#Doors and Windows in Waterloo | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

osarina · 2 months ago

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ᡣ𐭩 I THINK I'VE SEEN THIS LOVE BEFORE

FEATURING: dazai osamu

SUMMARY: dazai finds himself back at your apartment in the weeks after the conflict with alexander pushkin while you're away in rome, hoping to push away the emptiness consuming him by dragging himself to the one place he's ever felt okay. it's not enough—not when you're not there—but he can't, and won't, ask you to drop everything you're doing to come deal with him and his fucked up head. luckily, he doesn't have to.

(wordcount: 5.8k; fem!reader, sfw, hurt/comfort, dazai depressive episode, implications of him having an eating disorder, mentions of past suicide attempts/self-harm, talks of suicide, dazai struggling with his place in the ada & struggling to find a reason to live, unedited.)

AUTHOR'S NOTES: YAYYYYYYYY ANOTHER AGE 22 FIC!!! this one was rlly ifhasudfhasd idk i liked writing this one. i like getting in deep with dazai's mental health it's therapeutic for me LOL. but i thought this one was a long time coming honestly, dazai's first bad depressive episode since they reunite at 22. wahhhhhh they both love each other so deeply it makes me sick. anyway there's a waterloo reference in here u guys better catch it or ill perish.

Dazai doesn’t know how he got to your apartment. Doesn’t know when he got to your apartment. Doesn’t even know what he’s doing at your apartment. By the time he finally starts to drag himself out of whatever dissociated state he’d been in, the sun has long set and the stars are shining brilliantly outside the windows lining the far side of your room, and he finds himself curled up in a ball in the center of your bed.

The last thing he remembers is that he was at work. He hadn’t slept the night before, or the night before that, or even the night before that, but he’d managed to drag himself into the office two hours late with a stubble he didn’t trust himself to shave, dressed in the same crumpled clothes he wore the day before. And the day before that. And the day before that.

They’re in a disheveled heap on your floor now. Dazai absently takes note of their location near your door and then looks down at himself, realizing that he must’ve changed into a pair of sweats and a sweatshirt when he got here. They’re not one of the ones you keep around for him, that’s for sure—the pants are riding up his calves because they’re too short for him, and the sweatshirt is a bit tight around his shoulders.

It’s a little uncomfortable, but the fact that they smell like you trounces the fact that they don’t fit him properly. He still feels a bit hazy even now that he’s drawn out of his trance, but he manages to drag himself to the top of your bed and shuffle himself beneath your dark sheets, letting his head drop against your pillow, eyes sliding shut as he desperately inhales the familiar lavender and vanilla of your shampoo.

Surrounded by the scent of you, he can almost pretend that the weight of the blankets on him is your arm draped around him as you pull him to your chest. He can almost drive away that cold, empty feeling that’s been consuming him the past few days. He isn’t sure what triggered this—he thinks maybe it’s been looming since you came back to deal with Alexander Pushkin two weeks ago, since he had to come to terms with the fact that you are the enemy now. That things aren’t the same as they used to be, that they’d never be the same as they used to be.

It’s not you and him (and Chuuya) against the world anymore—ninety percent of the time from now on, it’s going to be him against you (and Chuuya) against the world, and Dazai has never felt so entirely alone. And he shouldn’t because he’s not alone: he has the Agency, but…

But it’s just not the same.

His eyes flutter back open, and he stares ahead blankly at the windows. His reflection stares back at him, inhuman and incomprehensible; his eyes are dull and hollow and far too black, looking more like they belong on a monster than a man, and his skin looks gaunt and pale, his poor eating habits catching up to him. No wonder Yosano has been so on his ass about nutrition, and Kunikida has been stopping by more often with meals that end up getting thrown out. He looks like a ghoul. A wraith. Ugly and uncanny—his rotted mind and heart finally reflect onto his physical appearance so people can see him for what he really is. A demon. A monster. Something that cannot consider itself human.

He can only draw his eyes away from his reflection when he feels his phone buzz—he would ignore it usually, but it’s a welcome distraction from the haunting image of himself right now. He scrambles, trying to figure out where he’d dropped it, and it’s only when his fingers close around the device that he can finally breathe again.

The screen is too bright when he clicks it on. He grimaces at the light burning his eyes, fumbling to turn down the brightness so he can actually see what’s on the screen. His eyes scan quickly over the notifications—a dozen from Kunikida, a handful from Yosano and Atsushi, and—

And three missed video calls from you.

You must’ve gotten the notification that he was in your apartment—either from the security system or your doorman, but he’s pretty sure that he was careful to avoid the man’s notice and the cameras around the building. He chews on the inside of his cheek as his finger hovers over the call-back button, unsure if he wants to even call you back. You’re busy, surely—you’re back in Italy dealing with Port Mafia business, and it should be almost the evening there. You have more important things to be doing than dealing with his fucked up brain.

Still, his finger betrays him, pressing down on the screen before he can stop himself. The dial tone rings in his ears, each second stretching endlessly, anticipation curling in his chest. He braces himself for your voicemail, for the impersonal automated message to remind him that you’re too far away, too unreachable. But then—

“Dazai?”

Your voice is soft, slightly breathless, like you hadn’t expected him to call back so soon. He swallows, throat painfully tightening at the sound of you, unable to look down at his phone. For a moment, he can’t bring himself to say anything. The lump in his throat is just too big for him to force his voice past it.

“Hi,” he finally whispers. His eyes rake over your face greedily, and he’s grateful that he video-called you back. You look beautiful—always do, he thinks wistfully—but even more so today. You’re dressed pretty, lips painted red, and eyes all done up; you must be at an event because he can tell that you’re not wearing the suit you usually wear. He can see the straps of your dress, just barely visible in the camera. “You look pretty.”

“Hi,” you reply, matching his tone. “Are you okay?”

He exhales shakily, forcing himself to play his part. “Of course, bella,” he says, injecting as much of his usual teasing lilt into his voice as he can manage. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

You don’t buy it. He knows you don’t. You never have.

There’s a pause on your end, filled only by the faint sound of movement, a rustle of fabric, and a muffled voice calling your name. A male voice. Dazai’s fingers tighten around the fabric of your sheets. He hates the ugly feeling that curls in his gut.

Your voice softens as you finally say, “You’re in my apartment.”

“... No,” Dazai lies after a few seconds, turning on his side to curl into himself. “Are you at an event?”

“Yeah,” you agree, eyes flitting to the side to give someone off-screen a small, dismissive smile. “I’m with Tolstoy and Goldoni at a dinner. We’re meeting with a representative of the Church later—we’re trying to figure out who exactly Fyodor Dostoevsky is. Goldoni invited Tolstoy and me to Vatican City because he thought the Church might have information that could be of use to us.”

“Sounds important,” he says quietly, and he hates how small his voice comes out.

The corners of your lips soften as you look at him, and Dazai is suddenly very acutely aware of how ghoulish he must look. He almost wants to turn the camera away from his face, but he knows that’ll only bring more attention to it.

“Not more important than you,” you tell him, and for a second, Dazai thinks he might cry, all of the tension in his chest loosening at your words. “I would rather be there with you.”

“Me too,” Dazai breathes out, lashes wet and fluttering as he turns his face out of view of the camera, wiping his eyes furiously. “I don’t know what came over me. I don’t usually let it get to me like this. I just—”

“Don’t you think that's probably why?” you ask him softly. Dazai’s throat tightens painfully—if his eyes slide shut, he can almost imagine your fingers threading through his hair as you speak. “It’s Thursday there, right? Are you going to work in the morning?”

Dazai peeks up from the pillow curiously, wondering why you changed the subject so quickly. He bites his bottom lip, wondering if this is your way of asking him to leave. “I—I don’t know. Probably not. I can, I guess—”

“Don’t,” you interrupt immediately, and he looks at you again, waiting for you to continue. “I’ll be back Saturday night, wait for me?”

“If you insist,” he rasps, still a bit drowsy, barely able to hold his eyes open as he looks at the screen. He sees you smile lightly, and that’s worth the burn in his eyes that the light of the screen causes. “Are you leaving?”

You pause, and he sees you look back at where he assumes the rest of the people attending the dinner are sitting, and Dazai’s heart sinks. His chapped lips part to tell you that he’s fine, to crack a joke or flirt with you just enough to convince you that he’ll be okay if you go, but all he’s able to do is take in a ragged breath.

“I can stay on the phone,” you offer. “I won’t be able to talk, but I’ll be here, at least.”

“Okay,” he whispers.

He doesn’t hear you immediately standing up, so he cracks an eye open to see what you’re doing, and his mouth dries when he sees you staring at the screen with an indecipherable expression. You look like you want to say something, but Dazai can’t fathom what it might be. After what feels like an eternity, your head finally drops a little.

“Try to sleep,” you murmur before he hears you rise to your feet.

You don’t say anything else to him, but you don’t hang up either. Dazai listens as you walk back into the dining hall and laugh when Leo Tolstoy accuses you of trying to ditch them. He hears you apologize and tell them that you had to take an important call. He listens as Goldoni chuckles and teases you about a ‘mysterious lover,’ and he listens as you brush it off with a laugh, but you don’t deny it.

Dazai closes his eyes again, listening to the distant hum of your voice, the way you navigate the conversation so effortlessly, the way you sound so at home in a world that no longer includes him. He hates it. Dazai has regretted his decision to leave the Port Mafia before, but never more than now. He feels so separate from you, the two of you are living in entirely different worlds now, and he just hates it. He’s not good at saving people, he’s not good at being good at all, and it’s so exhausting pretending to be—he’ll never fully fit in with the rest of the Agency, and now he doesn’t fully fit in with the one person who has always accepted him for him, and it’s because of his own doing.

Eventually, his eyelids grow heavy as exhaustion finally catches up to him. He barely registers the moment his grip on his phone loosens, nor does he notice when the tension starts to seep from his muscles. The last thing he thinks he hears before sleep claims him is the sound of you excusing yourself from the table and the soft whisper of his name as if checking to see if he’s still there.

And then, silence. For the first time in what feels like forever, Dazai sleeps.

---

You’re not entirely sure if Dazai will still be there when you get back to your apartment. You don’t even bother going to talk to Mori, even though you know you should be heading to his office immediately to debrief everything you learned from Goldoni about Dostoevsky. You won’t be able to focus until you know Dazai is okay—you know that look in his eyes more intimately than anyone else. The first time you saw it, you found him on the roof of your building, swaying precariously on the edge, and the last time, you found him slumped over in your bathroom with a razor blade.

You drop your suitcase haphazardly on the ground, glancing down the hall to his bedroom, but your gut screams to go up to your room, so you place the food you grabbed on the way back down on the table and take off up the steps to your bedroom. The door is open, and you slow to a stop when you see a small lump curled up beneath your dark sheets.

You exhale softly, a fond smile curling onto the corners of your lips as you slip your shoes off and make your way over to him.

You climb on top of the bed, careful not to disturb him, and you pull the sheets back just enough so that you can see his head. He looks at peace—fast asleep, his phone resting next to his head as he lets out even puffs of air. You let the call finally drop when you got up to your apartment, so you take his phone to rest it on the nightstand before turning your attention back onto him.

You lift your hand to run your fingers through his hair, watching as he lets out a soft noise in the back of his throat before leaning into your touch. He’s been sleeping since you got on the call with him over twenty-four hours ago, and there are still dark bags beneath his eyes. You don’t want to wake him up, but you know him and you know he probably hasn’t eaten in days.

Maybe more than that, you grimace, fingers tracing over his face. He’s lost weight, you know that just by looking at him—his cheeks are a bit sunken, and even though he’s wrapped in your blankets, you can see how thin his frame is. Dazai has never been bulky, but he’s always been lean and toned—now, he seems almost frail beneath the blankets. You swallow thickly as you lean down to brush your lips against his temple, watching as he slowly stirs awake.

“Hi, baby,” you whisper, still brushing your fingers through his hair as his hazy gaze slowly focuses on you. The pet name rolls off your tongue easily in spite of the fact that you haven’t used it in years—it’s reserved for Dazai, and it’s specifically reserved for moments like these. “You awake?”

Dazai doesn’t respond. You don’t really expect him to. Your hand slides from his hair to cup his face, running your thumb over his cheekbone. He leans into your touch instinctively, and you can see his lashes start to flutter shut again.

“I brought food,” you tell him quietly as you shift to lay down next to him, slipping an arm around his thin waist to spoon him. You kiss his shoulder blade before nuzzling your face in the nape of his neck. “You should come eat.”

He needs to shower too, you think absently, but you have a feeling that’s going to be more difficult to convince him to do than eat. You can see the bandages on his neck yellowed and frayed at the edges—he probably hasn’t changed them in a concerning amount of time—and his hair is oily and greasy, all of the usual fluff gone.

“I’m not hungry,” he murmurs.

His voice is hoarse, a little over a rasp. You make sure to keep your arm around him as you prop yourself up on your other elbow, looking over him to catch him staring blankly into his reflection in the window. His eyes are dark—too dark and too empty, which means his mind has retreated back into a bad place.

You press your lips together before coming to a decision. You take your arm from around his waist to lift it to his head, wriggling your hand under his cheek to forcibly turn his head up to the ceiling. His whole body falls onto his back when you succeed, and you catch a hint of displeasure in his eyes as he stares up at the ceiling—better than the emptiness. You don’t think he was doing himself any favors staring at himself like that. He’s never liked his own reflection.

“I brought your favorite,” you tempt, sitting up so that you’re kneeling next to him. You pull one of his hands into your lap, using your index finger to trace the lines on his palm and each of his fingers. “Come have a little.”

His expression softens as he looks down at where you’re tracing his hands. He asks quietly, “You brought crab?”

“Good crab,” you confirm. “From the rooftop restaurant in Naka that you like.”

He blinks. “They’re not open this late.”

You give him a smug grin and tell him, “They’re always open for me.”

He doesn’t roll his eyes, but he almost does from the way he side-eyes you. “You sound like Chuuya,” he mutters.

You ignore the insult and say, “Come eat.”

What little energy he mustered fades as his gaze shifts back to the ceiling. “I don’t want to move,” he whispers, voice little over a breath.

I can’t move, he’s really saying. His throat bobs as his eyes slide shut, and you let out a soft breath, lifting your free hand to caress his face as you lean down to press your lips gently to his forehead, tracing them over the bridge of his nose before brushing them against his.

“I’ll bring it to you,” you say quietly, shifting to get up off the bed, but you pause when he reaches out to grab your wrist. His grip is weak, fingers clinging to your suit jacket desperately, you probably wouldn’t have even noticed him grabbing for you if you hadn’t seen him move. “What is it?”

“Stay.”

“I’m not going far,” you tell him. “Just down the steps—”

“Stay,” he rasps out, opening his eyes to look at you again, and you freeze when you see the glassiness in them. “Please.”

“Okay,” you agree, shifting to lay with him again. Usually, he’ll curl into you when you guys lay together, but he stays flat on his back staring up at the ceiling. You lift your hand to turn his head to the side so he’s looking at you, and your heart clenches when you see the pain plainly visible in his eyes.

You don’t have to ask the question. Dazai’s lashes flutter shut, wet with tears he’s not letting roll over his cheeks. You run your finger over his cheekbone again, drawing small circles against his skin as you caress his face.

“I’m so tired,” he breathes out, voice hoarse. “I’m so tired. I’ve done everything he wanted, but nothing has changed. I still feel so empty, I still don’t belong there. I thought maybe once I started doing what he asked, I would change, I’d be better, I’d be good. Happier. But I still feel the same. I still want to die. I’m still me.”

You inhale shakily. For as much as you’ve always known about Dazai’s unending yearning for death, he’s never actually explicitly said it out loud before, at least not to you. For a moment, your thumb pauses in the steady circles you’re drawing against his cheek, but you force yourself to speak.

“You can’t live for someone else, Osamu,” you whisper, voice cracking. “You need to find a reason for yourself.”

“But what if I don’t have one?” Dazai asks, a ragged noise escapes his lips—a sob or an inhale, maybe both. His fingers are trembling in your hand; you think maybe you were wrong. Dazai doesn’t want to die, not really; he wants a reason to live desperately, but can’t find one, and without one, he doesn’t see the point in going on. “What if I don’t have one?”

“Then I’ll help you find one,” you say softly, your voice steady in spite of the tremor that runs through you. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll stay with you. We’ll figure it out together, you’re not alone. You’ve never been alone.”

Your hand slips off of his face when Dazai turns his head away, breath hitching, but you feel the tears finally start to roll over his cheeks as your hand drops to the mattress.

“But why?” he breathes out, voice wavering. “Why? I don’t understand.”

“Why what?”

“Why are you here? Why are you helping me? I left you, I left you and didn’t even say goodbye, and as soon as I came crawling back into your life, you let me. I know you left Rome early to come check on me. You never leave right after events, you wait a few days until the politics of it dies down.” His voice is pitched. Wobbly. It cracks over every other word, and he becomes more and more distressed with each passing second. “I don’t understand. I wasn’t even—I wasn’t even good to you back then. I couldn’t commit to you, and even when I did commit to you, I was still making things hard. I don’t understand why you’re here, why you’re with me when I only ever make life harder on you, I don’t deserve it. I—”

“Because I love you,” you tell him, sitting up to take his face in both of your hands to force him to look at you. The three words you never spoke before he left because you were afraid it would make him run, the three words you didn’t say back when they slipped from his mouth in the haze of pleasure, the three words the two of you have been dancing around for six years. He stares up at you, frozen, brown eyes wide and lips parted. “I love you, Osamu. I love you so much that it makes me sick sometimes. I love you even when you make things hard, I love you even when you run, even when you push me away, even when you disappear without a word and make me wonder if I’ll ever see you again. And I hate that I do sometimes, I really do—you drive me insane, but I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything.”

His lips part, but no words come out. His hands are trembling, but his grip finally tightens on yours. His chest rises and falls in short, uneven breaths, and you carefully pull him into your arms. He instinctively curls into you, resting his head on your shoulder; you bring your free hand up to cradle his head, fingers tightening around his other hand.

“I left Rome early because I knew you needed me to,” you continue. “And I didn’t want to wait for you to ask, because I knew you’d never.”

His breath hitches. “I just don’t understand. I—”

“You don’t need to understand, Osamu,” you tell him quietly. “You just need to let me love you.”

“I don’t know how to be loved like this,” he whispers. “I’m going to mess it all up.”

“Then we’ll fix it again,” you promise, kissing the top of his head. “We have the rest of our lives for you to learn, yeah?”

Dazai’s nose brushes your jaw as he shifts his head to look up at you, and you let your head fall to the side so that you can look at him. His eyes are swimming with emotion as he lifts his hand to your face—his fingers tremble as they brush your skin.

“I love you too,” he says softly, throat bobbing as he swallows thickly. It’s different hearing it now when he’s not drunk with pleasure, when he’s looking at you like you’re the only thing in the world that matters to him. It makes your throat swell, makes your eyes wet and glassy. “So much. It gets me so twisted up inside that I can barely breathe. I thought of you every day we were apart. It drove me crazy—you don’t understand, I saw you around every corner, I heard your voice in the wind. I dreamed of you every night, and I hated waking up because I knew you wouldn’t be there. When I heard—when I heard you were sent abroad, I went back to your apartment—”

Your eyes widen, and Dazai buries his face in the crook of your neck.

“I thought I would feel better. Your apartment—it’s always where I’ve felt… okay,” he continues, voice muffled against your skin, “but it made me feel so much worse. I’ve felt so guilty over leaving you without saying anything. It’s been eating me alive for years and—”

“It’s okay,” you whisper when his voice breaks into a sob. “It’s okay. I understand now. I—”

“It’s not okay,” he interrupts, voice rising in pitch as he forces himself to sit up to look at you. You sit up with him—his pupils are dilated, eyes wild, and he’s no longer trying to hold back the tears. “It’s not okay. I hurt you, I left you. It hadn’t even been a year since Itou died, and I knew you weren’t okay even though you pretended to be. You needed me and I left you. And—”

“And I forgive you, Osamu,” you tell him, reaching forward to grab his shaking hands again. It scares you how much you realize you mean it—you don’t think the resentment will ever fully go away, but you do forgive him. “I forgive you for leaving. I’m glad you left, I’m glad you got out of there, I’m glad you’re with the Agency. Of course I’ll always be sad that we’re not working together anymore, but we’re still us, we still have each other and that’s what matters.”

“But—” he starts to whisper, nails digging deep into the skin of your hands, but you don’t pull away.

“There is no ‘but’,” you say quietly. “I know you can’t see it yourself, Osamu, but I do. You have changed since you’ve been with them. You’ve changed for the better. I knew it the moment we first saw each other after all those years, and I know it now.”

“Then why do I still feel this way?” he breathes out desperately, looking to you for an answer. “I don’t understand.”

“You’re not just going to suddenly wake up one day and feel okay,” you say with a wry smile, reaching out to caress his cheek. “That’s not how it works. But you’re doing good, Osamu. You are good. If the me from four years ago met the you now, I would never believe that you’re my Osamu—you haven’t let yourself see how far you’ve come, but before we met in my office, the last I remembered of you was when you were an executive, so I can see it better than anyone. The boy I knew four years ago is not the same man sitting in front of me today. I forgive you for leaving because it makes me happy to see who you’ve become since you’ve been gone. I’m proud of you, Osamu—and I know he would be too.”

Dazai grits his teeth to hold back another sob, head hanging forward. You shift toward him to wrap your arms around his shoulders, pulling him into you so he can bury his face in the crook of your neck.

“I hate that you always know what to say,” he mutters, fingers digging into the back of your suit jacket as he clings to you.

“Well, it is kind of my job,” you say dryly, lips curling up when he lets out a puff of air that you can only assume is amusement.

“What about you?” he finally asks. You barely hear him since he’s speaking so quietly. “You could leave too. You could come with me. You could be good too—we could learn together.”

“Osamu—”

“You could,” he insists before you reject him, sitting back on his heels to look at you. “You could—”

“I don’t want to,” you tell him firmly, watching as his shoulders slump. “I’m not like you, or even Chuuya. You never enjoyed being in the mafia—you were the most successful executive we had, and you just didn’t care. You were only there because you were trying to find a way to spend your time. And Chuuya, he’ll always do what needs to be done to protect the city—he knows that sometimes you need to do bad things for the greater good, but he doesn’t like it.”

“And you?” he asks quietly.

“I love it,” you admit, swallowing thickly. “I don’t give a shit about the city, or the people, I like the money and I like the power and I like the fear and the respect and the love. I like having the most powerful men in the world in the palm of my hand, and I like knowing that if I wanted to, they would kill for me, die for me, start wars for me. I like that when I walk into a room with the Prime Minister, he’ll walk up to me for my attention. I like being wined and dined in foreign countries because all of their politicians and oligarchs want my favor. I love being with Port Mafia, Osamu. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to be good.”

You don’t expect Dazai to laugh, but he does. He barks out something caught between a sob and a laugh, pressing his hand to his mouth to smother it.

“And what does it say about me that you saying all of that made me hard?” he chokes out between either sobs or laughs, maybe both.

Your hand flies to your mouth to smother your giggle, but it’s to no avail, because when Dazai snorts, you can’t hold it back anymore. He leans into you as he bursts into laughter, and you press your face into the top of his head, burying your face in his hair as you giggle, absently wiping away the tears streaming down his cheeks.

When he finally starts to calm down, hysterical laughter becoming soft giggles, he lets out a heavy sigh. His lashes are still wet against the skin of your neck, and he’s still upset, but his shoulders aren’t tense anymore as he sinks into you.

“If you really think I’ve changed,” he asks, voice too small, “then how do you know you still love me?”

“Because you’re Dazai Osamu,” you answer instantly. “I’ll always love you—whether you’ve changed for the better or worse, I’m yours, and you’re mine. You changing just means I get the chance to fall in love with you all over again.”

A noise slips from his lips—you can’t tell if it’s a soft ‘oh’ or a gasp, but his arms tighten around you. After a few moments, he lets out a breathy, “I love you.”

You kiss the top of his head in response, running your hand up and down his spine absently before he finally lets out a heavy sigh and sits back on his heels to look at you. His eyes are heavy, and his smile is sad.

“Mori wants me back,” he says quietly after a moment. You inhale sharply, heart sinking as your hands drop back to your lap. “He’s mentioned it twice now. And you said it yourself, when he wants something—”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” you say firmly, reaching out to squeeze his hand. “I’ll handle it.”

“But—”

“Seriously, Osamu,” you say, and then add teasingly, “Don’t you still trust me? Didn’t you once say body, heart, soul, and trust?”

Dazai’s face instantly heats up. He rips his hand from yours to bury his face in his hands, letting out a long groan. “Can you not repeat all the embarrassing things I said when we were younger?”

“Please,” you laugh. “You don’t think me and Chuuya stopped re-enacting the ‘that’s why I love you’ just because you left, do you?”

“Oh my god,” he complains, falling over onto the bed to press his face into your pillow. You only barely catch the muffled, “I’m going to smother myself, and it’s on you.”

You laugh and shift to drape yourself over his back, kissing his shoulder blade before resting your head down on his back, drawing patterns on his back. “Anyway, I thought that one was cute, not embarrassing.”

Dazai only lets out an irritated grumble that makes you smile.

“Ah, sweet hime, I’m going to have to disappear again for a few days after this one,” he sighs, turning his head to the side to look at you from the corner of his eye. You shimmy up a bit to press your lips to his cheek, watching his eyes flutter shut. “This is all just too embarrassing. You know how I feel about… talking and emotions.”

You can hear the disgust dripping from his words, and you laugh. “Tell that to someone who hasn’t had to talk you off the edge of a roof or wrestle you for a razor blade.”

His lips curl up into a soft smile.

“Fair,” he whispers.

You bite back a yelp when he suddenly rolls onto his back, hands darting out to shift you so that you’re lying on his chest instead. He reaches up to cup your cheek, and you let out a quiet breath when your eyes meet his. They’re still a bit too fragile for your liking, but there’s a peace that you’ve hardly ever seen before in them, and it makes your heart warm.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he admits, running his thumb over your cheekbone, staring at your face like he’s trying to burn it into his memory. “Please don’t ever go somewhere I can’t follow.”

“Somewhere without you?” you tease. “Sounds dreadful.”

He lets out a laugh, but there’s something sad that lingers in his eyes, and it makes you pause. You remember the words he said to you after the near-successful assassination attempt on you four years ago—everything I never want to lose is always lost, I’m so scared that you’ll be next.

“You won’t ever lose me, Osamu,” you promise.

Dazai’s gaze lowers. “I hope not.”

#dazai x reader #dazai x you #bsd x reader #bsd x you #bungo stray dogs x reader #bungo stray dogs x you

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fandomgirlz01 · 9 months ago

Text

Fated Encounters

Bradley Simpson x Reader

Imagine on fandom instagram?: No

Prompt or Request or Requested Prompt?: No

Style of Writing: Fic

Rating: G ~ For all the fluff and cuteness as well as safe for all.

Edited: Yes

Word count: 4,416

Post Date & Time: September 25th 2024 at 4:16 PM

Ko-fi

Masterlist

Warnings here

Listen to the story be read out loud here {coming soon}.

Summary: Based off of the The Vamps: Secret Busker - BBC Radio 1 video. When the Reader, her Mother and best friend are coming home from a vacation they happen across an unusual moment with the Buskers in Waterloo station.

Reader’s Pov:

I feel a few good jabs to my arm, making me rapidly blink my eyes open and the light from the window of the train temporarily blinds me. I groan as I close them again for a moment before fully reopening them slowly, letting them adjust to the light. I stretch out in my seat while our train comes to a stop, letting out a yawn.

“Knackered much?” A voice asks with humor laced through it.

“Very. I’ll be glad to be home,” I reply as I look at my best friend Naomi, who laughs along with my mother.

“A vacation is supposed to relax you, not make you more knackered,” my mother jokingly comments, making her and Naomi laugh harder.

“I really had a good time, I swear, it’s just the journey there and home that makes me sleepy,” I argue before I let out a yawn while rubbing at my face and they both playfully hum at me.

“Oh, don’t we know it. Every trip we take, you nap when we get there and you nap as soon as we get home,” Naomi jokingly taunts me and I roll my eyes.

“Oh and don’t forget the sleeping on the transportation,” my mother jumps in and I groan as they laugh some more.

“Ugh, whatever. Gang up on me, why don’t you,” I groan out with another roll of my eyes as I huff, crossing my arms as I sink back into my chair, annoyed with them.

“We’re not ganging up on you, just giving ya grief is all,” Naomi jokingly empathizes with me and I groan.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say,” I pungently agree to disagree and again they both laugh.

The train then fully comes to the stop and we all stand. We each grab our carry-on bags before heading towards the door. The guy that stands at the door asks for names, then hands us our suitcases before helping us out.

Once we each have our retrospective suitcase, we start to walk through Waterloo station. I sluggishly pull my suitcase behind me, my eyes heavy as we walk for a bit. Soon we come up to where the buskers tend to play and my mother comes to a stop.

“You girls wait here, I’m just going to run to the restroom after that long train ride,” she informs us as Naomi and I watch a new band finish setting up.

I nod at my mother, who smiles as she sets her bag down before walking over to the bathroom. I continue to watch for a few minutes as the Buskers finally start their set.

“It’s a one, it’s a two, it's a one, two!” One of the guys shouts into his bandmate’s mic before he sits on the box drum as the others lead into the song.

“Yeah!” The whole band shouts out and I cross my arms as I recognize the tune they seem to be covering.

♪ I used to wanna be living like it’s only me ♪ the man that seems to be the front man starts to sing the familiar song and Naomi bumps me with her elbow, bouncing her eyebrows at me.

“Isn’t that a Vamps song that you're always singing?” she asks and I nod as I watch on as the older man band continues to play.

“Yeah, it’s called Somebody to You. They sing it with Demi, remember?” I respond and she gives me a deadpan look before shaking her head, amused once more.

“You know everything about that band,” she comments with a smirk and I shrug.

“That wasn’t really much. Anyone who’s a starter fan knows they sing that one with Demi,” I tell her in a nonchalant tone and she giggles, shaking her head.

“Whatever you say, y/n/n,” she agrees to disagree like I had earlier, but she keeps an amused look on her face to continue messing with me.

A lot of people slowly stop and stand around us as they too start to become fascinated with the buskers. My mother finally comes out and picks up her bag that she’d left with us.

“Well that’s very interesting, isn’t it?” she asks as the band continues to sing on.

“Very. Seems they like the same band y/n does,” Naomi comments as she elbows me lightly again.

“Oh. Look, that guy must like it. He’s putting money in their case,” my mother points out as an older gentleman in a red coat goes over and gives them some money.

“We’re Route 66. We’re right here from Arkansas, a little town called Little Rock. We’re gonna play the show tonight. You’re the best crowd on the whole damn tour!” The guy with blue spikey hair shouts into his mic and my mother laughs.

“Let me see those hands! Yeah!” The lead guy jumps in and they continue with the song.

“What do you think of this version, y/n?” My mother asks with humor in her tone as she and Naomi snicker.

“Definitely good, but not as good as when Brad sings. He’s just got—” I start my normal rant and Naomi playfully rolls her eyes.

“Such a smooth and calming voice. Yeah, I know, you say it all the time,” she jokes with her arms crossed and I blush lightly.

“Shut up, Omi, I do not…” I argue with a blush falling over my face and she laughs dramatically.

“Ha! Okay. I’ll believe that when you stop saying it,” she retorts with a snort and I shake my head.

“That’ll be the end of the world, dear,” my mother adds in, making them both giggle some more when I give them an annoyed look.

“Don’t forget it’s so calming you fall asleep to it every night!” Naomi continues as she jabs her elbow into my side again and I blush, rolling my eyes.

“Do not…” I mutter out shyly and my mother laughs again.

“I’m sorry to say, dear, but Omi is correct. You do listen to that same playlist a lot to help yourself sleep,” my mother adds on and I roll my eyes again.

“I’m going to film this,” I inform them, ignoring as they continue to make fun of me, taking my phone out and they both shake their heads.

Just as I pull my phone out, they finish the song off and the lead singer turns away from the crowd. He holds his arm out and bends over ever so slightly as one of the others count the next song in.

♪ I’ve been up all night no sleep

Cause I feel like I’m always dreamin

All night No sleep ♪ They start the next song as the lead singer slowly starts to dance a little more and for some reason the dancing seems slightly familiar.

“Naomi… does that dancing look familiar at all to you?” I ask her and she pauses to watch a little more intensely.

“You know what, it does a bit…” she agrees as she watches the guy a little closer now and I shake my head.

“I must be seeing things…” I comment, blinking my eyes for a moment and she giggles.

“When are you not? You’re always daydreaming, dear,” my mother jokes and I roll my eyes as she laughs with Naomi.

“Whatever,” I reply, waving my mother’s comment off before turning back to watch some more.

“Any dancers in the audience?” The lead singer asks as he looks out over the crowd.

“I’m looking at you,” he points to me and I pause.

I point to myself as I raise an eyebrow before looking behind me, then back and he nods with an amused smile. I shake my head no and he gives me a dismissive wave. Another lady runs in and he dances with her for a moment before she runs off and another comes in. They dance side to side before he steps back and she too runs off. He sings a few more verses before pointing at me again and wiggles his finger for me to come closer.

“Oh, come on now. The guy just wants a dance,” my mother comments with a snicker and I smirk at her.

“Ya know what? I’m only gonna live once, right? If some old guy wants a dance and a flirt, what could it hurt,” I reply with a shrug before dropping my backpack.

I smile as I dance over to him and he grins, coming closer. We meet in the middle and he holds a hand out for me. I grin as I take it and oddly his hand is a lot softer and less wrinkled then an old man’s hand would be. He spins me before pulling me into his side as we sway. He takes the mic away from his face for a moment and suddenly a voice that sounds very familiar is singing the song to me in my ear as the guy dances with me.

It’s only a split second before he pulls the mic back to his face and continues to sing in the other (now that I realize who it is) horribly accented voice, but in that split second there was no doubt in my mind as I took a closer look at his face. The lead singer that I am currently dancing with is actually Bradley Willam Freaking Simpson himself.

My heart beats faster as I come to the realization that he’s danced with me longer than anyone else he danced with. He smiles at me and winks, almost like he knows I’ve caught on and the shock continues to roll over me. He spins me one more time before seemingly reluctantly letting go.

I walk backwards for a few minutes, keeping my eyes on his as he keeps eye contact with me. I then quickly turn around, walking back to Naomi and my mother with wide eyes as they give me a very amused look.

“What? Was dancing with the old guy that interesting?” Naomi jokingly asks as I gape, opening and closing my mouth, trying to explain for a moment.

“Yeah, y/n. You’re blushing kinda hard,” my mother jumps in with a laugh as she pokes me in the side.

“Did you fall absolutely madly in love with the older gentleman, y/n/n?” Naomi continues with a laugh and I just stare off at Brad, not really joking back.

“No. You don’t get it…” I tell them, shaking my head admittedly as I finally look back at them again.

“What don’t we get, sweetie?” My mum asks as she reaches over and starts to rub my back, now worried as they both frown at me.

“That wasn’t just some old guy flirting with me…” I inform them and they look at each other before looking at me.

“What do you mean, y/n/n?” Naomi asks skeptically and I shake my head again, still in a sort of daze.

“That was Bradley Freaking Simpson. As in The Vamps lead singer. The one I’ve been absolutely crushing on since I was fourteen,” I hurriedly yet harshly whisper out with wide eyes and they both look at me like I’m strange.

“I swear to you. It’s him. I knew his dancing looked oddly familiar, but then when we were dancing he sang away from the mic and to me directly. There’s no mistaking it, that’s his voice…” I quietly rant and rave to them in shock, making my mother shrug.

“Sweetheart, sometimes voices can sound like someone and it may not be the person you think,” she informs me in a very skeptical tone and I shake my head.

“No. I know it’s him,” I firmly inform her and she sighs.

“Look, I’ll admit I wasn’t sure from the voice until he smiled up close at me. I got a good close look at that face with a smile. It’s definitely a hundred percent Brad,” I continue to try and convince them and Naomi seems to be staring intently at the guy now.

Suddenly she’s letting out a light squeal before covering her mouth and apologizing to those around us who give her an annoyed look. She quickly hugs me before pulling back and giving me an excited look.

“You're right, it is him and the rest of the boys. How did we not realize?” she whispers in shock and I grin in happiness that I’m not some crazed lunatic fan.

“I really don’t know, but I danced with him…” I say in another daze as I look back over to watch some more and he sends me a smile along with another wink.

“He just winked at you. Oh my goodness, he winked at you,” Naomi happily tells me as she shakes me and I just grin in my daze.

“Naomi, dear, don’t play into her delusions. She believes it even harder,” my mother jokes and I roll my eyes.

“Mum, I’m telling you it’s him,” I defend myself and she shakes her head in amusement.

“I hear it in his voice now too. The accent he’s trying to put on is absolutely ridiculous and horrible,” Naomi comments with a giggle as she crosses her arms and I nod in agreement.

“He’s trying to change the sound, but it still sounds like him,” I agree, making both me and Naomi laugh.

“Wait a second,” my mother starts as she pauses to listen for a moment.

“That does sound an awful lot like the voice that always comes from your phone,” my mother finally agrees, making Naomi and I smirk as she slowly seems to connect it all.

“See… it is him…” I agree with a light smirk at my mother before I watch on in memorization once more.

“Thank you very, very much. Peace and love,” Brad says as they finish off the slow version of All Night.

“This is Teenage Kicks. Let’s have some fun. If you wanna put some money in our guitar case here, then be my guest,” Brad tells the crowd, leading to the next song as he points at the case below him.

“We’re just trying to get home,” James adds on before Tristan starts to count in the next song.

Brad starts to dance around again as the music starts and they go through the opening of the song. A couple people go and drop money into the case as they continue to sing.

♪ I wanna wanna hold you tight

Get teenage kicks all through the night

Come on ♪ He sings as he dances around and I can’t help but grin as I watch on.

♪ I’m gonna call her on the telephone

Have her over 'cause I'm all alone

I need excitement oh I need it bad

And it's the best, I've ever had ♪ James takes over for the next verse as Brad just dances around.

♪ I wanna wanna hold you tight

Get teenage kicks all through the night

Come on ♪ They all sing together now and Brad moves all over the place.

“James, my mate! I mean Dusty!” Brad calls out and I giggle at his little mess up before looking at Naomi and my mother with a triumphant look.

“Okay. That’s definitely them,” my mother finally fully agrees without a doubt, eyes wide and a shake of her head.

“Oh my gosh. Y/n, you have to leave your number for him,” Naomi suddenly bursts out and I shake my head.

“No. I couldn’t, he wouldn’t even call,” I deny and my mother scoffs.

“Honey. He’s still watching you at this moment. Something tells me he definitely would take the opportunity,” my mother informs me with a knowing smirk.

“I don’t know…” I reply shyly, shaking my head and Naomi groans.

“You're unbelievable,” Naomi says in disbelief, shaking her head as she bends down.

She unzips her backpack and pulls her notebook out. She quickly tears a piece of the paper from the inside out and uncaps her pen, handing it to me.

“Here. Write him a cute message and leave it in the case for him,” Naomi demands, making me roll my eyes before starting to write on the paper.

“Hey Mr. Busker, or should I say Mr. Simpson? You seem sweet and you dance very well. Maybe message me sometime (—-) —- —— ;)” I write out and when I’m done, I cap the pen before giving it back to Naomi.

I fold the paper lightly then pull out a pound from my wallet before taking a deep breath and walking over. Brad again smiles at me and I smile back at him as I gently set the pound along with the note in the case before looking up again. Brad nods subtly at me, letting me know he knows I put something in and I nod back at him before standing up, smiling at him one last time.

I walk back over to my mum and best friend. They smile at me and I blush lightly as I pick up my bag.

“One more time!” Brad shouts as he continues to dance around.

♪ I wanna wanna hold you tight

Get teenage kicks all through the night

Come on ♪ They all sing as they rock their hearts out and as always, Brad is infectious with his crazy antics that make me grin.

“Come on! Thank you so, so much!” Brad calls out as the boys play the music out.

He runs forward and dances with four or five girls who came up and were dancing. As the music nears the end, he pushes back from them a bit and gives a few bows.

“Thank you so much! We’re Route 66, we’ll see you soon,” Brad calls out before doing a mic drop and I can’t help but laugh.

He spares me one last look with a wink before he along with the boys get led out by two men and disappear behind some door. With a sigh, I turn around and grab my stuff as my mother and Naomi do the same. We all start to walk back to where my mother had parked her car when I feel a nudge to my side.

“Can’t wipe that smile off now, can we?” Naomi jokes and I shake my head.

“I may still be smiling tomorrow. I can’t believe I just flirted with the boy I’ve been dreaming of since I was like-” I trail off as the shocked feeling falls over me again.

“Since you were like fourteen. Umm, I can’t believe it either. Especially since he’s all you really ever talk about,” Naomi jokingly exaggerates and I blush again.

“He’s not all I talk about,” I shyly mutter out, biting my lips as a blush covers my cheeks.

“Pffft, says the girl who used Mrs. Simpson as her Instagram handle AND password for practically everything at the time when she was fourteen to the age of twenty,” Naomi jokingly scoffs out with a dramatic eye roll and I blush.

“And she very well may be one day now!” My mum adds on and makes me blush harder.

“I don’t use it now…” I mutter out the quick lie and my mother snorts.

“Yeah, because that was so believable. Face it honey, you suck at lying,” she laughs as she pats me on my back and I huff, rolling my eyes once again.

Years Later:

I yawn as I walk through the hall of my mum and dad’s house, looking for a particular person. I smile tiredly to myself as I hug the oversized sweater I wear to my body. I walk into the living room and as I get closer to the couch, the very boy I fell head over heels for in the middle of Waterloo station turns to me. He turns away from what he’s watching to smile up at me and I can’t help but smile sheepishly back even though I’m tired.

“You look tired, love. Come here and get a cuddle,” Brad sweetly tells me as he holds his arms open for me, making grabby hands and I just smile more at him.

“I am tired. I need my post travel nap,” I reply sleepily as I get on the couch and we both get situated.

“Then take your nap, you jumper stealer,” he jokes with me and I grin up at him, my chin resting on his chest and pulling his attention away from whatever he’s watching on the tv.

“What can I say, stussy is comfy,” I joke back with a very tired shrug and he chuckles.

“I mean, I know. It is my jumper-” he starts, but I reach up and cover his mouth.

“No. It’s our jumper now,” I whisper as I take my hand away and he shakes his head, smiling.

“Whatever you say, sweetheart. You can keep it. It looks cute on you anyway,” he tells me and I smirk against his chest as he turns back to the tv.

“You think anything I wear of yours is cute on me,” I comment and he shrugs.

“Not my fault you're so adorable. Now go to sleep,” he demands softly as he leaves a kiss on my forehead before he starts to play with my hair while still watching the tv.

Slowly I feel sleep take over and I don’t know how long I actually sleep for before I’m being awoken by voices. I keep my eyes closed as I listen into the conversation.

“Some things just don’t change, do they?” I hear Naomi jokingly comment and I can only imagine her shaking her head as Brad lets out a chuckle too.

“No. Some things don’t, I suppose,” my mother adds on and I can imagine her wearing a cheeky grin.

“I mean I was hoping to see my best friend when I got in, but I guess it’ll have to wait,” Naomi playfully groans out and I can imagine her rolling her eyes super dramatically as Brad chuckles quietly.

“You can say hi when she wakes up,” Brad counters and Naomi huffs a playful annoyed huff.

“So she still takes naps after you guys travel then, does she?” Naomi asks and Brad hums softly, probably so he won’t wake me seeing as he doesn’t know I’m awake yet.

“Every single time. I find it very cute,” Brad quietly tells them and Naomi lets out a little chuckle.

“Of course you do. What don’t you find cute about her?” Naomi playfully jests with him and he shrugs lightly.

“Nothing,” he replies so nonchalantly and I smile softly, making him alert before anyone else that I am awake.

“Oh, will you two ever let up on making fun of my naps?” I groggily groan out as I cuddle farther into Brad’s side.

“Well, good evening to you too, you little eavesdropper,” my mother jokes through a laugh and I groan again.

“It’s not eavesdropping if you’re talking about me while I’m right here,” I mumble out, making them all laugh.

“I am so telling our kids about this one day,” Naomi playfully singsongs to me and I roll my eyes.

“And she’ll have video proof too!” My mum adds in and Naomi gasps happily.

“Oh my goodness, we should totally watch it again. Brad at the end stealing that note from Grimmy before he could read it was priceless to watch,” Naomi comments, laughing so hard where she stands in the foyer to the living room.

“Don’t forget how he goes ‘I think that’s for me,’ as he plucked it out of his hand!” My mother adds on with her own laughs and Brad rolls his eyes playfully.

“What? I wanted to get my girl. Is that so bad?” he asks to make both my mother and best friend sober up from laughing.

“No. It’s actually rather cute. I’m just glad we have the video evidence, thanks to my husband,” Naomi comments with a grin as she mentions Connor.

“What about me now?” Connor asks, raising an eyebrow as he walks in with two suitcases.

“I was just saying that we wouldn’t have the video evidence of Brad stealing that note if it wasn’t for you showing us the end of that video,” Naomi informs him and he grins.

“Well, we’ll leave you to it then. Naomi, you know where your room is?” My mother asks as she moves to head back to the kitchen.

“Yeah, I know mum. Don’t worry, I still remember,” Naomi playfully groans out as she hugs onto Connor.

“Good, now don’t forget dinner is in an hour,” my mother reminds us all with a strict look, making Naomi and I nod before bursting out into laughter.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you wouldn’t let us forget it, mum,” Naomi jokingly mocks your mother, who just shrugs.

“Can’t say you aren’t right. I taught you well, young one. I am going to find Arden and make sure he will be in for dinner,” your mother jokes back, making you and Naomi burst out laughing before she disappears on the hunt for your father.

“Well, we’re going to take our stuff up, see you guys in an hour I guess. Put the baby back to sleep so she’s not insufferable at dinner, would ya Brad?” Naomi jokingly asks and I moan out an annoyed sound.

“Don’t worry. She’ll get plenty of sleep,” Brad jokingly promises and I snuggle closer to him as Naomi hums before she’s pulling Conor to her room that mom deemed hers years ago.

“I always get plenty of sleep with you. Even before we were together, you could lull me to sleep,” I mutter into Brad’s neck, making him chuckle at the tickling sensation.

“Is that so? I guess that means we were meant to meet,” he softly whispers back before leaving another kiss to my forehead.

“I’m so thankful I decided to dance with you,” I tell him and he smiles against my forehead.

“I’m very glad you decided to dance with me too love,” Brad whispers into my ear and I snuggle closer to him, making him chuckle lightly.

“I love you, B,” I tell him in a sleepy tone and he grins again before leaving a feather like kiss to my head.

“I love you too, miss sleepyhead,” he responds as he starts to rub my head again and without hesitation my eyes slowly start to close once more, letting sleep take me over again.

The End...

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starrypiscesao3 · 1 year ago

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Memories and Maps

"I took my father's last night... and I found the biggest room, a ballroom, wide open and dark, windows drawn and covered. Locked the doors."

The way Casey put words to my grief shook me to my fucking core the first time I read this.

"But the first time I saw you. Rio. I took that down to the gardens. I pressed it into the leaves of a silver maple and recited it to the Waterloo Vase. It didn't fit in any rooms."

That emotion of "you are too grandiose to fit into the small corners of my life" while at the same time "you fulfill every single spare inch of me".

"I thought, this is the most incredible thing I have ever seen, and I had better keep it a safe distance away from me. I thought, if someone like that ever loved me, it would set me on fire."

This whole email destroyed me in the best way.

AND THEN WE HAVE MAPS

"but i've kissed your mouth, that corner, that place it goes, so many times now. i've memorized it. topography on the map of you, a world i'm still charting."

The beauty of learning a person's body.

"i added it to the key. here: inches to miles. i can multiply it out, read your latitude and longitude. recite your coordinates like la rosaria."

The honor of learning a person's soul.

"if i could spread it out on my desk, i'd find the corner of your mouth where it pinches with my fingers, and i'd smooth it away and you'd be marked with the names of saints like all the old maps. i get the nomenclature now-saints' names belong to miracles."

The feeling of awe in being allowed to explore a person, discover their entire being, falling in love with the hills and the swamps and the cliffs and the valleys.

Love and grief are so closely intertwined, two sides of the same coin. reading about memories in dark, dusty rooms, and then about bad metaphors... just puts me in my feels I guess.

Who doesn't love a little bit of ridiculous rambling every now and then?

#red white and royal blue #rwrb #casey mcquiston #henry fox #the waterloo letters #bad metaphors about maps #saint's names belong to miracles #very far in my feels right now

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labuenosairesfrancaise · 1 year ago

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Prestwald Hall

Hi guys!!

I'm sharing Prestwald Hall . This is the 9th building for my English Manors Collection, and I will add many more!

House History: Prestwold Hall was, for many years, the seat of the Packe family. Before that time, it was the home of the Skipwith family. After the death of Major Robert Christopher Packe (born c.1783) - one time Aide-de-camp to King George III - who was killed during the Battle of Waterloo, the hall passed to his nephew George Hussey Packe who held the hall and estate until his death in 1874.

The Hall was remodelled by architect William Burn in 1842–1844, incorporating the fabric of a mid-18th-century H-plan house. It was Grade I listed in 1951.

One of the finest rooms inside the house is the Entrance Hall with its richly coloured marbled plaster work in the Italian style. The painted ceiling was inspired by Raphael’s Vatican grotesques and incorporates miniature landscapes, showing the house before and after its remodelling between 1842 and 1844. Below the ceiling, wreathing the room, are small medallion busts of the poets from Chaucer to Scott, positioned in the spandrels and are likely inspired by Alberti's external arcade at the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini. An arcade opens on to a vaulted corridor leading to a top lit inner hall: these spaces also marbled. Off the corridor, the cantilevered stone staircase survives from the eighteenth century house, and was given its bracketed brass balusters by William Wilkins (1751-1815) in 1805.

The Dining Room, added by Wilkins in 1805, was incorporated into the remodelling undertaken by the Scottish architect William Burn in 1842. The room is overlooked by two dramatic full length portraits of Sir Edward Hussey Packe, KBE (1878 – 1946) and the Hon. Lady Mary Sydney Packe (née Colebrooke, 1890 – 1973) by the painter Glyn Philpot RA (1844 – 1947). The portrait of Lady Packe, painted in 1911, was described by the art historian Robin Gibson OBE as an ‘amazing feat of virtuosity’. Its elongated elegance and introspective characterisation is totally without the fashion-plate vulgarity of much Edwardian portraiture. Other portraits hang in this room of the Packe family including a painting of Sir Christopher Packe (1595 – 1682) who purchased the house in the 17th century painted by Cornelis Janssens van Ceulen (1593 –1661).

The library extends nearly the entire length of the house when the large doors that separate it from the drawing room are opened, connecting the two rooms. With clever use of constructional steel, William Burn was able to create these long adjoining rooms. The windows rise from floor level and open onto the garden which enhances the notion that Prestwold was designed in the style of an Italian classical villa. The doors and bookcases in library were made for George Hussey Packe (1846–1908) by Gillows of Lancaster and London in 1875.

A conservatory fills the recessed central bay at the front of the house, and projects out towards the garden. Behind the glass and elegant Doric pilasters, are well planted raised beds with a number of exotic plants and flowers

More history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prestwold_Hall

Virtual tour: https://www.prestwold-hall.com/virtual-tour/

Night pics

Floorplans

This house fits a 50x40 lot and features the following:

great hall

long Library

formal dinning room

family room

playroom

formal gallery

a winter garden

14 rooms for family/guests + 3 service rooms

several bathrooms

This time I decorated most of the rooms in the main floor for picture purposes, but as allways, you can make it your own!

The second and third floor (bedrooms) are not decorated, but finished.

Hope you like it.

You will need the usual CC I use:

all Felixandre cc

all The Jim,

SYB

Anachrosims

Regal Sims

King Falcon railing

The Golden Sanctuary

Cliffou

Dndr recolors

Harrie cc

Tuds

Lili's palace cc

Please enjoy, comment if you like it and share pictures with me if you use my creations!

Early Access: August 15

Download: https://www.patreon.com/posts/prestwald-hall-104505183

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the-fiction-witch · 1 year ago

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The Agency P2

Media - The Queens Gambit Character - Benny Watts Couple - Benny X Reader Reader - Y/n Rating - Sweet AF Word Count - 1428

I took my suitcases in hand and approached the stoop of the Brooklynn townhouse, Benny shut the door of the beetle and came up behind me,

"Down here." he said as he headed down the stairwell to a lower apartment,

"oh..." I was taken back but I followed a little sheepish,

I walked down after him being careful on the dark stairs, before he headed down a second set so I continued to follow even if the place seemed dirty and smelt like odd socks. He unlocked a tall metal door and headed inside so I quickly went inside.

"... oh." simply fell from my mouth as I saw the place,

It was a basement, the door behind me, a wall to my left with a few backlight switches and a hook where he hung up his jacket and hat, a railing to my right, a shelf of books just down the stairs, A door beside the shelf open that lead to a water closet, the apartment had maybe three lights hung overhead, one over the small kitchen that had perhaps four cabinets and an old battered fridge, a small lamp over the stovetop, one over the table where a vase with some white roses sat, and one above a small living space with no sofa just a pile of pillows on the floor, an old ratted rug, a small foldable coffee table covered in magazines, another two bookshelves filled with books, a round leather ottoman and a matching leather chair, a lamp beside it as well as a lighter stand beside a well-used record player. The furthest wall had a small desk with a stool by a wall of clippings and pictures, the back wall was just plane brick with a few trophies on a ledge, I was shocked to see the shower and bath sitting in the corner beside the fridge with a sink and mirror between the shower and the chair, An interior window and frosted glass door lead to the bedroom where the bed was made up.

I slowly walked down and did my best not to react as my face would give me away, Benny headed through fixing his hair and tidying the coffee table a little pushing the magazines into a pile.

My eyes for a moment caught the glimmer of the knife still on his belt, and one single thought ran through my mind.

'Oh god... He's gonna kill me. He has a knife. this is the basement of a serial killer. I am gonna be freaking skinned and made into soup!'

"It's not much but... it's home," He said,

"Mhm," I nodded,

"What do you think?" he asked,

I thought for a moment before squeezing on the handle of my suitcase and forcing out some words, "It... is... cosy."

he chuckled, "Yeah, that's uhhh one way to put it," he nodded, "Here let me," He took the cases from my hands and tossed them on the bed, "Did you fancy a coffee?"

"Ohh uhh yes please," I nodded,

"Alright, take a seat and make yourself cosy," he smiled indicating to the rest of the apartment,

I nodded so he headed to the kitchen, I gulped but slowly headed deeper into the apartment, I smoothed my dress under me as I took a seat on the leather chair, having to put my feet to the side as the chair was so low. I looked around a little and caught my eyes on the box of records beside the player, so I flicked through them a little seeing the sort of music he had. "You mind I put some music on?"

"Oh no go ahead, you take cream or sugar in your coffee?"

"Both, in decent helpings please."

"Hu, I'm a black coffee myself." he said, "I should have creamer in here..." he opened his fridge and I saw it was pretty empty with only some milk, some creamer, some cheese and a very battered pad of butter. "Ahh I do, and it... is in date that's surprising,"

I did chuckled a little until I found an album I liked so I took it from the dust cover and the cardboard sleeve sat it on the player and dropped the needle down to soon enough hear Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks playing from it,

"Ooohh good choice," he chuckled as he brought me over my coffee in a paper takeaway cup,

"Thank you," I nodded taking a tender sip,

"You're welcome," He smiled sitting his on the table, he brought the Otterman over and took a seat on it.

For a while we each just sat sipping our coffee, luckily the music filled the quiet air. Until he broke it,

"So?"

"So..."

"I suppose we both have... a lot of questions,"

"I'm sure we do," I nodded, "One each?"

"One each," he nodded, "So, why did you sign up for the agency?"

"Loaded the first question," I blushed a little, "Uhh well... I uhh I had been unsuccessful for many, many years and frankly, I just got tired of trial and error, just sort of wanted to have an understanding of intentions." I explained, "Plus my parents... not so subtly pushed me,"

He chuckled, "Yeah, I get that. kinda the same reason I did. No dating, not messing around just straight to the point," He nodded, "You're turn,"

"Uhh well... why is there a window into your bedroom?"

He laughed, "I don't actually know, I promise I'm not a weirdo." He says,

"You do seem relatively... normal,"

"Normal? My god I'm hurt." he joked,

"Sorry," I laughed,

"It's alright, I'm sure normal is a compliment to most people,"

"I meant it as one," I nodded, "You're turn,"

"Ughh well... this is my kinda, first run with the agency, have you been with them long?"

"A couple of years, a couple of false starts but uhh..." I coughed as I didn't want to finish the sentence,

"I won't ask," he nodded, "That's your business,"

"Why do you carry the knife?"

"Ohh... this is for protection," he rested his hand on his hip,

"From?"

"From whatever. Better to be safe than sorry." He smiled, "What do you do?"

"Ohh professional homemaker as of the moment,"

"makes sense," he nodded, "your turn,"

"what do you do?"

"Ohh," He smiled and picked up a magazine from the table and handed it over to me it was a magazine called 'Chess Review' and his photo was on the cover, "I play chess, professionally. Currently, US champion aiming for grandmaster and world champion down the road, Also wrote a chess book so that helps with the finances."

"They mentioned you were big into chess," I chuckled setting the magazine down,

"Yeah, I figured they would," he chuckled,

"I tried to dress accordingly," I looked down at myself,

"Well you look very beautiful," He smiled as he moved a little closer and rested his hand on my own, I blushed as our eyes met, "Sorry I-" he went to move back but I took his hand again and he smiled,

"You're turn," I smiled,

"I know is early, we uhh haven't really known each other that long and this is a pretty BIG decision but can I ask... if you like me? At least the initial introduction of me?"

I blushed but he was right we hadn't known each other very long, but we only had a week to make up our minds if we wanted to call this all off or if we wanted to go through with it so really we both knew our intentions, and we knew the clock was ticking on this decision, "I admit, I do like you benny, you seem very nice, and handsome and I'd really like to spend more time with you,"

He smiled, "Yeah I feel the same way too, I think this could maybe work out between us?"

"I think its possible,"

"Well... I'm happy to take a gamble Y/n," He chuckled, "Oh- shit-" He got up ran a hand through his hair, "I completely forgot," He muttered as he went to the table, he picked up the small vase with the white roses and brought it over, "I uhh I got these for you,"

"Awww thank you," I smiled happily taking the vase and giving the roses a smell, they smell so sweet and fresh, "You didn't have to do that Benny,"

"Well I wanted to get you something, and I thought it might make the place seem a bit more... cosy for you for this week,"

"Well thank you very much Benny that's very kind of you," I smiled giving his cheek a kiss,

"You're welcome Y/n," he blushed a little, "I did book us somewhere tonight... for dinner? if you wanted too?"

"I'd like that,"

#tbs imagine #tbs imagines #thomas sangster imagine #thomasbrodiesangster #thomas brodie sangster imagine #thomas sangster #thomas brodie sangster #tbs #tbs smut #thomas brodie sangster smut #benny x reader #benny smut #benny fanfic #benny #benny watts #benny imagine #the queen's gambit

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fromkenari · 2 years ago

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Waterloo Letters #4 (3/4): Hometown stuff

Here’s an idea: Do you know, I’ve realised I’ve never actually told you what I thought the first time we met? You see, for me, memories are difficult. Very often, they hurt. A curious thing about grief is the way it takes your entire life, all those foundational years that made you who you are, and makes them so painful to look back upon because of the absence there, that suddenly they’re inaccessible. You must invent an entirely new system. I started to think of myself and my life and my whole lifetime worth of memories as all the dark, dusty rooms of Buckingham Palace. I took the night Bea left rehab and I begged her to take it seriously, and I put it in a room with pink peonies on the wallpaper and a golden harp in the center of the floor. I took my first time, with one of my brother’s mates from uni when I was seventeen, and I found the smallest, most cramped little broom cupboard I could muster, and I shoved it in. I took my father’s last night, the way his face went slack, the smell of his hands, the fever, the waiting and waiting and terrible waiting and the even worse not-waiting anymore, and I found the biggest room, a ballroom, wide open and dark, windows drawn and covered. Locked the doors. But the first time I saw you. Rio. I took that down to the gardens. I pressed it into the leaves of a silver maple and recited it to the Waterloo Vase. It didn’t fit in any rooms. You were talking with Nora and June, happy and animated and fully alive, a person living in dimensions I couldn’t access, and so beautiful. Your hair was longer then. You weren’t evena president’s son yet, but you weren’t afraid. You had a yellow ipê-amarelo in your pocket. I thought, this is the most incredible thing I have ever seen, and I had better keep it a safe distance away from me. I thought, if someone like that ever loved me, it would set me on fire. And then I was a careless fool, and I fell in love with you anyway. When you rang me at truly shocking hours of the night, I loved you. When you kissed me in disgusting public toilets and pouted in hotel bars and made me happy in ways in which it had never even occurred to me that a mangled-up, locked-up person like me could be happy, I loved you. And then, inexplicably, you had the absolute audacity to love me back. Can you believe it? Sometimes, even now, I still can’t. I’m sorry things didn’t go better with Philip. I wish I could send hope. Yours, Henry P.S. From Michelangelo to Tommaso Cavalieri, 1533: I know well that, at this hour, I could as easily forget your name as the food by which I live; nay, it were easier to forget the food, which only nourishes my body miserably, than your name, which nourishes both body and soul, filling the one and the other with such sweetness that neither weariness nor fear of death is felt by me while memory preserves you to my mind. Think, if the eyes could also enjoy their portion, in what condition I should find myself.

McQuiston, Casey. Red, White & Royal Blue: A Novel (pp. 298-301). St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

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#waterloo letters #hometown stuff #firstprince #alex claremont diaz #henry fox mountchristen windsor #red white and royal blue #casey mcquiston #out of credits

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rm-construction · 4 months ago

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10 Effective Home Improvement Ideas: Smart Ideas for a Stunning Home

Enhancing your home not only increases its comfort but also boosts its market value. Whether you’re looking for a modern touch or a complete renovation, choosing the right professionals is essential. If you're searching for expert services, Construction Companies Cambridge and Renovations Waterloo provide top-notch solutions to bring your vision to life. Here are ten effective home improvement ideas to transform your living space:

1. Kitchen Remodeling for a Modern Appeal

Upgrading your kitchen with sleek cabinets, modern countertops, and energy-efficient appliances can significantly improve its functionality and aesthetic. Many Construction Companies Cambridge offer expert services to ensure a flawless transformation.

2. Bathroom Upgrades for a Luxurious Feel

Enhancing your bathroom with walk-in showers, stylish vanities, and elegant fixtures creates a spa-like atmosphere. Renovations Waterloo professionals can help design and execute a renovation plan tailored to your needs.

3. Enhance Curb Appeal with Exterior Improvements

The first impression of your home starts with its exterior. A fresh coat of paint, updated landscaping, and modern entryways can make a huge difference. Partnering with Construction Companies Cambridge ensures high-quality craftsmanship.

4. Basement Renovations for Extra Living Space

Transforming your basement into a functional area like a home theater, office, or guest room can add immense value. Renovations Waterloo specializes in maximizing basement potential while maintaining comfort and style.

5. Energy-Efficient Windows and Doors

Upgrading to energy-efficient windows and doors reduces energy costs and enhances insulation. Construction Companies Cambridge provide expert installation for long-lasting efficiency.

6. Smart Home Upgrades

Installing smart lighting, security systems, and automated thermostats improves convenience and safety. Renovations Waterloo can integrate these features seamlessly into your home.

7. Living Room Makeover for a Stylish Look

Adding custom-built shelves, elegant lighting, and high-quality flooring can give your living room a refreshed and inviting ambiance. Construction Companies Cambridge offer design and renovation expertise to bring your vision to reality.

8. Outdoor Living Space Enhancements

Creating a cozy outdoor area with a deck, patio, or pergola extends your living space. Renovations Waterloo professionals ensure a durable and aesthetically pleasing outdoor retreat.

9. Home Office Setup for Productivity

With more people working remotely, a well-designed home office with ergonomic furniture and ample lighting can boost productivity. Construction Companies Cambridge can help you build an inspiring workspace.

10. Flooring Upgrades for a Modern Touch

Switching to hardwood, luxury vinyl, or eco-friendly flooring enhances both aesthetics and durability. Renovations Waterloo provides expert solutions for upgrading your floors with style and quality.

Final Thoughts

Whether you're planning minor updates or major renovations, working with experienced professionals ensures a seamless and high-quality transformation. Construction Companies Cambridge and Renovations Waterloo offer industry-leading expertise to turn your home improvement ideas into reality. Start your renovation journey today and create the home of your dreams!

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Looking to upgrade your home? Discover 10 Effective Home Improvement Ideas to enhance your space with expert renovations. Whether it’s kitchen remodeling, bathroom upgrades, or basement transformations, trust Construction Companies Cambridge and Renovations Waterloo to bring your vision to life. From smart home upgrades to stylish flooring solutions, find the best renovation ideas to increase comfort and value. Start your home improvement journey today!

#construction #Home improvement ideas #Construction Companies Cambridge #Renovations Waterloo #Home improvement company #Home improvement near me

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eptimes · 6 years ago

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'Do you want me to kill myself?' Lawyer faces court over allegedly interfering with witness

Nobody disputes there were two text messages and two phone calls.

But what Sydney lawyer Eidan Havas now considers an "error of judgment", NSW Police say is a criminal offence punishable by up to seven years imprisonment.

It is not in dispute that in July this year, Mr Havas, 35, sent two text messages and made two calls to a woman, who cannot be named.

The woman had taken an apprehended violence order out against a man, who had hired Mr Havas as his solicitor.

"Hi, Eidan Havas here. I'm the solicitor for , I was just curious if you're still proceeding with the AVO tomorrow", one text allegedly read.

"Are you still going to proceed this morning? [Redacted] has to pay for a barrister if you are. Sorry to offend you", read a second text message allegedly sent the next day.

Mr Havas also allegedly rang the woman twice.

Outside Manly Local Court on Wednesday, Mr Havas' QC Winston Terracini said his client would be pleading not guilty.

"There is potential for this to be construed as an error of judgment. But certainly this case does not display any evidence of criminal intent by Mr Havas," he said.

Mr Havas was this month arrested outside the same court where he had just appeared for a client.

He was charged with influencing a witness and will return to court in September.

It is understood the Law Society have been informed about the charges against Mr Havas, who continues to practise at his firm Havas Legal.

Salim Mehajer’s former lawyer has been found not guilty of assault charges against his ex-girlfriend after the court accepted he was acting in self-defence. A man walking his dog outside his Waterloo home called police to report what he allegedly saw through the window.

In a video taken two days after the second alleged text message and obtained by the Herald, Mr Havas repeatedly slams his head into a door and yells 'What do you want from me? Do you want me to kill myself? Is that what you want?'

Mr Havas has acted for a number of high-profile Sydney identities, including prison helicopter escapee John Killick, accused family court bomber Leonard Warwick and disgraced former Auburn deputy mayor Salim Mehajer.

Mr Havas took the extraordinary step of holding a press conference denouncing his former client last year on the steps of the Federal Court, after Mehajer branded him "incompetent".

"If he has done anything wrong he can't take the blame for himself.

"It is always somebody else's fault," said Mr Havas of his former client, who he claimed had not paid him.

Mr Havas was also in the spotlight when he and his client Hussein Ayoub turned up at the Kogarah Police Station as police were giving a press conference saying they wanted to speak to Mr Ayoub.

In turn, Mr Havas launched his own press conference, saying Mr Ayoub was considering a defamation claim against NSW Police.

"Police have released a media release saying they would like to speak to my bloke.

"He is here today, they don't want to speak to him."

Justin Keane

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grantgoddard · 1 year ago

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Attempted murder on the Waterloo express? : 1971 : Bagshot railway station

Kapow! There was an explosion. Before I even grasped what had just happened, I could see I was covered with shards of glass. What was that noise? The train window I was sat next to had suddenly vanished and was in pieces on me and the seat. Luckily, I had not been looking towards the window at the time, otherwise my face would have been injured. Luckily, because it was winter, I was wearing an army surplus hat with furry earflaps that had protected my head and ears. Luckily, I was wearing a coat over my school blazer, gloves and long trousers that had shielded me, these winter woollies necessary because trains’ heating systems rarely functioned adequately.

I caught the ten-past-eight number 28 train every day for seven years from Camberley station to my school half-an-hour away in Egham. It was part of a commuter route propelling workers on the one-hour journey into London’s busy Waterloo terminus. Travelling to school this way felt like stepping into Narnia through the wardrobe door of our suburban British Rail station. Journeys were populated by strange characters not present in my normal day-to-day homelife. The station platform was awash with bowler-hatted, suited gentlemen carrying leather briefcases and rolled-up umbrellas. Women were a rare sight. Humourless station staff in uniforms shouted announcements about delays in the tone of army drill sergeants. Bumptious Terry-Thomas ticket inspectors walked through train carriages, looking down their noses at our thick green cardboard season tickets as if we were interlopers on their Orient Express.

At least the trains on our line were relatively modern electric rolling stock. As a small child, I recall standing at the top of the open footbridge over Camberley station, looking down at the signal box beside the level crossing and feeling clouds of smoke envelope me from a steam train passing underneath. Or was that a ‘Railway Children’-inspired false memory, acquired from reminiscences by my grandfather who had worked unloading timber for local building firm ‘Dolton, Bournes & Dolton’ in the goods yard beside the station? He had been made redundant in the early 1960’s for the yard to be replaced by a new ring road and Camberley ‘bus station’, in reality no more than a line of bus stops and tiny shelters without a waiting room. After my afternoon arrival in Camberley by train to await the hourly 39B (40 minutes past every hour) or two-hourly 34A bus (15 minutes past even hours) for the final two-mile journey home, I would have to walk over to the railway station lobby and sit opposite the ticket window to keep warm and dry.

My schoolfriends and I were the Pevensie children of Camberley, rendezvousing every morning at the very rear of the station’s eastbound platform that could accommodate only four carriages, despite our train normally being eight. When the train driver pulled up close to the signal at the top of the platform, we could just about clamber up to open the first door of the fifth carriage from the platform’s sloping end. Those rear four carriages became our playground because, until the train reached Ascot station’s longer platform, we had that section entirely to ourselves. No other passengers, no train staff. We could be as loud and unruly as we wanted. We would walk down the corridor to sit at the very rear of the train because, eventually alighting at Egham station’s full-length platform, we would be right next to the exit gate.

When the incident happened that morning, the train had slowed down to pull into Bagshot station and was about to cross the Guildford Road viaduct, a massively tall structure of four arches built in 1878. On either side of this bridge carrying dual train tracks were high embankments with steep, near vertical sides. On the north side, below the railway, was a vast tract of land owned by ‘Waterers Nurseries�� since 1829 to grow and sell plants. Before reaching that was Bagshot Infant School, set back from the embankment, on School Lane that ended in a footpath passing under the embankment towards Bagshot Green farm on the south side. At the time, undeveloped land stretched on both sides and (unlike now) the embankment was not bordered by trees.

Could a person have thrown a stone from the north side to make the train window next to me shatter? Unlikely because the embankment on which the train passed was too steep to stand upon. If the culprit had stood further away, below the embankment, a rock could not have reached the height necessary to make contact with the train, nor would it have retained sufficient momentum to smash the window with enough force for it to have not merely cracked, but to have shattered in its entirety.

What kind of projectile could have caused such damage? A powerful gun of some kind could have generated the necessary velocity and momentum for its bullet to shatter the thick glass window. A gunman (or woman?) would have needed practiced skill to aim upwards from the land below the embankment, or possibly to have lain half-way up the embankment adjacent to the footpath (now 'School Lane Field'). In either case, it would have required planning and experience to succeed in such a challenging topography next to the train route. Since only two trains per hour travelled in either direction, this act could not have been a spur-of-the-moment impulse.

Why was the window I had sat beside targeted? As the train decelerated to enter Bagshot station, the rear carriages would have passed at a slower speed, making them an easier moving target than the front ones. Us schoolboys were habitually the only passengers anywhere in those rear four carriages, making my head the one visible sign of on-board life amongst dozens of otherwise empty train windows. That implies that my window must have been purposefully selected as the intended target. It was a dark winter morning and the internal carriage lighting would have made my outline visible from outside the train.

So where did the bullet land? Only one thing was certain: it had not hit me, otherwise I would not be here to tell the tale. Did we look to see if a bullet had passed over my head and become embedded in the carriage’s structure? No. In that pre-‘CSI’ era, forensic science remained an unknown foreign land. From watching weekly television detective shows, all we understood was that ‘McCloud’ cracked cases by riding his horse down Broadway, ‘Columbo’ used his raincoat and ‘McMillan’ solved crimes by getting into bed with sweatshirt-wearing wife Sally. In the aftermath, I had not even deduced that I had likely been targeted by somebody shooting a gun. That is how unworldly I must have been, though I had always enjoyed the pellet-gun target shooting stall at the fair's bi-annual visits to Camberley Recreation Ground.

So how DID I react to this dramatic event? Did I scream? Cry? Sob uncontrollably? No, I simply stood up, brushed off the glass fragments that had covered me, and our little group moved to an adjoining carriage where the breeze through the vacant window would not make us feel colder. Even had we wanted to, there was nothing we could have done immediately. There were no train staff in those rear carriages and, once the train stopped in Bagshot station, its platform was too short to get out. Only once we reached Ascot was the platform long enough to deboard. So, did we? No, because if we had raised the alarm, we realised the fickle finger of fate might have pointed to us bunch of schoolboys for having broken the window. Which British Rail jobsworth would have believed our story that someone laying on a grassy knoll in Bagshot must have targeted me for assassination?

Leaving the train at Egham twenty-five minutes later, we could see the void where the window had exploded in front of our eyes. Nobody else seemed to have noticed the gaping hole or had bothered to halt the train to investigate. If they had, we might have arrived late for school that day. That would have been a fate worse than death. We had already brushed aside the incident and were more concerned with the school day ahead of us. Once I returned home that evening, I did not even bother mentioning to my parents what had happened. Only years later would I realise what a close call I had experienced that winter morning at the age of thirteen.

For us kids, trekking from one end of Surrey to the other every weekday on public transport, strange events would occur regularly in this otherworld. Our trains were sometimes cancelled, or rerouted through stations that were unknown to us, or suspended when someone jumped to their death off the footbridge at Egham station. In the latter case, some of us would watch morbidly for the arrival of emergency services whose crew had to scoop up the person’s bloodied remains spread along the tracks by a speeding train. Our unspoken attitude was: almost anything could happen on our way to and from school … and often did. It was a daily expedition into a world beyond ours, populated by weird adults to whom we appeared to be invisible.

Once a year, during ‘Royal Ascot’ week in June, our train would fill with bizarrely overdressed racegoers with strange toff accents and extremely loud voices who carried bottles of alcohol, swayed precariously and occasionally were sick on the carriage floor. They were much worse behaved than we had ever been, their conversations often ribald and filled with profanities. Did anyone chastise them, force them off the train or tell them to act respectfully in front of us children? Not at all! They did precisely what the upper classes are wont to do with their own children: they ignored us totally and appeared completely unembarrassed by their own behaviours.

I recalled the Bagshot train incident when, half a century later, I went for a run through rural France on a bright summer morning. There was no traffic and no visible human activity as I ran down the middle of a tarmacked road flanked on both sides by flat agricultural land. The only noise was birdsong until … a high velocity bullet whizzed above my head from left to right. I stopped running, turned in the direction from which it had come and shouted profanities (in English) at the top of my voice. Without my glasses, I was unable to see far enough into the distance to spot the culprit. This was no accident. I could not have been mistaken by a hunter for an animal. I was clearly visible on a ‘departmental’ road, not in the middle of woodland. But I had been the only object moving in this static landscape and that seemed sufficient to unwittingly make me a target.

If I were superstitious, I might be worried about ‘third time lucky’.

#Camberley #childhood #France #Grant Goddard #Strode's School #student #travel

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visualmerchandising-blog · 1 year ago

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Unveiling Virginia Water's Enchanting Homes: From Tranquil Estates to Modern Marvels

Virginia Water, a charming village nestled in the heart of Surrey, offers a unique blend of rural tranquillity and convenient proximity to London. Whether you're seeking a grand period estate, a characterful cottage, or a sleek modern dwelling, houses in Virginia Water cater to diverse tastes and lifestyles.

For those yearning for a slice of history, the village boasts an array of period properties. Elegant Victorian terraces grace tree-lined avenues, while grand Edwardian houses exude stately charm. Many retain their original architectural features, like stained glass windows, ornate fireplaces, and spacious rooms, transporting residents back in time. Some even hold stories of renowned past residents, adding a touch of intrigue to their allure.

If your dream home exudes contemporary flair, Virginia Water doesn't disappoint. Architects have embraced the leafy landscape, crafting stunning modern houses that seamlessly blend with their surroundings. Floor-to-ceiling windows offer panoramic views of the sprawling Wentworth Estate, while open-plan living spaces foster a sense of light and airiness. Sustainable features like energy-efficient heating and eco-friendly materials are increasingly common, attracting environmentally conscious buyers.

Beyond houses for sale in Virginia Water's, its neighbour, Englefield Green, beckons with an equally captivating selection of houses to buy. Family-friendly neighbourhoods offer an abundance of detached and semi-detached homes, ideal for raising a brood. Many boast private gardens, perfect for summer barbecues and children's playtime. For those seeking something truly special, exclusive gated communities provide an extra layer of security and privacy, often featuring impressive shared amenities like tennis courts and swimming pools.

Whether you're drawn to the timeless elegance of period houses in Virginia Water, the cutting-edge design of modern dwellings, or the family-oriented charm of houses to buy in Englefield Green, the area offers something for everyone. Here's a deeper dive into the factors influencing your choice:

Lifestyle: Virginia Water caters to diverse lifestyles. If you crave an active life, the proximity to Wentworth Golf Club and Virginia Water Lake provides ample opportunities for recreation. Families appreciate the excellent schools and community events, while commuters benefit from easy access to London via the M25 and train stations. Englefield Green, with its slower pace and strong sense of community, is ideal for those seeking a quieter haven.

Budget: Houses in Virginia Water range in price depending on size, location, and style. Period properties command a premium, while modern houses and those in Englefield Green offer a wider spectrum of affordability. Remember to factor in additional costs like renovation work, stamp duty, and ongoing maintenance when making your decision.

Accessibility: Both Virginia Water and Englefield Green enjoy excellent transport links. Trains from Egham and Virginia Water stations whisk you to London Waterloo in less than an hour, making them ideal for city commuters. The M25 motorway is easily accessible, offering convenient connections to other parts of the UK.

Choosing your dream home in Virginia Water or Englefield Green requires careful consideration. By understanding your needs, exploring the diverse housing options, and weighing the advantages of each location, you'll be well on your way to finding a haven that reflects your unique personality and lifestyle.

Remember, engaging with local estate agents and exploring online listings is invaluable for discovering the perfect house. With its captivating blend of history, modern convenience, and idyllic setting, Virginia Water and Englefield Green are sure to cast their spell on any discerning house hunter. So, embark on your property journey and unlock the door to your dream home in this captivating corner of Surrey.

#houses in Virginia Water #houses for sale in Virginia Water #houses to buy in Englefield Green

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blogynews · 2 years ago

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Mysterious Strangers Offer Young Girl a Ride to School in Kitchener: Unraveling the Investigation

Waterloo regional police have reported an incident where a young girl was approached by strangers offering her a ride in Kitchener on Tuesday morning. The incident took place at approximately 8:30 a.m. in the Grand River South area. According to the girl’s report, she was walking along Fairway Road near Old Zeller Drive when a silver, four-door sedan with dark-tinted windows pulled up beside her.…

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blogynewz · 2 years ago

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Mysterious Strangers Offer Young Girl a Ride to School in Kitchener: Unraveling the Investigation

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patriotexpressinsulationla · 2 years ago

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Frequently Asked Questions about the Spray Foam Insulation

Good insulation is essential for modern households since insulation improves the efficiency of the HVAC equipment. At the same time, efficient insulation can reduce energy bills to a large extent. Conventional fiberglass insulation requires periodic maintenance. Households that want to avoid periodic expenses should adopt the spray foam insulation service. People may have a few questions in mind before choosing the spray foam insulation in Waterloo. In the following section, you will learn more about the spray foam insulation service with precision.

What Is Spray Foam Insulation?

Spray foam insulation is insulation that uses air barrier material to seal the walls and floors. Spray foam is also efficient in filling ceiling cavities with precision. Typically, spraying equipment has been used to spray the foam on open cavities, crawl spaces, etc.

Many households have traditional fiberglass insulation, which can be replaced easily with spray foam. The spray foam insulation process does not require much hassle. Nevertheless, the foam does not compress due to changing weather conditions. As a result, the insulation efficiency remains high for a long time.

What Are the Types of Spray Foam Insulation?

You will commonly find two types of spray foam insulation services from local service providers. The types are open-cell and closed-cell. Find more about them in the following section.

Open-Cell Spray Foam Insulation: Open-cell spray foam insulation has been done to cover the open cavities. For example, you will find open cavities around the edges of doors and windows. Open-cell spray foam insulation works well in such cases.

Closed-Cell Spray Foam Insulation: Closed-cell spray foam insulation is applied on the walls of the new buildings. Closed-cell is a more durable spray foam insulation solution than open-cell. The expansion rate of such foam insulation is also low compared to other types of spray foam insulation.

Is Spray Foam Insulation Safe for My Home?

Safety is a common concern for homeowners when it comes to installing spray foam. Choosing the right material for the process is crucial to ensure safety with the spray foam insulation. Certain materials come with volatile organic compounds.

Foam material consisting of high VOC should be avoided for safety reasons. Instead of using the high VOC material, you need to find the foam that contains a low VOC. Picking the right contractor matters for this reason since a trustworthy installation service assures a hassle-free solution.

How Can Spray Foam Insulation Reduce Electricity Cost?

Spray foam insulation can largely reduce electricity costs by providing a compact and efficient insulation service. If your home does not have insulation, you will observe up to 40% savings on your yearly electricity expenses. Households that have fiberglass insulation can observe around 20% savings on yearly electricity bills after switching to foam insulation.

Is Spray Foam Insulation Expensive?

Spray foam insulation is not expensive, but you need to find a professional and reliable service provider. Choosing trustworthy spray foam insulation in Cedar Rapids will ensure a hassle-free installation. So, one must spend time researching local services before hiring a professional service provider.

#foam insulation

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shinedirve · 2 months ago

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Interior Detailing Waterloo – Shine Drive Detailing

When your car’s interior starts looking dull, dusty, or stained, it’s time for a refresh — and that’s where Interior Detailing Waterloo services come into play. At Shine Drive Detailing, we specialize in professional, thorough, and affordable interior detailing that makes your car feel brand new again.

If you're in Waterloo or nearby, and you're tired of seeing crumbs in the seats, coffee stains on the mats, or a dusty dashboard, you're in the right place. Our expert team provides deep-cleaning services using modern equipment, safe products, and attention to every little detail. Whether you drive a compact car, an SUV, or a large pickup truck, we have the perfect package for your needs.

What is Interior Detailing?

Interior detailing focuses entirely on cleaning, restoring, and protecting the inside of your vehicle. While a regular car wash may clean the outside, proper interior detailing in Waterloo goes deeper, tackling:

Seats (cloth or leather)

Carpets and floor mats

Dashboard, center console, and vents

Windows and mirrors

Door panels and trims

Headliner and trunk space

This service is perfect for removing dirt, pet hair, food crumbs, drink stains, odors, and salt stains, especially during or after the winter season in Ontario.

Why Choose Shine Drive Detailing for Interior Detailing Waterloo?

At Shine Drive Detailing, we treat every car like it’s our own. We understand that the interior is where you spend the most time, so it deserves the best care. Here’s why we are a top-rated choice for interior detailing Waterloo:

✅ Expertise You Can Trust

Our detailing team is highly skilled in deep cleaning and restoring all types of interior surfaces — from fabric and leather to vinyl and plastic.

✅ Eco-Friendly Products

We use non-toxic, biodegradable products that are safe for your car, your family, and the environment.

✅ Advanced Equipment

From drill brushes to steam cleaners, we use cutting-edge tools that remove dirt and grime from even the hardest-to-reach areas.

✅ Tailored Packages

We offer Bronze, Gold, and Platinum packages so you can choose what works best for your vehicle and budget.

✅ Customer-First Service

Your satisfaction is our top priority. We guarantee clean, fresh, and like-new interiors every time.

Our Interior Detailing Packages

Whether you’re preparing your car for sale, cleaning up after a road trip, or just want a fresh start, Shine Drive Detailing has a package that fits your needs. Here’s a breakdown of what our interior detailing packages include:

🥉 Bronze Package

Complete interior vacuum

LVP (Leather, Vinyl, Plastic) scrubbed, wiped, and conditioned

Window and AC vent cleaning

Rubber mat wash

🥈 Gold Package

Deep vacuuming with drill brush

Dust blowout from hard surfaces using air

LVP cleaning and polishing

Floor and seat shampooing

Salt stain removal

Rubber/fabric mat wash

Window and AC vent cleaning

🥇 Platinum Package

All Gold Package features +

Steam cleaning for deep sanitization

Air refresher

Extra LVP conditioning for a luxury feel

Our interior detailing Waterloo services are available for all types of vehicles including sedans, SUVs, and pickups. Prices vary depending on vehicle size and package — all listed clearly on our website.

Why Interior Detailing is Essential for Your Vehicle

Many drivers underestimate the importance of interior detailing. Here’s why regular detailing is a smart investment:

✨ Boosts Comfort

A clean, fresh-smelling car interior enhances your daily driving experience.

✨ Protects Materials

Dirt, spills, and UV rays can damage your upholstery, dashboards, and trim. Detailing protects them with conditioning and polish.

✨ Improves Air Quality

Our services remove dust, allergens, and bacteria that build up over time, improving the air you breathe inside your car.

✨ Increases Resale Value

A car with a spotless interior can fetch a higher price when it’s time to sell or trade it in.

✨ Eliminates Odors

We treat the source of unpleasant smells — not just cover them up — using steam and air refreshers.

If you're looking for the most trusted interior detailing Waterloo has to offer, Shine Drive Detailing delivers results you can see, feel, and smell.

Special Services We Offer

In addition to our standard packages, we also offer:

Pet Hair Removal: For just $35 extra, we’ll remove stubborn pet hair from seats, carpets, and hard-to-reach spots.

Mobile Services: Based on distance, we can come to you and detail your vehicle at your location.

Salt Stain Removal: Essential for Canadian winters — we’ll eliminate salt buildup that damages carpets and interiors.

Service Hours and Location

We make it easy for you to get interior detailing done without disrupting your routine:

📍 Address: 134 Bridgeport Rd E, Waterloo, ON 🕘 Hours: Monday–Friday: 9:00 AM to 8:00 PM Saturday: 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM

📞 Call or Text: +1 548 398 7555 🌐 Website: https://shinedrivedetailing.com

Book online or give us a call — whichever works best for you!

Customer Testimonials

“Shine Drive Detailing made my car look and smell brand new. Their interior detailing service is top-notch. I highly recommend them!” – Sarah M., Waterloo “I had coffee stains, pet hair, and salt damage. They cleaned it all up. Best interior detailing in Waterloo, hands down.” – James T., Kitchener

Meet Our Owner – Prince Kakkar

Our founder, Prince Kakkar, built Shine Drive Detailing on the belief that every car deserves premium care. With a background in professional auto detailing and a commitment to top-tier service, Prince has grown the business into a trusted name in interior detailing Waterloo.

“We’re not just cleaning cars — we’re making people happy. A clean car can change your mood, boost confidence, and even make your day better. That’s what Shine Drive Detailing is all about.”

Ready to Refresh Your Car’s Interior?

Don’t wait for the dirt to pile up. Whether you need a quick clean or a full interior restoration, Shine Drive Detailing is your best choice for interior detailing Waterloo.

📞 Call Now: +1 548 398 7555 🖥️ Book Online: https://shinedrivedetailing.com 📍 Visit Us: 134 Bridgeport Rd E, Waterloo, ON

We’re ready when you are.

Conclusion

Interior detailing is more than just cleaning — it’s about restoring your car’s comfort, hygiene, and beauty. Shine Drive Detailing offers the most professional, affordable, and trusted interior detailing Waterloo has to offer. With skilled staff, flexible packages, and a focus on quality, we’re here to give your car the attention it deserves.

Drive clean. Feel great. Choose Shine Drive Detailing today.

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