#i kept forgetting whether to go portrait or landscape

[madsterline]

i made this to show my family what i made for dinner but i want u to see it too

#ive never tried filming or editing a video like this before #as u can see #i kept forgetting whether to go portrait or landscape #also my phone is the cheapest one they had at the shop so camera quality isnt there #but i had fun

[redhoodssweetheart]

By the Sea Part Two

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Mermaid!Reader

Requested: No

Word Count: 2.4K

Warnings: Angst, fluff

Description:  Y/N is a mermaid that longs for the land.  Her friend Natasha tells her that she knows a human who will take care of her and leads her there, she only has one rule: do not under any circumstances fall in love with a human.  But Steve’s friend Bucky is drawing her in, in ways she hadn’t expected.  Will Y/N be able to return to the ocean once her stay in the human realm is complete?  And what happens when Natasha learns that Y/N is betrothed to be married to their king’s son?  Will she drag her friend back or keep her hidden amongst the humans?

“Natasha!”  Wanda rushed toward her friend, a frantic look in her eyes.  “Y/N’s gone!”

Natasha had been expecting this, she knew as soon as the others woke and discovered that Y/N was no longer in her room that there would be panic amongst them.  “She left,” Natasha responded.  “She left a letter saying that she was going to the human world.”

Wanda gasped, “But why?  Why would she want to go to such an awful place?”

Natasha shrugged, she didn’t share Wanda’s sentiments on the human world.  In fact, she often found herself longing to go back, but knew how cruel the humans could be.  Steve wasn’t like that, he cared for her and helped her, but the village wasn’t big and she didn’t want to run the risk of ever running into the man who had broken her heart again.  “You know how curious she is.  I guess her curiosity got the better of her.”

Pietro came swimming toward them, he had the same frantic look in his eyes as Wanda.  “I just came from King Odin’s palace and told him that Y/N had left, he wasn’t pleased.”

“Of course he wasn’t pleased!” Wanda cried.  “The woman who’s supposed to be marrying his son has up and vanished and now she’s off cavorting with the humans.”  Wanda sat down on a rock and buried her face in her hands.

Natasha’s heart dropped, “Wait she was betrothed to Loki?”

Pietro nodded his head, “Only the court and a few select people knew of the betrothal, Y/N included.  Why would she choose to run off when she was going to be married?”

Natasha glanced in the direction where she had taken Y/N that morning, had this been the reason why she was so eager to go to the human world?  Had she been trying to escape the arranged marriage to the King’s son?

Natasha kept her mouth shut, she wasn’t going to go running to Y/N now.  She was going to let her friend have a few days and then she was going to go and confront her on the true reason why she wanted to leave for the human world.

Morning light filtered in through the crack in the curtains. The brightening room slowly roused Y/N from her sleep and she sat up looking around the room, briefly forgetting where she was.  Once it dawned on her that Natasha had taken her to a man named Steve a bright smile appeared on her face.

She couldn’t believe it, she was actually in the human world.  She had finally done it.  She flopped back against the soft pillows and continued to grin until there was a knock at her door.  “Yes?”  

“Ah good, you’re awake.  I’ve got breakfast laid out for whenever you're ready and try wearing one of the summery dresses that I showed you last night, it’ll be hot today,” he told her, her door staying firmly shut to respect her privacy.

If she had been back home she was sure her friends would just have let themselves in whether she wanted them in the room with her or not.  “Thank you, I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

Y/N quickly got up and quickly dressed herself, trying to remember all the things that Steve and Natasha had both mentioned to her.  She found a dress that was simple enough for her to put on by herself and then quickly fixed her hair so that it looked presentable.  She took the stairs by herself, Steve waiting at the bottom just in case she needed him.

He smiled as she took the stairs slowly, but not as shakily as she had the day before.  “You’re getting better,” he complimented.  

“Thank you, I’m still a little uneasy, but it’s not so bad once you get the hang of it.”  Y/N had spent most of the previous night walking back and forth in her room trying to get used to the sensation.  She fell a few more times, but eventually, she felt comfortable enough that she didn’t need to hold onto something like the wall or her bed to stand and walk on her own.

Steve offered Y/N his arm and led her to the dining hall where she had eaten the day before.  The food was much the same and Y/N happily dug into the warm breakfast.  Steve watched her eat for a moment, happy to see that she enjoyed the food that he had prepared for her and then began eating as well.

“After breakfast, if you’re ready then we can go into town and I can show you around and have a few items of clothing made for you,” Steve informed her.  “And I’m sure you’re curious to see other humans besides myself and my friends.”

Y/N agreed and finished her breakfast as fast as she could, eagerly wanting to go into the village with him.  Steve cleared the plates away and told her to wait for him by the front door down the hall and he would be with her momentarily.  She took her time admiring the paintings on the walls and wondering who had made them.  Some were portraits of people while others were landscapes.  She paused in front of one that was of a mermaid sitting on a rock.  Her breath caught in her throat as she realized that it was Natasha.

“I had a friend of mine do that one,” Steve explained as he came to a stop beside her.  “He never saw Natasha, but I was able to describe her to him from her red hair to her green-colored tail.  She hates it of course,” he said with a laugh.

“Does she visit you often?”  Y/N was curious how long they had been friends and if she even still came here.

Steve shook his head sadly, “Not as much as she used to.  The other day when she brought you here was the first time I had seen her in almost a year.  I always hoped that one day she would come back and stay longer, but she grew tired of the human world and wanted to go back home where she belonged.”

Y/N looked up at Steve and could see the loneliness in his eyes.  “Do you love her?”

Steve smiled, “It wouldn’t make a difference if I did or not, she’s made her stance on how feels about love.  I get lonely here by myself and with her around it was nice being with her and having her laughter fill the house.  Since she’s been gone, it’s been too quiet.”

“I think she misses you too,” Y/N said finally.  “Sometimes she looks sad and I think it’s because she misses being here, but I think she’s also too afraid to leave home and have the others misunderstand and judge her for wanting to be on land.”  Y/N knew that her friends could sometimes be judgemental towards the humans, and she knew how they acted when she had wanted to come ashore.  She wondered if Natasha had faced the same kind of scrutiny or if she had kept her desires a secret.

Steve tore his eyes away from the painting, “Let’s head into the village now.  There’s much to see and do.”

Steve offered his arm to Y/N which she took gratefully and the two of them headed out of the house and down the lone path that led to the village.  It took fifteen minutes to get to the village, but Y/N didn’t mind as she took in the tall trees and the colorful birds that darted from branch to branch playing games with one another.  

Even the ground was filled with colorful flowers, their sweet scent filled the air around them.  “It’s noisy here,” she had never heard this much noise before.

“Does that bother you?”  Steve glanced at her to see if she were uncomfortable but instead discovered that she was glancing around with wonder-filled eyes.  It was a whole new world to her and he remembered how Natasha had been much the same when she had first come here.

“No at all,” she responded, her gaze falling on Steve as she gave him a reassuring squeeze.  “It’s nice to be surrounded by noise and not silence or the chattering of my friends.  I never realized how much I hated that silence until now.  How lonely it can be.”

Steve couldn’t imagine what it must be like having to live under the water with little sound to surround you.  He also never noticed the silence either when he would go swimming with Natasha, she had always chatted with him easily when they were under the waves together until he needed to go back up for air.

The village came into view and Y/N could see the crowds walking along the roads together, some stopping at stalls to look at what the vendors were selling.  Steve maneuvered the two of them through the crowds with expert ease and even stopped when Y/N saw something that caught her eye.  They never lingered long though and finally, Steve opened the door to the dress shop that he had planned to bring Y/N to.

A short, older woman came out from the back and smiled when she saw Steve. “Ah Mr. Rogers, it’s nice to see you again, it’s been a while since you graced my shop with your presence.”

Steve walked over and kissed the older woman on both her cheeks, “Alma, it’s wonderful to see you as well.  Let me introduce my friend Y/N, she arrived last night and unfortunately all her luggage was lost.  I was hoping you had some things for her to wear.”

“Of course!”  The woman, Alma, walked over and took Y/N by the hand and led her toward the back where she had come from.  “You’re in good hands dearie, Mr. Rogers as always you can wait here or you can go enjoy the village.  We’re getting ready for the summer festival at the end of the month just like always,” she explained that bit to you.  “Always a lively time around here when the festival is in full swing.”

“Is it that time already?”  Steve hadn’t realized how much time had seemed to have passed.  He rarely came into the village unless it was absolutely necessary.

Alma chuckled, “Always lost in those books of yours, Mr. Rogers.  Go and have some fun while you’re here.  I’ll take good care of Miss Y/N for you.”

Before he knew it Alma had whisked Y/N away to the back and began showing her dress after dress.  She tried on several until they came to one that made Alma paused.  “What is it?”  Y/N asked worriedly.  “Is there something wrong?”

Alma smiled reassuringly, “Nothing’s wrong, dearie.  It’s just that dress would be perfect for the summer solstice in a few weeks, that is if you’ll still be here.”

Y/N chewed on her lip as she smoothed down the material of the dress, “I don’t know how long I’ll be staying.  But I hope to see this festival at least before I have to go.”

Alma patted her cheek, “Let’s go see if Mr. Rogers is here and if he approves of your dress.”  Alma helped Y/N off the little stool she had been standing on and led her back out to the front of the store where Steve was standing and talking with another man.  “Ah Mr. Barnes, what a lovely surprise.”

Y/N looked up and saw that it was the same man from the previous night, their eyes locked and for a second it seemed as if her heart had stopped in her chest and she couldn’t breathe as he smiled at her.  His eyes never left her face as he said, “He did and I followed him back here to meet his friend.”

Y/N managed to tear her eyes away from the man and toward Steve who was glancing between the two of them.  “Steve, Alma said that this dress would be perfect for the summer solstice festival and we came to get your opinion.”  She managed to find her voice, wanting to distract herself from the handsome man that was Mr. Barnes. 

“I think it’s an excellent choice for the summer solstice.  Don’t you agree, Bucky?”  Steve arched an eyebrow and glanced at his friend.

A soft blush rose to Bucky’s cheeks and he cleared his throat, “I agree.  It’s a perfect choice for the festivities.”

“We’ll take it, Alma,” Steve said.  “And anything else Y/N liked.”

“Come along, dearie, let’s get you changed and bag up the clothes for you.”  Alma and Y/N disappeared into the back and quickly gathered up the articles of clothing.  “Take good care of her, Mr. Rogers.  This one’s special,” Alma patted his cheek as she handed off the bags filled with garments.

“Alma, I do believe she bought everything you’ve ever made,” Steve joked as the bags of clothes weighed him down.  “I’ll need to take these home straight away.  I’m sorry our trip into the village wasn’t as long as we had planned, Y/N.”

Y/N went to say her time was lovely when Bucky said, “I can show her around.”  Y/N and Steve both paused and looked at him.  “And before you ask, it’s no trouble at all.”

Steve looked back at Y/N, a little apprehensive about leaving her.  He knew Bucky was trustworthy, but he was afraid that Natasha might smack him if she found out that on her second day in the human world he had allowed her friend to go off with a relative stranger.  “Only if Y/N is comfortable with it,” Steve said finally.

All eyes were back on Y/N and her mouth opened slightly, should she stay with Bucky and let him show her around.  “It’s fine, Steve.  Bucky knows the way back to your home, and I’ll be back before dinner.”

Steve was still warring with the idea of leaving her alone, but knew that he couldn’t say much without revealing why he was being so protective over her.  “I’ll see you tonight then.”  He squared his shoulders and disappeared into the busy street.

Bucky offered his arm to her, “Shall we?”

She slowly looped her arm through his and let him lead her away from the dress shop and into the unknown.

#Bucky Barnes x Reader #Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader #Bucky Barnes x Mermaid!Reader #Bucky Barnes x Reader fluff #Bucky Barnes x Reader angst #Bucky Barnes #Bucky Barnes fanfic #Bucky Barnes fanfiction #Bucky Barnes fluff #Bucky Barnes angst

[lire-casander]

Congrats again on 500 💜 Could I get hug 22 'Hugging and jumping up and down together' for Rosa and Isobel from RNM, please? I feel like they could use some joy.

Thank you so much for coming along to play with me during this celebratory spree! I love you so much! It's been a while since I've written my girls, so it may be a bit rusty.

happiness in the form of a letter (669 words) | on ao3 prompt: hugging and jumping up and down together

The letter comes in the mail on a Monday, but Rosa doesn’t feel up to opening it right away. It’s only been a couple of weeks since she’s come back from New York, fresh off the art class she’s been attending thanks to Kyle, and she’s still getting used to being in Roswell. For the past few months, she’s been on her own, learning to become Rosalinda Ortecho, but she’d be lying if she said that she’s missed being just Rosa.

Sadly, she knows that Rosa Ortecho can no longer be but a mirage, a secret to be kept in the family. And nowadays, the concept of family has grown to include people she would have never thought she’d be close to.

So, she checks the sender of the letter and promptly discards the envelope on top of an unstable pile of documents that keeps growing on her desk, among painting supplies and a blank canvas that she’s yet to start using. Rosa all but forgets about the letter — the shiny logo giving away its origin — and sets on staring at the canvas with a pout, trying to decide whether she’s going to paint a portrait or a still-life.

On Friday, when she’s spent every waking hour in her small office — set up in a corner in the old bedroom that she used to share with Liz and that she now has all for herself since her sister moved out and in with Max — she hears a knock on the open door.

“Come on in, Isobel,” Rosa invites, without looking up from the strokes that the brush is drawing on the canvas. One of the advantages of her transferred powers is that she’s hyper aware of people around her, so she doesn’t even need to look up to know that she’s got a visit.

“Rosa!” Isobel greets in a sing-song voice. “I should’ve known you’d be all holed up in here.”

“What, have you been looking for me, Isobel?” Rosa teases, carefully putting the brush away and looking up. Isobel’s smirking down at her. “What?”

“A bird has told me that you’ve been hiding away, and I just wanted to take you out for a while. Seems to me you need a bit of fresh air.”

“Sounds awfully like that girlfriend of yours is busy tonight,” Rosa replies nonchalantly.

“C’mon!” Isobel tells her. “Don’t spoil the fun!”

Rosa ponders her options for a brief moment. She knows Isobel is insistent enough to keep nagging at her until she agrees to go out, so Rosa shoots one last look at the Roswell landscape she’s been painting and sighs.

“Let me get dressed.”

She leaves the room for the bathroom, and it’s only when she’s stepping out — wearing ripped jeans and an oversized t-shirt — that she hears a gasp. She rushes back to the room, where Isobel’s standing up with the letter that came in a few days before.

“When were you going to tell us that you got offered an exhibition at a local art gallery?” Isobel says, almost accusingly.

“I—I hadn’t even opened the letter, Isobel!” Rosa manages to retaliate, walking in with long strides and trying to rip the letter from Isobel’s grasp.

“Why?”

“Is it for real?” Rosa asks, getting a grip on the paper and perusing it. The words are clear — she’s been invited to show her art in a local gallery. She lets out a surprised yelp. “Gosh!”

“Congratulations!” Isobel exclaims, tugging her into a hug. In her excitement, Rosa begins to jump up and down, dragging Isobel with her as they both squeal. “You so deserve it!”

Rosa laughs, delighted, before reading the letter once again. “This calls for a celebration!”

“What was I saying?” Isobel winks at her. She fishes her phone from her pocket and starts typing. “Let’s go tell the rest! Everyone’s going to be so excited!”

And Rosa knows, without a shadow of doubt, that they’ll be throwing her an impromptu party as soon as they get Isobel’s text.

#lire's 500 followers celebration #breannacasey #rnm #rnm fic #isobel evans #rosa ortecho #fluff #happiness

[sopxhiea]

Blitz

 | “My resentment is beginning to outweigh my love.”

Alfie Solomons X Reader

The canvas was empty against the cold surface of the wood, the quiet music playing from the radio was the only noise around. The wet brushes around quietly dried down as the breeze coming from the small window filled the space with the chilly weather. The air was sharp, gentle but subtle in the way that it roamed around one’s soul.

She was quiet while staring at the empty walls. It was an early day for most of the city from what she could muster, noises of footsteps and cars outside filling her ear as a small sigh left her lips. It was cold inside, she didn’t mind. She needed the crisp air’s company to keep herself sane even if it meant that her nails would turn purple, they always did.

She sniffled, there was nothing but a light dress and a thick cardigan on her and somehow, she had thought it would be enough. She felt her fingertips numbing slowly, hurting at first even though the pain left its place for the feeling of nothing as it felt like her fingers were made of air. She didn’t move, feeling too incompetent and restless. This was nothing new but she wanted to savour the pain, remember this moment so if, in the future, a time came where she was more herself, she would have something to look back at.

It had been three weeks since he had disappeared. He didn’t say where he was going, she was sure he had either died or was close to becoming a ghost. She silently let out a prayer that if he ever came back as a ghost, he would stick around. He had broken up with her, telling her that it was necessary and he didn’t want to hurt her. She was his secret, a jewel he kept dear to his heart but he didn’t seem to have any second thoughts when he was calling everything off.

She had just stood there, speechless as her mind began wondering about how he could do this. She was more than sure he had a reason, she just didn’t know what it was. Anything, he could tell her anything and he knew this but he chose to keep it to himself. The fact that he had cancer and he was slowly dying, he kept this to himself. Ollie’s new girl and the new employees that were making a mess: he told her all of this in detail when he’d asked but when he was dying, he had just brushed it off and decided to never see her again.

In his mind, Alfie was right. This was him protecting her from any hurt. He had men protecting her and he always would have that, no matter if he was here or in a ground full of souls. Telling her would upset her at first but what he couldn’t muster is if she would break it off. His heart belonged to her and he wondered, if she would turn into a cold soul when he told her. He decided to turn into that cold soul himself, it was the safest way in his eyes.

Ever since the last time they’d seen each other, many things had changed. He had been shot and then brought back to life, he had abandoned cyril and had been staying at the place he found in Margate for the past three weeks. She had stopped painting, unable to bring herself to begin something that reminded her of the love of her life. She was his, heart and soul but he ceased to see the love sometimes, became insecure and filled his own head with misconceptions.

In all truth, she would be sad for a while but she wouldn’t drown herself in agony like Alfie thought she would. He knew her, way too well maybe but when it came to protecting her, his vision was clouded with the wrong scenarios of what could happen. She was the love of his life, he had promised to take care of her no matter what the day he had realised just how precious she was for him but now there he was, in a big yet empty house in Margate, no Cyril or his precious Y/N in sight.

She sighed, she was missing him more than she thought she would. Somedays, she regretted loving him this much but then the memories filled with his loud laughter and contagious joy came into her vision and she would regret saying such things to herself. She had stood there when he told her, storming off not too long after with no word coming out of her mouth simply because she thought that things made no sense. She hoped it was a joke, some sort of prank on her but it wasn’t when the stars started to appear and he still wasn’t home.

Long hours passed, neither of them moved from where they were sitting, miles apart but in the same daze. She wasn’t sad, that wasn’t what it was. She resented him a little, that resentment grew every time she would see one of his men guard her door and the feeling of betrayal made her chest feel heavy, he could be so cruel.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

(A month later)

The clouds slowly parted as time passed, the mixture of feeling tired and dazed could be read from her face as she sat on the chair right in front of the canvas. There was a wedding of a close friend that was coming up and she had decided to paint their portrait and an additional landscape as a gift, she wasn’t fully satisfied but it was good enough. It had been a week since she had restarted painting again and it didn’t feel too suffocating like it did before.

She was healing. It was a very slow and agonising process and it hurt to improve, to keep going but she managed it, little by little. What she missed to see despite improving on her own was the fact that he had been back a couple days ago. He was alive and well, except the scar decorating the side of his face but he seemed to be doing good despite the commodity. He meant to go to her of the first hour of his arrival but the courage never seemed to find him, it felt like he was a powerless teenager again.

Weeks passed, he would contemplate whether he should’ve gone to her house or her shop but the days seemed to pass relentlessly before he could make a decision. That day of the wedding, she was supposed to get ready with the bride as that was the request, she didn’t decline and soon found herself in a room filled with a dozen other ladies and roses around the space. It was a lovely day, calm and sunny as the bride walked in with the dress and Y/N heard people holding their breaths, she chuckled to herself.

There were many times she had thought of how she and Alfie would get married. She knew their religions weren’t compatible but she also knew they would make it work. She had dreamed of everyone coming a wedding in a big house, friends and family filling the spaces as she would stare at his loved one on that day, his eyes would only see her. She knew Alfie would’ve cried, privately if not in front of everyone and she could’ve made a day out of it.

But that wasn’t the case anymore.

A couple hours passed and she found herself in the reception, meddling with her cake as a couple girls spoke about the veil. She didn’t care and she could honestly care less but she kept up the eye contact, acting as if she really cared when in reality, she was just restless as always and a little in pain because of the heels she was wearing. About fifteen minutes later, the dancing started. She got up only to stand next to a wall for the next hour.

A couple gentlemen came up to her, offering their most charming smile and the best pick up line they were able to muster and all they got was the shake of her head and some kind yet insincere words. She decided to go for a walk, maybe have a cigar while she was at it. This was becoming as painful as she had thought it would be and she didn’t want to stand inside where every and each man reminded her of her past lover.

She was on the open field, the grass’ green colour mixing with the sky as it faded from a dark orange to blue, the ends of her dress were flying in the air but she didn’t care, she didn’t mind. The air was cold as usual, she was mad at herself for not bringing a coat but the cold outside somehow made the feeling of inner turmoil disappear for a while, it was only the breeze and her now.

She was standing next to a long tree, watching the sunset as he approached. The man getting married was a respectable friend of his but she didn’t know that, at least she pretended not to know it. She had heard about him being around and a part of her heart wanted this resentment to be over but she was still feeling betrayal in the wounded parts of her heart, she was reminded of the scars every time she tried to breathe.

She didn’t say anything as he walked closer, she recognised him from his footsteps: hard but unstable. She smiled to herself, a feeling of warmth coated her body when she smelled him around her body, the breeze and her own body were betraying her. She was supposed to forget him, never recall a memory but the wounds were still fresh, even though it had been over two months, it was still as hard as the first day for her to stop herself from anything at all.

“Y/N...” he said, his voice was hoarse and deep like usual. She hated how much she missed him, she hated how his voice made her heart feel so weak. She knew her heart was his, would always be but at times like these, she felt betrayed.

She looked at his face, handsome as ever. There was a couple new scars on the side of his face, she almost winced in pain just from seeing his beautiful face but kept it to herself. He was still the same man, with a little more knowledge and pain, but still her Alfie. She gave him a soft smile, he felt his heart melt but stopped himself from feeling anything, or tried.

“You came back...” she said, soft. Her voice was a melody to his ears, he had forgotten how much he enjoyed her voice. There was no betrayal in her voice, just a monotone melody.

“Yeah, I did.”he said, his eyes were apologetic. She didn’t care, the hurt she felt was surfacing.

“Are you alright?”she said, quietly but he heard her.

No matter the amount of hatred and resentment she felt in her heart, she still loved him. He was her dreams and hopes morphed into a human being, she would always love him. It didn’t matter that she felt her heart being thrown into a corner when she saw him, and with a new scar on the side of her face. He was still handsome regardless. This was also her heart betraying her brain.

He almost scoffed, why did she still care about him? He had broken her heart and disappeared all in the same day but all she did was to ask if he was okay because apparently, this was all she cared about. He thought that she looked beautiful as ever with the dress she was wearing, she still managed to take his breath away.

“I’m fine, yeah..” he murmured under his breath as their bodies faced each other under the sunset. “Been better though..” he softly said, the tone of his voice was enough to make her smile.

There was a man she came in with, James. He was a businessman from London, well known and quite the catch for some. He had asked Y/N out on many dates and she had accepted to come here with him, the loneliness wasn’t cured still but at least he would take her home that night. Alfie knew what was going on, from the way they danced inside and how James looked at her. She wasn’t dazed by him, simply a little entertained but not enough.

While she took a good look at his newly found scar, hands on his beard, he enjoyed the feeling of her soft hands while it lasted. He thought this maybe the time to talk to her, she was busy and the last time he wanted her to speak. it hadn’t gone so well and this time he wanted to hear her.

“Dove..” he said, her eyes flickered on his for a second before he continued speaking. “I’m sorry, yeah, It wasn’t right for me to leave that way.” he said, waiting a while as her hands left his face. She leaned back on the tree, eyes never leaving his as she took the time in. She sighed, she hoped her heart wouldn’t betray this time again.

“What happened?” she asked, simple and clear. She needed to know what actually happened so that she would calm the anger down in her heart.

“I......was sick,yeah.” he said, meeting her eyes of worry as she wondered. He had been sick?

She had realised his tired antics and a few new scars gathering around his chin but didn’t say anything. There was times when he would come home with open wounds and bleeding so she didn’t pay that much attention to it, she should have.

“Sick?” she whispered, she was afraid of what he was gonna say but she needed to know.

“They told me, right, that I have cancer of some sorts..” he said, casual and calm. She turned to face him, a wave of shock in her face.

She felt her blood boil this time. He was all he cared about and he hadn’t told her that he was dying, actively and slowly dying. Was it her fault? Maybe she had been too fragile to him and now he thought, if he told her, she would be too unstable. There were too many things going on in her head, so many thoughts filled with worry and anxiety for him.

She could’ve said anything, about how restless the nights had been and how worried she had been. She was angry, tired and confused. Why was he dying? Why was it him? She felt like she’d been left out of something, something important and maybe it was her fault, Had she been too careless?

“My resentment is beginning to outweigh my love.” she whispered.

It was the full truth. She loved him to death but being left out of something like this, she felt so betrayed, even more so than before. She didn’t blink, obvious anger in her eyes as Alfie stared at her, digesting what she had just said.

“I....I wish I didn’t love you so much..” she said softly, hands thrown up in the air while she waited for him to speak but he didn’t. He looked at her like a puppy, he hoped she’d take him back but a part of him also knew that train had left.

She still loved him, he said to himself. And she did, desperately and vulnerably. She loved him to a point where she would leave everything, everyone for him in a heartbeat. He looked at her, taking a step closer and taking her hands in his.

“Dove, I....” he said, not managing to get a word out and before she knew it, her hands were not in his anymore.

“Alfie..” oh how he missed his name coming out of her mouth. 

“I’m gonna go inside now, I will stay for a while and the nice gentlemen inside will take me home..” she said, close to his body as he pushed down the urge to kill the guy inside. “..tonight, you can come by my house. We will talk but for now...” she breathed out, feeling like she was doing a mistake but it didn’t matter. She wanted him back but slowly. She was gonna make him wait this time, it wasn’t going to be easy to let him in.

“I need to think....” she said slowly, letting his hands go and walking as she whispered to him one last time, “I’ll see you tonight.”

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

If you want another part, lemme know!

#Tom Hardy #eames tom hardy #tom hardy imagine #tom hardy fanfiction #tom hardy alfie #Alfie Solomons #alfie x reader #alfie peaky blinders #alfie tom hardy #alfie solomons imagine #alfie solomons peaky blinders #alfie solomons x reader #alfie solomons x oc #Peaky Blinders #peaky blinder fanfic #peaky blinder imagine #alfie solomons fluff #alfie solomons angst

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Witches, Chapter 22: catching up with some old friends

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

----

At the end of August, a hand-drawn - some of the graphite or charcoal or whatever it is that smears off onto Apollo’s hands when he opens the envelope - invitation arrives at the Wright Anything Agency. Addressed to Mr Justice, Ms Trucy, and Mr Wright, it cordially welcomes them over to Deauxnim Studios on Saturday. “Guess Larry finally found a place he wanted to get settled,” Phoenix says, picking up the envelope and turning it over. “He’s been bouncing around for a while.”

He passes the envelope back to Apollo, and on the back side of it, a scribble on the flap in a childish, spiky scrawl, very different than Vera’s writing, reads, V. says your new lawyer can come too, forgot about her. 

“Better not let Athena see that.” Phoenix chuckles. “She’d hate to think she’s forgettable, even to a girl she’s never met.”

Apollo and Trucy arrive first on Saturday, after grabbing ramen for lunch somewhere that isn’t Eldoon’s, leaving Apollo with a strange guilty feeling that he isn’t patronizing Salt Hell. It’s a weird thing to think. Like he’s grown attached to that place, whether he wanted to or not.

He spent the morning, before he left his apartment, arguing with himself about whether or not he needed to bring iron with him. He doesn’t want to hurt Vera by accident, but he’s wandering into an unknown household of Mr Wright’s acquaintance, and that gives him a real sense of fear. Like sure, he’s met Larry before, but the guy accidentally became a witch. Doesn’t really inspire much confidence. And Apollo can’t even ask Clay’s opinion, because he never told Clay that Vera is a changeling, and he doesn’t want to get into that. In the end, he decides that he’ll be careful, but it’s better to take precautions, and slipped the iron ring onto his finger. 

No one answers the door but Trucy tests the handle, finds it unlocked, and bounds right in. Apollo decides that he can’t really be faulted if he’s following her to keep her out of trouble, and heads in after. “Helloooo!” she calls, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Vera! Uncle Larry! We’re here for the artists’ loft grand tour!”

Apollo wouldn’t call it a loft, but the fact that it’s an artist den is obvious. On the wall right in front of them there’s a half-finished mural of a snowy landscape. To the left, canvases and poster boards spill out through a doorway, resting on the floor and propped up against the walls, depicting landscapes and fruit bowls, the Steel Samurai, a portrait of Vera with her face divided down the center as human and fae both, and one that is just splotches of blue like someone dipped a sponge and threw it. They pick their way carefully between the canvasses and enter the room, brimming with more paintings and charcoal sketches. There’s one of an orca leaping out of the water; another depicts a demon that, all considered, appears a bit like Tenma Taro would it drawn by someone who got a third-hand description. It doesn’t have arms, simply wings where its arms would be that have talons at the joint, and the drawn tongue reaches halfway down its chest, while its head lacks its weird batlike ears. But it’s definitely Tenma Taro, enough to send a shudder through him. 

A year ago, examining the paintings to find that someone he never met had been following along to every case Apollo defended, and an accompanying feeling nothing short of horror in discovering it. This time, this is - she is - a friend keeping up with what’s going on even when they haven’t spoken in months. It’s nice to know. 

Footsteps hurry down the hall. “Hey, Vera!” Trucy says, and did she say it before or after Vera actually appears in the doorway to let them know that it’s her and not Larry? “We arrive! Good to see you!”

Vera looks better than Apollo remembers last, bright-eyed and not as pale as she used to be. Written in her face, the color in her cheeks and the curve of a smile, is that she is not a scared shut-in anymore. She explains that she lives here now, got her father’s house sold to escape the trauma associated with it - well, she doesn’t say the latter clause of that statement but they all know it well enough - and Larry bought this place and she’s subletting a room from him. “Though I asked him a month ago how much it would be and how to pay him and he said he’d get back to me and hasn’t.” Vera frowns at the wall. There’s a framed photo of her and her father hanging there. “I should probably remind him.”

“God, I wish my landlord would forget to collect,” Apollo mutters.

Trucy laughs. “I think that’s Polly telling you not to remind him,” she says. 

“I’m a lawyer,” Apollo says. “I would never say that.”

The three of them stop in front of a painting of a weird-looking but familiar dog and in silence, stare at it. Loud, exuberant knocking on the door heralds Athena’s arrival. “I’m not late, am I?” she asks. “I know the rule is that you’re not late unless you get here after Mr Wright, but that’s for work and not social events, right?” Apollo shrugs. Athena thrusts her hand out toward Vera. “Hi! I’m Athena Cykes, the new lawyer at the Wright Anything Agency! Nice to meet you!”

“Uh - h-hi.” Vera hesitates a moment and then shakes her hand. “I’m Vera Misham. Nice to meet you.”

“Trucy and Apollo said you were a client of theirs - oh! Did you paint all these?”

The panic in Vera’s eyes subsides. Wondering what all they’ve told Athena about her, why she was their client or whatever else. But Athena’s asking about her artwork now, and Vera is good about talking about her art, so she waves Athena back into the room they were just in and shows her the sketch of the orca. Trucy circles around the desk at the wall, and after a minute calls over, “Hey, Vera, who’s this?” She waves a large photograph of a woman, standing in the snow, her black hair tightly twisted on top of her head, her tired lined face wearing a knowing smile. Apollo would swear she’s familiar. When Apollo goes over to the desk, he sees a few pieces of scrap paper with hasty sketches trying to copy the woman’s face, pushed to the edge and onto the floor. 

“That’s Mr Larry’s mentor,” Vera says. “Ms Elise. She’s the one who began the Deauxnim name. I wanted to paint a portrait of her, as a gift for him, but I haven’t figured her face out yet. I—”

“Is that guests I hear?”

Vera snatches the photo from Trucy and shoves it and the loose papers in between the pages of a sketchbook. Larry leans up against the doorway. “Long time no see, Trucy!”

“Uncle Larry!” She charges him and nearly knocks him over. “Yeah, it’s been practically forever! Since like, since we saw Gourdy!”

“Who’s Gourdy?” Athena asks. 

“You’ll see,” Trucy says with a grin. Apollo sighs and resolves to find some sort of excuse to miss this event this upcoming December. Clay will be in space then, and Apollo is going to use that time to sleep in and not be heckled for it. 

“Apollo, hi,” Larry says, now that he’s gotten his wind back from taking a magician to the stomach. “And Athena, hey, nice to meet you, I’ve heard all about you.” He extends a hand for her to shake by resting his elbow on Trucy’s head. “That you’re the crazy kid who helped Nick out with his first case back.”

“Did you get to meet the orca?” Vera asks. “How do you defend an orca? I followed in the news as best I could, but I still don’t really understand.”

“Well! Let me tell you.” Athena, thrilled to have someone new to regale with her tales of penguins and orcas from the aquarium, immediately launches into it. Apollo still doesn’t know how much of her telling is exaggeration. When he and Trucy had questions about the investigations, Athena was always quick to be the one to answer, and Phoenix and Pearl left her to it. Was the penguin as finicky as she said, and so freely allowed to roam the aquarium when it would be very easy to consequently steal the penguin - probably. Apollo will believe anything, when it comes to their cases and clients. 

“I’m never gonna live this one down, am I?” Phoenix appears behind them, from the entryway, and Athena and Vera both jump. 

“What, you just barge in and don’t even knock?” Larry asks. “Rude! What kind of guest are you, Nick?” Phoenix grins, and that’s the weird thing that has struck Apollo the few other times he’s seen Phoenix and Larry together. That Phoenix almost reminds him of Clay, then, now, whenever it isn’t Larry reminding him of Clay. The way they gleefully give each other shit. The strength of that many years between them. 

“You defended an orca in court, Boss,” Athena says. “You are not going to live it down.”

“You co-counseled the defense of an orca!”

Larry takes them back to the sitting room - he and Phoenix bickering about whether or not his decor and entire vibe is pretentious - and pretentious is not the word coming to mind for Apollo. Now he feels the artist loft thing, mismatched furniture and clashing decor. A polished wooden table has a lace tablecloth and six all-slightly-different wicker chairs, while the couch makes him think of the Victorian era. A candelabra with lightbulbs sits on the end table. Landscapes and watercolor illustrations hang on the walls, and in between two of them hang a deformed analogue clock that looks like that famous melty-clocks painting. There are three pedestals around the room, like what a museum would keep vases on. Two of them do have vases, one empty and one filled with some wilted flowers, and the third has a small statue, about a foot tall, that again looks like another famous painting, the distorted face of the screaming man on the bridge. 

“When’d you get back into metalworking?” Phoenix asks, eyeing the statue and then the clock.

“Oh, nah, that’s just way old stuff I had boxed up and finally had some space for,” Larry says. “Clock’s ancient, you’d been talking to me about some course you were taking where Dalí kept coming up. Other one’s a vent piece - last metalwork I did after the Thinkers.”

“Don’t tell me it’s a clock too,” Phoenix says.

Larry, halfway into the next room - from what Apollo can see, it might be a kitchen - leans back out. “Dunno, why don’t you try it and find out?”

Phoenix watches him leave and then turns back to the statue. He casually hefts it in one hand, bouncing it a little to test the weight, and then he grabs the head and twists it to the side. A scream emerges from it. Not a very convincing one, with the canned sound of being recorded on a device with not great quality, and made by someone who is trying not to disturb the neighboring apartments - but the suddenness of the sound still makes Apollo jump, and Athena and Trucy both scream in tandem with it. 

With a heavy clonk, Phoenix sets it back in its place. He sighs, but with a smile visibly threatening to break through. “Real cute,” he says to Larry, who returns with a shiny, fancy metal tray of plastic containers of store-bought cookies. Why did Apollo think that the aesthetic clash would subside. “The Scream. Absolutely hilarious.”

“Hey man, it’s an accurate representation of my mental state at the time.” Larry sets the tray down on the table and gestures to them all to sit down. “I thought about giving it to you as a representation of how you probably felt too, and then I thought that might be—”

“Poor taste, yeah,” Phoenix interrupts.

“Yeah, so I had that in a box for a decade, and honestly probably gonna put it back because imagine like, an earthquake hits in the middle of the night and it falls over and just screams.”

“You could probably have it put in a gallery as a piece of performance art, or something,” Phoenix says. “Have it set just precariously enough, and cue screaming.”

“I don’t think I understand art,” Athena says, grabbing two cookies. “I mean, I get it, but also don’t at all.”

“That’s not about the art,” Phoenix says. “That’s just Larry.”

Larry slaps Phoenix’s hand as he reaches for a cookie. “You can’t be rude to me in my own house! My own house in which I have so graciously invited you!”

“I think Vera invited us, actually,” Trucy says. Larry rolls his eyes. 

“Yes, I wanted to tell you all,” Vera says, and the silent scuffle between Phoenix and Larry ceases immediately. Trucy sets the screaming statue back in its place with a guilty look, having been about to unleash it on the unexpected audience of everyone but Apollo who wasn’t looking in her direction. “I’m going to be published!”

“Woohoo!” Trucy throws her arms around Vera’s shoulders and hugs her from behind. “Look at you go!”

Vera’s cheeks start to turn pink, and then in the center there’s a growing bluish tint. “Nice work, kiddo,” Phoenix says. “When’s the book come out?” His eyes flicker toward Larry. Had they talked about this before, that Phoenix, specifically, knew there was a book? - Or maybe he just knows Larry’s career enough to expect, of course it’s a book. 

“Um.” Vera thinks for a moment. Trucy flings herself into the chair next to Vera that she had previously abandoned. “The beginning of November. Advance copies were just sent out and we got ours last week.”

“Can we see?” Apollo asks. “Or is that trade secrets?”

Vera drums her fingers on her cheek. “I suppose we could show you. If I know where we put it?”

“Somewhere beneath five sketchbooks, probably,” Larry says. “I’ll go take a look in a bit.”

“So you write children’s books, right?” Athena asks. “That’s what Mr Wright said. Write or illustrate? And-or?”

“Vera came up with this idea, I wrote it, and she did all the illustrations,” Larry explains. 

“I kept thinking about everything you said about names, that one time, Trucy,” Vera says quietly, and though all of them can hear her, and Athena especially looks interested as the only one of them who wasn’t here before, who is shut out of this particular shared history, but even she doesn’t say anything. “So,” Vera continues, a bit louder, “I’ll be a published illustrator under the name ‘Verity Deauxnim’.”

“That’s a good name!” Trucy says brightly. “Verity Deauxnim! A real solid sounding stage name! Or whatever it is for authors. Nom de plume? That always makes me picture just like, a really bushy mustache. Get mustache glasses for your author portraits!”

“You know—” Larry begins, and Phoenix groans and places his head on the table. “Hey! Nick! Why’s your daughter more supportive than you are? It’s not a bad idea!”

“It’s a silly idea,” Phoenix says. He lifts his head. “But I’m glad to hear you’ve got that figured out, Vera. It’s not gonna lead you wrong, picking up the Deauxnim name for yourself.”

“It’s already done so much work saving Uncle Larry from the worst surname known to the world,” Trucy says.

“Yeah, was a whole real tragedy that I wouldn’t be known as ‘Larry Butz, the guy who was on trial one time for murder and did nothing else good ever’. Except like, that time I was the Steel Samurai on stage, that was pretty cool, even if I’d thought I was signing up for tech crew.”

This is the man who accidentally became a witch, isn’t it? That tracks. “What’s the book about?” Apollo asks. 

Larry ends up answering first, Vera wide-eyed startled at being asked a question while she was trying to eat. “It’s an Ugly Duckling-type story, with the vaguest amount of actual animal research.”

“How vague is vague?” Phoenix asks.

“I’m a storyteller, Nick! I can’t be getting, like, neurotic about having all real true facts in there if it’s gonna get in the way of telling a good story, you know?”

“I feel like that’s how all of our witnesses treat their testimonies,” Apollo says. Athena shrieks with laughter and drops her cookie onto the table. Phoenix is silently and pointedly conveying something to Larry with just eyebrow movements and grimaces. Larry is pointedly ignoring it. 

“Fortunately,” he says, pointedly, so that his ignoring Phoenix has looped all the way back around to Phoenix obviously having his attention, “Deauxnim picture books are not witness testimonies! And if we want to fudge it when we’re talking about ducks, that is our right!”

“Then don’t leave us hanging,” Phoenix drawls. “I’ve learned more about orcas than I ever wanted to, so what’s this about ducks, besides the ugly one?”

“I can’t believe you didn’t want to know about orcas,” Athena says. “What’s not to love about orcas?”

“There’s a kind of duck that lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, like the cuckoo bird,” Vera says. “But the baby duck is nicer than the cuckoo babies because it doesn’t, um… throw the other eggs out of the nest once it hatches.”

“Ah,” Trucy says faintly.

“That would not make a great children’s story, I don’t think,” Apollo says. The secret extra-dark Ugly Duckling tale. Maybe even, if Apollo really thinks about it, that’d be the kind of shitty story that Datz would tell them. The interloper successfully makes it in to toss aside the ones who are supposed to be there; the usurper wins. That’s the kind of shitty story they lived.

“That’s why we didn’t do cuckoos,” Vera says. “That’s why it’s the duck that - that ends up put into a family where it wouldn’t naturally belong. The actual ducks in real life realize, because that’s part of, um, how they are, and they leave right away. But that’s not exactly what the story is. We stretch it a little. Like Mr Larry said.”

It should have hit him sooner, the reason that Vera had the idea for an Ugly Duckling story - the child of a different species dropped in a nest and left there to figure it all out for herself. It makes so much sense from that perspective. The swan that doesn’t know it’s a swan and thinks itself an odd duck is a just changeling.

“So then you got to draw a lot of fluffy cute ducks?” Athena asks. “I’d have gone with penguins, myself, but I see the appeal.”

“You said you got to meet a penguin at the aquarium, right?”

“Yes, but she hated me.” Athena still sounds like she’s about to start wailing when she talks about it.

When the familiar tune of a cartoon theme song starts up, Apollo figures it’s Trucy fiddling with something else. “Is that the Steel Samurai?” Vera asks. 

“Yeah.” Phoenix pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Ringtone. Friend of mine won’t let me change it. Ah, hello, what’s up?” He doesn’t look concerned when he answers, but he starts to frown, slowly, his eyebrows creasing together, and everyone else at the table glances at each other. Phoenix turns around in his chair so that his elbows rest on the back of it, a finger pressed against his free ear to shut them out even though no one is talking. “You don’t remember? That - no, yeah, I can - yeah. I can just meet you there.” His chair scrapes on the floor when he pushes himself out from the table. Athena winces. Phoenix doesn’t move for another moment after he pulls the phone away from his ear, a blank stare fixed on it. “Sorry,” he says, finally standing and pushing the chair back in to the table. “I’ve got to go. Friend’s having an - issue.”

“What’ve They done now?” Larry asks, with such particular emphasis that even though he doesn’t name them Fair Folk or fae, they all know. 

“Oh, for once it isn’t them,” Phoenix says, much lighter than Larry did, like they could be just any group of human friends. 

“Then tell Edgey I say hi.”

“I have human friends other than Edgeworth, you dick.”

“Name three.” Larry looks very smug. 

“Gumshoe, Franziska, and - Ema. Notice I’m not including you.”

“Is this what people mean when they say ‘male bonding’?” Athena asks. “Is that what this is?”

“Something like that,” Apollo says. He thinks of Clay, again, Clay needling him this morning that almost all of Apollo’s social life is now based around his job. (Apollo can’t leave the Agency. Apollo would have one friend left.)

“Yeah, I noticed when I had to find out from Edgey that you got your badge back and were off to court for an orca! You couldn’t even give me a call for that, huh?”

“I was busy with, you know, defending and being in court.” Phoenix claps a hand down on Vera’s shoulder. “Sorry I’ve gotta run out on you like this. But it’s good to see you again, glad you’re doing well. And I can’t wait for the book, too.”

“O-oh.” The poor girl sometimes looks so shocked whenever Phoenix talks to her so casually, so supportively. Like after she ruined his career she doesn’t understand how he can be so happy about hers. Even if he did set her up with it. “Thank you.”

“I guess I’ll go look around for our advance copy,” Larry says, watching Phoenix leave. “A sneak peak for everyone who’s staying here.” Phoenix flips him off over his shoulder, without turning around. “Not in front of the children!” Larry yells, standing himself. “And Nick, yo, next time I wanna hear about your stupid court stunts from you and not Edgey.” Larry turns, disappearing from the room the other way. “You kids hang out and talk about memes or whatever kids talk about.”

“Did you hear who Daddy was talking to?” Trucy asks Athena.

“I don’t listen in on phone calls unless it’s like, a case, usually,” Athena says, which is a statement with a lot of qualifiers there. Leaving her bases open while not technically lying, so no tells for Apollo or Trucy to call her on. 

“Ugh.” Trucy slumps and her head falls back against the chair. “What good are cool powers if you can’t help me pry into my dad’s private life with them?”

Vera coughs softly, a gentle nudge to the nosy gang to, ideally, stop being so damn nosy. Trucy stands up and goes to sound the screaming statue again, startling no one because she’s snickering the whole time too. “If this weren’t so heavy I’d use it in a magic show,” she says. “Watch as the beautiful, talented magician pulls the mysterious screaming statue out of her Magic Panties!”

“Really would prefer not to,” Apollo says.

“Coward,” Trucy says. 

“How is the magic show going, Trucy?” Vera asks. “Have you made any progress on finding a venue to perform in?”

Trucy catches them all up on her latest exploits in her attempts to become a professional stage magician. She’s convinced, utterly, that while the era of magicians on tv saw its heyday decades ago, she’s going to be the one to bring it back, and without “cheating” by using her real magic. “Like if I wanted to use real magic, I’d set up a shop on the streetcorner peddling suspicious plants as having come straight from the realm of the Fair Folk themselves, and then when angry repeat customers come back, I use Mr Hat to distract them and make off with their wallets!”

“Trucy, that’s how you get arrested on theft and drug dealing charges,” Apollo says. “I don’t want to have to deal with that.”

“Oh, yeah,” Trucy says. “I guess selling random plants would be suspicious. Someone at my school tried to sell kale pretending it was weed, once.”

“Sometimes I get sad that I missed out on all those stupid weird high school experiences that people get to have,” Athena says. “I mean, sure, I get weird court stories, and I don’t regret the path I’ve taken at all! But sometimes I just feel - I don’t know, something, about missing out on those regular growing-up experiences.”

Apollo opens his mouth to say that there’s really nothing Athena missed, because grade school and secondary school sucked, and everyone’s “funny high school stories” are just them repressing the rest of it that sucked, but Vera speaks first and says, “I do too, actually.”

“Oh?” Athena asks. She probably figured there was something more going on in Vera’s story when they mentioned that she’s a former client of Apollo’s, but being a nineteen-year-old professional is Athena’s normal. Though there’s higher odds of it in artistic fields than law, probably.

“I was homeschooled,” Vera says. “By my father. I… I didn’t really go out much.”

Athena nods sympathetically. She sits with her chin resting in her palm for a while, as Trucy spins a few more stories of what’s happened at school lately - repeatedly assuring Apollo that she and Jinxie stay far to the sidelines of it - looking at Vera. After a few minutes of this, Vera seems to notice, casting a quizzical glance at Athena. “Something about you reminds me of a friend I had when I was little, before I moved away,” Athena explains. “I can’t put my finger on it.”

“It wouldn’t have been me,” Vera says. “I didn’t have any friends when I was little.”

“Oh, that’s not what I meant,” Athena says. “I had only the one friend back then - I was a real shut-in, actually, myself. Her name’s Juniper. She was a real quiet, sensitive type, didn’t have any other friends like me, didn’t go out much at all. Not really an artist, other than a couple years ago she said that she’d taken up knitting, but there’s just - a certain je ne sais quoi.”

“Oh,” Vera says. She starts picking at her nails, which now appear to be whiter and pointier than they were before. Another slip, from wondering, perhaps, if the similarity Athena sees is just in personality, or something she doesn’t realize she’s picked up on. Do the inner voices of human and fae sound different? Is that something Athena can notice - something she even knows she notices?

“Found it!” Larry reenters the room, waving the book around a little too much for Apollo to get a good look at the cover yet. “It was on the unused sketchbook shelf.”

Vera nods in understanding. Athena doesn’t follow so easily. “You have a shelf full of unused sketchbooks? How many do you need at one time?”

“Different kinds of paper work better with different materials,” Vera explains. “So when there’s a sale, we stock up.”

“Part of being a writer is having a lot of cool notebooks that you never actually plan on using,” Larry says, which is coming close to almost offering an explanation, but a much worse one than Vera’s. He sits back down at the table with them. “So doing traditional art is also a lot like that, except I do eventually use the sketchbooks. Mostly.”

“Oh, so it’s like how Mr Wright never uses all the law books we have in the office, right?” Athena asks. 

Trucy takes the book from Larry and drags her chair around the table to squish herself in between Apollo and Athena, so they can all read from the same angle. Vera is chewing on her nails now, watching them with apprehension for any reaction, though they’ve barely even considered the cover yet. “That’s exactly what it’s like, I think,” Trucy says.

-

The lights in the office are off, though the door to the back room is open, and Phoenix always closes that one before he leaves. Though, he figures, if she’s gotten here before him, it’s not like she would actually have need to turn the lights on. That’s the thing about being blind - the dark isn’t any different than the way it usually is. 

He finds Thalassa sitting next to his desk, leaning up against the side with her knees pulled up to her chest and her head rested against them. Phoenix scuffs his feet noisily across the carpet and her head turns, just slightly, while keeping her face buried. She knows he’s there and doesn’t want to acknowledge him. He lowers himself to the floor across from her and rests his back against Apollo’s desk, and he waits in the dim light that Mia has only partially switched on. 

“I almost forgot.” Thalassa raises her head, and because Phoenix doesn’t have his magatama on his person - he left it in his desk, next to her soul - she looks perfect, statuesque and glamorous, not a wrinkle or hair out of place. Perfect enough that she’s wholly unnatural, armored as she is in glamour to become something cold and stony. “I almost forgot everything.” Her hands, clutched tightly in her lap, unfold from around her mitamah, deep blue like a twilight sky. “I left myself a memo that should I find myself slipping, I was to call you for help - but I thought it was just that, slipping somewhat, and the most I would forget was your office address or phone number, not why it even was that you were the one who could help me at all.”

“And it wasn’t,” Phoenix says. 

She nods. “It was everything. About you, about my children, about everything from when I came to this office after the trial. And then everything before I was shot. I was left again with that darkness, and Borginia, and the two trials here.” The duration between losing her life, and finding her soul. 

“Do you think, because of the length of time you’ve not been around it?” Phoenix asks. “Or perhaps distance - but you’ve stayed in LA this whole time, right?”

She regards him for several second; blind though he knows she is, her Sight remains, and with that she can pinpoint his own Sighted eyes. Just hovering ominously above a necklace-shaped noose. A bit weird, no doubt, and Phoenix doesn’t have to doubt because Godot told him it was weird in a stronger term than weird. (Speaking of weird, there’s something thematically to contemplate that magic gone wrong, the fae crossed, so often deprives humans of their eyes, even when they are left with Sight. Ema would tell him that two isn’t a large enough sample size to draw any actual conclusions, scientifically, but for his purposes, Phoenix is going to ahead anyway.)

“Not quite,” she admits. “I did return to Borginia for a short time. I wondered, as I did, if I could uncover some connection or reason as to why it was there I was sent following my death.” Her tone is so casual, so calm, that it’s uncomfortable. This huge blank in her past, why she was there at all, and she speaks of it like it’s no concern to her. “And more than that, there were some last affairs of Lamiroir’s to put in order - Lamiroir, the duo, Machi and I, I mean. He can never return to Borginia, and so there is nothing more there for me.”

“Shit, yeah, the smuggling charges, that’s…” Machi, fifteen years old, functionally exiled from his homeland, sitting in jail knowing he won’t even have a foundation to build off of when he gets out, because Borginia’s draconian cocoon-smuggling laws are a sword over his head for the rest of his days. “I hope they didn’t give you any trouble over it.”

“Thankfully, they seemed satisfied that I truly had no part in what Machi and Daryan did,” she answers. “Or - considering that the country has been in an uproar since last year, with a very long debate about what we owe the rest of the world when something so dangerous could also save lives - perhaps the customs officers were very tired of talking about cocoons.” She smiles faintly. “Perhaps Borginia will have its own legal reforms, as you are striving for here.”

Nothing like a high-profile celebrity case to catch the public’s eye, if the lawyer on defense doesn’t fuck it all up.

“So it could have been the distance that you traveled that caused this problem,” Phoenix says. “Or the combination of time and distance, or just time.” And with magic, nothing ever easy. “But either of those could be dealt with,” he adds. “You could drop by the office more to - to refresh your memory. Could say hi to the kids, too.”

He means - or, if she had asked, he would have said he meant - she could say hello as Lamiroir. The kids helped her out by defending Machi, and they still, quite regularly, listen to her music. (The only place where their musical tastes converge, really.) But she decides what he means without asking, and with a curl of her lip, hiking her shoulders up, she says, “I will not reenter my children’s lives while there is a chance that I will only cause them further grief.”

She reaches up and runs her hand up along the desk, finding its edge to hold on to and pull herself up to her feet. For a moment Phoenix fears that she will leave the conversation on that note and walk out, but she seats herself delicately on his desk, her hands primly folded in her lap and one leg crossed over the other at the knee. As classically poised as she ever is, and Phoenix is glad she’s decided to stick around. Maybe Mia would stop her, but Phoenix knows he wouldn’t have gotten on his feet in time. Why did his bones stop being able to take any kind of pressure as soon as he hit thirty? Why do humans live at all; merely to suffer back pain?

But he doesn’t really like carrying on this conversation with Thalassa looking down on him, either, and with a groan he drags himself upright and sinks into Athena’s chair. “Perhaps placing my soul back in the hollow it was carved out of will simply drop me down into the grave I so narrowly escaped all those years ago,” she continues bitterly. “Or perhaps one day my memory will have regressed to the point that I will only be Lamiroir the amnesiac even while I sit with my soul held in my hands.”

“But we don’t really even know that will happen,” Phoenix says. “I very much doubt that will happen.”

“Do you,” she says curtly. “Pray tell, how? Even I do not know - could there have been some other spell cast by Magnifi to keep me alive, or was my soul’s separation all that was necessary? Can you tell me that? Can your friends know unless they have bought the souls of some unlucky damned humans and then watched them die, as an experiment?”

Pearl is the one researching how to set this right. Neither she, Maya, nor Iris knew when he first asked, but Phoenix isn’t the type to give up on someone, and Pearl has a vested interest in becoming as powerful as she possibly can to support Maya, so she won’t be giving up, either. As far as Phoenix knows, anyway, there have been no souls experimentally bartered about. And Pearl had agreed that if anyone was likely to know the nuances of these particular magics and how to help her, it would be them, that faraway hidden place that the Winter fae branched from thousands of years ago. She and Maya just - couldn’t divine where in the world that is, that one final Court they know nothing about, know no one who has ever been.

No one besides Thalassa.

“Fine,” he says. “Yes, we’re still trying to figure it out - yes, we don’t know that it won’t, but we don’t know that it will, either. And say, for argument’s sake” - because that’s what lawyers do, argue, and a smile twitches onto her lips - “that you were actually to die or have your memory wither away. That you think that may happen. Shouldn’t you meet your children now, tell them the truth, while you can? They deserve to know, at the very least, that they’re siblings.”

Her smile vanishes; her brows furrow. “Then if I am dead or in essence lost, you of course may tell them.”

Of course, she says, after she has not made that obvious. It would not have truly shocked him if she’s instead said that she would bury her childrens’ relationship with her. “And when they ask how I found out and how long I’ve known? Why I hid it for that long? Do you think they won’t hate me if they know that I knew you, and kept the chance for them to ever meet their mother from them? It’s not like I can lie to them about anything!” There’s nothing satisfying about making a point that shuts her up. Both sides of this argument are the the losing ones. “Do you think that either of them would simply not care about what happens to their mother?” 

Trucy is hurting, daily, ever since she learned the truth of her grandfather’s magic; she doesn’t hide it with a smile at home. She wants to be a stage magician because that’s the kind of magic that will only make people happy, will never hurt anyone. And Apollo’s never talked to Phoenix about it, but Trucy informs him that there were several foster homes in the picture, none ever stayed in the picture, and that Apollo always changes the subject (“Conspicuously,” she says, over dinner, no idea that she’s talking about her half-brother, “changes the subject. Polly’s really bad at lying.”) if she asks him about family.

“I do not know,” she says. “You are the one who knows them—”

“And I know they would care! That they’d want to know you!”

Thalassa goes quiet. She presses her fist against her mouth and closes her eyes, inhaling loudly and exhaling even louder. “This is precisely the trouble, that you are the one who knows them.” She lowers her hand, curls it tight around her other hand and her mitamah. “You, you reckless, stubborn, fool of a man! What may I expect from you next as you think you may - go about trying to set this right? To save me - do I wait for you to bargain away your own soul to your fae friends, so that they may better understand, because their help you ask of them has a price? Or do I let you search for the Summer Court and their reserves of knowledge - so that you may die there, as Jove did, seeking something from them that they will never offer you?”

“What was Jove looking for?” Phoenix asks. It’s a new piece of an older story, that at the end of last year (one of the few times they communicated between October and now) he’d asked for clarification on two points. First, if she knew where the Summer Court was, and when she shut him down she preempted his second and third questions, too: no, she would absolutely not tell him where the Summer Court is, and yes, Jove had died there. She hadn’t then said that he was looking for something. 

A sharp, searing pain bursts through his chest, launching his heart up into his throat where it pounds with the staccato rap of anxiety. It echoes in his head the same way, thumping at the forefront of his skull, not quite painful but nonetheless a weight all the way down behind his eyes, settling in with conflicted feelings; exhaustion wants them to close and burning wants them to leak. He wants to run, he wants to hide, there’s no fight in his instincts, only flight and freeze, and a powerful cold seeps down his skin, from across his shoulders down his arms. Shuddering, he crosses his arms together tightly, as though the gesture will form a physical barrier that will spare him from the ice in Thalassa’s eyes.

It’s her, he realizes, belatedly. It’s just glamour, just manipulated perception. Just, hell of a word to use when she’s decided that rather than project her stony detachment, beauty that refuses to show an emotion behind it, she’ll put the fear of god in him instead. Fear of her. “You’d rather I not ask that question,” he says. 

“Forgive me, I did not mean to be so emotional,” she says, and that would, genuinely, be comical. Her face had not changed at all, not a quiver at the corner of her mouth or between her brow. The only sign of her emotionality is what she made Phoenix feel. She squeezes her eyes shut, pressing her hands together in front of her mouth, taking a few silent seconds to recenter herself. The pressure in Phoenix’s chest loosens. She’d probably understand if he went to grab the magatama, stop her from doing this to him again. “But understand this, in everything of yourself that you risk for my sake, every time you dig for something new and dangerous - my children know you.” Implying that he’d have something else to want to research in the Summer Court, were she to say more. She’s not that good at deterring curiosity. “It would be much more painful to them if they were to lose you, than if I were to wither away.” 

Implied: the cynical weighing of lives to determine which one of them it’s better to save. Implied: we can’t both come through this in one piece. It’s the calculations that Rimes and Prosecutor Blackquill made and tried to toss on Phoenix: Sasha or the orca, you can’t save them both. 

And how, again, did that trial work out?

“Fortunately,” Phoenix says, “it’s far from guaranteed that those are our only two options. In fact, I’d say that it’s very unlikely.”

“You could have been a Gramarye,” Thalassa says. “Because there is one thing besides magic that the men of this name are skilled at, and that is pulling unearned confidence out of their asses.”

“Ah,” Phoenix says, with the vague sensation of being smacked in the face. “We could call it optimism. That might be nice.”

“Of course,” she says, not sarcastic but instead sounding pitying, and that might be worse. “I admire the faith that you hold, truly, I do.” Which is why she just called it overconfidence, no doubt. “But this way you stick your neck out for others means that it is your neck on the line.” She touches her fingertips to the base of her neck, her blue, blue eyes fixed on one of the few aspects of him that she can see. Funny, that; she doesn’t know what color his eyes are beneath the Sight or the way his hair refuses any and all attempts to flatten it or the shape of his face, but she knows the worst moments of his life, his greatest enemies, secrets that he never intends to share. On the other side, to balance their scales, he knew her before she remembered her. 

“I fear where it ends,” she says finally. “Because you and I are not lucky people, darling.”

Both so unlucky that it almost doubles around - that it’s frankly a miracle they’re alive. “Yeah,” he says. “But you don’t know me at all if you think I’m just going to give up on someone.”

#roddy fanfics #fic: the witches of los angeles

[bunnymonstur]

YOU’RE NOTHING LIKE I REMEMBER

Writer: admin monnie

Pairing: College!Namjoon/Reader

Description: In which Namjoon’s glow up got you fucked up in more ways than one

Genre: smut

Warnings: Rough sex, Domination, (really badly written) Dirty talk, Choking (kinda)

You couldn’t write. That was the cold hard truth, you just couldn’t write anything in paper to save your life, English or Korean, it didn’t matter. Which is how you ended being tutored by nerd supreme, Kim Namjoon, first class dweeb and destructor of everyday objects. You had met Namjoon in school, sixth grade to be exact, and the only difference between high school Namjoon and grade school Namjoon was that his baby chubs have now transformed into long and awkward limbs. He was sporting the ugliest bowl cut to be known in mankind, his glasses were okay you guessed. It was your last year in high school and for your final in language you had to write a perfect essay if you ever hoped to graduate. Of course, perfect student, top of the class, indisputable valedictorian Kim Namjoon had already turned his in and received a high, if not perfect, score. Leaving him with enough free time to tutor someone for the assignment. For a month he would come to your house or you to his to work on your writing every and all weekend, and after a lot of tears and migraines, you wrote a good essay. Somewhere along the way you felt a shift in Namjoon’s behavior towards you. He had become more shy and tongue tied, his clumsiness had evolved, and he would ramble on and on sometimes. You didn’t thought about it too much, but maybe that was your first mistake in the chain of events that were about to go down. Rumors started spreading around school, twisting the new gossip into many different stories, yet all had the same message: Namjoon had a major crush on you, and he was planning on confessing soon. You were mortified to say the least, he was a good kid but you wouldn’t date him in your lifetime, he was just not it for you. So you did the logical thing to do, and avoided him as much as you could till graduation. Rumors may be rumors but you weren’t taking chances to get your reputation ruined, nope not on your watch. But the nightmare continued for a while longer. You had found a rose on your desk one morning, two weeks later a love poem signed “secret admirer” had found its way inside your locker, on your birthday a small teddy bear with chocolates had found its way to your house, and worst of all when you asked around about the identity of your so called “secret admirer”, you would be answered with “why don’t you ask joonie?” and you begged graduation to just come already. One day it had been too much to bear.  A week before freedom, you found a note with very familiar handwriting saying “please meet me at the park by your house tonight at 8, I want to tell you something important”, and you were too fed up with everything to even find it sweet. So you changed into the first thing you saw and walked towards the stupid little park at 8 pm sharp just to find the boy of your nightmares already there, hand in his pockets and dressed up, clearly making an effort to look good that night, but you were not having any of it. It bothered you how his face lit up once he saw you, and how he smiled warmly at you from underneath the light post he was leaning on to look like fucking prince charming or something. You stopped in front of him, cutting him off before he even spoke “listen, I know okay? I know you were the one with the roses and the poems and stuff and its sweet but I just don’t like you like that Namjoon-sshi. I’ve never have and I’m sorry if it looked like I was interested, believe me I am not. So please just stop with all this, okay? Just. Stop. And leave me alone. Goodnight.” and then you walked away, relief had flooded into you after you had made yourself clear. Where you a little harsh? Maybe, but he needed to back off one way or another. That whole week you didn’t see Namjoon in class. The only time you ever did was when he delivered his valedictorian speech, and then never again.

At least not in high school.

College was a bittersweet miracle, whoever said a Major in Fine Arts wasn’t that hard needed to die slowly and painfully. Your newfound freedom, however, was a blessing in your life.However, it still hold true to having gossip and rumors flying around much like high school. The newest being of one of the top 15 getting a job where two of the Top 15 were already working, a small café that only got busy because hot guys were working the machines and also taking your orders. Now the Top 15 where the 15 hottest and best good looking guys in the campus, it was a secret that only the female alumni knew about, it was ridiculous but so very appreciated. It was a matter of days before your roommate Nari was begging for you to accompany her to the café, she wanted to attempt and get the number of a specific guy working there, and because you can’t say no to Nari you go even though you didn’t really cared. And you’re glad she did because holy shit you were literally looking at heaven. The barista was drop dead gorgeous, his bottom lip fuller than his top one, making a perfect heart, he was tall and his shoulders were broad, and he had such a sweet smile that can make anyone swoon and chestnut hair with an opening in the middle. The first waiter was shorter than the barista, but what he lacked in height he made up in charms and looks. His hair was a platinum color and was styled in a simple sweep to the left but it just made him more handsome, his ears were pierced and a cross earring hanged from his left earlobe, and let’s not forget the great view from behind, god bless tight red dress pants. And then there was the man of the hour, with purple hair styled to the side which seemed to go perfectly with his tanned skin and his pouty lips that when he smiled showed his dimples, and his godly muscles that were visible under his black button up shirt whenever he flexed, his height and appearance perfect fit for a model and jesus was he wearing rings?  Needless to say, you would go anytime you had an excuse just to see your purple haired beauty.

And then the universe decided to play a cruel joke on you. In an effort to make the students more bonded with each other, the language and fine arts teachers decided to do an assignment together. You were to create a piece whether a portrait or landscape, hell even contemporary, and your literature partner had to either give you a written piece to gain inspiration from or for them to write their interpretation of your artwork. In an effort to save time, since you only had a month to work with, the teachers had randomly assigned partners, the announcement on who got who taped outside their doors. And you felt ready to die when you saw who you got “you’ve got to be shitting me…”

There, in bold mocking black letters, was the name of the one person you didn’t want to see as your designated partner. Not only were you in the same college as someone from your damned high school, but that someone was perfect student, fashion disaster, god of destruction- “Kim Namjoon?”

“Yes?”

As if summoned, he had appeared behind you, his deep voice scaring you half to death. You wished you could’ve die of a heart attack right there and then, because when you turn around guess who you fucking see? Yep, that’s right. Your purple eye candy, and by the look on his face he was trying to figure out where he’d seen you before. The air was suddenly disappearing from your lungs.

“______-sshi?” fuck he looked hot when he was confused.

“Hey… What a surprise seeing you here” You averted your eyes from his, hoping that your blush was not noticeable. He looked you over before replying with indifferent in his voice, “I could say the same thing. What are you here for?” “Fine Arts, I assume you’re doing Literature?” he nodded on response, the three years you haven’t seen each other he had somehow turned into the man of your wet dreams, he’d grown taller which made his once lanky form now perfect, his bowl cut replaced with a shorter and well styled purple hair, his dressing style aesthetically pleasing and his glasses- Well his glasses were still okay, but they looked even better on him now. He leaned forward, looking over you to find his name on the list and you could almost smell his cologne. He hummed to himself once he found what he was looking for, letting out a small sigh. “I see, I guess you want to change partners then? If we hurry we might catch up with Mr. Yuu and-” “-No no its fine! I mean, I wouldn’t want to bother them with this anyways. Its just a silly project, besides we already know each other so it’ll be easier to do this don’t you think?” you rambled, hoping not to sound desperate. He nodded again, “Well, I don’t know about your teacher but this is a big assignment for me. So how about we go somewhere to discuss how to do this?” he smiled. You gave him one of your own, “Sounds great, lead the way please.”

You were fucked.

After your chance encounter, you both walked to a nearby bench where you discussed how you would do the assignment, deciding that you would interpret his poem  with a painting, then exchanging numbers and going your separate ways to start on your work,  making small conversations here and there to relief some of the awkwardness surrounding the both of you. Namjoon had managed to come up with an amazing poem in two weeks leaving you with a week and a half to actually come up with something, but it just wasn’t turning out how you wanted it to. Every piece you started you hated, and you kept redoing and redoing until you were ready to jump the nearest cliff, curse Kim Namjoon and his sexy brain and intellect of the philosophers of ancient Greece, and curse him for doing a poem so involved in romance as well as eroticism without being explicit. Reading it the first time had gotten you a little worked up if you were being honest with yourself, and you wanted that feeling to be conveyed in your art without being explicit, much like his writing. But nothing seemed to work, and you were ready to stab yourself with your dull pencil. You were currently inside one of the art studios, having separated it after hours for the rest of the day since you were determined to not leave until you had something you found decent. Paint covered your skin and your clothes, which consisted of an old peach colored sweater that hid your very comfy black bralette, a pair of washed out shorts and some sandals you discarded somewhere on the floor. You preferred not having shoes when painting, that March Chagall guy was onto something when he said he preferred painting in his underwear. You also decided on wearing a choker because why not? You might need it later to choke yourself to death because art sucks and it looked cute with what you had on. But none of that mattered because you had exactly 5 days, 10 hours, 16 minutes and 5 seconds and counting to come up with something before the deadline, and your canvas was still blank. You laid on the cold floor, picking out your phone from your back pocket and sending your project partner a text.

////// You: I have nothing.

KN: wdym?????

You: what I said I got nothing

KN: I got that but I mean how come you have nothing?????

KN: time is almost up      

KN: can’t you just throw paint and call it a day?????

You: and look like I half assed it? no way

You: I’d rather die than having my name engraved on some shitty copy of a monnet made by a blind tortoise

KN: ok fine. what if i go and help you interpret it????

You: I would really appreciate that ;-; ///////

You send him the direction to the small studio you were in, rolling on your side and looking at the wall. Okay concentrate, if you just sketch whatever you might get somewhere, yeah okay sounds like a plan. Standing up from the tiled floor, you make your way to the table you were using a few seconds ago and started sketching while letting your mind wander around. It didn’t take long before you started thinking of Namjoon, how much he had changed since you last saw him three years ago, ad how unfair it was that no one told you about this witchcraft beforehand. You wouldn’t admit it openly but the way he looked in the café, with his sleeves rolled up and beads of sweat from the steam on his forehead, it just did something for you. It had you wondering, how would Namjoon look when he was turned on? Your hand stopped and your face flushed, did you really just thought that? What kind of pervert were you becoming? But you couldn’t help it, you kept going with that train of thought, no use fighting it now that it was present, he’s probably a total vanilla sort of guy. Not timid but definitely would always ask before doing something, would he be a tease?  Nah, he doesn’t look like someone that’s patient when they get worked up. He’s most definitely an ass kinda guy, and he prob-

“______-sshi? You there?” His voice pulled you back from your wandering mind, your cheeks flushed with the faintest of pinks from embarrassment, even though he didn’t hear anything because you said it all in your head, “Yeah I’m here, let me open the door for you hold on.” the five minutes it took you to walk over, open the door and letting him in did not prepare you for what you saw. There he was, satan himself, with black dress pants, a white button up, and a blazer that was made out of some sort of shiny material. A black belt keeping his too tight pants up, the top button undone and giving you the perfect view of his collarbones, his hair styled to the side like always, a hand on his pocket and the other with what you guessed was his laptop bag. To make matters worse his fucking glasses looked good on him and you never wanted to punch someone on the face so much for being so sinful with so little effort. You prayed to whatever god was up there to give you strength while you closed the door behind him. Namjoon proceeded to sit on the table you had been a few minutes ago, taking out his computer and starting to get to work and letting you sit next to him. He wasted no time in trying to figure out how to help you, trying to interpret his piece but either you were too dumb or he was too smart because you understood jack shit of anything he said, and it felt like high school all over again when you both were arguing over the first sentence of your essay. Namjoon leans back on the chair, letting out an exasperated groan, you were quick to try and compromise “Alright how about this, tell me what you were thinking of when you wrote this. Maybe that can help me-” You moved towards the canvas, brushes, paint and palette ready to go “-to get the visual of your poem. Just say anything, a shape, feeling, color, whatever.” He raise an eyebrow in confusion at your idea. “Don’t artist usually need visuals to inspire them?” You chuckled looking back at him, “Probably, but I prefer listening. It gives me a better picture and helps the imagination go wild.” You turned back around “So just start talking.”

He kept quiet for a few seconds, probably figuring out if he should say what he was really thinking about when he first wrote it. You could feel his hesitation,“Alright, but don’t make it awkward please?” You gave him a thumbs up, a sign to let him know he was on the clear. “I was thinking of the foreplay before sex.” Fucking hell Kim Namjoon, you can’t just drop that without any warnings. You forced yourself to not seem faced, picked up a random brush and started coloring in the cloth, he kept talking. “You know that feeling of wanting? Of absolute need for the other person you feel before even kissing them? I was thinking about that. Looking at someone at completely wanting to devour them, letting your eyes wander around their body and thinking of everything you would like to do to that person.” You gripped your brush tighter, it was like he read your thoughts and was laying them out in the open for you to reflect. Moving your legs closer together, you gulped “And what would you do to that person?” you asked him, one to keep him talking, two because a part of you really wanted to know for artistic purposes of course. Namjoon fixed his eyes on you, he could tell there was something off about you the moment he got inside the room, what he was trying to figure out is why, so he kept watching your every move for any answers. “Why do you ask?”

You stiffened, “B-because, it helps me think of what to uh- paint about. So just keep talking, please” Your voice a whispers towards the end, he hummed in amusement, resuming his train of thought “It depends on the day, but usually it’s mostly submission.” Of course, you should have known he’s totally a- “There’s something about having a partner completely submissive that’s just really hot. At my complete mercy, ready let me have my way with them.” DOM?! HOLD ON THIS WAS NOT PART OF THE PLAN ABORT MISSION ABORT MISSION- “Just, seeing them kneeling down in front of you, ready for anything. Begging, pleading, and just completely drunk on the idea of what I can do for them.” Every word was torture for you, everything he said you wanted to do and you wouldn’t mind. Picking another color, you quickly distracted yourself from your thoughts. From where he was sitting he could tell you were getting bothered by his words, and he wanted to see how far he could go before breaking you. A smirk playing on his lips “You okay          -sshi? You look a little uncomfortable.” You jumped slightly at his sudden change in tone, letting out a fake laugh to try and play off how horny he was getting you from those images, the sexual tension in the air rising every time he spoke his dirty thoughts aloud. “I-I’m totally okay! Why are you asking are you uncomfortable? Because we can stop if you want to I’m fine with that” You chuckle, trying to sound convincing and not at all like you’re slowly going mad from his words.

And then it dawned on him,____  ____, the girl who broke his heart three years ago, not even letting him say what he had rehearsed for hours in the mirror, was very attracted to him. Not only did she find him attractive, but she was getting completely turned on by his words. His ego and his confidence rose to a completely different level then, ready to get satisfaction from embarrassing you to the grave right there in that small art room. His smirk widened, “Alright” he lowered his voice purposely “Then I’ll keep going. You know what else can also be a major turn on? Name calling, some people like it when you refer to them with a specific name, like ‘princess’ or 'kitten’.”

“Do you have something like that?”

“Yes”

If you weren’t soaked before you were now, the room was way too hot and his words were way too filthy this early in the day. You fanned yourself, trying to calm down and hopefully stopping yourself from looking like a damned tomato. “Is the room too warm?” hoW CAN HE SWITCH BACK AND FORTH LIKE THAT HE WAS GOING TO KILL YOU. You nodded, letting out a nervous chuckle “Just a little though, I’ll be okay once the AC starts again.”

“______ -sshi?”

“Yes?”

“The AC hasn’t stopped yet.”

“Oh.” curse this damned day, curse the stupid AC, curse his stupid mouth that can probably get you worked up in very different ways.

“Yeah, it’s probably that sweater you have on. Why not take it off? It might cool you down.” He was winning and he knew it, if he kept going he would get you to run out completely mortified in the next three minu-

You put the paint brush down, and reached for the hem of your sweater. Slowly but surely, you pulled it up and over your head, your skin caressed by the cool breeze the fan was giving. It was like unwrapping a present during Christmas, except he didn’t have to do it himself. He watched you drop the item on the floor, not looking back even once. He had to catch his breath, not expecting this turn of events at all. And now he was the one embarrassed, your exposed skin and the real effect his words had on you hitting him like a ton of bricks. You were totally turned on, and he was getting there too, but he was a man with enough pride to last him a lifetime, so he kept going. Not caring if the tent forming in his pants was becoming obvious now.

You may be wondering, what in the living hell are you thinking? The answer is, you’re not. It sounded like a good idea at the moment, but what honestly compelled you to go through with it was his voice. You were loosing your grip on your rationality every time he answered all the questions you had of him in your brain, cursed be Kim Namjoon.

“Better?”

You nodded, not wanting to let a single noise escape your lips.

“Let’s continue then.” You felt his gaze devour your figure “You know, since we’re talking about clothes, why not discuss that? Clothes can be quite a turn on for me if I’m being honest. A girl in heels it’s a great view for me, specially if they have thigh highs on as well. Black lingerie is very much appreciated too, even better if it’s see through” You went rigid after his last words. Bralettes were not lingerie, but your was very much black and also not so much covering your breasts. The black straps creating a triangular shape for your boobs, but the mesh that covered your now hard nipples ended halfway to the strap that was close to the valley of your breasts. A lace pattern decorating the end of the material that Namjoon was dying to see from where he was sitting. So he quietly got up from his seat and walked behind you, and you could feel his presence and it was too much for the both of you to keep your cool and not give in right there and then to what the moment had build up to. He leaned closer to your ear, “Most of all, jewelry has a certain kind of effect. For example,-” his lips ghosted over your neck, his hands deep in his pockets to stop himself from touching you “-that choker you’re wearing. It looks so good wrapped around your neck.”

“Your hands would look nicer though.”

He cursed under his breath not expecting you to react that way, you leaned back towards him and rested your head on his shoulder. His greedy hands finally touching your skin, you closed your eyes while you felt him caress your legs, moving up towards where you wanted him the most at that moment until one gripped your hips and moved you closer to him while the other wrapped around your throat. “Like this?”

“Yes” you almost moaned, feeling his manhood poke at your back. With his hand still on your neck, he coaxes you to stand up. “______, if you want me to stop you better say it now. Because I don’t think I’ll be able to later on.” his warning sounding more like a promise to your ears, and you wanting nothing more than to let him bend you over the table and pleasure you anyway he saw fit. Feeling a little balls-y, you moved your hand towards his crotch, gripping his hardened cock in your hands and earning a hiss from his lips. “Who said I wanted you to?” and then he was gone. He bent you over the table in one swift motion with his hands gripping your waist and holding it in place, paint splattering everywhere and no doubt getting on you, but you couldn’t care less. Specially when he had started to grind his hips against yours, giving you a taste of the mess you had gotten yourself into, each movement getting you more and more worked up until you were panting. He chuckled, “You like that baby? You like having my cock rubbing against your pussy? Look at how much of a mess you are, and I haven’t even touched you properly.” You gripped at the table, nodding in response to him. Dissatisfied with your response, he  stopped moving much to your dismay, instead gripping a fistful of your hair and pulling you towards him again. “Use your voice baby, I won’t know what you want unless you tell me.”

Your voice trembled “P-Please touch me.”

“Where?”

You take the hand that’s still on your waist, moving it between your legs “Here, please, just do anything. I need you to touch me.” You sounded desperate and you knew it, but you couldn’t help it. Not with the way he has you right now, and not while his hands finally start to rub against your core, your moans growing with every motion. He go of you to spin you around and press his lips against yours, you took off his glasses so not to annoy you but apparently he looked even better without them, and you loved it. You loved how he starts to undress you, you loved how he kissed down your jawline and stopped at your neck, you loved how he wasted no time marking you with hickeys in places you knew were gonna be hard to hide, but you specially loved how he pulled back to stare at his creation his dilated pupils drinking in your figure, making him curse loudly. It probably also due to you going back to grope him from over his now too restrictive pants that he needed to take off right now. Namjoon pulls back completely,  confusing you entirely until you see him sit back on the chair he’d been watching you from and motioned for you to follow, except-

“Nu uh, I want to see you crawl.”

He could have asked you to run around church naked and you would still do it, so you had no hesitation to get down on all fours and crawl all the way until you were between his legs. He cradled your face and leaned in to kiss you again, this time softer than the last, while also unbuckling his belt and pushing down his black dress pants, letting his cock finally free from its clothed prison. You gave him one last peck before getting down to business, licking the pre-cum off his tip and dragging your tongue down his shaft. A hiss pulled out of his lips at your gentle motions, but he needed more, “Don’t tease me baby, I want to see what that pretty mouth of yours wrapped around my cock.” And who were you to deny total Dom, filthy mouthed, wet dream, Kim Namjoon of his pleasure? So you do just that, and take him in slowly in your mouth. Savoring every second until you can feel your nose touch his pelvis, and staying there for as long as you can until you had to pull back and get air inside your lungs again, which was short lived since he immediately pushed you back down on him. You gripped his thighs, needing to hold on to something to so not to fall down completely on the floor, and with a fistful of your hair, he let you bob your head up and down, picking the pace up every time, his curses and groans giving you motivation while he got rid of his shirt and blazer.

Then you were pulled back again, a lewd 'pop’ resonating through the walls while saliva ran down your mouth and to your neck. Not even his old high school  fantasies of you compared to the sight you were providing right now, you were ruined but not enough for his liking, and he needed to fix that soon. Moving you back with a soft yank of your hair (that you couldn’t deny you liked) he guided you to the floor, turning you around and making you get on all fours for him, and getting your clothes off your body. Gripping himself, he teased your entrance with his tip, and you moved your hips back to make him go in already, but he had other plans for you, “Tell me how much you want it, I wanna hear you loud and clear baby.” He demanded, and even if you were desperate for him, you were still a little shy about being more vocal. He smacked your ass roughly when you stayed quiet for too long, and you yelped, “C'mon baby, I can spank you the whole day if I have to until you say what I want to hear.” he whispered in your ear while massaging the reddening cheek, he most definitely left a hand print on your ass. You gulped, unsure to whether to keep quiet and getting another one or saying your dirtiest thoughts aloud, his other hand landing on your unmarked cheek when you took too long to think about it, he tried a gentler tactic and pushed two fingers easily inside of you. You were practically dripping for him, and the cold metal of his rings against your heat was driving you wild every time he pumped his digits in and out of you painfully slow. “Fuck, Namjoon-” a loud moan"-Just fuck me please. Ruin me, with your cock, don’t stop until I can’t take it anymore.“ A whimper "Have your way with me, please” he pulled his fingers out of you, the emptiness to cruel. You looked back at him, confused and a little pissed off that he had stopped.

His face was completely different from before, unlike the cool and calmed expression he’d been wearing this whole time, was replaced by one of pure surprise as he painfully gripped himself so to calm down, then he locked eyes with you “Shit- Damn baby,-” he placed his hands gently on your hips aligning himself with your entrance, “-you have such a filthy mouth on you, I almost came just from that.” He started pushing himself inside your walls, mercilessly slow, turning you into a moaning mess from how deliciously he stretched you, “Fuck, you feel so nice around my cock. Do you like that? You like how good my dick feels inside you? Do you like how fucking desperate I got you without even moving baby?” a chorus of 'yes’ seemed to be the only thing coming out of your lips, you could feel him filling you up entirely, and then more and you couldn’t wait for him to just destroy you “Namjoon please-” you begged him, and he didn’t need you to repeat yourself again. His thrusts were powerful, every time he pulled back he went back in with more force, the grip on your hips tightening until the pain dulled into pleasure. The top part of your body fell down in exhaustion, the new angle providing even more ecstasy for the both of you, taking you to your arousal faster and faster, his sinful words becoming filthier and slurred as he reached his, his satoori more present than ever. He reached down to grip your neck, and with an extra rough thrust, you came hard, screaming his name clear and loud for the unfortunate person who walked by the room to hear. He let you go, pulling out and and releasing his seed all over your back, catching you and himself as you both collapsed on the paint covered floor. Both of you equally spent from your little improv session, the only thing noises left being both of your gasps as you tried to catch your breath, your bodies covered in sweat and cum (and markings but that was just you, courtesy of Kim Namjoon).

After a few minutes, realization dawned on both of you. You just had sex, together, in the art room, with each other, instead of working on your project. Awkward didn’t begin to describe the feeling in the room, Namjoon broke the silence first “So, how’s that for inspiration?” you couldn’t help but laugh, the guy gave you the best fuck of your life and he’s choosing now to act shy? “You know, maybe I need another explanation from you.” it was his turn to chuckle now, “Well you’re always welcome to call me for anything.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

You both received the highest scores in your assignment, and you also  kept calling each other for anything.

And you mean anything.

#admin monnie #namjoon smut #namjoon one shot #reader insert #bts fic #bts #bts smut #college!au

[mulondonposts-blog]

Looking for the best Mumbai wedding photographers? We get you up close and personal to Anand Rathi of Reel and Frames and his team. The phenomenal team that captured the ‘everyday phenomenal’ couple Sonam Kapoor and Anand Ahuja’s wedding!

Whether you’re looking for a Mumbai wedding photographer or simply the best in India, you can’t get better than Reels and Frames. Here we bring you everything from their journey and photography style, to their top tips and advice for couples!

Did you choose Candid Wedding Photography or did it choose you?

Dreamy

Neither! To say art was my calling will be exaggerating things. I guess, what drew me towards photography (initially) was that I could decode photography in terms of its technical building blocks for eg. rule of thirds, leading lines etc.

Royal Moment

Coming from an engineering background, perceiving things in such manner came naturally! It was only later that I began to see beyond the technical aspects and that is when photography truly captured my interest.

Pretty in Green

And then, wedding photography happened very late for me. I started as a nature/environment photographer shooting landscapes and people in my college campus in New York during my MBA days. Soon, my classmates noticed and requested me to ‘put’ them in the pictures!

Love-struck

Given most of my classmates were married (very typical in an MBA school in USA), this was my first taste of ‘couple shoots’. When I came back to India, I kept working as a treasury manager by the weekdays and a hobby photographer by the weekends, until one day when a friend asked me to ‘carry’ my camera at his wedding!

Bridal Glow!

I clicked some photos and the response was phenomenal! I started taking up more weddings and the weekend warrior regime began. One fine day, I took the leap of faith and jumped into photography full time and the rest is history (in making!)

What is unique about your photography style? How do you stay authentic to your style?

Our photography style is what I’ll call ‘environmental portraits’ where a lot of focus is also to capture a sense of where the subject is.

All Out for LOVE

For eg. if we are doing a prewedding shoot in the cherry blossoms, we’ll show the trees in their full glory along with the couple.We stay true to our style by taking a step back and observing where we are first, before we start clicking.

What, according to you, are the wedding photography trends for 2019?

The Butterflies in Tummy

Less poses, more emotions! Everyone is done with over the top poses and ‘statue’ moments. Clients are appreciating true photojournalism more and more and we believe this will continue.

As a wedding photographer, what do you focus more on – moments or people?

A healthy mix of both!

Heart-touching

As a company, we believe that even a ‘group portrait’ or a ‘family portrait’ can be done tastefully. And it should be done tastefully, it is often the family portrait that makes it to walls.

How important is post production editing to you? Do Indian clients understand and appreciate the effort between raw and edited pictures?

Let’s seal it with a Kiss

In the digital space, sometimes the difference between a good picture and a great picture can just be the ‘edit’. Even more so in video. Clients do understand the effort, especially when they receive the final pictures.

What is more challenging – videography at weddings or candid photography? What’s new in wedding videography?

Beauties in White

While each has its own challenge, shooting videos comes with a couple of added challenges. Shooting video is like clicking 25 pictures in one second, each one of which has to be perfect.

Finally Yours

Secondly, video requires a lot more editing effort, because we as editors try to weave the story together using numerous permutations and combination after reviewing the footage. And therein lies both the challenge and the fun!

What do you love capturing more – preweddings or weddings?

Family Focus

Both equally. Preweddings are an ice-breaker with the couple and a fantastic opportunity to shoot in a controlled environment. While weddings provide a plethora of raw emotions and are spontaneous.

Three questions a couple must ask before booking a wedding photographer?

Black or White

How would you define your style?

How can we combine your style and our personality type seamlessly?

What are some of the things you would suggest to help us get the best from your services?

 Your top tips for couples to be?

Saat Phere

Manage your time well during the wedding days.

Don’t micro manage the event details.

Try and let your hair down and forget the first point while you are at it!

 Which is your favorite wedding from last year?

Everyday Phenomenal

Sonam Kapoor’s wedding was definitely a party to remember!

 Your most memorable couple ever?

Silhouette Love

Honestly, I won’t be able to pick one. So many of them have become friends and its hard to chose!

 Which is that one location/destination you’d love to shoot at?

Magnificent

Umaid Bhawan palace, Jodhpur is one place that we love going back to again and again.

Have you ever faced any last minute crisis at a shoot and how did you overcome it?

All the time. Shooting events is like firefighting!

Shower with Haldi & Beer

We’ve dealt with issues from kids breaking our drones, to camera equipment being stolen, to our camera getting drenched in unexpected rains! Fortunately, we have a policy of carrying backup of everything. Plus, we are a big team so this allows for last minute replacements.

When you are doing couple shoots, most people are shy/nervous in front of the camera. How do you make sure your clients are comfortable?

That ‘Varmala’ moment

We try and think of ourselves as friends of the couple (friends with a really fancy camera!). The chats that follow put the couple at ease and post that it just flows.

Not all clients are creative or bold. How do you manage to create a balance between your creative instincts & clients’ demands?

Ensuring that clients chose us for our style and not our ‘brand value’ is the first step to achieving coherency.

Togetherness

The second step is having a detailed discussion with the client on how they want their wedding photos to look and trying to figure out how we can achieve that within our style.

With so much traveling, how do you manage a work – life balance?

That department is a bit of a stinker!

Here comes the Groom

Last year I took about 105 flights and this year 15 will be done before the first month ends. But when work is passion and passion is work, who can complain?

There you go! That was our heart to heart chat with leading Mumbai wedding photographer Anand Rathi of Reels & Frames, that brings you everything you need to know about them. Love them? Let us know why in comments below…

The post Leading Mumbai Wedding Photographer & our Hot Favourite this Month – Reels & Frames! appeared first on ZoWed.com | Blog.

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