mouse that comes with chasing things that do not belong to you. A game where nothing, and no one, is as they seem.

credit to the owner of the manip

updated 07.21.2019

#ask

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jancmalandra · 4 years

Text

King Moominpapa

On parades and beach parties

The castle of the ghost Moomins appearing out of nowhere nearby Moominhouse drew the attention of everyone in Moominvalley. Every beast who could muster the courage to investigate the castle converged gradually around it, waiting for something to happen. Opinions among the growing crowd were divided between those who were fascinated and wanted to see inside the castle and those who wanted to head for the other side of the mountains as soon as anything or anyone came out of the castle. Everyone was thrown into confusion by the appearance of Mr. Hemulen, who suddenly walked through the castle walls and across the surface of the moat, peering at the ground intently through his magnifying glass as usual.

They were even more astonished when the drawbridge dropped and Moominpapa, Moominmama, Moomintroll and Snork Maiden came out leading a grand parade of ghost Moomins marching to fanfare from a squadron of ghost trumpeters and drummers in their midst. Moominpapa was in full kingly regalia and enthusiastically leading the parade arm in arm with a more subdued and uneasy Moominmama. Snork Maiden and Moomintroll were marchingly directly behind them, trying their best to join in the intended festive atmosphere and not to look embarrassed.

All of the ghosts waved to the gathered crowd as they passed, putting on their best smiles and friendly faces. The parade began to have the effect on the villagers that Moominpapa had clearly been hoping for. Everyone in the crowd of the living began cheering on the parade of the dead, and as the rear of the parade passed, they merrily lined up behind the ghosts and began to march in time with them, as the ghosts themselves had been encouraging them to do. The parade began to head towards the bay, gathering more and more villagers behind it as it went along.

Snufkin was the very last person in Moominvalley to reach the site of the castle, missing the parade by only minutes. He had seen the castle appear from the top of a tall foothill a good number of kilometers away from Moominhouse. He has realized instantly that his family would be right in the middle of this emergency because that's where they always were and had headed back to Moominhouse as fast as he could. The sounds of the parade and the tracks of the villagers lead him directly to the rear of the parade.

Snufkin made his way up the length of the parade and found Moomintroll and Snork Maiden. "What in The Booble's name is happening?!", he asked both of them.

"Meet our wonderful new neighbors!", said Moomintroll sarcastically, "They've gone and made Papa and Mama their King and Queen! They wanted Papa's leadership to help stop a gang of ghost pirates who are due to invade Moominvalley from the bay any day now! Naturally, Papa's taken the opposite approach from what the Moomin ghosts were most certainly looking for. So here we are, trying to win over all of Moominvalley before the pirates arrive so that they can help Papa and his new ghost subjects talk the pirates out of their invasion. I hate to admit it, but Papa's crazy plan is actually working so far. The Booble knows when the pirates are going to arrive or what Papa intends for us to do once we reach the beach. We'll either have to keep up this level of enthusiasm for longer than practical or prepare for the pirates arrival immediately!"

"So, which do you resent more; that this is Moominpapa's plan, or that it's working?", asked Snufkin teasingly, chuckling at Moomintroll.

"Ok. You've got a point.", admitted Moomintroll reluctantly, "I'm wishing that I were in control, and I might be overreacting, but look at this situation! Who wouldn't worry?!"

"I definitely would.", said Snork Maiden, "But, how much more than this can we really do? As you said, Moominpapa's plan IS working. Why don't we do all we can to help instead of doubting him?"

"You're right, Snork Maiden. Again.", said Moomintroll, "Alright; I'll do my best to help him as we go along. I've certainly learned how to trust myself when I have to improvise. Now I just have to trust Moominpapa. I just hope we get him back at the end of all this. I just don't want to lose him to a bunch of ghosts."

The entire crowd of ghosts and villagers arrived at the beach and Moominpapa climbed the largest boulder on the beach and signalled that he was about to speak. Everyone fell silent.

"Fellow residents of Moominvalley!", said Moominpapa, "I would like to introduce the Moomin Knights!", gesturing at the ghosts, who all bowed at once. "They have come here to greet their old friends from the roaming ghost fleet that sails the seven seas and are due to arrive in Moominvalley Bay any day now. I hope you all will welcome these noble knights and their friends to Moominvalley! The Knights will be setting up camp here on the beach to prepare a proper welcome for the ghost fleet and extend the hand of friendship to them. We will be holding a beach party here every day from mid-morning to mid-afternoon until the fleet arrives. Please feel free to join us every day, as many of you as wish to! You all should also feel free to explore the ghost castle at your leisure!"

The festive atmosphere of the parade made the residents of Moominvalley eager to join the beach party. A large contingent of them, organized by Mrs. Fillyjonk, returned to the village and brought back picnic tables and food for everyone. The villagers who could play musical instruments brought them back with them and they and the ghost court musicians joined forces to play lively dance music for the whole crowd. The first day of the beach party was a big success. The Moomin ghosts and the living villagers quickly became good friends. Moomintroll was finally able to really enjoy the first day of his father's plan without feeling resentful or worrying thanks to Snufkin and Snork Maiden, who took Moomintroll by the paw and led him into the crowd of dancing villagers and ghosts, where his love of dancing, especially with the two of them, took over. The three of them could see where Moominpapa's plan was going and now they were all content to wait for the arrival of the ghost pirates and to trust in Moominpapa.

To Be Continued

#moominpappa #moomintroll #snufmim #snufkin #moominvalley #snork maiden #moomin fanfiction #moominmamma #ghosts

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elliemarchetti · 4 years

Text

Red Queen Pride and Prejudice AU (Part 6)

@lilyharvord as you've obviously noticed by now, I moved the famous hand flex scene after the dance while in the movie it was when Jane and Lizzy come back home. I hope you don’t mind.

Masterlist

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Words: 3267

The next day Mare told Wren what she and Mr. Maven had said to each other, leaving her friend incredulous, astonished and upset, but at the same time unable to question the sincerity of such an amiable-looking young man: the possibility that he had really been the victim of such cruelty was enough to affect all her more tender feelings and therefore there was nothing to do but think well of both, defend the conduct of both, and attribute to a misunderstanding all that couldn’t be explained otherwise.

"I really believe that both of them have been deceived in a way we can’t imagine,” she said. “Maybe someone interested have made them look bad in each other’s eyes, so, in short, it’s impossible for us to speculate on the causes or circumstances that may have driven them away.”

"Very true, sure; and now, my dear Wren, what do you have to say in regard to the people concerned who were probably involved in the matter? You must absolve them too, otherwise we would be forced to think ill of someone,” Mare teased her, but the other didn’t take the bait and seemed truly immovable in her theory. Mare, however, wasn’t convinced, and it was easier for her to believe that Mr. Maven had been deceived, rather than that he had managed to invent a story of that kind and tell it with such fluency. And if it had been a lie, sooner or later the General would’ve contradicted him, probably at the ball, for which they both had received an invitation that very morning, event that would take place the following Tuesday, a prospect extremely welcome for all the women in the Stilts: Mrs. Skonos decided to consider it a tribute to her daughter, who was particularly flattered to have received the invitation from Mr. Samos himself rather than with a ceremonial ticket as it had happened for the Barrows, and Mare already had a foretaste for the pleasure to dance for a long time with Mr. Maven, moment that would’ve served as a testing ground to ascertain whether or not what was said about the General was a lie. Gisa and Diana, who this time had been invited too, were also happy, but not so much for a particular event, since, although both, like Mare, intended to dance for half of the evening with the newcomer, who was rumoured to be an excellent dancer, Mr. Maven wasn’t the only knight who could satisfy them, and a dance was always a dance. On this occasion, Mare's mood was so excited that, although she didn’t often speak to Mr. Jesper unnecessarily, she couldn’t help but ask him if he intended to accept Mr. Samos' invitation, and if so, if he didn’t consider inappropriate to join an evening dedicated to fun, but she was rather surprised to find out how not the slightest scruple had come to his mind, and how far was him from fearing a reproach; on the contrary, he reassured her that his benefactor often gave parties dedicated to respectable and reputable people too. Fortunately, the dance also kept the minds of Ruth and Daniel Barrow’s sons busy, otherwise the poor boys would’ve been really plagued by the weather, so rainy that for four days straight it had been impossible to get to the Farley’s house. If only they had succeeded, they could certainly have dampened Mare’s enthusiasm, as the Colonel knew very well that Mr. Maven would never be invited to the ball, but since this didn’t happen, Mare had to see it herself as soon as she arrived at the Hall of the Sun, when she met Mr. Thomas, who informed her that the day before his friend had been forced to leave urgently for Archeon.

“A business trip,” he said, but it was evident from that there was more he couldn’t say here, which made her even more determined to avoid any conversation with the source of so much disappointment, to the point that she decided to seclude herself with Diana, whom she hadn't seen for a week, to tell her about her pains. Evidently, her friend too had thoughts that weighed down her heart, and so they ended up talking about the oddities of Mr. Jesper, with whom she was forced to share the first two rounds of dance by her mother. Mr. Jesper hadn't thought, when he accepted the invitation, that the ball might require him to dance too, and so, clumsy and solemn as he was, he continued to apologize to his cousin before he could reach the person he actually wanted to spend his time with, Miss Farley, who was dancing with extreme enthusiasm with his younger male cousin. It was evident that the two were in confidence, and he had managed to understand, from the time spent at both the Farley and Barrow homes, that the two families often visited, making his interest in her even more difficult to express. He was so taken by these thoughts that he hardly noticed that General Calore had approached and asked Mare to dance with him and that she, taken aback, had accepted. He was certain that she wouldn’t act silly and wouldn’t let her whim for Mr. Maven, which certainly hadn’t escaped him, made her seem unpleasant to a man all the more important, and if he had doubted, he would’ve suggested to stay silent if she hadn’t been asked any question, or at most to make some empty consideration on the event. If he hadn't been so busy worrying about the beautiful smile Miss Farley was giving to Shade Barrow, he would’ve told her to please the wishes of her interlocutor, and to highlight their similarities and put aside their differences, but he did none of this, and Mare found herself maliciously teasing the one she wanted so much to detest, as in her habit.

"Do you frequent the village very often?" he asked, at the end of the first dance.

She replied affirmatively, and unable to resist the temptation, she added that when they met, they were just doing a new acquaintance, something that cast a shadow of lethargy on the beautiful features of the General, who replied that surely Mr. Maven was good at making new friends, as for keeping them, however, it was different topic.

"He was unfortunate enough to lose your friendship," she replied with emphasis, "and in a way that will probably make him suffer for a lifetime."

The General didn’t answer and seemed eager to change subject, a chance given to him by Colonel Farley’s arrival; the brief interruption, in fact, gave him the opportunity to pretend that he had forgotten what the topic they were previously dealing with was, but Mare had no desire to converse in other respects, and didn’t care about his attempts, reminding him instead of when he said to be a man with little inclination for forgiveness, whose resentment once born is relentless.

"You are very careful, I suppose, even in giving it birth."

"I am," he said in a firm voice.

"And you never let yourselves be blinded by prejudice?" she asked, peremptorily.

"I hope not," he replied, evidently annoyed by the aims those questions might have. She said nothing more, and once finished the second round they separated in silence, both dissatisfied, though not alike, as there was a rather strong feeling in Cal's heart towards her, which soon led him to forgiveness and directed all his anger towards someone else. They hadn’t long been separated when Miss Samos walked towards her with an expression of polite contempt on her face: “And so, Miss Mare, I heard that you are enthusiastic about Mr. Maven! Your sister told me about it, asking me countless questions. However I recommend you not to believe all his claims, as the fact that Tiberias has treated him badly is completely false and, on the contrary, he always had been extraordinarily nice to him, although Mr. Maven behaved so infamously that my dearest childhood friend decided not to share such detail with me or my brother. Anyway, I don't blame him for not even bearing his mention, but I guess you found it out for yourself as I doubt you had the foresight to avoid such a sensitive subject during your two rounds of dancing. I am sorry that you have discovered the faults of your favourite, but in reality, considering his origins, we couldn't expect much better," she said, and before Mare could ask for further explanation, she turned away, distracted by Lady Haven. How much insolence! Mare thought to herself, full of anger. Did Miss Samos really think she was influencing her with a petty attack like that, full of her stubborn ignorance and the General's malice? With a sigh she composed himself, and began to look for Wren, who had undertaken to gather information from Mr. Samos regarding the same subject. When she reached her, however, her friend greeted her with a smile so sweetly satisfied, illuminated by such a happy expression, that it made clear enough how happy she was with the events of the evening. Mare caught her feelings immediately, and in that moment every concern for Maven, every resentment of her enemies and whatever else was put aside, facing the hope that Wren would achieve happiness in the best of ways.

"I would like to know," she said, her face no less smiling, "what have you learned, busy as you should’ve been with your pleasant company."

"I wasn't as busy as you think, but unfortunately, I have nothing satisfying to tell you: Mr. Samos doesn’t know the whole story and completely ignores the events that have particularly offended the General, but guarantees the irreproachable conduct, the righteousness and sense of honour of his friend, and is absolutely convinced that Mr. Maven deserved far less attention than received. I'm sorry to say that, but from what he and his sister said, your new acquaintance is by no means a respectable young man, in fact, I'm afraid he was very imprudent, and that he deserved to lose the General's respect."

Mare was still perplexed by those statements: certainly it was a skilled defence, but everyone seemed not to know part of the story and what little they knew had been learned by the General himself, all points that allowed her not to change her opinion on the two gentlemen in question, so she decided to change the subject in favour of more pleasant arguments, on which they couldn’t have conflicting opinions, and listened with joy to the happy, albeit modest, hopes that Wren cherished about Mr. Samos, and said all was in her power to bolster her friend's confidence, until he caught up with them, and Mare went back in search of Diana, who tried to convince her that although Mr. Jesper was a bad dancer, he was excellent company, when at ease, until the subject of their argument, as if feeling called into question, reached them. Since she no longer had any personal interest to pursue for the evening, she turned her attention almost entirely to her friends and the series of pleasant reflections aroused from the remarks about Wren, who she saw already settled in that same house with all the happiness that can come from a love match, was only slightly overshadowed by the idea that Diana could finally choose to give in to her cousin's attention not so much because she preferred him to her brother, but because Shade hadn’t given her a way to guess that their relationship wasn’t just one of dated friendship. She saw clearly that her mother's thoughts were pointing in the same direction, and decided to not dare to go near her, for fear of hearing too much. What she couldn’t know, however, was that her desires weren’t so disinterested and dictated by her displeasure with her son’s possible sadness, as by her interest in a union between her and her cousin, something she was able to discover during dinner: when they sat down Mare considered it an evil fate to find herself separated from her only by one person, and was deeply irritated in seeing her speak freely and openly just with that person, Lady Skonos, of nothing but her expectation that Wren would soon marry Mr. Samos, as, although the prospect was exciting, the two seemed unable to tire of enumerating the benefits of that union. The fact that he was a charming young man, and so rich, who lived just three miles from them were their main reasons for satisfaction but it was a consolation too to think of how his sister was fond of Wren.

"It's a promising thing for Gisa too,” said Mrs Barrow, “Wren's excellent marriage will give her the opportunity to make acquaintance with other wealthy men and her dear friend will introduce her properly, not forcing on me any more social life than the one I desire to have.”

"These are occasions that you have to like, but nobody loves staying at home at any time more than me. I just hope that Mare will soon have similar luck," replied the other, but Mrs. Barrow told her to extend her wishes to poor Miss Farley, because her daughter would soon be engaged, and concluded by casting an eloquent glance at Mr. Jesper, who indeed was speaking exactly to Diana. Mare tried in vain to stop her mother's rapid flow of words, as she had no intention of accepting any kind of proposal made by Mr. Jesper, or at least get her to describe her happiness for Wren with a less audible tone of voice, since, with inexpressible irritation, she had noticed that much of the conversation had been heard by General Calore, who sat on the opposite side from them, but Mrs. Barrow just scolded her for saying such nonsense since she really seemed unable to understand who that man was for them and why they should owe him the courtesy of not saying anything that could displease him, and she went on talking about her points of view in the same audible tone, making her blush several times with shame and irritation. Mare couldn’t help but throw frequent glances at the General, even if every one of them confirmed what she feared, since, although he didn’t look constantly at her mother, she was convinced that his attention was invariably focused on her. The expression on his face gradually changed from indignant contempt to composed and steadfast seriousness, until Mrs. Barrow had nothing more to say and Lady Skonos was left to cold ham and chicken. The quiet interval didn’t last long, however, for, once dinner was over, there was talk of singing and Gisa, following very limited prayers, prepared herself to entertain the company. With many meaningful looks and mute prayers, Mare tried to prevent such a courtesy, but in vain: her sister seemed to not want to understand, and such an opportunity to perform was a delight for her, so she began to sing, arousing the most painful sensations. Mare followed her progress with an impatience that was very poorly rewarded by the conclusion, seen Gisa had received, among the thanks from the table, a hint of hope that she might be persuaded to concede her favour again, and after not even half a minute, she started again. Her sister's abilities were absolutely unsuitable for such a performance, given her weak voice and affected manner, and Mare's torture was only lightened by the fact that Wren was chatting amiably with Mr. Samos and neither of them could see any signs of derision that his sister and Lady Haven exchanged. Although Mare would’ve expected the General to take part in the mockery too, he had remained impenetrable serious, even when Mr. Barrow told his daughter she had been very good, but now it was better to leave room for the other ladies. Mare couldn’t understand whether the General's silent contempt or the insolent smiles of his friends were more intolerable, so she turned to Diana, and had a brilliant conversation with her and Mr. Jesper, which seemed to further annoy the man. Mr. Barrow, equally silent, enjoyed the scene: he was old, compared to all those young people, and since he had a finer mind than his wife, it wasn’t at all difficult for him to see what dynamics had been established in the group, and while they waited for the carriage that would take them home, he analyzed them one by one, but without sharing his thoughts with anyone, as he used to do if he wasn’t asked about it. And so he watched Mr. Samos and Miss Skonos, whose carriage, which was supposed to take her and her mother home, was miraculously late just like their own, stand a little apart from the others, just like Miss Samos and Lady Haven, although the former casted worried glances from time to time towards General Calore, who was talking, if it could be considered a dialogue and not a monologue, with Lucas Samos, his gaze fixed on Mare, whose back was turned to him as she chatted with Mr. Jesper. He would almost have liked to laugh, if everything couldn’t end so tragically: it would’ve been enough for all of them to speak honestly, even at that moment, just before taking their leave, and every problem would’ve been solved. But it would never happen, it never did, and so Mr. Barrow kept on observing, and saw his wife being urgently courteous to the Samos, saying she hoped to see them soon at their home, although she knew perfectly well it would never happen, as no one there, with the exception of the General, who would’ve never admitted it so publicly, felt particular affection of their daughters, and he actually didn’t mind: he didn’t like Miss Samos’ feigned gratitude nor the tacit assent that her friend gave to everything she said, and didn’t want his daughters to surround themselves with friends of that kind, much less that one of his sons would bring one of those harpies under his roof. When the carriages finally arrived, Mr. Barrow took his seat and watched Mr. Samos escort Miss Skonos to her vehicle and greet her with one of his rare smiles. His wife and sons also took their places, and finally came the girls' time. Despite the embarrassment, the Barrow were accompanied by the General, who, despite not having paid the same attention to Gisa, instinctively reached out a hand to take Mare's and help her to climb the high step. Immediately Mare turned to throw him an amazed look, and taken aback by his gesture and by those dark eyes full of questions, he let her go and turned without a word, ready to reach his friend and the safety of home. He just couldn’t understand what was wrong with him, and such was the confusion in his heart that he ended up flexing his fingers until he felts the nails against his palm. It was something he often did as a child, when everything became too much, when he had to remember to maintain a certain demeanour, but for years he hadn't felt the need anymore, since nothing moved his soul up to that point. Slowly he straightened them again, and in that moment he decided his attentions for Miss Barrow were definitely bad and had to be nipped in the bud, and perhaps it was time to remind his dear friend that he too had a part in their plan.

#red queen au #pride and prejudice #p&p au #mare barrow #cal calore #maven calore #ptolemus samos #wren skonos #evangeline samos #elane haven #lucas samos #diana farley #shade barrow #bree barrow #tramy barrow #tyton jesper #daniel barrow #ruth barrow #thomas

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incoherentbabblings · 5 years

Text

First Date (5/9)

Tim has one more test to pass before Bruce will allow him out as Robin. Like Dick and Jason before him, he has to avoid being caught by Batman for one night. He has already failed once, and is determined to succeed this time. Determination which might not count for much when Stephanie Brown is on the run from the mob. Her mother kidnapped as a way to threaten her father, Stephanie manages to escape and run into Tim. Unable to leave Stephanie alone when she is in need, Tim decides to try and multi-task. All he has to do is rescue Stephanie’s mother, take down the mob, avoid Batman, and get Stephanie to agree to a proper date all in one night. Absolute anarchy ensues. Ao3 link here!

The sounds of Gotham continued to penetrate the thick car frame, but sat in the dark, tucked away from anyone and anything, Tim and Stephanie felt very much alone.

“I think I have like…White Knight Stockholm Syndrome or something…” Stephanie muttered. She hadn’t moved away though and was resting a hand on Tim’s. Tim, for his part, still had his eyes closed, and looked like he was on cloud nine with no sign of coming back down soon.

“…Not the…official title… but I hope not anyway.”

He nuzzled her nose, and she laughed, bright and sweet. Shuffling over, she moved to the driver’s side of the car. Tim’s breathing stuttered as she adjusted herself, resting on her shins straddling Tim’s thighs. He leaned up and caught her in another kiss. The mint gum she had chewed thankfully masked the smell of vomit, and her hair was cleaned of it too.

Tim fumbled with his hands, turning up the heat in the car to help dry her tangled hair. His hands then crept up, holding her neck, whilst hers rested patiently on his chest, occasionally tightening when he did something she liked.

Making out in a gangster’s stolen car with a boy she’d met only three and a half hours ago. Hoo boy, she was having an interesting night. Stephanie stifled a chuckle, but still broke away to catch her breath.

He looked up at her and cradled her face again with both hands. Stroking her cheeks, he tried to soothe her blotchy skin and red eyes. She sniffed and smiled sadly at his affection. Feeling safe, she closed her eyes.

Tim felt her grow limp in his grip, head tilting and resting heavily on one hand. Tim eyed the dashboard clock. Nearly midnight.

“Tired?”

“…A bit. Can we rest? Just for a while?” She leant down, resting her face in the crook of Tim’s neck. She shuffled around once more so she was sat in his lap, a comforting solid weight against his chest. Tim held her close, and was tempted for a moment to doze off in the warm car with her.

Tim breathed in deep and glanced out the darkened window. They were tucked away neat out of sight…

“No. I’m sorry Steph. We’ve got to keep moving.”

She looked disappointed, but accepted it all the same. Tim tried to mollify her.

“We should be okay to drive in this to Bristol now. You can close your eyes.”

Her eyes shot open, and she peered at Tim suspiciously. She slowly removed her head from his hold, and his arms collapsed to rest on his thighs.

“Bristol? No, we need to go to the Narrows and grab my mom.”

“I can’t fight through that many people.”

She shifted backwards, back resting against the wheel of the car. “Oh, but Batman can?” She said, tone snide and derisive.

“Batman has armour and tech and bombs and…batarangs. I have two feet two hands and head. I’m not that good.”

“We did fine with those guys.”

“You nearly got shot. He hurt your head.” He raised his hands to check for a bad lump, but she twitched away from his grip.

“I can’t sit and do nothing and hope that Batman finds mom in time. I can’t keep running.”

Tim looked so miserable for a moment, like he knew the sweet moment was over. “You’re going to have to. I don’t like it either. But I know my limits. I can’t save your mom like this. Neither can you.”

It was a harsh put down, and Stephanie threw herself of him and back onto her seat. Seeing what she was about to do, Tim locked the car doors.

She whirled around, face red with anger.

“Let me out.”

“No.”

“Tim, I swear to God –”

His temper finally flared. “I get it! You don’t think I get how useless you feel right now? When my mom died and my dad was in that coma, I couldn’t do shit!”

“My mom’s not dead!”

“No, but she will be if you roll up unprepared to a warehouse in the Narrows against twenty guys with guns. The only thing keeping you both alive is the fact that you are separated. You turn up and your dad turns up she will die! I can’t let that happen Stephanie!”

He’d had enough of her tantrums and contradictions and had put his foot down. She screeched and kicked the dashboard hard. Tim flinched away and Stephanie’s breath caught. Her anger drained, and self-loathing took its place. She knew that flinch. She’d seen it nearly every time her parents argued, and her mom had been hurt. She’d done that flinch herself many times.

“…I’m sorry. That was childish.”

Tim gripped the steering wheel, not quite able to look at her. “You’re under a lot of stress.” He said, tone very subdued. Shame continued to make Stephanie feel sick.

“That’s just an excuse. One my dad uses all the time… Fuck.” She stared hard out the window, then looked in her lap. Her hands were shaking. Tim, after a pause, reached across and held them tight. She whined softly to herself and he rubbed her fingers.

“My dad… he is a bit rubbish too sometimes. Not in the same way as yours but he… he’s not very good. I think. At being a dad.”

She looked across at him, lashes damp, but her emotions were settling down once more. “Does he hurt you?” She asked sadly.

“Ignore. Mostly.” He spoke very matter of factly, a sad reality he had long accepted. “I love him, I do, but sometimes I… I resent him. He remarried so quick after mom died, and I knew their marriage was on the rocks anyway but… you’d think he’d... and then he has a temper. Never at me directly… though that time with my tv was a bit…” He was mumbling to himself, unable to verbalise what it was like.

Stephanie understood the unspoken though.

“You deserve better.”

She said it with such conviction that Tim turned and smiled at her.

“Ditto?”

She smiled back. “Let’s go to Bristol. The sooner I’m there the sooner we can get this sorted.”

“Deal.” He looked at her shyly. “Can I kiss you again?”

Laughing sharply at his roundabout way of checking that he was forgiven, she went willingly.

When they broke apart, she buckled on her seatbelt.

“I’m gonna try and nap okay?”

“I’ll wake you if anything happens. Promise.”

“You are definitely one for promises Mr. Drake.”

“I try.”

The car switched on with a gentle thrum, and slowly Tim set off.

Tim tried to concentrate for the drive through the island, heading for Kane Bridge. They just needed to get across the bridge. From there they could dump the car and walk by foot. Feeling awfully paranoid, he obsessively checked his mirrors and glanced sideways and even upwards through the windows, just in case they were being followed.

The roads were largely quiet though, so for a painfully long twenty minutes Tim drove through the city, deliberately going slower and quieter routes when possible.

Stephanie very quickly dozed off, head hanging limp against her chest. She looked very pouty asleep. He left her alone, only the sound of the car heaters and engine filling the silence. Her hair had nearly dried, but it needed a good brush through.

The stunt at the corner store had been such a stupid mistake. He had wanted to impress her, but he hadn’t thought it through at all. He could hear Dick in the back of his head tutting. Getting distracted by a pretty girl. A pretty girl who liked him back no less.

Hormones…

Stephanie then let out an almighty snort and twitched violently. Tim glanced at her sideways, then returned to watching the roads.

She was very weird, if he were honest with himself. A very sad life, but somehow still filled with a lot of love and humour.

That temper though… It was obvious she hated being lied to, hated being kept out of the loop. And Tim was lying to her. He could have called Batman hours ago, could have ended this by now. But he hadn’t. Instead, because of his crush on her and his desire to win Bruce’s challenge, he had dragged her around town, when she could have been safe with Batman. He was putting Crystal Brown’s life at risk, and maybe even slowing down Bruce.

He was being selfish.

The little tracker in his coat sat heavily next to his heart.

Before he could fall into a further self-loathing, he noticed a car one block back.

It was following him.

“Crap.” He reached across and woke up Stephanie, shaking her arm. She reached up and grasped his hand instinctively.

“Wha…”

“We’re being followed. Gonna speed up a bit.” He said it casually, like they needed to make up time on the school run.

She turned around, looking out the back window.

“Oh God.”

“Don’t worry. I can lose them."

“Can you?”

“Well… I can try.”

He put his foot down then, speeding up to ninety, and Stephanie squeaked, squeezing herself onto the back of the seat. She raised one hand to the handle above the car door, the other resting quite firmly on the arm rest.

“Oh boy.” She muttered.

“It’s fine.”

It was not fine. The following car had sped up also, and was doing a frustratingly good job at keeping pace. Tim huffed in annoyance, and took a sharp turn left, the back of the car swinging out and knocking into a lamppost. The car violently jiggled, Stephanie unable to contain her cries of alarm.

“It’s fine.” Tim said again, and they regained control. Stephanie quickly figured out the route he was taking, a long circle that would lead them straight to the bridge.

The car behind them was still gaining.

“Tim...”

Gunfire started then, aiming at the tires of the car. Tim made a little ‘oop’ noise and few around the final corner. The bridge was in sight.

“This is... fine.”

“Tim.”

“Yup?”

“There’s more guys and cars on the bridge.”

“Yup.”

Tone still light, he continued his very fast slightly uncontrolled driving, managing to avoid very loud gun shots. Stephanie gulped and looked at the inside of the roof, closing her eyes and doing breathing exercises.

“Please don’t tell me you are planning on ramming – Oh my god!”

A hard slam came down on the car and caused Stephanie to yelp. Someone had landed on the roof.

Tim realised it was Batman from the fact that the gun shots were now being directed upwards, most likely at Bruce’s head.

Of course, Batman would look into a high-speed car chase with lots of shooting and swerving and destroying public property. Of course, of course, of course…

Tim was screwed. He was so screwed.

“This is less fine.”

“Who -”

“Batman.”

He swerved on the bridge, turning the car horizontal, blocking off several lanes. Cars that were trying to get on the bridge from the other side were blocked from getting on, and sure enough once Tim had driven onto the Kane bridge more cars appeared, refusing to let others on. The civilian cars that had been ahead of Tim whirled to a stop, and the men at the end of the bridge shouted for them to get out and off. Stephanie watched as people fled from the road and onto solid land.

She and Tim however, were trapped.

“Batman? Wait, what?” Stephanie asked. She reached across to open the door and poke her head outside, trying to see if it was indeed Batman on the roof.

A black gloved hand reached down and very purposefully shut the door.

“Oh. Okay.” She sat back against the chair. “Tim...”

She turned around to see that Tim had completely collapsed his seat, and was lying flat, perpendicular from the steering wheel. For the first time he looked completely beside himself in panic. Stephanie pursed her lips.

“Tim.”

“Shhst.”

She let her mouth fall open, gobsmacked. “Don’t shh me.”

She looked through the window. Men from both ends of the bridge were closing in on the car, and she suddenly understood Tim’s desire to be out of sight of the windows. Even if they were tinted, she didn’t doubt enough gunfire could get through the glass.

The figure on the top of the car shifted, its weight sitting low.

“Should I get down?”

“Probably.”

She didn’t though, she wanted to see what was going to happen. She watched as, with increasing slowness and caution, about ten men on either side approached the car.

“What are we going to do?”

“Stay put until he takes them all out.”

“You sure it’s Batman?” She asked, leering through Tim’s window. She shifted and crossed her legs on the seat.

Tim muttered something to himself that she didn’t catch, his eyes screwed shut. All she got was a distinct whiny tone, like a five-year-old having their toy taken away.

A sharp object was thrown at one of the men, causing him to fall with a dramatic glurk. It was shaped like a bat and answered Stephanie's question for her.

“Oh!” She gasped.

Then chaos erupted. Gunfire began in earnest, to which Tim reached across and snapped Stephanie’s seat down. She flew back with exaggerated flailing and squeaking, her legs kicking up onto the roof before her ankles collapsed on the dashboard. Her bag swung up and smacked her in the face, to which Tim ignored her deadpan cry of ow and reached past her to grab his own backpack.

Stephanie struggled for a moment with the disorientation of having her head lower than her torso. Tim incessantly tapped her legs to bring them down level with the rest of her, to which she quickly let them drop. He then reached across and grabbed her hand tight. His hands were sweaty. Stephanie realised he was genuinely frightened.

Shouts, screams and sounds of punches and gun shots ricocheted through the vehicle. Occasionally it rocked the body of the car, to which Tim’s hands tightened on hers. She didn’t understand why he was so worried. To her, it sounded like Batman was winning.

“I messed up.” He whispered.

“I mean... you did your best.” She said, trying to console him.

“No... no I didn’t.”

“Tim, it’s okay. He’s winning.”

He looked positively wracked with guilt in a way she just couldn’t understand. Tim peeked upwards, seeing that Bruce had moved further down the bridge on Stephanie’s side, and was currently fighting off three guys at once.

Maybe there was still...

A crowbar carried by a screaming woman smashed through Tim’s window, and the adolescent pair squealed like they were in a horror film. Tim gathered his wits quicker than Steph, and shoved the door open, hitting the woman in the chest and nose. She cried out and stumbled backwards.

“Follow me.” Tim ordered.

The pair got out of the car, seeing that all the folk aside from Mrs. Crowbar were passed out on their side of the bridge. Batman seemed to be methodically working his way through them all. The navy suited woman rose up from her pained crouch, and went to smack Tim across the face with the metal rod, but Tim kicked her hard and she flew back, grip loosening. Stephanie wrenched it from her, and with an almost righteous fury, whacked her across the face.

She fell to the floor, and Stephanie heaved deeply. Glancing at the crowbar in her hand, she dropped it like a dead weight.

“That was a bit much.” She breathed. The woman groaned on the floor, no doubt with a broken jaw.

Tim ran over the edge of the bridge, jumping over to the pedestrian paths, and looked down at the black water rushing past below.

The bridge was very high above the water, and under normal circumstances you couldn’t survive the jump. Tim rummaged through his backpack, trying to find something that could disrupt the water’s surface before they landed, or something that could slow down their descent.

Stephanie stumbled over, slowly climbing over fences and barriers. The numbing of her leg was starting to fade, and she could feel her stitches tugging at the skin. She watched as Tim pulled something out of his backpack and put it back on. He leant over the railings and watched the river, like he was waiting for the right moment to jump.

“Life’s not that bad kiddo.”

Tim snorted, “Hah.” He looked back at Batman, who was nearly done wrecking the mob. Tim wasn’t out of the game until Bruce physically caught him. At least that was what he was telling himself. He began to climb over the fence.

“Tim!”

“Trust me.” He said as he clung to the railings. He gestured with his head for her to do so as well. She paused, confused by what he was trying to do when the man they were waiting on had shown up. She couldn’t get much safer than with Batman, right?

Then a gunshot sounded, and Stephanie gasped, body thrust forward with the force of the bullet passing through her body. She looked down, vertigo and disorientation making her unable to catch her breath and stay stable on her feet. Just below her waist but just above her left hip, blood began to pour out of a wound. The bullet had passed right through her and embedded itself on the railings that prevented walkers from toppling over.

She didn’t cry out, but lost her balance, leaning over the fence. She couldn’t breathe correctly, and hacked out a broken cry of pain.

Tim yelled and immediately reached across the metal, grabbing her and applying pressure to the wound on her back. Her bright red blood ran over his fingers. The exit wound would be large.

Stephanie began to wriggle, as if she were trying to separate her body from the pain, and she was so out of it she could neither steady her breathing nor control her muscles, and she began to flip over the edge of the bridge.

Batman, for all his skills, only managed to turn around in time to see, a third of a way down from him, the car Tim and Stephanie had stolen splayed halfway across the road, and a woman with a bloody face laying just up from the front of the car on the other side from Batman. Her jaw looked dislocated, and blood and teeth lay scattered across the ground. She had a gun in her hand. Looking to the pair, he could only watch as Stephanie tumbled off the bridge, and Tim, recklessly, thoughtlessly, threw himself off after her.

Resisting the urge to shout, he grappled the shooter in the shoulder, and dragged her across the floor, her face getting ran across the concrete and tarmac. He grabbed the woman’s throat and knocked her out as quickly as he could. Police sirens were not far from the bridge, and Bruce ran over to the edge, looking down.

“If they hit the water at this height it’s like being in a car crash at 90mph with no seatbelt.”

Oracle quoted the fact at him worriedly, even the electronic distortion was unable to hide her distress. And yet, when Bruce looked down, he could see their two heads in the water, bobbing sideways towards the shore. Tim had slowed and broken their fall, somehow. But Stephanie was likely grievously wounded and needed to get to the Bristol safehouse as quickly as possible.

“Oracle, drive the batmobile to where the get on land. Then ensure they get to the Bristol safehouse.”

“You’re going to let Tim drive it there?”

“You do it.”

“Gotcha boss.”

He just grunted and turned back to the one man who was still conscious, hiding behind the line of cars blocking the entrance to Bristol. Dragging him upwards, Batman pinned him up again the hood of his car.

“Where in the Narrows is Crystal Brown?”

The man was holding his broken shoulder and crying. All Ibanescu’s men were – frankly – pathetic.

"She’s at one of the warehouses along Yew and Oak… I’m sorry, we weren’t meant to… the girl was supposed to…my boss will… now that Stephanie is…”

He didn’t want to hear any more of the wretched man’s excuses, so threw him down on the floor. The first police car had arrived, and Bruce sighed, knowing he would have to leave Tim and Stephanie be. He couldn’t be in two places at once, and the threat looming over Crystal Brown had grown exponentially.

“They’ll be okay. I can see them on CCTV. Tim’s got a handle on it with Stephanie and the car. Go save her mom.”

Ignoring the policeman when he approached, Bruce shot a grapple up onto the suspension cables, and shot away, heading for the central island and the Narrows.

Stephanie and Tim would be watched over by Barbara from now on, and Bruce just hoped Stephanie could survive two bullet wounds, let alone the potential hypothermia and infections that could come from falling into Gotham’s rivers.

Tim had made a series of serious mistakes, and no matter how much Dick and Barbara may have hoped otherwise, Bruce could not let them pass by unchecked this night.

#dc #tim drake #stephanie brown #timsteph #my fic tag

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