yellowtambourine

[yellowtambourine]

nocturne / two.

title: nocturne

rating: t (subject to change)

pairing: vincent renzi/ofc

words: 893

warnings: sexual content suggested

notes: multi chapter, updates sporadic probably

—

Vincent thinks that she’s not being as truthful as she likes to believe of herself. He thinks she’s smart, that he can’t quite figure her out, but he likes that. He thinks that she’s dangerous, but he likes that, too, and he wants to know more.

And so, that’s what he’d said, last night.

She’d laughed, first of all. And in its way, it was like wining a prize. He’d wanted it even before he knew what it might look like, sound like, and somehow, it had been even more worth the fight to get to it, in the end. 

The laughter is how they’d ended up leaving the terrace and walking down the street. It’s how they’d found their way through the night, and into bed. 

If they’d been closer to his place, he thinks, maybe he wouldn’t have dared. Because despite everything, she still seemed like a risk, and it felt ill-advised to welcome her into his lair of paperwork and case notes. But she didn’t seem to have the same qualms about him or her place, and so that’s where they’d gone. And that’s where Vincent still was, now all alone. 

She was a ghost, gone, and maybe just a beautiful figment of his drunken imagination. 

The bed where he had woken alone was still warm all over though, even if now it held just him and a note that read:

‘There’s coffee by the stove, help yourself. Lock the door when you leave — the second one is tricky, just double check it before you go. 

Maybe you do exist outside the courthouse, after all — 

Who knew?’

(this way to the rest, over on ao3)

#fic #vincent renzi #vincent renzi/ofc #what is: writing

[yellowtambourine]

nocturne.

title: nocturne

rating: t (subject to change)

pairing: vincent renzi/ofc

words: 1,113

warnings: alcohol mention, smoking mention

notes: multi chapter, updates sporadic probably

—

Such as was the case in most cities with a courthouse, a newspaper, and a steady population of lawyers, politicians, and journalists; there was at least one restaurant in town that everyone decent knew to steer clear of on certain nights, on account of all the unseemly clientele that it was so often crawling with — that being, the aforementioned lawyers, politicians, and journalists. 

So, that’s where they’d met. Or kind of, anyway. 

Vincent had found himself dragged along after a particularly bruising loss (or, so it was for now — the appeal was work for tomorrow’s daylight), and after spending most of his night thus far trying to weigh food against the booze buzzing around in his system plus the more-than occasional cigarette, he’d eventually found his attentions wandering from his table, to another nearby. 

She was slight but commanding, and every time someone dared to get close to her they cowered just a bit, either intimidated or just flat out afraid. She smiled warmly at the women in her party, bursting into bright laughter every so often that seemed to light up her whole face. But then, inevitably, a seemingly random man would approach and her whole demeanour would shift. 

Vincent was sure that he recognised her from somewhere, but for the life of him, he couldn’t quite place her. Not tonight, not like this. And so, when the chance finally arose, he leaned across the table and asked the new paralegal — the one whose eye he’d caught drifting her way, as well. 

‘She’s a journalist. You really don’t remember?’ The new guy was still too confident, and the wine had only served to make him almost intolerably so. ‘She flayed you alive at that doorstep a few months ago.’

Oh. 

Now Vincent remembered. 

(this way to the rest, over on ao3)

#vincent renzi #vincent renzi/ofc #fic #what is: writing

[yellowtambourine]

SEARCH PARTY season four costumes by Matthew Simonelli

#search party #what is: television #nothing about this show was bad even the costumes go so damn hard

[yellowtambourine]

#pauline boty #what is: art

[yellowtambourine]

#anatomy of a fall #anatomie d'une chute #what is: film

[yellowtambourine]

Anne Sexton, from a letter featured in Anne Sexton; A Self-Portrait In Letters

#anne sexton #what is: prose

[yellowtambourine]

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

- Chinese Roulette

1976

#chinese roulette #what is: film #just outrageous degrees of cinematophraphy

[yellowtambourine]

Henri Matisse, Blue nudes, 1952

#henri matisse #what is: art

[yellowtambourine]

#melissa broder #what is: prose #the pisces is very good #and so is death valley

[yellowtambourine]

bonne nuit.

title: bonne nuit

rating: explicit

pairing: vincent renzi/you

words: 740

warnings: smut, alcohol mention

—

You make it across the road just before him, his swaggering steps lazy with the buzz you’ve both got on, making him loathe to rush. You can hear him chuckling even from where you are safely on the other side of the street, his tipsy laughter echoing off the high buildings and through the empty night.

Before you’d dashed away, leaving him to trail behind you, Vincent had been playfully teasing you about the blooming flush across your cheeks, your pink nose. Every so often he’d lean over and kiss your warm face, his lips hungry on your rosy skin, his inhibitions lowered in the dark, late at night, and with the two of you all alone.

You’d been a few steps ahead of him still by the time the road had appeared in front of you, and so you’d dashed across it, giggling all the way, and leaving Vincent in your wake with an incredulous look on his face that didn’t match his rasping laughter.

Once the street is empty again, though — the lone car that’d stood briefly between you disappearing off into the darkness again — there’s a moment.

You both stay standing where you are, him on one side and you on the other, and all the while he stares at you, heat and affection radiating from his gaze even from so far away.

He looks so fond of you, distance be damned, with his head tilted and his hair a mess. You’d been toying with it back at the restaurant, fingertips lazily carding to and fro while he’d purred occasionally into your shoulder, your ear. And looking at him now, like he is, you can’t help but want to coax him back to you and rush the rest of the way home.

‘Come here,’ You call softly, your own head tilting to mirror his.

‘Why?’ He says, and you can hear the spark lurking in his voice even before he goes on. ‘What are you going to do once you’ve got me?’

‘You’ll just have to come over here and find out.’

At that, he laughs again, his footsteps nimble despite all the wine as he drifts toward you across the road finally, his hands grasping for yours once he makes it.

‘Oh, yeah?’ He mumbles between kisses, his touch wandering, his lips lazy. ‘Come on, then.’

---

The apartment is chilly, but cosy. You can be brave here, even despite the goosebumps that trail across your skin as you shed clothes on your way to the bedroom.

And so, you are.

Vincent chases away the tide of chills as they rise and fall across your skin, his mouth wet and hot and greedy, trailing from collarbone to hip.

The only light in the room, your bedroom, is by the moon, but it’s more than enough. You can see his bobbing head, hair a mess, and the look in his eyes, fleetingly dark and wanting, when you disappear down the bed after him.

You can see clearly the helpless grasping of his fist in the sheets at your roving mouth, the steady rise and fall of his chest, and the way his breath becomes desperate just before he pulls you back up the bed.

His hand disappears between you once he’s got you where right where he wants, tucked beneath him with your legs wrapped around his narrow waist. His fingers dance and your breath gasps, and then he laughs, kisses you, then licks at the trace of you that's left on him before he kisses you again.

Once there’s nothing left between you — once you’ve finally managed to inhabit the same space, if only for a little while — you let out a desperate sounding moan, your voice fraying at the edge of itself, and he watches you all the while.

When your eyes have opened again he pulls out then settles slowly back into you again, drawing from you the same sound again and again, until finally, it turns to whining. And with that, something inside him snaps, and so do his hips.

Together, you’re a blur of limbs and lips, rasping breath, and lilting moans.

There’s a siren singing out in the distance, and the vague knock-knocking of the bedhead rapping against the wall. There’s the rustling of sheets, and the sound of slick skin on skin; of open mouths sharing ragged breath, and hints of the final wave approaching in the form of shapeless words.

#vincent renzi #vincent renzi/you #vincent renzi/reader #smut #fic #what is: writing

[yellowtambourine]

POOR THINGS

Yorgos Lanthimos & Atsushi Nishijima. 🎞: Kodak Portra 400

#poor things #what is: film #as with anything nowadays you must enjoy the thing but never engage with the online of it all #the discourse - it will bamboozle you

[yellowtambourine]

I woke up in the middle of the night cooking a bunch of wrapped frozen shit. I almost set my apartment on fire. Does that happen a lot?

THE BEAR 1.02 Hands

#the bear #what is: television #yes i am a former service worker #yes this show is traumatising #but also very good

[yellowtambourine]

long day.

title: long day

rating: explicit

pairing: vincent renzi/you

words: 1,049

warnings: smut (non graphic)

notes: Okay, so, smut happened. And there’s very little discernible storyline to any of it. So this’ll be a Tumblr-only special, I think. All of them are written in second person perspective (”you”).

Here’s one, for now. If it anyone cares enough to read it, I might post some more.

—

The day had been long, and weary — the kind of one you just had to wash off at the end of it all. And so when you’d finally arrived home, feet throbbing and head swimming and mind made up of little more than mush, you’d shucked your clothes almost as soon as the front door had clicked shut behind you, leaving an unwitting trail from doorway to bathroom on your way to warm water and suds and steamy nothingness. 

So, the first thing Vincent sees when he walks through the door himself is the rumpled mess of your blazer heaped on the floor. His tired blue eyes dart awake at the sight of it, but even so, it takes him a moment to realise that the shower is running. He’s too distracted at first by the sight of your one shoe, abandoned, followed by your skirt, your other shoe, then the hint of indigo lace that’s been left trailing last behind the rest of it. 

And he would have stayed that way, maybe — distracted, the fog of his own exhaustion clouding his baser instincts — if it weren’t for the lilting gasp he soon hears floating on the misty air.

He knows that sound, he thinks — knows what it means, what it says, what it tells him you need. And so at the hint of it, and at the lower moan that follows, he tosses his own blazer, his own socks and shoes, onto the floor with yours, and escapes into the bathroom to join you. 

You hear the door creak open, hear the familiar sound of his footsteps padding across the floor, and so by the time he teases the shower glass open, you’ve managed to arrange your face into a lazy smile. You know he knows what you’d been doing in here without him — you can see it in the quirk of his grin, in the spark behind his blue eyes. And so as penance, or an apology for starting without him, you lean back against the cool tile and make room for him under the spray of the shower. 

‘Salut,’ he murmurs first, the words only barely escaping his lips before they’re slipping across yours. 

‘Comment ça va?’ You gaze back at him with one raised eyebrow and try not to gasp when he simpers in response, his hands greedily exploring the slippery wetness of you. 

Everything that’s left is touch — his face nuzzled briefly in the crook of your neck, the playful nip of his teeth on the soft skin of your nape, the way his fingertips make their way gently over your neck so that he can swallow up the burst of your giggles that pour from your lips at the knowing of him, and this, and what’s to come. 

You bite him back, his bottom lip between your teeth, once his face is again level with yours and then you watch, dazed, as the water from the shower runs in rivulets down his face, his nose, the curve of his jaw and the jut of his chin. 

Before you can protest — you want to just keep looking at him, you think — Vincent turns you gently, places your hands against the wall, then lines his body up against your own. 

It’s just him, everywhere — his hips pressed against yours, his chest against your back, and his mouth chucking devilishly all the while between kisses that land on your temple, your shoulder, your wandering fingertips. 

‘Let me?’ He says, and it’s a question, but it’s also a want. He wants to do this — to make you feel good, after whatever day it is you’ve had to make you run from the door into here, your steamy escape. ‘Hmm?’ 

His nose is pressed against your cheek, his one hand spread wide across your chest, hovering over your beating heart, while his other trails lazy circles over your abdomen. 

You had started something before he joined you, and now, he wants to help you finish. 

‘What about you?’ You let your head fall back onto his shoulder, your bodies tangled beneath the sluice of the shower. But all he does in reply is shrug, then smile, then kiss you. 

You take Vincent’s hand from your hip and guide him downwards, your stomach fluttering in anticipation. You feel unmoored at the simple touch of him, like organised static, but safe all the while at the feel of him, solid and real, behind you. 

His touch drifts and teases, exploring. His fingertips graze over the crest of your hipbone, the tops of your thighs, wandering slowly, slowly, towards where you both want him most. 

‘Yeah?’ He murmurs, his mouth close by your ear, all the lines of him pressed against all the lines of you. He knows the answer — yeah, like that, more, please, more — but he asks anyway, and then chuckles at the little sound you make against his neck when his other hand ventures downward, too.

He’s leant against the tile, and you’re leant against him, the beat of the shower and the touch of him combined making your skin spark and your head swim. You’re far enough gone by now that your brain has finally shut off, and all that remains of the world is his playful touch, tracing patterns against the centre of you. 

Everything is wet, and warm, and so are you, and when you gasp at the tightening knot in your stomach, he drinks you up, stealing what’s left of your panting breath for his own. 

There’s a squeak of slick bathtub underfoot, and it’s almost a distraction until he whispers in your ear, ‘I’ve got you,’ and in so many ways, you know that to be true. 

You manage to glance up at him, dazed, just before you topple over the edge of it all, his blue eyes crinkling into a fond smile, his face awed and determined, both at the same time. 

The bathroom echos with the sounds of you and him, of moans and whispers, kisses, and oblivion. And just before the final wave of white-hot pleasure crashes over you, he tightens his arm around your waist, keeping you safe. 

Then, he watches you dissolve in his arms and waits, kissing you while he helps to put you back together again. 

—

#vincent renzi #vincent renzi/reader #vincent renzi/you #smut #fic #what is: writing

[yellowtambourine]

you dream in a language i can't understand ✰ past lives (2023) dir. by celine song

#past lives #what is: film

[yellowtambourine]

sweetbitter, stephanie danler

#stephanie danler #sweetbitter #what is: prose

[yellowtambourine]

Pauline Boty, Untitled (Seascape with Boats and Island), collage on paper, c.1960, Purchased with support from Art Fund (2019) © Estate of Pauline Boty

Pauline Boty was one of the founders of the British Pop Art movement and arguably one of the first feminist artists.

Her collage presents us with an alarmingly giant woman rising out of a crochet mountain. It is a quaint version of Attack of the 50ft Woman. The image is witty and ridiculous but hides a more serious undertone. It is a subversive take on British man’s dominance of the sea. The collage uses wood engravings from the Victorian era. An era defined by the ultimate power of the British Empire.

Until the 1990s, Boty was mostly left out of art history in the 20th century. More focus has been given to her striking looks, her celebrity status and her frank sexuality. There was an outdated notion that a woman can’t be taken seriously because of her appearance or behaviour.

#pauline boty #what is: art

[yellowtambourine]

linger.

title: linger

rating: m

pairing: vincent renzi/ofc

words: 8,926

warnings: alcohol mentions, angst, death mention (canon), references to sex

notes: so i watched the thing and unfortunately gave myself french lawyer brain worms, so, here be this.

—

It had all started with a phone call — brief, and shapeless.

‘I have to go out of town,��� he’d said. ‘It’s all very unexpected.’ 

Vincent’s words had swirled and spattered, caught up between the racket of the street outside and the courthouse, and the stunned static gathering like a gloomy storm in Elodie’s mind’s eye.

He didn’t know when he’d be back exactly, and he couldn’t seem to find quite the right words to describe the why, let alone the what or the how of it. But even still, Elodie had been placid in her response, calm, and unmoving.

There was no telling that just out of sight she was flailing, bubbling over with wondering and a lurking panic. 

‘Okay,’ she’d said. Just that, and then, ‘Drive safe.’

Her voice was light and even, steady right up until the last moment when her mouth had filled with words she didn’t want to let slip. And so there’d been a little crack then, and Vincent had heard it.

Elodie knew he’d heard it by the sound of the sigh he gave just before he’d disappeared from down the line, and at the thought of that — of him, far away and pulling further, and her, marooned and confused — the reality of it all, the moment and the hollowness left in it’s wake, rose up to greet her. 

There was so much missing from in between the in-betweens, and Elodie didn’t know where to begin looking for sense or answers. The day was soured, and her heart was searching, but now the line was dead, and so all that was left was to worry, and wonder.

Vincent hadn’t told her the why and Elodie hadn’t asked. He hadn’t said how long he was going to be gone, but maybe, she thought, that was just because he wasn’t sure?

There had been no talk of if he was going alone, or if whatever it was that had drawn him away was a new job, or part of one left over. She knew none of that, had no answers to any of the questions she hadn’t thought to ask and couldn’t now, and moreover, she realised, she hadn’t said I love you — not at the start or the end of it all.

But then, neither had he.

(this way to the rest - over on a03)

#vincent renzi #vincent renzi/ofc #fic #what is: writing #what is writing indeed