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cadencejames87 · 3 years ago

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Forever Mine: Part 5

Series Masterlist // Previous Chapter

Chapter Summary: Doctor Banner (previously Watters) brings in a piece of evidence to Lieutenant Rambeau and stands her ground against a fuming Steve Rogers while you and Bucky finally get closer.

Word count: 3.5k

Warnings: Discussions allude to reader being drugged. *Warnings updated with each chapter*

*Not beta’d thus any and all mistakes are my own*

*Dividers above by @maysdigitalarts *

*Dividers in story by @whimsicalrogers *

Lieutenant Rambeau and Officer Zemo eat Chinese takeout as they read through files.

A small KOREAN WOMAN peeks her head inside as she knocks; the station secretary, tired and worn from her years behind a desk. "Sorry to interrupt, Lieutenant. There is a Doctor here. He says he has some information on your case."

"Send him in." The secretary steps aside to allow Doctor Banner to enter, then quietly pulls the door closed behind him.

"I left messages." Doctor Banner crosses to the desk and removes a syringe in a clear plastic bag from his brown leather messenger bag. The barrel still containing a clear liquid.

Lieutenant Rambeau takes the bag, examines the contents, then looks at him, intrigued. "What is this?"

"I believe it belonged to your suspect. A nurse spotted it in the victim’s room. It's not one of ours." Banner removes a file from his bag. "My curiosity got the best of me, so I ran a test on the contents. Careful not to disturb any prints, of course."

So many thoughts run through her detective's brain as she studies the new piece of evidence. Bentley London has been good at covering his tracks. Why make such an extensive error? He wanted them to find it, forget finding prints. "And what did you find?"

Doctor Banner hands over his full report. "It is actually not a drug currently on the market." He pulls up a chair and sits down, excited to share his findings. "A few years back, this particular drug was in the trial phase and promised to erase memories associated with fear and even addiction. Although the drug never made it past trials, too unstable. There were side effects of long-term memory loss. Memories not associated with either fear or addiction were gone."

"Who would make a drug like that?" Zemo asks in shock.

Lieutenant Rambeau flips through the folder. "Who wouldn’t?" She knows, all too well, the types of people who might think they are doing good versus those who would enjoy weaponizing such a thing. Is that what Bentley London did to Y/N, she wonders.

"Don't you see the beauty in it, officer? No fears holding you back? Never falling victim to addiction?"

Lieutenant Wright tosses the folder on her desk. "The better question is how did this guy get a hold of it?"

"After the drug failed, Stark Industries pulled out of the trial and the group overseeing it all, SHIELD, disappeared completely. Some speculated the drug had been outsourced to a competitor, while others believe they rebranded without the genius behind it. Until everything documenting its existence was erased from all databases. No proof it ever even came to light."

"And how do you know this is that drug?" Zemo asks, looking over the syringe in the bag.

"I have a photographic memory." Banner states without arrogance.

"What?" Lieutenant Rambeau looks at the Doctor brows knitted together. "When Officer Zemo ran into a dead end with your security and some bullshit about maintenance. Where was this photographic memory of yours?" She turns to Zemo. "Why wasn’t a composite done?"

The men look to one another, baffled.

Lieutenant Rambeau looks to be done with everything as she rubs her temples, exhaling loudly.

Doctor Banner raises a finger. "Lieutenant, there is one more thing." Lieutenant Wright looks at him through her lashes. "He removed the IV before any of it could make it into her bloodstream and never fully injected the drug."

"Was he interrupted?" She knows the answer already.

"Nobody entered that room until your officer arrived." He confirms.

He definitely wanted them to find it.

Bucky glides through the kitchen, carrying a bottle of wine under his right arm. He gathers a pair of wine glasses from a hanging rack beneath a cabinet by the sink and doubles back for a corkscrew in a random drawer on his way out. He climbs the stairs, notices a sliver of light framing the nursery doorway, and slightly pushes it open. He finds you sitting in the middle of the arc reactor rug with boxes of memories spilled out and spread neatly around you. The plastic is now rolled up and tucked close to the supplies at the base of the mural wall. He leans on the door frame a moment longer, watching, admiring, hesitating to step forward and have you look at him the way you have been since you woke up in the SUV. Cautious, confused, skeptical, like he was a stranger, not an ounce of love in your eyes.

You sense him studying you, yet you cannot bare to look at him just yet. Instead, you lift your tear-stained face to the unfinished mural. "I can remember holding them. And having more than just the two. I..." You turn to look at him, eyes wide. "I’ve been sitting here for hours trying to remember their faces, names, anything, and I can’t." Sobs wrack your body, and tears fall to the carpet below as you double forward.

Bucky abandons everything as he scrambles to your side, pulling you into his arms. "I’m sorry." You pull back, searching his eyes. "I’m going down to that station first thing, and I’m going to make sure they see me this time."

You push him away from you. "You would think there would have been someone who wanted to talk to you, or me even when you mentioned finding me."

"Assholes probably stopped listening the second they heard my name. I swear I never stopped looking for you or checking their progress." You turn your back to him and return to the boxes, missing the sadness in his eyes when you do. He hides his emotions almost immediately, something he learned early in life. His father, an authoritarian, raised him to follow in his footsteps and be a brave little soldier. He always frowned upon the compassion and gentility of his mother when it came to raising him compared to his three younger sisters who he doted on. "We’re going to find out what happened to them." You continue to sift through the memories, ignoring him. He reaches for the glasses and wine bottle, removes the cork and fills a glass. "Here, take a break."

You look over your shoulder and find him offering you the poured wine. "I really shouldn’t..." You turn away. "My medication."

"Are you planning on operating heavy machinery later?" He jokes.

You fail to hold back a smile and turn to accept the glass. Bucky takes the second glass and bottle as he stands. "Were you not going to have any?"

"Figured you might want to be alone," he shrugs.

You bite the inside of your lip, admiring the mural as you pretend to mull it over. Bucky takes your silence as a confirmation you would rather be alone and takes a step back.

"Not a single clue?"

He pauses, looks back at you, then the mural with a smile, turning back to you in the process. "I had a feeling, but as I said, I wasn’t allowed anywhere near this room while you were setting it up." He extends his hand and motions to the love seat opposite the mural wall.

You accept without hesitation. Progress.

Bucky leads you to the sofa, then fills his glass with wine as he takes a seat.

"So, superheroes over ducks and cute bears, huh?"

"What can I say? I married a comic book nerd. And what kid doesn’t like superheroes?" He defends.

"I think it was a talking bear and a spiritless donkey for me."

"Mine was Danger Mouse."

"Never heard of it."

"What?!" He stares at you in shock. "Oh, come on, you’re missing out. It’s like James Bond for kids."

You think a moment. "Nope, nothing."

"He’s the world's greatest secret agent with an eye patch," He continues.

You eye the mural with a smirk. "I can think of another." Bucky laughs, nodding as you sip your wine.

"Definitely better than Winnie the Pooh." He says into his glass, taking a drink.

You turn with a feigned offence. "Hey, Eeyore understood me."

Bucky eyes your lips, biting back the urge to kiss you with the breezy, comfortable conversation. "How are you feeling?

Your smile fades. "Better than last night. Better than this morning. Still lost, though."

"Cheers to feeling better." He holds his glass up. You tap yours to his, making them sing.

"I'd like to know what you do. I'm a writer and a..." You look to the cribs. "I would say, mother." pausing only briefly to clear your throat. "What is it you do for a living?"

"Whatever I want, and when I get bored, I pick up odd jobs." He laughs to himself when you only stare in confusion. "I fell into an inheritance, occupational hazards resulted in our lucky break, and it will put our great-grandchildren through college, so to speak."

You glance at his arm, realizing the hazards he is referring to resulted in more than just money. You sip your glass with a smirk. "I married rich."

Bucky nearly chokes on his wine. "I would like to think it was for love, thank you. Especially since the inheritance came out of nowhere, and we were already engaged."

"Then how did you manage to sweep me off my feet, Logan Huntzberger?"

He catches the reference immediately, clinging to the hope you will remember more than just a show you binged countless times. Maybe you already had. Maybe, you remember the condensation on the windows of a dorm room, the warmth of his embrace as you cuddled on his bed, his roommate hunched over his desk grumbling at the essay he struggled to finish. No, not his roommate. He silently prays you would never remember him. "Well, Ace, it wasn't easy. I was used to getting whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, obviously." He swirls the wine in his glass with an air of cockiness, all in good fun.

"Spoiled," you scoff.

"I’m kidding. I met you and felt invisible. I may have been a ladies' man before you, but damn if that confidence stuck with me when you walked into my life." You smile shyly, eyes falling to the glass in your hands. "You were always the more romantic of the two of us, always the first to make a move. Bold, self-assured, remarkable. I was an idiot kid, and at some point, you stopped chasing." You look up at him. "I realized how much I needed you. Wanted you."

Your eyes fall to his lips as his tongue darts out, licking his bottom lip. Suddenly you are parched. You pull your eyes away and swallow a mouthful of wine. "Truth or dare?" You manage to squeak out, trying to avoid the unexpected pull towards the man beside you.

"Truth?" He answers with amused interest.

"How’d you really entrap me?"

Bucky studies you for a moment. The question holds much more than playful curiosity. Though he can tell you are not referring to the events that brought you here today. He smirks. "I honestly don’t know how you fell for my charm. You seem to have a fondness for the misunderstood and damaged characters."

"Name one."

His smile grows, scrunching his nose, as he turns his attention to the mural. "Out of those two characters, who do you think is your favourite?"

You look at your painting with a QUIET LAUGH. "Name two."

"Me." Would it be too much to tell you they are one and the same? That the stories are real, and the heroes behind the characters you admire are actual men and women used to inspire greatness. Their lives exaggerated for fiction. Perhaps that is where he draws the line; one day your memories will return, and with them, him. You drink your wine, and Bucky moves closer. Your thighs squeeze together as you look into his blue eyes, nervous as hell. "What if I chose dare?"

"I’d have dared you to tell me," you admit in a whisper.

"Cunning." Exactly what he would expect from you. He reaches out and caresses her cheek. You bow your head leaning into his touch. Bucky smoothly lifts your chin, returning your eyes to his. He leans in slowly, pauses only briefly, then commits to the kiss. One short kiss to test the waters, he pulls back and looks into your eyes. When he sees you are not retreating, he kisses you again, this time with more passion. He sets his glass aside as his hand falls from your check to the small of your back.

You pull away, breathless, a hand on his chest holding him back. "I'm sorry, I thought I... I can’t." You say regrettably, wishing you were ready for this, his soft lips calling out to you.

"No, I shouldn’t have... You’re still..." Bucky smiles politely and moves his hand to your knee. You adjust how you are seated with unease, not in reaction to his touch but because your panties are soaked, and it was one kiss. One really good, amazing, passionate kiss. Oh, what that man can do with his tongue. Nope, don't let your mind wander.

He runs his hand through his hair, pulling at the roots, his brow furrowed, hurt and confused. "I should--"

You set your glass next to his on the floor and turn to face him, your hand on his. "No, I'm sorry. I just... I don't know where I am right now. Physically, mentally, I-I need time."

Bucky nods, scoops up his wine and slams it back. He spins the empty glass between his fingers. "It’s getting late." He takes your glass and stands.

"Maybe we can have dinner tomorrow? Together this time."

"Yeah... Maybe." You hate that you caused him to hurt, wishing he only understood. He grabs the bottle on his way out. "James?" Too late, he's already gone. You bury your face in your hands, sinking into the couch. "What is wrong with me?" What were you going to do? Offer to continue where you left off despite still feeling misplaced, adrift, and disoriented. At least you could have allowed him to sleep in his own bed, right?

Lieutenant Rambeau sits behind her desk, scattered with files. Coffee cups pour out of the trash can. "Look, Rogers, we’ll contact you as soon as we find something. On average, over ninety thousand people go missing at any given time. Sixty percent of them are adults, and more than half of those are female. Photos are sent from all over--"

"oh, spare the stats, Lieutenant." Steve leans against a wall filled with bulletins and flyers for missing persons.

"That’s right, you would know the numbers, wouldn’t you?" He's military, she can tell by the way he carries himself. Why hadn't she picked up on it earlier? Steve stares, giving nothing away, and she leans forward with a heavy sigh. "Two men were found beaten nearly to death behind a dumpster last night. In the same alley, we found your wife. One of them spoke today, says he was paid to deliver Y/N. By the way he said it, I have a feeling they planned to do a hell of a lot more; could be what got them beat. Got a slight description of the man too, we're assuming it’s this Bentley London character."

Steve begins to pace the office, biting his thumbnail. "Is there anything you’re not telling me?" She studies him. "You must have a lot of enemies in your line of work. Zemo likes to think you all come back the same, filled with rage." Pausing a moment to gauge his reaction. "You and I both know it's more than that. The trauma, trying to return to normal without looking over your shoulder with every loud noise."

Steve swallows, a physical response anyone else would have missed, but not Rambeau. "Yeah, I did a little digging. The problem is, there's not a whole lot out there on you that hasn't been redacted by our dear old government. Even then, basic information, really. You graduated high school in a small town, got married, joined the Canadian Armed Forces, had a family, nothing helpful beyond that. So the obvious option is to find more through Y/N's immense social media presence, except, that is now missing as well."

Steve turns to Lieutenant Rambeau, eyes wide in question. "At some point between late last night and early this morning, your wife ceased to exist. Everything and I mean everything, but our case file here. Public profiles, government records, all gone.

Steve crosses his arms. "So I'm going to ask you again, keep in mind, that I'm trusting you have no involvement in Y/N's disappearance."

"Highly doubt the trust, Lieutenant." He mumbles under his breath.

"Is there anything you are withholding? Give me a name, something. Who could be this skilled and merciless to want to fuck you over?"

She pulls a file from her drawer and tosses it on the desk. Steve eyes the manila folder, not moving an inch. "This didn't exist 24 hours ago. Says you're abusive and neglectful. There's child endangerment in there, as well as assault, and attempted abduction. The list goes on. I believe there is even a warrant for parking tickets to top it all off. The question is, why stop there?"

Steve lets the information settle, a hand disappearing inside his pocket. "Are you arresting me?"

"Don’t give me a reason. And send me what I need; unredacted, of course." Steve crosses to the door, his hand on the doorknob. "Leave the case up to the professionals, Rogers." She calls out.

That gets his attention. Steve turns back fast and angry. "Professionals?" He spits it through his teeth.

"You know exactly what I mean." Lieutenant Rambeau says, daring him to push harder.

And he does. He moves to the desk, tossing the chair out of his way. "No one knows a fucking thing except some asshole stalker with a false name disappeared with my wife. And now you have even less. Two barely conscious assailants. Professionals..." He says the word with ridicule, leaning over the desk. "You want to talk about professionals? I'm right here!" He slams his hands on her desk, close to the laptop.

Rambeau jumps from her chair, angry. She slams her hands down in front of his, bringing herself nose to nose with a fuming Steve Rogers. "Would you like to wait in a holding cell or in the comforts of your home? I am not asking twice, so make the right choice. Storm into my office and throw shit again. I so much as sense you out there..."

"Yeah?"

Rambeau stands back, fixes her jacket, and finds professional composure. She no longer wants to entertain his games, not when a woman is missing. "Look, you can't be out there chasing ghosts while my men are trying to do their jobs."

"Keyword Lieutenant, trying. You and all those officers in that bullpen have no clue what you've walked into--"

"And you do?" She cuts in. "Please, enlighten me." Give me something, Rogers, she begs with her eyes. Steve steps back, fuming. "We're doing what we can with the information we have. We have notified all the major networks and released photos of your wife to the public. I have my men out there searching."

"Meanwhile, your right-hand man is flirting with a prostitute waiting on her booking." He argues, the fight in him fading.

"I need you to trust me. I am fighting for your wife and every single one of these women of a minority in these files."

Steve looks at her desk piled with identical files. "She's more than just another case."

"They all are. I have been in your children's shoes. Justice for these women is all that matters to me." She remembers the loss of her father so many years ago, turned up bloody and bruised after receiving the phone book treatment. Years later, in her teens, her mother disappeared on the same highway, and the case had been swept aside, written off as nothing more than another indigenous woman involved in a runaway.

Steve seems to have finally softened with understanding. "Steve, that special forces attitude of yours needs to be bottled up, now! You are not in some desert with your team making your own rules. Anything you do is only going to pull men off your wife's case. Go home, sleep it off." He exits with a roll of his eyes and stubbornly slams the door on his way out. "Nice seeing you too, Rogers."

Steve walks to his SUV, typing out a text message. "Cassie, I'm going to need you to keep an eye on the kids a little longer." He switches to another conversation, "Breen?" Steve receives a notification, clicking away from the message. Lieutenant Rambeau's case file, including a witness sketch of Bentley, pops up on his screen. Closing his eyes and biting his lip, he shakes his head, suppressing his anger. Bucky. Fucking. Barnes. He returns to his text conversation with Breen. "We've got work to do."

Lieutenant Rambeau stands at her small window, watching as

Steve climbs into his truck and pulls away. She drops into her desk chair, leaning back with a heavy sigh. It has been an extremely long day.

A small black spot, no larger than a headphone jack, is stuck to the exterior of the laptop and a faint red light pulses.

Next Chapter

Tag List: @buckyalpine @pono-pura-vida @cjand10 @lou-la-lou @liarasstuff @royalwriteroftheuniverse

#sebastian stan #bucky barnes #chris evans #captain america #steve rogers #bucky barnes x reader #chris evans x reader #sebastian stan x reader #bucky barnes x y/n #the winter soldier #dark!steve rogers #dark!bucky barnes #sergeant barnes #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x y/n #steve rogers x female reader #bucky barnes x female reader #indigenous writer

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artificialqueens · 4 years ago

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Don't Just Stand There Staring Honey (Try to Move Your Feet) (Taywhora) - Pinkgrapefruit

Georgie lets out one long sigh and lets her head fall back, dirty blonde hair falling onto the couch. “I. Need. A. Date.” She repeats, exasperated. “My friend is getting married in a few months and I need a date for the wedding.”

Tayce raises an eyebrow, repositioning herself on the couch so she can actually look at Georgie. “Georgina Aurora, I’m sure you can find yourself a date,” she smirks, “A’whora.”

A/N -

for my love ortega.

may our clowning be long and prosperous.

It’s times like this when the flat feels too small. Tayce has just gotten out of the shower, water rolling down her calves as she pads down the hall to her room and she can see Georgie doing her Chloe Ting workout - laptop being played through the TV. She’s wearing these tiny little shorts that leave her surprisingly tan legs on full display and her sports bra can barely be considered a sports bra - it’s a wonder the people in the flat across the street haven’t said something.

They’d snatched this place up the second it came on the market - the wall of glass windows in the living room making the two-bed London flat feel bigger than it was (at the time at least). It had been the natural progression from their tiny box flat they’d shared for the last three years of uni.

After living on top of each other for three years, they’d felt like queens in their new place, neither of them sleeping on a pullout sofa bed.

They’d alternated (of course) though Georgie tended to whine if she wasn’t feeling the sofa bed so on occasion they’d both end up in the double bed. By the end, on occasion turned into whenever she was drunk, sad, lonely, uncomfortable, on her period or bored. For all her jokes, Tayce wasn’t really complaining.

She tears her eyes away from Georgie’s ass and hurries into her room before she soaks the hallway rug, too scared of the blonde’s temper to risk ruining another of her interior design choices.

She presses play on Spotify and lays the towel on her unmade bed, perching carefully on the edge before beginning to moisturise her clean-shaven legs.

“I need a date.”

“What?” Tayce yells, eyes fixed on Mortal Kombat but brain anywhere else.

“I need a date,” Georgie replies, perching on the arm of the sofa and positioning her tennis skirt in a way so as not to show her knickers - she never knows when Tayce’s videogame friends might be able to see her (she once flashed one of them and it’s not something she wants to repeat).

There’s a huff of breath from Tayce before she gives up and stops moving, allowing her opponent to kill her. She sets the PlayStation controller down and faces the blonde, confusion clear on her face.

“I repeat, what?” The softness of her welsh accent slips in at times like this - something that six years of living in London hasn’t quite been able to take away.

Tayce raises an eyebrow, repositioning herself on the couch so she can actually look at Georgie. “Georgina Aurora, I’m sure you can find yourself a date,” she smirks, “A’whora.”

It’s a joke from uni about Georgie’s innate ability to find the one person in the club who’s only there for a shag (and then go home with them).

Georgie pouts. She bats her lash extensions and runs a hand through her hair, the other running down her thigh. She knows what she’s doing is flustering Tayce (that’s why she’s doing it) and really tries to play it up.

“They’ll just want me for sex though,” she whines, “They won’t get me like you.” She bats her lashes one more time and sees the exact moment Tayce melts, a pretty blush finally becoming visible.

“Just for you.”

Georgie cups a hand behind her ear, wincing as if she’s having trouble. “What was that? I didn’t quite hear you,” she jokes and it makes Tayce bat an arm at her.

“I’ll do it for you Brat.”

The blonde bounces up, her tennis skirt flying up to show her lace knickers. “You’re the best!” She squeals before pressing a kiss to Tayce’s cheek, “Veronica will be so happy!”

“Have you finished in the shower?” Georgie calls from the hallway, snapping Tayce back into the moment.

“Is the shower still going?” Tayce shouts back sardonically and she hears Georgie hit her door on the way past. “Bitch.” She calls out before falling backwards onto her bed. She can see her outfit out of the corner of her eye and it twists her stomach in knots just looking at it.

It’s pretty simple, grey plaid cigarette trousers - a white shirt with red stitching and a matching suit jacket, but somehow it feels like Chinese handcuffs.

The telltale clunk of the waterpipes tells her that Georgie’s started her shower and she sits up again, feeling around on her bedside table for her hairbrush.

She goes through the motions of getting ready until Georgie is banging on her door again. She yanks it open, intending to say something cutting or at least sarcastic but she finds that it’s quite difficult to speak when your jaw is on the floor. Her’s certainly is.

Georgie’s dress is red satin with a sinfully high slit and her lipstick might just be the same shade of crimson currently on Tayce’s own lips. That might just be wishful thinking.

“Wow’” she stutters out, eyes trailing up and down. She gets caught on the wispy hairs that have come undone from Georgia’s chignon and has to catch herself because she wants to wrap it around her tongue and there isn’t enough time to unpack that.

“Wow, yourself,” Georgie says with a smirk, her tongue darting out between perfectly painted lips. She holds a hand out and Tayce gives her her forearm so she can walk the blonde out of the flat.

They blast Taylor Swift in the car, screaming the lyrics to Out of the Woods while on the A23. Tayce pulls them into the churchyard in Brighton and they both look at the amassing crowd with sighs.

“Damn baby, it’s like half your high school is here,” jokes Tayce as she touches up her powder in the fold-down mirror of the rental car.

Georgie smiles softly, “you don’t wanna meet half my high school,” she replies, remembering how she felt in the Nottingham public school system. She’s grateful, in a way, that Veronica’s new man is from Brighton so they don’t have to return to her hometown.

Tayce insists on coming round to open her car door and they stand arm in arm in front of the church for a moment before they go in. It’s closer to a cathedral than a church but from what Tayce knows, Veronica’s family could afford that. There’s a welcome sign out the front and it makes them both smile.

“Green and Blacks,” Tayce chuckles, “clever.”

Georgie looks at her and smiles, “Joe owns a coffee bar in Brighton and he hired her to sing one day,” she explains, finding the story sweet despite herself. Tayce gently sets her head on top of Georgie’s.

“Bless ‘em,” she hears Tayce murmur. She coughs quickly and they both straighten up. Just as she goes to fiddle with Tayce’s collar she smirks.

“Everyone thinks we’ve been dating for six months,” she whispers, rising up on her toes so her breath brushes Tayce’s ear.

If Tayce curses, Georgie doesn’t hear it. She’s too busy swinging her hips as she walks away.

“Tayceeeee,” comes a whine from the bathroom. None of the letters sound quite right but the meaning is there so Tayce puts down her coffee and slides a well-worn bookmark into an equally well-worn copy of pride and prejudice that she pretends she doesn’t read before hauling herself off the sofa in the direction of the bathroom.

“Georginaaaa,” she mocks back once it’s clear that nothing serious is going on.

Georgie has almost a full face of makeup on, sans lips and eyelashes but she’s still trying her very best to bat what she has. She’s sat on the counter, feet in the sink and toe separators on her feet as she finishes the final coat on her dusty pink toenails.

“Going out?” Tayce asks, a casual eyebrow raised and a soft smirk playing on her lips.

Georgie brightens up, “Astina and Bimini invited me out clubbing,” she explains animatedly. “I get to wear that dress I’ve been showing you but I want the rest to be perfect.

‘That dress’ in question is a slinky little number that’s been on the dress-form in Georgie’s bedroom/office/sewing room/dungeon for months. It’s baby pink and ruched and while Tayce doesn’t know any of the technical terms (she was not in the fashion school, nor does she claim she was) she knows it’s going to look gorgeous.

“Sounds fun,” she replies, though her tone is questioning and Georgie must pick up on that because she holds out a pair of flash eyelashes and an applicator with a smile.

“Can you put them on for me?”

They both know very well that Georgie can put on her own lashes - in the depths of the A’whora days, she wore them nearly every day and used to leave the house before Tayce had drunk enough coffee to feel alive. Nevertheless, Tayce leans forward, one hand holding Georgie’s cheek gently so she won’t move her head and the other hovering a lash over her eye. Her thumb strokes the prominent cheekbone under the soft skin and powder and Georgie’s breath flutters over Tayce’s pulse point.

The moment lasts forever but not quite long enough and Tayce leaves in a hurry, going back to Jane Austen and strong espresso.

She catches Georgie before she leaves, eyes trailing up and down her body appreciatively, though knowing Georgie likes her bike shorts just as much.

“For the love of god George please don’t fight anyone in the kebab shop - we’re running out of places,” she scolds, “And don’t get grumpy when you’re tired, save that for me - the girls won’t know how to handle you.” She feels like she’s wrapping a child up to send them to school but she just unlocks the door for Georgie and tells her that she’ll wait up.

Georgie pecks her on the cheek and leaves. Tayce turns the PlayStation on and tries to forget about the blonde in the pink dress grinding against half of London.

Tayce skitters across the gravel until she reaches Georgie, a hand wrapping around the satin covered waist as they queue to enter the church. She takes a deep breath and lets it out through her nose. She’s never been good with surprises.

Georgie notices (she always does), feels Tayce’s fingertips pressing into her ribs and gently removes the arm, intertwining their fingers instead so she can softly brush her thumb up and down Tayce’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, head falling against Tayce’s chest briefly. Tayce feels her heart rate slow from the contact and sighs, inhaling the scent of Georgie’s conditioner.

“It’s okay,” She uses her free arm to pat Georgie’s bum, trying to move the blonde along as they near the front of the line into the church.

At the very front of the line, just inside the ornate doors, is an older looking woman with chestnut coloured hair and a lavender chiffon dress. Georgie’s face lights up when she spots her and the woman gives her a motherly smile before embracing the blonde.

“Georgina,” she gushes, “it’s been so long.”

Georgie at least has the propriety to blush and she ducks her head abashedly. “Mrs Green- Margret,” she responds, “I’ve missed you.”

Mrs Green looks up, spotting Tayce hovering by the door and smiles lovingly, beckoning her over. “And who’s this lovely lady,” she asks Georgie with a bemused chuckle, watching as the girl blushes an even deeper red.

Tayce sees this as her moment and slides up next to her, hand wrapping around her waist, cheek resting on the top of her head. “I’m Tayce, Georgie’s girlfriend. It’s lovely to meet you Mrs Green and we’re so happy to be here.”

It slips out all too easy and even if she wasn’t prepared for this situation, somehow she is.

Mrs Green smiles. “Please, call me Margret,” she tells them graciously. “We’ll catch up later Georgina,” she informs them and then points them through another set of double doors.

They seat themselves towards the back of the pews, not wanting to encroach on family seating and Georgie twists her hands together until Tayce takes one of them in her own.

“Margret was like a mother figure to me,” she explains quietly, thoughtfully, “I feel bad for how out of touch I’ve become.”

Tayce just rubs her back, unsure of what to say.

She grew up popular. Her blonde hair was always pin-straight and her eyebrows spent half of high school looking like someone had drawn them on with melted chocolate but that was in vogue.

People loved her and feared her in half measure and she used it to her advantage, getting what she wanted and feeling like she was part of an American high school movie while she did it. That was until she got too high on her own bullshit.

She forgot she was from Worksop, she forgot she has friends from popularity instead of just her personality and she forgot that not everything always went well for the mean girls in the movies.

She came out. She’d known she was gay since she was in primary school when she used to want to play mummies and daddies and always asked to be the daddy. (Until her best friend Jade told her that girls couldn’t be daddies, because daddies couldn’t marry other daddies and girls have to marry daddies).

She came out and suddenly her mean girl personality was abrasive and arrogant, and she had to come to terms with who she was all over again.

Then she met Veronica.

Veronica was lovely and sweet and the captain of the theatre club - who wanted Aurora to help with sewing costumes.

“Call me Georgie,” the blonde has said. She’d wanted people to call her Aurora because she wanted to be special and Georgina was too plain. Apparently 'special’ meant being called a dyke and losing all your friends though, or so she figured.

Veronica did make her feel special.

She’d invite her round for tea - to her house on the nicer side of town - where they’d eat freezer waffles and pizza that tasted a little bit like cardboard but also like home. Margret Green would teach her to crochet and help with designs. And slowly, Worksop felt like home again.

And then she met Tayce - and learnt what it truly meant to feel special.

The ceremony passes quick enough, Tayce’s hand in Georgie’s. They only time they let go is when Georgie has to dig around in her purse for a tissue - the wedding not getting to her, but Tayce.

It’s a short drive to the gazebo for dinner but they still don’t let go of each other’s hands, Georgie’s wrapped over Tayce’s on the gearstick.

They finally let go when they enter the venue for the reception. The ceiling is lit with fairy lights that cast an ethereal glow and there’s ivy in the exposed fittings. There are four long tables set up and the seating chart is hell to find but they eventually spot 'Georgie and Tayce’ opposite Mrs Green making Georgie blush that they’re on the same table as the Bride and Groom.

“I mean I’m honoured,” She mutters to Tayce under her breath as they navigate the chairs, “I just didn’t realise I meant this much to her and honestly I would have worn a nicer dress.”

“Shush you,” Tayce replies, pulling a rustic looking chair out for her. She gently pushes it back in, taking her own seat and patting Georgie’s thigh comfortingly. “You look hot as shit.”

Georgie blushes but suddenly Margret Green sits down and she feels sixteen again. She ducks her head almost shyly and Margret chuckles.

“I’m not going to tell you and your girlfriend off Georgina,” she tells them both, nodding to Tayce who wonders if she might be sweating under the weight of Mrs Green’s gaze. Margret never quite stopped calling her her full name - it took long enough to break the habit of calling her Georgina Aurora. Sometimes you have to pick your battles.

“I know Mam,” Georgie replies, straightening back up with a smile.

“That’s better dear.”

They’ve taken a break from socialisation and are leaning against the bar - the party in full swing behind them. Georgie swirls the stick in her Vodka Cranberry while Tayce leisurely sips on her Mojito. The faintly golden light of the gazebo casts shadows on her face that make her look almost ethereal and Georgie just can’t stop looking.

“You enjoying yourself?” Tayce asks softly, and Georgie blushes under her gaze, nervous she’s been caught staring. She taps the stick against the side of her near-empty glass a few times and sighs.

“It’s nice,” she muses, looking over her shoulder at the rabble. “Weird, but nice.” There’s an odd tone to her voice and Tayce nods for her to continue, quietly sipping her drink.

“I guess I’m a little angry,” Georgie admits after a short pause. “About why they can all accept you with me now - but they couldn’t when I really needed them to."

Tayce reaches across the gap between the chairs, frowning slightly as she brushes a thumb under Georgie’s eye. The pad of it slides along her jaw again before Tayce brings her hand back to her lap and Georgie has to hold back a sigh at the loss.

"I’m sorry baby,” she replies, “I know that doesn’t help fifteen-year-old Georgie but I really am.” Her hand moves back up to cup the blondes Cheek and Georgie brings her own hand up to hold it there. She leans into it, revelling in the warmth.

“It’s okay. Really, it is. I have you now."

The pad of Tayce’s thumb brushes Georgie’s painted bottom lip and she may have been leaning in but Georgie suddenly sits bolt upright. Her eyes are wide and Tayce drops her hand reflexively before grabbing the hand in Georgie’s lap.

"Shit,” Georgie mumbles, eyes still staring at a figure in a suit a few feet away. She tugs on the hand Tayce is holding and drags her over to the dancefloor.

“That’s my ex.” She tells Tayce who’s just looking at her oddly. “He’ll try and hit on me so you,” she pats Tayce’s chest with a wink,“ are going to dance with me.”

Tayce sighs before smiling at the proposition. “Well it’s not exactly Salsa music but I’ll give it a go honey.”

They’re pressed together, chest to chest in the kitchen. As Tayce inhales, chest heaving, it sends vibrations through Georgie’s body.

Tayce has switched the speaker on out of boredom, dancing around where they used to have a dining table and showing off all her moves. She had gotten bored back in uni and used to frequent the salsa society on her free evenings. They’d all made jokes about it but it’s quite clear that none of her friends had taken it seriously when she sees the awe painted on Georgie’s features. She’d offered a hand and the blonde had taken it, allowing herself to be pulled close as they worked through the basics, rocking back and forth.

She spins Georgie but makes sure to pull her close again as the traditional salsa music finishes and a new song comes on.

“Don’t just stand there staring, honey. Try to move your feet,” Tayce sings along, her voice breathy but it doesn’t have to be stronger when her lips are brushing Georgie’s ear. She lets her free hand trace patterns into the parts of the blonde’s back not covered by her flimsy crop top.

“I can make it nice and easy,” she hums, looking down to see Georgie’s eyes are half-lidded, a coy smile playing on her lips. “I'ma take the lead. They ain’t even looking at you, baby."

She drops Georgie but catches her almost immediately - a move that makes the blonde intuitively grip her tighter.

"They’re looking at me."

Georgie locks her eyes on Tayce, not noticing if they drop a bit towards her lips. "Fuck.”

It may not be a salsa but it turns out that Tayce’s dancing skills don’t just lie in the world of Latin.

She pulls Georgie close to her - as she does whenever she has an excuse - and they sway to the music together. It’s reminiscent of the forties - a song for soldiers to dance to with their wives and all the couples are on the floor slow-dancing together.

“Impeccable timing,” Tayce whispers in Georgie’s ear, enjoying the way she shivers and yet moves even closer into Tayce. She always seems to have her bold moments and then goes back to letting Tayce be the big, strong night in shining armour.

Not that she minds.

As Georgie is a few inches shorter, she can tuck her head nicely under Tayce’s chin and it gives her the perfect vantage point to hear the way Tayce’s heartrate seems to be skipping beats.

She lifts her chin, looking up into Tayce’s green eyes and seeing them staring straight at her, a soft smile playing on the taller girls lips.

Tayce gets a funny feeling in her stomach, like she’s ingested butterflies and they’re trying to get out. Suddenly it all makes sense.

She places a hand under Georgie’s chin to hold her gaze and just smiles.

“I love you, you know,” she whispers, feeling like the music is all but silent.

They were drunk, hands travelling to places they wouldn’t normally dare - Tayce’s fingers trailing the lines of Georgie’s underwear through her dress.

The blonde giggles, hiccuping before hoisting herself up on the kitchen counter and pulling her shoes off. They land somewhere that will undoubtedly be a nuisance later but she’s too gone to care.

Tayce stands in between her legs, each hand resting on a smooth ivory thigh. “I can’t believe you shouted at that girl,” she says, lips pressing together as if she’s trying to look disapproving.

Georgie smirks, running a playful finger across the cut of Tayce’s jaw.

“She was looking at you,” she explains as if that’s a perfectly reasonable excuse and it almost makes Tayce chuckle. Instead, the welsh girl mimes biting Georgie’s finger, getting the blonde to laugh.

“She was the kebab girl… The cashier!” She pumps a fist triumphantly at remembering the right word. “She was the cashier. She was meant to look at us.”

“Noooo,” Georgie whines. “You’re not getting it, she was looking at you. Just you.” Tayce quirks her eyebrows, clearly still not getting it and her obliviousness makes Georgie lean forward to rest her forehead on Tayce’s shoulder. A sigh escapes her lips as she wonders if this is how Tayce feels putting up with her.

“She wanted you.” She states as plainly as she can. Her voice drops to just above a whisper, “she wanted you.”

It’s only then that she realises just how close they are - how she can feel Tayce’s hands on her thighs and the smell of daiquiris on her breath.

Their noses meet before their lips do until Tayce tilts her head just a little bit more and then it feels like something inside Georgie has snapped.

She pulls away, the back of her head bumping against the kitchen cabinet as she tries to reconcile what she just did with her own feelings.

It was good, too good, and it scared the living daylights out of her.

She slides sideways off the counter, leaving Tayce standing there - her dumb drunk face frozen in confusion.

Georgie’s eyes widen and then she shuts them, taking a deep breath. When they open again, tayce is still looking at her - though some of the sparkle in her eyes has dimmed and she suddenly feels the need to put all of it back.

She leans up, lets their lips brush against each other in a chaste kiss to test the waters but before she can pull away, Tayce has her bottom lip between her own.

She’s sure they’re being stared at but she can’t bring herself to care because she’s at a wedding and somehow she’s kissing the prettiest woman in the room.

Georgie finally pulls away, lips slightly swollen and lipstick smudging at the edges. her eyes are wet but they’re so bright.

“I love you too,” she murmurs, “ you fucking twat.”

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the-french-belphegor · 5 years ago

Text

Avuncular

New fic! If you like disaster uncles and inquisitive toddlers, this one’s for you ^^

Summary: In which Alex is a mischievous toddler, Ardeth has something on his mind, and Jonathan almost decides that the ultimate book on correct uncle-ing might be worth more than the Book of Amun-ra. Almost.

(because Tumblr hates links: on AO3 [https://archiveofourown.org/works/25866544] / on FFnet [https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13669878/1/Avuncular] )

.⅋.

Umm El Qaʻāb, Egypt, February 1929

A tomb was no place for a small child, Evy had said, and Jonathan agreed wholeheartedly. So did Rick, who, despite admitting that the necropolis felt nowhere as evil and dangerous as Hamunaptra had, was still unwilling to bring Alex inside.

Especially after what Evy had said about the human sacrifices.

“I’m sorry, did you just say ‘human sacrifices’?”

“Oh, don’t be silly, darling, it’s not like that,” said Evy lightly as she breezed along the ancient cemetery with the last of the diggers. “Pharaohs of the Early Dynastic Period were expected to have servants in the afterlife, so they killed people and animals as part of the funerary rituals. That stopped after the First Dynasty, though, and there is absolutely no record of any curse placed on them.”

To think the Bembridge Scholars had rejected her so many times on account of ‘inexperience in the field’. Like so many people, they’d seen a mousy, bookish girl and failed entirely to detect the force of nature behind the glasses and the frumpy clothes. Honestly, the lengths some people would go to ignore what was in front of them were astonishing, Jonathan thought. One look at ten-year-old Evy squinting at the Middle Demotic papyrus on the wall of their parents’ bedroom could have set them straight.

Hamunaptra had changed that state of things rather spectacularly. Evy – and by extension Rick and even Jonathan – was now courted not just by the Bembridge Scholars, but also by none other than the bloody British Museum. So when the opportunity of digging on the ancient necropolis of Abydos presented itself, Evy – and Rick, also by extension – had jumped at the call. Jonathan had tagged along, partly out of curiosity and partly because February in Upper Egypt was infinitely preferable to February in London. The weather when they’d left had just been miserable.

They had brought Alex, as well. Leaving him behind in England was simply out of the question.

But any dig site was full of hidden dangers, and half-dug tombs even more so, so Jonathan had half volunteered and half been volunteered to look after his nephew. Which was fine by him, really, as Alex was a cheerful child, not to mention inquisitive and quite bright for an almost-three-year-old. Besides, it also meant that he didn’t have to actually do any digging or directing diggers.

“What’s that?”

“A tent.”

“What’s that?”

“That was a column – maybe there was a roof somewhere, but it’s long gone now.”

“No, Uncle Jon,” said Alex in a voice that was entirely too bossy for a toddler and brought back vivid memories of Evy at that age, “what’s that?”

He was pointing at a bas-relief on the decapitated column. Jonathan stepped closer and squinted at it.

“Let’s see… Oh, that’s Thoth – ibis-headed chap, god of things like wisdom, magic and science if I remember right. The Ancient Egyptians sure had a different definition of ‘bird-brained’, didn’t they?”

Alex scrunched up his face.

“‘Bird-brained’ is when you’re a… pillock?”

“That’s right!” Jonathan said, delighted. His nephew didn’t lack brains and had a good grasp on vocabulary. The next second, though, he frowned and asked, “Now where did you pick up that word?”

Alex’s grin was an answer in itself. “Yesterday you said Mr Whitehead was a pillock.”

Oh, right. The old wanker had had the audacity of going straight to Rick for orders, knowing perfectly that Evy was in charge of the whole operation. Rick had set him straight right away and given him the kind of glare that might have scared off Imhotep, and Jonathan, who had seen his sister deal with this kind of nonsense all her life, had put the boot in and added a vicious tongue-lashing.

Good thing Alex had only turned up for the end of it, or he might have heard a lot worse.

Alex wasn’t just smart; he also – unfortunately – had an unerring instinct for latching on to any kind of profanity and repeating it at the worst moment.

Fortunately, he was also easily distracted.

“What’s that?”

The “what’s that” game could last a long time, as Alex was curious about everything, and it was only his second trip to Egypt – and his first dig. The little tyke must not even remember seeing his first camel last year. There was rather a lot to see in the camp for a child and Alex’s wide eyes darted everywhere. Jonathan ambled around, his arms full of nephew, putting a name on everything Alex pointed a tiny finger at.

The questions were easy enough to answer. Maybe this uncle thing really wasn’t so difficult, after all.

Alex was a healthy, well-fed little boy, and every now and then Jonathan had to shift his weight in his arms and hitch him up a bit not to drop him. That had been Evy’s obsession at first.

“Put your fingers behind his head!”

“Careful, he might slip!”

“Here, let me take him –”

Not that Jonathan hadn’t been terrified before holding his first and so far only nephew for the first time, to tell the truth. But when he had finally picked up the newborn and settled him in the crook of his arm, holding him had just felt… right. Alex had been born a day or two after term; he had been a robust, round-cheeked baby, with nary a wrinkle, and his weight in Jonathan’s arms had been warm and reassuringly heavy. He hadn’t felt like a tiny draught might somehow break him, like the very few babies that had somehow found their way into Jonathan’s arms so far – including Evy, that first time their mother had let him hold his baby sister. But that might have been due to the fact that everybody had previously impressed upon him how much holding a baby was a tremendous responsibility for a five-year-old.

At some point he’d had enough and remarked to Evy, “Look, I know I might not be the most careful of fellows generally speaking, but really, old mum. I never dropped you, did I?”

“So says you,” Evy muttered.

Rick had backed him up, to both siblings’ surprise. And then, of course, because being a father not only didn’t change some things but also exacerbated others, he had waited till Evy’s back was turned before looking at Jonathan right in the eye and saying, “Do not drop him, though. Ever.” with frankly scary seriousness.

If it had been any other subject, Jonathan would have been happy to just gulp and nod. But he’d stared right back, somewhat peeved, and said, “You know I won’t.”

And then baby Alex had gurgled and half drooled, half vomited on his shoulder and the conversation had met a swift and definite end.

“What’s that, Uncle Jon?”

“Oh, that’s a camel. Stay well clear of it, they bite and they stink to high heaven.”

“Okay. What’s that?”

Alex was pointing at a tent again, and Jonathan was about to answer when he looked at the boy, who was squirming and sniggering like he’d made the funniest joke in the world.

“Oh dear, I don’t know,” he said airily. “I have no idea what it’s called. Could it be… a tree?”

“No!” squealed a delighted Alex, giggling at his own joke like only a three-year-old could. “It’s a tent!”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes!”

“Well,” said Jonathan, hitching him up again, “you know better, I’m sure.”

The sun was climbing in the sky and the temperatures with it. Jonathan spotted the large tent Evy used as general headquarters and made for it, eager for some shade if not exactly cool. The cloth was thick and they had added rugs and hefty blankets to keep the sun’s glare out. It wasn’t enough by a long shot, but it was better than nothing.

Jonathan was trying to remember the spot he’d buried his canteen in the sand to keep it cool when a voice behind him said, “Good morning, my friend.”

Goodness knew what prevented him from dropping Alex. As it was, he started badly enough to jolt the boy a little, and Alex gave a startled squeak.

“Good grief, Ardeth,” Jonathan gasped. “You’re going to give me a heart attack one day.”

Ardeth Bay grinned, making him wonder how much of these little scares were actually on purpose.

“That is not my intention, I assure you.”

“Yes, well… As long as you don’t enjoy scaring me half to death too much. How’ve you been keeping since last time?”

“I’ve been well, thank you. Hamunaptra is quiet, but we still keep watch.”

“Nothing cursed about this place, is there?” asked Jonathan with a touch – oh, just a smidge – of anxiety. “No malediction we should know about?”

Ardeth shook his head. “No, nothing of the kind. This is just a courtesy call.”

Then his warm black eyes slid from Jonathan to Alex, who had both arms around his uncle’s neck in an uncharacteristic display of shyness.

“Hello, Alexander. You don’t remember me, I don’t think. I’m Ardeth Bay, and I’m very pleased to see you.”

Alex’s only answer was to bury his face into his uncle’s shirt. Jonathan shrugged with the one shoulder available.

“Don’t take it personally, he’s a lot more outgoing when he’s had time to adjust to people. Alex, my boy,” he added, “you’re starting to get a tad heavy for your old uncle. Mind if I put you down for a bit?”

“No!” Alex leaned back and stared at him with a pout. Jonathan stared right back, one eyebrow raised.

“I’ll be taking this to mean you don’t mind, then, shall I?”

The pout was suddenly a little less firm. “…No?”

“It’s like this, partner – either I put you down right now or my arms fall off. I don’t have your dad’s shoulders, don’t you know.” Alex grumbled a bit, but thankfully detached his arms from his neck when Jonathan deposited him on the mat, relieved. His arms really did feel about to fall off, and Alex’s small body against his chest had been a veritable furnace. “D’you want to say hello to Ardeth? He’s a good friend, you know.”

“’Lo,” Alex muttered. Jonathan shook his head.

“Now where’s the chatterbox I know and love? You didn’t eat him, did you?” he asked, crouching to squint at the boy. Alex let out a reluctant giggle, then clamped his hands over his mouth. “Thought so. Spit out my nephew this instant, you don’t know where he’s been.”

Alex snorted through his hands, and Jonathan stood up, satisfied. Something popped in his back when he was fully upright again. Alex really was getting a little too heavy to carry a long time.

“He has grown up a lot since I saw him last,” Ardeth remarked thoughtfully. Jonathan nodded.

“I’ll say. How old was he then, eighteen months? He was barely walking. Now it’s all we can do to keep up with the little fellow.” Jonathan glanced down at Alex, who was inspecting the maps on the table – or trying to, since the top of his blond head barely reached them – then back at Ardeth. “How many nephews do you have again?”

“Two,” said Ardeth with a smile, “and three nieces.”

“Good heavens. How do you not have grey hair yet?”

Ardeth raised an eyebrow. “How do you? One nephew can be enough.”

“Give it time, old boy, give it time. I shudder to think of the state we’ll all be in if he ever gets a little sibling.”

Evy was only half-jokingly considering putting Alex on a leash after he escaped supervision and almost ran into traffic twice in one week. The way things were going, it wouldn’t be surprising if all three of them got grey hair before the boy finished his first decade of life.

“How are Evelyn and O’Connell?”

“Same old, same old, as disgustingly in love as ever. You’d think having a small child and an engrossing job would get them to keep their hands off each other sometimes, but no such luck.”

This got a chuckle, which made Jonathan grin and ask, “How’s the wife, by the way?”

Imeni, Ardeth’s wife, was a tall woman with sharp features, rich dark brown skin, and long almond-shaped eyes that seemed to be always twinkling. She got on very well with Evy, who liked her equanimity and her love of lore, and, perhaps surprisingly, with Jonathan as well, who liked the fact that her sense of humour balanced Ardeth’s – when he bothered to air it, that is. The man was often so serious one might be forgiven for thinking he had no sense of humour whatsoever.

Oddly, Ardeth seemed to hesitate for a second before replying, “Imeni is well, thank you. She sends her love.”

“Couldn’t come, eh? That’s a shame. You know, one of these days you two should take a holiday and come visit merry old London. We could show you the sights. I don’t think swords are allowed on double-deckers, but…”

Something – what exactly, Jonathan wasn’t certain – inserted itself into his train of thoughts, like a wedge, and his voice trailed off. He stopped talking altogether, puzzled, and automatically looked around the tent to check on Alex…

Only to find that the boy was gone.

Jonathan’s mouth dropped open. The ‘something’ abruptly crystallised into icy dread.

“Alex?” he called, doing his best to sound normal and not like a rabbit who’d just been stepped on. His best, he found, wasn’t very effective. “Ardeth, did you see where he—?”

Ardeth had looked a little confused for a second until his mind did a similar equation and came up with the same result Jonathan’s had.

“No,” he said, and in other circumstances Jonathan might have marvelled at the way his eyes went round and his face spelled out the same kind of budding panic he felt. “I wasn’t watching him. Are you sure he’s not—?”

“Yes of course I’m sure!”

The tent wasn’t that large; in five seconds Jonathan had exhausted all possible hiding places for a three-year-old. He bolted out into the mid-morning sun, eyes straining to catch any movement at all and sort out which might be his nephew.

The dig site sprawled in front of him, an open-air ant colony full of sunlight, ancient stones, and people, none of which the one tiny human he was looking for.

You’ll keep an eye on him, won’t you? Evy had told him more than asked, to which Jonathan had replied with a little more confidence than he felt, Of course I will. What sort of uncle do you take me for?

Perhaps the question bore asking a little more than he thought…

“Oh God,” Jonathan moaned. “I’ve lost him. The one thing I swore I’d never do and I’ve gone and lost him. How does one even lose a two-stone child?”

“Never mind that,” came Ardeth’s sharp voice, snapping him out of his self-pity. “We just have to find him. He can’t have gone that far.”

Gone was the genial if quiet fellow with the slight smile; in his place stood the Ardeth of old, the grim-faced warrior on a sacred mission. For some reason Jonathan found this reassuring. He had first-hand knowledge of how valuable an ally the Medjai could be in the more… extreme kinds of situations.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath.

“You’re right, you’re right. He’s just one little kid… with tiny legs… Good God, what if he falls into one of these trenches they’re digging along the walls over there?” he wailed. Naturally, his brain helpfully provided him with an image which made him physically sick to his stomach. That is not helping! he thought as forcefully as he could, rubbing his eyes in the vain hope of getting rid of the mental picture.

“Jonathan.”

“Yes?”

“You’re not helping.”

“Of course, I know that,” Jonathan snapped as he strode out of the tent, hopefully in a direction a three-year-old would find interesting. “But it’s not something I can help, is it? Anything could happen to him! He could fall, he could cut himself, he could get sunstroke – he’s always taking off his hat, the damn thing never stays on his head for more than ten seconds – I bet this bloody necropolis is crawling with snakes and scorpions, too, let’s not forget those—”

“Stop.”

Ardeth’s voice had that iron ring to it which only came out when he was giving urgent orders to his men. It reverberated through Jonathan the way his old captain’s voice used to, a decade ago, when someone had been about to step on a mine or a half-buried live shell. Instinctively he froze, one foot still in the air, precariously balancing on his other foot, searching for the hidden threat.

“What?!”

“Look.”

Ardeth was pointing down at something about two inches from his right foot. Jonathan stumbled back and examined it.

A tiny footprint in the sand. Followed by another.

“The wind will erase them soon,” said Ardeth, “but at least they can give us a direction.”

Jonathan let out a long, drawn-out breath.

“Fantastic. Jolly good show. I’ll be right behind you, then.”

Ardeth frowned at him.

“Why is that?”

“Well, you’re the expert tracker here, aren’t you?”

“I really am not,” muttered Ardeth, going back to the footprints and following them down the path that led to the busiest area of the necropolis. “Anybody might have spotted those prints.”

“Yes, and anybody else might have stepped on them. Anybody still might, for that matter.”

Ardeth gave him a look between curious and exasperated, and Jonathan tried to curb his pessimism. After all, Alex had been his responsibility, not Ardeth’s, but the fellow still offered his help, apparently without even thinking about it. Antagonising him would not just be rude, it would be quite idiotic.

“Sorry for assuming things, old boy,” he said after a short silence. “I just thought that, of the two of us, you’d be the one with the most experience in tracking people. Or children, as it were.”

The look Ardeth gave him this time, though still tense, was almost exempt of irritation. It was even a little thoughtful.

“I’m a warrior, first and foremost. If I need to track someone – or something – I rely on experts. But,” he added with the hint of a smile, “I do have some experience looking for my nieces and nephews.”

Jonathan squinted at him. “Do you mean ‘looking after’ your nieces and nephews?”

“No, ‘for’. They like playing hide and seek.”

The mental picture of Ardeth – dour, dignified, serious Ardeth – playing hide and seek with children Jonathan imagined to be no older than ten made him smile. And then something else occurred to him, and he groaned.

“Oh, God. It’s bad enough that Alex likes to disappear just because he gets curious. I’m not looking forward to him disappearing because he doesn’t want to be found.”

“Does he run away a lot, then?” Ardeth asked curiously. Jonathan nodded with a solemn sigh.

“Like I said, he’s curious. Takes after his mum, God help us. Evy was the same, really, except in the end she could usually be found in the library or in front of an interesting-looking bas-relief.”

It appeared Jonathan was not the only one who got entertaining mental pictures. Ardeth actually smiled.

“I have no trouble believing that. I take it you were not a curious child, then?”

“Oh, believe me, I was. The difference is, I’m the eldest, so no-one else remembers all the silly things I did as a boy. No-one alive, anyway.”

Jonathan’s mind caught up with his words a second after they left his mouth, which meant he could finish his sentence without his voice trailing off.

Grief was a sneaky bastard, he knew, the sort that could leave a fellow alone for months or even years until it tapped him on the shoulder one day, said “Remember me?” and stabbed him through and through with something that felt like a long, icy knife. He hadn’t felt that knife in a while.

Pull yourself together, old boy, he told himself as sternly as he could, it’s been a decade.

…All right, nine years. Well, eight years and six months. And three days. Point was, quite long enough that a grown man shouldn’t make a fool of himself because his mother and father happened to die before their time.

Jonathan released a shaky breath, cleared his throat, and avoided Ardeth’s eyes until he was certain the expression in his wouldn’t betray him.

Of course, since the man was anything but stupid, there was something solemn in the gaze Jonathan caught as he finally glanced his way again. It was somewhat tempting to ask him if his parents were still alive; after all, Jonathan, Evy and Rick knew precious little about Ardeth Bay and his family, or even general Medjai customs. But even here, in the middle of the desert, and no matter how much Jonathan usually liked to trample them into the sand, etiquette rules prohibited personal questions unless such information was freely offered. Ardeth having previously mentioned being married and an uncle had been all they had known about his private life before they had meet Imeni, who was a little more liberal with personal details.

Besides, in the event that Ardeth’s parents were in fact dead, the last thing Jonathan wanted to do was make things more awkward, knowing first-hand how sharp old grief could prove.

They silently approached a man sitting on the ground, surrounded by what appeared to be crockery, intent on cleaning up a piece of ancient earthenware.

“Um,” said Jonathan, “excuse me. Did you happen to see a child? Blond, blue-eyed, yea high, probably was not wearing a hat.”

Evy is going to kill me on that account alone if we don’t find him soon.

The man gave a start and glowered up at Jonathan.

“If I saw a child?” he yelled in Arabic. “Yes, I did see a child! He picked up this pot and almost dropped it. Do you know how old this pot is? How valuable!? Snotty brats running wild, almost breaking priceless artefacts, what kind of a dig site is this—”

“Did you see where he went?” Ardeth interrupted him shortly, also in Arabic. The man’s glare went from Jonathan to him, and his anger visibly went down a notch or two, replaced with wariness.

“Yes,” he answered after an awkward silence. “That way, towards the Osireion1. I figured someone was looking after him, so I didn’t really pay attention.”

Ardeth thanked him and strode in the new direction, practically towing Jonathan, whose legs had just decided it was the right moment to start wobbling. The Osireion, unlike most temples, had been built much lower than the other buildings, and as such was being excavated rather than just cleaned up. If Alex took a wrong step…

“Did you understand what he said?”

“Most of it,” wheezed Jonathan. “The next time I’m carrying the lad I swear my arms will fall off before I put him down. There are pits over there, for God’s sake, and – and trenches, and holes full of stagnant water in this season…”

Just for a second, the words ‘pits’, ‘trenches’, and ‘holes full of stagnant water’ dredged up bad memories, over a decade old, and he froze. Ardeth, still walking briskly towards the temple, didn’t appear to notice. Jonathan had to run a little to catch up with him.

“ALEX!” he yelled, praying the boy was within earshot and his parents weren’t. “Where are you?”

“Yāh! Do you search for a little child?” someone called out in English with a fairly heavy accent. Jonathan and Ardeth whirled round as one.

One of the foremen was waving, trying to get their attention. The two of them ran up to him and reached him in a dead heat.

“Where did you see him?” Jonathan panted. “Is he all right?”

The man squinted at him and Ardeth. Then, without a word, he jerked his chin in the direction of a rudimentary tent shielding a couple of camels from the sun.

Between the camels, sitting cross-legged on the sand with a biscuit and making cheerful one-sided conversation, was Alex.

“…but then I have fingers, so I can pick things up and not eat them – broc’li, you know, they’re yucky. Carrots are okay, only Mummy doesn’t like it when I saw ‘okay’, but Daddy says it except he doesn’t really like carrots? Carrots are fun to crunch, though, ‘cause I have teeth – see? How many teeth do you have?”

Jonathan leant forwards with his hands on his wobbly knees, panting, and sent a quick silent prayer of gratitude to anyone who might be listening.

“Alex,” he gasped. “You—why—where—”

“Hi, Uncle Jon!” said Alex with a grin, waving. “These camels don’t bite!”

One of the camels chose that precise moment to sniff lazily the half-eaten biscuit in Alex’s hand and drew back its lips. Jonathan’s heart, already going a mile a minute from the run and the fright, skipped a beat. In the space of a second he had rushed over to the boy and picked him up.

“Get your own biscuit,” he snapped at the camel, “and leave my nephew’s fingers alone.”

Then he heaved a sigh almost as heavy as Alex and wrapped his squirming nephew into a tight hug.

“Put me down, Uncle Jon!” protested Alex. “I don’t wanna hug! I wanna see the camel again.”

Jonathan ignored his request and shifted him back to peer at him.

“Are you all right? Did you get bitten, stung, scratched? Where’s your hat gone?” He transferred Alex to one arm as he used his other hand to check him and his clothes for any damages. When his fingers hit a ticklish spot Alex squirmed again with a giggle.

“You’re silly.”

“And you are in a world of trouble, partner. Why on Earth did you run off?”

Alex’s grin was a milk teeth version of his father’s when Rick really smiled, and an unholy mix of triumphant and utterly disarming.

“I saw a bird!”

Jonathan’s mouth fell open.

“…A bird.”

“Yes.”

“And that’s why you ran off.”

“Yes!”

“But…” Jonathan stared at the boy in his arms. “But there’s plenty of birds at home and you don’t disappear each time you see a bally sparrow!”

…Oh Lord, I hope I haven’t given him ideas.

Alex shook his head vehemently, still grinning.

“Can I – Uncle Jon, can I tell you a secret?”

“Sure,” Jonathan replied distractedly. Alex put his arms around his neck, his eyes shining like he’d just had the best idea in the history of bright ideas.

“It was,” he said in Jonathan’s ear, his voice a little too loud to sound properly conspiratorial, “a desert bird!”

He leant back, staring expectantly at his uncle with the same beaming smile.

Jonathan, too frazzled and knackered to do anything else, stared back a few long seconds. Then he gave a small smile.

“So you saw a camel and a bird, eh? Sounds like quite the adventure.”

“That’s not all,” came a voice on his left. He’d completely forgotten Ardeth, Jonathan realised with a twinge of guilt. “Apparently, he also peeked into a well in search of water, disturbed the foreman’s tools, and then forgot to say ‘thank you’ when he was given a biscuit.”

“Thank you,” said Alex immediately in the prim and polite tone Jonathan knew he had picked up from Evy. Ardeth smiled slightly.

“Not to me, Alexander, to him. He was the one who gave you the biscuit.”

The foreman, who had been talking with Ardeth, stared at Alex impassibly, arms folded across his chest. Alex wriggled closer to his uncle, looking intimidated.

“Thank you,” he said more uncertainly.

The foreman stared a little more, then gave a solemn nod.

“Do not look in wells, little boy,” he said gravely. “There is danger there.”

“But I’m careful.”

“He always says that,” said Jonathan to the foreman in Arabic, “generally just before he does something really stupid. Thank you so much for finding him.”

The foreman looked taken aback for a second. That was a common enough reaction on the occasion that Jonathan got his Arabic sentences right. The accent threw people. For all that his mother had lived most of the second half of her life away from Egypt, she had retained her Cairene accent, which Jonathan had inherited and held on to. As long as he didn’t make glaring mistakes – which happened often, admittedly – people’s faces at hearing a pasty blue-eyed Englishman speak Arabic with the kind of lilt one might find among the middle class of Downtown Cairo always had some entertainment value.

“If I were you,” said the foreman in Arabic after a ‘you’re welcome’ nod, “I’d keep an eye on that child. Kids his age can be reckless, but he looks utterly fearless.”

“Don’t I know it. Unfortunately he can be…”

Dammit, what was a good word for ‘sneaky’? Muḵādeʿ2 meant ‘dishonest’, but that didn’t describe Alex at all. Jonathan was dishonest; Alex was just slippery as an eel and blithely ignored the adults’ opinions on where he should be and what he should (or shouldn’t) do.

Ardeth seemed to infer what Jonathan meant and picked up where he left off, thank goodness. “He can be very stealthy.”

He looked stone-faced and imperturbable, as usual, but his voice had something strange about it, slightly off, as though strained.

The foreman nodded again and went back to his duties after a last pointed look at Alex, who responded by throwing his arms around his uncle’s neck again, generously sprinkling biscuit crumbs into his shirt collar.

Despite what he had told Ardeth earlier, Jonathan gently put Alex down with a groan. The boy really was getting heavy. However, in deference to the fright he’d just had, he reached down to grab Alex’s free hand in his. Alex ducked in order to keep both hands on his biscuit, but this time Jonathan was adamant to not let go of him.

“Hand, please.”

“I don’t wanna.”

“And what did your mum say yesterday when you didn’t want to hold her hand?”

Alex grumbled something inaudible and slipped his tiny, sticky hand into his uncle’s.

“Good show.”

As they made their way back to the tent at a much more leisurely pace than the earlier frantic search, Jonathan gave Ardeth a sideways glance.

“What’s the matter with you? We found Alex safe and sound, which means Evy and Rick won’t kill me immediately, only when he inevitably mentions his little escapade. There’s a good chance you’ll be gone by that point, though.”

Ardeth’s lips twitched briefly, but something in his expression remained just on the cheerful side of grim.

“I’m not worried about that.”

“Well, lucky you. What are you worried about, then?”

Ardeth hesitated.

Jonathan stared at him. Ardeth never hesitated.

“I was thinking,” said Ardeth after a few seconds’ silence, “about children.”

“One particular specimen or children in general?”

“Yes.”

Jonathan rolled his eyes.

“So you can be cryptic when the world is not at stake as well. Good to know.”

“What was cryptic about ‘Leave this place or die’?”

“Want a list?”

Answer came in the form of a mildly exasperated look. Then, uncharacteristically, a little more hesitation before Ardeth seemed to come to a decision.

“The reason Imeni couldn’t come is because she’s eight months pregnant and the doctor said she should avoid riding.”

Jonathan couldn’t help a large smile.

“Well, I believe congratulations are in order, old boy! Too bad I don’t have cigars. It’s a little early for that, I suppose, but I’ll be sure to bring some next time.”

The remark seemed to baffle Ardeth out of his uncertainty. “Why do you want to smoke cigars? I don’t think I’ve seen you smoke a cigarette.”

“I do have the occasional smoke, but in this case cigars are a tradition in Old Blighty after a birth. The men of the house usually retire to the smoking room while the lady does all the work, and when said work is done the father hands out cigars. Presumably it makes him feel like he did something other than help start the whole thing.”

“The father isn’t present when his child is born?” asked Ardeth, one eyebrow raised. Jonathan shrugged.

“It’s all supposed to be very much women’s business. Tradition, you know. Of course Evy said tradition could go hang and insisted on having Rick be there when Alex was born. The midwife almost had a fit.” So had Rick, come to think of it. But from the look on his face when Jonathan had finally been allowed into the room to check his sister had survived the ordeal and meet his new nephew, it had all been worth it in the end.

Ardeth nodded.

“Among the Medjai, fathers are usually present for a birth. That way, if… something goes wrong, they can still see their child. Or say goodbye to their wife.”

The second sentence cast something of a pall on the conversation. Jonathan swallowed.

Alex had been a healthy baby, but his birth had been difficult for Evy. Despite his earlier remark to Ardeth about the prospect of the boy getting a little sibling, Jonathan was fairly sure the chance was slim to none.

Unconsciously his hand tightened around his nephew’s.

“Is that the reason for your, um… Is that why you were worried?”

Ardeth shook his head. “No. Not entirely, at least. But…” He glanced down at Alex, who kept trotting besides his uncle, eyes darting everywhere. “My experience with children is being an uncle, not a parent. What if…”

This was the most Jonathan had ever heard him falter. There was something disturbing about it, as though he was watching Evy have no idea which section of the Dewey classification a book belonged to.

“What if I’m not ready to be a father?” Ardeth finally asked, sounding like he wasn’t asking Jonathan so much as simply thinking out loud. “If I can fail to notice a child just disappeared under my nose, what does it say about my ability to keep track of children of my own?”

Jonathan blinked at him, rather stunned.

Ardeth voicing any concern of a personal nature was unusual enough. Doing so to him, Jonathan, and not to Rick or Evy, was even stranger, and, to tell the truth, almost unnerving. Ardeth was solid certainty, as unwavering as a rock planted deep into the sand; when that certainty met with the unknown, the rock became wind and went around the obstacle. Ardeth was adaptable, quick to think on his feet, and unafraid of change.

To be fair, and despite the fact that the very last thing Jonathan saw himself as was a parent, even from an outsider’s perspective having a child was an enormous change.

“I suspect,” he said slowly, “that it’s just not the same when they’re your own. Goodness knows Evy was never very keen on children, especially babies or toddlers, until this one came along. Or a little bit before that. Believe me, those two wanted Alex to happen.”

Ardeth’s small smile was lightning-quick, but definitely flitted across his face.

“But they were ready.”

“Good Lord, no. Absolutely not. I think they completely forgot the practical applications of this concept called ‘sleep’ for about a year and a half, for one. You see, this little gentleman here took a long time to learn to sleep through the night.”

Before Alex graduated from baby to toddler – with all the independence that implied, including moving about on his own and being able to express himself with actual words – Jonathan had been very happy that his old room was across the wing from the nursery. It was good to know, on the occasional night he spent at the house, that if Alex started to shriek (or coo, or chatter – the boy was a menagerie all to himself) at four in the morning it was someone else’s responsibility to see to him. The perks of being an uncle, he had found.

Ardeth was silent a few seconds, looking thoughtful. In the hush, Jonathan felt Alex start to lag behind a little and glanced down at him.

“All right there, partner?”

“I’m not sleepy,” muttered Alex, rubbing his eyes with his fists. Jonathan exchanged a long-suffering look with Ardeth, uncle to uncle.

“I didn’t say you were. Think you might be getting a mite tired, though.”

“Yeah, but I’m not sleepy.”

“So I suppose your usual post-morning-snack nap is out of the question?”

“No nap!”

“That’s a shame, I could do with a kip. Oops, steady there.”

Alex had tripped over a rock; only Jonathan hauling him up by the hand kept him on his feet. When he landed, he squinted up at his uncle. His blue eyes were large enough that even the mid-morning sun couldn’t keep them closed.

“Uncle Jon,” he whined, “I’m not sleepy.”

“Yes, you did mention something to that effect.”

“But I wanna go up.”

“That’s funny, I think there’s a word missing in there…”

Alex made a face.

“Please?”

“Splendid. C’mere.”

Alex hardly needed the invitation. The second Jonathan crouched down, the boy wrapped himself around him like an improbable mix of limpet and octopus. He felt a lot less twitchy and energetic than he had been earlier, a clear sign that he was sleepy, or at the very least tired.

Jonathan looked down at the small hand loosely grasping the fabric of his shirt and at the bright blue eyes, now half-closed, and shook his head. It was nigh on impossible to stay cross with that child too long. Even when he misbehaved in the worst way – and Jonathan was well-placed to know there were always worst ways for a little boy to misbehave – he was just too darn cute to reprimand seriously.

Good thing that wasn’t his job. He was only an uncle, after all – although apparently not a very good one.

“Chances are he’ll be asleep in two minutes,” said Ardeth quietly, a smile in his voice. Jonathan suppressed a chuckle.

“Maybe even less. He did have himself quite an adventure this morning. He saw a desert bird, don’t you know.”

Ardeth nodded with a knowing smile.

“My nephew Nehi accompanied us to Cairo two years ago to see the new museum curator. I don’t think he stopped talking and pointing at things from the minute we reached the first houses.”

“How old was he then?”

“Five. You’ll want to watch that one when he reaches that age.”

“Oh, joy. Watching him now is hard enough, for Christ’s sake – you’ve seen how slippery he is!” Jonathan made a mock grimace of fear and glanced down at Alex, who sure enough was now sleeping soundly. “Well. Not right now, probably. Look at him – you’d never guess how close he’s come to giving two grown men heart attacks.”

“Children are good at that,” Ardeth philosophised. “But they’re also good at a lot of other things, alhamdulillah3. You don’t see yourself having one of your own, one day?”

They were almost at the tent, and the urge to sit down – putting down Alex was out of the question this time– was getting more pressing by the second, but Jonathan stopped in his tracks and stared at him, alarmed.

“Good God, no. The very thought. I don’t know who would be more miserable, the poor mite or me.” He drew one of the folding chairs next to another and finally sank into one, not too abruptly to avoid waking Alex, who still clung to him. His bones seemed to rattle when he settled against the backrest.

Ardeth gave something between a chuckle and a snigger.

“I’m sure you’re exaggerating.”

“I’m really not. Being an uncle is the limit of my meagre abilities. I don’t think I’ll ever want children, and children have to be wanted to be happy.”

He and Evy both had been wanted, Jonathan knew. So much so, in fact, that in his case there’d been a bit of gossip about whether he’d been the main reason for his parents’ marriage. Adults usually made a point of sending children away before they talked of such things, but that little rumour had followed him for most of his childhood nonetheless.

In hindsight, maybe it had been a factor, but the only thing it had changed was the timing. Nothing could have stopped Salwa al-Masri and John Carnahan from loving each other, officially or not.

Evy took a lot after their parents in that respect.

Jonathan smiled down at Alex, then looked back up at Ardeth with utmost sincerity.

“Tell me something – did you and Imeni want that child?”

Ardeth appeared taken aback – not that Jonathan could blame him, as he conceded to being serious about as much as Ardeth conceded to laughing out loud – but replied firmly, “Yes.”

“Then what is there to be worried about? You’ll both love the kid to pieces and I’ll bet you anything your nieces and nephews will be happy to get another cousin.”

Ardeth squinted at him.

“Are you seriously trying to impart wisdom?”

“I am a fount of wisdom, I’ll have you know. Generally I just need a glass of Scotch or two first.” Well, he was a fount of something, anyway. Evy always said he talked her ear off when he was three sheets to the wind. Thank goodness he usually toppled over before he got truly quiet. Quiet drunk Jonathan was not a fun drunk at all.

The look Ardeth gave him told him exactly what he thought of that boast, but his eyes twinkled.

“I am not gambling with you again,” he said, and Jonathan knew him well enough by now to spot the slight smile that did not quite show on his face. “Once was enough. I should have listened to O’Connell.”

“Just because that camel race was rigged doesn’t mean they all are, old boy. And Rick can talk – the last time he made a bet, Evy won five hundred dollars.”

A soft sound, like a newborn cat, interrupted the conversation. The grip on his shirt tightened as Alex burrowed against him, frowning a little. Nightmares, probably.

Jonathan let his hand hover over the back of his head, not quite sure what to do. Should he wake up Alex? Let him sleep on? Stroke his back like he’d seen Evy do sometimes, almost absently? The sun was a couple of hours from its zenith, sending the temperatures climbing; Alex’s shirt clung to his back and his neck was drenched in sweat, curling his hair a little. Surely a hug in those conditions couldn’t be too pleasant –

“Put a finger or two near his hand,” came Ardeth’s voice, “and when he takes them, rub your thumb over the back of his hand. Gently.”

Jonathan threw him a curious look, but did as instructed. It didn’t take much prodding for Alex to grab his index and middle finger. Even asleep, the boy liked to clutch at whatever passed by near enough.

To his surprise, after a little while, Alex’s features slackened, his body relaxed, and he seemed to be sleeping peacefully again. Jonathan turned back to Ardeth with an appreciative nod.

“I say, that’s a neat trick. How did you know that would work?”

“I didn’t,” said Ardeth with the kind of soft smile that only seemed to come out in the presence of children. “But experience has taught me it takes little to soothe a child sometimes.” He paused. “You seem to be doing fine as an uncle, you know. No need to worry on that account.”

“Thank you,” said Jonathan in a rare flash of open sincerity. The reassurance hadn’t felt necessary until he’d actually heard it. Evy and Rick hadn’t been given the book on correct parenting, but at least they could fall back on memories of their parents, some more distant than others. Jonathan didn’t even have the blueprint of basic uncling. How did one talk to one’s infant then toddler nephew, he had no idea, so he tended to talk to Alex as he would an adult, mostly. Minus some words Evy disapproved of which Alex, unfortunately, found irresistible.

He was fairly sure that uncles weren’t supposed to lose their nephews, though. That little lesson would stay learned.

Well. At least they’d found Alex again quickly, and no harm had been done. The boy had had a biscuit and a little stroll while his uncle and Ardeth had a fright and an unexpected heart to heart, and now he was sprawled on Jonathan’s chest, twitching a little in his sleep sometimes – not a bad way to end an adventure. Even if the small body felt like a boiling water bottle in the blistering heat.

Alex tightened his hold on his uncle’s fingers, and Jonathan couldn’t help a smile. That boy was absurdly sweet.

“So,” he said to Ardeth in a low voice, “what’s the worst trick your nephews ever played on you? If I want to do this uncle thing right I’d better be prepared.”

Ardeth gave a silent laugh and shook his head.

“The worst my nephews have done so far is unhooking my saddle straps just before I mounted my horse. But… Did Imeni ever mention what my niece Kiya did when she was told to take care of her sister’s donkey for the afternoon? I know she likes telling that story.”

The anecdote sounded highly intriguing. Jonathan made himself comfortable in his chair and smirked.

“You know, I don’t believe she did.”

“All right. Well, I was giving Kiya’s sister Jamilah a riding lesson one day…”

.⅋.

Ardeth talked, Alex slept, and Jonathan listened, suppressing a laugh every now and then.

When some time later Evy made her way back to the tent to get a few maps and check on her son, she greeted Ardeth warmly and asked, “Everything all right? I trust everybody behaved?”

“Mummy, Mummy,” exclaimed Alex, who had woken up in the meantime. “I saw a desert bird and then I chased it to the big holes but he flew away. Then the scary man gave me a biscuit and I said ‘thank you’, and then Uncle Jon yelled at a camel, and I wasn’t even tired, and did you know camels bite?”

Evy withstood the onslaught of words with remarkable patience – hard-earned patience, Jonathan knew – and when Alex stopped to get his breath back she aimed her eyes at Jonathan like one might a rifle and squinted.

Not fair, thought Jonathan. I taught her that squint, for God’s sake.

Still, he barely refrained from squirming, and looked to Ardeth for help – to no avail. For the second time in their almost four years of acquaintance, Ardeth appeared uncertain.

The thing about being an uncle was that you had to remember to bow to higher authority, namely The Mum. Especially when the mum in question was Evy. And this even if the uncle in question was a Medjai chieftain, apparently.

Jonathan’s gaze went back and forth from his beaming nephew to his friend before settling on his sister. There was only one thing to do, then.

He took a deep breath, looked Evy in the eye, and tried to look as reasonable as possible.

“Evy, old mum – I can explain everything.”

THE END

.⅋.

1Also spelled ‘Osireon’; one of the temples at Abydos, a cenotaph (tomb without a body) for Seti 1st, who as a deceased pharaoh symbolically plays the role of Osiris there.

2(مخادع), “dishonest”, Egyptian Arabic

3(اَلْحَمْدُ لِلّٰهِ), al-ḥamdu li-llāhi, literally “praise [be] to God”.

#the mummy #The Mummy Returns #the mummy films #jonathan carnahan #Alex O'Connell #ardeth bay #fanfiction

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purplebass · 5 years ago

Text

The Beach // Kell and Lila

Another Shades of Magic Kelila fanfic. No idea if this could be marked as AU. Kell and Lila spend a nice morning at the beach.

Couple: Kelila, Kell Maresh and Lila Bard Fandom: Shades of Magic Rating: M (tw for implications of mature situations, innuendos) Words: 1770

Saying that Kell hated the beach would be a lie. No, he didn’t hate the beach. He just didn’t like the idea of exposing himself to the sun, to the crowd, to the attention. And his skin was so pale that he couldn’t spend much time without any protection. Yet, when Lila pleaded him to go because she missed the beach, he said yes.

“Come on, Kell. You say you always spend time inside and say you feel trapped, then, when I present you with the chance to actually enjoy yourself, you say no.” Lila admonished him as she checked the items inside of her beach bag. She was wearing a t-shirt and leggings, and Kell realized that she was set on going because she was ready. He could see the straps of her swimsuit behind her neck, and he sighed at the thought of Lila in a bathing suit.

“But,” Kell started, but he was cut off by Rhy’s entrance.

“Did somebody say enjoyment?” he asked, one of his hands placed on his hip.

Rhy looked at Lila, then at Kell, and rolled his eyes. “I was just telling Kell that I wanted to go to the beach because I miss it,” she grinned, seeing that Rhy was nodding in approval. “But Kell doesn’t want to come, and I would really like him to come with me.”

“That’s understandable since you never spend time together,” Rhy slightly tucked his chin and raised one eyebrow at Kell, who had turned seven shades of red. Of course, he was mocking them.

Kell and Lila worked for the House of Maresh as ambassadors of sorts. They preferred to travel together when they knew that the journey would take long, like when they had to go back to Lila’s London, the Grey one. They insisted on staying together because of unidentified reasons. They both knew that Rhy was aware they invented excuses to spend more time in each other’s company while they were on duty. They didn’t spend whole days together, but their paths crossed a lot even they didn’t have to run the same errands. The palace was big but not big enough, and they enjoyed meeting each other by chance. The night was the only moment where Lila and Kell were always inseparable. After all, they shared the same bed.

“As if you didn’t do the same with your boyfriend, my king,” Lila nudged Rhy and waggled her eyebrows at him. Rhy looked away and bit his lip.

“Fine, fine,” he tapped his foot on the floor. “If you’re going, I want to come too. I have a private beach nearby, and I think it would be better if we don’t mingle with the crowd, as much as I would love that. Now that I’m a king, I am afraid I can’t do it.”

“Then that’s it!” Lila cheered, closed her bag and put it on her shoulder. “See, someone is more excited than you, Kell.”

“I’m going to get ready and fetch Alucard on the way,” Rhy announced, then walked out.

Kell was scowling as usual, his arms crossed on his chest. He was undecided, and Lila probably understood. She tilted her head and started at him for a few seconds, then closed the distance between them.

“What’s wrong?” she asked nicely, beaming at him.

“Nothing is wrong.”

“You don’t know how to lie,” she retorted, furrowing her brows. “I know you’re not fond of the beach, but I think it’s something else. I understand if you don’t want to tell me, but –“

“I can’t swim,” Kell revealed. He didn’t meet Lila’s eyes at first, because he was embarrassed and didn’t want to catch the pity in her eyes. But then he gazed at her, and found nothing but understanding in her irises. Both in the black and the brown one.

“That’s okay, Kell,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder. “I can. We don’t have to go far if you don’t know how to do it. We can just stay on the shore and damp our feet.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“No, it is not. It just means you’re not perfect, master Kell,” Lila raised an eyebrow and grinned. “But then, who is perfect in this world? Don’t say me, because it isn’t true. Although, maybe…”

Kell sighed and rolled his eyes. “Alright, I’ll come.”

And here they were. The palace had a private beach for the royals, and by extension, Kell, Lila and Alucard could use it to their own pleasure even when Rhy would not be able to come. The sun was high in the sky, the weather was warm, and it was the perfect day to relax on the red sand that touched a side of the beautiful quarters of the royal palace.

The beach wasn’t that big, but since it was destined to private use, it was enough. A couple of beach umbrellas were open and under them, there were different types of chairs and beds. On both sides stood big rocks to protect the beach from being erased by the water. The water, thought Kell as he surveilled the area. He had never been there except when he was a child and Rhy begged him to come to keep him company. It will be alright if I don’t go far, he added, lost in his thoughts. Lila squeezed his hand and he glanced at her. He had no idea how his face looked like in that instant, but he hoped he didn’t look too uneasy.

“It’s okay, I’m here,” she reassured him, and she dragged him to one of the umbrellas that someone had already opened for them.

Rhy and Alucard had scattered their clothes on a random chair and went into the ocean. As Kell watched them splash each other with water, he didn’t feel Lila tapping him on the shoulder. When he turned to face her, she had stripped down to her one-piece midnight colored swimsuit. He couldn’t help but gape at her. He had seen her with less clothing on, but still, every time he glanced at Lila, he was mesmerized. He knew she would rather wear men’s clothes than show her curves, but you couldn’t do that on the beach.

“Come on, Kell! You’re still wearing too much!” Lila challenged him with a smirk.

“I –“ he sputtered, unable to form coherent thoughts. “What am I doing?” he asked out loud.

“You’re not taking your clothes off,” she replied for him. “While when we are alone, you seem eager to get everything that separates us off me,” she winked at him.

Kell’s cheeks warmed at the comment and he smiled. “You’re right, but we are not in our bedroom right now.”

“And we are not naked even,” Lila retorted. “You’re behaving like a child.”

“I’m not behaving like a child. It’s just, I feel like my skin will burn under this midday sun, you know. I’m pale as a ghost.”

“So what? You want to keep your royal pallor, my prince?”

“I’m not a prince, Lila,” Kell protested, rolling his eyes. In the background, he could hear Rhy laughing at something Alucard had said.

“I dare you to take your clothes off and follow me to that rock,” Lila grinned, tilting her head towards the ocean and running towards the water. Kell saw her dive into the blue and disappear for a matter of seconds until she resurfaced again.

And he sighed. Don’t be stupid, Kell, he admonished himself, then took his clothes off until he was in his black swim shorts and went after Lila. Thankfully for him, the rocks she had dared him to reach were in the opposite direction of where Rhy and Alucard were playing. There was a nook between two black ones, and Lila’s body faced them. She was smoothing her brown hair and she seemed lost in her own thoughts when Kell approached her from behind and kissed her neck. She shivered, but not from the cold. His hands reached her narrow waist and reunited on her stomach.

“Caught you,” Kell whispered in her ear.

“Told you it was easy,” she replied, throwing her head back so that it would rest on his shoulder and she would be able to see part of his face. She was grinning, clearly enjoying herself.

“I can still touch the ground, Lila.”

“I know you would. It was just a way to make you come into the water.”

“It looks like you succeeded,” he congratulated her, looking at her through his long lashes.

“Can I claim my prize?” she asked, but before she could add more, Kell kissed her lips.

He turned her body so she was facing him, and she laced her legs around his waist and her arms behind his neck. The kiss was urgent, demanding, and then wet. Kell lowered himself so they were underwater. Lila didn’t protest even when the air left her lungs. Then he brought them up on the surface. Their lips separated above the water, and they both grasped for air. He hadn’t let her body go. He was still gripping her back and she was still holding on to his back for balance, her legs still in the same place as few moments before. They stared at each other as they tried to regain their lost breath. “Well, that was… Breathless,” Lila decided with a bright grin on her face.

“Save your breath for later,” Kell said smugly, straightening his spine and adjusting her body around his.

“You too,” she replied with an enigmatic smile.

A while later, they decided it was time to go back on the shore and relax on the comfortable beds. They were big enough to fit two people, so when Kell lied down, Lila decided to curl up next to him. The cozy bed made them fall asleep, but it didn’t last long, because they were disturbed by a gush of cold water soaking them. “What the hell?” Lila hissed and sat up, still half asleep. She looked at her wet legs, arms, hair, and frowned when she saw Rhy standing in front of the bed. “It was you.”

“It was icy! Why did you do it?” Kell demanded, frowning as well, adjusting himself on the bed.

“You both looked like you needed a cold shower, guys,” he shrugged, then started running towards the ocean when Kell and Lila stood up and went after him. He tried to hide behind Alucard. In the end, Kell pushed Rhy back into the ocean as a payback. It was fun. Perhaps the beach wasn’t so bad after all.

#adsom #adsomfanfic #kelila #kell maresh #lila bard #delilah bard #kell and lila #shades of magic #a darker shade of magic #a conjuring of light #a gathering of shadows #rhy maresh #alucard emery #ve schwab #victoria schwab #tweety.writes

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shesawriter39049 · 6 years ago

Text

CV SQUAD PT.1 (M)

Podcast host/Youtuber/Influencer BTS & OC

CV SQUAD TAKE: MIAMI,NEW YORK, LONDON, LA

CV SQUAD TAKE MIAMI- PART 1 OF 2

WARNINGS:(There’s both some M/F & M/M smuttyness in here so I’ll let you find out which warnings apply to who) Some hand fun,Hella dirty talk, cum play, spit play, light choking, public sex, light mirror kink ,a ton of teasing between all 8 “Characters” All the boy’s are Bi in this BTW . Tatted and Pierced BTS (Not all but most)

JIMIN/OC MAIN FOCUS OT7 SUBFOCUS (MXM/MXF)

In this part Hoseok/Yoongi have a bigger roll in my opinion but again there all in it a ton

There is a lot of dialog in this one but it’s needed…I’m introducing 8 people sooooo lol

9.7 K

AU SUMMARY : The “CV SQUAD” is made up of Jimin,YN, Namjoon, Yoongi, and Kookie a group of friends who run a podcast called “Candid Vibes” . That was created initially for a media arts project,in college which is actually how they all met! Now fast forward a good 4 years, a YT channel and millions of listeners later..and we have the CVSQUADTOUR. A four city tour spanning over 16 days, with guest appearances from some of their good friends over at “TEAMJTH” AKA Jin, Taehyung,and Hoseok. Follow along to get the full candid behind the scenes access to everything that takes place over the next 2 weeks, including the moments there definitely going to edit out of the tour vlogs!!! P.S the full backstory will be linked at the end!

***This is happening in real time, so in some scenes if there’s a [C] in front of the person dialog that means there talking into the camera. Or if it says [FILMING] that means there in shot but not talking directly to the camera***

****Wednesday July 4th, 5:45 AM,Valencia, CA -CV SQUAD HOUSE (Tour starts on the 5th in Miami) ***

“Ah fuck!!” A loud grumbled leaves Yoongi's chest as he sets the camera on the kitchen counter, ruffling his hands through his faded ice blue locks, readjusting his oversized cat eye glasses on his face before pushing the record button.

[C] “Aye, goodmorning guys, it’s ughhh fuck, 5:45 which is why the lighting probaly sucks in addition to the fact that I’m not Jungkook! Sooo as you guys know we all went out last night with the guys over at TEAMJTH, for a pre-tour dinner thing, which started at 7:30 but Y/N and Jimin didint get there till like 8 which, what the fuck else is new.” Letting out a slow exhale as his body just slouched along the back counter, taking a sip of coffee before continuing his thought.

[C] “ Well, Jin and I were the first to leave around, like 11:30 ish and I had the displeasure of spending the night here, because that’s the only way I’d ensure these asshats woke up on time. And when I got up this morning my phone said the last time the alarm went off was a little after 3AM..and again it’s 5:45 and I’m about to go wake them up because come look at this shit!“ Turning the camera away from his face to let it lead the way down the hallway and into the PR room, or “Hell” as Yoongi called it .

There was a room on the first floor that was originally meant to be a “parlor” but obviously that's not anything the 4 of you would need or want! So it was turned into the PR closet, as you guys were always being sent items to review, or even paid to post about it. It only took one of you missing an ad that couldve made you an easy 3k to realize this shit needed to be kept out of your bedrooms until the job was done. So inteased you have a room filled with numerous clothing racks and boxes, separated by CV member! But it was also where all of your luggage was sitting and it barely looked liked you guys were packed, or at least not 16 days worth!

Letting the camera pan the room as he let out an exasperated sigh, even in the dim lighting only fueled by the numerous neon signs along the walls it was still clear this room was a hot ass mess.

[C] “Can we all take a moment to appreciate the site in front of us, that is without a doubt bullshit!” Panning the camera over to the right, zooming in slightly, on all of your half-assed excuse for packing. “Yeah, so on that note, were gonna walk down the hall and wake up Jimin first, and then make our way upstairs to get everyone else.”

Making his way down a long dark hallway before making a right to head to Jimin’s room, until he hears an almost animalistic noise coming from the opposite direction. Heading to the laundry room instead only to find Jungkook, snoring,with his mouth open, on a bean bag chair..with a bag of chocolate covered lays to his right.

There was a very long pause, as the camera pans between Kookie and Yoongi, before his eyes flutter shut, holding the bridge of his nose between his index and thumb.

[C] “Ya know, sometimes...I just really don’t know what my life is….I really, really don't….” reaching down to shake Jungkook “Hey, hey,HEY! Kookie! Dude whyyyyyyy !? What are you doin on the floor in here of all places?” Pausing momentarily honestly hoping for an answer than even made a fragment of sense. Instead he was greeted with a displeased grumble as kookie attempted to readjust on the oversized bean bag chair .

[C] “Nooo no, no up! Get up, go shower, and finish packing NOW! You got like an hour and 7 minutes. And then your taking this damn camera back because I hate this thing! ”

The tone alone has the younger abiding Yoongi’s orders, far too tired to argue anyway slowly rolling off the floor, grabbing his chips in the process. Managing to get chocolate all over the collar of the white “OFF white” Jacket he slept in. While Kookie slugged his way out of the laundry room, still whining like a bart in the process.

Quickly whipping out his phone to check Jungkooks IG, letting out a relieved sigh at his last 3 posts which all had well over 600k likes. But more importantly Jungkook posted the sponsored post, prior to ruining the jacket...and that’s all that mattered!

[C] “One down..two to go….”

What he actually meant was Yoongi didn't need to wake up was Namjoon, well aware that he was already up and well…..that’s because that's whose room he started and woke up in himself….

Finally heading back to his initial mission, Jimin, turning in the opposite direction, making a right, then walking down four very random stairs that lead to his bedroom . Two black framed french doors sat cracked, the room initially was a sunroom converted to a bedroom because Jimin wanted to be on the first floor and the guest room “wouldn’t even hold my shoes “. So this was the alternative...

Upon opening it he finds the both of you in bed together, but there's nothing even remotely sexual about this if anything it’s comical. Both fully dressed, like shoes and all, how you managed to sleep in that skin tight hot pink body con dress, that barely looked like you had room to breathe is besides me. The upper half of your body was almost hanging half off his california king while Jimin’s foot was damn near in a ballerina point. Evident even through his leather dress boots, neck stretched so far to the side it was almost on his night stand. One hand draped over your hip while the other hung off the bed.

[C] “Why am I not even remotely surprised at this point!?.” A combination of frustration and amusement laced within his voice as he slumped to the ground. Letting a low cackle rupture through his throat, as he still tried to keep his voice at a whisper. Only standing in the door frame at this point. “ I swear I don’t get paid enough for this…..” Walking over to turn on the lights, but unfortunately Jimin only had mood lighting so the dim aesthetic really did nothing to stir the two of you.

Flipping the angle so the camera was facing him again before speaking into it at a hushed tone [C]“Offf course this boy has strip club hoe lighting to go with his damn silk curtains because why wouldn't he! Alright guys’ Imma set this camera on the nightstand, because these two are damn near comatose, and I need two hands for this! I’m not sure how much footage you will or won't get but I really need to get them up so blame Kookie for also being hungover if this parts shitty!”

At this point because of where the camera was sitting you could only see the bottom of the bed , but it was picking up the conversation taking place above it.

Yoongi reached over readjusting your body on the bed only causing you drape your arms around him in attempts to pull him in “No, no, no..Y/n get up..” Shaking your body until your eyes fluttered, making your roll over closer to Jimin, who welcomed you with no hesitation even in his sleep, always a cuddler even in the platonic sense.

“Alright fuck this..” Hopping on the bed between the two of you, shaking you both until your eyes fluttered open. Jimin’s even puffer than usual from lack of sleep, slipping into complete slits in his face. You weren't doing any better, suddenly your lash extensions felt like bricks hanging on your lids, as you struggled to keep your eyes ajar. A loud screech comparable to banche left your throat as you stretched,managing to crack a few bones in the process… “Yo, it’s like 5 to 6...you two need to shower and finish packing,private or not we still gotta go through TSA, and you know how LAX is...we need to be outta here by 8! Let’s get movin!!” He was far from yelling but there was no room for debate within the leverage he held as he spoke.

Rolling over to your side, resting your hand on your temple, eyes zoning in on a very faint mark behind Yoongi’s ear making your smirk slightly. “Where did you sleep last night?” Brow quirked at the sudden implied question, the devilish grin on your face transferring to jimins as he ruffled his fingers through his long dark locks. Currently almost jet black, parted messily down the middle with a couple pieces falling in his face framing that lethal jawline of his! Kicking off his shoes and unbuttoning his white dress shirt, leaving his toned caramelized abdomen on display. Giving you a sneak peek at the roses that danced along his ribcage, as he readjusted next to you on the bed.

“Yeah Yoongi where did you sleep last night hmm? Needed a little stress reliever before tour even starts aye?” The playful yet taunting tenor in Jimin's voice eared an eye roll and middle finger from Yoongi.

“Fuck you both, I slept in the guest room thank you very much!” Snapping back with a snarl, while the two of you instantly exchanged glances, eyes meeting and rolling in the same direction simultaneously.

“Really!?” The word left both of your lips in unison, dry as all hell, as you tried to ease off the bed, your hangover knocking you right on your ass. Literally, plopping back down next to jimin, causing him to smile over at you fondly, stroking the side of your jaw. The contrast of the metal from his rings soothing your skin, nuzzling your face slightly into his palm.

The tone in both of your voices screamed “BULLSHIT”! There were things that happened every once in a while that were kept on the DL, even within the squad ,typically never confirmed or denied, just forever the butt of every, inside joke.

“How the fuck would either of you know different? Your drunk ass couldn't even make it upstairs!” The words slipped from his lips so effortlessly it was like he was already prepared for the two of you to give him that reaction.

“Bitch” Bringing your hand down to meet his ass, as he rolled off the bed smaking it so hard your palm burned from the impact. Earning a low hiss to leave his throat, a noise that was secretly pleasing to both Jimin and yourself if were being honest.

“No, but I’m serious, you two up! Up!” Shoeing his hands in your direction .

Jimin hopped off the bed first, throwing his shirt on the floor “For once, the little grimiln over there actually has a method to his madness, we need to get moving princess..” Abruptly grabbing you off the bed and throwing you over his shoulder before walking towards the door.

“Hey I heard that! You little shit!” Yoongi aimed a pillow at Jimin but considering he’s not even remotely athletic it landed on your ass instead! Earning a loud squeal from the sudden change of, well shit everything as now you're literally staring at the ground and his ass, in these skin tight leather pants.

The minute the two of you made it into the hallway and he walked up those 4 steps it was game over. All Yoongi could hear from inside Jimin’s bedroom was you literally screaming “Park, down,now put me down I’m literally going to throw up put me down!!”

Picking the camera off the nightstand as he plopped back down on Jimin’s bed , head jerking suddenly from the feeling of something rolling out of the pillowcase. Only to find it’s a bottle of lube, quickly looking at the brand before giving what appeared to be an approving nod, throwing it to the side before bringing the camera up to his face.

[C] “Well ladies and gentlemen..this is gonna be...interesting..to say the least..I’mma go make my rounds, make sure everyone is actually up. Make sure Y/N didn't puke in the damn hallway, I also need to check in with our boys over at TEAMJTH. I’m sure Jin’s the only coherent one, I know they were all over here at some point and I have no idea what time they left!” Pausing to pull his phone out of his pocket, letting his thumb hover over Jin’s contact.

[C] “ Maybe I’ll be somewhat nice and make a starbucks run….meh will see how I feel.But yeah, will check in once Kook’s sober so he can film because I’m sure this was a shit show! So on that note..I’m out! Peace!!”

~~~~~~

“How you wanna do this ?” Voice sitting barley above a whisper as he stroked your cheek, while you sat on the ground of the 1st floor guest bathroom. Hair all tousled to the right as your head rested on your arm, which was still braced along the toilet seat. A warm rag coming up to grace the back of your neck “You wanna shower here or go upstair-” cutting him off with a nod before he could even finish his thought. Needing to sit in the humidity before you even tried to walk upstairs. Nodding quickly before walking behind you to turn the shower up, stepping out into the hallway to grab a towel.

“Someone slept in her makeup…” Tisking lowly as he placed the towel on the counter, before walking back out into the wall.

“Fuck, yeah I know thank god my skin is damn near bullet proof or else I’d be fucked, remind me to never drink on a stomach fuled by soley the dessert menu! “ Rolling your eyes in frustration at no one but yourself as you slowly got off the ground.Feeling slightly light headed in the process, pulling your dress over your head. Only revealing a nude g-string, the dress was so tight you almost considered not wearing panties at all. As you stepped into the shower you heard the door open again, apparently he went to also grab you makeup wipes, only catching the tail end of your naked body as you disappeared behind the steamed glass.

Not even bothering to apologize because it wasn't the first time he’d seen you like that, sticking your head out the glass, extending your arms for the wipes, as you smiled over in his direction. “Thank you for taking care of my hungover ass…” Shooting him a lazy smile as you rested your head against the tile.

Returning the gesture with a slight bow of the head as he edged towards the door, “No need to thank me, I’mma go hop in the shower myself, I also sat some tylenol on the counter, but come find me if you need me okay?” The genuine care and concern in his voice forced you to give him a legit smile no matter how dead your body felt, Jimin was good people, you don’t meet a lot of them in this industry that’s for damn sure! Nodding in response, another thank you left your lips lightly before letting your body reunite with the steam.

“How’s she feelin?” Jimin heard Namjoon’s voice echo throughout the empty hallway , changing his direction from his bedroom over to the kitchen. Joon was standing behind the island shirtless, mixing together a protein drink, Jimin noticed the tripbod to his right that was holding his phone. Figuring he probably just filmed something, more than likely an instagram video. Shamelessly taking in Namajon’s honey dipped complexion, offset by his dark brows and ice blonde hair.

Joon went through phases were he choose to tone his body, always someone with a strong build so it didn't take much for him to build up muscle mass. In Jimin eyes he was the perfect combination of muscular yet soft all at the same time! A couple small tattoo’s dancing along his body, all quotes written in an old fashioned script. From various books, or artist that caught his attention, not one for random spur or the moment pieces they all held a lot of meaning!

A dimply smile pulled on Joon’s face as he observed the way the younger was damn near drooling “Thanks Chim, I’m glad your enjoying the progress I’m making at the gym” The smile quickly turned into a full blown smirk once he took in how red Jimin got, even though his tanned complexion.

Shaking his head lightly as he chuckled, slightly embarrassed, letting his eyes meet their freshly polished hardwood floors, before brining his gaze back to his elder. Raking his fingers through his hair before slowly letting them slide down his neck “What can I say, I appreciate the hard work that’s all...I know it’s not easy to stay committed!”Ending with a slight nod , that held equal amounts of sass and arrogance.

Strutting over to grab a seat in front of Namjoon “Are these any good, or are they just payin you well?”

A playful tenor rang through his voice as he recognized the very popular protein brand to his right. Finally putting two and two together, as far as his appearance and the tripod, he was clearly filming an AD for the company. Namjoon quirked his brow clearly not as amused as Jimin, while taking a sip, “Don”t try me, last I checked none of us were hungry enough to take a deal just because. We either actually like it or we don’t post about it..or did I miss something?”

Dropping his posture slightly, resting his chin on his knuckles as he locked his eyes with the younger Namjoon’s rebuttal had jimin throwing his hands up, waving his white flag immediately. “Touche, your right, your right! Lemme taste it..” He actually wasn’t asking more so demanding as he grabbed the cup, lacing his tongue around the straw before wrapping his lips around it.

Namjoon’s eyes narrowed into tiny slits at the sight, well aware of what this little shit was doing, making sure the diamond , from his piercing caught the end of the straw “Really? Is that what it is Park?” Cocking his head to the side slightly, there was an air of amusement that danced along his face while Jimin faked innocence, earning an eye roll from namjoon while he stepped back relaxing against counter. Putting his full abdomen, V line and all on display, while his joggers sat dangerously low...I swear the two of them secretly got off on constantly tempting each other! Though in all honesty it was USUALLY always harmless and just playful, the four of you flirts by nature.

“So what time did you go to bed last night?” Jimin tried to play it cool but Namjon knew he was digging..trying to see if anything happened between him and Yoongi.

“Ugh, around 1, a little after Hoe-seok made an apperance….fuck, you two missed A LOT!”

“What? OH the lapdance!? Fuckkkk I know! That’s the last thing I remember looking at one my phone, just wait until drama channels get a hold of it, Next thing you know there engaged to be married! “ Jimin rolled his eyes annoyed at just the thought of how everything suddenly became an internet headline.Not that it’s ever stopped any of them from doing whatever they want, when they want!

There was suddenly a mischievous glint in Namjoon’s eyes before he shook his head “Nah, there was another lap dance, that hopefully isn't on anybody's snap chat…” .

Jimin’s brows furrowed in slight confusion, and annoyance at the way Namjoon was dragging this out “Just fuckin send it Joonie I don’t have all damn day!”

A snort left namjoon’s body as he dropped his head on the island before continuing “ Alright ,alright, so when I got home, Kookie, Tae, Ryland, And morgan were chillin’ listening to The Weeknd doing jell-o shots. He was originally giving Morgan a lap dance,and like stripping and shit. Then I come in, we all know Hoseok can’t hold his liquor, I make a comment about his ass in those jeans he was wearing and the next thing I know he’s on my lap…and ugh, yeah...”

The hesitation as his jaw closed, let Jimin known there was more he wanted to say he just choose not too, now how much more is the question.

Jimin gazed back at him completely wide eyed, jaw damn near hanging to the floor, fuck what he would’ve given to be there for that! “Careful you might catch something…” Joon teased as he took his phone off the tripod…”Fuck, it’s almsot 6:30 you need to get your ass in the shower before Yoongi cut’s your balls off , he just left, and he spent all morning bitching!”

“Ughhh, fine but were texting about this whole ..”dance” situation later because I got questions! Also when is Yoongi NOT bitching, you just love being his little helper huh? Such a good little boy for him aren't you Joonie!!” The taunting almost demeaning tone in Jimin’s voice had his blood boiling, brow quirked, jaw extremely tight. His lethal gaze was daring the younger to even think about saying another word!

Jimin was well aware if they did have sex theres no way in hell Namjoon was bottoming. So he was hoping if he struck a nerve Joon would correct him which would at least confirm if his suspicion of them hooking up in the past was right. But clearly Namjoon was a little too smart for that one…

“Nah, more like I just know how to keep my shit together so I don’t get bitched out, now how about you be a good little boy for your hyung and go take a shower yeah!?” Now it was Joon’s turn to taunt Jimin , his tone alone had jimin shifting in his seat, low, calm yet authoritative all at the same time. All of the boys were Korean-American, so there were obviously some cultural things that just weren’t done as often in america, and referring to your male elder as “Hyung” constantly was one of them. But considering Jimin can find a way to turn anything into a kink he already knew Jimin’s underwear we soaked on command!

Jimin exhaled deeply it was clear as day he was soooo damn annoyed “Sure, anything for you hyung…” Tone dry and snarky as all hell, adding a very condescending enfaces on the honorary as he hopped out the chair, making sure to sway in his skin tight leather pants as he exited the kitchen.

“That’s it, such a good boy for me Jiminie, such a good boy..” Namjoon coaxed with almost cynical smile, earning a very deserved dual middle finger from the younger as he fully exited the space.

~~~~~~

“Can you arch for me a little, a little more, a little..yesss just like that...just lean into it a little...perfect now stay like that for me…” If Yoongi didn't know any, he’d probably second guess himself before walking into this room. Actually he’s still second guessing himself, but to his pleasant surprise, it’s a photoshoot not an orgy! . As Jimin, Namjoon, and yourself, laid across your fluffy white couch in an obscene amount of Clavin Klein while Jungkook took pics for an IG post. With all the traveling you guys were about to be doing you just didn't trust yourself to get some of these AD’s up on time so you were trying to cram as much as you could! Forcing yourself to do your infamous “5 minute beat” but begging Kookie to edit the fuck outta these pic’s because you still felt like literal death!

Jimin, opting to go shirtless with the briefs peeked out from under the joggers, namjoon kept on a hoodie leaving it completely unzipped, while you went for the short’s teasing a red and white thong above the waist band along with the matching bra. All of you going for variations of red, white, and blue due to the day at hand.

Rolling his eyes instantly at the sight in front of him “For your safety I really hope this means your all done packing and when the uber comes in 15 minues you’ll be ready to go!” Setting down a tray of drinks and bagels, face hidden behind a pair of oversized designer shades. The low rasp in his voice let you know he was just exhausted as the rest of you, but you still had shit to do regardless!

“You reallllly have no faith in us!” You could literally hear the pout in Jimin’s voice without even looking.

“The outfits were sorted on racks, when our stylist and Sara were here yesterday we just ran out of time between that conference call and getting ready for dinner to pack it all. There really wasn't shit to do!” You perked up, with a shrug reaching up to grab the Lavender tea, typically a coffee person but you knew since you were sick this morning, and still felt a little off this one was for you! Reclining your back into Namjoon’s chest slightly, while to stole your drink out of your hand, inviting himself to taste it. Brining one hand over to soothe up and down your arm before having the nerve to pass your drink over to Jimin instead of returning it to you.

“Alright, and were sure?! Kookie, all your equipment, is packed, labeled, secured!?” Raising his glasses up to look the youngest in the eyes, that infamous chipmunk smile, meeting Yoongi’s glare.

“Yesss Yoongi, that stuff’s been backed, and double checked, it’s good, were good!!”

Stepping back slowly with a nod of approval, clearing his throat before speaking “Even though the four of you are going to be the cause of my premature aging, wrinkles and receding hairline...I just ugh, want you to know I’m honestly really proud of you guys!This was just some little bullshit project we did to pass trade school, in hopes of one day working in our field. And you guys managed to turn it into a career, we were just hoping to be able to do what we love without struggling now look …” Pausing suddenly, you could hear his voice wavering, making you all equally teary eyed as this was NOT like Min Yoongi at all.

“For the record it’s the five of us, always has been, always will be, we wouldn’t have made it this far without you, hell we wouldn't have graduated without you honestly!” Jimin pipped in first, feeling the need to stroke his ego a little, even though he was speaking straight facts.

Yoongi was technically the eldest, and was wayyy better at managing the combination of partying and studying while living in LA! When you guys met originally 4 years ago , Yoongi was 21, Joon was turning 21, you were 20, Jimin was 19, and Kookie just turned 18. All at different walks in life, as you enrolled in this program for media arts just trying to turn your hopes into something feasible.

“Don’t ever forget that, Candid Vibes wouldn’t be what it is without you, and we love you too by the way, I think you were dancing around that phrase!” Smiling over fondly in Yoongi’s direction, as he tried to hide the smile moving up his face.

The three of you shared a quick glance before getting up to tackle Yoongi who gave a displeased grumped but you all knew he secretly loved it! Squeezing until his legs gave out and he was rolling around on the floor trying to break free.

“Alrigh, alright get the fuck off me!!!” Swatting in your direction. Face contorted in aggravation while the three of you cackled aimlessly honestly not even phased by him anymore. This was just the way he showed his love and you wouldn’t want it any other way!

“ While I go double check on the Ubers, quickly film your update for the CVSQUADTOUR IG account, and please just do another one over on your bags!” There was a plea to his tone this time as opposed to the normal hints of anger!

Jungkook mounted his phone on the tripod so you guys could film and the video could be uploaded directly after. Just a standard update, wishing them a happy and safe 4th of July,letting them know how excited you all were, and to keep following all of your socials for updates, and pop-up events blah blah blah!

2 UberXL pulled up, one solely for your luggage alone, the cars were also sponsored, the four of you used Uber on a weekly basis! The drive to the airport was damn near 40 minutes in traffic thank god you were flying private and the plane wasn't leaving until you got there. The 3 of you almost falling asleep the minute your bodies hit the seats, last night's festivities hitting all at once. While Yoongi made business calls making sure your house and other things were looked over while the four of you traveled. The only other girl on the team was Sara, who had the toughest job in your opinion, being your shared assistant. She left for Miami yesterday,since that’s where her girlfriend is for college, wanting a little personal time before you guys ran her ragged!

Amongst arriving at LAX a couple fans noticed you guys and of course you stopped taking pics outside and in the meantime the guys over at TEAMJTH pulled up!

[FILMING-THIS ENTIRE SECTION IS BEING FILMED CASUALLY PANNING BETWEEN ALL 10 MEMBERS WITH NO MAIN FOCUS]

Clearly they had a brand deal of their own, all of them in Tommy Hilfiger loungewear from head to toe, and they all looked damn good! Hoseok’s long burgundy locs messy pushed out of his face, while pitch black ray bans covered his eyes. His joggers were so damn tight you could damn near see the muscles flex as he walked. If you didn't know any better you’d think you were drooling, his toned arms fully exposed in his loose fitting white tank top, making his tan look even stronger.

“Jung fucking -Hoseok…” A low growl left Jimin’s throat he was standing right next to you as he said it, not even bothering to whisper, the two of you sharing a glance that read the same damn thing..this man was fine as all hell!

While Taehyung trugged behind him, pulling a Jimin, as his hoodie sat slightly unzipped exposing his chiseled chest and the fact that he wasn't wearing a shirt, a couple thin chains dancing along his collarbone. His dark locks falling in his face from under his hood, this man had on looser fitting sweats, they were gray and he had on, no TYPE of underwear..none in site. Everything just slinging around as you walked.

“Oh fuck off…” You heard Junkgook whisper out to himself from behind the camera in a low almost aggravated tone at the site of Taehyung and you couldn't even blame him!

Last you had Jin in all black, fitted joggers and a pretty tight black tank top, and for the first time you realized how broad Jins shoulders were, and how nice this man’s arms were. His freshly touched up lavender locks bounced in the wind, offsetting the all balck outfit.

“Fuck..” left Nmajoon’s lips almost as if he was winded, at the sight of TEAMJTH approaching...yeah this was gonna ugh, be a fun little trip!!

All of the boys were openly Bi,as were you, there was no preference for any of you, you just liked who you liked. But something you‘ve noticed over the years is the 7 of them were a lot picker when it comes to their male counterparts. Yet they seemed to fit each others criteria effortlessly

Hug’s and hello’s were exchanged, but it was clear all of you needed a damn nap, the energy level was at a negative 2 right now!

Hoseok draped his arm around your shoulder as you guys made your way through the airport, keeping your body close to his as he made casual conversation. Voice sitting exceptionally husky due to lack of sleep but fuck if it didint sound good.

[JK IS STILL FILMING JUST NOT THE TWO OF THEM]

The two of you waited while the others went into the gift shop for snacks neither of you could be bothered to move. Leisurely laying his arm around your waist pulling you in to snuggle into his chest amongst hearing you yawn, repeatedly. As they say yawns are contagious, the moment his neck reclined, and that sinfully chiseled jawline went ajar, the light reflected on a piece of metal that you‘ve never seen before.

“Holy shit….” Glancing up at him, almost wanting to die as those words physically left your throat instead of staying in your head! Bringing his gaze down to meet yours, brows furrowed in confusion.

“Oh I ugh-I just noticed your tong-” A smirk moved up his face cutting you off mid sentence as he licked his lips before slowly letting the long wet muscle fall from his lips, letting you get a full view. But you couldn’t help notice the shape of it seemed a little..different.

“I got it done almost 3 weeks ago, we've just been video conferencing for all these meetings so you haven’t noticed. This one vibrates when you push it..that’s why it’s a little bigger…” His voice dropped to an octave that made your pussy do the tightest kegal imaginable. The look on his face proved that was kinda what he was aiming for, loving the way your body shuddered against his own.

Your throat felt uncomfortably dry as you gazed up at him, his eyes were locked on yours...dead set on making you fall apart in his arms and it wasn’t taking much. Clearly the universe decide to help you out, as the rest of the group slowly trampled out of the store. Jungkook leading the way from behind the lense. An almost arrogant smile curled up his face as he pulled back from you, easing back into casual conversation with the rest of the group.

~~~

[C] “Were walking through the airport….well fuck clearly you can see that, but were heading twoards the termal and I’m reallyyyy exicted!!” A squeak ruptured through your throat as you smiled over in Jungkook's direction. Jimin and Hoseok walking by in unison, fosseying there way towards the terminal Jazz hands, goofy ass expressions and all!

[C] “Kookie make sure you edit in some really dope Casey Neistat , type music, and editing on this part like I wanna look badd assss, slow - mos and all!” Namjoon hopped into frame out of nowhere earning a snort from kookie.

[C] “All right, let's go give it to me...I'll run ahead, and all of you give me your most badass strut and I’ll slow mo and edit that shit to the gods!!!” Kookie did as he said. Running to the end of the termal, counting down from 5 giving you all the signal to walk, and to be honest it was looking great. Until jimin had to end it with a casual almost “modest” if you will...slut drop upon reaching the end, and of course you couldn't be out done so you joined. Jimin just stayed in the position for a moment almost as if he were gracing the world with the view of his ass, before sticking out his tongue playfully at the camera to his right!

“Buss it down thotiana buss it downnnn” Hoseok cheered from the side at the site of the two of you, forever the hype man, encouraging you to live you best life. An obnoxiously loud cackle left both him and jin’s throat as they no doubt had that on their snap within seconds!

You can hear Jin and Hoseok in the background jokingly making comments about making it rain on both of you asses or something along those lines as you two strutted down the hall.

[C] I’ve never in my life seen Casey do anything like that…EVER” Yoongi’s tone came through the side stale as hell!!

“I mean, I support it, both the left and the right side of it…” Namjoon smirked back in Yoongi’s direction taking in the site of both asses swaying in front of him!

~~~

Jungkook, and Brendan TEAMJTH’s videographer lead the way into the plane first, and it was gorgeous, seating 14 comfortably had a mixture of chairs, couches, and a work space, one bedroom, and bath. In addition to an array of food, drinks and desserts, a special card sitting on the table next to an edible arrangement. Taking a couple pics to quickly upload to your IG account before getting settled .

There was someone from JETTLY waiting as you guys bored, showing you the amenities, introducing you to the pilot and such but there wasn’t a flight attendant present for the trip which was probably in their best interest!

“Strawberry or pineapple?” Taehyung brought his gaze over to Jungkook as he sat the camera on the table..shrugging nonchalantly, trying to hide the smile moving up his face.

“I don’t know surprise me..”

A smirk moving up Tae’s face at that “Close your eyes..” Dropping his voice slightly, as if it didn't already set at a sinful tenor naturally. Walking over to grab a piece of pineapple, biting into it partially to make sure it’s sweet. Flicking his index finger at the youngers bottom lip letting him know to open up, sliding the fruit into his mouth, while letting his finger lingers over his tongue. Making the younger smile slightly taking the hint, and lapping his tongue gently, fluttering his eyes open with a meek smile.

“You said surprise you…” Taehyung countered letting his lips hover over Jungkook’s before pulling back smugly making his way back over to the edible arrangement. Leaving the younger more than flustered….

“Alright guys, it’s gonna be a minute before we take off, since you're all finally in one place I need you guys to do one more update about tomorrow’s popup shop. Oh and we were able to get some of your merch there as well!! guys” Jackson, TEAMJTH’S manager spoke up, technically Jin,Hoseok, and Tae were just coming for shits and giggles. The plan originally wasn't a shared tour that’s why there only doing two shows.

But since it’s typical for you guys to have an alternating guest host at least once a month and your audience loves the threesum it just made sense. Of course since they were coming , pay was worked out, they will be compensated accordingly for the New York and LA shows as well as any of there merch that’s sold. Besides them being your friend’s the five of you just didn't do shady business!

The popup shop would be from 5-10 on the 5th, selling merch and a limited supply of brand collabs the 8 of you have done over the years!

~~~~~~

It was a little after 10 once the jet actually took off, the video was uploaded and your lives got to go on airplane mode! All of you forever grateful for the extremely dim lighting and the fact there were blinds draping the windows. The flight to Miami was about 5 hours and with the time difference by the time you landed it would be rolling on 8pm, you all had a 9:30 dinner meeting with your sponsors so sleeping was crucial.

All of you bundled up in different areas of the plane, the hum of music buzzed through the speakers, while your head laid alone on the couch kiddie-corner at the very back of the room. To be honest it seemed like you were the only one up, the light from your phone catching Jimin’s attention as he invited himself to snuggle up behind you. Sliding your phone out of your hand , placing it on the floor “You need to get some sleep…” the whisper hummed though your ear, as his hand found its home draping over your hip you knew he was right. Eyes burning like hell yet you couldn’t fall asleep…

Head covered under an oversized Calvin Klein hoodie, hiding his face in the crook of your neck, while his palm massaged your hip. A slow exhale left your body as you relaxed into his touch, “Fuck, I know..I just hate sleeping on flights!” A humm left his lips at that and you swore you could feel him smirking into your skin, as his hand slipped under the blanket, past the band of your shorts, toying with the hem of your calvins...A low chuckle left your throat, already well aware of were this was going, you kinda expected it just not this soon.

It’s been 4 months since anything sexually has happened between the two of you, and for some reason it only happens when your traveling. Maybe there’s just something in the air , it was in the bathroom at a brand event, in Bora Bora you found yourself on your knees in Moschino and he found himself shamelessly on his in Gucci. It was a great night, needless to say, the two of you ended up buying the outfits afterwards because there was no way in hell they could be returned!

“I’m surprised your over here with me actually…” Your words coming out slightly muffled as you tried to be respectful of the current atmosphere around you.

“And why’s that..” Bringing his hand down to soothe under your ass, while his lips left faint airy kisses down the side of your neck. Teeth grazing the thin chain around your neck, toying it between his teeth.

“Well, with the way you've been eyeing Hoseok the past two days I figured you’d jump on the opportunity to cuddle up under him...”. Turning your head slightly with a playful smirk waiting for him to bring his lips up to meet yours.

“Coming from the woman who almost creamed her panties when she realized he had his tongue pierced today?” Even though he phrased it as a question his tone came off very “matter of factly” leaving no room for debate. Tugging your bottom lip between his teeth, before lapping over it with his tongue,letting the tiny diamond ball of his own dance along your flesh. “How didn't you notice that last night?” Sucking your lip between his teeth, not even really expecting a response as he dug his nails into your ass, rolling his hips into you until your knead out slightly. Eyes fluttering shut, as you arched back into his touch, grinds your ass into him until you ripped a stifled moan from his throat!

Sinking his teeth into the side of your neck in response until you dug your nails in his thigh “We have a meeting behave….” A deep sigh left his lips but he abided anyway, using his tongue to assault your neck instead.

“I saw the way you were looking at him all night,I don't blame you, I was starting just as hard as you were baby.” Bringing his hand up to grab your neck, applying just the right amount of pressure, as his lips teased up your ear. Tugging your hoops between his teeth before sucking a nice little reminder right beneath your ear.

Sliding his hands past your panties to swipe of your clit, a low moan leaving both of your lips “Fuck, Hobi really did get your little pussy wet didint he? Can you imagine how good it would feel to have both of us smothered between your thighs? Telling you how sweet you taste and how good you look while you come.” His lips were literally buried into your ear as he spoke, trying to keep is voice as low as possible, the feeling of his breathe teasing your skin alone had your body shuddering. “God your always so sweet too, you know Hoseok has his cock pierced in 2 places right?”

That alone ripped another moan from your throat as he eased to two fingers in until the rings on his fingers were submerged with you heat. Walls flexing on command as he molded himself around you, curling his fingers upwards to tease at the roof of your pussy. Biting down on your lip so hard you thought you’d draw blood. Thrusting his fingers in and out at an agonizing pace, the girth between the two of them had you arching within seconds , sliding a third finger in and your walls welcomed the stretch effortlessly, as you coated him in your juices. “God your so fuckin’ tight, I bet I got you thinkin about him bending you over -”

“While I have your dick in my mouth? yeah that’s exactly what I’m thinking about. Me wrapping my lips around you until you come down my throat.” The words hissed from your throat as your heat pulsed around him you could almost hear your juices slushing around as he pumped his fingers in and out. “You always look so good when your begging, you turn into such a little slut it’s so sexy.” Now it’s your turn to tease, grabbing his face in your hands pulling his lips down to meet yours. Sliding your tongue into his mouth when you hear him let out an involuntary cry as you start grinding your hips back even harder. Allowing his tongue to map every area in your mouth, the cool sensation from the diamond ball in contrast to the warmth of his tongue has your biting back moans every second. Both of you kissing each other with the same amount of fever , tongues melding against each other, as he exchanged your hole for your clit. Placing the pad of his fingers against it before adding steady pressure, as he moved in swift circles.

“Or how about you fucking me, while Hoseok works you open with his fingers, god his hands are so sexy.Until your just begging for him to fuck you, you know how much you love to beg.” A low whine left his throat as he pulled back to lay his tongue flat against your neck, licking a long slow stride before sucking down lightly beneath your chin. Just enough to make you want more, even though you knew he couldn’t...

“Jiminnnn...” You whined slightly reclining your neck even more humming out against your skin in response, lips vibrating against your pulse as if he was actually curious as to why you were calling his name.

“god yes, making you fall apart up under him while you make me cum for you...making a mess all over you cock before he fucks you open with his.” Bringing his lips back over to yours with a slight growl, panting out against his tongue, not allowing yourself to pull away because your afraid of how loud you’ll become, needing his lips and tongue to muffle your cries, as you feel the heat growing in your stomach.

Sliding his oppiste had into your panites, gliding three fingers in knuckle deep, just keeping them stationary, only adding to the immense pressure building in your stomach.

“Your soo good, your fingers are soo good..” Moaning out against his tongue, as low as possible before sucking it into your mouth, his fingers always filled you perfectly, it never took much for him to get you off. Hoping the fact that his hoodie was draping over both of your faces muted out some of the noise.

The neediness dripping from his tongue aren't helping either as you grind your hips into his hand, helping chase your own orgasm. “Fuck I forget much of a promblem this mouth of yours is, your gonna fuck around and make me come from that alone, god your so fuckin sexy…” You could feel him start to build up momentum his fingers started working even faster, needing to feel you come just as bad as you “Your dripping down my hand right now, fuck I just wanna taste you, make you come all over my face.”

Burying your face in the crook of his neck, sinking your teeth into the base merissily, edging you towards your release. “That’s it, fuck yourself on my fingers baby, I can feel how tight your clit is, come for me, come nice and hard for me….” Panting out gainst his your hair as your muscles started to seeze biting down on his neck disgustly hard as you came…… body shuddaring in his embrase as he contiuned working your clit, easing you through your orgasm “Fuck yes, just like that...keep comming for me baby” No matter how sensetive you were you still kept rocking abck agaisnt him, his dick impposibly hard in his pants until you heard a low growl leave his chest. You knew Jimin well enough to know there was a 99% chance he just came….

A low chuckle left your throat at that ...reaching down in his pants as he swirled his fingers in yours. It was like the two of you worked off of one brain cell, brinings your fingers up to each others mouths, lapping your tongues around the digits effortlessly before bringing your lips together. Moaning out simultaneously the two of you tasted each other, the kiss was slow and lazy, letting his tongue have it’s way you as you were spent at this point. Eyes so heavy you almost couldn't open them once he pulled away “Get some sleep…” the words brushed against your lips with a lazy smile before kissing the tip of your nose. The scent of you rolling off his tongue as he spoke. “My entire bodies pliant right now...I don't have a choice, I’m not moving and neither are you!”

Placing one more kiss along your lips before readjusting the two of you under the blankets, before well needed sleep effortlessly washed over your bodies.

~~~~~

The feeling of someone’s hand roaming through your hair is what had your eyes breaking apart. It wasn’t Jimin though you knew what he felt like. These hands were longer, but equally delicate, eyes flutter up to see it was Taehyung. With a camera. Dead in your face.

[C] “Were hereeeee..” The words left his lips sing song like, back to his normal playful self, clearly sleep did him well. Soothing his palm over you back as you grumbled in dismay burying your face back in the blanket...until you remember the discomfort sitting in your panties from earlier, and you instantly felt the desire to hop up and run to the bathroom!

Stepping into the bathroom too quickly wipe down with a towel swamping out your underwear, putting a soiled ones in a bag and sliding them in your cosmetic bag. Upon walking out of course Hoseok would be the one waiting to use the bathroom.

Resting against the wall, shirt long gone, as his hands sat casually in his pockets, the look on his face just felt like he knew something. Or maybe you just felt awkward because you and Jimin got off to the idea of having a threesom with the man in front of you!

“Did you sleep well?”

“I ugh, yeah, yeah I did ..you?” Hoping to god your voice didn't come out as shaky as it felt.

Another all knowing smirk moved up his face, with a slight shrug “Meh, I mean...it couldve been better….” Easing his back off the wall to talk past you, body dusting against yours slightly as he entered the bathroom. Allowing you to get a full view of beautifully done back piece, Hosoek had one tattoo, and the thing was HUGE...taking up a good 70 percent of his extremely muscular back. It was an extremely detailed leopard, with a tone of tropical themed flowers around it. He got it done in Thailand..about 2 years ago over the span of 3 day!

The minute you returned to the main area Jimin’s eyes met yours exchanging the same look before randomly bursting out into a fit of laughter causing everyone else to glare in your direction. THIS is why the two of you were able to have sex every once on and while, because once it was over..it was over, the two of you were able to just revert back as if nothing ever happened! Walking over to investigate your damage, yanking his hoodie to the side, thankfully the brutal mark was low enough on his shoulder that any shirt with sleeves would cover it! But fuck if it wasn;t the deepest shade of purple imagiabele, a hiss left your lips at the site of it.

“Don’t worry about it, you know how much I get off on pain..” The words were barely audible as whispered out into your hair. Pulling back from you with a smirk, walking over to pack his blankets and such back in his luggage.

~~~

Once the plane officially settled and the 10 of you made your way to the airbnb it was pushing 8:30, and luckily the sponsors had a feeling this would happen and pushed dinner back to 10. But that still didn't leave MUCH time for getting ready.

Upon pulling up you all recognized the house, it was the “Santorini” very popular amongst influencers as it had 5 bedoroms 4 baths, nine bed all together, a hot tub, pool the full nine. Unfortunately you lot were far too rushed to explore or even pick out rooms, recognizing the car that was waiting outside thankful it was the hair and makeup duo you reached out to weeks ago through IG to do your glam while in Miami.

The house was a mess within seconds, all of you running around throwing clothes everywhere trying to find what you needed, the ten of you had never gotten ready so fast in your lives.

Jungkook and Brenden were ready first, within 20 minutes tops, the least high maintenance of the group, whipping out there cameras as they watched all the casos unfold. Even Though 80% would have to be cut as there were a lot of naked and or half naked bodies running through this house!

It was only a matter of time before Jackson and Yoongi were screaming that the car was outside and you all needed to leave ..NOW!

[FILMING]

“Fuck where are my shoes!?

“Who has hairspray, that won’t make my hair look flakey on my hair!?”

“Kim-Tae-fucking-hyung are you wearing my Saint Laurent boots!?”

“NO! My feet are bigger than yours ya dick!”

Everything and everyone was a damn mess, yelling from all ends of the house, no one really sure who the other was actually speaking too!

“Ahhh shit I gotta go I gotta gooo..” You found yourself running away from your glam team as they chased behind you with hairspray and fix plus,trying to spray you down in the process “Someone zip this pleaseee…” The first person you ran by was Namjoon, his silk paisley shirt sitting slightly unbuttoned giving you a sneak peek at his toned chest while reaching behind to zip up your dress.

[FILMING] ‘Shit I don't know if I like thissss..” You knew that whine anywhere it was Jimin giving himself a one over in the mirror.

[FILMING] “Your ass looks delectable Jiminie we gotta gooooo!!!” The praise came from Namjoon making the younger blush slightly as he licked his cherry stained lips, not hesitating to look at his ass in the frame one more time before abiding. Confidence instantly back on a hundred as he smirked, swaying away from the mirror while running his fingers through his hair.

~~~~

The 10 of you pilled into 3 luxury Ubers arriving to the “Lobster Bar Sea Grille” About 10 minutes late but hey, you tried, Jimin and yourself strutted together, the last two to hop out of the car. Hoseok came over casually draping his hand over Jimin’s shoulder. “I like these pants on you Jimine…” tone calm as ever as his hand gently brushed up Jimin’s thigh, making the older chuckle upon feeling his muscles tense under his hold.

Turning his head upwards slightly to meet Hoseok’s gaze, letting his tongue play at the corner of his mouth “Yea, I can say the same about you,they make your thighs look really good” Jimin’s voice dropped a little, adding that slightly whiny twang that never failed to get him his way! Eye’s shamelessly trailing up Hoseok’s body

A humm leaving Hosoek’s lips in response as his hand coily trailed down Jimin’s back, the slight whimper that left Jimin’s throat the lower he got didn't go unnoticed. Once Hoseok's hand reached his ass he didn't hesitate to squeeze it firmly in his palm until the younger knead out slightly. Pulling back with a smirk “Let’s ugh..go knock this meeting out so yeah?” Lips hovering over Jimin’s ear as he whispered into his skin. A low rumble ruptured through his chest at the way the younger was just putty in his hands. Typically Jimin had this effect on everyone else, he’s not used to being knocked on his ass, Hoseok’s a completely different type of creature that’s for damn sure. This time giving his ass a couple playful smacks before jogging over to Jin and Taehyung as the walked through the restaurant's doors.

“What. The. Fuck. Was. That.” Glancing over at Jimin with a smile, honestly you were kinda rooting for this, lord knowns he’s wanted to fuck Hoseok since they met.

“I have no idea, but if that mans dick isn't in my mouth by the end of the night..I’mma lose my shitt!!”

Upon walking in and exchanging hugs there appeared to only be seating left on either side of Hoseok..Jimin and yourself couldn't help but laugh as you took your seats, something tells me this was not a quisedence.

While Tae was next to jungkook Yoongi was sandwiched between Jin and Namjoon, and Jackson, and brenden were sitting in between the two Mike, and Jordan. They were behind the company sponsoring the actual aesthetic of the tour. Meaning they were the ones transforming these venues into the atmosphere all of your fans were walking into. Everything from lighting,seating, the podcast “set” the full nine. Each city was set to have it’s on vibe so none of the ‘set’s would look the same!

The night went well, not that you were surprised, you all knew time and place, and sitting in front of two men who were putting a shit ton of money into your tour was a place to act like professionals. But then midnight rolled around, and that’s when everyone started to get a little laxed Jimin and yourself were one in the same. The familiar smirk that tugged on his pouty lips as he sat in deep conversation with Hoseok told you to look under the table.

Only to find his fingers gently teasing over Hoseok’s cock through his pants, trickling up and down his zipper. Casually bringing his hand down to soothe up his inner thigh, fingers getting dangerously close to his length. Admiring the way Jimin kept gazing at him, the glint in his eyes were the perfect combination of innocent and sin all at the same time. You couldn't even help the smirk that tugged on your cheeks, feeling somewhat proud of you friend for finally going after what he’s wanted.

The sponsors left and graciously covering the bill, while the rest of you shifted outside towards the bar which set right off the water. But you couldn't help but notice Jimin get up to go to the bathroom, only for Hosoek to follow seconds later.

~~~~~~~

Walking in to find the younger pressed against the counter raking his fingers through his hair, not forgetting to arch slightly with a cheeky grin once his eyes zooned in on Hoseok.

Tsking lowly as he shook his head, one hand in his pocket as he strolled over causally “Such a little cock tease huh?” Smacking his ass so hard, even Hoseok moaned out at the sting, pulling a sharp gasp from Jimin’s body. Making him fall forward chuckling lightly as he braced his weight on his elbows, grinding back into Hoseok. Turning his head slightly as his tongue flicked the roof of his mouth, locking his eyes with the elder as he felt him, digg his thumbs into his hips before grinding his clothed cock into Jimin ass.

Making Jimin moan out shamelessly sucking his plum bottom lip into his mouth as he zoned in on his own reflection.

“Ohhh, you like watching yourself get fucked? You like seeing how pretty you look while your bent over like a little slut getting fucked into the counter?” Rolling his hips a little deeper with a growl, bringing his hand up to take a firm hold on Jimin’s sinfully thick neck.

Brining Jimin’s body flesh to his, Hoseok’s blunt teeth sunk deep into a pulse point, making the younger strangle out a high breathy moan that bounced off every surface of marble in this bathroom.

“Fuck”. Hosek bit his lip, snaking his tongue down the side of Jimin’s neck to ease the sting, his body shuddering at the feeling of the metal brushing against his skin. “You sound so fuckin good and I haven’t even touched you yet…I wonder what you’ll sound like if IIII…..”

Finally bringing his hand down to cup Jimin’s throbbing cock as he rolled his hips into him electing another needy whine from his throat bringing something almost primal out of Hoseok’s body! “Jiminnnn, baby fuck...” The tone in his voice reflected as if he was in pain, which he was, his dick was ready to fucking explode.

The pet name and sudden hint of neediness in Hoseok’s voice had Jimin turning into complete mush in his hold.

Taking Jimin’s hand in his own, pulling back just enough to let Jimin squeeze his cock in his hands through the almost painfully tight fabric, making it twitch a couple times, and he swore Jimin’s knees went limp.

“You want it…” Phrasing the question more as a statement , as he turned Jimin’s head waving his tongue into his mouth, making the younger respond instantly swirling it around the muscle. Hoseok’s hand made its way back to the front of Jimin’s body , soothing it down his chest,before palming his length again. “Soo sexy…” slurred out against Jimin’s mouth, as he sucked his plum bottom lip between his teeth.

Jimin was the one to break away from the kiss “I’m over having your tongue in my mouth , I need your cock” Tone exceptionally bratty, nipping at the elders chiseled jawline,rolling his hips back even deeper “You want me on my knees here or at home?”

THAT’S ALL SHE WROTE FOR NOW! LOL

(Since this is the first chapter I kinda forgot that this one would be the longest for obvious reasons! So I decided I didn't wanna make this like 16 k...cut it off at 9.5 and if this is received well, Miami will be done in 2 parts. So if you enjoyed this and want more...show some love and hit up my ask.

BACKSTORY

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storiesofwildfire · 6 years ago

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It’s Tough to Be a God

{ plotted starter for @likesbeingbad }

♔—- Everything had been painstakingly meticulous. From the very beginning, Loki knew what they set out to do would not be an easy task to accomplish, but one that needed to be done. After the years of abuse by the hands of their father, that same cruelty lashed out across Loki’s children tenfold. Any good mother would have given up everything to protect them, it just took Loki a great deal of patience, time, and energy to plan, form alliances with those they trusted, slip away from Odin, rescue their children from their individual prisons, and disappear off every foreseeable path.

Loki managed to hide from Odin numerous times in the past, but it had always been weeks, maybe a few months, or a year or two if really pressing boundaries, but to disappear? Seemingly forever? That proved to be a more difficult feat, but one Loki knew they had to excel at.

They hadn’t managed it alone, of course. Convincing those they cared about to essentially help them commit treason seemed cruel, but Loki only approached those they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt would do what was right. Heimdall. Fandral. Sigurd. Asmund. There were, of course, others that Loki trusted and cared for, but given the sensitivity of their goals, they needed to keep their circle as tight as inhumanly possible. The more people who knew, the more likely the plan would fall apart and the more people Loki would be putting in danger.

It broke their heart to abandon Asgard, strange as that sounded. While Odin had never been good to them and Asgard had always treated their second prince as an outsider, Loki’s whole life sat upon that realm. Friends, family, old and new love interests alike, the source of so much of Loki’s happiness despite all of the misery that they faced on a day-to-day basis. Asgard may not have been their home, but it was the closest thing Loki ever had to one and to leave, knowing very well that they may never be able to come back...

That had been harder than they expected and when they left, it had been with a heavy heart.

But Asgard was not more important than their children and with not only the desire and determination but the need to reunite their family and protect their offspring from the cruelty of Odin’s hands, Loki left without looking back and without regret. Saga and Sleipnir disappeared with their mother, as they were the only two Asgardbound. Loki debated whether they should come and how safe it would be for them, but in the end, if Loki disappeared and saved their off-realm children, the ones closest to Odin would suffer greatly in their place. It wasn’t worth the risk and Loki wanted all of their children together.

Liberating Hel from Helheim and Fenrir from his prison had been... daunting, to say the very least, and even more difficult than Loki originally anticipated, but they managed it. It took nearly everything they had, but they’d done it. That only left Jörmungandr but he was an easy find and he also happened to be located on the realm they were destined for anyway.

Midgard.

No one expected Gods to make a living as a mortal. Sure, visiting Midgard was one thing, to see how the ignorant realm worked and how so many people could go about their daily lives with so little information about the rest of the Universe. Most Asgardians didn’t believe it was worth the time, but some found interest in it even enjoyed mingling with and often forming short-term relationships with the mortals they came across. Loki was no stranger to that mentality.

Once they arrived and collected Jörmungandr, the rather large family headed to London. Loki already had an elaborate scheme prepared for the persona they would inevitably take up.

Fandral and Sigurd helped with the preparations of Loki’s new life, as they both had access to non-Aesir agents who held no loyalty to Odin. These on-world spies went to work securing the proper location, supplies, and ties for Loki’s gang before they ever arrived, making it more than simply enough to slip into the roles already decided for them.

Loki went by the name Bella Charming, a young woman who ran a joint called The Empire. She took in both young women and men on the side, training them in what most would call criminal activity but it was a way to make a living, get people in need off the streets, and it formed some fiercely strong loyalties. Loki’s children took up various personas as Bella’s first girls (and in the case of Fenrir and Sleipnir, boys).

Keeping in contact with only a few individuals on Asgard, Loki was able to monitor their moves from afar and with Heimdall in their court, Loki knew if Odin ever caught onto their position or lifestyle, Loki would be the first to know about it.

For years, they went undetected, living their seemingly mortal lives without much in the way of disturbance. Asgard never seemed to catch onto them, but it turned out that Asgard wasn’t the only threat they faced. What humans were referring to as “monsters” popped up more frequently and with these supernatural creatures came organizations in pursuit--people like the Invisible Men who wished to eradicate the monsters to keep the world safe from them, and people like Tenebrae, who wished to harness their power to enhance their own agendas.

Due to just how much magic Loki and her family produced, they had a bad tendency of drawing unwanted attention to their area, though they were always careful not to give their true selves away, it certainly didn’t make for an easy ride. Loki thought about relocating, to get as far away from both the Invisible Men and Tenebrae as they could, but there were no reassurances that no one would follow or turn up in the new location of wherever they settled.

Besides, Loki and the kids were happy in London, had grown attached to their new home and the people they let in along the way. Bella’s girls became an extension of Loki’s family and it seemed too cruel to rip that away from them after all of the trauma they’d been subjected to.

Falling in love though... that hadn’t been part of the plan.

Well, love was, perhaps, a strong word. Loki’s attraction to Hyde was obvious from the very beginning. Her willingness not to bend to his will or influence was just as strong, but she allowed herself moments of weakness with him. At first, she wasn’t entirely sure why she found herself captivated by him. He was obviously more than human, but that didn’t mean much to her. She could have cursed her own self out the first time she’d fallen into bed with him.

Inviting Hyde in, though... meant putting herself and her lifestyle at risk. For the most part, they’d been able to lie low, take care of creatures that threatened to out them if need be, but mostly go unnoticed by those too stupid to realize they were anything but human. Getting close to Hyde, though, meant Tenebrae and the Invisible Men would follow.

Hyde--and the man he lived inside of, Jekyll--both seemed young and inexperienced, unprepared for the challenges that they would face. Hiding definitely hadn’t been much of an option for them and they lost friends along the way. Gods, they nearly lost their little brother, Ravi, in all the chaos.

It would have been wise to distance herself, Loki knew that. Even her children knew that and yet, they could not bring themselves to scold her for indulging in a touch of desire and romance. By the Nine, they all seemed to take well to Hyde despite his... issues. Simply tossing him aside quickly became something that none of them were willing to do, especially Loki. Knowing what the Invisible Men or Tenebrae would do to or with him, Loki tried to protect him, attempted to warn him in subtle enough ways that would not put her family in direct danger.

That final showdown, though... Gods, that had been the undoing of everything.

Loki and her children were used to traveling via magic, but willingly participating in portals or teleportation or even something like the Bifrost was insanely different from being ripped through space against your will, vacuumed up like a few dust bunnies and tossed into the void. It had been some intense power to pull them all through with such force. Even Loki’s magic couldn’t combat it, not that she really had the time to try anything.

The stress of being forced out of the form she’d taken for years proved... far more painful than she could have expected. Shape-shifting had always come naturally to her, something easy and painless that allowed her to be whoever and whatever she wanted in the matter of a few seconds. Reverting back to her more normal appearances was usually just as seamlessly easy, but when something else’s power forced her against her will to shift, it felt like molten liquid coursing through her veins, likely due to her own magic attempting to combat the foreign energy source and remain in Loki’s chosen form.

She staggered as they came out the other side of...? Wherever it was that they ended up, eyes squeezed shut and jaw clamped tightly to keep from screaming as, momentarily, it felt like she could have been ripped apart from the inside out. Of course, she knew better, truly she did, but the sensation was no less horrible because of is and as she fell to the ground, her teeth grinding together with enough force to cause some noticeable concern in her jaw, her hands came up to grip at the collar of her jacket. Pulling it open, she nearly clawed her own skin as emerald magic danced angrily beneath her flesh, attempting to keep her visage as Bella Charming intact, but it quickly fell apart, revealing paler, porcelain-like flesh, much more angular features as far as the face was concerned, and vividly green eyes.

Loki’s hair was still quite dark, perhaps even darker than Bella’s had been, and it cascaded over their shoulders in thick waves, unkempt and in desperate need of a proper brush and a few sturdy hair ties. The clothing Bella wore hadn’t been nearly long enough for Loki’s normal stature, making it look a bit out of place, though no less flattering. Even with a flat chest and harsher bone structure, it was difficult to place Loki into a specific gender and while still glad in Bella’s garments, mistaking them for a female would have been easy.

“Mum!” they could hear someone shout, Saga, they thought, though their ears were ringing so loudly that it was difficult to make out which of their girls it actually was. "Mum, are you all right?” Footsteps hurried towards the crumpled figure and the young woman hit her knees beside Loki, both of her hands outstretching to place on her mother. That touch helped ground Loki, helped rouse them out of their momentary lapse in presentness, and slowly, the no longer disguised God finally opened their eyes.

“Oh thank Gods,” Saga murmured, tossing her arms securely around her mother. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I think so...” Though Loki’s head pounded ferociously, they could at least see straight as the pain eased out of their system.

Behind Saga, Loki could see their children going through similar system shocks. Hel’s form had only been what her Aesir form would appear like without the half-dead portion of her body. She phased in and out of the projection of half-decay several times in the course of a few short moments but eventually managed to stabilize her visage the quickest.

Jörmungandr, while hidden in the guise of a beautiful young woman with red hair and bright green eyes, demonstrated a surprising amount of restraint considering the natural size of the World Serpent’s true form. Rather than shift completely into a massive snake, Jor managed to force a shift back to what he would call his natural Aesir visage, a rather feminine male who looked remarkably like his mother in just about every way, though he did stand a bit taller than Loki. The transition wasn’t seamless, though, as Jor developed several serpent-like traits in his attempts to remain humanoid, the most obvious being the snake-skin that cropped up in patches across his pale flesh and the inconsistency of actually having a proper nose.

Fenrir and Sleipnir, the poor dears, were forced right into their most natural forms, though. Sleipnir had never been very strong with magic and when it came to shape-shifting, he always needed a bit of help for the initial shift. Fenrir was far more powerful in magic, but far behind his siblings in his studies due to how long he’d been imprisoned before their time on Midgard and while both brothers were massive in size, they were at least smaller than Jörmungandr’s true mass.

Hel was already at Sleipnir’s side, knowing out of all of her siblings that he would need the most hope in shifting back into an Aesir form, but Fenrir lowered himself down close to the ground, looking as if he were prepared to pounce on someone. His muzzle pulled back in a snarl, growling at anyone who dared to get close to him and even snapping his jaws at one of the Tenebrae nearest him.

“We need to help them,” Saga murmured. “Do you think you can stand?” Loki nodded and Saga took that as an invitation to get back to her feet, both of her hands grasping onto her mother’s hand and arm so she could help hoist Loki up.

As Loki got to their feet, a bit of magic swept over their clothes, shifting Bella’s typical style for something much more practical for moving about. Slim-fit black pants tucked into calf-high boots, a simple tunic tucked under a light jacket, and their hair twisted into a long, sturdy braid draped over their left shoulder just to get it out of the way.

It took them a moment to feel sturdy on their feet as whatever so violently forced them out of the only form they’d known for years had really thrown them through the wringer, but as soon as Loki could confidently step forward without falling back to the ground, they quickly made their way to Fenrir. A gentle hand fell on Fenrir’s muzzle, the other lifting as high as Loki could manage to scritch behind Fenrir’s ear.

“It’s all right, love, it’s all right,” they murmured. “You’re safe with me.”

Fenrir’s growls quieted and he relaxed, his massive head gently nudging against Loki’s chest so he could press as close to his mother as his oversized form would allow unless he literally knocked Loki off their feet and laid on them. It wouldn’t have been the first time but that seemed impractical now.

“What happened?” the wolf asked and while he still sounded like himself, his voice was rougher, more jagged, almost as if he’d growled the words out rather than spoke.

“I’m not... really sure,” Loki admitted. “But we will figure it out. Just breathe and relax a moment. I’ve got you,” they added, placing a gentle kiss atop Fenrir’s head.

Thankfully, Hel managed to help Sleipnir shift back to their Aesir form without much of a problem and while Jor still had slitted snake eyes rather than average, human-looking eyes, the rest of his appearance stabilized without a problem. His eyes immediately looked around for Ravi, as he’d found himself growing fond of the little human. It should have worried him that Ravi would be terrified or, at the very least, confused, but that didn’t even occur to the serpent, as he was more concerned about ensuring he was all right than anything else.

#likesbeingbad #c; hyde #c; robert jekyll #c; ravi #( private verse ; likesbeingbad ) around every corner you may find us #( thread ) it's tough to be a god #( side muse ) fenrir #( side muse ) hel #( side muse ) jormungandr #( side muse ) saga #( side muse ) sleipnir #( long response ) if it were easy everyone would do it #( ship ; likesbeingbad ) in this kaleidoscope of chaos we sink or we swim together #( ship ) loki x jekyll x hyde #closed starter

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bountyofbeads · 6 years ago

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The 1619 Project https://nyti.ms/2Hjvu0L

The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.

"We asked 16 writers to bring consequential moments in African-American history to life. Here are their poems and stories:"

Published August 14, 2019 | "1619 Project" New York Times | Posted August 16, 2019 |

⬤ August 1619

A poem by Clint Smith

In Aug. 1619, a ship arrived in Point Comfort, Va., carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans, the first on record to be brought to the English colony of Virginia. They were among the 12.5 million Africans forced into the trans-Atlantic slave trade, their journey to the New World today known as the Middle Passage.

Over the course of 350 years,

36,000 slave ships crossed the Atlantic

Ocean. I walk over to the globe & move

my finger back & forth between

the fragile continents. I try to keep

count how many times I drag

my hand across the bristled

hemispheres, but grow weary of chasing

a history that swallowed me.

For every hundred people who were

captured & enslaved, forty died before they

ever reached the New World.

I pull my index finger from Angola

to Brazil & feel the bodies jumping from

the ship.

I drag my thumb from Ghana

to Jamaica & feel the weight of dysentery

make an anvil of my touch.

I slide my ring finger from Senegal

to South Carolina & feel the ocean

separate a million families.

The soft hum of history spins

on its tilted axis. A cavalcade of ghost ships

wash their hands of all they carried.

Clint Smith is a doctoral candidate at Harvard University and the author of the poetry collection “Counting Descent,” as well as a forthcoming nonfiction book, “How the Word Is Passed.” Photo illustration by Jon Key. Diagram: Getty Images.

⬤ March 5, 1770

A poem by Yusef Komunyakaa

In 1770, Crispus Attucks, a fugitive from slavery who worked as dockworker, became the first American to die for the cause of independence after being shot in a clash with British troops.

African & Natick blood-born

known along paths up & down

Boston Harbor, escaped slave,

harpooner & rope maker,

he never dreamt a pursuit of happiness

or destiny, yet rallied

beside patriots who hurled a fury

of snowballs, craggy dirt-frozen

chunks of ice, & oyster shells

at the stout flank of redcoats,

as the 29th Regiment of Foot

aimed muskets, waiting for fire!

How often had he walked, gazing

down at gray timbers of the wharf,

as if to find a lost copper coin?

Wind deviled cold air as he stood

leaning on his hardwood stick,

& then two lead bullets

tore his chest, blood reddening snow

on King Street, March 5, 1770,

first to fall on captain’s command.

Five colonists lay for calling hours

in Faneuil Hall before sharing a grave

at the Granary Burying Ground.

They had laid a foundering stone

for the Minutemen at Lexington

& Concord, first to defy & die,

& an echo of the future rose over

the courtroom as John Adams

defended the Brits, calling the dead

a “motley rabble of saucy boys,

negroes & mulattoes, Irish

teagues & outlandish jacktars,”

who made soldiers fear for their lives,

& at day’s end only two would pay

with the branding of their thumbs.

Yusef Komunyakaa is a poet whose books include “The Emperor of Water Clocks” and “Neon Vernacular,” for which he received the Pulitzer Prize. He teaches at N.Y.U. Photo illustration by Jon Key. Boston Massacre: National Archives. Attucks: Getty Images.

⬤ 1773

A poem by Eve L. Ewing

In 1773, a publishing house in London released “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral,” by Phillis Wheatley, a 20-year-old enslaved woman in Boston, making her the first African-American to publish a book of poetry.

Pretend I wrote this at your grave.

Pretend the grave is marked. Pretend we know where it is.

Copp’s Hill, say. I have been there and you might be.

Foremother, your name is the boat that brought you.

Pretend I see it in the stone, with a gruesome cherub.

Children come with thin paper and charcoal to touch you.

Pretend it drizzles and a man in an ugly plastic poncho

circles the Mathers, all but sniffing the air warily.

We don’t need to pretend for this part.

There is a plaque in the grass for Increase, and Cotton.

And Samuel, dead at 78, final son, who was there

on the day when they came looking for proof.

Eighteen of them watched you and they signed to say:

the Poems specified in the following Page, were (as we verily believe)

written by Phillis, a young Negro Girl, who was but a few Years since,

brought an uncultivated Barbarian from Africa

and the abolitionists cheered at the blow to Kant

the Negroes of Africa have by nature no feeling that rises above the trifling

and the enlightened ones bellowed at the strike against Hume

no ingenious manufacturers amongst them, no arts, no sciences

Pretend I was there with you, Phillis, when you asked in a letter to no one:

How many iambs to be a real human girl?

Which turn of phrase evidences a righteous heart?

If I know of Ovid may I keep my children?

Pretend that on your grave there is a date

and it is so long before my heroes came along to call you a coon

for the praises you sang of your captors

who took you on discount because they assumed you would die

that it never ever hurt your feelings.

Or pretend you did not love America.

Phillis, I would like to think that after you were released unto the world,

when they jailed your husband for his debts

and you lay in the maid’s quarters at night,

a free and poor woman with your last living boy,

that you thought of the Metamorphoses,

making the sign of Arachne in the tangle of your fingers.

And here, after all, lay the proof:

The man in the plastic runs a thumb over stone. The gray is slick and tough.

Phillis Wheatley: thirty-one. Had misery enough.

Eve L. Ewing is the author of “1919,” the “Ironheart” series, “Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side” and “Electric Arches.” She is a professor at the University of Chicago.

⬤ Aug. 30, 1800

Fiction by Barry Jenkins

In 1800, Gabriel Prosser, a 24-year-old literate blacksmith, organized one of the most extensively planned slave rebellions, with the intention of forming an independent black state in Virginia. After other enslaved people shared details of his plot, Gabriel’s Rebellion was thwarted. He was later tried, found guilty and hanged.

As he approached the Brook Swamp beneath the city of Richmond, Va., Gabriel Prosser looked to the sky. Up above, the clouds coalesced into an impenetrable black, bringing on darkness and a storm the ferocity of which the region had scarcely seen. He may have cried and he may have prayed but the thing Gabriel did not do was turn back. He was expecting fire on this night and would make no concessions for the coming rain.

And he was not alone. A hundred men; 500 men; a thousand men had gathered from all over the state on this 30th day of August 1800. Black men, African men — men from the fields and men from the house, men from the church and the smithy — men who could be called many things but after this night would not be called slaves gathered in the flooding basin armed with scythes, swords, bayonets and smuggled guns.

One of the men tested the rising water, citing the Gospel of John: “For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.” But the water would not abate. As the night wore on and the storm persisted, Gabriel was overcome by a dawning truth: The Gospel would not save him. His army could not pass.

Gov. James Monroe was expecting them. Having returned from his appointment to France and built his sweeping Highland plantation on the periphery of Charlottesville, Monroe wrote to his mentor Thomas Jefferson seeking advice on his “fears of a negro insurrection.” When the Negroes Tom and Pharoah of the Sheppard plantation betrayed Gabriel’s plot on a Saturday morning, Monroe was not surprised. By virtue of the privilege bestowed upon him as his birthright, he was expecting them.

Gabriel Prosser was executed Oct. 10, 1800. Eighteen hundred; the year Denmark Vesey bought his freedom, the year of John Brown’s and Nat Turner’s births. As he awaited the gallows near the foot of the James River, Gabriel could see all that was not to be — the first wave of men tasked to set fire to the city perimeter, the second to fell a city weakened by the diversion; the governor’s mansion, James Monroe brought to heel and served a lash for every man, woman and child enslaved on his Highland plantation; the Quakers, Methodists, Frenchmen and poor whites who would take up with his army and create a more perfect union from which they would spread the infection of freedom — Gabriel saw it all.

He even saw Tom and Pharoah, manumitted by the government of Virginia, a thousand dollars to their master as recompense; a thousand dollars for the sabotage of Gabriel’s thousand men. He did not see the other 25 men in his party executed. Instead, he saw Monroe in an audience he wanted no part of and paid little notice to. For Gabriel Prosser the blacksmith, leader of men and accepting no master’s name, had stepped into the troubled water. To the very last, he was whole. He was free.

Barry Jenkins was born and raised in Miami. He is a director and writer known for his adaptation of James Baldwin’s “If Beale Street Could Talk” and “Moonlight,” which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Photo illustration by Jon Key. House: Sergey Golub via Wikimedia. Landscape, right: Peter Traub via Wikimedia.

⬤ Jan. 1, 1808

Fiction by Jesmyn Ward

In 1808, the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves went into effect, banning the importation of enslaved people from abroad. But more than one million enslaved people who could be bought and sold were already in the country, and the breaking up of black families continued.

The whisper run through the quarters like a river swelling to flood. We passed the story to each other in the night in our pallets, in the day over the well, in the fields as we pulled at the fallow earth. They ain’t stealing us from over the water no more. We dreamed of those we was stolen from: our mothers who oiled and braided our hair to our scalps, our fathers who cut our first staffs, our sisters and brothers who we pinched for tattling on us, and we felt a cool light wind move through us for one breath. Felt like ease to imagine they remained, had not been stolen, would never be.

That be a foolish thing. We thought this later when the first Georgia Man come and roped us. Grabbed a girl on her way for morning water. Snatched a boy running to the stables. A woman after she left her babies blinking awake in their sack blankets. A man sharpening a hoe. They always came before dawn for us chosen to be sold south.

We didn’t understand what it would be like, couldn’t think beyond the panic, the prying, the crying, the begging and the screaming, the endless screaming from the mouth and beyond. Sounding through the whole body, breaking the heart with its volume. A blood keen. But the ones that owned and sold us was deaf to it. Was unfeeling of the tugging the children did on their fathers’ arms or the glance of a sister’s palm over her sold sister’s face for the last time. But we was all feeling, all seeing, all hearing, all smelling: We felt it for the terrible dying it was. Knowed we was walking out of one life and into another. An afterlife in a burning place.

The farther we marched, the hotter it got. Our skin grew around the rope. Our muscles melted to nothing. Our fat to bone. The land rolled to a flat bog, and in the middle of it, a city called New Orleans. When we shuffled into that town of the dead, they put us in pens. Fattened us. Tried to disguise our limps, oiled the pallor of sickness out of our skins, raped us to assess our soft parts, then told us lies about ourselves to make us into easier sells. Was told to answer yes when they asked us if we were master seamstresses, blacksmiths or lady’s maids. Was told to disavow the wives we thought we heard calling our names when we first woke in the morning, the husbands we imagined lying with us, chest to back, while the night’s torches burned, the children whose eyelashes we thought we could still feel on our cheeks when the rain turned to a fine mist while we stood in lines outside the pens waiting for our next hell to take legs and seek us out.

Trade our past lives for new deaths.

Jesmyn Ward is the author of “Sing, Unburied, Sing,” which won a National Book Award. She was a 2017 MacArthur fellow. Photo illustration by Jon Key. Landscape: Peter Traub via Wikimedia.

⬤ July 27, 1816

A poem by Tyehimba Jess

In 1816, American troops attacked Negro Fort, a stockade in Spanish Florida established by the British and left to the Black Seminoles, a Native American nation of Creek refugees, free black people and fugitives from slavery. Nearly all the soldiers, women and children in the fort were killed.

They weren’t headed north to freedom —

They fled away from the North Star,

turned their back on the Mason-Dixon line,

put their feet to freedom by fleeing

further south to Florida.

Ran to where ’gator and viper roamed

free in the mosquito swarm of Suwannee.

They slipped out deep after sunset,

shadow to shadow, shoulder to shoulder,

stealthing southward, stealing themselves,

steeling their souls to run steel

through any slave catcher who’d dare

try stealing them back north.

They billeted in swamp mud,

saw grass and cypress —

they waded through waves

of water lily and duckweed.

They thinned themselves in thickets

and thorn bush hiding their young

from thieves of black skin marauding

under moonlight and cloud cover.

Many once knew another shore

an ocean away, whose language,

songs, stories were outlawed

on plantation ground. In swampland,

they raised flags of their native tongues

above whisper smoke

into billowing bonfires

of chant, drum and chatter.

They remembered themselves

with their own words

bleeding into English,

bonding into Spanish,

singing in Creek and Creole.

With their sweat

forging farms in

unforgiving heat,

never forgetting scars

of the lash, fighting

battle after battle

for generations.

Creeks called them Seminole

when they bonded with renegade Creeks.

Spaniards called them cimarrones,

runaways — escapees from Carolina

plantation death-prisons.

English simply called them maroons,

flattening the Spanish to make them

seem alone, abandoned, adrift —

but they were bonded,

side by side,

Black and Red,

in a blood red hue —

maroon.

Sovereignty soldiers,

Black refugees,

self-abolitionists, fighting

through America’s history,

marooned in a land

they made their own,

acre after acre,

plot after plot,

war after war,

life after life.

They fought only

for America to let them be

marooned — left alone —

in their own unchained,

singing,

worthy

blood.

Tyehimba Jess is a poet from Detroit who teaches at the College of Staten Island. He is the author of two books of poetry, “Leadbelly” and “Olio,” for which he received the 2017 Pulitzer Prize. Photo illustration by Jon Key. Cypress: Ron Clausen via Wikimedia

#african american history #american history #history #poetry #1619 #1619project

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