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pigeontheoneandonly · 4 years

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This is a little fanfic I did of @citadelsushi’s amazing long fic, Give to Pressure. It’s a fantastic enemies-to-lovers AU set in the Old West, starring her Avory Shepard and Kaidan Alenko. I cannot say enough good things about this fic. Its characterization, writing, and atmosphere are absolutely on point. And it even updates reliably! It’s a joy to read and you should all stop whatever you’re doing and go read it right now.

All those feels spilled over and I ended up writing a short fic about Nathaly set in this universe. Since no planet is big enough for two Shepards, I’ve altered her story a bit to accommodate.

* * *

Nathaly Cabrera stood at her bar, tallying up the books from last night. The sun had just crested the hills and shed long beams of pink light over the worn planks. Though well-accustomed to rising at first light, Sundays never got too easy, as folks piled into town for morning services and seemed keen to get all their sinning done the evening before. She wasn’t dressed yet herself; boots and pants and an untucked shirt, just enough to see to the yard, her uncombed hair tumbled over her shoulders in a red tangle.

Least she had the mind to knock the muck from her boots. Nathaly never cared much for scrubbing floors, and even less for scrubbing chicken shit.

The door swung open and brought with it a dry wind and the promise of another achingly hot day. Nehal stepped inside, tugging off her gloves, a picture in rose silk. She took in Nathaly with a sigh. “You get a move on. We’ll be late.”

“Perish the thought.” Neither had enough Christian in her for even the devil to recognize, but Nehal would rise from her death bed before she’d miss a lick of gossip. In a town as small as this, church was the social highlight of the week.

She was too familiar with her grumpiness to spare much concern. “I heard the train come in yesterday. So I walked down to Miller’s to see about the mail.”

Nathaly took the envelope she offered, and made a face. “Mi madre.”

“ Sí.” She hiked her bustle and perched on a stool, folding her arms over the bar top. Relishing her irritation. “And how is dear Miss Hannah doing?”

The paper was creased and torn, some indication of the distance it had traveled, but she’d learned better than to guess. She slit it open and read the first few lines. “Well, she was in Peking as of two months back.”

“Peking? Why?” That was far abroad even by Hannah’s tumbleweed standards.

“Says here she joined a merchant caravan out of Persia, heading east.” Her frown deepened. Her mother’s wandering feet took her all over the world as a child, putting down roots just to have them ripped back out of the ground, tender and smarting. Age hadn’t slowed her a mite.

Nehal reached over and rested her hand on her forearm. Comforting. “Sulk if it pleases you, but you’ve got more than a touch of her blood, and you know it.”

Nathaly muttered. Nehal’s smiled widened, teasing. “Following that same wind blew you all the way to East India.”

A pressing need to get out of town had blown her to India, fleeing a city a long ways from here, where the fastest way out was to sign on with a ship’s crew. But Nehal was right. She let Hannah dig too far under her skin. Instead, she picked up her hand and planted a kiss in the palm. “Your siren song spread across the seas.”

“Such a charming liar.” Her laugh faded. “But that’s not all that came in on the train.”

After seven years and two continents, Nehal was an open book. She knew her thoughts by her look like she knew her whiskeys by their scent. “Not more of those yellow-sashed bastards.”

At her nod, Nathaly cursed, and reached behind the bar. Her eyebrows rose, mildly. “Don’t tell me you mean to leave with liquor on your breath.”

“Don’t tell me I’m not entitled, between my mother and this.” She poured out a finger and took a sip. “Damn it. I have half a mind—”

“We should head south for a spell.” Switching topics like the weather turning, inexorable and without a care for anyone’s agenda. “It’s been nigh on two years since we visited your father. Your nephew will be taller than me.”

Nathaly wasn’t having it. “Leave papá out of this.”

“Sure as starlight, three weeks in you’ll hear talk of trouble somewhere, or go looking for it.” She folded her hands. Nathaly couldn’t escape her level stare. “And you’ll come home with the sun, covered in bandito blood and lookin’ to cap off the evening with exertions of a different sort.”

“You’ve never not obliged,” she harrumphed.

Her mouth turned up in a wicked little smile. “Never said I minded.”

It was an opening worth seizing. “Do we have to go to church?”

“The point,” said Nehal, as Nathaly sighed and took another drink, “Is to syphon off a bit of this poison of yours, so you’ll come home with your head on straight and resist the impulse to start fights you can’t finish.”

“They already heard loud and clear their money ain’t welcome here. You best believe I’d finish it.”

“No, Nathaly, you won’t.”

That gave her pause. She’d rarely seen Nehal so sober. “You’ve heard something.”

She shook her head. “Not any one thing. But I haven’t bought a shipment of silver anything in near half a year. Silk and tea are getting scarce.”

Life under the Raj had been kinder to Nehal’s family than most, undoubtedly aided by her British grandfather. Though most of the town saw her as a pretty ornament, something Nathaly brought back like a souvenir, the truth was her import business made better money than the bar. She’d eat her hat if any of the townsfolk other than the proprietors themselves could source the sudden availability of so many hard to come by goods.

But they kept those opinions behind their teeth. No other place in town had ousted Cerberus, so any woman who could enforce a ban from the only watering hole wasn’t someone to cross. Besides, Nathaly had yet to meet a body who looked at two unmarried adults living together, sharing property, and couldn’t damn well figure it out. Nobody said anything about that, either. Though they did share the occasional quiet nod with Luther and Eddie when they rode in from their ranch every few months.

“Cerberus is controlling the supply lines, buying them directly or through coercion. And a snapping up fair amount of the goods.” Nehal looked up at her. “A single person taking on an empire is a recipe for a funeral, and I’m not ready to bury you yet.”

She held her gaze a long minute, and then let out an explosive sigh. “Fine. Boils my blood.”

“Mine, too.”

Nathaly raised an eyebrow. “You keeping safe around town?”

She moved her arm to reveal the small pearl-handled revolver at her waist. Prim as it was, Nathaly had seen her put a bullet through the eye of a man at thirty paces. So as to not get blood on the satin, she’d explained, smoothing her dress. “And I’ve told Lilybet to keep a weather eye and clear of the station.”

A fever took her parents, and while plenty of ranches would be happy to have another hand, she chose to make her own way. Or as much of a way as she could, spending more nights than not sleeping in their parlor upstairs. That was alright. She’d had it hard enough without disallowing her some dignity in illusions.

Just then, the door creaked open again. Nathaly’s hand closed on the shotgun under the bar before she was done looking up. Nobody came around for a drink on Sunday morning, and Lilybet would use the back door. Trains brought in all manner of trash.

She aimed it forward and scrutinized the silhouette darkening her porch. Then she exhaled, set it down, and picked up the glass. “Oh. It’s you.”

#mass effect #give to pressure AU #citadelsushi #nathaly shepard #fanfic

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livestosave · 4 years

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I gotta go to a Call of Cthulu game here real soon, but like.

Idk y’all throw asks at me for the god au, I have some thoughts on some of my other muses (and Qrow, who is the only one who’s got a post yet lol). Toss me asks while my WWI British Raj doctor maybe goes insane, maybe fights the forces of unknowable madness and wins the battle.

#Out of Silence (ooc)#(...Liz is a big tabletop gamer as well as videogames)#(I've never played Call of Cthulu tho so I am...intrigued)#(And reusing and revamping an older character for this)

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sabraeal · 6 years

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Get Up Eight: Chapter 1

An expansion of this Edo Period AU snippet, River of Silk

The incense is cloying this close; the scent of agarwood threatens to choke her, to leave her gasping for air if she doesn’t open the thick curtains drawn around the kamidama. A punishment at the hands of the gods themselves.

Instead, Shirayuki kneels.

The lamp burns steadily above, its light spilling off the shelf to fall, muted, to where she sits. The scent is less here, almost pleasant as long as she’s on her knees. As long as she’s showing deference.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, hands reaching up, up, until her fingers flip the latch over the sacred mirror -- the latch her grandfather had set so many years ago, when her mother was just a child, when he had built this with his own hands, to show that they were townspeople now, that they weren’t poor farmers --

There’s no shinkyō inside. It’s only books, only the last of her precious treasures, only her last memories of the time before.

Even now her fingers tremble as she holds them. The last of her dreams, held in rice paper and foreign parchment. A match, a careless hand, and she would lose even these.

She’s already lost too much. She can’t bear any more.

There’s just enough light to read by, for her to squint as she turns the delicate pages. Lines sprawl across the page, like nothing more than trees with endless branches. Shinkei, one book says, zenuw, say another. Nerve, she mouths to herself; the English word she knows from asking ship surgeons. She’ll know all of them, one day.

“Shirayuki!”

But not this one.

“Shirayuki!” Eno shouts again, knocking his cane against wood, gravel scuttling beneath his feet as he tries to peek in a window. “Shirayuki!”

“What is he thinking?” she huffs, cheeks flushing. She hurries to squirrel away her books, her notes. They can’t be left them out here for anyone to find. “Does he want someone to hear him?”

She scrambles to her feet, flipping the latch on the kamidama to hold her treasures safe. A breath of relief, and then she is rushing to the window, throwing open the shutters.

“Eno-san!” She doesn’t dare lift her voice above a loud whisper. “There’s no need to shout!”

“Shirayuki!” His mouth widens into an insensible smile. “Are you open?”

She glances toward the sky, the sun disappeared behind the roofs but light still golden. “No.”

“Ah, come on, then,” he cajoles. “It’s hardly much before dusk. Might as well open a bit early, if there’s asking!”

Her mouth purses into a thin line. She already works late into the night, ushering the drunks home only hours before dawn. Must she be expected to do more, to be available at all hours for a man’s pleasure? She did not risk so much to live a yujo’s hours anyway.

But she can’t shout her thoughts into the streets, not when there might be dōshin around, watching the old drunk make trouble. “All right,” she relents, “just this once.”

“Bless you!” he calls out, drawing more eyes. “Bless you, girl!”

She hurries out to the front, cursing each blessing Eno lays upon her doorstep. He’s a kind man, an old friend of Oji-san’s, a man she’s known her whole life -- but he’s the sort who must always make a scene, who must make a production of himself. It had been funny when she was a small girl, when he was only a whirling, mad uncle who would turn every moment into mummery.

Now he is a liability. A danger.

The door slides open easily in her hands, allowing him to stumble through.

“You are a golden child!” he tells her, nearly bowling her over. He already reeks of sake; some of the foreigners must have plied him with it, thinking it a fun game. She sighs, peeking out past him to see what attention he’s garnered.

The street is not busy, not before nightfall, but there’s always someone. With the foreigners in the port, there’s always some samurai prowling, looking for an excuse to make the tension worse.There will be violence here, one day, a massacre -- already, barely months ago, a Russian sailor was murdered three streets away, cut down by Japanese steel. Sonnō jōi is a wave, a tsunami, and one day it will break on Yokohama.

No one is particularly interested in this scene however; a drunk man in Yokohama can be seen on every corner when the ships are in. Still, eyes latch to them before skittering on, pretending they never looked.

Except one.

Gold eyes fix on her, steady, set in a face that might as well be a mask for how much it gives away. His hair is shorn, covering his skull like a bristled cap. It was cut all at once, she knows, maybe evened in some still water’s reflection; the look of a man without a master. She’s seen it enough these days; she hardly needs to take in the blade slung at his waist to know just what he is.

“Ronin,” Eno spits, catching the line of her gaze. “There’s too many of them here. Samurai too. Too many hot-blooded young men in one place spells trouble.”

Shirayuki doesn’t mean to stare, but there’s something about him that draws her eyes like a flame. There’s a scar just above his eye, a pale slash on his dark skin. Dangerous, that says, as does the gouge on his chest, bared through the loose wrap of his kimono. It’s a wound that might have -- should have, by her guess -- killed him. And he displays it proudly, like a trophy.

She doubts the man who gave him it is alive

“Maybe the shogun was right to place the sword ban,” she breathes, tearing her eyes away, She can still feel his on her. “Less steel will make it safer in the ports.”

The ronin’s gaze slips over her, and he passes, no more than another man with a blade.

“No,” Eno says, his speech clear. “It only makes men desperate. Like that one. A whole city full of desperate men.”

Shirayuki stares out on the street, empty now. Another street over, she wouldn’t even have to imagine it. She hears you can smell blood on it still, when the sun beats down.

“Forget about that!” Eno says suddenly, back with his old drunken swagger. “Come on now, let’s give a drink to Jiji.”

“To Jiji!” the men roar, cups lifted. One of them -- the youngest, Roku-san’s middle son -- traipses to the bar. He’s quiet out of his cups, a wary thing, but now he saunters up to the golden Buddha that sits, contentiously, at its center. A sliver of serenity in the chaos that is the sake house.

The wave might take this from her too. The sake house sees mainly regulars, men who knew her grandfather, grandmother, and even mother, but those who aren’t cast dark eyes at the statue, gazes slipping off it as if it is unclean. Sonnō jōi is to expel all foreigners, even, it seems, saints.

And Shirayuki will do anything to keep her head above water.

Her patron is all smiles now, tipping some of his sake into the offering cup clutched in golden hands. Shirayuki grimaces. It’s tradition she knows, meant to honor Ojii-san, but –

But it’s another task she’ll have to do, cleaning the Buddha, making sure there’s no sticky sake left in his cup. Another reminder that if she doesn’t mind herself, this could all come tumbling down.

“Another!” Kino-san -- the Elder -- laughs, waving his hand. “The night’s not yet done!

Shirayuki nods, hurrying into the pantry to grab another bottle; behind her she hears laughter, hears one of the men say, “Might as well go grab it yourself, Kino, save the girl the trip! It’ll be yours anyway.”

She nearly drops the flask. That’s not -- she’d refused him, his offer of protection. She knew what a precarious situation she was in, how all it would take was a curious dōshin to bring it all down around her, but --

But she wouldn’t take a man’s kindness, just because their grandmothers had been close, just because their mothers had called each other sisters before one had married beyond herself.

If she must come into marriage with a man, it would not be on her knees.

“Ah, no!” She turns in time to see Kino -- the Younger -- flush, to see him wave away the teasing. “It’s not like that. Shirayuki -- Jiji has this well in hand.”

“Ah, right.” The atmosphere of the bar becomes somber; more than a few eyes linger on the Buddha, on the cup he clasps.

“Come on, girl!” Eno-san calls out, jovial, trying to raise the mood. “Hurry –“

The bar goes silent when the doors burst open, revealing red coats. Foreigners. British.

“Well, well!” says their leader in English, a young man with a lop-sided smile and dark hair. “Don’t let us stop you.”

Raj has come to the sake house every night since his ship has been in port, and it feels as if it will never sail again.

“You’re not like the other girls here, Shirayuki,” he drawls, the consonants of his English crisp, the vowels sharp. She doesn’t know much about accents – hardly more than it takes to find out if a man is English or American – but his men don’t have the same. She’s sure he’d call it educated, but by the way his men send him long looks, she guesses it is more moneyed.

Perhaps that’s the same, in the West.

“How would you know?” she says, letting her voice sound teasing but not flirtatious. He already sees too much into the way she talks with him. Foreigners always do. “None of them speak English.”

“S-some of them do!” he blusters, pale skin flushing red. “Isn’t that right, Sakaki?”

“Of course, sir,” his manservant deadpans, eyes hooded with what she assumes is exhaustion. He’s older than Raj, but lower rank. She suspects this has more to do with birth rather than competence.

“I mean, of course, that you speak so well,” he continues, as if the man had never spoken. “You’re clearly a league above the other girls here, when it comes to intelligence. Why, with that red hair, you could almost pass for British.”

She hopes her grimace looks much more like a smile than it feels.

“Our ship leaves at the end of the week, you know,” he says, finger tracing the rim of his cup.

She hadn’t known, and it’s only through practice that she manages to keep the relief off her face. Soon he will be gone, and some other foreigner will come. Hopefully someone who prefers pining rather than flirting. Maybe someone French; she’s been meaning to pick up that language too.

Her thoughts distract her, she doesn’t realize his hand has moved until it’s on her wrist, thumb rubbing over her pulse. The blood in her veins turns to ice.

“It would be a shame to leave such a treasure as you here,” he says thoughtfully, tugging her closer to the bar. “We aren’t supposed to bring home souvenirs, but no one will say me nay…”

There is a part of her that is tempted. Here, there is no chance of her getting to study, but across the sea, she had heard there are women doctors. Not without pain, not without strife, but Shirayuki is used to both.

All it would cost her is herself.

“I cannot,” she breathes, “my grandfather needs me here.”

“I’ll pay him,” Raj promises easily, as if he’s never wondered where money comes from. “More than handsomely. A bride price any proper girl would be proud of.”

“Bride…price?” The term is strange, though she can guess what it is, from context. He couldn’t possibly –

“I couldn’t marry you, of course,” he laughs. “But you’d be the best kept mistress in England, aside from the King’s himself.”

Her mouth pulls flat. “No, thank you.”

She tugs at his arm, but he yanks her closer. “I’m offering you a life beyond dreaming, Shirayuki. A way out of this backwater country. Come with me, and I’ll show you how civilized people live.”

“I said no,” she gasps, pulling away, but he just holds tighter, his grip nearly painful.

“If you know what is good for you,” he growls, words clipped, “you’ll come with me.”

She grabs for something – anything – to make him release her, and –

And Grandfather Buddha slaps him across the temple, sending him tumbling to the floor, sake offerings staining his coat, his face.

The bar is quiet.

“I said,” she says, raising her voice, “no.”

The laughter crashes down with a roar, native and foreigner alike. On either side of the ocean, a spurned man is ridiculous

Raj scrambles to his feet, shaking himself. Sake sprays off his jacket, his trousers, and it only makes them laugh harder, grown men nearly in tears, leaning on each other to stay upright. Even Sakaki’s lips twitch at the corner, though he remains his master’s stoic shadow.

“You!” Raj growls, back hunched, teeth bared, more an animal than man. “You’ll regret this, you little whore.”

As the curtain swings shut behind him, only Sakaki following him into the night, Shirayuki certain he is right.

It’s the shouting that rouses her, that makes her lift her head, but –

But it’s the glass breaking that gets her out of bed.

It’s all gibberish for a few minutes as she rights herself, and but then she realizes it’s English, it’s Raj’s men outside shouting whore and worse. A rock crashes through her window, breaking the wood slats and --

And, oh, she can’t stay here. They’ll kill her.

Her hands shake as she throws clothes on; there’s not time to worry about propriety, not when any moment they could break through the door, the high windows – even the walls themselves, if they’re angry enough. She manages, just barely; her kimono lies askew over her juban, and her obi is just barely tied, but it’s enough, enough, and she moves to flee --

But then she smells the smoke. They’re carrying torches. They could set the sake house alight.

The latch of the kamidama is hot against her palms, and she flings it open, collecting the precious treasure within. The last of her hopes, her dreams. They’re the only thing worth anything in this whole place, save for –

The Buddha.

There’s no thought to leaving it, not now that she remembers. Not when it will be the first thing looters take, thinking the gold real, thinking there’s more than just wood beneath.

They would not like being right.

Shirayuki sprints into the bar, ducking under the windows so as to not be seen. Wood litters the floor under her feet, glass and stone as well. They’ll destroy this place to get at her, to make her pay, to force her onto that ship if she still lives. They’re practically pulling boards off the walls, but they haven’t broken through yet.

She cradles Buddha in her arms.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him. “I’ve ruined everything.”

There’s only one place to go.

Kino-san opens the door himself, eyes bleary. She thanks all the kami it’s him, not his parents.

“Shirayuki,” he says, eyes wide. “Are you all right?”

He would have made a good husband, had she been the sort of girl interested in being a wife.

“Kino-san,” she breathes, aware of the Buddha tucked against her chest. “I have a proposition.”

Her pockets are heavy as she steps out into the streets. The kimono she wears isn’t hers – that one is smoke-stained, ruined, but Kino-san’s mother was eager to dress her nicely, to put her in the sort of silks a wife of their house could enjoy. It’s beautiful, makes her look like she’s a woman to be reckoned with, instead of one without a home to go back to, with only what her life is worth in her pockets.

She can’t stay in Yokohama. Even if Raj’s ship leaves today, he’ll be back – a year, two? Enough time to build, only for him to raze it again.

She won’t live in fear. She won’t marry to be safe, to protect herself from a man who won’t let her say no.

Where will you go? Kino-san had asked her after she refused him again. It’s not accusatory, not angry, just -- concerned.

If only she knew how to make herself love someone. It would be so much easier.

None of these samurai will take her. They ask to see her father, to know where her gold comes from. That, or they eye the wisps of hair from under her wrap, or their gazes linger too long on the folds of her kimono.

There are men who are too expensive, and those who are too…expensive. She can pay in coin, and she knows some of them will not be happy for it.

By mid-day her feet hurt, her legs tight from mincing about in this fashionable kimono, and she is no closer to leaving than that morning. She’s desperate, and –

Desperate.

There’s at least one other man in this city as desperate as her.

“Samurai-dono.”

Gold eyes sweep down to meet hers. Up close, he’s smaller than she remembers, but still tall. At least average.

His kimono still gapes, still shows off his scar. He scratches it.

She does not wince. Hopefully.

“I have a proposition for you, samurai-dono.”

The key to negotiation is to pretend you hold the power. Oji-san always told her that.

“Six ryo if you bring me to Kyoto safely,” she says, her hands not even trembling around the cup. This past year has been an exercise in acting; this is just one more small performance. “Well, samurai-dono? Do you accept the terms?”

He’s a slovenly man, and when he slips his hand down from his face to hide in his kimono, she cannot hide her distaste. He’s not shaved recently; stubble prickling his face, though she must admit it lends him and air of…ruggedness she does not precisely mislike.

His mouth lifts at one corner, wry. He thinks he has humor, this ronin. She’s yet to see evidence of it. “Sorry to say, ojou-san,” he says in his smooth voice, “but I’ll pass on this one.”

Her gaze flicks up to his. This isn’t right. He’s desperate, more rib than meat. He can’t possibly pass up six ryo. It’s a fortune. “Is it the money?”

“No.” He grimaces as he takes in his sake. She’s surprised they’re selling it this early, but this ronin is not a man she’d care to cross in her own house. The man probably just wanted to keep him happy, less likely to make trouble. “It’s that you’re lying to me.”

Her heart pounds, her cheeks flush. “T-that’s not true. I’ll pay you half the ryo now, and half when we arrive in Kyoto.”

“Where did a girl like you even get so much money?” His eyes trail over her, no spark of interest in them. It’s a relief, as well as an insult. “Can’t be in the brothels. Are you running away from a marriage?”

Her mouth works, trying to find some reason to give him, but –

But she hears Raj, kicking up a fuss about the whore inside. “Samurai-dono,” she whimpers. “Please. Take me to Kyoto.”

His eyes narrow. “What’s in Kyoto, ojou-san?”

Nothing. He can’t know that. “My – my cousin.”

It’s a likely enough story, no reason for him to doubt it, but he remains incredulous. “I don’t think --”

“Let me in!” Raj demands, throwing – something. She flinches. He’ll find her, just sitting here like this. With another man. He won’t think it’s just business, not a man like him.

“Ojou-san --?”

“Please.” She wants to be big, be strong, but she’s so, so scared. He’ll kill her. He’ll strangle her right here while everyone watches. “Please take me from here.”

There’s a moment, an eternity, before the ronin speaks.

“Come here.” He grabs her wrist and yanks.

She’s not prepared; she stumbles into the table, and that in turn sends her sprawling into his lap, bottom pressed improperly to his front.

“I –“

“Play along!” he hisses, and then – then –

Then he puts his hand down her kimono.

Never has she been so – so manhandled, and he worsens it, jostles her to that her legs fall open, so that she tips against his shoulder, then – then –

He put his mouth to her neck.

“Sound like you’re having a good time,” he purrs against her, and she – she feels strange, feels hot –

“Oh-ho-ho!” she shrills, like the geisha she’s seen flirting with custom in the streets. She hopes.

It’s not. “Not that kind,” he snaps, and then –

Oh. Oh, oh – that is – that is his mouth, and it’s – his tongue is there too, and there’s sucking, and she cannot – it’s not –

“You, ronin!”

Oh, that’s – that’s right. She’s – she’s hiding from Raj. She’d forgot—

His hand shifts; no longer is his palm pressed awkwardly against her breast but cupping it, long fingers holding her with far more delicacy than she’d expect from a man like him. The way he positions her over his crotch, though – that she expects.

Raj stamps his foot, incensed. “Excuse me, I’m talking to you!”

The ronin looks up, gold eyes cold as coin, and stares blankly. Perhaps he doesn’t speak English; very few speak it as well as her.

“Have you seen…?” Raj lets out a huff, a growl, impatient as always. “HAVE YOU SEEN. RED HAIR. WOMAN.”

His only answer is to bring his mouth back to her neck, worrying at a spot that makes pins and needles break out over her arms, her legs.

“Why do I bother? Sakaki!”

Shirayuki dips her head as his companion appears, hoping her face has not flushed more than is seemly for some – some yujo, or whatever this ronin is trying to imply about her with his antics. Between the two of them, it would be Sakaki who would see through a ruse. She may only be red hair and green eyes to Raj, but not to Sakaki.

Raj thrusts out an impatient hand. “Ask this man about Shirayuki.”

“Excuse me, samurai-dono?” he intones softly, his Japanese as impeccable as always. “But have you seen a young woman with red hair?”

She is more disappointed than she ought to be when the ronin pulls away. “I haven’t seen any foreign women.”

“Not foreign. From Yokohama. Green eyes as well.”

The ronin’s face grows thoughtful – he may not have seen her hair, but her eyes, those he could not miss. She came to him because he was desperate, because she though a bag full of ryo would speak louder to him than pride, but –

But Raj could offer so much more, and for far less effort.

Shirayuki can’t – she won’t allow that.

How she makes the moan she’ll never know; it hurts her throat to be used in such a strange way, but both Englishmen stumble back, propriety offended, and the ronin –

It’s can’t be heat that she sees in his eyes. Not for that.

“No,” he says, so even, even as his thumb flicks out, rubbing right over her – her –

It makes her flush even to think about, squirming on his lap as a strange heat pools between her legs.

“Tell him to look in a brothel,” the ronin snaps. “I’m busy.”

Raj makes a scene, of course, and it’s nothing to sneak out the back, though she hesitates not to leave coin on the table.

“If it make you feel better, that man would have sold you out if he knew what was under your scarf,” the ronin tells her, cold, before moving past her.

It’s a fair point, even if it leaves a limp knot in her belly. She follows him.

It’s not a long walk to the back, to the alley behind the sake house, but her cheeks are still red with shame, her face flushed with heat, and --

And he had no right to use her like that. As if she were -- were -- some kind of yujo.

“We should go over my terms --”

Her hand snaps out before she can help herself. They both stand for a moment after she’s done, stunned.

He looks up, and her hand pulls back, ready to try again, and –

And he grabs it, giving her a long-suffering look.

“Don’t – don’t do that again!” she stammers out, cheeks flushed. “I’m not – I’m no yujo --”

“I know, ojou-san,” he says, both soothing and stern at the same time. “I was saving your life. Or maybe just your virtue.”

She doesn’t want to think about what would have happened had Raj found her, had this ronin decided to give her up. “I…know. Thank you. But…think of another way, next time. Samurai-dono.”

His laugh is harsh. “I’m no samurai, ojou-san.”

She’s not stupid. “I know. What else should I call you?”

He hesitates. “Obi.”

She nods. “Obi-dono.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “Just Obi.”

“All right,” she says. “just Obi. We should...finish our conversation. Not here.”

“Not here,” he agrees. “Do you have somewhere to go?”

“I...” It’s a terrible idea, but unless she wants to pay for an inn tonight, it’s what she has. “I do.”

#obiyukibingo2018 #free space #obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #Get Up Eight #samurai au #edo AU #my fic #ans #the amount of tabs I had open for this were UNREAL #my knowledge of japanese history is very basic #but HERE WE ARE #for the people who wanted more of this #there will probably be a second chapter for bingo as well #to get that actual samurai AU space

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the-light-of-stars · 6 years

Text

So I just watched “Once upon a time in the West” (well, I watched it partially, it’s a damned long movie) and you know what I had to think of?

Endless Summer Wild West AU !

I mean, think about it wouldn’t it be interesting?

Sean and Craig are the sons of local farmers and knew eachother since childhood , Sean taught Craig how to ride a horse, Craig taught Sean how to fix a barn. Sean wants more than a farmers life, though, and wants to become the next Sheriff. His mother owns their farm alone since everything that happened with his dad (what happened with him is all still the same), and has been asked to sell lately (more about that later), which she refuses to do even though they’re not exactly rich.

Quinn is the daughter of the town’s baker, an Irish immigrant, and since Rotterdam’s probably wasn’t well known back then she’d probably have tuberculosis instead :(

Raj works at the local pub, which is owned by his family and was funded by his grandma, he’s been dreaming of opening his own restaurant in the city, though.

Estela is a mysterious stranger who just came to town, but people say she’s a bounty hunter. And well, they’re correct.

Yvonne and Malatesta are in a western gang, but one of those that only rob postal coaches and trains and still have some sort of moral standards

Zahra is the daughter of the local clockmaker and set up a telegraph line as a teen with which she’d “listen in” to the telegraphs that are sent to the postal station

Michelle’s parents moved to that town from the city and want her to become a seamstress, like her mother, but she secretly studies to become a doctor

Diego’s parents own the towns retail shop but he’s always been dreaming of moving away, and living like the lonesome cowboys that are written about in the newspaper

Kele is also rather new there and just became the Sheriffs right hand man

Grace is the daughter of the mayor who also owns aforementioned newspaper (this would be Blaire). Her mother wants her to go into politics and business as well, but Grace rather studies the regions ecosystem

The Vaanti are a Native American tribe in this scenario

Rourke is the owner of a very big and just as dubious company (nobody really knows what the company is doing. Is it a railway company? A finance one? Real estate maybe?) Which buys up a lot of farms and land for unknown purposes, leaving abandoned ghost towns in its wake. Nobody knows why but it sure ain’t good when suddenly some random British industrial shows up and buys so much property. There are also rumors about him being involved in his wives mysterious death.

Lila is his assistant/secretary, who’s the one usually sent out to make a deal with the landowners at first. If she’s not successful the “special unit” (Lundgren and co) are called. She still killed Estelas mom, who in this AU was one of the companies accountants that noticed there’s something off with the firms finances.

Aleister is basically still the same, just now in the 19th century. He’s been sent to the town by his father to make a deal with Mayor Hall ( there might or might not be corruption involved ), but alas he has doubts about his fathers business

Lundgren is the leader of Rourkes gang of goons, who do the dirty work for him (like “convincing” farm owners that don’t want to sell). Tetra and Fiddler are part of those, of course.

Jake and Mike both came to the West from Louisiana in the search for a way to sustain their families back home . They’ve been working at the railroad, but one day got recruited by Lundgren. But at one point he ordered them to kill an innocent family that didn’t want to give up their land, which they refused to do. So they tried to flee, but Mike got shot. And since Lundgren bribed the Sheriff to declare Jake as the sole murderer of that family, he was on the run, and just so happened to come across this certain town, right as Lundgren and co are around. And he sees Mike again, who lost his memory (and eye - losing his legs too like he did in canon would be too problematic in that time) after he got hit by shrapnel from an explosion.

And MC? Well MC is truly a wildcard. A mysterious stranger, who came into the city after receiving a mysterious letter in the mail, who almost seems to have lost most of their memories as well.

I hope you enjoy this AU, because I sure do :D

I can already hear the background score for the duel at high noon ;)

#playchoices #ES #endless summer #endless summer au #choices headcanons #long post

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sapphicalexaandra · 7 years

Text

Impossibility Is a Kiss Away from Reality (9/?)

Pairing: Jace/Alec

Rating: E

Summary: Alec and Jace can't help but be pulled towards one another as time flies by...

Notes: Chapter 9 of Sense8 AU. It’s longer than usual, but i think this kind of length will be a new normal now. Hope you enjoy :)

Two Weeks

If only his family had known of the pest that had just been seated at the table with them, right next to Alec.

That was the thought that couldn’t help but fill Alec’s mind as they ate. And the constant need to reassure his mother that he was okay – a lie – came out more and more easily each time. It was just something that he’d had to repeat constantly ever since his colleagues had come to visit him...

“Alec, are you sure you don’t have a headache? Is it wise for you to stay at home on your own all this time? What if you collapse, or…”

“I’m fine, Mom.”

If only they had known that he was going crazy.

“Mom, I will check up on him constantly, don’t worry,” Izzy jumped in. She sent him a look. “I wouldn’t want to have to examine his body, I have too much work already.”

Alec rolled his eyes, but he was glad for the laughter that followed, which cleared out the air enough for the tension in his shoulders to ease.

“I will, too,” Lydia stated next, still shook by laughter, “You will not leave me to deal with Raj forever, Alec. You do know that you owe me big, right?”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Alec faked an exasperated tone, “I guess I’ll have to buy you the best Christmas present you could ever hope for.”

Lydia smiled with satisfaction.

“Hey, what about me? What do I get?” was Max’s offended reply.

“You first need to pass all your exams, then we’ll talk Christmas,” Maryse scolded him, only one eyebrow raised.

That eyebrow had always been the bane of Alec’s existence, so he could understand Max’s whine of protest all too well. When more laughter followed, however, Alec could truly relax. They would not ask him how he was again.

Listen, I’m not saying now, but…I really think we should talk. No pressure, no nothing, but we should try to figure out what…

Alec flinched, and he immediately tried to focus as best as he could on the conversation at hand, to not have to listen to the voice in his head. Why couldn’t a fantasy just behave like one?

There! Waking up the next morning and finding Jace seated on the floor surrounded by music sheets was more like it. Jace looked truly…transfixing, with his forehead creased, a pencil between his teeth, and the dark lines of the tattoos on his arms standing out as he held a guitar in his lap.

He barely deigned Alec with a look, but he didn’t protest when Alec sat down in front of him. Alec almost didn’t dare breath, to not disturb him. And as he watched in silence sounds being rearranged together to create something new, he found himself appreciating music a little more – not as just a casual, background thing of life. Maybe Jace was right, and once you discovered it, you could only fall in love more and more with it each day…

When Alec went back home, he felt like he could’ve just as well been floating.

His foot tapped on the floor, as he stared vaguely at a point in front of him, totally and utterly bored. If only working at the shop wasn’t a necessity, to be able to rely only on himself and his music.

That was why Jace welcomed the change of view, and of pace, all too well. He was running next to Alec in what looked like a park. Central Park? That would’ve been sweet.

Alec spared him only a glance before he quickened his pace.

“But aren’t you injured?” Jace asked him with a frown, as he tried to register what sensations running like this was giving him.

The ground surely resounded under his feet, but he was lighter and faster than he usually was.

“Yeah, but the doctor told me I can try running if I can bear the pain. I need to see how much I can take,” Alec replied. Jace could hear that he was particularly winded.

“Don’t strain yourself too much, though.”

Alec laughed. “Are you my mother now?”

“I’m your Jiminy Cricket, didn’t you know?” Jace teased.

Alec, half smirking, leaned his head to one side as if to concede the point.

Right then, Alec stumbled, letting out a strangled sound. Without thinking, Jace shot a hand forward to grab him and prevent his fall...and it worked. His hand curled around Alec’s elbow, and he managed to hold him back at the last second.

They froze. Alec slowly turned his widened eyes towards him, while Jace fought a smile. Yes, he thought, you see? Do you feel this? I’m here.

But Alec quickly shrugged his arm off and resumed his running without looking at him again.

Jace wanted to shout at him so bad…but he simply resorted to make a fist with his over-charged hand and let out a sound of frustration, before he left that sunbathed place.

Patience, he – forcefully – reminded himself.

“You really like this kind of movies?” Alec had to blurt out in both amusement and disbelief.

He had landed on a seat next to Jace in a cinema, while the movie playing was a chick flick.

Jace huffed, before saying with outrage in his voice, “I accidentally picked this one, okay? There was a robot in the poster, I was tricked.”

He was clearly trying to mask his embarrassment, at which Alec could only not-so-covertly grin. “Sure, sure,” he teased him. “But why are you alone?”

Jace shrugged. “It’s more peaceful this way…and I’m not alone.”

Alec strained his head to look at Jace’s other side, in case he had missed someone…but the seat was indeed empty. When his eyes went back on Jace to reprimand him, Alec’s heart missed a beat as soon as he noticed that Jace was staring pointedly at him.

Oh.

Suddenly, Alec actually took notice of the situation. They were in an almost deserted theatre, except for the few couples spread out here and there, clearly being…couple-y. It was a chick flick. And Alec felt all too clearly the way his arm was pressed against Jace’s, as they both rested side by side.

Alec gulped. You’re imagining all this.

He needed to call that psychologist bad. He couldn’t live the rest of his life like this.

He’d do it tomorrow, he promised himself. For real, this time…seriously.

For the time being, what else could he do, though? Only hold his breath, an insistent thump-thump going on in his chest, as he sensed, more than he saw, Jace’s hand inch to the side. His own hand, laying palm up, was laden with shivers even before Jace rested his over it. Why, oh why had he put his hand like that, so ready for the taking?

Damn it, Alec. You’re the worst.

Instead of going out, trying to form real human connections, he did this. Jace’s fingers fit perfectly intertwined with his own, the chills shooting up Alec’s arm almost made him whine from how good they felt, and the movie wasn’t even that bad.

But none of it was real.

“I didn’t know archery was required of policemen,” Jace put in, confused, but not very (or a lot…) bothered by the sight of Alec holding a bow with perfect form.

“It is not.”

Alec let the arrow fly, but he hissed, doubling in on himself as his arm curled around his middle. Jace raised a hand, wanting to place it over Alec’s shoulder in comfort, but he restrained himself as Alec started huffing in frustration.

“Give yourself more time, Alec,” a man said, approaching them.

“Hey, Hodge,” Alec greeted him, smiling weakly. “I know, but I wanted to try.”

“How long is your leave?” Hodge asked.

“Three bloody weeks. It’s been one and I’m already going stir crazy.”

Hodge laughed. “Bloody? Have you become British now?”

Alec froze, and Jace grinned. Interesting. He wondered if he’d start saying American things now.

“Yeah, just…too much tv.” Alec chuckled nervously.

“Right. And yeah, I know how sitting at home can be literal torture. But I’m sure you’ll get back into the action in no time. Get well, then, son,” Hodge said before moving towards some other people practicing.

Alec glared at Jace as soon as his instructor left, but Jace couldn’t help but grin.

“What? What’s one more secret talent, after all?” Jace quipped, lightly bumping his shoulder with Alec’s to stress the point.

The bashful smile that opened up on Alec’s face caused a weird sensation to form in Jace’s stomach. Was that…butterflies? He didn’t do butterflies…why did it have to happen with a man literally so unreachable?

Jace smiled either way. “So it’s only fair that you teach me how to shoot.”

“Jace…” Alec said under his breath, looking around nervously.

“Please?” Just ignore everyone else! “I could teach you to play the guitar, or the piano, or…to sing! You really need that one.”

Alec was the one to bump his shoulder this time, his face morphed in exaggerated offense, and Jace could only laugh, elated. Alec bit his bottom lip, most likely not to do the same.

“Come on,” Jace insisted…and a moment later he was the one with a bow in his hand, Alec in front of him at the spot where he had just been. Right! This was a thing they could do.

Feeling a thrill, Jace quickly took an arrow from a quiver on the ground, and he placed it over the bow, raising it to eye level. He drew the string back as he closed one eye to try and focus on the bull’s eye at the end of the shooting range.

But the thrill only grew when Jace felt a solid, towering body come to stand behind him, two firm yet gentle hands covering his own, adjusting his stance. That combination made Jace gulp.

“Relax your shoulders, and keep your bow arm perfectly straight. Rest the hand that holds the string closer to your mouth.”

Did Alec have any idea how low and raspy his voice was? Jace had no problems doing everything it said. And when Alec stepped a little closer, so that his chest laid flat against Jace’s back, Jace couldn’t not think that Alec was doing this on purpose. Jace had no idea what sight they made, but he didn’t care, nor did he mind at all.

He did mind it later, at home, when his lower regions still seemed affected by the whole thing…

But it’d be embarrassing if something like the other day happened, right? Jace already felt himself blush at the reminder. So he couldn’t just…deal with it. What if Alec appeared in that very moment? What if he found himself in Alec’s body again, and Alec in his own? Jace wouldn’t dislike that, exactly, and maybe Alec wouldn’t either…but Jace couldn’t live comfortably with himself if something like that happened, while Alec was still in denial about what this was. While he was still unsure about what this was.

He’d just…take a very cold shower.

The bed was so warm and cozy; Alec let out a moan as he woke up, feeling truly at ease. His chest was no longer swollen, and hurt a lot less, so the head placed on it was only welcome. Alec tightened his hold on…wait, what?

Alec’s eyes shot open, focusing immediately on the view of a blond head resting on him, and he was suddenly overwhelmed with the weirdly frizzling sensation of a soft body snuggled against him from head to toe. An arm over his stomach. A leg intertwined with his. Something…far too hard pressed against his side to be mistakable.

Alec’s entire body froze, even though it was clearly interested.

No, no, no, this was bad, this was wrong, this was…

Just five more minutes. He could allow himself five more minutes, right? His arm tightened its hold on Jace as his eyes were already closing back again.

“Mmh, this tastes so good,” Alec said around a mouthful of…something.

His breakfast had turned into some kind of dessert, and it had looked so delicious that he just couldn’t have passed on it.

“What is it?” he asked, his mouth still full, raising his head towards Jace.

A corner of Jace’s mouth quirked up as he answered, “Spotted dick.”

Alec sputtered all over the table – a table in a diner. Protests and sounds of disgust echoed all around him.

“What the hell, mate?!” the guy with glasses – Simon? – burst out, his arms up as if to cover himself.

“Gross, Jace,” the redhead next to him said, scrunching her nose.

Jace, next to Alec, was simply laughing. “It’s the name of the dessert, you dork.”

Alec looked down at the mess he had made. “Oh.”

And he was in the seat Jace had just been in, as Jace responded to his friends, “Sorry, I thought I felt a bug in it.”

“At least use a napkin, git,” another blond guy told him.

So many more dream people. Great.

“So what are the plans for tonight?” the redhead said, once things calmed down. “Do we have to go to a pub? I’d like to do something different for once, you know?”

“Anything you want to do, we’ll do, Fray,” Simon told her, putting an arm around her shoulders and smiling would-be-charmingly.

The redhead called Fray smiled back sweetly, and Alec rolled his eyes. Why another romcom?

“I say we go salsa dancing,” the other blond jumped in, “lots of hot and sweaty people in there.”

He smirked, and Alec rolled his eyes again. He hated those kind of self-assured guys, who thought everyone would fall at their feet. He hated that his mind had conjured one right up.

“That’s fine by me,” Jace said with a casual shrug. “You know I’m always up to try new things.”

He looked sideways at Alec, and Alec had to refrain himself from rolling his eyes a third time.

“Well, you will go on your own cause I told you that I’m not up for seeing you pick people up,” Fray said animatedly to the self-assured guy, her eyes fiery.

The guy raised his eyes and hands to the heavens. “Seriously, Clary? You’re still on about that? It’s been five years, when will this end?! Jace, please, can you tell her to stop once and for all?!”

Everyone looked at Jace, including Alec, who was now curious. Jace sneaked another glance at him, suddenly looking nervous. “Uhm…”

But Clary crossed her arms, turning back towards the other guy. “And what? You expect to go through life never facing the consequences of your actions? You’re lucky that I never told mom, or you’d truly never hear the end of it.”

Simon laughed. “Can you imagine what that would sound like?” His voice turned high-pitched. “My children have both slept with the same guy? What I have done wrong?”

The other two – who were siblings, then? – burst out laughing.

Alec surveyed them both a little more attentively now, before turning back towards Jace, an eyebrow arched. “Seriously?”

Jace shrugged, smiling somewhat shyly. “Whoops?”

Alec shook his head, but a smile was already on his lips. Of course, Jace was a latin lover. And he surely wasn’t bothered that basically half of that table had slept with Jace. Not at all.

“Families of the victims have started a campaign against…”

“You shouldn’t work yourself up like this.”

Alec didn’t even blink at him, before he sighed and turned off the sound on the tv. Jace simply stared wordlessly as Alec got up from the bed and started pacing the room.

“Working myself up is only the least of what I should be doing!” Alec burst out. “And instead? I’m holed up in here, going crazy, while everyone else is out there doing something useful!”

“You got injured…”

“Tsk!” Alec laid his blazing eyes on him. “People literally died, what are a few bruises? Especially ones that weren’t gained for some higher purpose…I simply got distracted while ogling a non-existent guy!”

Alec brought his hands to his face, rubbing it in frustration.

Jace looked down at his own wringing hands. “I’m sorry.”

Alec made a sound at the back of his throat, before he went back to his spot on the bed next to Jace. They both stared at space in silence for a few long moments.

Could that be the ideal moment to put the non-existent part in question? Jace couldn’t help but think.

“Is that why you chose to become a cop? You like doing something useful?” Jace resorted to asking, instead. Hesitantly, almost waiting for Alec to blow off again.

Alec sighed. “Yeah.”

“And what made you decide?”

Alec glanced at him, before looking back ahead. “You know…when I was in school, I got bullied.” Alec crossed his arms, taking a deep breath. “Classic stuff. I was the shy nerdy kid, and then I was the shy nerdy gay kid after someone caught me kissing this boy called Preston behind the gym. That was my first kiss, too. Very unfortunate. I had to come out to my parents and all if I didn’t want them to hear it from the school.”

Jace nodded in understanding, but he stayed quiet, simply waiting for Alec to continue.

“But then I had my growth spurt towards the start of junior year. I got insanely tall, and I started working out to figure out how to move all my limbs...and, somehow, I made the football team. I was good, I even became quarterback. And, suddenly, people were all over me. They never dared say a word to me again. They respected me. So when it became time to choose a career I almost thought I’d continue with the sport...but then I asked myself, was that really the best way to prove myself? Or to use my strength? The kind of respect I got from it was vain and hypocritical, and I couldn’t help but think of all the other kids who were picked on and destroyed because they couldn’t defend themselves like I learned to do...”

“So you became a cop to defend them yourself,” Jace surmised.

Alec nodded solemnly. “I know the system is shit, and most of the time I don’t even help as much as I’d like, but if I don’t try to shake things up from the inside or uphold the true purpose of police men, who will do it? Every single person matters when it comes to making a difference.”

“Yeah,” Jace simply said. What more was there to be said? Jace looked back at Alec, and he found him basked in a whole new light all of a sudden.

Alec caught his gaze and he quickly cleared his throat. “You said you needed an outlet? That’s why you did Krav Maga and then got into music? What – what did you need an outlet for?”

Jace averted his eyes. “Yeah. Just...teenage angst, you know.” He laughed, but it sounded fake even to his own ears.

As he took notice of the nervous maelstrom sprouting to life in his stomach, however, Jace knew he couldn’t reveal the real reason quite yet. He had never quite mastered the art to tell anyone about the fact that he’d been so scared all his life that Valentine would come back for him, and finish him off once and for all. He had trained as hard as he could, mastered every fighting form and defense move to prepare himself for that eventuality...

He chose to water it down. “I just...I had a difficult childhood. No parents, and my grandmother didn’t really know how to handle me, plus she was often away for work. So I tried letting it all out in the gym. But when I became so stressed out with my physical training, I was advised to try something else. Music is supposed to be a way to express your emotions in a more creative way, but, in the end, it truly made me feel...it’s like, when the music, the right music is on, the world becomes a little better, you know? Brighter, more in tune...”

Jace smirked at his own pun, and he was glad to see Alec do the same.

“I think I’m starting to get it, yeah,” Alec said, nodding.

“So... what happened to that guy Preston?” Jace put in, smirk still in place.

“Uhm?”

“The boy from the story, what happened with him?”

“Oh.” Alec chuckled. “Well, we were just together a few months I think. He was a bit of an asshole, to be entirely honest. I might’ve punched him on the nose at some point.”

“No way, you, Mr. Protector of the Weak?”

“Sod off. I said he was an asshole. If I don’t remember wrong, I think he used to tell people all different kind of stuff about me after we broke up and I made the squad. Like, you know, gross things that we never actually did.”

Jace had to laugh at the use of ‘gross things’. So adorable.

“Mmh, yeah, I would’ve punched him, too,” he still agreed.

“What about you? When did you realized you liked...boys?”

Jace couldn’t help but notice that Alec had bit the inside of his cheek as soon as those words left his mouth, and he had to sigh at the reminder that Alec still thought he was making this all up. Jace forced himself to go on anyway; the more he said, the more Alec would have to start catching on.

“Oh, well, late. Relatively speaking,” Jace answered. “I first kissed a girl at...fourteen, probably? But I think I was around nineteen, I had already left high school, when I kissed a boy for the first time. I used to go to these shows, you know, to see if I managed to book something, and this member of a band kind of...took a liking to me. He was definitely a good teacher.”

Alec rolled his eyes as Jace smirked.

“And those two, the brother and sister, what’s the deal with that?” Alec asked.

It was Jace’s turn to roll his eyes, as Alec grinned teasingly. “Ugh...okay, fine. I kind of cheated on her with him. I was drunk, okay?”

Alec burst out laughing.

“It’s not that funny! Stop laughing, you arse.” Jace shoved him, but he was fighting laughter, too.

Alec had to wipe away tears when he finally calmed down. “I can’t believe, like, a brother and sister...” He stopped when he noticed Jace’s expression, and he turned more serious. “How – how long were you with her?”

“Three years.”

“Woah. That’s...quite a lot.” Alec adjusted himself on the bed, to better face him.

“I know,” Jace said, looking down at his lap.

“Why did you cheat, then?” Alec asked him, more quietly.

“I – it’s not something I usually do, okay? Well, it’d be hard anyway since Clary was the only real relationship I ever had, but...that’s not who I am. I was just...going through some shit, and I realized I wasn’t really in love with her, I didn’t know how to deal with it, so I preferred fucking it all up.”

“Hey, it’s okay, I get it.” Alec placed a hand on his shoulder, and Jace didn’t dare move as to not make him realize what he had done. “Shit happens. It doesn’t mean someone’s a terrible person, even if they make mistakes.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in love,” Jace admitted all of a sudden. He didn’t know why he had felt the need to say that; he didn’t think he had ever said it out loud.

Alec paused. “Uhm. Me, too.”

Jace looked up at Alec, only to realize that Alec’s eyes were already on him. Against his will, a warm kind of hope leapt in him, and Jace wanted so much to just...

Alec cleared his throat, looking away, and Jace’s heart sank. Not again...

“And that’s why I’m here, isn’t it?” Alec said crossly, his head flopping down on the pillow behind him. “Talking my heart out with the man in my head.”

Jace’s hands balled into fists. “Alec...” Alec had crossed his arms over his face. “Alec, please, you need to stop this...”

A knock on the door made Jace jump, and he was back in his own bed, the sunlight piercing his eyes reminding him all too insistently that it was already morning for him.

“Who’s there?” he yelled at the door.

“Jace, it’s me.”

Clary? Why was she there?

Jace reluctantly got up and went to open the door. But he didn’t open it all the way. “What is it?”

Clary shrugged. “I brought you coffee, and I thought we could talk, you know? You’ve been a bit...”

“I’m tired, and I need to work today. I’ll call you later.”

And he closed the door in her face.

Alec buried his face in the pillow as soon as Jace left, muffling a scream into it. A headache was already forming behind his eyes, and he was so done with his life. So done.

Why did talking with Jace have to be so easy?

He needed...to call...that psychologist! And get rid of Jace once and for all before his heart got broken irreparably.

As soon as he woke up, however, he went running. Then grocery shopping. Then he cleaned up his apartment for the third time that week. At that point, he was finally about to pick up the phone...when he found himself in a gym. Of bloo-fucking course.

Jace was alone on the mat, twirling his staff around with true mastership.

He didn’t even spare him a glance. “Hey, Alec. This is your hallucination talking, it wants to know if you’re really as good as you say.”

Jace’s eyes set on him, a kind of fire in them that Alec had rarely seen, and Alec opened his mouth, about to say that he was injured...but...fuck that.

When Jace threw the staff on the ground, Alec shut his brain off and lunged for him.

He had missed this. The thrill, the adrenaline, the need for his entire being to be harmonious and precise with its every movement. He was alert and alive, his body getting out of the lethargic state it had plunged into these past weeks all too eagerly. Vaguely, he knew people on the side had stopped to watch, but that wasn’t something of concern for him. None of this was real anyway.

He had never quite sparred like this. He had always been good, and he had rarely found someone who could match him perfectly. Lydia came pretty damn close to it, but it was still something completely different than this.

His every attack was met with a new one that he parred before everything started all over again. Jace was stronger than he looked, faster than should be possible, but Alec was too, and they were caught in a whirlwind of motion, of contact, of sweat and hard breath. They tumbled on the ground, neither of them able to get the upper hand, and then they were up again, even more charged than before. Alec didn’t want it to end.

Still, he predicted Jace’s next move, and he caught his arms, spinning them and locking Jace in place in one swift move. Jace’s back pressed flush against his chest, and they stilled.

Jace’s neck and shoulder were bare, opened up to him, and Alec breathed against Jace’s skin, the pungent smell of Jace’s sweat going directly to his head. Pushed by a force he couldn’t resist, Alec leaned his body even more closely against Jace, not holding back, unlike when he had taught Jace how to use the bow. No, this time he let his painfully hard erection press against Jace’s sweatpants-covered ass, reveling in Jace’s gasp just as much as his own.

“I win,” Alec whispered hoarsely in Jace’s ear, and a chill ran down his spine. Or maybe not his spine.

“I don’t think so,” Jace said back just as raucously.

And Alec was suddenly the one in a lock, Jace pressed against him from behind, even though neither of them had really moved. When Jace bit down on the juncture between his neck and shoulder, Alec wouldn’t have been able to hold in the moan sprouting from deep in his stomach for anything in the world.

“Shhh, you don’t want people to think I’m a pervert,” Jace murmured, as he sucked a mark on Alec’s skin.

“Don’t care.”

And he was the one behind Jace again. Alec bit down on Jace’s shoulder in retaliation, as his hand went to push on Jace’s stomach to draw him closer. When Alec’s cock hit Jace’s entrance, two thin fabrics the only obstacle in between, Jace whimpered at that double attack.

“Shhh,” Alec imitated him.

He had never felt more turned on in his life, he had never wanted something, someone so badly. Sex had always been such a perfunctory act during the handful of relationships he’d had, and something he had never felt the need to attempt with someone he didn’t know or trust. Yet, Jace fit so perfectly against him, he responded so beautifully to his touch, and...

Opening his eyes, which he hadn’t realized he had closed, Alec froze.

What the hell was he doing?!

Staring down at Jace’s profile, with his lips parted in pleasure, Alec blinked back into his apartment before Jace could look back at him and lock him in forever.

The absence felt as painful as what he’d think a withdrawal would feel like; Alec literally struggled to breath as he readjusted his sensations around the reality of his empty room. Tears still prickled at the corner of his eyes, so he buried them in his pillow after he threw himself on the bed.

He promptly, stubbornly, ignored his aching erection pressed against the mattress, and fell asleep straight away.

If only he had checked his shoulder.

Jace was left alone, stunned and miserably horny.

“Fuck!” he shouted before he could stop himself, and the few people exercising in the gym, who he now remembered had already been sending him glances, became even more obvious in their ogling.

Most likely flushed from head to toe, Jace rushed towards the locker room not even caring if his erection was visible. Once he got under the shower, he couldn’t even bring himself to touch it. No, he was too fucking angry.

Well, then. He was done with Alec and his existential crisis! He wouldn’t waste his time on someone who insisted on being so damn obtuse and...distracting. It wasn’t good for his health, nor for his sanity. The experiment was over.

After arriving at the shop and doing what felt like the longest shift of his life, Jace knew what he had to do. He had a clear destination in mind.

“Hey, Maia, how’s it going?” he smirked at the waitress of his favorite pub in the city.

She raised two skeptical eyes towards him, before looking around and leaning on the counter to whisper to him, “You mean, how’s my vagina going?”

Jace’s smirk only widened.

“Rather well, thanks for asking.” Maia smirked leisurely back. “She’s just feeling a little lonely, you know?”

Jace downed his drink.

Perks of Maia being his designated booty-call answerer: she didn’t care for talking, nor foreplay, and she went straight to the point in such a way that Jace didn’t need to think at all. And he was all instinct, as he slammed her against the wall of the back alley, her knickers already around her ankles – thank god she had worn a skirt – as he freed his throbbing cock with a sigh and rolled a condom on it.

Next thing he knew, he had lifted her up and he was inside her, and they were rocking in place at the rhythm of his thrusts and of their combined moans. She dug her heels into his ass and her nails into his back, and it was sweet, sweet oblivion.

He couldn’t believe he had deprived himself of this because of...what? Someone who didn’t matter at all.

Jace bit into Maia’s neck and he could already feel an orgasm coming. He had to draw his face back to take a breath, and a groan escaped his lips as he went that much deeper inside her. He turned his head to the side, and...

Alec was there, staring at him, at them, with eyes larger than his entire face. A strangled sound was wrenched out of Jace’s throat as he felt his erection completely sag. He stopped all movement with a jolt, but Alec had already disappeared.

“Hey, what...”

Jace looked back at Maia, remembering that she was there, and he couldn’t believe it had happened again, he felt worse than when...

No, no! This was nothing like that time, he had done nothing wrong.

And yet, he teared himself away from Maia, letting her down before he took several steps back, his condom swiftly thrown to the ground as if it had been burning him.

His mouth opened a few times as he zipped himself up, “Maia, I...”

“Hey, it’s okay. It happens.” Maia was looking at him far too sympathetically, which he suddenly couldn’t stand. “You shouldn’t push yourself, if you’re feeling bad after, you know...”

“No. It’s – it has nothing to do with...I just, I’m sorry. I need to go.”

He bolted away. Of the ride back home, he remembered almost nothing. When he finally got inside his apartment, he thought he was going to be sick.

This, this shouldn’t be happening. There was no reason for him to have reacted like that. Alec meant nothing, he was nothing to him, they were nothing...

Fueled by a sudden anger, Jace popped back into Alec’s apartment to deal with him once and for all.

He had been talking to his sister on the phone, when he had suddenly felt uncomfortably hot. Not caring to think how, Alec had just known that it had something to do with Jace. And he had been meaning to yell at him as soon as he saw him...but what he saw made him swallow his tongue.

Jace in the arms of a woman, pounding her hard against a wall. His head had been buried in her neck as she let out sounds of pleasure.

Even as he felt the ripples of it in his own body, Alec could’ve thrown up right then and there. When he met Jace’s eyes, his own were already stinging. For the second time that day.

He blinked away from that scene with some kind of desperation.

He liked to think that he didn’t merely stare into empty space all the time before Jace reappeared, because he surely hadn’t been waiting for him...yet, he jumped up from his bed as soon as Jace stepped foot into the room.

The silence felt gelid, like a physical presence between them as they surveyed each other.

“What?” Jace crushed it with the loud, brusque sound of his voice.

“What?” Alec echoed, crossing his arms.

“What do you want, Alec?”

“What do I want?” Alec’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “You came here.”

“You’re the one standing there crossed as a bow, acting as if I owed you anything, so what do you want from me?”

“I haven’t even said anyth-”

Jace snorted. “You don’t need to say it for me to feel that you’re bothered. So please, be my guest and tell me, Alec, what is your problem?”

“I don’t have a...”

“Stop bullshitting me and be honest with yourself for once!”

Alec bit his tongue, as he felt himself squirm under Jace’s raging eyes. “I...” He paused. “You know what, I have a problem! Why should I just be fine at having a constant hallucination nag at me...”

“No, Alec. I said stop bullshitting me. You know that I’m real, you feel it just as I do, even if you’re too stubborn and afraid to admit it to yourself!”

Alec’s hands shot up to rub forcefully at his temples. “No, I do not know and you’re not real!”

“Then why are you so bothered that I slept with someone else?” Jace’s voice was velvety, low and dangerous.

Alec frowned. “I’m not...”

“Oh, I know,” Jace went on with the same tone, “it’s cause a fantasy should cater to your needs, am I right? I shouldn’t act independently, and I should only sleep with you and as much as you please, right?”

A lump had formed in Alec’s throat. “No, that’s not...”

“Well, too bad! I’m a real person, I have my own life, my family, my friends, my job...you know where I live! If you just grew some balls...”

“Well then!” Alec was surprised at how loud his voice had become, but he couldn’t bring himself to care, “if you’re so real, why don’t you go to back your own life and leave mine alone!”

Alec had expected him to retaliate, instead Jace froze, his eyes widening.

Alec felt something inside of him trying to pull him back, and he had to grit his teeth and push through it to get the next words out, “You heard me! My life was perfectly fine before you came along, so just go away! OUT! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!”

Jace bit his lower lip, his eyes darting around...before he disappeared.

Alec’s heavy breath was the only sound left in the room.

#shadowhunters #jalec #jalec fic #my fic #my writing #sense8 au #impossibility is a kiss away from reality

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lostinfic · 6 years

Text

8 | Swimming

Mercier x Betty British Raj AU

Calcutta, 1902. The word ‘dance’ comes to mind, their own choreography of gazes exchanged across the room, brushes of hands and half-spoken confessions. They orbit around each other, destined never to collide it seems; Mercier is upper class, Betty is a governess. And he’s spying on the family whose children she swore to protect. But in this foreign land of spices and silk, of golden gods and lush forests, where cultural norms clash and wane, even destinies must yield to desire.

Rating: Mature Word count: 3.4k You don’t need to have seen either show.

A/N: the bridges mentioned in this chapter are actually in Cherrapunji, not close to Kolkata. Check them out here Tumblr | Ao3 | This chapter on Ao3

≔

Two days after her encounter with Jean-François at the theater, Betty received some surprising news.

“Gabrielle Mercier requires your help,” Lady Wigram announced, entering the governess’ classroom.

Betty looked up from the stitching she was preparing for today’s lesson.

“She sent her carriage. Hurry up, girl.”

As Betty walked past her, Lady Wigram grabbed her upper arm. “I have yet to receive an invitation to that wedding.”

“I will mention it.”

Betty was so surprised, she headed downstairs without taking any of her things.

Lord Wigram came down the stairs at the same moment.

"I have some business in town," he said vaguely. "Will you be back for supper?"

"I-- I don't know."

He looked suspicious. "Surely Miss Mercier won't keep you over for supper. The girls will need you tonight.”

"Yes, your lordship. I'll do my best to be back by then."

Outside the house, a driver held open the door of a closed carriage. Betty stepped in, wondering what Gabrielle could possibly need her help with.

“Good morning, Miss Salinger.”

“Jean-François! But-- what are you doing here?”

“Whisking you away.”

Betty squealed with joy and threw her arms around his neck to kiss him.

In a letter, she’d told him about lying to Lady Wigram about the earrings, saying she’d helped Gabrielle, and he’d found it was a perfect excuse to spend the spend the day with her.

“You crafty devil. Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise,” he said.

“Can I get a clue?”

“You asked for companionship and adventure from me, and that is what you will have.”

The coach took them well outside the city limits. Betty stared through the window at these new landscapes unfolding before her eyes, feeling increasingly excited.

On a forest’s edge, they stopped in front of a small bungalow, the kind found all across the country, along the roads, for travelers to rest. This one was a bit more posh and cleaner. Jean-François explained it belonged to the French government, for those going into the jungle.

Above a stone fireplace, two rifles crossed under the stuffed head of a nilgai, a large specie of antelope. Betty turned her back to it.

“You will need to change clothes for our adventure today.” He handed her a canvas bag. “Gabrielle lends you these. You may choose whatever you like.”

Betty went into one of the bedrooms. Curious, she emptied the bag on the bare mattress. An assortment of skirts, shirts and hats tumbled down along with a pair of boots, all in various shades of white and brown. After some hesitation, she dared pick a toffee coloured skirt and a white button down, a bit too long so she tied it at the waist and rolled up the sleeves. She smiled at her reflection in the mirror, with her pith helmet and flat shoes, she looked like an explorer.

Jean-François too smiled when he saw her.

“Is this alright?” she asked, second-guessing herself. “Seems a bit improper.”

“I doubt we will meet other people. The important thing is that you are comfortable to walk in the forest.”

“I am.”

“Splendid.”

Jean-François shouldered a khaki canvas bag and guided her down a narrow, beaten-earth path. The skirt swished around Betty’s calves, it was shorter than her usual skirts, made for walking in tall grass and mud, she enjoyed feeling the breeze up her legs.

Their footsteps stirred the scent of moist soil and grass. Enormous spiky aloe veras and generous glossy ferns flanked the trail. They housed all manners of colourful caterpillars and iridescent-shelled critters. It was still early in the day, and mist lingered in the palms, sunlight streamed through it in soft beams. On the branches of eucalyptus and tulip trees, birds chirped to their heart’s content.

Ripe mangoes hung in grapes from a tree. Jean-François picked two and showed her how to peel it with her teeth. Juice ran down their fingers and chins, the fruit flesh was warm, sun-gorged, and sweet. It was messy and wonderful.

“We are almost there,” Jean-François said after a while.

“Where?”

“Listen.”

They stopped walking and stood in silence. Soon, the rush and gurgles of water reached her ears.

“A river?”

He smiled and took her hand, the excitement made him look years younger. The path curved to the right, and Betty saw a bridge arching over a flowing river.

Betty gasped. “Is that the bridge you told me about in your letter?”

“I wrote to you about a bridge?”

“You were drunk.”

“Ah. That letter.”

Betty bumped him with her shoulder. “It was charming in a way.”

“I saw this bridge in passing quite a while ago. I have wanted to come back since then.”

“So, you’ve been here before?”

“As I said, in passing, we were on a mission. I know the area a little bit, but I wanted to discover it with you.”

As they approached the bridge, Betty realized it was unlike any other bridge she had seen before. “It’s made out of roots!”

“Yes, the Indian rubber tree—”

“The Ficus Elastica. I read about it in a botany encyclopedia. Oh, it’s extraordinary!“ She smiled wide, pressing her hands to her cheeks as one would when looking at a puppy.

The rubber trees produced a series of secondary roots that the War-Khasis and War-Jaintias tribes pulled, twisted and tied to stretch across the river. It took years to accomplish, but these bridges lasted centuries, growing stronger over time.

“Can we walk on it?” she asked.

“I should hope so.”

Flat stones lay across the surface to facilitate the walk, moss covered them. On each side, roots of all sizes weaved together like a net, as high as Betty’s chest. She walked carefully, one hand clutching the side for support and the other gripping the back of Jean-François’ shirt. Under them, the river rushed by in great frothy gurgles.

A pair of children climbed on at the other end and ran the length of the bridge, passing swiftly under Betty and Jean-François’ arms. Feeling safer, Betty walked faster, enjoying rather than worrying. Crossing this organic bridge, in the middle of a lush forest with a lovely man felt like something out of a fairy tale. Glee bubbled up in her throat from the sheer delight of being so free, and Jean-François laughed with her.

Too soon, they reached the end, and he helped her down. He lifted by the waist and twirled her and held her until she was steady on her feet. They kissed with laughter on their lips.

They walked a while longer, a trail parallel to the river, leading downstream. They crossed path with a few locals, Betty said hello to them, but most bowed their heads and stepped out of their way.

As the day progressed, nearing noon, the air grew hotter and the animals quieter. No breeze stirred the branches. Betty pulled on her collar, drops of sweat slid down her back. She wiped her forehead on her sleeve. Jean-François touched her temple where sweat soaked the fine hairs there. He offered her some water.

"Do you want to stop? You may not be used to this kind exertion."

She huffed. “Try running after three kids all day."

“Fair enough.”

To hell with etiquette, this hat was only making her hotter and palm leaves provided shade enough. She pulled on the ribbon under the chin and fanned herself with the hat. "I must look a right mess."

"It suits you," he said. “I’m hot too. Let us find a nice spot to rest.”

They ventured away from the trail, towards the sandy bank. A month earlier, the river would have been overflowing from the rains. Some distance ahead, a cluster of rocks and boulders slowed the flow and filtered the larger debris. The water sparkled and meandered under the blue, cloudless sky. A hint of freshness rose from it, and enticed Betty.

As Jean-François spread a canvas sheet on the ground, Betty quickly removed her shoes and stepped into the river. A sigh, almost a moan, escaped her lips at the relief of cool water on her swollen feet.

“Will I have to rescue you from the river again?” Jean-François said.

Betty flustered and hurried out of the water. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have.”

“No, no, Betty, I was joking. Here.” He took off his own shoes, rolled up his trousers and joined her.

She blinked in surprise; her whole livelihood hinged on being strait-laced every hour of every day, so she still wasn’t used to someone accepting her deviations from etiquette.

The water rippled around their ankles, then, as the ripples faded out, their reflection materialized on the shimmering surface. Both of them, together, shoulder-to-shoulder, smiling. The sight of it shaped their bond into something tangible. Real, but fragile.

“You were so brave that day when you jumped to save the boy,” he said.

“Careless, more like.”

“No,” he said. “You were brave. I remember you said you would have liked to stay in the water because it was refreshing and you laughed…”

The way he smiled at the memory, shyly, head bowed and lines fanning out at the corners of his eyes, made her heart soar.

“Thank you,” she said, “for saving me that day... and every day after that it seems.”

Jean-François fervently kissed the back of both her hands.

“Shall we go for a swim?” she asked.

“Yes we shall, Betty Salinger,” he said fondly.

Betty hid behind a tree. Her heart hammered in her chest as she unbuttoned her shirt and removed her skirt. She hung them carefully over a branch. After a moment of hesitation, off came the petticoat and corset cover. Her hands shook as she released her corset and unclipped her stockings. Only her drawers and chemise remained, simple white garments with a thin trim of pink lace. With her arms and legs bare, the heat she felt could not be blamed on her layers of clothing anymore.

Hesitantly, she stepped out of her makeshift dressing room, arms covering her chest. She had not let a man see her like this in five years. Jean-François had undressed down to his pants and undershirt. She could tell he was trying not to stare at her.

“Ready?” he asked.

She took his hand ,and they ran into the water, giggling, and dipped their whole bodies in one go. Jean-François emerged, shaking the water off his curls.

“The water is gorgeous,” Betty said.

She floated on her back among the water lilies and closed her eyes against the sun. Her body swayed to every ripple in the water.

Before long, she became aware of her breasts peeking above the water, the wet linen of her chemise clinging to her skin. She kept her eyes closed, pretended she wasn’t aware of it and hoped Jean-François noticed.

A branch fell into the river, and Jean-François stood up to remove it. The white cotton of his pants couldn’t hide the effect she had on him.

“So you really do like me,” she teased.

He studied her with a strange look in his eyes.

“What is it?”

“Who are you, Betty?”

“Pardon?”

“When we first met, you were suspicious of my intentions and I presumed you had been deceived by a man before, but there is more to that story.” He swam closer to her. “And your letters, they show a certain inclination. You’re not… innocent.”

Despite the cool water, Betty’s cheeks flared up. She’d promised herself she would never tell the story, not even to her husband-- if she ever married, which was unlikely in her position.

Betty swam away, to a flat rock and hiked herself up on it. Under Jean-François’ expectant gaze, she fiddled nervously with the edge of her chemise.

“You can trust me,” he insisted.

A lump rose in her throat. She wanted to open up to him.

“The first family I worked for, the man was a doctor. There was a regiment in our town, and soldiers often came to the house for ailments. It’s how I met�� him. An officer, from Poland. He said he loved me, promised we would run away together and marry. We were caught, I lost my position, and he left, heartbroken, without making good on any of his promises.”

“This is why you had to use Wigram’s obligation to you father?”

“I would never have found work again otherwise. If I were smart, I would not have come here with you.”

“You’re safe with me, Betty. I always keep my promises.”

“You’ve never promised me anything.”

“Because I don’t take it lightly. I can promise you I will not tell a soul about what happened with the Polish man.”

She held his gaze for signs of treachery-- he didn’t waver.

After a moment, he sat on another rock, facing her.

“What kind of man do you like?” he asked.

“Honest. And kind.”

“I really do like you, Betty.”

Without thinking, she glanced at his crotch, down to a more modest size.

“You said honest and kind, you didn’t say anything about size.”

She laughed.

“Was he a good lover?”

She blushed, not only because of the question, but because of the answer.

“Do you still want me?” she replied instead of answering. “Yes.”

“I ain’t a trollop.”

“I know. It’s not easy for you women.”

“Is that why you didn’t want to do it behind the theatre? Because you thought I was innocent.”

“I didn’t want to do it there because you deserve better.”

“Is a river any better?”

“You tell me.”

Betty considered their surroundings, all these different trees and flowers, insects and animals, wild yet living in harmony. Nature at its purest. And she thought, if humans were stripped from their petty civilities and prejudiced morality, maybe this attraction between her and Jean-François would also be nature at its purest.

“Would you kiss me again? Just a little,” she said.

Mercier slid off the rock, and crossed the river to her. Her breath hitched as he rose from the water. Leaning forward, he placed his hands on each side of her hips. Drops fell from his hair, down his nose, landing on his bottom lip. He slowly cocked his head to the side, her lips parted with an expectant sigh, and he pecked her Cupid’s bow.

“Not fair.”

“Payback’s fair.”

She pouted.

“You said ‘just a little’,” he pointed out.

“You know what I want.”

“You think me a mind-reader. I suspect you don’t even know yourself what you want.”

“I do… but I also know I shouldn’t want it.”

“Do you think what we’re doing is wrong?”

“Well, Lady Wigram—”

“No. What do you think?”

“I think I want more.”

She kissed that spot again, at the base his throat, licked the water up his neck and nipped his jaw. He whispered a French curse before capturing her mouth.

His nails scratched the rock and the tendons of his arms tightened as he restrained himself from touching her body. She had no such qualms and slipped her hands under his shirt, caressing up his waist, exploring his ribs.

Since meeting her, he had not been with another woman, and his flesh reacted wildly to her touch. Like striking a match, sparks of pleasure kindling the heat in his stomach. He had to stop before it consumed him. He leaned back to break the kiss, but she pushed forward, and gently caught his lower lip between her teeth. Something like a growl echoed in his chest, he slid a hand through her hair, and licked at the seam of her mouth and she let him in. They tasted each other’s moans. He bucked his hips into her knees, and she opened them to accommodate his body.

“Betty, I have to stop, before I can’t—” She interrupted his protest with an eager kiss, wrapping arms and legs around him.

She wiggled her hips.

He gave up on resisting her.

With both hands on her bum, he drew her to him. Through the fabric of her drawers, he felt the heat of her sex. He couldn’t resist pressing against her, seeking friction on his hard length. She held him tighter and moved her hips. Mercier hissed against her mouth. He devoured her neck with kisses, travelling lower, licking along her collarbone and over the swell of her breast. Spurred on by her moans, he sucked through her wet chemise until her nipple pebbled between his teeth.

Betty grounded desperately against him. Strangled noises, half moans, half sobs, escaped her throat as she clawed at his back. It wasn’t just water now soaking their underwear.

He wanted to tear their clothes away, but even for that he couldn’t stop. Her scent, her kisses, the way she whispered his name, it all intoxicated him. He’d imagined making love to her slowly, but here he was, sweat beading down his spine, as he rutted between her legs.

Betty bit his shoulder to muffle her cries. She was close. He cupped the nape of her neck to make her look at him. Her hair was wild, her pupils blown wide.

“Please.”

He pushed her legs farther apart, pressing more directly into her.

Between the folds of fabric, his thumb found her sensitive nub. He rubbed tight circles and admired the moment pleasure overwhelmed her. Her jaw dropped, her eyes fluttered shut, and he caught her last breath of release with a kiss.

“Beautiful.”

She covered her mouth with her fingertips, a passing mortification that morphed into giggles. He kissed her over her fingers, sucked lightly on the tips.

Mercier lowered himself in the water, he rested his head on her knee as he stroke himself. She ran her fingers through his hair, and he bit her inner thigh when he came.

“And I was just thinking we’re not so different from animals,” Betty said. The mirth in her voice told him she wasn’t upset by what they’d just done.

“Yes, animals.“ He nuzzled her neck, imitating a cat’s purr, and she scratched behind his ear.

They spent the next hour, lounging idly under the sun, her head on his chest, his arms around her, altering their position only to sip water or grab a snack. Now that she’d revealed the truth about her past, they spoke more freely. An intimacy of minds and bodies, sharing doubts and caresses, secrets and kisses. Every time Mercier learned something new about her, his affection grew tenfold, and with it a protective streak.

“Have you seen another Frenchman at your house? De Brem, he’s blond with a mustache?” he asked.

“I think so, a few times.”

“Has he talked to you?”

“No. Jean-François, what’s wrong?”

He told her how de Brem sent him to Dhaka under false pretenses to harass Gabrielle. “When he was at my house… he saw a letter from you to me.”

“He knows? Why didn’t you say so before?” She raised herself on one arm, alarmed.

“I’m not sure. It may be nothing, but steer clear of him.” And he added, to reassure her, “I’m taking care of it.”

He’d already sent a petition to his superiors and confronted de Brem himself about his behaviour. He couldn’t tell Betty de Brem was now in charge of the investigation on Wigram as Mercier had yet to reveal he’d been spying on her employer.

“It must make your work unpleasant,” she said.

“It already was.”

There was the boredom of this administrative tasks now that the thrill of being in a foreign country had passed, but every day he grew more uncomfortable with the European presence in India. In Dhaka, his mission had been to help a French plantation owner settle a dispute with the authorities to ensure the prosperity of his business. But his wealth came from abusing the local people; they toiled in the indigo fields, from dusk till dawn, under a relentless sun for a meager salary while he sipped brandy in his ornate living room.

“They would be better off without us,” he summed up. “You saw how they fear us and hate us. With good reasons.”

“But I thought we were doing a good thing. Helping them.”

“How?”

“Well, we-- we employ them.”

“As servants, slaves almost!”

Betty flinched at his outburst. “I didn’t think…”

Of course, she believed the propaganda the British empire fed to its citizens. Elaborate intellectual arguments to justify the exploitation: bringing them democracy and a modern lifestyle.

She hadn’t been in India long and always within the British district of Calcutta, surrounded by people who had made their fortune on the backs of Indians. She had not seen everything he had. He described the poverty and abuse he’d witnessed, but censored himself so as not to upset her too much.

Her forehead puckered and her lips set into a grim line. “That’s awful,” she said quietly.

He tugged her back to him, and gently stroke her back.

“Will you go back to France, then? If you don’t like it here,” she asked.

“Maybe. France or elsewhere. Somewhere new.”

“For adventures?”

“For adventure,” he agreed.

“Then you shall need companionship.”

“Indeed.”

They smiled at each other and kissed. There was a promise, on the tip of his tongue, but he wasn’t sure he could make it quite yet. Soon, he thought, holding Betty closer.

Chapter 9: Shivering

#Mercier x Betty #teninch fic #dwcastover #spies of warsaw #a passionate woman #only one or two chapters left #british raj au #lostinfic writes stuff

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indiaporama · 7 years

Photo

Cet homme est un Adivasi, un "aborigène" indien. Vivant généralement dans des régions reculées, montagnes, forets, îles, ..., ils ont été largement ignorés des autres Indiens jusqu'à la période du Raj britannique où l'exploration méthodique du territoire par les colonisateurs les a mis en lumière. Les "Scheduled Tribes (tribus répertoriées) représentent environ 8% de la population indienne. Ils peuvent être majoritaires dans certains états (Nord-Est, au centre du pays), mais sont bien souvent minoritaire (1% au Kerala, dont cet homme). Ils sont souvent vus comme des "sauvages" ou des "primitifs". Comme ils vivent un peu en marge de la société, ils sont souvent victimes de spoliation (puisqu'ils n'ont pas de titres de propriété), violation de leurs droits (qu'ils ne connaissent pas), cible des commerçants non-aborigènes qui leur vendent des biens à crédit et les endettent à vie, ... L'homme sur la photo travaille comme guide pour un parc naturel dans lequel vivent 11 tribus (comprendre 11 tribus vivaient dans ces montagne quand l’état indien a décidé d'en faire un parc naturel).

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This man is an Adivasi, an Indian "aborigines". Generally living in remote areas, mountains, forests, islands, ..., they were largely ignored by other Indians until the British Raj period where the methodological exploration of the territory by the colonizers brought them to light. Scheduled tribes account for about 8% of the Indian population, and may be in the majority in some states (north-east, central), but are often in the minority (1% in Kerala, including this man). They are often seen as "savages" or "primitives." As they live a little on the edge of society, they are often victims of spoliation (since they have no ownership contract), violation of their rights. rights (they do not know), target non-aboriginal traders who sell them goods on credit and indebted them for life, ... The man in the photo works as a guide for a natural park in which live 11 tribes (understand: 11 tribes lived in these mountain when the Indian state decided to make it a natural park).

#adivasi #india #tribes #tribus #minority #kerala

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adyummydiary-blog · 5 years

Text

As Europe’s 19th century merchants, missionaries and mercenaries cut their way through the world, no matter where they came from or where they found themselves, the truest sign of their success was whether they were eating French. Throughout the world, French cuisine had become the quintessential mark of civilisation, and it wasn’t only the French that thought so. Indeed, it had become the chief “escort to European diplomacy”, in the words of Marie-Antoine Carême, the world’s first ‘celebrity chef’.

Carême had in fact personally prepared the ground for the globalisation of French cuisine. Having survived Talleyrand’s challenge to prepare a year’s worth of seasonal dinners without repeating an entrée, and a spell serving Paris’s haute monde including the uncouth Napoleon, he eventually found himself invited abroad to prepare feasts for the likes of George IV in London and Tsar Alexandra I in St. Petersburg. He established a fortune and a reputation for himself, and a widespread appreciation for the beauty, bounty and opulence of the cuisine that he was in the process of transforming into an art form.

This is why a French chef accompanied the governor-general of India, Lord Auckland, on his mission to meet Afghanistan’s ruler in Simla in 1837. Monsieur St Cloup was there to preside over a small army of chefs who whirled up lavish breakfasts and dinners for the governor-general’s guests, and marching fodder for the 12,000-strong entourage.

But it wasn’t always thus. At the beginning of the 19th century, the wife of a British army officer passing through Lucknow in India noted that three distinct dinners were served at the nawab’s (nobleman’s) table. Those at the upper end were served food prepared by an English chef. The middle section, where the nawab sat, was graced by a Hindu cook’s fare. Meanwhile those in the lower third were served by a French chef. This seemed a fair reflection of Britain’s recent and decisive sweeping aside of France’s challenge to their hegemony over India.

But France won a separate battle, in large part thanks to Carême himself who had set about refining French cuisine by favouring quality and visual appeal over the brute force of sheer quantity. By the time St Cloup accompanied Lord Auckland on their epic journey, a French chef had become a necessity for any British household within the Raj that wished to distinguish itself. French cuisine had become synonymous with ideas of civilisation, and was heavily favoured by ruling elites all over the world, who were perhaps more comfortable breaking bread with one another than with their own lower ranked nationals.

It wasn’t just the novelty of refinement. The adoption of service à la Russe, with its ordered series of courses, lent itself very well to diplomacy, and the light and often fanciful entrées served to delight all the senses rather than simply loading stomachs before their owners moved on to business. French cuisine proved you really were someone.

Thus when Mexico celebrated their victory over the French in 1862, they dined on French cuisine. When King Rama V of Thailand held state banquets for Western diplomats, he served French cuisine. When the Emperor of Japan invited 800 guests to dinner in his new European style palace in Tokyo in 1889, the chefs prepared French cuisine. The courtiers had been training since 1887 in how to dress and behave at a French dinner, and resist being unnerved by the jangling of silverware on porcelain and obligation to make small talk.

In the case of Japan, France’s specific associations with principles of civilisation can only have served to attract Japan’s attention after the latter’s forced opening by the Americans in 1854. Japan’s mission to adapt Western culture, including cuisine, was carried out under the slogan “civilisation and enlightenment”, underpinned by a military, economic, legal and artistic partnership between France and Japan.

The French chefs were also modernists, embracing new inventions such as canning and modern processes that produced white flour and sugar. Escoffier himself was an advocate of commercially prepared stocks and essences, endorsing Maggi’s ham, anchovy and mushrooms essence. Without canning, French cuisine would scarcely have made it past Denmark.

Thus, when His Highness Nawab Sir Sadiq Muhammad Khan Abbasi V was made ruler of Bahawalpur State in northern India in 1907, a meal of soup, pâté, salmon in béchamel sauce, roast game birds and crème caramel were served in celebration. Aside from the birds, it was all canned. Conversely, without canned asparagus, now popular dishes such as Vietnam’s Sup Meng Tay (crab and asparagus soup) would never have emerged.

And while diplomacy was carried out by jaded diplomats, perhaps France’s truest ambassadors were in the legions of energetic young chefs who found their way out of poverty by training and travelling at the first chance they got. From Mexico to Madras, Turin to Tokyo, the world was hungry to savour what they had to offer.

At first, most of these young cooks came from France and trained in Paris, but they were soon joined by those acquiring their skills in Switzerland, Vienna, London and St. Petersburg. Escoffier claimed to have trained thousands of English cooks in the French style, and all of these in turn diffused their skills wherever in the world they turned up. By the 1890s, London alone counted 5,000 French cooks.

And as they went, they were assisted by another device whose attractions Carême had transformed, the cookbook. They were supported too, by a small army of waiters, butchers and bakers who set up shop in all the far-flung posts of the world. By the end of the 19th century, one could put on as good a do in Tokyo and Saigon as in Toulouse or Strasbourg.

And sometimes things just got all mixed up. Wherever it found itself, French cuisine was adapted to local tastes, often with the quiet addition of a few spices or herbs. In Algeria, l’Art de Bien Cuisiner (1933) set out specifically to give instructions on French cooking using local ingredients. Le Guide du Francais Arrivant en Indochine (1935) similarly added a few exotic flourishes to French cuisine (alongside setting out the prerequisites for successful integration, namely a serious professional background, an incontestable entrepreneurial spirit, a patient character and a highly developed sense of justice with which to moderate one’s own attitudes).

Thus we have Russian salads and beef stroganoff. Moussaka and lasagne are manifestations of the trend for adding béchamel sauce to anything to “frenchify” it. The Siamese played with chicken chaudfroid to create a visually identical dish made with minced chicken, lemongrass and coconut agar-agar. Even Escoffier got in on the game, knocking up an emincé de volaille au curry, which is just chicken in béchamel sauce with a smidge of curry powder.

However, as with salt, it paid to be judicious. The Hawaiian king who decided it was necessary to join the big boys by serving a French feast for his coronation, which in turn necessitated the construction of a palace and procurement of expensive linens and porcelains at a cost of $360,000, didn’t take long to find himself turfed out with a republic installed in his place.

But even today, while the French language has lost its supremacy as the lingua franca of diplomacy and we are all richer and closer through the globalisation of cuisines from all over the world, any of which is capable of being just as grand, French cuisine retains a unique capacity to endow any occasion with a certain otherness - a legacy of an adventurous past that we hope may never be lost.

Topaz’s Chef de Cuisine Sopheak Pov

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