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piratesfromspace · 3 years

Text

Finance Management (Deckard Shaw/Reader)

Deckard Shaw (Fast & Furious) x Reader

Word count: 1.9k CW: mention of food & alcohol, smut

Female reader

Note: This short fic has been inspired by a friend of mine who created the character of the financial advisor of mister Shaw. Also there is not enough fics with Deckard Shaw so here we are.

Read on Ao3

MASTERLIST

“Mister Shaw, it’s me again, I’m so sorry but I really need you to call me back please. It’s important. Thank you.”

You let out a deep sigh as you hang up. Handling the finances of rich people is a lucrative and thrilling job, but damn it sometimes those clients of yours are annoying. Especially Mister Shaw.

First, he’s annoyingly busy and unreachable. Most powerful people are, but he can disappear for weeks on end without so much as sending an email.

Second, he’s also infuriatingly handsome and smart and funny. And he has an impeccable sense of style. He has nothing in common with the other clients of your firm, mainly old and boring men, whose only conversation subject is their money and how they hate their wives.

And finally, the worst thing about him is how good of a lover he is. You found out half a year ago, when you ended up in his bed after what should have been a regular business dinner. It was a mistake of course. One that could have cost you your career because it was a very serious breach of contract to sleep with a client.

You never told a soul, and you promised yourself to never do it again. But it was still hard to forget the feeling of him pressed against you, of his hands holding your waist, of his mouth between your thighs...

You try to focus again on your task and stretch your legs, kicking out your high heels. Feet bare on the soft carpet, you walk to the floor-to-ceiling window of your posh office, taking a second to admire the view, as the final rays of the sun disappear over the lake, and Geneva lights up under you. It’s breath-taking, really. But it also means you’re once again staying way too late at the office. Your assistant has gone home a couple hours ago, and your colleagues are either on vacation or on business trips, making you the only person on the building’s 7th floor. You still have a few things to finish so you plop on your leather chair and get back to work, hoping to make it home before 11pm.

That’s when you hear it: the familiar *ding* of the elevator’s door, at the end of the corridor. You tense immediately. You’re not waiting for anyone, and the security guards always use the stairs when completing their patrol.

Steps are coming down your way, and you grab your phone, ready to dial for the security team. And then you recognize his silhouette through the polished glass wall. There is a knock on your door before it opens to reveal Deckard Shaw himself. He’s wearing an expensive suit and an even more expensive watch, a very light stubble is highlighting his perfect jawbone and his deep grey eyes bear a mischievous glint. Handsome, as always.

“Mister Shaw…” you stammer.

“You know you can call me Deckard.” His stupidly sexy British accent and cocky smile will be the death of you.

He’s been in your office for two seconds and you already want to slap him in the face - or climb him like a tree, you can’t really decide.

“It’s quite late, Mister Shaw, you scared me. Anything I can do for you?” you insist on saying his family name, in a feeble attempt to maintain a professional façade.

“You needed to see me.” it’s more a comment than a question, and you’re suddenly reminded of the dozen of unanswered phone calls you made trying to reach him.

“Yes… yes, that’s right, but honestly you could have called tomorrow morning.”

“I’d rather see you in person.” he answers, looking you straight in the eyes. You can feel yourself blushing under his gaze. “Wanted to make sure you’re alright. You’re working too much you know.” he says with a soft smile, as his eyes drift down to your sore bare feet and then to the discarded heels under your desk.

What a condescending prick, you think. But at the same time, he’s right and his care seems somewhat genuine. It will not make you forget you almost lost your job because of him though.

“How did you know I was still here tonight?” you purposely redirect the attention on him, rather than you.

“Well, let’s say I would not leave the woman in charge of my assets without any... supervision.”

“Is that a polite way to say you’ve been spying on me?” you retort dryly.

“Oh I love when you’re getting all angry and snobbish, your French accent is even cuter.”

You’re gonna murder him. You really really want to tell him to go fuck himself, but he’s the one responsible for a very generous part of your paycheck, so you have to keep quiet.

“I would be more comfortable if we keep our conversation strictly professional, Mister Shaw.”

“Everything you want, dear.”

-----

“Mmph, fu-ck... Deckard, don’t stop”

The professional attitude has been long forgotten, since Deckard has pulled you onto his lap on the velvet couch of his presidential suite at the Four Seasons hotel, where you were supposed to only review the important documents he needed to see. But when the room service had brought a very nice bottle of Scotch, you knew you were screwed. You could not refuse a drink, and the warmth of alcohol combined with the warmth of his hand slightly brushing against your thigh had overcome all your resolve.

You are now sprawled on the king-size bed, moaning his name as Deckard Shaw is destroying your sanity very methodically. One foot on the floor, one leg bent on the edge of the bed, he’s pounding into you, holding your hip with one hand, and circling your clit with the other. His pace is calculated, not too fast so you can feel every inch of him, but not too slow so your nerves don’t have any respite, and it’s driving you crazy. Hands tangled in the dark silk sheets beneath you, you try to catch your breath to no avail.

“I won’t stop darling. Not until I can feel you coming again all over me.” His voice is like heavy honey, dripping all over your senses, drowning you in sweet and sinful promises.

You want to close your eyes to focus on the overwhelming feelings, but the view in front of you is too good to be missed. He looks like some demi-god, bathed in the subdued light of the room, broad and muscular chest, abs perfectly drawn. What is his job again? You vaguely remember him talking about serving a few years in the military when he was younger, but he is still definitely hitting the gym on a regular basis.

His muscles flex when he brings you down on his thick cock a little more sharply than before, and you keen as he hits that perfect spot inside of you. You can feel your orgasm build again, and so can he.

“You’re close, princess, aren’t you?”

You mewl in response and he chuckles darkly, keeping up with his ruthless assault on your most sensitive parts. He angles his fingers just a bit differently on your clit, and keeps thrusting into you, stretching you so perfectly you can’t remember the last time someone fucked you this good - wait , actually you can, it was a few months ago and it was by mister Deckard “annoyingly perfect” Shaw.

“Come on, I know you want to, I’ll keep going until you give me one more anyway princess…”

And that's it. You’re gone. Back arching off the bed, you come hard, harder than the first time, clenching around him. You barely hear him hiss in pleasure as you spasm helplessly on the soft sheets, the silk feeling almost cool against your burning skin.

----

“Good morning darling."

You open an eye, natural light is flooding the room, as is the delicious smell of fresh coffee and tea. At the foot of the bed, you spot a room service trolley loaded with breakfast treats and through the open door of the bathroom, you can see Deckard is looking at you in the mirror reflection while buttoning a crisp white shirt.

"Your tea is ready. Black, no milk, right?”

He's right and it's annoying because is there anything this man messes up?

"What time is it?" You ask, suddenly remembering you have a busy schedule today.

"You have 27 minutes to eat and get ready, so I can drop you off at your office in time for your first call of the day."

He knows about your tea preferences and your professional agenda, of course he does , he was not joking when mentioning the whole "spying-on-you" situation, or "supervision" as he liked to call it. He needs to stop it, but you decide to keep this discussion for another day.

You stretch, and rise to put on the hotel bathrobe, sighing at the thought of having to wear the same clothes as yesterday. Last you saw them, they were scattered on the floor all over the room and your underwear were positively ruined.

"The concierge was very helpful this morning, thanks to him I got you a few clothes delivered for today." Deckard adds as he pours himself a cup of coffee from the cart and gestures to the leather armchair where a couple of bags doning logos of luxury brands are perched.

You make your way to the packages, and open the first one to reveal a sophisticated dress, fitted and sexy, but not too much that it would be inappropriate as office wear. The second bag is a thoughtful selection of high end make-up products. And the last one contains a gorgeous set of lacy lingerie, nothing too raunchy but sexy nonetheless. Of course everything is in the right size.

"Thank you..." you whisper, a little stunned. The assortment must have cost him a couple grands at the very least - not that he can't afford it because you're well placed to be sure he can, but still, he did not have to do this.

You have to suppress a smile, because damn he's being annoyingly perfect once more, but you don't want to give him the satisfaction to reveal he was right when promising you could stay the night instead of going home and still look fresh for your day at work.

"I was thinking, I'm free tonight, so maybe we can finally review those documents, you know the ones you were supposed to show me before you jumped on me on the couch last night?" Deckard states as he bites in an apple in front of the window, casually looking at lake Geneva glinting in the bright morning sun.

You blush unwillingly, struggling to find a reply that would save you from admitting you had failed at enforcing your usual work ethic.

"I'm kidding dear!" He barks in a laugh. "I know enough to trust you on this venture, you have my approval to go on with the investment." He continues more seriously.

You open your mouth to answer but he's quicker.

"I'm not kidding about being free though, so what about dinner and then we can see where this takes us…"

When you don't answer immediately, he turns to look at you. Maybe he's realizing the situation can be awkward and precarious for you since you're technically working for him.

"You can say no, I won't take any offense." He adds without irony.

"Yes..." You finally answer, tip toeing toward him until you can snatch the apple he was eating from him. He protests but you shush him.

"...Yes, I would like this very much..."

As he starts to protest again, you take a big bite from the fruit with a knowing smile.

"...but only for dinner. Nothing more."

"You'll be the death of me." Deckard says, falsely irritated, his voice dropping lower.

"At least the feeling is mutual, mister Shaw ..."

#deckard shaw #deckard shaw x reader #female reader #fast and furious #hobbs and shaw #deckard shaw fanfiction #hobbs and shaw fanfiction #deckard shaw / reader #jason statham #jason statham imagine #smut #hobbs and shaw smut #deckard shaw reader insert #fast and furious fanfiction

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elia-de-silentio · 3 years

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Recap on the Order of the Clocktower, suppositions on the real plan, and predictions on the future of the arc

Well! After months of fights that led to very little and an almost nonstop series of cliffhangers, it seems like finally we're entering the final stage of this arc. And in the last two numbers I noticed ... something doesn't quite add up.

Let's make a brief recap on the Decay of Angels and the newly revealed last part of their plan. So, unlike what initially thought, the last part of their plan wasn't 'mostly terrorist activity', it was a goddamn vampire apocalypse that brought several nations to their knees in a handful of days.

This led the world leaders to decide that Fukuchi's speech of several chapters ago was right on the money, the only thing that can face such a catastrophe is an international army of which he will be given complete control. Moreover, to drive the point home ...

They deem fit to give him this. Another extra powerful weapon in the hands of exactly one person? Who can multiply the strenght of every weapon he's given? With no countermeasure if he gets out of control? What is these people's problem?!

By the way, take a moment to appreciate how Fukuchi got something that allows him to destroy the individual soldier's free will and control all of their actions, something he felt already happened to him and the trauma of which gives him motivation. He doesn't spare a thought on the fact that they will suffer just as much as he did, he can only think of his own pain.

So, Ranpo makes an observation that really shouldn't need a superior intelligence to be made: that with this trick, the Decay of Angels will have its goal served on a silver platter. World domination. Again, take a moment to appreciate how Fukuchi, who expressed anarchist beliefs and just the chapter before gave a neat speech on how politicians who order others around without any risk to themselves suck, coughed up a solution that was even more authocratic. Maybe all the 'you're the hero everyone depends on' talk got a little to his head.

But ... for what I've understood ... this is not the Decay of Angels's plan, this is Fukuchi's plan. If the inconsistences for him can be attributed to hypocrisy, for all the other four people in his group it makes even less sense.

Let's take a look at his four comrades, from the one less likely to subscribe to such a plan to the most likely:

• Bram Stoker: he's literally being threatened with death if he doesn't comply. One of the first things he says is protesting that he swore not to add any more people to his kin, but Fukuchi forces him. Once he complies, he express little interest for whatever is going on around him, everything he wants is a radio to pass the time in his coffin. World domination? Seems like an hard pass for him.

• Sigma. While fanon commonly portrays him as the 'good and cute not-really-a-villain', because he has a sympathetic backstory and shows kindness to the clients and staff of the casino, I'd like to point out that he's actually fairly amoral. He's in there because the Decay offered him a home; it makes sense that he's like that after being abused and aware of his being different from the rest of the world for all of his short life, but he still took part in a terrorist plan. Moreover, he was the one to send the casino's clients against the Hunting Dogs to hinder them - regular civilians against the very best of the army. It was actually Teruko who took upon herself and Tachihara not to harm civilians no matter what; what guarantee did Sigma have that she would have done that? What if she had listened to Tachi instead, who wanted to retaliate? Caring to clients and staff, but only up to a certain point. Even when he gave Atsushi that information, it was because of the latter's kindness towards him, not for some moral reason. Sigma is ultimately out only for himself. But this also means that he isn't really involved in the Decay's grand plan: he wants a home and that's it, tutto il resto fottesega.

• Gogol. Now we're getting a little closer. But not without incurring in another contradiction: Gogol hates restraints and orders, anything that gives a boundary to a human's actions. He detests even internal restraints, given by morality and his own sense of guilt. Why would someone like that partecipate in a plan that strips human beings of their own free will, and traps the world under the control of a lone person? Well, it's just speculation because we haven't seen him in ages, but I think it's part of his tendency to destroy himself in the name of freedom. He kills people to defy his own sense of guilt; he wants to kill Fyodor to destroy his desire to be understood and accepted; he collaborates in Fukuchi's plan to destroy his own beliefs in freedom, the thing that more than anything keeps him chained to a certain course of action. In his debut, he described the Decay of Angels's plan as pure evil and thus worth supporting; it's possible that he wasn't saying that under the common definition of evil, but in his own book, the anathema to Gogol's beliefs.

• Fyodor. Who has already stated a personal, very different goal: to acquire the reality-altering Book and make a world devoid of Ability users. All he needs for thar is wiping out the Ability-based organizations in Yokohama so he'll have a free pass, which is not exactly a small thing, but he doesn't need world domination for what he wants. So, why was he involved in such a plan? Well, this is a point I'll expand more on below.

I've already made another post on how the Decay of Angels are an extremely unlikely group and it's almost surprising they managed to work along enough to make this much damage. It's becoming even more evident now: Fukuchi is the only one really interested in the organization's goal.

The other one who gets closest is Fyodor, who, as we have seen, doesn't really care for that; but he gained what he wanted as an accessory. He wanted to get rid of Ability-users organizations in the city, and now the ADA members can't show themselves without getting attacked by the police, the Port Mafia has most of his top members turned into mindless vampires, and the Special Ability Department is about to be overruled by Fukuchi. Moreover, a Fukuchi with absolute power would be able to hand him the Book. Mission accomplished!

But there is this little detail: the Order of the Clocktower, those with the authority to hand Fukuchi the 'One Order'. There is very little known about them (I'm going from the wikia here): appearently, their purpose is to protect the British royal family, their members are Ability users of a terrific level, and they were responsible for chasing Mimic out of Europe after they gave the order for the attack who labelled them as war criminals in the first place.

Come se questo non li rendesse già infinitamente più cani di quelli che danno il titolo all'opera, in Dead Apple they contact Ango to inform him that, to prevent the spread of Shibusawa's fog, they sent an incineration-Ability user to destroy Yokohama (quickly, native readers of British/European literature! Any suggestion for who this person could be! I could come up with Cecco Angiolieri, Aldo Palazzeschi and Gabriele D'Annunzio, but I really doubt it could be any of them, nobody ever cares about Italian literature besides Dante. Your loss).

So, this can mean two things: either they are in contact with the Japanese government and acted with their agreement, or they have enough power to overrule it. Personally, I think the former is more probable.

Anyways, they aren't irrationally genocidal. Once Atsushi &Co. fix the situation, the attack is called off, even if their leader, Agatha Christie, complains about not having the scent of a burning nation to go with her tea. So, their leader: it's not the first time she shows up in the story.

She appeared all the way back in chapter 12, the same that also introduced Fitzgerald and Fyodor, in a meeting to discuss the failure of the bounty on Atsushi. Which tells us two very important things: first, as the other two were out for the Book, it's highly probable that she's after it as well; secondly, that she works with Fyodor, the very same person who orchestrated the plan that should get the One Order, a weapon under the control of Agatha's organization, in the hands of Fukuchi.

Now, Fukuchi is an interesting one under this point of view, because he wasn't even implied in the Chapter 12 Conference. We have seen that Fyodor likes to keep his fingers in multiple pies when it comes to razing the poor Yokohama to the ground: first he hacked the Moby Dick to make sure it fell; then he helped Shibusawa with the aforementioned fog incident; then he acted with his own organization with the Cannibalism plot; lastly for now, the Decay of Angels. As long as he gets to eliminate the Ability users, he doesn't care who he's working with.

Insomma, è 'na zoccola di nome e di fatto.

But we have also seen that Fyodor isn't above backstabbing his 'colleagues': he ignored the fate of Fitzgerald after he fell and took the opportunity to take the Guild's assets for himself, and he directly killed Shibusawa to turn him in the Singularity and send him to get killed by Atsushi. Note how Shibu got off even worse than Fitz: he wasn't in the Chapter 12 Conference, and it's likely he didn't know about the plan to incinerate Yokohama while Fyodor did, being acquainted with Agatha. It's even possible that was the whole point of his involvement in the operation: give her an excuse to attack, while he got an opportunity to cause the deaths of Ability users on the side.

My point is: you know how Fukuchi was not in the Chapter 12 Conference? And he just put himself in a position where if he is found out, things will have consequences on an international level, now that the Order got involved? And do you also remember how Fyodor mused to himself that he didn't make the perfect plan required by the Decay of Angels, because that would have been boring?

Le mie previsioni per quest'arco sono: Fukuchi è una tigre di cartapesta, e si ritroverà la sua super spada ficcata di prepotenza su per il culo.

A very faithful translation of the above: it is very possible that Fukuchi was set up to fail from the very beginning; or at the very least, Fyodor was keeping his plans with Agatha as backup in the case the Decay of Angels didn't work out .

When the ADA will defeat Fukuchi (because no one of his colleagues will lift a finger to help), they will once again play straight into their enemies's hands. Maybe they will 'officially' remain as dangerous terrorists, and then the Order of the Clocktower will have to intervene against them. Or they will actually rehabilitate themselves, and they will be once again celebrated as heroes while the Hunting Dogs will fall in disgrace - what with their leader being secretly a terrorist leaders, suddenly these very powerful people will become unreliable - and the goverment will make an horrible figure, what with persecuting innocent people while being played like fiddles by the real criminals; surely, this situation will call for someone more reliable to establish order in Japan, such as, perhaps, an intervention from an highly esteemed European Ability organization.

How things will proceed from then on, it's anyone's guess. It is possible that Agatha will use her power to have Dazai and Fedka the Convict released from jail, though why would she do that is up in air. Maybe it would be more convenient for her to leave such an unreliable ally where she can see him, and she has never met Dazai as far as we know, so she probably isn't much interested in him. This is as far as my prediction abilities come.

Thanks to anyone who bothered to read my ramblings!

#bsd #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #bsd analysis #bsd meta #bsd theories #bsd doa #bsd fukuchi #bsd fyodor #bsd agatha #bsd gogol #bsd stoker #bsd sigma #elia's recaps

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embrassemoi · 3 years

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Surrounded by the Moon and Stars ✷ 31

Pairings: Sirius B, F!Reader, Remus L Warnings: Language, smoking weed, shitty parenting, mentions of death A/N: more of a filler but it helps establish stuff. *unbeta'd

【 Masterlist | Previous Chapter | ao3 】

Chapter 31: Drowning on Dry Land

━━━━━━━━━༻☽༺━━━━━━━━━

The week before her flight back, Matthew’s parents invited her over for dinner.

Waiting to greet them at the door was Mrs. and Mr. Gaplin. Matthew’s father, a Half-Maj, was a Potioneer while his mother, an Old-Maj, was a Court Scribe. They wore large, kind smiles as Mrs. Gaplin pulled her into a tight, crushing hug.

After pleasantries, she and Matthew kicked off their shoes while his parents ushered them to the dining room.

“How are you darling? '' Mrs. Gaplin asked, floating plates in their direction as everyone began helping themselves to food. “Matt wouldn’t stop talking about you since we knew y’were coming.”

She side-eyed Matthew who groaned loudly. “Did not!”

“Sure thing,” she added, which caused Matthew to slump in his chair as his parents laughed at him.

It was a nice, charming evening; filled with laughter and heartfelt conversations. His parents continued to gloat about Mathew’s achievements that he hadn’t told her. It caused him to almost get up and run out of the room from embarrassment before moving to boast about Y/N. Even Mr. Gaplin asked her regarding her OWLs which pleasantly surprised her.

A few times, Mr. Gaplin pressed a few cheeky kisses to his wife’s face as Matthew made loud retching noises.

“Disgusting!”

Mr. Gaplin laughed. “Ya sixteen. Suck it up.”

“But you’re still my baby!” Mrs. Gaplin cooed, getting up to collect the plates.

Matthew tried to look insulted but she could see the small smile that threatened his lips as jealousy nipped at her toes.

The next few days were spent staying at the Gaplin household. Matthew’s parents insisted constantly that she should stay over so they could utilize the little time they had left before leaving. At first, the idea made her feel intrusive. Although, her mother hadn’t returned to the brownstone house, preferring to sleep in the on-call rooms at the Brooklyn Memorial Hospital. It quickly got lonely and boring before Y/N finally agreed. Besides, Mrs. and Mr. Gaplin were only around for breakfast and dinner - working for the day but never failed to return; always wearing larger smiles than the previous night.

They made her feel welcomed and warm - even taking her and Matthew to the local pictures. They included her in everything, even their trivia and board games after dinner.

It was quite the change compared to her family life.

Then an identical routine ensued. She would wake up, get ready for the day; spend hours with Matthew; then twilight fell as they stayed awake into the early hours of the morning.

The day before she was due to leave, she and Matthew ran up to his room after dinner. He went to lean on top of the small coffee table, rolling up a joint as she collected her possessions scattered around his room; not wanting to leave it for the last minute.

“Fancy some grass?” He asked in a poor British accent.

“Nah,” she shook her head, “But thanks love.”

Mathew’s smile turned bashful as he stood, turning on the radio in the background. She moved to open his window which was just above the roof of his shed as she stepped out with steady feet. Perching herself down on the blankets and pillows they hauled outside the night prior, she stared at the glowing city splayed in front. From the window, The Velvet Underground flowed softly.

Matthew proceeded to hop out, sauntering over as he threw a flirtatious wink.

“Brough this,” he said, tossing the camera he’d taken from her bag. She caught it as he nestled beside her and lit the joint; placed in his mouth. Billows of smoke clouded around them while she snapped a few photos of the view.

“Ya sure you gotta leave?” Matthew whined, embers of the end of the joint sparking with another huff. “Maybe you can smuggle me. Shove me into that trunk.”

She pulled the camera away from her face, inhaling the earthy, pungent scent. Her head felt a bit lightheaded from it. “A hardcore criminal at sixteen?”

Matthew was mildly amused until a troublesome look passed through his features. “Um — name something ya miss most about home.”

Home. What a funny word — place — feeling. Home was supposed to be something that made your heart glow, feel warm and happy — by that definition, a year ago home would’ve been her little house back in Toronto with the beautiful maple trees swaying in the backyard. Or home would’ve been Ilvermorny and its tall ivory walls. But now, London, or maybe just Hogwarts, had become her home. The scrolls around the Herbology greenhouse, the library, sneaking around past curfew; the Black Lake, Hogsmeade — Lily, James, Marlene, Dorcas, Remus, Regulus…

Unsure of what to say, she opted for, “You?”

Matthew rolled his eyes, bringing the joint to his lips. “Real charmer.” Then, smoke surrounded them. “But really.”

“Why?”

“C’mon! I need an answer! — I don’t know… say somethin’ like… lobstah.”

She chuckled. “Lobster? Really?”

“Or coffee from ya regular cafe.”

Deliberating it for a second, lips tugged up. “Coffee Crisp.”

He snorted. “A candy bar? Really?”

“Or Ketchup chips. Haven’t seen them in London yet.”

“That’s fucking disgusting.”

And then the silence returns but it makes Matthew shuffle in his spot. He blurted out, “Go — more brit insight.”

Y/N felt a bit hazy from the secondhand smoke. “More? You’ll get bored.”

“I won’t,” Matthew replied quickly, sounding oddly sincere. “Please, just… go on. Tell me everything.”

“Um… a friend of mine says crikey a lot. I think it just means to be mildly surprised? — They don’t say bloody or blimey as much as you’d think… Oh! Tea — they really drink that much tea. Also —”

Continuing, Matthew shut off again, going completely silent — not once speaking up or adding funny commentary; only staring at her, simply watching.

“Okay,” she turned to take the joint from his hand, “You're freaking me out. Spill, what's up?”

“S’nuthing.”

Whack!

“Jeez! Would ya stop wiv that! Gonna kill me…”

“Spill.”

“Fine! It’s just that…'' Matthew shifted, obscuring his face. Maybe if she didn’t feel so fuzzy, or if there wasn’t the smoke coming from the blunt or her small headache forming, she would’ve picked up on all the little signs. “It’s just —” he sighed, “I wanna hear ya talk — commit it to memory.”

“Obsessed with me? Not new.”

But that seemed to trouble him more. “It’s just… I don’t know if or when I’ll hear it again…” He looks up to the city in front. “Ya my… best friend. Could never forget ‘bout ya, but s’hard — keepin’ in touch.”

She pats him, encouraging and smiling. Her voice was hopeful, so much so that it made Matthew’s lip quirk up. “We’ll find each other. Always.” She said simply. “You and me, we’re like… salt and pepper. Soap and water — Hansel and Gretel!”

“Fuckin’ Dr. Seuss,” he smiled, that worried look fading away.

━━━━━━━━━༻☽༺━━━━━━━━━

The warm summer breeze flowed around them, just as the sun peeked above the airport. Expanse, clear skies with blue mingled with deep purples and pinks shimmered against the metal from the building.

“Gonna miss ya,” Matthew muttered into the crown of her head. Her mother didn’t want him to come, but Y/N simply ignored that request as he came to send her off.

“Don’t get mushy on me now,” she joked but felt her throat become tight.

“Betta get goin’ — Doc’s lookin’ like she’s ‘bout to butcher me if ya don’t.”

She snickered, pushing Matthew’s shoulder as she picked up her bags, walking backwards while waving. “Write me!”

“Course I will! Until next time!”

“Till next time!”

Once the plane took off, awkwardness swelled among the two women. Not once had her mother said anything to her — not to apologize or see how she was doing — although they never really did talk much. Honestly, she half-expected her to leave her in New York with the Gaplins. Easy to dispose of her.

The next few days Y/N, poorly, attempted to fix her sleeping schedule. It was a miracle that she managed to get up before dinner as her head poked into the master bedroom.

She cleared her throat, feeling herself swaying in place. “Um — hi. I’m making dinner tonight.”

Her mother was dressed in a simple, yet sleek dress. She was bent over, putting on high heels as she looked up.

“The hospital is throwing a party for me — the surgery was a success.”

“That’s amazing! Er — will you be back for dinner though? It’s just that I leave soon and... two parties are better than one.”

She considered her for a long time, eyes mostly distracted by her hair slowly changing to a different colour.

“Sure. But I have to go now.”

“Right, sorry, have fun.”

Thudding down the stairs and the door clicking shut, she followed not too long after. Making her way to the kitchen, she picked up a dusty cooking book, blowing off the dust and cracked it open; flicking through the pages.

Deciding on the seemingly easy noodle dish, she rushed out of the house to the local grocery shop for ingredients. It would be the first time they would be spending any time together. It had to be perfect. But she overestimated that no matter how closely she stuck with the dishes’ instructions, the outcome was a disaster.

The noodles somehow were rock hard. The sauce she made looked grey and was chunky, similar to badly mixed concrete and it tasted horrid. At one point, even the stove exploded into flames as she had to grab her wand and use magic to extinguish the fire.

Potions... She could use a cauldron, use multiple ingredients, make some of the most complicated spells and even had tricks of her own to make the process easier but she couldn’t make a simple dish…

Her face screwed together as she glanced up to the clock; she was going to come home soon as the dinner she made was disastrous. She panicked, cleaning up everything in a rush and decided to order food.

Waiting patiently at the dinner table, her eyes fluttered up to the clock in anticipation. She felt giddy, a surge of excitement rattling throughout her bones at the prospect. Her mother wanted to spend time with her! And she should be home any minute.

But then a minute turned to two, then five, ten, twenty, thirty — then an hour ticked by.

And then another.

Y/N got up, her chair squeaking loudly. Losing all her appetite, she went to her room, sleeping in early.

━━━━━━━━━༻☽༺━━━━━━━━━

August 20th, 1976

Going through the potential NEWT courses she could take was the highlight of her day. The possibilities were endless.

Wanting to take Defence Against the Dark Arts, Transfigurations and most of all, Potions, left her excited for the school year.

But the more she thought about the upcoming school year or potential courses, she was left to contemplate what ther5 future entailed.

Was she ready to give up magic? Something that fundamentally altered her life and moulded her into what she was? Magic was her essence, something she developed and nurtured — but to put her life in danger…

Rethinking that word again: home… Was London her home? Was she willing to leave, move again to be safer? But practicing magic around the world these days for New-Majs was dangerous. Or the potential danger she would put her mother in if she continued with it?

But magic… Maybe home wasn’t necessarily a place — but rather something she carried. In all sense, magic made her heart glow, feel warm, safe and happy — it felt like what home was supposed to feel like. And the idea of being ripped away from it, forcing herself to live a normal, Muggle life…

Magic was home.

So die, but have what she cared and loved most was by her side or live a dull life without magic — ensuring her life would be miserable.

There was a clicking of shoes in the hallway that snapped her out of her thoughts. Her mother came walking by.

Lips smushed shut into a tight line, still annoyed from the other night but was determined to spend some time with one another.

“I was planning to go to Diagon Alley for the first time — to get my textbooks... '' She stood awkwardly. “Do you want to come with me?”

“I can’t,” she replied, so quickly that it had Y/N almost scoff in disbelief. “Work. But have fun.”

She sighed but still waved her off and said a small, ‘I love you, stay safe.’ Her mother only gave her a look, something unreadable and left without a word. With a heavy heart, she grabbed her purse filled with gold and left for Diagon Alley.

Passing through the Leaky Cauldron was an adventure in itself. The shabby, tiny pub was jammed with wizards and witches zipping by.

Diagon Alley was bustling with so much magic she could feel it pumping through her blood. Students were hypnotized by the shiny new Firebolt on display; others were giggling, running around with shopping bags while older witches and wizards took a scroll. Her head turned in every direction; walking into the Apothecary, a potions ingredients and book shop.

Emmeline was there. She gave a tight-lipped smile which she returned.

Emmeline by every definition was nice, extremely kind and neither girl ever had a problem with the other. James was the problem and Y/N would gladly stay out of their feud.

Passing clamouring students, she managed to get all her supplies but stopped in front of the potion ingredients. She took a few minutes, flicking through the Advance Potions textbook and grabbed everything listed needed for most of the potions.

She made her way around Diagon Alley, going through many shops. The shelves were stacked high to the ceiling with books and materials. She spent more time than necessary there but it was beautiful.

As she was paying for her Herbology textbook, a large boom! rumbled the ground. Y/N took her bags, ready to sprint to the Leaky Cauldron but the shouts caught everyone’s attention.

“WE WILL NOT BURN WITH THEM!” A crowd of witches and wizards shouted. Their wands were transformed into microphones as a few shot fireballs up in the air.

“What’s happening?” A woman asked an old wizard. He only shook his head, grabbing a copy of the Daily Prophet, handing it to the witch.

On the front page, there were moving photos of people protesting, similar to the wizards and witches currently shouting.

‘Protests Break out in Light of Muggleborns and Halfbloods Burned Alive

Voldemort and his followers have been attacking Muggleborn and ‘blood traitor' families with the usage of fire. By burning them alive, or their houses. They bonded the witch or wizard with magic, making it impossible to apparate or leave their houses. Their broken wands were found at the scene.

Since then, protests all around Britain and Scotland have broken out. The Ministry of Magic —’

“WE WILL NOT BURN WITH THEM!” The crowd chanted.

Rage filled every inch of her body as she stomped out of Diagon Alley.

If she wanted to stay in the magical world, she had to be the greatest at whatever she did, because if she wasn’t, someone of her status was never going to get anywhere.

Magic was home, and she wasn’t going to let them take it from her. She didn’t want to surrender. They weren’t going to take that away from her.

━━━━━━━━━༻☽༺━━━━━━━━━

Immediately after Diagonal Alley, she began working; taking in her thoughts from earlier to heart.

Making sure to cover any windows from prying eyes, Y/N fiddle with first with new charms. Still unassured by her abilities in Charms, she considered taking another class before realizing all the different routes it led to. To become a Healer, Auror or Potioneer, she needed Charms.

Multiple charms backfired, causing them to ricochet off the walls, leaving a dent or chipping the wallpaper.

After trying out more than half the Charms in the book, there was one spell in particular that she attempted to cast many times, but without fail, was never able to properly cast it. Frustrated, her hand made a sharp flick and the spell spurted out instantly.

She tried again with the same hand gesture. To her astonishment, the charm produced easily. Quickly, she jotted down the note in her book.

Next, she glossed over her Transfigurations and Defense Against the Dark Arts book until her eyes caught onto the word: werewolf.

She learned briefly about werewolves, but that was in third year. And now that she knew a werewolf, it would be good to rehash it.

A werewolf, also known as a Lycanthrope, is a non-magical or magical being who transforms under the rising of the full moon. However, non-magical beings have a greater risk of dying rather than turning.

As the name suggests, werewolves are closely related to the non-magical animal, wolves. However, they have distinct characteristics that make them easily identifiable from wolves.

She flipped the page.

Wolfsbane flowers are poisonous to the non-magical world but it has been proven to have no effects on werewolves like they do on wolves. Werewolves are immune from the poison they emit and there are reports that Wolfsbane flowers help alleviate symptoms.

She underlined that section.

It’s a uniquely magical illness known to spread by saliva and blood. Werewolves are dangerous, blood-thirsty beasts — she flipped the page.

They cannot choose to transform and will no longer retain their human mind. Given the opportunity, they would slaughter their loved ones — flipped the page.

A mixture of powdered silver and dittany applied to bites help seal bite wounds. It’s also commonly put in liquid and digested in anticipation of full moons to help with the symptoms of transforming.

Y/N’s face scrunched as she continued to read.

There is no known cure Potion used to help treat lycanthropy.

She felt oddly intrusive knowing parts about Remus’ condition. But then questions arose. How were there no Potions of any kind there to help werewolves during their transformation?

Pushing the thought away, she turned to the cauldron, picking a potion to brew. They all were fairly easy, some she’d even done before just by playing around. But one potion that grabbed her attention was Draught of Living Death. Even at Ilvermorny, that potion was notoriously difficult.

Starting up the cauldron, she grabbed hold of the sopophorous bean. However, it kept jumping when she tried to cut it. She quickly resorted to another method, running down to her kitchen and grabbing the handheld garlic press, placing the bean inside, squishing it down as so much juice spurted out, even going all over her clothing.

The potion turned into the light lilac like suggested. But then as she stirred, her potion quickly became ruined as she restarted immediately.

Hours ticked by; several items in her room were Transfigured into cauldrons, as she poured the existing solution into the nine other cauldrons as she conducted her experiment.

Stirring counterclockwise was a sham, so she stirred clockwise. Nothing, the potion went bad. The next cauldron, she stirred counterclockwise and then clockwise, alternating between every stir. It showed promising progress before it turned a bright red after the seventh stir, bubbling over.

The next cauldron, she stirred counterclockwise, then clockwise after the seventh stir as the potion turned a pink pale. That’s what the book said would happen. She quickly cleared the rest of the cauldrons, pouring in the pink liquid just in case.

She continued to stir until it became a clear liquid. Surely, that was good enough but she could never be sure. After all, she didn’t know if this was what it was supposed to look like.

Deeply immersed, she hadn’t realized how late it got.

She laid on her bed, her light on as she read the scribbles on the margins of the books she'd penned. The textbook was outdated and everything she’s written down, there were easier ways to perform spells, create Potions and more. The other books must’ve been outdated too.

━━━━━━━━━༻☽༺━━━━━━━━━

August 22nd, 1976

Today, her attention was drawn to her Herbology textbook as she flipped right to the medicine section. Y/N had sneakily stolen a few of her mother’s medical journals as she scribbled down notes.

She flicked through the diagrams. Wizards and No-Majs were different when it came to their bodies and sickness, she knew that, but their anatomy was still the same.

An opera played in the background as she sat in front of the television. It filled the silence as her mother came from behind her, creeping her way closer to the door.

Y/N called out from where she sat. “Care to join me?”

“Can't, work.” She grunted out.

She placed the pen down, full attention drawn to her. “I only have a few days until school starts… you can’t spend some time?”

Her mom wasn’t looking at her, ostensibly staring at the floor, anywhere other than her face.

“It’s not that interesting, but um - I need help with medical terms and illnesses. You’re the best at that!”

“I can’t,” she said roughly. “Can't you see? You have to stop bothering me when I’m busy.” And then she left again, leaving her alone. Y/N would’ve been more bothered had she not been so focused on her studies.

There was a pattern.

In the Herbology textbook, in the werewolf section, there were a few ingredients used to help alleviate symptoms of Lycanthropy.

Dittany, Powered silver, Powdered Moonstone, Aconite…

━━━━━━━━━༻☽༺━━━━━━━━━

August 26th, 1976

“Do you want to —” “Work.”

“But you always have work… can’t you take some time off?”

“You know it’s important to me. Why do you keep trying to limit that?”

━━━━━━━━━༻☽༺━━━━━━━━━

August 29th, 1976

She was partially through her Potions and Charms textbook. It was all she could fixate on.

Deciding to take a break, Y/N went to stretch, getting up to talk to her mom who again, was getting ready to leave. She opened the honey-coloured wood draw close to the door. She pulled out a set of keys, fixing her appearance in a nearby mirror.

She had already opened the door.

“Hey mom, I was thinking of getting lunch… Will you be back soon?”

But, there was faint muffling outside the door.

“Ready for our date?”

Y/N, desperate, seized hold of her wrist, pleading. “Please, I leave in a day.”

“I'll make it up to you,” mom replied, “I promise.” And then, the door clicked shut.

Again.

She stared at the door, trying to regulate what she was thinking.

What made them worthy of her time when their’s were limited.

Robotically, Y/N turned to walk to her room, her hip bumped into the drawer which hadn’t been fully closed. Her eyes flew to it, about to push it in as she caught a flash of white.

Yanking it open, she swore her heart could’ve shattered. White envelopes filled the draw; her familiar handwriting scribbled on top of each letter. She picked one up, twisting it over to the flap.

It was unopened.

She picked up another. Unopened.

Then another. Unopened.

Unopened.

All of them were unopened, sealed. Hardly tampered with and there was hardly a wrinkle.

Was there something wrong with her? Something so disgraceful that made her so disgusting that people kept forgetting - pushing her away? Like an insidious disease.

Was she truly that unloveable? That much of a nuisance? What made someone else so much more important than her?

It was too much to process but if she had to describe the feeling, it was like drowning on dry land.

Whatever home was, it shouldn’t feel like this: cold, lonely, sad.

━━━━━━━━━༻☽༺━━━━━━━━━

【 Next Chapter 】

Slang dictionary (+ a bit of history bc i didn’t realize how many ppl didn’t actually understand what I was talking about in other chaps):

Coffee Crisp = a very popular chocolate bar sold in Canada. It was a variation of a treat made by a company from the UK. It was briefly introduced to the UK in the 60s but was pulled back because people thought it was too similar to Kit Kat. From what I know, Coffee Crisp is not commonly found in England (I've never seen it in stores) but it’s sold in Scotland.

Candy bar = US term for chocolate bar / chocolate

Grass = during the 60s - 70s, the term 'grass' was very popular slang for weed in New York bc it featured in vogue.

And yes, the British do drink that much tea.

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improvidence318 · 4 years

Text

i said screw it so here it is

howdy howdy, this is the anon with the 20’s lingo sheet. i don’t have a tumblr (though i wish i do tbh) and realized that i don’t know how to work shit on tumblr, so i’m just sending in the sheet through a text post. i am highly aware of the amount of power i’m bestowing upon you and honestly couldn’t give a damn

ab-so-lute-ly: affirmative all wet: incorrect And how!: I strongly agree! ankle: to walk, i.e.. “Let’s ankle!” apple sauce: flattery, nonsense, i.e.. “Aw, applesauce!” Attaboy!: well done!; also, Attagirl!

baby: sweetheart. Also denotes something of high value or respect. baby grand: heavily built man baby vamp: an attractive or popular female, student. balled up: confused, messed up. baloney: Nonsense! Bank’s closed.: no kissing or making out ie. “Sorry, mac, bank’s closed.” bearcat: a hot-blooded or fiery girl beat it: scram, get lost. beat one’s gums: idle chatter bee’s knee’s: terrific; a fad expression. Dozens of “animal anatomy” variations existed: elephant’s eyebrows, gnat’s whistle, eel’s hips, etc. beef: a complaint or to complain. beeswax: business, i.e. “None of your beeswax.” Student. bell bottom: a sailor bent: drunk berries: (1) perfect (2) money big cheese: important person big six: a strong man; from auto advertising, for the new and powerful six cylinder engines. bimbo: a tough guy bird: general term for a man or woman, sometimes meaning “odd,” i.e. “What a funny old bird.” blotto (1930 at the latest): drunk, especially to an extreme bootleg: illeagal liquor breezer (1925): a convertable car bug-eyed Betty (1927): an unattractive girl, student. bull: (1) a policeman or law-enforcement official, including FBI. (2) nonesense (3) to chat idly, to exaggerate bump off: to kill bum’s rush, the: ejection by force from an establishment bunny (1925): a term of endearment applied to the lost, confused, etc. Often coupled with “poor little.” bus: any old or worn out car.

cake-eater: a lady’s man caper: a criminal act or robbery. cat’s meow: great, also “cat’s pajamas” and “cat’s whiskers” cash: a kiss Cash or check?: Do we kiss now or later? cast a kitten: to have a fit. Used in both humorous and serious situations. i.e. “Stop tickling me or I’ll cast a kitten!” Also, “have kittens.” cheaters: eye glasses check: Kiss me later. chewing gum: double-speak, or ambiguous talk. choice bit of calico: attractive female, student. chopper: a Thompson Sub-Machine Gun, due to the damage its heavy .45 caliber rounds did to the human body. chunk of lead: an unnattractive female, student. clam: a dollar coffin varnish: bootleg liquor, often poisonous. copacetic: excellent crasher: a person who attends a party uninvited crush: infatuation cuddler: one who likes to make out

daddy: a young woman’s boyfriend or lover, especially if he’s rich. daddy-o: a term of address dame: a female. Did not gain widespread use until the 1930’s. dapper: a Flapper’s dad darb: a great person or thing. “That movie was darb.” dead soldier: an empty beer bottle. deb: a debutant. dewdropper: a young man who sleeps all day and doesn’t have a job. dogs: feet doll: an attractive woman. dolled up: dressed up don’t know from nothing: doesn’t have any information don’t take any wooden nickels: don’t do anything stupid. doublecross: to cheat, stab in the back. dough: money drugstore cowboy: A well-dressed man who loiters in public areas trying to pick up women. dry up: shut up, get lost ducky: very good dumb Dora: an absolute idiot, a dumbbell, especially a woman; flapper.

earful: enough egg: a person who lives the big life

face stretcher: an old woman trying to look young fella: fellow. As common in its day as “man,” “dude,” or “guy” is today. “That John sure is a swell fella.” fire extinguisher: a chaperone fish: (1) a college freshman (2) a first timer in prison flat tire: a bore flivver: a Model T; after 1928, also could mean any broken down car. floorflusher: an insatiable dancer flour lover: a girl with too much face powder fly boy: a glamorous term for an aviator For crying out loud!: same usage as today four-flusher: a person who feigns wealth while mooching off others.

gams (1930): legs gatecrasher: see “crasher” get-up (1930): an outfit. get a wiggle on: get a move on, get going get in a lather: get worked up, angry giggle water: booze gimp: cripple; one who walks with a limp. Gangster Dion O’Bannion was called Gimpy due to his noticeable limp. gin mill: a seller of hard liquor; a cheap speakeasy glad rags: “going out on the town” clothes go chase yourself: get lost, scram. gold-digger (1925): a woman who pursues men for their money. goods, the: (1) the right material, or a person who has it (2) the facts, the truth, i.e. “Make sure the cops don’t get the goods on you.” goof: (1) a stupid or bumbling person, (2) a boyfriend, flapper. goofy: in love grummy: depressed grungy: envious

handcuff: engagement ring hard-boiled: tough, as in, a tough guy, ie: “he sure is hard-boiled!” hayburner: (1) a gas guzzling car (2) a horse one loses money on heavy sugar (1929): a lot of money heebie-jeebies (1926): “the shakes,” named after a hit song. heeler: a poor dancer high hat: a snob. hip to the jive: cool, trendy hit on all sixes: to perform 100 per cent; as “hitting on all six cylinders”; perhaps a more common variation in these days of four cylinder engines was “hit on all fours”. See “big six”. hood (late 20s): hoodlum hooey: nonsense. Very popular from 1925 to 1930, used somewhat thereafter. hop: a teen party or dance Hot dawg!: Great!; also: “Hot socks!" Rarely spelled as shown outside of flapper circles until popularized by 1940s comic strips. hot sketch: a card or cut-up

"I have to go see a man about a dog.”: “I’ve got to leave now,” often meaning to go buy whiskey. icy mitt: rejection insured: engaged iron (1925): a motorcycle, among motorcycle enthusiasts iron one’s shoelaces: to go to the restroom ish kabibble (1925): a retort meaning “I should care." Was the name of a musician in the Kay Kayser Orchestra of the 1930s.

jack: money Jake: great, ie. "Everything’s Jake.” Jalopy: a dumpy old car Jane: any female java: coffee jeepers creepers: a term of exclamation jitney: a car employed as a private bus. Fare was usually five-cents; also called a “nickel.” joe: coffee Joe Brooks: a perfectly dressed person; student. john: a toilet joint: establishment juice joint: a speakeasy

kale: money keen: appealing killjoy: a solemn person knock up: to make pregnant know one’s onions: to know one’s business or what one is talking about

lay off: cut the crap left holding the bag: (1) to be cheated out of one’s fair share (2) to be blamed for something let George do it: a work evading phrase level with me: be honest limey: a British soldier or citizen, from World War I line: a false story, as in “to feed one a line.” live wire: a lively person lollapalooza (1930): a humdinger lollygagger: (1) a young man who enjoys making out (2) an idle person

manacle: wedding ring mazuma: money milquetoast (1924): a very timid person; from the comic book character Casper mind your potatoes: mind your own business. mooch: to leave moonshine: homemade whiskey mop: a handkerchief munitions: face powder

neck: to kiss passionately necker: a girl who wraps her arms around her boyfriend’s neck. nifty: great, excellent noodle juice: tea Not so good!: I personally disapprove. “Now you’re on the trolley!”: Now you’ve got it, now you’re right.

off one’s nuts: crazy Oh yeah!: I doubt it! old boy: a male term of address, used in conversation with other males. Denoted acceptance in a social environment. Also “old man” “old fruit.” “How’s everything old boy?” Oliver Twist: a skilled dancer on a toot: a drinking binge on the lam: fleeing from police on the level: legitimate, honest on the up and up: on the level orchid: an expensive item ossified: drunk owl: a person who’s out late

palooka: (1) a below-average or average boxer (2) a social outsider, from the comic strip character Joe Palooka, who came from humble ethnic roots panic: to produce a big reaction from one’s audience percolate: (1) to boil over (2) As of 1925, to run smoothly; “perk” pet: necking, only more; making out petting pantry: movie theater piffle: baloney piker: (1) a cheapskate (2) a coward pill: (1) a teacher (2) an unlikable person pinch: to arrest. Pinched: to be arrested. pinko: liberal pipe down: stop talking prom-trotter: a student who attends all school social functions pos-i-lute-ly: affirmative, also “pos-i-tive-ly” punch the bag: small talk putting on the ritz: after the Ritz Hotel in Paris (and its namesake Caesar Ritz); doing something in high style. Also “ritzy.”

rag-a-muffin: a dirty or disheveled individual rain pitchforks: a downpour razz: to make fun of Real McCoy: a genuine item regular: normal, typical, average; “Regular fella.” Reuben: an unsophisticated country bumpkin. Also “rube” Rhatz!: How disappointing! rub: a student dance party rubes: money or dollars rummy: a drunken bum

sap: a fool, an idiot. Very common term in the 20s. says you: a reaction of disbelief scratch: money screaming meemies: the shakes screw: get lost, get out, etc. Occasionally, in pre 1930 talkies (such as The Broadway Melody) screw is used to tell a character to leave. One film features the line “Go on, go on – screw!" screwy: crazy; "You’re screwy!” sheba: one’s girlfriend sheik: one’s boyfriend simolean: a dollar sinker: a doughnut sitting pretty: in a prime position skirt: an attractive female smarty: a cute flapper smudger: a close dancer sockdollager: an action having a great impact so’s your old man: a reply of irritation speakeasy: a bar selling illeagal liquor spill: to talk spoon: to neck, or at least talk of love static: (1) empty talk (2) conflicting opinion stilts: legs struggle: modern dance stuck on: in love, student. sugar daddy: older boyfriend who showers girlfriend with gifts swanky: (1) good (2) elegant swell: (1) good (2) a high class person

take someone for a ride: to take someone to a deserted location and murder them. tasty: appealing teenager: not a common term until 1930; before then, the term was “young adults.” tell it to Sweeney: tell it to someone who’ll believe it. tight: attractive Tin Pan Alley: the music industry in New York, located between 48th and 52nd Streets tomato: a “ripe” female torpedo: a hired thug or hitman

unreal: special upchuck: to vomit upstage: snobby

vamp: (1) a seducer of men, an aggressive flirt (2) to seduce voot: money

water-proof: a face that doesn’t require make-up wet blanket: see Killjoy wife: dorm roomate, student. What’s eating you?: What’s wrong? whoopee: wild fun Woof! Woof!: ridicule

You slay me!: That’s funny!

zozzled: drunk

have fun.

#it's the 20s slang list #thanks dude #submission

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kiwi-bitchez · 4 years

Note

Ahoy-hoy. Yo so I got cheated on and TBH I can't smile. Idk if you're taking requests, but maybe write me a revenge-fuck sort of story? Sorry if you're not taking asks.

Hello! Don’t apologize, my asks are always open!! Thank you for sharing this with me, my heart really goes out to you. I’ve been cheated on before so I know how shitty you must feel. Sending you lots of love and also this fic. Not sure if I really captured the spirit of “revenge fucking” cuz this ended up being kinda #soft… but I hope you like it!

Manual Labor

Coffeeshop!AU / Carpenter!Tom

Word Count: 6.4K

Warnings: smut, the usual, oral, swearing, cheating, ex-boyfriends being shitty, lots of tea

Summary: After being cheated on you can’t seem to see the brighter side of things. That is until a familiar British carpenter comes into your work to fix some things. You bring him tea and things go a little better this time…

Dating in your twenties can be difficult. Everyone is at different stages in their lives, and everyone wants different things. Some people are looking for commitment, others just for hookups. So when you find someone who sticks, who wants the same things as you, it feels really nice.

Well, it feels really nice until they cheat on you after a whole year of dating. You would be foolish to say you thought he had been “the one,” but you really thought the two of you had clicked on a deep level. You were both mature, career-driven, hardworking, and caring people. Right? Well, it seemed so at the time.

But somehow you find yourself buried under seven layers of duvet blanket, bawling your eyes out on a Tuesday afternoon. It had all happened so fast, you hadn’t even had time to be emotional about it until it was all over. You kept running through your head what you had done wrong, what you could have done better.

Thursday rolls around and you realize its about time you show back up at work. Thankfully your boss is a sweetheart and told you to take all the time you needed. You tried to go into work the day after it all went down and ended up crying into someone’s coffee order.

You had cried all your tears and ate all your ice cream, and decided it was about time to rejoin society. Rolling out of bed you throw on your typical work outfit, black jeans and a t-shirt. You look in the mirror and try to splash some cold water on your face to kill the puffiness under your eyes.

Some mascara helped, and a little bit of lipgloss never hurt either. Once you were presentable enough, you make your way over to your job at the local coffee shop. Your coworkers all greet you with big smiles and empathetic hugs. It was obvious what you were going through, but you appreciated their support. You just wished everything would go back to normal.

“I never liked him anyways,” your closest work friend Margret admits, “I always thought you could do so much better.”

“Thanks Marg,” you don’t bother to look up from the pastry labels you were making, trying to signal that you really weren’t in the mood to talk about it.

Everyone kept telling you the same things, “He wasn’t good enough for you,” “You can do so much better,” “Fuck him.” Although you wanted to believe everyone, to be the badass independent woman you thought you were, you couldn’t help but well up with tears every time someone brought him up.

You manage to get through the week. Each day consisting of a little less crying and a little less binge eating, you slowly get back into your regular routine. Well, your regular routine excluding him of course.

It’s a slow afternoon, only a few customers dotted the coffee shop, most on their laptops doing work or having private conversations. You had zoned out, thinking about your schedule for the week, balancing school and work, as you stood behind the register waiting for another lonely customer to come in.

Your hand pressed into your cheek, leaning your weight onto your hand, you mindlessly stared at the wooden floor.

“Excuse me,” a strange accent asks from behind the counter. When had someone come in? Why hadn’t you noticed?

“Is Anna around? I’m the handyman here to fix the countertop,” his voice was like red velvet cake, and brought you right out of your trance.

“Anna’s right in the back, I’ll get her for you,” you answer his question instinctively before taking a moment to recognize the familiar face in front of you. You recall him from a few months ago, he was a carpenter who had come in to do some renovations over the summer.

His name was Tom. That you couldn’t forget. It had been a blistering hot summer day and he had come in to take a look at some part of the shop, something that had needed fixing. He went to the same school as you but worked part-time for a local carpenter.

He had assessed the damage and assured your boss Anna that he could start right away, only needing the rest of the day to fix up what needed mending. He had been wearing a white t-shirt that clung slightly to his body with sweat from the heat. He was good looking and certainly attracted the attention of most people in the vicinity, especially as he worked with the tools from his belt. You couldn’t help but stare for a second.

But only a second. Your boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, often spent his time in between classes at the coffee shop visiting you. He always sat at the table closest to the counter so you could talk to him when business was slow. That’s why you stared for only a second.

After around two hours, you decided to go over to him. He had been working tirelessly, and the exhausting heat must have been getting to him.

“You drink coffee?” you ask, causing him to stop drilling at whatever he was fixing.

“I drink tea, darling,” he responds, causing you to notice his thick accent.

“How do you take it?” you blush a little, as his dark brown eyes looked directly into yours as he answered your question. You figured you were just being nice, he was working really hard and looked like he could use a break, that’s all.

You quickly made your way back behind the counter, whipping up a cup of tea and a blueberry muffin that he hadn’t asked for but you were sure he’d appreciate.

“Thanks love,” he said appreciatively as you set it down on the table closest to him.

“On the house,” you smile back at him, “for all your hard work.”

You hadn’t thought too much of the interaction, just a nice gesture you felt like doing. Your boyfriend had thought otherwise, however.

“What the fuck was that?” he hisses at you, barely above a whisper from the other side of the counter.

“What?” you ask back, fully not knowing what he was angry about.

“Were you trying to make me look stupid?” he says a little louder this time.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” his tone worried you.

“You’re just gonna flirt with that guy right in front of me, do you think I’m an idiot?” his voice was rising in volume and you were starting to get nervous that the people in the café could hear you.

“Babe, I was just being nice, he’s working really hard,” your voice is back at a whisper, trying to encourage him to do the same.

“No, you always do this, you think you can make me jealous by being a fucking slut and flirting with every guy you see. Stop it, it’s not cute and it doesn’t work y/n,” his tone was abrasive and you could feel the eyes of everyone staring at you. You could feel tears well up in your eyes as his words burned into you.

“It wasn’t like that,” your voice cracked, “I promise it wasn’t like that.”

“Yeah, whatever you say,” he responds loudly and sarcastically as he slams his laptop shut and shoves it in his bag.

“Guess I’ll see you later,” his voice was still sharp.

You watched him stomp out of the small shop, tears threatening to spill from your eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Tom had mouthed to you as your eyes made their way to him in the doorway.

“It’s okay,” you had mouthed back before running to the break room and begging Margret to cover for you as you cried in the bathroom.

This memory hit you like a ton of bricks as you saw Tom again, standing at the counter. Your ex had always been jealous like that. At the time you thought of it as “protective,” and “loving,” rather than seeing it as “possessive” and “manipulative.”

“She should be right over here,” you say a little slowly, your eyes not leaving his face. You were taking it in, the curve of his jaw and the angle of his smile, the same warm look he had given you all those months ago.

“Hey Anna, the carpenter is here,” you pop your head into the back room.

She shuffles out and greets Tom, shaking his hand quickly before showing him over to the area that needed fixing.

You sit blankly at your register, tending to the few customers who came in, somehow without taking your eyes off of Tom. Seeing him just reminded you of that day, reminded you of how your ex had humiliated you and made you cry, how he had been so rude and controlling.

Seeing Tom made something switch in your brain. Everyone was right. Fuck him. Fuck that guy and fuck what he had done to you. You were done crying over someone who would cheat on you, over someone who clearly didn’t love you the way you deserved to be loved. Everyone who was spewing clichés at you was right. You did deserve better.

Somehow through these thoughts, your hands had taken over while your mind ran in circles. Before you could even realize what you were doing, you were standing in front of Tom with a cup of tea and a blueberry muffin.

“Um,” you stutter out, not entirely sure what you were doing, “If I remember correctly, this is how you take your tea.”

His attention is pulled from the countertop, brown curs slightly pressed to his sweaty forehead, biceps filling out the sleeves of his shirt perfectly. Those perfect brown eyes boring into you once again.

“You remembered,” he said with a genuine smile, “that’s amazing, thanks a bunch love.”

You set the tea down next to him and stare for a second, not wanting the conversation to be over.

“You should hurry back though, if your boyfriend is here again,” he says quietly with a bit of concern.

“Oh,” you were taken aback, the implications of your action hitting you, “Oh, um, he, uh, we… aren’t together anymore. He doesn’t come here.”

“That’s a bit of relief then,” Tom says, putting down his tool belt and picking up the tea to blow on it, “that guy was a bit of a prick if I do say so myself.”

“Yeah,” you laugh a little, looking down at your feet, “bit of a prick.”

“This may be a bit out of line,” he takes a short sip before continuing, “but I didn’t like the way he spoke to you.”

“Not out of line,” you shake your head, “he was being an ass to you too, I’m sorry you were put in that awkward position last time you were here, I wanted to apologize.”

“Don’t apologize for a thing love, you’re much better off without him,” although he was essentially a stranger, his words seemed sincere.

“Ever since he cheated on me I feel like that’s all I hear,” you say with a laugh, your breath hitching in your throat when you realize what you had said. You weren’t really thinking, and this boy made you a little nervous, it had just slipped out.

“Oh, I- I’m sorry to hear that,” he said with a softer voice, “I-”

“Sorry,” you cut him off, “that was weird of me to say, you don’t even know me, sorry I’m like, dumping my personal problems onto you.”

You laughed nervously, wanting to clear the air. He looked at you with genuine sympathy. He had experienced first-hand how much of an ass your ex had been, and you seemed so sweet, remembering his café order and bringing it over to him when you truly didn’t have to.

“Thank you for the tea,” he said, taking another sip, “you smile a little brighter without him around.”

Your cheeks grew hot at his comment and all you could do was grin at him and scurry back to your position at the register. You bury your face in your hands, running through the conversation you just had over and over. You felt so stupid, yet at the same time strangely confident. The way he looked at you, smiled when you smiled, made your heart flutter. Were you imagining this? Was he just being nice?

You kept stealing glances over to where he was working. He would occasionally catch you and smile back, his eyes crinkling at the corners and his cheeks pink. You held your breath every time, wanting to go back over to talk to him. But you were at work, and so was he. So you continued to make lattes, and he continued to fix the countertop.

You start to clean up, throwing out old coffee filters and wiping down dirty tabletops. You start counting money in the register when you’re startled by a figure in front of the register.

“What do I owe you for the tea,” he asks, your face gets hot even before looking up at him.

“Come on, you know it’s on the house,” you respond with a smile.

“Now this isn’t fair,” he starts playfully, “you’ve given me two free drinks now. The gentlemen in me feels it's my responsibility to buy one for you now. It’s the least I can do.”

“You can make me a cup of tea anytime,” your response slips out before you can even filter yourself.

“In that case, let me know when you’re free. I’ve got jasmine, mint, earl grey, English breakfast…”

“I’m more of a chamomile girl,” you were completely unsure where this flirt was coming from, “you know, sleepytime tea.”

“In that case my flat is right around the corner,” he laughs.

“My shift ends in ten if you’re willing to wait around…”

“Yes, yeah, of course, I’ll be right outside,” he gestures out the door and hurries to gather his work tools.

Your eyes grow a little wide when you process what you had just said. Where was this found confidence coming from? Where the fuck could you find some more? And fast???

You finish cleaning up and hang your apron on the hook, giving a shout goodbye to your coworkers as you hurry out the door. Part of you hopes this had all been a joke and he would be nowhere to be found, the other part of you desperately looked for him in the parking lot.

A thud in your heart comprised of half relief and half panic hits as his hand waves to you from his car.

“Hey, you,” he calls over, “you still want that cup of tea?”

You jog over to his car and lean down to his open window, “I’m not sure London boy, I work at a café, I can make a pretty good cup of tea for myself,” there it was again, the flirty courage.

“Oh, but you’ve never had tea made by a real Englishmen, have you? You don’t know what you’re missing out on.”

“You make a compelling argument. Can I follow you to your place?” you nod over to where your car is parked.

“Sure thing, it's not too far from here.” He gives you a cheeky smile that makes the corners of your mouth turn up.

You can’t stop smiling as you hurry over to your car, starting it and not even bothering to pick out music before putting it into drive. Your mind starts whirling a thousand miles a minute as you follow his black car to his apartment. What the fuck were you doing? You barely even know this guy. But god, he’s so hot. And nice. And funny. Fuck.

Suddenly you’re parked next to him, turning the key and stepping out of your car in front of his building.

“Made it alright?” god, that accent. This boy was going to be the death of you.

“I’m Tom by the way,” he flashes you another one of those perfect smiles as you walk side by side to his building entrance.

“I know,” you realized how weird that sounded, “um, I know because you’re the carpenter we always hire,” you try to laugh it off, “I’m y/n.”

“Lovely to formally meet you y/n,” he opens the door for you, “I really appreciate all the free snacks you’ve given me. I always love doing business at your café. For more reasons than one.”

He presses the elevator button and stands close to your side as the two of you wait for the numbers to count down. You step into the small elevator, looking over at Tom as he presses the button of his floor.

“I’m sure you’re tired of hearing this,” he turns to you, “but that guy was a real dumbass for letting a girl like you go.”

“Thanks,” you can’t help but stare at the floor, “I’m not tired of hearing it as long as it’s coming from you.”

He laughs a little at your comment. He has a certain way of making you feel comfortable, of reassuring you with a laugh or a smile when you think you’ve said something stupid.

The elevator dings at his floor and he saunters out over to his apartment door. Your heart rate begins to pick up as he opens the door, not knowing what to expect. You walk in and take off your shoes and put your bag down on a coatrack.

He walks into his small kitchen and immediately puts on a pot of water. Part of you is relieved. He actually wants to make you tea.

“I moved to the states a little over a year ago,” he starts to rummage though his cabinet, pulling out boxes of tea, “everything is pretty nice here, except there isn’t really anywhere to get a decent cup.”

“Hey!” you protest, “I make alright tea.”

“Your tea is alright…” he jokes, “but its nothing compared to home.”

“That’s not fair,” you sit down on a stool across the kitchen from him, “it’s like apples and oranges.”

“Why can’t fruit be compared?”

You fall into an easy back and forth with him, finding the same things funny, laughing at each other’s comments and jokes. You can’t help but stare at his arms as he pours the hot liquid, at the way his tongue pokes out between his teeth in concentration.

“Here you go love,” he hands you a cup, “one genuine cup of tea made by a real Brit.”

You hold the cup in your hands but pay no attention to your own tea as he takes his first sip. You hadn’t flirted with anyone in so long. You didn’t have a reason to. This all felt strange and foreign to you, like you were thirteen again.

“Thank you,” you say quietly, still watching the curve of his jaw as he sipped his cup.

“What do you mean ‘thank you,’ you haven’t even tried it yet,” he gestures to your full cup.

“Not for the tea,” you bring your eyes to meet his, “but thank you for that too. I mean thank you for being so nice to me. For listening to me even though I’m so all over the place. I just… I just haven’t had anyone treat me like this in a really long time and I just wanted to say thank you.”

“Hey,” he brings a hand up to your knee, making you shiver a little, “you can thank me for the tea, but you don’t have to thank me for the common curtsey of being a decent person. You deserve to be listened to and taken care of, that you don’t ever have to thank me for.”

You feel your heart jump into your throat. You had never thought of that, of holding yourself to that standard. Your ex had been an ass to you time and time again, and you always came up with a reason as to why it was your fault. Even when he cheated, your mind went to what you had done wrong or how you could have been better. Fuck that. There was a boy right in front of you who was showing you what your worth was. Being treated like a true human being shouldn’t be rewarded, it should be expected.

“I-” your voice was caught in your throat, “you’re really nice. And cool. And you make really good tea.” You laugh, and he joins you.

“I would very much like to kiss you,” he brings his hand from your knee up to where your hand is placed on your cup, “I also think you are really nice, and cool, and although it is hard for me to admit, you make some good tea too.”

You lean over to him, tentatively waiting for him to meet you halfway. His hand moves up your arm to the side of your face, the skin of his palm was rough and warm against you. Your eyes slowly shut as he pulls your face to his, soft lips meeting yours.

Kissing him for the first time felt like the brisk ocean water hitting you with a wave. Sucking you under and pulling you back up, ice cold yet exhilarating. You pull away from the kiss, letting the wave roll back out to sea, the next wave close on the horizon.

You had never felt such a breath of fresh air, his lips meeting yours again and pulling you back in.

“Is this okay,” he whispers into you, hands cupping either cheek, tea long forgotten.

“Yeah,” you respond, wanting nothing more than to kiss him again, “more than okay.”

You can feel his body shift as he stands up from the stool, his chest coming closer to yours, his face leaning more into the kiss. Your hands make way up his arms, the perfect biceps that you had admired from afar in the coffee shop more than once before.

You press deeper into the kiss, addicted to the feeling of his lips on yours. You were getting pulled further and further in, and you couldn’t bother to look back. You let his tongue slip into your mouth as your hand dances up to his neck, playing with the curls that framed his face.

“Can we go to your bedroom?” you find yourself asking with eyes still closed, lips barely released from his.

“Mhmmm,” he mumbles into your lips, reconnecting them once again, seemingly as addicted as you, “only if that’s what you want, if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” you respond a little too quickly, “I’m so fucking sure.”

His strong hands grip underneath your legs that dangle off the stool where you sat, slowly lifting you up to meet his height, legs wrapping firmly around his torso. Your lips never detach as he carries you down the hall, your tongue rolling against his in perfect harmony.

He places you delicately on his bed, cool sheets beneath your skin causing goosebumps to rise. You can’t get enough of the feeling of his hair tangled between your fingers. You run them up and down his scalp, gathering his locks in your hands as you go. He kisses you like he means it.

“I want you to know,” he whispers in your ear, a deep gravely tone, different and sexier than his speaking voice, “that I want to make you feel good, so much better than that guy ever made you feel.”

He juts his hips into yours, causing a moan to catch in the back of your throat.

“Please,” is all you can manage to say before lurching forward, meeting his open mouth with yours again.

His hands are rough and strong, feeling amazingly foreign as they make their way up your legs, dancing underneath the hem of your top. He presses his palms down into you, causing your back to arch into him as you kiss.

You take initiative to remove your top, to show him that you really want him. You toss it over your head, not bothering to notice where it lands. His lips dip down to your jawline, training kisses from the corner of your mouth down to the soft spot on your neck. His thumbs continue to rub soothing circles into the flesh of your torso, slowly making their way up.

You mimic his actions and detangle your hands from his hair to feel underneath his t-shirt. His skin was tight and warm and smooth under your hands. He was taking his time with you, moving slowly but with purpose.

You tug at his shirt, signaling that you wanted it off. He got your message and pulled it off by the back of the neck. You couldn’t help but stare with gawking eyes, you had truly never seen a body this nice so closely, let alone touched one.

He had a cocky smirk on his face, knowing well how hot he is. All you could do is bite your lip and laugh a little, completely unsure how you ended up in this amazing position.

“Manual labor does a body good,” he says with a chuckle before leaning back down to your chest, resuming his trail of wet kisses that were now dipping into the valley of your breasts.

“You’re telling me,” you comment back as your eyes flutter shut a little, feeling his thighs tense up underneath your legs.

He looks up at you for permission before pushing your bra up, kissing and nipping at your skin. He left red blotchy marks that caused a pool to form in your panties. Your hips continue to buck and roll into his, feeling his hardening cock press through his pants onto your leg.

He continues his journey south, taking pit stops to suck at the skin around your ribs, on your stomach, above your hips.

“Can I?” He asks before hooking his thumbs under the waistline of your jeans. You lift your butt to help him slide them off, head in a complete daze. His hands run up and down your legs as they had before, less barriers between you this time. He continues to kiss at the skin on your hips and down into your thighs as his hands slowly spread your legs open for him.

He spent time teasing and licking around your underwear, never quite moving in to where you wanted him most. Leaving a purple hickey on your thigh, he soothes it over with his tongue as he brings his hand up to your underwear, stroking up and down your slit through the fabric.

You cant help but twitch under his touch. He was moving agonizingly slow, and you could feel the dampness in your underwear soaking through to his fingers. Unexpectedly he licks a stripe up the cotton, mouthing at your lips through your underwear.

A breathy moan leaves your throat as your head rolls back, begging him to take them off. He slides a finger around the seams and runs it through your slick folds, loving the way you were already so wet for him.

He follows the row of red marks he had left down your leg again with his tongue as he slowly pulled your underwear down. Every time you looked down at him you felt yourself clench around nothing in anticipation.

Finally, you feel his warm tongue run from your inner thigh to your core, licking wide stripes up and down before dipping into you. His name leaves your mouth mixed with heavy breaths, your hands searching for his arms or his hair, or anything to grip onto as he licked slow circles around your clit.

“Holy shit,” you choke out as he slips a finger into you, curling it upwards perfectly.

You feel him smirk into you, knowing the effect he was having on you. You like his confidence, and the way he was taking his time, building your orgasm up slowly. A second finger joins the first curled up against your walls and your hips drag against his expert tongue.

Any worries you had were melted away, all your stress, your anxieties, your negative thoughts that seemed to haunt you more often than you would like, suddenly sunk away and all you could think was his name, over and over.

You feel your thighs push back as he presses his face deeper into you, licking and pushing his fingers in a perfect rhythm. He could feel your walls tighten around his fingers, knowing that your high was close.

“Fuck Tom, I’m-” you couldn’t even bear to finish your thought as your orgasm crashed over you, that perfect wave of pleasure pulling you out and pushing you back in. He knew just when to speed up and when to pull back, letting you ride out your orgasm on his face, lapping up your juices and kissing back up your thighs, finally meeting your face, two fingers remaining inside your pulsing opening.

“Holy shit,” you giggle out, “you’re really fucking good at that.”

“I told you I wanted to make you feel good,” he kisses into your neck, finally dragging his fingers out of you and running them softly up your skin, “and how can I not when you look so gorgeous like this.”

You manage to swing your shaky legs over him, moving on top to press your chest flat against his. Now it was your turn to leave open mouthed kisses all along his neck. That perfect jawline begging to be sucked on.

Your hand snakes down to his hard member, fiddling with the button of his pants.

“You don’t have to, if you’re tired,” he mumbles into you as you feel around in his pants.

“I’m yours, if you’ll have me,” you whisper back into his ear, finding his cock fitting perfectly in your hand.

He kissed you with a new hunger and passion, hands gripping at the roots of your hair and pulling your face into his as you slowly jerk him off. Low guttural moans growling in the back of his mouth as your tongue swirled around his.

He kicks his pants off, and you push the band of his boxer briefs down as well, exposing his perfect cock. It was pink and dripping precum, begging to be sucked on. You run your thumb over his tip, loving the way his body tensed under your touch.

You find yourself down between his legs, licking a long stripe up the underside of him. You swirl your tongue around his tip while making eye contact with him, his head tossing back once you finally sink your mouth down onto his length.

He had teased you relentlessly, so you decide to tease back. You jerk the base of him off slowly as you run your tongue in all sorts of patterns clockwise and counterclockwise around his sensitive tip, only sinking back down when he bucked his hips up into your mouth.

“Fuck, y/n,” his voice was weak, “can I fuck you, can I please fuck you.”

His eyes finally focus back down to meet yours, the sight of your lips wrapped perfectly around his cock make it twitch.

You detach your lips with a pop and give him a nod, taking your swollen lip in between your teeth. Suddenly his hands are on your shoulders, pressing you down into the mattress as he kisses you hotly, sucking onto your bottom lip.

He rubs circles on your clit with one hand as the other fumbles over to his bedside drawer to find a condom. You lay back with your legs pushed up for him, back arched, fully ready and open for him. He runs his rubber tip up and down your soaking folds a few times, making you beg for him before slowly pushing into you.

You moan into his neck, biting down on his shoulder to silence yourself as he bottoms out inside you. His slow movements give you time to adjust to his size before you meet his lips again with yours, telling him to fuck you harder.

One hand takes place on your inner thigh, pressing your leg into the mattress to angle you perfectly for him to fuck into you, the other remaining on your clit. He picks up his pace and starts thrusting deep and hard into you, properly fucking the shit out of you.

You could tell he liked it when you moaned his name and told him how good he was making your feel, always thrusting a little deeper when you would make noises. It wasn’t long before you felt the pit on your stomach grow hot again, threatening to spill over at any given moment.

“Please don’t stop,” you whine, “you’re gonna make me come again, fuck.”

Your eyes scrunch shut as he rubbed a little harder onto your clit, causing your walls to flutter around him, gripping his cock with every muscle you had. Your eyes roll back into your head, his mouth hanging wide open as he watches you come and writhe underneath him. He doesn’t let up on his pace, fucking you thoroughly through your second orgasm.

Your face was flushed and your jaw hung slack as you felt the waves of pleasure crash over you again and again, abdomen tensing up and letting go over and over. The look on his face could have easily made you come again, watching you intently as you shook with pleasure.

He moves his hand from your throbbing clit up to your face, cupping your cheek as he kissed you deeply, teeth grazing over your bottom lip. You felt your sweaty forehead press into his, eyes open and staring directly into his as he continued to pump inside of you.

“Tom,” you manage to say above a whisper, “fuck me harder, please, fuck, please.”

He leans back onto his knees, and with a swift motion, pulling out of you, he flips your leg over and places you on your stomach. Hands gripped tightly on your hips pulling them up slightly to meet his. He easily slips back into you, hitting a new spot inside you this time. You cry out into the mattress, moans silenced by his pillows. Your hands grasp tightly at the sheets, pushing back onto him as he takes you from behind.

One hand on your lower back and the other gripping at the flesh of your ass he fucked into you with incredible stamina and power. You couldn’t even imagine the fucked out expression on your face as he buried himself into you over and over.

You could feel his cock start to twitch and swell inside you, his thrusts becoming harder and more purposeful. With a final push, he presses hips flush to yours as he spills inside the condom

“Oh my god, y/n,” he groans out, rolling himself into you slowly as he continues to reach his peak. All you could do was press your ass back onto him and feel his warmth inside you.

After a few more profanities, he pulls out and discards the condom. He reaches down and helps you up, bringing your body to lay next to his, spooning you with an arm draped over your sweaty form.

You lean your head back onto his shoulder, looking back up at him through tired eyes.

“That,” you start to giggle, “was really fucking good.”

“Yeah,” he buries his face into your neck, taking in the smell of your hair, “I thought so too.”

He continued to hold you in his arms for a few minutes, allowing you both to relax into the post-sex bliss.

“I think… our tea is probably cold.”

You laugh at his comment and roll over to face him.

“Want me to make another pot? For real this time?” He asks, fingers still dancing up and down your skin.

“Sure,” you smile at him, “I’d like that.”

He gets up and throws his underwear back on, giving you a full view of his perfect body standing in front of you.

“You should pee and get cleaned up,” he suggests, “bathroom is just down the hall.”

You take a moment to stretch out and toss your shirt and underwear back on, making your way down the hall. You can hear him moving in the kitchen, and can’t help but replay the events of what just happened over and over in your head.

Slipping quietly out into the kitchen, you take your seat back on the stool, looking much more disheveled than you had when you sat on it earlier.

“You’re beautiful,” he says with unwavering confidence as he hands you another cup of tea. You blush at his comment and look down at the cup in your hands. You take a sip, letting the hot liquid coat your throat, dry and sore from moaning his name.

“Thank you,” you look up at him, “for the tea.”

“You’re welcome,” he laughs, “I very much like you, and would like to see you again. If you want.”

You smile and nod at him, happy that this wouldn’t be the last time you saw him. He rifled through a drawer, pulling out a pad of paper and scribbling his number down. He folds the paper in half and hands it to you over the counter.

After finishing your tea you get dressed and gather your things. He walks you to your car and kisses you before you open the door, lips lingering on yours.

“You’ll call me?” he asks, you assure him that you will.

“I’ll see you sometime soon,” you wave as he walks back to his building. You cant wipe the smile off your face the whole drive home, head on cloud nine. You twirl around as soon as you enter your apartment, dancing around to get rid of all your pent-up happy energy. You put your stuff down and go to get a glass of water, your cabinet creaking as you open it.

You didn’t want to seem desperate, but you immediately take out your phone, entering his number into your contacts. He had scrawled his name under the number with a little heart, making your smile spread wider across your face.

Hey, my cabinet door is squeaky: looking to hire a carpenter, know anyone good?

You hit send, hoping he thinks your message is funny and not desperate. Your stomach does a cartwheel as the three typing dots pop up.

Tom: I may know a guy… he can be over your place tomorrow at 6?

#tom holland smut #tom holland fanfic #tom holland fanfiction #smut #ask #request #tw:cheating

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blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years

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Treat Your S(h)elf: Imperial Boredom: Monotony and the British Empire by Jeffrey A. Auerbach (2018)

The British Empire has had a huge impact on the world in which we live. A brief look at an atlas from before World War One will show over hundred colonies that were then part of the Empire but now are part of or wholly sovereign states. Within these states much remains of the commercial, industrial, legal, political and cultural apparatus set up by the British. In many former colonial areas, political issues remain to be solved that had their genesis during the British era.

The legacy of the British has been varied and complex but in recent years much attention has been on making value judgements about whether the Empire was a good or bad thing. Of course the British Empire was built on the use of and the continual threat of state violence and there were appalling examples of the use of force. As well as the slave trade, there was the Amritsar Massacre in 1919, the 1831 Jamaican Christmas Uprising, the Boer War concentration camps (1899-1902) and the bloody response to the Indian Mutiny of 1857. However, we must not just focus on these events but examine the Empire in all of its complexities.

In the current moment of our times, it would seem that as a nation we are more concerned about beating ourselves up and making the nation feel guilty than understanding how and why the British came to exist, and setting the growth of the British Empire into historical context to be wise about the good, the bad, and the ugly. History has to be scrupulously honest if it’s not to fall prey to propaganda on either side of the extreme political spectrum.

Truth be told I find these questions about the British Empire being good or bad either boring or unhelpful. It doesn’t really bring us closer to the complexity and the reality of what the British Empire was and how it was really run and experienced by everyone.

For myself personally the British Empire was part of the fabric of our family history. The Far East, the Middle East and Africa figured prominently and at the centre of which - the jewel in the crown so to speak - was India. In my wider family clan I’ve come to learn about - through handed down family tales, personal diaries, private papers, and photos etc - the diverse experiences of what certain eccentric characters got up to and they ranged from missionaries in India and Africa to military men strewn across the Empire, from titans of commerce in the Far East to tea farmers in East Africa, from senior colonial civil servants in Delhi to soldier-spies on the North West Frontier (now northern Pakistan).

My own experience of being raised in India, Pakistan as well as parts of the Far East was an adventure before being carted off to boarding school back in Britain and then fortunate in later life to be able to travel forth to these memorable childhood places because of the nature of my work. Having learned the local languages and respectful of customs I have always loved to travel and explore deeper into these profound non-Western cultures. Despite the shadow of the empire of the past I am always received with such down to earth kindness and we share a good laugh. So I always assumed that the British Empire played a central role in the life of Britain has it had in our family history just because it was there. But historians are more concerned with much more interesting questions that challenge our assumptions.

So when I was at university it was a great surprise to me to first read a fascinating history of the British Empire by Bernard Porter called ‘The Absent Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society and Culture in Britain’ (2004). Porter was, in his own words, “mainly a response to certain scholars (and some others) who, I felt, had hitherto simplified and exaggerated the impact of ‘imperialism’ on Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, after years in which, except by empire specialists like myself, it had been rather ignored and underplayed. […] the main argument of the book was this: that the ordinary Briton’s relationship to the Empire in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was complex and ambivalent, less soaked in or affected by imperialism than these other scholars claimed – to the extent that many English people, at any rate, possibly even a majority, were almost entirely ignorant of it for most of the nineteenth century.” It became a controversial book but a welcome one because it was well researched and no doubt made some imperial historians choke on their tea dipped biscuits (and that’s not even counting the historically illiterate post-colonial studies crowd in their English faculties who often got their knickers in a twist).

Years later I read another fascinating collection of scholarly chapters by different historians called ‘Anxieties, Fears, and Panic in Colonial Settings: Empires on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown’ (2016) edited Harald Fischer-Tiné which challenged a rosy vision of Britain’s imperial past by tracing British imperial emotions: the feelings of fear, anxiety, and panic that gripped many Britons as they moved to foreign lands. To be fair both Robert Peckham’s Empires of Panic: Epidemics and Colonial Anxieties (2015) got there before him but Tiné’s history set the trend for others to follow such as Marc Condos’s The Insecurity State: Punjab and the Making of Colonial Power in British India (2018) and Kim Wagner’s Amritsar 1919: An Empire of Fear and the Making of a Massacre (2019).

They all set out their stall by highlighting the sense of vulnerability felt by the British in the colonies. Fisher-Tiné’s edited book in particular highlights the pervasiveness of feelings of fear, anxiety, and panic in many colonial sites. He acknowledges that: “the history of colonial empires has been shaped to a considerable extent by negative emotions such as anxiety, fear and embarrassment, as well as by the regular occurrence of panics.”

The book suggests that these excessive emotional states were triggered by three main causes. First, the European population in British India was heavily dependent on Indian servants and subordinates who might retaliate against unfair masters or whose access to European dwellings could be used by malevolent others to poison the white elite. Second, anxieties about the assumed toxic effects of the Indian climate fuelled also poisoning panics. Diseases such as malaria and cholera were considered to be the ultimate outcome of an “atmospheric poison”. Third, Indian therapeutics and the system of medicine were also identified as a potential cause of poisoning European communities. These poisoning panics only helped reinforce the racial categorisations of Indians, the moral supremacy of the white population, and the legitimacy of colonial rule. Overall the book expanded the understanding of how a sense of fragility rather than strength shaped colonial policies.

Now comes another noteworthy book which again sound a little quirky but is no less meticulous in its research and judicious in its observations. Many books about the British Empire focus on what happened; this book concentrates on how people felt. When I was first given it I was predisposed to be negative because here was a book about ‘feelings’ - the current disease of our decaying western culture. But I was pleasantly surprised.

Was the British Empire boring? So asks Jeffrey Auerbach in his irreverent tome, ‘Imperial Boredom: Monotony and the British Empire’ (2018).

It’s an unexpected question, largely because imperial culture was so conspicuously saturated with a sense of adventure. The exploits of explorers, soldiers and proconsuls – dramatised in Boys’ Own-style narratives – captured the imagination of contemporaries and coloured views of Empire for a long time after its end. Even latter-day historians committed to Marxist or postcolonial critiques of Empire tend to assume that the imperialists themselves mostly had a good time. Along with material opportunities for upward mobility, Empire offered what the Pan-Africanist W.E.B. DuBois called ‘the wages of whiteness’ – the psychological satisfactions of membership in a privileged caste – and an escape from the tedium of everyday life in a crowded, urbanised, ever less picturesque Britain.

The British Empire has been firmly tied to myth, adventure, and victory. For many Britons, “the empire was the mythic landscape of romance and adventure. It was that quarter of the globe that was coloured and included darkest Africa and the mysterious East.” Cultural artifacts such as music, films, cigarette cards, and fiction have long constructed and reflected this rosy vision of the empire as a place of adventure and excitement.

Against this widely held view of the empire, As Auerbach argues here, however, the idea of Empire-as-adventure-story is a misleading one. For contemporaries, the promise of exotic thrills in distant lands built up expectations which inevitably collided with reality.

In a well-researched and enjoyable book, the author argues “that despite the many and famous tales of glory and adventure, a significant and overlooked feature of the nineteenth-century British imperial experience was boredom and disappointment.” In other words, instead of focusing on the exploits of imperial luminaries such as Walter Raleigh, James Cook, Robert Clive, David Livingstone, Cecil Rhodes and others, Auerbach says pay attention to the moments when many travellers, colonial officers, governors, soldiers, and settlers who were gripped by an intense sense of boredom in India, Australia, and southern Africa.

For historians, the challenge is to look past the artifice of texts which conceal and compensate for long stretches of boredom to unravel the truth. Turning away from published memoirs and famous images, therefore, Auerbach trains his eye on the rough drafts of imperial culture: letters, diaries, drawings. He finds that Britons’ quests for novelty, variety and sensory delight in the embrace of 19th-century Empire very often ended in tears. Indeed Auerbach identifies an overwhelming emotion that filled the psyche of many Britons as they moved to new lands: imperial boredom.

Precision in language and terminology is essential and Auerbach begins by setting out what he means by boredom. Adopting Patricia Meyer Spacks’ approach, he points out that the term first came into use in the mid-18th century. Auerbach identifies then the feeling as a “modern construct” closely associated with the mid-18th century where the spread of industrial capitalism and the Enlightenment emphasis on individual rights and happiness that the concept came to the fore. This does not mean that nobody previously suffered from boredom, but that, with the Enlightenment’s emphasis on the individual, this was when the feeling first became conceptualised. Like Spacks, he distinguishes boredom from 19th-century ‘ennui’ or existential world-weariness and also from monotony, which has a much longer history. Whilst a monotonous activity or experience may generate a feeling of boredom, it will not necessarily do so. The two terms must, therefore, not be equated.

Significantly, in a footnote, Auerbach cites a passage from 19th Century English satirical novelist, Fanny Burney, in which an individual is described as ‘monotonous and tiresome’ but, as he emphasises, ‘not boring’. To prevent confusion, the term ‘boring’ is best avoided when describing an activity or experience because this is to beg the question as to whether it does in fact generate feelings of boredom in a particular person.

How then should this state of mind be assessed and what should be seen as the symptoms of imperial boredom? As Auerbach acknowledges, boredom ‘is not a simple emotion, but rather a complex constellation of reactions’. Building on that approach, he says ‘imperial boredom’ reflected ‘a sense of dissatisfaction and disenchantment with the immediate and the particular, and at times with the enterprise of empire more broadly’. If this tends to mix cause and effect, the idea of dissatisfaction and disenchantment essentially mirrors Spacks’ definition of the symptoms of boredom, namely, ‘the incapacity to engage fully: with people, with action, with one’s own ideas’. ‘Imperial boredom’, therefore, was more than a fleeting moment of irritation with a particular situation or person and reflected a mind-set that derived from, and in turn, further contributed to, a sense of disillusionment with the overall project.

It stemmed, so Auerbach argues, from the marked contrast between how empire was represented and how it turned out to be, between ‘the fantasy and the reality’. ‘Empire was constructed as a place of adventure, excitement and picturesque beauty’ but too often lacked these features. Nowhere is this better described than in George Orwell’s Burmese Days, in which the promising young John Flory has become ‘yellow, thin, drunken almost middle-aged’. Beginning with this illustration, Auerbach argues that historians have too often overlooked this essential aspect of empire and sets out to discover the extent to which it was characteristic of what Flory called the ‘Pox Britannica’ more generally.

During the 17th century the British Empire sustained itself on the story that the colonial experience was both righteous and unbelievably exciting. Sea voyages were difficult, and when one eventually did reach landfall there was a good chance of violence, but the exotic foreign cultures, the landscapes, and the wildlife made the trip worthwhile. The British colonialist was meant to be swashbuckling. Advertisements for even the most banal household goods offered colourful and robust propaganda for life in the colonies. Travelogues and illustrated accounts of colonial exploration were wildly lucrative for London publishing houses. All of this attracted a crowd of young Brits eager to escape the drudgery of life in the metropole.

By the 19th century, expectations were catching up. As Auerbach makes it clear, from the beginning, the sense of boredom experienced by many Britons in new colonial settings was much more profound during the nineteenth century. Indeed, the latter was marked by a series of bewildering social, cultural, and technological changes that stripped the empire of its sense of novelty. The development of new means of transport such as steamships, the rise of tourism, and the proliferation of guidebooks jeopardised the sense of risk, newness, enthusiasm that had long been associated with the British imperial experience. Consequently, while “the early empire may have been about wonder and marvel, the nineteenth century was far less exciting and satisfying project.

Auerbach spent 20 years gathering evidence spanning the late 18th century to the turn of the 20th, which records feelings of being bored, miserable and deflated. It’s a captivating history of imperial tedium drawn from memoirs, diaries, private letters and official correspondence. In “reading against the grain”, as Auerbach puts it, he has focused on recorded events normally skimmed over by historians, precisely for being boring – multiple entries repeated over and over again about the weather, train times, shipping forecasts, deliveries, lists and marching; or about nothing ever happening.

In five thematic chapters, “Voyages”, Landscapes,” Governors,” Soldiers”, and “Settlers,” Auerbach shines new light on the experience of traversing, viewing, governing, defending and settling the empire from the mid-eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. The monotonous nature of the sea voyage, dreary and uninteresting imperial lands, daily routine, depressingly dull dispatches, mind-numbing meetings are some of the sources of an utter sense of imperial boredom.

Whilst the first chapter, Voyages, may be the logical starting-point, it presents particular problems. They may have been monotonous, but it is unlikely that they would have engendered feelings of disenchantment and disillusion at the outset of an empire life or career. Auerbach begins with the somewhat surprising assertion that ‘not until the first half of the 19th century did long-distance ocean travel become truly monotonous’, arguing that this was because, until then, the weather had been ‘a source of danger and discomfort’ whereas, by the mid-19th century, ‘it was barely worth mentioning’. Leaving aside the obvious difficulties with that approach – many 19th-century travellers, assuming they survived, described enduring terrifying typhoons in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea – voyages certainly could be monotonous, particularly, when steam replaced sail.

However, his assertion that this ‘helped to produce feelings of boredom that had never been felt before’ is more questionable. For example, whilst Sir Edmund Fremantle (1836–1929) wrote in his memoirs that, although the sea passages were ‘monotonous’, ‘it never occurred to [him] to be bored’, Auerbach suggests that, ‘in several places his memories [sic] belie his claims’, in that they refer to the ‘the monotony’ of various experiences, including cruising out of harbour under steam rather than under sail, which ‘always possessed some interest’. But, this not only contradicts what Fremantle wrote but also equates boredom with monotony and, thus, deprives it of any proper meaning.

Similarly, because the Royal Naval Surgeon, Edward Cree (1814–1901) recorded his passing the time ‘reading, drawing, walking on deck, eating drinking and sleeping’, Auerbach concludes that ‘almost every leg of his 1839 journey to the East was boring or disappointing’. However, he omits the opening words of this journal entry which reads, ‘making but slow progress towards China. Weather intolerably hot … The time passes pleasantly enough on board’, which suggests he was certainly not bored. Much of this chapter is not concerned with monotony but with how ‘dreadful’ sea voyages could be, particularly, for travellers to Australia, most of all transported convicts, who, as he shows, had to endure the most brutal conditions. But they had no expectations of empire and this seems to add little to the understanding of imperial boredom.

It may well be that, because voyages were so unpleasant, travellers became all the more expectant and thus disappointed, when, on arriving, they found, as Auerbach argues in the next chapter, that much of the landscape was dreary and uninteresting. Moreover, many could not decide whether they were in search of a landscape that was picturesque and exotic or ‘normalised’ by reproducing English architecture, gardens and surroundings. This dichotomy generated further disenchantment.

If Auerbach dwells too long on obscure painters who often had little success in making these imperial landscapes picturesque, there is no doubt that many of them were monotonous, not least the vast tracts of Australian out- back. Consequently, whilst ‘the early empire may have been about wonder and marvel, the 19th century was a far less exciting and satisfying project’ and this contributed to feelings of boredom.

In the chapter, ‘Governors’, Auerbach essentially covers the administration of the empire. Here, there was also a lot of monotony, although Auerbach wavers between whether this was caused by having too much or too little work to do. Either way, it leads to the assertion that ‘throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, British imperial administrators at all levels were bored by their experience, serving king or queen and country’. However, this is qualified in the next paragraph, in which he cites the Marquess of Hastings, who served in India in the early 1800s, and Lord Curzon, who served as Viceroy at the end of the century, neither of whom, he says, suffered from boredom. It was ‘during the middle decades, that imperial service was far less stimulating’ but he does not explain why it should have been limited to this particular phase.

Indeed, in terms of the staggering quantity of paper generated by the ICS, the problem stretched back to the early 18th century. Records were copied and recopied, and months were spent waiting on instruction from London. The few encounters with colonised subjects came in the form of long, drawn-out formal events. Lord Lytton as Viceroy of India between 1876-1880 was required to bow 1230 times during one particularly ceremonial reception with the Viceroy.

Whilst it is ultimately fruitless to exchange examples of officials who did and did not find government service boring, some of those chosen by Auerbach are not convincing. James Pope Hennessy, for example, the eccentric Irishman who delighted in antagonising the colonials and endearing himself to the indigenous people with his unconventional views on racial equality, certainly found the European life-style monotonous but, as a result, made sure he kept ceaselessly active. In the words of his biographer, ‘the chief impression [he] made on British and Orientals alike was one of superlative vitality. “He would do better”, wrote Sir Harry Parkes “if he had less life”’, Coming from Parkes, that arch- imperialist, who allegedly died from over-work and could never have been bored, the comment is telling.

While idleness certainly contributed to boredom, it was often the labour of maintaining colonial control that proved to be the most dull. Increasingly professionalised, the management of the colonies became characterised by strict report-making, bookkeeping and low-stakes decision-making related to staff. Whilst these officials may have become disenchanted, it is unclear what sort of mind-set they had when they started out: according to Auerbach, ‘they may well have entered imperial service out of a sense of duty, or perhaps looking forward to a colonial sinecure that offered status and adventure as well as a generous salary, but instead found themselves inundated by a volume of paperwork and official obligations that they had never anticipated, and which they found to be, quite frankly boring’. As a result, they were ‘eager to escape the tedium of the empire they had built’.

Whilst this suggests that, as a result, they threw up their empire careers, the example of Sir Frank Swettenham does not seem to fit the picture. He may have found life from time to time ‘extraordinarily dull’, but he continued as a government official in the Malay States for thirty years, before retiring in 1901. His belief in the imperial cause seems to have overcome the dullness and trumped any possible disenchantment.

In the chapter entitled, Soldiers, Auerbach concedes that ‘the link between military service and boredom can be traced at least to the mid-eighteenth century’. However, he argues, what was different in the 19th century was that boredom was no longer simply ‘incidental or ‘peripheral;’ it was ‘omnipresent’ and this was ‘a function of unmet expectations’, namely, the unsatisfied thirst for action and bloody combat as the ‘small wars’ of the Victorian age became shorter and fewer. However, citing Maeland and Brunstad’s Enduring Military Boredom, he concedes that this omnipresent boredom is a ‘condition that persists to the present day, especially among enlisted men’. This, therefore, divests it of any imperial character and suggests that it was, and remains a feature of modern military service.

Nonetheless, it would have been interesting to know how this boredom affected the performance of the military in the context of empire. Certainly, it gave rise to some of its more unsavoury aspects, with drunken soldiers brawling and beating up the locals and spending much of their time in the local brothels.

According to Richard Holmes, by 1899, there was ‘a real crisis’ in the infection rates of venereal disease of British soldiers in the Indian Army: ‘for every genteel bungalow on the cantonment … there were a dozen young men, denizens of a wholly different world, crossing the cultural divide every night’. Here was imperial boredom in the raw and urgent measures had to be taken to abate its consequences.

Although the final chapter is entitled ‘Settlers’, it encompasses a much broader category of imperial agents, including women, who until this point have been little- mentioned, and, in particular, women in India ‘most of whom went there in their early twenties to work (or to accompany their husbands who were working) and then typically left by the time they reached their fifties to retire in Britain’. It is unclear why these women and, indeed the whole topic of women in empire, should be subsumed under this chapter heading, given their importance in the empire project and the attention given to them in post-colonial scholarship.

In recent scholarship, empire white women have been frequently misrepresented and lampooned in the literature, including the novels of E. M. Forster, George Orwell, and Paul Scott and all too often reincarnated as representing the worst side of the ruling group – its racism, petty snobbishness and pervading aura of superiority and shown as shallow, self-centred and pre-occupied with maintaining the hierarchy of their narrow social worlds. They have invariably been portrayed as both bored and boring.

The wives of these officials were encouraged to run their households in a similar way, managing a large domestic staff and keeping a meticulous watch on financial expenditures. Socially, they were faced with constant garden parties and dinners with whatever small group of colonial families lived nearby. It’s difficult to imagine just how dull the existence of these administrators must have been, yet in reading these colonial accounts, the temporality and the totalising effects of boredom feel undeniably similar to the way that we describe the monotony of work today.

Auerbach effectively reiterates the trope as a clichéd illustration of a female, reclining aimlessly on a chaise longue, conjuring up the familiar image of ‘the same women [who] met day after day to eat the same meals and exchange the same banal pleasantries’ and concluding that ‘it was not only in India that women were bored, which suggests that the phenomenon was not a localised one, but a broader imperial one’.

Of course many western women did find life in empire monotonous and suffered from boredom, if not depression, and no doubt many were insufferable, as were their husbands, but there is an alternative image and the analysis is so generalised that their contribution is, once again, in danger of being dismissed out of hand.

A more nuanced approach would have examined ways in which women overcame their boredom by pursuing activities in which they were anything but bored, including, most obviously, the missions, a category which, despite its importance, does not feature, save for one cursory comment to the effect that, ‘even missionary women, whose sense of purpose presumably kept them inspired, could find themselves bored’. The example given is that of Elizabeth Lees Price, who, at one point during her eventful life, had to help run three schools for 30,000 pupils. But, just because her diary recorded ‘with increasing frequency’ the comment ‘nothing has happened’, it seems a stretch to infer, as Auerbach does, that ‘not even missionary work was enough to stave off the boredom that afflicted women all across the empire’.

For Auerbach, recuperating boredom means reframing the experience of empire as one of failure and disappointment. In the context of colonial scholarship, which tends to focus on the violence of colonialism and the myth-making that went along with it, Auerbach’s book is rather counter-intuitive. He drains the power of these myths, looking instead at the accounts of those responsible for building empire from the ground up: “What if they were not heroes or villains, builders or destroyers,” he writes, “but merely unexceptional men and women, young and old, rich and poor, struggling, often without success, to find happiness and economic security in an increasingly alienating world?” The agents of colonialism struggled to find any semblance of agency in the work that they were doing. Imperial time stretched out, deadened over decades of appointment in far off islands and desert outposts: a sort of watered down version of Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil” in paradise.

Whilst Auerbach demonstrates that much of empire life was monotonous, to my mind, he is too quick to infer that this monotony necessarily gave rise to feelings of ‘imperial boredom’, properly so-called. He also too easily assumes that, where people were bored, this could only operate in a negative way and, whilst he may be right in concluding that, ultimately, ‘the British were, quite simply bored by their empire’, he fails to draw the evidence together to explore what impact imperial boredom had on the development of empire, for better or worse, during the long 19th century.

If not quite an invention of the 19th century, boredom was a particular preoccupation of the period: the product of new assumptions about the separation of work and leisure and a prominent theme of fin-de-siècle literature. Less clear is whether Auerbach is right to treat boredom separately from other emotional states – anxiety, loneliness, anger, fear – which afflicted the imperialist psyche. After all, a long literary tradition – from Conrad to Maugham, Orwell, Lessing and Greene – describes precisely how those varied shades of neurosis blended into one another.

Besides, a more capacious history of discontent and Empire might help to connect the frustrations of the imperialist experience to the suffering of imperial subjects. When, for instance, did boredom turn to aggression and violence? One danger of Auerbach’s approach in Imperial Boredom is to portray an enervated and under-stimulated, yet still extraordinarily powerful, elite as more or less passive.

As imperial rivalry intensified towards the end of the century, so did the quest for new ways of staving off boredom, not only for men in the British Empire but also for those in the other European empires, and war was one of the most obvious solutions.

As other imperial historians have argued, what Europeans were seeking was everything the nineteenth century, in its drawn-out tedium, had denied them. War as Cambridge historian Christopher Clark has argued, “was going to empower them and restore a sense of agency to their limbs and lives.” Auerbach refers to what Clark called ‘the pleasure culture of war’, citing the example of Adrian de Wiart who, serving in the Boer War, knew ‘once and for all, that war was in my blood. I was determined to fight and I didn’t mind who or what’. But he does not explore the consequences of this mood further, other than to say that these adventurers also ‘ended up bored … and disillusioned’. But, the implications were, arguably, much more far-reaching.

Even if it was not directly causative, this mood was ‘permissive’ of the more direct causes and certainly formed part of the background against which Europe went to war in 1914. It may be thought that it did so in a fit of imperial boredom.

I admire the audacity of Auerbach’s writing and as a revisionist piece of history it has the dash and dare of British imperialism and colonialism. But after reading the book I came away thinking that sweeping statements such as that the empire developed “in a fit of boredom” are a tad unconvincing.

Although he spent about 20 years collecting materials, Auerbach seems not to have visited Africa or India during his research. Had he done so, I doubt if he would all too easily accepted that colonial accounts of being bored represented the full experience. Absent are deeper discussions of how expressions of being bored are linked to racism, arrogance and the need to assert power in exotic, challenging and unstable environments. Emotional detachment, disdain and a demand to be entertained were also part of a well-rehearsed repertoire of domination.

But where Auerbach does succeed is in admirably capturing the texture of everyday imperialist life as few historians have. Most of these examples are compellingly relevant and illustrative of some of the colonial circumstances that drove Britons mad with boredom, challenging one of the enduring myths about the British Empire as a site of exciting adventure.

If you are a lover of histories of white imperial rulers and thumbnail portraits, this book is for you. It’s full of excellent quotes. Lord Lytton, for example, fourth choice to be governor-general of India in 1875 (and appalled by the prospect), later summed up the British Raj as “a despotism of office-boxes tempered by the occasional loss of keys”. It was certainly the case that propaganda about empire and the populist books written about it to make money created false expectations, leading to bitter disillusionment. Nostalgists for the age of pith helmets and pukka sahibs will find little comfort here.

In mining the gap between public bombast and private disillusionment, Auerbach demonstrates that – even for its most privileged beneficiaries – Empire was almost never a place where fantasy became reality. I would suggest that rather than the British Empire being mostly boring, more accurate would be David Livingstone’s verdict on exploratory travel while battling dysentery: “it’s not all fun you know.”

The concept of imperial boredom provides a novel and illuminating lens through which to examine the mind-set of men and women working and living in empire, how it was that, despite the crushing monotony, so many persisted in the endeavour and what this tells us about the empire project more generally. There are all states of mind familiar to historians of empire (in the lives of their subjects, of course). It has long been argued that strategies to relieve moments of white boredom in the empire included cheating and adultery, husband hunting, trophy wife hunting, massive consumption of alcohol, gambling, copious diary and letter writing, taxidermy, berating the servants, prostitution, bird-watching, game hunting, high tea on the verandah, fine pearls and ball gowns, all were par for course in the every day lives for those bored British colonisers.

Auerbach’s book reminds me of a not so nice female character bemoans James Fox’s scandalous but true to life colonial novel White Mischief (1982), as she looked out over the Rift Valley in 1940s colonial Kenya, she declares, “Oh God! Not another fucking beautiful day.”

An earnest post-colonialist studies reader might might feel triggered by such a flippant remark as evidence of all that was wrong with the imperial project but at heart it’s a pitiful lament disguised as boredom at the gilded cage the British built for themselves to capture the enchantment and disenchantment of every day life in the British Empire.

#treat your s(h)elf #books #book review #bookgasm #reading #imperialism #british empire #boredom #british #history #colonialism #imperial boredom #jeffrey auerbach #empire #personal #bio #childhood

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legacyridley · 3 years

Text

— LYING IS THE MOST FUN A GIRL CAN HAVE WITHOUT TAKING HER CLOTHES OFF (BUT IT’S BETTER IF YOU DO!)

“I CAN’T RECALL a single amazing thing i have seen first-hand that i didn't immediately reference to a movie or tv show. a fucking commercial. you know the awful singsong of the blasé: seeeen it. i've literally seen it all, and the worst thing, the thing that makes me want to blow my brains out, is: the secondhand experience is always better. the image is crisper, the view is keener, the camera angle and the soundtrack manipulate my emotions in a way reality can't anymore.”

— gillian flynn , gone girl

ooc —

hi there ! i’m shannon, i’m non-binary, my pronouns are she/they and i’m from the united kingdom. you can just call me the ceo of the unhinged rosamund pike cinematic universe, though. or keira knightley’s bitch, because i am, even if i decided against bringing her this time ( still might later ! ) i love morally corrupt women, i’d give my life for them, if one couldn’t tell by . . . uh. frankie.

application —

[ rosamund pike | 40 | she/her | cis woman ] if it isn’t FRANCESCA RIDLEY ! you know, FRANKIE ! they’ve lived in monarda for TWO MONTHS. some people say that they’re CONSCIENTIOUS & CHARMING, but that they can also be PRIVILEGED & AVARICIOUS. last i heard, they were working FREELANCE as a BUSINESSWOMAN ! i’ve also heard the rumor that they’re a WITCH. if you’d ask me, they remind me of BEING BORN WITH THE METALLIC TANG OF A SILVER SPOON IN YOUR MOUTH ( JUST LIKE THE TASTE OF YOUR OLD-MONEY BLOOD ), “MANEATER” BY NELLY FURTADO PLAYING, SLIGHTLY MUFFLED, FROM INSIDE YOUR CAR, LIKE MUSIC FROM A PARTY BATHROOM, & THE NOTION OF A NEW SELF YOU’LL FIND BY THE SHORE ( BUT HOW’S THAT WORKING OUT FOR YOU, HONEY? DO YOU FEEL LOVED? ) ! i wonder what monarda’s got in store for them today!

BASICS —

NAME: francesca legacy ridley ( yes, really. )

AGE: forty ( b. 28 january, 1981 — knightsbridge, london, united kingdom. )

NICKNAMES: frankie , and frankie only.

GENDER: cis female.

ORIENTATIONS: bisexual / biromantic.

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: divorced & single.

NATIONALITY: british-american ( dual. )

ETHNICITY: white ( english. )

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: english, french, german.

OCCUPATION: social media mogul & socialite. ex-sunglasses model.

EDUCATION: institut le rosey & magdalen college, oxford.

PERSONALITY —

ASTROLOGICAL BIG THREE: aquarius sun, scorpio moon, scorpio rising.

MBTI TYPE: entj-a. ( the commander. )

HOGWARTS HOUSE: slytherin ( ravenclaw hatstall. )

ENNEAGRAM TYPE: eight with a seven wing ( the maverick. )

THEME SONG: maneater by nelly furtado.

FAVOURITE SONG: lay all your love on me by abba.

FAVOURITE ALBUM: super trouper by abba (1980)

PET PEEVES: people who don’t say ‘thank you’ when you open the door. back-seat drivers. chewing too loudly. tea that’s too milky. cambridge graduates.

PHOBIAS: trypophobia. hemophobia ( blood ). arachnophobia. coulrophobia ( clowns. )

GUILTY PLEASURES: radio-friendly pop music. sunglasses, still. netflix-binge style sitcoms. kate winslet movies. true crime documentaries. st trinian’s (2007) dir. oliver parker.

ABOUT —

she’s deeply charming but also . . . it’s mostly theatre. ridleys know how to put on a show. ridleys know how to make friends. so meet frankie: #1 flirt, #1 liar, and perfectionist to the nth degree.

oxford graduate from a family of oxford graduates ; if you don’t get what that means for a person, substitute oxford with harvard and you might just about be getting there, right down to the annoying person — the sort of humdrum regular who grinds on francesca’s gears — who says ‘ oh, you went to harvard? say something smart! ’ growing up in a house in london that looks like it is out of a fairytale ( would be, if the city and all its bustle and noise weren’t on the doorstep ) is about as sweet as it sounds, and who could blame one for getting a touch . . . jealous ? well, other than frankie, a product of a private school in switzerland, an oxford college, and a trust fund, who could judge someone for breathing incorrectly, and says things such as ‘ jealousy is a disease, get well soon. ’

HOW DID SHE GET TO HER CURRENT POSITION ? . . .other than her parents’ money and a wealth of connections? well, frankie quickly came to understand something; that every time the older generations catch up to a social media platform, there’s a sudden vacuum as the younger generation work out where to go. and where the audience go is where the influence is, which gains you more connections, more wealth, more influence in places people would never even think to look. do you ever think about what information leaves your hands, and where, when you agree to the terms and conditions? you probably should.

[ NOTE : when i imagine the platform, it’s something fairly twitter-esque, but without the people who use long hashtags and can’t figure out how it works. and more . . . aesthetic, somehow. like pinterest-level aesthetics. i’ll be working it out over time, but i’ve named it spectrum. yes, it’s named after the florence & the machine song, please don’t judge me. it started off as a university project á la the social network ( brilliant bloody movie ) that went onto a massive scale & became trendy and addictive. imagine if mark zuckerberg was a cool, bisexual, female ex-sunglasses model who once married the heir to grovesnor group, made him sign a considerable prenup and then divorced him when he cheated ( there was some full diana revenge dress content ) fifteen years ago, just before her old university idea went mainstream. he regrets it now, doesn’t he ? ]

imagine the kind of assholes who would give their child ‘ legacy ’ as a middle name to remind her of the constant pressure on her shoulders ? welcome to the ridleys, london-born mother & father to francesca ( golden child, with more issues than meets the eye, actually as much of a party girl as her sister but successful ) and roman ( motorbike-obsessed disgrace. ) they’re one of the oldest witch families out there, but — up until frankie & roman — they’ve been able to keep it quiet for their own benefit.

so what does frankie DO with her magic? she always says she specialises in the tempting, though the addictive is perhaps more apt. want to feel so excited about something you’ll never be bored again? want the best trip of your life? frankie’s your gal. and does it have anything to do with how influential spectrum became & how much of an addictive presence she can be? . . . well, that’s for her to know & no one to find out.

AND NOW, THE FINAL QUESTION: why the fuck is london’s premier rich bitch in where she’d consider nowhere, maine ? well, she’s on sort of a self-recreation trip right now. think about tahani in the good place when she tries to step out of the spotlight without actually doing it, except she’s thinking the sea air will cleanse her of a slight... unease coming with the approaching mid-life crisis and having to dye her greys out.

but now she’s in a smaller place than sprawling london, living in that house you look at and think ‘fuck, i’d kill for that view,’ having to associate with people properly rather than being almost a concept of a person . . . what if people tear aside the mask and discover the serpentine nature and the moral rot that lies behind it ?

credits —

template !

#monardaintro #— nothing good starts in a getaway car ( INTRO. )

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ibelieveinharrystyles · 4 years

Text

Chapter Five: Daisy Darling

Forever? Masterlist

Ashley wasn’t keen on the sticky and sweaty British summer, and it wasn’t much easier being thirty four weeks pregnant. Her regular scans had shown that the baby was developing at a more regular rate, she was still smaller than average, but she was a healthier size now. Ashley only had three weeks left at work before her maternity leave started, she was pretty much prepared, Harry had helped her put the cot together before he left for filming in France, which was an absolute relief. She was spending her Tuesday morning the way she did every week, eating her way through a packet of biscuits, with the help of Toby and Roman when he walked past her desk of course. “Ro! please save me from myself, finish these biscuits off please! I beg you!” Ashley called across the office as she noticed Roman leaving the studio.

He made his way over to her desk, “Okay if you insist,” He took the biscuits from her, and began munching on one, “Do you fancy a brew?”

“Alright then, I’ll come with you actually.” She stood up from her desk and waddled over to the small office kitchen.

As she leant against the counter in the kitchen Ashley felt a sharp pain in her stomach, she winced gripping onto the counter. “You alright?” Roman asked, pouring milk into their mugs.

“Yeah it’s probably just braxton hicks,” she assured him, but then she felt a pop, that told her these weren’t just braxton hicks, “Oh shit Ro, I think the baby’s coming.”

“Oh God, what do you want me to do? Shall I call Harry?” He flustered, dropping the teaspoon on the floor in panic.

“No, he’s in France filming, it’ll only worry him,” she whispered, breathing through the pain, “My phones on my desk, I need you to call Gemma and tell her to meet me at St Thomas hospital, and ask if she can get my hospital bag on the way.” Roman ran off to her desk trying to find her phone and gather her things, she started panicking remembering that the doctors said it was extremely important for her to get as close to full term as possible. She began to tear up thinking about how Harry wouldn’t be there, they both knew there was a chance he wouldn’t be there, but he was meant to be on a filming break in the week of her due date, but this wasn’t what either of them had expected, “I’ve got your stuff, I’m going to drive you, I don’t want you getting a cab by yourself, Gemma’s going to meet us at the hospital.”

The journey to the hospital felt like a lifetime, as Roman pulled into the drop off point, she saw Gemma waiting armed with a wheelchair and her baby bag. Roman jumped out the car, helping Ashley out of the car and into the wheelchair, he exchanged thank yous with Gemma, wished Ashley well and left the two of them to find their way to maternity. “I’m scared Gem,” Ashley whispered to her.

“Hey, we’re going to be strong together aren’t we? We’re going to get through this, us three girls.” Gemma assured her as she wheeled her into maternity.

“You two alright there?” A passing midwife asked.

“Her waters have broken, she’s thirty four weeks, she was at work when it happened so this isn’t the hospital she’d usually be at, that’s alright isn’t it?” Gemma replied on Ashley’s behalf.

“That should be absolutely fine, we’ll have someone send your notes over, right let’s get this show on the road.”

Ashley has been changed into a gown and was now lying on a hospital bed, waiting for the midwife whilst she breathed through her next contraction. “Hello, I’m Dr Stevenson, I’ve been sent your notes from your usual hospital and I’m aware the baby is a little smaller than we’d like.” the Doctor explained as she entered the room, “I've spoken to Maggie the midwife who checked you over and she said baby is breech, meaning she’s foot first, and due to her size we think it’s best to do an emergency cesarean section, we don’t want to put her through the stress of natural labour.”

“Is she going to be okay?” Ashley asked.

“Trust me, this is the best thing for both of you to keep you both safe, the nurses will be along soon to prep you for theatre.” Dr Stevenson explained before leaving her be.

“It’s happening Gem, it’s really happening, she sighed.

“Do you want me to call Harry?” Gemma asked.

“No, I’ll tell him when she’s here.”

Ashley lay on the operating table, Gemma sat beside her, wearing scrubs as she stroked her hand through Ashley’s hair. The surgeon had made the first incision and was doing her very best to keep the baby safe. “Not long now Ashley, we’ll have her out soon.” Dr Stevenson assured her, “She’s here, we’ve got her.” Dr Stevenson held up the tiny baby, cutting the umbilical cord and taking her over to the side.

“She’s not crying, she’s meant to be crying, what’s going on?” Ashley cried, her voice wavering with anxiety.

“Sometimes the little ones need a helping hand, Dr Stevenson’s just warming her up.” A nurse explained.

“Come on love, stay strong.” Gemma whispered, stroking Ashley’s hair, the painful silence was interrupted by the baby’s high pitched scream, “She’s okay Ash, she’s a fighter.”

“Is she alright?” Ashley asked Dr Stevenson.

“We’re going to take her to ICU, to minimise risk of infection, and make sure she’s stable, the surgeon will stitch you up and then you can come down and see her.”

It had reached the early hours of the evening, golden sun was streaming through the windows of the hospital, Ashley lay in bed, the majority of the anesthetic had worn off now. “How are you feeling?” a new midwife asked, checking Ashley’s notes.

“Good, thank you.” Ashley replied.

“If you’d like to I can take you to see your baby.”

“Yes please.” with the help of the midwife and Gemma she got into the wheelchair successfully as they took her down to the intensive care unit.

“Here’s your little lady, I’m afraid you can’t hold her yet, but you can put your hands in and she’ll clasp onto your finger, “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Hello beautiful, did it get too boring in there petal?” Ashley reached her hand inside the incubator, letting her baby hold onto her finger, “We’re going to have to give you a name little lady, how does Daisy sound? I think it suits you perfectly. It’s a scary world out there Daisy darling, but we’ll get through it together.”

Gemma entered the room, armed with cups of tea, “She’s perfect Ash, you did so well in there.” Gemma whispered, handing Ashley a cup of tea.

“Thank you for sticking with me through all of it. If you need to get home I’ll understand, I think I owe Harry a call.” Ashley told her.

“Alright then, I’ll see you soon, if you need anything, let me know.” Gemma replied before quietly leaving the NICU room.

Ashley pulled her phone from the pocket of her dressing gown, dialling Harry’s number, who picked up almost instantly, “Hello movie star, how are you?”

“I’m good, it’s been busy today, I’m back at the hotel now, how about you?” he replied, sitting on the end of his hotel bed.

“Pretty uneventful,” she grinned, “Someone’s decided to say hello to the world six weeks early.”

“Wait, you mean-”

“My daughter was born at 2pm today.” She told him.

“Are you okay? Is she okay?” Harry asked frantically, “If you need me to come back early I can.”

“I don’t need you to do that H, she’s little so they’ve put her in an incubator, just as a precaution, until she’s stronger.” Ashley explained, Daisy still clutching onto her finger.

“You weren’t on your own we’re you?” Harry worried.

“No, Roman drove me from work, Gem met me here and stayed with me throughout, she’s gone home now though.” Ashley explained.

“That’s good, have you given her a name?”

“Daisy, Daisy Alice Hanson.” Ashley replied, unable to wipe the smile off her face as she admired her newborn baby.

“I miss you, I’ll be back mid august though so I’ll see you then.” Harry explained.

“We look forward to it, at least by then you’ll be able to hug her, at the moment she can only hold onto my hand.”

“Well I look forward to my first hug from her, and you of course.” Harry replied.

“We’re so lucky to have you Harry.” Ashley told him.

“Trust me, I’m the lucky one.”

The following morning Ashley stirred from her sleep thanks to the sound of familiar voices beside her bed, she opened her eyes to see her mum Linda and Anne sat beside her. “Hello love, how are you?” Linda whispered.

“Stiff, I’ve been in this bed for a solid twelve hours, I’ve been wheeled everywhere,” Ashley told them both, shuffling to sit herself up properly, “Anne, you have raised two absolute angels, Gemma was incredible yesterday, and speaking to Harry on the phone last night made my heart feel so full.”

“I’m just glad to see you’re alright sweetheart.” Anne told her.

“How was the journey down?” Ashley asked them both.

“It was good, we got the train down, and we stopped off on the way to get some bits for you and the baby, I imagine all the baby grows you’ve got are going to be a bit big at the moment so we bought you some premature ones.” Linda explained.

“That’s lovely mum thank you, would you both like to meet Daisy?” Ashley asked.

Ashley wasn’t wrong when she said she was stiff, she had managed to change into a hoodie and joggers, but walking was a bit difficult at first. She led Anne and Linda into NICU, “Mum, Anne, this is baby Daisy.” She showed them the incubator where Daisy lay sound asleep, a tiny hat covering the top of her tiny head.

“She’s beautiful,” Linda whispered.

“Perfect.” Anne agreed.

“I’m already so in love with her, I can’t quite believe she’s finally here.”

One Week Later

“I’ve got some good news for you Ashley.” The midwife told Ashley who was sat feeding Daisy, who was now strong enough to be held, “The doctors think Daisy’s made enough progress in the last week for you to take her home.”

“Really? Do you mean today?” she asked.

“We’ll have to do a few checks beforehand, but I don’t see why not.” She explained.

“Hear that Dais? We’re going home today.”

Once the doctors had done their relevant checks, they agreed that Daisy was healthy enough to go home, Ashley placed a peacefully sleeping Daisy into her pram, her fingertips just about poking out of the sleeves of her baby grow that was way too big for her. “Right my love, it’s time for you to face the big wide world.” Ashley pushes the pram out to the waiting area where Gemma was waiting with all the bags.

“You ready?” Gemma asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

#harry styles #harry styles imagine #harry styles blurb #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles lockscreen #one shot #blurb #harry styles one shot #one direction #one direction memes #solo harry #fanfiction #harry styles best friend fic #best friend harry #choose love #stay home stay safe #treat people with kindness #timothee aesthetic

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sherlockfanficwriting · 4 years

Text

Sherlock “The new musician” (x reader)

hello, I hope u enjoy this! please request me anything I mean anything!

Your POV

The taxi bumped over a pothole on the rainy London streets. You were moving into a flat in London all alone. You knew nobody. This was your first time in the city. You loved music your whole life especially the cello. It was your first instrument and you loved it the most. You got a job with a well-known orchestra in London and you couldn't have been more excited about it. The taxi slowed down to a halt and stopped by the curb. You clutched your bags and cello case. You paid and quickly hopped out, excited but quite nervous. You stood and looked at the building. It was simple and small with a cafe next to it. It looked like someplace you could get used to. You walked to the black door and took out the key for it. With a few failed attempts, you managed to twist it wide open. A musty old smell hit your face causing you to scrunch your nose. You smiled. It was like stepping into the 50s. The walls were dark and so was the stairway, but you liked the charm. You walked up the staircase and passed the second-floor flat door. The door was ajar. You didn't hear anyone, you hadn’t even known who lived here. You peered inside. There were two chairs, a fireplace, a small couch, and some spray paint on the wall. A smiley face?

“What in the world,” you whispered to yourself.

“What, you don’t like it?” A deep British accent said.

You jolted and lost your balance, falling down until a pair of strong hands picked you up from midair and steadied you. You looked up at him. He was a tall man with curly dark hair. His cheekbones were quite prominent. He wore dark clothes with a black trench coat.

“Sorry, I was -,”

“Spying? No, you’re new. Not from London and you’re moving in the flat upstairs,” he said.

“Y-yes. I just didn’t know who lived here. I’m sorry I really wasn’t spying.”

He smirked. “No worries.”

You extended a hand to him. “I’m (Y/N).”

He shook it. His hand was cold but gave off a certain type of warmth you weren’t certain of. “Hello, (Y/N), I’m Sherlock.”

You smiled. “Nice to meet you, Sherlock. I had better get packing now. I hope to see you soon.”

He briefly smiled and walked into his flat, shutting the door behind him. He seemed cold but strange, not like he meant it though. You sighed and grabbed your bags, trudging up the stairs, careful not to fall over again.

Sherlock’s POV

Easy day at work today. Horrible criminal, he didn't even know how to hide a body for the love of God. As soon as I walked up to the door, I knew someone knew was inside. Quietly, I entered inside. I stopped and smelled the air. Soft. Flowers. Roses. It smelled like a fresh field of flowers. It was a girl. But who? I look upstairs. There she is. Peering into my flat, unaware of who just entered the building. I’m going to scare her. Slowly I walk upstairs, careful not to make any noise. I stand at the edge of the stairs. From her angle, I can tell she’s looking at the spray paint or the bullet hole.

“What, you don’t like it?” I ask.

Before I know it she shook and falls backward. I quickly catch her and steady her balance. She turns to me and looks at me. I can see her face. She has (Y/HC) soft hair and delicate pearly skin. Telling from her eyes, she’s tired and not a London native. She seems ordinary but quite interesting. I can’t tell you much about her.

“Sorry, I was-,” she began. I didn’t want to hear any apologies frankly.

“Spying?” Definitely not. More like neighborly spying. “No, you’re new. Not from London and moving in the flat upstairs.”

She doesn't look as shocked as most people would. “Y-yes. I just didn’t know who lived here. I’m sorry I really wasn’t spying.”

Enough with the apologizing. She does seem shy, but kind. She extends a hand for me to shake. I do. It's soft.

“I’m (Y/N),” she said, smiling.

“Hello, (Y/N), I’m Sherlock.” This is actually nice. I was getting tired of just talking to John and Mrs. Hudson every day. Perhaps I can get to know her more. She doesn't seem that ordinary.

She smiled. “Nice to meet you, Sherlock. I had better get packing now. I hope to see you soon.”

Ugh no. Should I invite her in? I probably scared her. We definitely have nothing in common. I flashed a smile and walked into my flat, shutting the door. I hear her walking up the steps. I should help her. No - it's too late.

Your POV

You finally made it upstairs and unlocked the door. You gasped. The flat was beautiful. It was of medium size from what you can see, but a large window poured in bright light from outside, even though it was raining. It was cozy. There were a love chair and a regular chair by the fireplace. You walked to the right. A small kitchen with the nice essentials took over the corner. You walked down the hallway and opened the door. A big mattress and bed frame took up the room with a small bookshelf against one of the walls. The walls of the whole flat stayed in neutral colors from beige to light brown to light blue. It was nice. You put down your bags and began unpacking a few essential things. You took off your jacket and threw it on the kitchen table. After you put your cello case on the ground, you threw yourself on the love chair and your eyes closed as soon as you did so.

A few (many) hours later....

You flicker your eyes open, adjusting to almost complete pitch darkness. You get up and make your way around carefully without tripping over something. You run your hands against the walls, looking for a lightswitch. Boom. A bright warm white light lit the whole floor. You walked to the window. It was nighttime, but the buildings and skyscrapers were full of bright lights. You looked at the streets and saw cars zooming by, taxis stopping and going everywhere. It was a nonstop rush, but you liked it. You turned around and spotted your cello on the floor. You picked it up and got it out of the case, admiring it. It was a very special cello. Your father gave it to you when you were fifteen. You have kept it ever since and it doesn't look a day old or sound a day old. You sat down and held it in your hands. You picked up the bow and began playing your favorite song. Debussy - Reverie.

The cello was like another arm for you. It was so natural. You closed your eyes and went with the music. You played slow and passionately. It was your love.

Sherlock’s POV

I have never been this bored in my life. No cases. No studying cases. Nothing. I texted Lestrade ten times and I think he blocked my number.

“We should go out,” I told John.

“Oh really, where?” I can already tell he has a wide frown on his face.

“The bar?”

John looked up. “Do you know the las-.”

He stops talking. There is music being played faintly, but clear enough for us to hear. What is it? Violin? No. That’s a cello. I shiver. No one but me plays an instrument here. Who is it?

“John, do you hear that?”

“Yeah, a cello?”

I nod. I listen for a few moments. Debussy- Reverie, a charming song that makes me feel...different. His music always did something to me. The song is played at the perfect pace. It's slow and smooth with the right pauses. Whoever is doing this is a professional.

“Who do you think doing that, Sherlock?”

A lightbulb went off in my head. I stand up and walk out the door in the stairway. The music is coming from upstairs. (Y/N) is playing. I would have never thought she played an instrument, especially the cello. I walk up the stairs quietly, enjoying the song as I go. I stood outside her door, listening until she finished and knocked.

“Come in!”

I open the door and there she is, sitting on a chair, cello, and bow in hand.

“I-I didn't know you played the cello.”

She laughs. “Well, I did just meet you.”

“I play the violin. I’m actually quite good.”

She laughs again. “I do too. Cello is my favorite though. Do you play in a band or orchestra?”

Orchestra? Never. “An orchestra? Not my type. I enjoy playing alone or in front of a few close people. Its really about self meditating for me,” I answer.

She got up and put the cello down. “I’ll make you some tea.”

I nod. “Thank you.”

“When did you start playing?” I ask.

She walks to the counter and puts the teapot on the oven. She gets two mugs from the cabinet.

“I started a while ago. I was very young. I enjoyed playing a lot. Anywhere I could play. It got serious when I was a young teenager. I went to competitions and such. Now, I came to London to be in an orchestra, but I want to do other things too, not just music, but it is an important part of my life. It relaxes me and makes me happy,” she said. Then she smiled at herself than at me. She was in love with the cello.

“I played the violin since I was young too. It was an art. A skill I developed but I attained naturally. I have enjoyed it ever since. I do want to learn the piano and a few other instruments as well. I could play days on,” I said.

She turns around and pours the hot water in mugs, finally dropping green tea bags in the mugs. She’s an interesting person. I like her.

“Here you go,” she says, handing me my mug. I thank her.

“What else do you do?” She asks me curiously with wide eyes. I try not to chuckle. If only she knew.

“Why don’t you come downstairs and I’ll show you.”

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wolfhuntsmoon · 5 years

Text

Sarah Rogers and how Steve inherited ‘stubborn little shit’ from the womb

Okay, so I was noodling on Sarah after reading her Marvel wiki and some extraordinarily good posts about how EG Steve should have gone back to see his mum instead of Peggy etc and the timings of Steve’s early story struck me as... interesting.

Steve is born on 4th July 1918, before the end of WWI, meaning he would have been conceived in September or October of 1917 - that is, if he was born on time or only a few weeks premature. Which, given the tech and prognosis for preemies in the early 20th century, must have been the case because things were grim enough even if you weren’t born prematurely, for both baby and mother. If you were giving birth, you had a 6% chance of dying in Ireland in this period - roughly comparable with the rest of Europe but shockingly high by our standards. The odds were better if you were rich, but not by that much. Childbirth remained the leading cause of death for women worldwide until the late 1940s, remember. And kids fared no better. One in five children born in Dublin in this period died before their 5th birthday. Again, the figures would be better or worse depending on how well off you were, but even the richest still suffered appalling infant mortality rates.

Anyway, depressing history of women’s health aside, this means that Joseph Rogers, American solider, and her, must have been doing the do about then, and probably seeing each other on the regular before that, because believe you me, casual sex in the early 20th century was a big no no. Not to say it didn’t happen, but usually only via prostitution ESPECIALLY in Ireland, because the Catholic Church ruled supreme there even more than the British did and contact between the sexes was very restricted and frowned upon. Sex ed was nonexistent, and women knew that even a whiff of scandal about them was enough to ruin them, their entire family, and the rest of their life. It’s a hackneyed joke because it’s true: Ireland is small and everyone knows everyone. You would get found out and then suffer the consequences - sent to a mother and baby home if you were lucky, and those places were worse than prisons sometimes. That cultural context would carry over even if Sarah wasn’t actually in Ireland at the time.

So, likely they were married by then, because again: social ruin. The Marvel wiki says they were married, but not when. (I know nothing about the comics, I’m sorry) Soldiers and their sweethearts often married very quickly, and there are actually quite a few accounts of nurses falling in love and marrying the soldiers they tended. (More on this later) However, if she was widowed and could have the child respectably, why not return to Ireland? With, presumably, a support network that makes emigrating to America a worse, not better, prospect? This is the crux of my theory: Sarah Rogers was seen as an unmarried mother, and treated as such, because she married Joseph abroad, probably without permission, and when he died, had no social proof of the marriage. And in those days, unmarried mothers either: aborted in secret, had the baby concealed by the church where they were then taken and given up for adoption, or were cast out with nothing and ostracised if they decided to keep the baby. Sarah ending up in America strikes me as her taking the third option, and indeed the only option she could, to keep her baby.

But first: Joseph and Sarah need to meet in order to get down and dirty. How? He’s an American soldier who would never have set foot in Ireland in WWI - the British government kept their troops there, obviously, but the Americans were all put straight onto the continent or mainland Britain once they crossed the Atlantic from 1917 onwards (remember the US only joined in WWI in April 1917). In fact, the US wasn’t able to send significant numbers of troops to Europe until the following spring of 1918, because their army was so small and outmoded for trench warfare they basically had to send a lot of stuff over until they had enough trained bodies, which took about a year to organise. Based on this, if Joseph and Sarah were making baby Steve in September 1917, Joseph must have been in the regular US army before it entered the war, and likely in for quite a long time and experienced, to be sent over so soon. That experience would have been invaluable, meaning he never would have been assigned to stay in Ireland even if the US did send troops there. He would have been deployed straight onto the battlefield.

In which case, if Joseph never sets foot in Ireland, then how does he meet Sarah? Well, we’re told she’s a qualified nurse, and that was a solidly middle class job back then. You needed to have a good education, beyond primary level (which was all that was free for kids back then - you had to pay for secondary or tertiary level) and speak English well. In addition to that, your training to be a nurse took three years, and you weren’t paid or funded at all for those. So I don’t buy the theories that she emigrated to America only speaking Irish and totally penniless. Sarah most likely came from quite a well off family to become a nurse, although it’s not impossible she rose from much humbler circumstances as there were a number of scholarships and the like for the deserving poor set up by rich upper class ladies bored out of their minds drinking endless teas in salons who liked to do things like Help the Poor but only if they’re Pure and Mannerly. Qualified nurses were paid about £40/year in WWI by the British government, when your average domestic maid would have been earning about £20/year - quite a big difference.

Either way, Sarah, as a nurse, was exactly the kind of woman the British government was desperate to recruit by 1915-1916 when the true scale of modern attritional warfare became clear, and no longer pussyfooted around keeping women and their delicate sensibilities away from the battlefield. The Battle of the Somme between July-Nov 1916, for example, claimed the lives of over 20,000 British soldiers ON THE FIRST DAY. The British alone sustained over a million casualties (dead, missing or wounded) across the whole battle. They couldn’t afford to stay prudish. There were just too many casualties to deal with. They even opened up medical degrees to women without restrictions because they were so desperate! Which was a big part of the reason why Britiain introduced conscription for the first time in 1916, including in Ireland (which led to the Easter Rising and Irish War of Independence, hoo boy was that a mistake). Droves and droves of young women were recruited to fill all sorts of jobs while the men were away, but a large number also went overseas to the battlefields of Belgium and France. Sarah must have been one of them. If she was qualified beforehand, she would most likely have been sent to work in a field hospital abroad, because the voluntary members were mostly kept working as assistants on the British mainland. Lots of women joined these Voluntary Aid Detachments (VADs) at the start of the war to nurse wounded soldiers, but the military hated the idea of using them until they couldn’t cope in 1915. Even then, volunteers were only used for the more menial tasks. Professionals like Sarah were what was needed the most.

Now, I’ve said that she likely came from a middle class family, so money probably wasn’t a worry until after she got to America, later on. Why go, given the pay wasn’t significantly more than you’d earn as a nurse at home? Well, the rigid social hierarchy of the time broke down in some pretty major ways out there, and it was likely the only chance an unmarried woman would ever get to travel that wouldn’t immediately ruin her reputation. And if you accept more the idea she became a nurse via scholarship and was poor, the increase in pay working abroad would have been sorely appreciated. And we can also consider patriotism might play a role - not all Irish were rabidly anti-British before 1916. Indeed, many ordinary and middle class Irish only became ardently nationalist in the wake of the brutal repression following the 1916 Easter Rising. And more than that, many Irish, even if they disliked the British, disliked the idea of the Germans and Austrians-Hungarians winning the war even more. Personally, I think Sarah was an adventurer who seized her chance to escape the restrictive social confines of Ireland and didn’t once look back, even if her family disapproved.

I couldn’t find a birthdate for Sarah, or a maiden name to tell me where she might have hailed from (thanks, Marvel. Not.) But let’s say she was part of that first initial wave of volunteers who signed up in 1914 - because it was HUGE. It’s really difficult for us, so jaded now, to get into the mindset of people then, but they did sign up in huge numbers. Partly due to patriotism, partly because they thought the war would be over by Christmas, partly fear of being shamed for not ‘doing their bit’ - there were lots of reasons. But it’s very telling that the British government didn’t feel the need to introduce conscription for men until two years after the war broke out, and they never introduced a civilian equivalent. So Sarah would have been very familiar with the horrors of the battlefield and the war by the time fresh faced Joseph Rogers arrives on the scene in 1917.

How did they meet? Sarah would have most likely been working in a field hospital, overseeing a team of volunteers. Field hospitals were behind the front lines, but only by a few miles, and nurses were killed by enemy shelling and gas attacks. They were the first real point of medical care most soldiers would encounter after having bandages slapped on them at a dressing station in the trenches, before being carted off to the field hospital (if they survived the journey) by stretcher bearers, horses, or increasingly as the war continued, motorised ambulances. So Sarah and her ilk were lasses made of steel, honest to god. They were in the thick of the worst of it, men screaming and dying, and often afraid for their lives while they tried to care for them. A lot of those nurses developed PTSD (then called shell-shock) as a result. Jospeh is most likely to have met her if he was a wounded patient of hers brought in from the battlefield. But only lightly wounded - if he had been badly wounded he would have been shipped straight back to mainland Britain to convalesce as soon as he was stabilised, thwarting any budding romance.

We’re also told that Jospeh dies in a mustard gas attack. So this hospital trip must have been for something different - a broken bone perhaps, or a minor shrapnel wound that would see him off duty for a while but still stationed in the area and therefore able to court Sarah. Young people (Sarah must have been less than 28 because that was the cut off age for nurses to be recruited in 1915-1916) being young people, I imagine they fell in love, fell in to bed, and biology did its magic. The timescale on this is open to interpretation, because the ABSOLUTE earliest they could have met is May 1917 (travel time by ship from America to Europe took weeks during the war), and Steve must have been conceived by October, latest. Which is a pretty whirlwind romance, but not unusual for the time. The Germans first used mustard gas from July of 1917, but Joseph must survive up until September/October.

So, that cause of death as mustard gas? This is strange given how mustard gas was well known at the time to be the ‘best’ gas to have inflicted on you. It produced horrific blisters and burns, particularly on the inside of your throat and airways, but rarely killed. Chlorine and phosgene were MUCH deadlier. So Marvel saying this is more poor research, but let’s go with it - gas affecting you would make it that much more likely you’d be caught by machine gun or shellfire or any of the other myriad ways to die on a WWI battlefield. Here’s where things start to align quite nicely (well, badly for Sarah, but good for fic writers) as mustard gas was deployed by the Germans on a large scale between October 9th-12th to defend the Passchadaele Ridge from a joint British and French assault on the German defences. This was part of the second biggest battle of WWI, the Battle of Passchendaele, notorious for the seas of mud men had to slog through up to their waists, and one of the battles which, like the Somme, gave WWI generals such bad reputations. In three months the British lost 350,000 men and advanced just a few kilometres. They abandoned the battle on November 10th.

So, Joseph Rogers? Must have died between October 9-12th, well before Sarah realised she was pregnant even if Steve was conceived at the start of September. Likely he was caught in a mustard attack, started choking because he couldn’t get his gas mask on/hadn’t got it fitted properly, and then was killed by gun or shellfire after his initial injury. Mustard gas took time to affect the skin and membranes of the body, so if he fell while the gas was still around, it would have looked much worse by the time his body was identified and retrieved from the battlefield. The date, however, means Joseph died never knowing he was going to be a father (sad!), and Sarah, newly widowed, likely didn’t see any reason not to continue working as a distraction until she encountered the first signs of preganancy. The stiff upper lip thing was a real coping mechanism back then. She would have been kicked out as soon as anyone could tell, or she told them and got kicked out, because that was legal and expected then. Pregnant women were fired for being pregnant in any job, and the idea of a pregnant woman working in a theatre of war, as you can imagine, would have outraged everyone.

So, Sarah gets kicked out, has no job. She’s widowed and pregnant. But, the marriage would probably have taken place without her family’s permission (letters were pretty slow and heavily censored on the front lines, the timeframe likely wouldn’t allow for anything except a note telling them she married) and although she would have had a marriage certificate, turning up at home without a husband but with a baby from a military camp? Would have been a deep, deep scandal at the time. Particularly if Sarah came from a middle class family who would have been extremely conscious of their social position and the danger she and her baby posed to it. Catholic mores plus unsanctioned marriage plus Irish social structures equals daughter returning in disgrace to besmirch the family name in a way that is literally unthinkable at the time. Family therefore issues an ultimatum - come back and get rid of the baby and the marriage cert so you can be respectable, or don’t come back at all. I really cannot stress this enough - families would, and did, prefer to say the woman had died and never have any contact with them again, rather than accept an unmarried mother back into their house.

Sarah, being Sarah though, grits her teeth, spits in God’s eye, and packs her bags for the first steamship to New York. She was a lot better equipped than most to make the journey, with some savings from her salary and a profession she could rely on once she arrived. But it was still a recklessly brave thing to do because at this point in time the ENTIRE Atlantic was infested with German U-Boats who were doing their level best to sink any Allied or Allied associated ship they could get in their periscope sights. And they were terrifyingly effective in 1917, although by the end of the year when Sarah would have beeen sailing, countermeasures like the convoy system had greatly reduced this. But still scary as fuck, because by that point the German U-Boats were even sinking hospital ships - until then left alone by both sides.

She probably arrived in the US in January or February of 1918 - it would have taken time to arrange her travel and the journey itself took 3-4 weeks. Little Steven G Rogers came into the world on July 4th, 1918, without a clue as to the sacrifices his mother made to keep him and bring him to America, or the heartache she endured in the previous years. And that, my fellow nerds, is why Sarah Rogers is AWESOME and a sorely underused character and development point for Steve in the MCU. Because to do what she did, and to make it through took more than guts, it took sheer bloody-minded spite and stubbornness, and hey - who does that remind us of? Steve doesn’t grow up and get angry and fighty - no, he’s got that shit in his GENES from Sarah from the beginning.

EDIT: Part 2 is up! Consisting of Sarah’s journey and entry to America, plus how Very Not Good it was to be Irish whilst trying to do so.

#Sarah Rogers #IS AWESOME I WILL HEAR NO DISSENT IN THE RANKS #no seriously #the facts bear it out #fandom meta #captain america #backstory #character development #mcu #she was criminally underused #because you KNOW steve and bucky WORSHIPPED her #steve rogers #bucky barnes #joseph rogers #wwi #ireland #emigration

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ayla-221bee · 4 years

Text

In The Most Delightful Way-Mystrade Fic Drabble ‘The Elephant.”

The door closed with a loud thud and the silence that crashed over the flat felt suffocating.

It felt almost physically painful to allow Mycroft to leave his flat and watch him slip into a black car that was parked in the street. It felt as if it was the most stupid decision that he had ever made, letting Mycroft go. He would have chased after him in his dressing gown and talk to him in the street in the attempt to make things better.

As much as he was prepared to run out in the street, Greg forced himself to stay in the flat. He gripped his fingers on the edge of the wooden kitchen chair until his knuckles turned white and his fingers started to ache. He gripped onto the chair for dear life as if that would stop him from following Mycroft. He knew that Mycroft needed time to think and process what happened between them last night. He knew that Mycroft also needed the space to think and to nurse the hangover. He also knew that there was no point in trying to talk to Mycroft when he only had half a cup of tea in him, Mycroft needed at least three cups of tea before he could even deal with another human being. It had been one of the first things that he had discovered when he stayed with Mycroft after the divorce, he wasn't that much better himself and needed at least of two large mugs of coffee to function.

Greg put his head in his hands and sighed. He tried his best to ignore the nagging feeling in the back of his mind that he had messed things up terribly and had completely ruined thier friendship, he had little idea how to salvage the pieces. He did not even know if he could even pick up the tatters and patch things up.

He knew that the two of them had overstepped the boundaries of their friendship. The two of them had been toeing the line for the last few weeks. He had been testing the waters by flirting and Mycroft seemed to respond to it well. Mycroft invited him to dinner or out for drinks at posh restaurants and swanky clubs regularly. They did not always go out for dinner or drinks, Greg often found himself coming over to Mycroft's home and he was content to spend the evening with a takeaway and a DVD. They could talk about anything with ease and conversations flowed smoothly, only stopping in the late hours of the evening or the early hours of the morning.

Greg had tried to ignore his feelings for Mycroft but it had been difficult to suppress them. He almost felt like a teenager again with how smitten he was for him. He hadn't felt those fireworks or the butterflies in his stomach in years and he had almost been convinced that his wife had taken them away from him among with other bits and pieces of his life that she had taken from him in the divorce.

Greg switched on the radio in the attempt to tune out the niggle in his brain that told him that he had possibly ruined everything. He did wonder if he had let himself get too caught up when he thought that he saw the hint of a green flag from Mycroft. He did not intend for last night to happen...It just happened.

He planned to tell Mycroft how he felt...then the scotch happened. The first glass of scotch was for Dutch courage, he had always been terrible when it came to talking about his feelings and he felt that he was taking a risk when it came to Mycroft. A massive risk and he needed all the bravery that he could get.

The classic film that Mycroft brought with the bottle of scotch was ignored that night. The conversation flowed as much as the alcohol and the two of them were pleasantly tipsy. There was one moment when Mycroft was laughing at a stupid joke that he told, a genuine laugh. It was a sound that Greg loved even if Mycroft was embarrassed by it, especially when he let out a snort. He enjoyed the knowledge that he was one of the few people who could get a genuine laugh out of Mycroft and he made it a mission of his to get Mycroft to laugh.

The laughter suddenly stopped and there was a look between them.

It was with that look that Greg allowed himself to ignore the nerves that had been bothering him all evening. He did not say any of those words that he was wanting to say for months, the words could not make their way out of his mouth. Instead of attempting to get the words out, he leaned across the sofa and kissed Mycroft.

It was only a small kiss that lasted for a moment, it could have been passed off as a drunken mistake. Mycroft let out a surprised noise, it was almost a squeak. He had never heard Mycroft make a noise like that in the years that he had known him and before he could apologise, Mycroft climbed onto his lap and kissed him as if his life depended on it.

It bothered him more than it should have when Mycroft told him that the evening before was a mistake. Greg knew that sleeping together had crossed the boundaries of friendship massively and it would be difficult to get back to the way things were before. He wanted to talk about it and address the elephant that was wedged in between them, he finally dared to do so. He knew that Mycroft would do his best to ignore the elephant for as long as he could and brush the whole thing off as a drunken mistake in the attempt to keep things relatively normal between them.

The problem with ignoring the elephant was that it was rather difficult to avoid tripping over its trunk.

Greg had the nagging suspicion that Mycroft was avoiding him.

His calls had gone unanswered and the majority of the text messages that he sent had been ignored.

It was hardly anything unusual, he understood the unpredictable nature of Mycroft's work and how Mycroft sometimes took time to get back to him. It was hardly anything suspicious but was rather convenient that Mycroft was suddenly ignoring his phone calls. Greg tried to not let it bother him, even if it was bloody difficult. The silence from Mycroft seemed to hammer in the fact that what happened was a mistake, that they had crossed the line far too much and ended a wonderful friendship.

As much as it would hurt and possibly make things worse between them, Greg wanted to talk about what happened. He knew that there was a good chance that he wouldn't get the result that he wanted but he felt that it was better to be rejected and clear the air between them. Greg disliked unfinished business and having to ignore any elephants. If they talked, they would be able to attempt to put that evening behind them and move on.

As he knew that Mycroft suffered from three centuries of British emotional repression, Greg tolerated the near silence from Mycroft for three days. He knew that Mycroft needed the space to think and Greg was willing to give it to him. He doubted that Mycroft had been in a situation like theirs before and needed the time to figure out what he wanted or at least clear his head enough to talk about it.

After three days, Greg had decided that he was bored with waiting and that he was fed up of Mycroft avoiding him.

Greg’s patience had grown thin after three days of near-silence from Mycroft. He had tried his best to get into contact with Mycroft and check up on him and reassure him that things were fine between them. Mycroft replied to those messages and only gave him a short answer of ‘I’m fine but currently busy’, it was the same message each time that he received each morning.

He knew that Mycroft was not busy and was avoiding him. He knew that Mycroft had actually taken a week of holiday from work, he had been the one to convince him to take some time off work. He had done the same and taken some well-earned time off to spend time with his niece. He and Mycroft had talked about having a day out of London together. He had been looking forward to getting London out of his lungs and doing a bit of sightseeing for weeks. After what happened that night, it had become clear that they would not be going.

Greg had never taken well to be ignored especially from someone who he cared about so deeply. He wanted to break the silence that had grown between them and he wanted to make things right. He knew that ignoring the elephant was not going to make it leave, letting grow would only damage their friendship even more than what happened that night.

The receptionist behind the counter hardly batted an eyelid when Greg had walked into the Diogenes that afternoon. He barely had time to flash her his card before she wordlessly directed to him to Mycroft’s private room before she pressed a button on her desk and turned back to her newspaper.

Greg had the privilege of being one of the few ‘strangers,’ who were allowed in the Diogenes Club and he was not restricted to the ‘stranger’s room,’ unlike most visitors to the club. He was a regular visitor to Mycroft’s private office in the club and regularly joined Mycroft for lunch or if he wanted to chat on his break at work. He visited frequently enough that he could just walk into the Club without even showing his pass and he often walked into Mycroft’s office without even knocking.

Greg always hated the silence of the club and the fact that no one acknowledged another. He always had the urge to break the silence in the club. He always had the urge to break some of the expensive decorations or to pull down the curtains. He had the childish urge to shout rude words to see if they echoed off the wooden panelling on occasion, he restrained himself from doing so in the fear of giving one of the stuffy pensioners of the club a heart attack, going by the way they acted when he rustled a newspaper too loudly.

Greg invited himself into Mycroft’s office once he had knocked on the door. He hesitated by the door for a moment and he tried to summon up the courage to confront Mycroft. He did not even feel that angry that there had been near silence for Mycroft, he almost felt hurt that Mycroft had avoided him.

He could understand Mycroft’s fears of their friendship being ruined because of the evening. He feared about losing their friendship as well, he considered Mycroft to be his best friend. He would have laughed at the suggestion of Mycroft Holmes being his closest friend all those years ago. He had thought that Mycroft was a bit of a posh toff when he met him, but Greg was so pleased that he was wrong when he got to meet the real Mycroft Holmes. The Mycroft Holmes who enjoyed classic films and liked My Fair Lady, the Mycroft Holmes who had a massive sweet tooth. Mycroft Holmes who had always been there for him and let him stay in his flat after the divorce and had even taken him on a holiday up to Scotland in the attempt to cheer him up.

He knew that he would be lost without Mycroft in his life and it would not be a happy existence without him in it.

Mycroft closed the file that he was reading and placed it on the table as Greg walked in. He stood up and offered his hand as if it was a business meeting. “How are you, Greg?” Mycroft asked as if everything was fine. “Can I offer you tea? Coffee?”

Greg ignored the tea trolley and folded his arms across his chest, refusing to sit down once Mycroft had gestured to the chair. “You can’t just avoid me for three days and then offer me tea,” Greg grumbled.

“Shall I offer you something stronger then?” Mycroft asked with a raised eyebrow, a tone of amusement in his voice. “I have the feeling that we might require something stronger than tea to get us through this conversation, hopefully, we will not make any mistakes this time.”

Mycroft poured two glasses of scotch before he sat down in his chair. He attempted to make small talk in an attempt to avoid the elephant in the room. It was nervous chatter as Mycroft murmured on about the latest political gossip and mentioned something about the mating habits of snails or some other dry topic that Greg’s brain could not process as he tried to figure out the words to say.

He did not know what he wanted to say or how to say what was on his mind. He thought that the direct approach was the best way to deal with the matter. “You know that ignoring this is going to make things worse?” Greg asked. “The elephant is not going to disappear if you ignore it enough or avoid me.”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow and tried to keep a neutral expression on his features even if he did look somewhat sheepish. “What are you wanting to talk about?” Mycroft eventually asked. “What is the point in discussing a mistake?”

Greg allowed himself to sit down and reluctantly accepted the glass that was offered to him. “What happened that night was not a mistake for me…I did not plan for things to go the way that they did, but I don’t regret it. ”

Mycroft had a puzzled expression on his face, it would have been endearing in any other situation. He picked up his glass and admired the amber liquid in the light in the attempt to avoid looking at him. “We do not have to talk about it, I understand that it was a mistake. I’ve accepted it,” Mycroft eventually murmured. “You do not have to lie to me to spare my feelings.”

Greg shook his head and he let out a quiet laugh. “I know that you are one of the smartest blokes in the world and you can do the deduction thing, but you can’t read my mind. You can’t tell me what I think or feel about what happened,” he said. “I thought that you trusted me enough to know that I would never lie to you.”

Mycroft looked as if he wanted nothing more than for the ground to swallow him up. “I do trust you,” Mycroft eventually managed to utter out.

Greg nodded and thought for a long moment before he spoke. He allowed himself to have a sip of scotch for some Dutch courage. He doubted that he would be able to talk without it or address the elephant, there was no easy way to go about the matter. “It’s fine if you don’t feel the same way about me,” Greg finally managed to say. “I would rather you said something to me than avoided me. That is not the right way to go about things.”

Mycroft opened up his mouth to speak but quickly closed it again. He seemed to be in deep thought and seemed to be choosing his words carefully, often he would shake his head to himself. “What are you thinking about?” Greg asked.

Mycroft did not say anything for a long moment, and he seemed to be in deep thought, a defeated expression on his face and just looked lost on what to say. “Greg, I can assure you that I am not what you want,” Mycroft managed to finally utter out. “It has been difficult to come to terms with it over the years but…I know what is best. I refuse to damage our friendship over a mistake.”

“You can’t tell me what I want or who I fancy,” Greg grumbled, he downed the rest of his drink and stood up. “I understand that you needed some space to think as you are seriously emotionally constipated and have the emotional range of a teaspoon. I do refuse to sit here and let you tell me what I want after you avoided me.”

He started to make his way to the door before he sighed and turned around to face Mycroft. “You know that avoiding me and not talking about things will make things worse,” he said, pointing at Mycroft. “Avoiding me will do more damage to our friendship than you being tied to my headboard. I thought that we were mates and we could talk about things, Mycroft.”

His comment seemed to ignite a fire in Mycroft, who stood up and placed a hand on the door to stop him leaving. Greg suddenly wondered if he was possibly going to get exiled for what he said, he doubted that many people could call Mycroft Holmes ‘emotionally constipated,’ or tie him to the headboard with his tie, (which Greg did with Mycroft’s instance,) without being exiled. He did hope that if things did come to that, then Mycroft would send him somewhere where it wasn’t too cold.

“I do apologise for avoiding you. I am deeply sorry,” Mycroft murmured. “Please stay, Greg.”

Greg blinked and did not trust his ears, not believing that Mycroft had apologised and said ‘please,’ to him. “Your friendship means the world to me, Greg, and I would simply hate to lose it,” he said quietly. “I would like to talk about how to mend things between us.”

With little hesitation, Greg removed his coat and folded it on the arm of his chair. He did not know what to say to break the silence. He had the feeling that Mycroft was as lost as he was.

“I hope that your tie was not too wrinkled,” Greg eventually managed to say, using the first thought that came into this head. “I did not expect you to be into things like that, it was surprising.”

Mycroft’s ears went pink, he cleared his throat and seemed rather lost for words. “ How do you suppose that we move on from this?” Mycroft eventually managed to force out, his voice tight. “I would hate to lose out friendship over this mistake.”

“Do you think that it was a mistake?” Greg asked quietly. “Please be honest.” Mycroft nodded and seemed to take careful consideration with each word he spoke. “I do not regret spending the night with you…It is just that I am not what you want. There are other people who are better suited to you and they will make you happier. I’m just a blip between you and that person.”

Mycroft fiddled with the glass in his hand and avoided looking at him once more. “It has been difficult to accept over the years, but it is for the best.”

Greg shook his head and let out a laugh that surprised Mycroft. “What happens if you are the person who makes me happy?” Greg asked. “I should have said something sooner and I had always assumed that you were not interested in me.”

“I am not sure that I understand what you are trying to say,” Mycroft said shaking his head as if he had said something outrageous. He looked at him as if he had grown a third head and Mycroft seemed to have shrunk in his chair. The confidence that he normally wore around him had left him and what remained was a shy shell of Mycroft Holmes. It broke Greg’s heart to see him like that. “I am not sure if you are joking. ”

“The biggest mistake for me was letting you leave my flat,” Greg said before Mycroft could insist that he had made a mistake. He reached over the chair and gabbed Mycroft’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I should have said something or figured out somehow to keep you there, kept you tied to the bed.” He attempted to joke, Mycroft gave him a shy smile in return. “I don’t have much to offer, but I will try my best to make me happy. I will do my absolute best to do so.”

“I do think that there is a good chance that the two of us will work, I'm sure of it. Only if you want to give things a shot?” he said with total honesty. “ We are far from perfect when it comes to this sort of thing, but there is something between us, you can hardly deny it.” Greg ran his hand through his hair and suddenly wished that he was better at this sort of thing or he had another glass of courage in him.

“I could be the person who makes you happy. I know that you are not expert on this sort of thing and I am not an expert with relationships,” Greg said. “I do think that we can make things work between the two of us, there will be a lot to work on and we’ve both got our baggage. “

“You do make me happy,” Mycroft stated, his eyes finally meeting his own. “That is why I am not wanting to risk anything. There is a good chance that things will not work out between us and we lose everything.“

“Do you have a crystal ball in the office?” Greg asked, pretending to look around the room for the object, much to Mycroft’s confusion. “ I never knew that you could predict the future, Mycroft,” he said in response to the puzzled look that Mycroft gave him.

“ There is also a good chance that things will work out, there is a risk when it comes to everything in this world. You can’t just sit on the side-lines all the time, Myc. You don’t get that many chances of happiness in the world and you need to grab them with both hands. ” Greg put on his coat and started to make his way to the door, he pressed a chaste kiss on Mycroft’s cheek. “I’ll see you later, alright? Please don’t avoid me.”

Mycroft stood up and seemed to take what he said with great consideration. Greg was almost convinced that he was about to escort him out of the club. Instead, Mycroft stood awkwardly by the door for a long moment, shuffled on his feet and picked up his coat.

“Where are you going?” Greg asked, a confused expression on his face. “Are you going to escort me out of this office. As I am going to be pissed-“

It was an unexpected kiss from Mycroft that stopped Greg from finishing off his sentence. It was clumsy and their noses clashed together, the doorknob pressed awkwardly into Greg’s lower back as Mycroft pressed him into the wall.

It was awkward and somewhat perfect at the same time.

Mycroft reluctantly pulled back and straighten out his tie, a sugar pink blush was on his cheeks. “I do apologise, I rarely do anything impulsive. I hope that you did not mind too much.”

Greg shook his head and tried to catch his breath. “Impulsive is brilliant, I don’t mind in the slightest.”

Mycroft fiddled with the lapels of his jacket and tried to straighten them out from when he grabbed them. “I was wanting to know if you would like to join me for some dinner?” He asked. “I am very aware that kissing you was not the best way to ask. I know that it cannot make up for my actions. ”

“That is a very convincing way of asking me,” Greg replied with a grin. “If you really want to make it up to me, how about that day out? It feels a shame to waste a week of holiday.”

He received a rare grin from Mycroft, the smile on his face made him look considerably younger and carefree. Greg was sure that it was his favourite expression on Mycroft’s face and nothing could change his mind.

“We can discuss it over dinner,” Mycroft beamed. “Perhaps we can make it longer than a day out? In an attempt to make up for three days?”

Greg raised an eyebrow and gave Mycroft a coy smile. “We could skip dinner and we can just go back to my place? Only if you want to?”

Mycroft practically dragged him out of the Diogenes Club.

#mystrade fanfic #Mycroft Holmes #mystrade #mycroft and greg #Mycroft #mycroft and lestrade #Mycroft x Lestrade #Sherlock #fic drabble #writing prompt #sherlock BBC #bbc sherlock #Sherlock fandom

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paraparker-blog · 5 years

Text

london boy - t.h.

but something happened, i heard him laughing, i saw the dimples first and then i heard the accent ...

-based off of taylor swift’s ‘london boy’! listen to it while you read :) -warnings: lil language, small sexual refernces, and FLUFF oh my gawd

You looked around at your surroundings in awe. Trains bustled, people ran about, chattering in their accented voices, fancy buildings towering over you. It was all so much- maybe even too much. However, that didn't stop you from digging a small notebook out of the crossbody purse slung across your shoulders.

You began walking again, scribbling enthusiastically about all the sights around you. You had grown up in a tiny town; a rural area. You were a quiet, shy, introverted kind of girl. Basically, you weren't used to this kinda thing at all. You were a small-town girl living in a lonely world, never been to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago- etc. But then, here you were, moved to Kingston, London, which was huge.

An elbow bumped into your journal, causing you to mess up your (already messy) records. "Hey," you said sharply, looking up and glaring at the culprit. You'd been bumped already six times today, and you were not having it. "Could you please watch out?"

However, no sooner when the words had escaped your mouth did you regret it. Because underneath that black baseball cap tugged halfway down his face and the black sunglasses framing his eyes, you recognized that face. That was most definitely the face of Tom Holland, Spider-Man actor and hottest British boy alive. Ho-oo-ly shit!

Obviously, acting the typical nerdy, shy, introverted person you were, of course you were also a big geek. A geek of Marvel was at the top of the list, and a geek of Tom Holland at that. Standing in front of him, right then, right here, was so surreal you just couldn't help it when the pen fell out of your hand and you started to say his name.

Tom grabbed your hand and pulled you along quickly, away from the crowd. You couldn't even get yourself to pull away or consider the possibility he could be a serial killer, just focusing on the fact that holy-crap-Tom-Holland-actor-of-Spider-Man-hottest-man-alive was holding your hand. He led you to an alley before finally letting go.

"I'm so sorry," he apologized quickly. Inwardly, you swooned at that rich, deep accented voice of his. "It's just I needed a day off around the town, and nobody's seen me yet. I needed to stay undercover."

"Oh," you muttered, a light blush tinting your cheeks. "Oh, I'm sorry."

"'S no problem, love." He watched you as you hurriedly stuffed the journal back into your bag. He couldn't help thinking you were very pretty, as he watched you huff, blowing a piece of stray hair that had fallen into your eyes, your s/c skin gleaming in the weak light outside, your eyes sparkling and bright. And you were wearing a Midtown School of Science and Technology hoodie.

He couldn't help but grin. "So," he said as you straightened up. "Spider-Man fan, are you, then?" He nodded to your top.

You looked down at it and flushed. The one day you had chosen to dress lazy and wear your nerdy-ass hoodie... but you weren't about to act embarrassed in front of him. "Yeah," you answered haughtily. "I'm a really big fan! I love Marvel." You hoped you didn't sound like a dork.

Tom found it adorable. He laughed, a light, happy sound. "Cool. Hey, weird question. I know we just met, but, uh, can I have your number?"

Can you?! you thought. But instead, suppressing a squeal, you said calmly, "yeah, okay." How was this happening? And why? And why so fast?

You had so many questions, but curious looks were beginning to be thrown your way, and one girl had even stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, narrowing her eyes and craning her neck to get a better look at Tom. He turned his back on her quickly, before pulling a reciept out of his pocket and tearing a piece off.

"I'll just go ahead and give you mine, before the paparazzi come along." Tom said, writing his number neatly and legibly, the pen working fast. He clicked the pen, stuck it in his back pocket, and handed it to you. You took it, your fingers brushing his slightly, a buzz of electricity going through your fingers. He smiled at you. "I'll call you later, tonight, then? Maybe we can meet at Camden Market or something. See you around, love."

As soon as Tom left, you pressed the piece of precious paper to your chest, grinning like a lovestruck fool. You, Y/N M/N L/N were going on a date with Thomas freakin' Holland.

It had been about two months since you and Tom had first become an item. On the very first date, you both just clicked. Camden Market had been absolutely wonderful, and you and Tom had clicked at once. The awkwardness had melted once you heard him laughing, then you saw the dimples and the accent. Everything about the man was perfect, and you loved him for who he was. Not Spider-Man, but just a regular guy. (Not that he was 'regular' to you.)

That day, later, the sun had disappeared and the clouds arrived, raining hard upon you. You'd quickly grabbed your umbrella out of your tote, holding it above you and Tom's heads as you ran, Tom waving down a taxi. The two of you had tumbled into the car, giggling breathlessly, falling all over each other. The day had shown you a gray sky and a rainy cab ride, but it was the best gray sky and rainy cab ride you'd ever had.

The days you had ahead consisted of stereotypical London Boy things- rugby, hanging out with his best 'mates', high teas, West End shows, and it was all wonderful. You grew to enjoy the new things to do in London, and enjoyed it even more with Tom.

In the morning, Tom rolled over to face you. You were still asleep, sprawled out, bare body curled into the sheets from the night before. One of your hands were strewn across Tom's chest, nails slightly chipped from digging them into his back the night before. He chuckled and moved slightly, trying not disturb you, but of course you woke up anyways.

You opened your eyes. "Tommy?" you asked sleepily, voice dripping with morning love.

Tom pulled you closer and kissed your head tenderly. "G'morning, love. Sorry for waking you."

"'S no problem." You sighed, snuggling closer to him. "Jus' wanna cuddle you..."

"I have shooting in about two hours, baby," Tom told you regretfully. "Trust me, I want nothing more than to snuggle you all day." You nodded and watched Tom as he got up from the bed and went to your shared dresser, quietly pulling out an outfit. He turned to face you, giving you a smile as he slipped on a plain black tee. "You can go back to bed, Y/N. It's only six A.M."

"Don't wanna," you whined. "I just wanna be with you."

Tom raised an eyebrow teasingly, but the words made his heart skip a beat. "Do you really, now? I'm going to film a British movie. You into that? Because it might be kinda boring-"

"The British Office was good," you argued, energy filling you as you and Tom began your easy, familiar ritual of bantering. "And so were your movies! And Idris Elba's, and Benedict Cumberbatch's-"

"I get it. And for the record, the American Office was way better."

You rolled your eyes but felt your heart fill with love. You loved this boy- so much. Ever since the first time he'd ever uttered the phrase, "darling, I fancy you," you knew you had fallen deep into a hole you'd never get back out of, which was perfectly all right by you.

After all, he was your London Boy.

✨✨

(a/n: hi so yesyesyes this is very very bad, i know! i felt compelled to get it done sooner, since i've basically been promising EVERYBODY that i'd get this published soon, for like two weeks now? also, i feel as if i overused the phrase london boy lmao, it was in here a ridiculous amount of times. it IS my first imagine on here and i'm hoping to get more into writing more but, y’know... school. i hope you enjoyed 💞)

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