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bruhnze · 3 months

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Apple tarts and tiramisu - Lucy Bronze x reader

Lucy Bronze x Barista!reader

Summary: this story takes place in 2022, when Lucy just moved to Barcelona, all fictional of course.

SMUT - MINORS DNI

Wordcount: 10k+ because i yap too much

Apple tarts and tiramisu

It was Monday 7:00, you had an opening shift and was already in the shop for a good half an hour to get the machines starting and take the chairs of the tables. You had opened the doors of the small coffee shop and the still fairly cool Barcelona air blew in. The shop was quite popular by the locals but not really known by others, there was a fairly steady customer base, there were also some offices nearby, from where business people sometimes came in for a coffee or lunch.

But your favorite customers were the football players of FC Barcelona, the coffee shop was down the street from the building where the club offered its players a house if they were international players or came from far inside of Spain.

In the middle of the morning rush an unfamiliar face walked in.

‘’¿Qué puedo hacer por ti?’’ (what can I get you) You said.

‘’Lo siento,’’ the beautiful women said in broken Spanish but with a nice accent ‘’todavía no hablo español, puedes hablar inglés’’ (Sorry, I can’t speak Spanish yet, do you speak English?)

‘’Oh yes, ofcourse’’ you smiled ‘’what can I get you?’’

‘’An iced matcha latte with soy milk please’’ The women said.

‘’Good choice’’ you stated ‘’finally something else then these café solos and cortados, and what is your name?’’

‘’Lucy’’ the women said smiling as she paid and walked to the other side of the counter were your colleague was making and handing out the drinks.

You went on to help the next costumers but not without watching ‘lucy’ as you just found out her name was, getting her drink after her name was called.

Lucy walked away with her drink and you couldn’t help but think about what brought her in, you thought she might be a tourist, even though at first you hadn’t expected that she couldn't speak Spanish, she didn't look like a tourist.

////

It went on like that for a couple of days, Lucy came in every morning that week. You worked Monday to Friday and had the weekend off, when you opened the shop again the next Monday you found yourself hoping to see the English lady again.

The past Thursday you had learned that she was English, that morning she had come in a little later and the shop was quiet, while you made her order you two had chatted, you asked how her pronunciation could sound so good if she could not speak Spanish, then she said that she could speak French and a bit of Portuguese and of course English, and that she was learning Spanish for her job, she had told you she moved from England to Spain for her job.

You hoped she would be in at the end of the morning again and not during the morning rush.

A few hours went by and you hadn’t had the time to wonder about her again because this Monday morning had been very busy and it seemed like about the whole office from across the street wanted a coffee today.

But then she walked in, and this time with a cute little white furred four-legged friend.

‘’Hola guapas’’ you laughed ‘’who have you brought with you, what a cutieee’’.

Lucy smiled ‘’hello, y/n, this is Narla, she is my dog’’

‘’Aw, why haven’t I seen her before!’’

‘’Well I didn’t know if the shop was pet friendly but this weekend I saw someone else with their dog in here so I thought it was okay’’ Lucy shyly admitted.

‘’Oh Lucy, you could’ve asked you know,.. also’’ you said as you pointed to the chalk mural behind you ‘’look, pup-cup and bowl of water $0,00’’ you read ‘’we love perritos here’’. (perritos = dogs)

‘’that’s nice, I bet she would love a pup-cup’ Lucy said, ‘’but also, I can only bring Narla when I have a day off, yesterday I played so today we have the day off’’ she turned to the dog ‘’right Narla, we are gonna have so much fun walking around Barcelona, don’t we’’ she said in a high-pitched voice, like most people do when they talk to their pet.

‘’Ahh’’, you said, ‘��now it makes sense’’

Lucy looked up ‘’huh?’’

‘’You’re a football player?’’ you smiled ‘’right?’’

‘’Yeah, I just signed for Barcelona, but what makes sense then?’’ she smiled questioning.

‘’Oh’’ you blushed only now realizing that you had kind of admitted that you had been thinking about her ‘’It makes sense that you know different languages and that you have come to this coffee shop every day, you probably live in one of the Barca apartments here’’

‘’Oh dear, you’re not going to stalk me, are ya?’ Lucy chuckled, partly laughing about your flushed cheeks.

You spilled a bit of the soy milk you were pouring, ‘’oh god no, sorry, I just- I- , we have a lot of barca players coming in, it is known that there are players live here, they come in quit often actually’’

‘Haha, don’t worry, I was just kidding, I actually got recommended this coffee shop by one of the girls, and actually, I kind of figured you already knew, which I guess makes me kind off a dick, so—’

‘’Nah, you’re not a dick, you're really nice, actually, can I offer you an apple tart? Its on the house, its homemade and it has no sugar in it, but it's not disgusting like the healthy junk’’

Lucy smiled broadly ‘’food is always good’’ , ‘’and with that description you have made me curious, so yes please’’

‘’Good’’ you said ‘’you can take a chair outside or here’’ pointing to the tables inside the shop ‘’or would you rather have it to go?’’

‘’Hmm’’ Lucy said while thinking about it, ‘’guess ill take a chair in the sun, I have the day off after all, might as well take it to the fullest’’

‘’ Yes, I would do that too, good choice, here is your matcha latte’’ you said as you handed her the cup ‘’I will bring the rest to your table in a second’’

‘’Thank you’’ Lucy said as she walked outside.

Two other costumers came in and you helped them, they wanted two coffees to go. After that the shop was empty again.

After a bit you came out with a little cup of whipped cream for the dog and the apple tarte for Lucy. ‘’There you go’’

‘’Oh thank you, that looks good, did you make that yourself?’’

‘’Nahhh’’ you said ‘’my mother made it, this is her cafe actually’’

‘’Ah, that was that beautiful woman behind the counter this weekend’’ Lucy said playfully.

You pushed her shoulder ‘’hey’’

‘’what’’ she acted offended ‘’can’t I call people beautiful? I thought that was nice, also I reckon you said ‘’hola guapas’’ just now, and although my Spanish is not very good yet, I do happen to know what that means’’.

You laughed now too ‘’yeah yeah , I guess if I said that, you can do that too’’.

Then Lucy asked you boldly ‘’Do you perhaps have a bit of time to sit with me? Or do you have to get back to work?’’

‘’I guess I can, shop is empty, but if someone comes I’ll have to go’’ you said as you took the seat next to her.

‘’How come you can speak English so well?’’ She asked you after the two of you had chatted for a bit.

‘’oh that’s a good story actually, I studied to be an English teacher, and after I graduated I did that for 2 years, but then my mom got the opportunity to open a bakery, but she couldn’t find people to hire for this shop, so she wanted to turn it down, when I heard that I resigned and now I work here every workday so my mom can bake’’

‘Wow’ Lucy said after her mouth was empty, while you had told your story she had eaten half of the tart ‘’I love that you did that, because this tastes amazing’’ ‘’but if I understand correctly, your mother works every day, seven days a week, isn’t that tiring?’’

‘’Yeah’’ you laugh ‘’but you don’t know her, she is inexhaustible, sometimes I think she has adhd, but lately it has gotten better with staff, she hired more people, she even went on a holiday this summer, she hadn’t done that in like 5 years.’’

You talked some more and it also touched on Lucy's own experience with adhd, you found out that she had recently been diagnosed, but that it helped Lucy to exercise and since that was literally her job, she said it didn't bother her that much on a day to day base. When new customers arrived, Lucy thanked you and you gave her a tip about a nice spot with a fountain and some greenery before she walked off.

////

This is how it went for a few weeks, Lucy came to get a matcha to go before her training or if she was free a matcha and an apple tart, sometimes she came in with others.

This day she hadn’t come in, it was already quit late in the afternoon and then you saw almost the whole Barcelona femenino squad rounding the corner.

You had just wiped the whole counter and had put everything away, ready to close the coffee shop for siesta time.

One of them entered the shop, and talked to you in Spanish ‘’Hey I was wondering if we could eat lunch here? I know it’s really late but our team had some meetings which were running very late, so the kitchen at the complex was already closed and Lucia suggested that we could eat something here, but we see now that you are already closing things down so I thought I would ask’’.

‘’Lucia?’’ You asked

‘’Yeah, she is one of our new players, English, there’’ she said, while pointing at the dark haired defender ‘’honestly she doesn’t shut up about the apple tarts here’’

Lucy had walked in after seeing Alexia point at her. But you stood with your back to the door, talking to the football player so you didn’t see her walking up.

‘’ohhh Lucy, does she go by Lucia, I thought it was Lucy’’ you said back in spanish.

‘’Both is fine actually’’ Lucy said behind you ‘’but why are we discussing my name when we could be eating pastries’’. She laughed.

You turned around, also laughing ‘’haha, yes sorry, tell them to come in and then you all can order’’

Not Lucy but Alexia walked away to get the teammates.

You asked ‘’so Lucia huh?’’

Lucy smiled ‘’Haha, both is acceptable, I mean on my passport is Lucia, but I guess because I grew up in England it just got Lucy and my dad was the only one calling me Lucia, but the Spanish girls like Lucia more I think, they all call me that’’.

‘’What do you like to be called the most?’’ You asked as the teammates were walking in and took chairs from the tables and handed out the few menus from the counter to each other.

Mariona called over ‘’Lucy you coming? You can sit here, what did you recommend again, I forgot what it was called’’.

‘’Oh I better go help her, but honestly I bet we could order anything and it’ll be tasty’’ she walked past you and whispered "but to answer your question, guapa is nice"

For a second you had to think about what she meant, but then it dawned on you, she had just told you she liked it when you called her guapa. Was she flirting? You thought and actually you hoped so, because if you were honest, the English lady was one of the most common topic of thoughts these last few weeks.

////

You had taken everyone’s orders and you now stood working behind the counter with the background sound of laughter and different conversations.

When the coffee was simmering, you grabbed the baked goods that had been ordered. While laying everything on plates on the tray you caught eyes with Lucy, she looked away quickly and pretended to listen to the conversations around her.

You kept looking at her while plating the baking’s and when she looked at you again you winked at her. Her cheeks flushed and she looked away again.

You grabbed the two trays and handed out the plates to everyone, ending at Lucy, ‘’the drinks are coming right up’’ you said in Spanish and repeated in English looking at Lucy.

‘’Nah’’ Salma said ‘’we say everything in Spanish to her, she wants to learn and she has to’’.

‘’Ah, español para la defensora inglesa, lo tengo’’ (ah, spanish for the english defender, got it) you joked.

‘’thanks Salma, I had just found someone in the city to whom I could speak normal English and not have to speak super slow and now you also order her to speak Spanish to me’’ Lucy groaned jokingly

‘’Sorry babe, pero tienes que aprenderlo’’ Salma said. (you have to learn it)

Everyone laughed and got caught up back in their own conversations.

You held Lucy’s shoulder ‘’we can stick to English if you really want that, but I was just thinking if you would like I can tutor you in Spanish, I normally teach English but I can teach you Spanish’’

You didn’t wait for an answer and quickly went back to the bar to serve everyone their drinks before you slipped in the back and started on some long overdue tasks that your mom had asked you to do a month ago but that were just boring storage chores.

After a good hour you went back in the shop, you still heard the girls talking and no one had pushed the call button on the counter so you knew the team was still occupied, you were freezing because the last 15 minutes you had spent in the freezer room doing inventory. With the clip board you went back behind the counter, ticking everything in to the laptop that was stood open.

‘’Hello’’

You recognized the voice before you looked up, it was Lucy.

‘’hola guapa’’ you joked after seeing she was stood by herself.

‘’oh yeah, spanish, so you were serious on your offer?’’

‘’Que’’ you pretended to not know English anymore.

‘’Eh .. me gusta .. acepte tu oferte .. oferta?.’’ (I would like to accept your offer about those lessons).

You smiled while you correct her ‘’Me gustaría aceptar tu oferta’’ “But okay, if we start doing lessons, we can keep Spanish for the lessons and stick to English for now”

‘’Thanks, it’s not fair really, the Spanish lessons I get are all about football and things around that, I cant really get by in real life with that knowledge’’ She huffed.

You got your phone out ‘’okay so when are you free, for me the weekend or evenings work best’’.

Lucy stared at you.

‘’The Spanish lesson?’’

‘’ah yeah’’ Lucy laughed nervously and also took her phone out of her pocket ‘’uhm, Saturday evening? I have a match in the afternoon so I have to rest after that,. but we can do it sitting down right?’’ She tried to joke but it came out sounding more cheeky then she had meant and she blushed immediately, ‘’I mean like we will not be running’’ she hastily added.

You laughed but replied bold ‘’Yes, we can do it sitting down and we will go really slow’’ but then added ‘’because fast Spanish is very hard to understand ofcourse’’.

Lucy got more at ease, realizing you didn’t mind her flirting even if it had come out unintentionally.

‘’Maybe we can text about the details?’’ Lucy asked handing her phone with the contacts open, ready for you to put your info in.

‘’Ah are you asking me for my number’’ you joked

‘’for educational purposes only’’ she stated ‘’and maybe to ask if the teacher would mind doing the lesson over some dinner?’’

‘’Dinner, that sounds nice’’ handing the phone back ‘’okay, just text me the details, I’ll be there, . with textbooks’’.

‘’Okay’’ Lucy said and turned around to go back to the tables.

You went back to the computer and wanted to get back to what you were doing until you heard her again.

‘’Oh I almost forgot I also came here to pay’’ she chuckled.

You laughed and typed something into the cash register before turning the card reader towards her. ´’easily distracted?’’

She typed in pin after tapping her card against the machine and murmured ‘’not easily but with pretty girls around, yes’’

‘’Oh I thought it was your adhd’’ you replied back

Lucy laughed ‘’oh yeah, maybe I should’ve gone with that’’

The register showed the little green check making clear that the payment was successful ‘’No, I think I like our little tradition,. Guapa’’ you said while handing her the receipt.

Lucy laughed ‘’Okay ill keep that in mind, thank you’’ while she took the receipt from you, her fingers brushed lightly against yours ‘’also thank you so much for staying open for us and making the kitchen dirty again, im sorry about that’’.

‘Haha, don’t worry, it was my pleasure, I hope everybody liked their food’’

////

The days went by pretty quickly, Lucy had texted you a few hours after the team had left the shop and after every time she had gotten a matcha latte she had texted you how good it was.

Today was matchday, also the day that you were going to teach her some Spanish over dinner.

Going from a teacher to a barista made you a bit more broke, a gap that you tried to overcome with some freelance tutoring and some translating jobs here and there, but one big improvement was the free time that had come with the change.

No more papers to grade, no more lessons to prepare. So now, just like every other weekend, you were done with breakfast and was thinking about what you could do this day.

After you had done some cleaning around the apartment, which was already pretty tidy and you had done the laundry, you suddenly thought about your ´date´ tonight, you plopped on your bed and texted your best friend.

@y/n: i met someone cute and tonight im gonna teach her Spanish , help what do I wear??

*incoming FaceTime*

You accepted laughing.

‘’What the actual fuck y/n!!’’ your best friend said.

‘’What?’’ You said, still laughing.

‘’No, don’t play games with me, I hear nothing for like two weeks from you, the last time we spoke was at the gym if I remember correctly, and here I was thinking, oh im sure she’s busy with some project again, damn maybe even helping out her mom, and now I find out you were withholding me from this information, share the details, now!!’’

‘’Hahaha, Im sorry, you know how I get, I forget everything around me when im busy’’

‘’yeah okay, now hurry up tell me everything’’

‘’I love that about our friendship, that we—

‘’Y/N! who , what, where, when? ‘’

‘’Okay okay, I met her in the coffee shop, she came in one day and since then she came in everyday, I found out she just moved here from England for her job, first I didn’t know what she did, then I found out she is a football player, because she told me, and a few weeks later she didn’t come in that morning but in the afternoon the whole team came in because they hadn’t eaten yet, so I took em in, while the shop was closed, then they were teasing her a bit about having to learn Spanish faster even though she just came to this country, and she does not even bad, I mean she has the accent under control, but she told me she is half Portuguese and also she speaks French…

You looked at your phone again, halfway through your ramble you had started staring out the window as you spoke, now you saw your best friend looking at you with her mouth open.

‘’what?’’ you asked ‘’did I say something crazy?’’

‘’Lucy Bronze?’’ She asked ‘’I think you spoke with Lucy Bronze’’

‘’Yeah she is called Lucy, funny how do you know that, although,, the team calls her Lucia actually and… she told me.. I could call her guapa’’.

‘’Wow, I mean, I know you said the Barca player visit your shop, hell, I even met some off them when I was there, but like, damn, you picked up one, and I will tell you how I know her name, she is one off the best players in the world, y/n damn, she won best player of the world did you even know that, also what? Guapa?’’

You explained everything with even more detail and when your friend was finally happy with everything she knew, she asked ‘’so you know she has a game this afternoon right?’’

‘’Yeah’’ you said ‘’I will watch that I guess, if I figure out how I can, you watch It right, can you explain how I can watch that, is it a tv channel?’’

‘’Bruh’’ your friend scolded ‘’I have tried to convince you so many times to watch with me, and now one hottie comes around and you do it in a second’’

‘’You should’ve told me the players were hot , I just thought you were watching for your PE teacher reasons, inspiration for your classes or something’’ you said.

‘’You have them in your shop every week y/n, you see by yourself how they look’’

‘’yeah I just hadn’t thought about it like that’’ you said ‘’wait what did you say her name was again, im on my laptop on Instagram, I want to look at her page’’

‘’Lucy B .. R.. O .. N..

‘’Ah, got it’’ you called out ‘’woah, she has a lot of followers jeez, hey you follow her’’

‘’Yeah, ever since she played at Lyon, that was really her prime, she was so good, she still is, but you know her age and everything..’’

‘’Age?’’ you asked ‘’and everything?’’

‘’She has had like 7 knee operations, and she is 31 I believe, in football that’s old., wait actually she is 31.. isn’t that a bit old for you?’’’

You thought about it ‘’well im 25, so I guess that’s fine, damn, is she really that old? She made a younger impression, hadn’t guessed’’

‘’haha, you should tell her that, in that order too, no actually I think I once saw in an interview that her age was a sensitive point for her, so maybe don't bring it up’’

You laughed ‘’pfft, im not not going to talk about such things, if her ego is to big or she has weird quirks im out’’ ‘’she is hot tho, damn, I scrolled down to far I think, Im now seeing a bikini pic, she has abs for days damn..’’

‘’well she sure is fit’’ your best friend said ‘’if I were gay I would want to bang her too’’

‘’Oh mierda’’ you called out ‘’fuck I liked it accidentally’’

Your best friend was dying of laughter ‘’guess she will very clearly know your intentions now’’

‘’Okay I followed her also and liked the top three pics as well, she probably wont even notice, with so many followers she surely wont have notifications on right?’’

‘’Yeah true’’ your friend said, serious again.

*@never2old4lionking started following you*

‘’huh’’ you said

‘’what’’

‘’some -never too old for lionking- followed me, its an account with like 550 followers and 500 following, im guessing it’s a) Lucy herself or b) a lucy stalker, what do you think?’’

‘’yeah stalker probably,, or maybe its like an secret account, because she is famous and all that, she cant follow her side chicks on her main’’

‘’Oh shut up’’ you huffed ‘’you pest, you-

You got interrupted by a dm, ‘’wait they send me something’’

@never2old4lionking: hola, you like my pictures? -L (maybe better known as guapa to you)

‘’OMG , it is her! Look’’ you screamed, and showed your laptop screen to your phone.

‘’Wow, reply!’’ your friend said ‘’just say you were curious about how you could watch the game because you don’t know how too and that’s why you looked her up’’

‘’Okay, lame excuse, but my brain is currently not working’’ you sighed as you typed something like that to Lucy.

@never2old4lionking: aw here I was, thinking you fancied me, and you were just looking for dodgy streaming links ☹

@y/n: why do think I was looking up how to watch, I have never watched a game, never knew there were hot people involved

@never2old4lionking: I thought you said the players are regulars at the coffee shop

@y/n: Do you have a link or what?

@never2old4lionking: I have tickets?

@y/n: what?

@never2old4lionking: its an at home game, so its around the block, just come and watch irl,

@never2old4lionking: I’ve heard the players look even better irl than on the screen 😉

@y/n: well if you put it like that..

@never2old4lionking: 1 or 2 tickets?

@y/n: I thought you were playing 😉

@never2old4lionking: hahah, your so funny! I mean do you want to take a friend with you?

‘’Say yes, say yes’’ your friend practically screamed as she heard you reading the conversation out loud while typing.

‘’Okay then’’

@y/n: ah, yes that would be nice, I have a PE teacher friend, they love football, she would be thrilled

@never2old4lionking: okay, I’ll send the e-tickets to you on WhatsApp, you sit In the friends and family section, ill try if I can spot you!

@y/n: watching my first football game live and in the family&friends section is something I would’ve never guessed

@never2old4lionking: first- like ever????

@y/n: yeah? Something wrong?

@never2old4lionking: yes? You have a friend that loves football, as you say, and you have never watched??

‘’See, I like her already, I told you sooooo manyyy times, just watch’’ your friend said excited.

‘’I can stop reading?’’

‘’ No no, okay ill shut up’’

@y/n: yeah, she asked me so many times to watch with her, she will probably either kill me when I tell her this or she’ll be your biggest fan, for getting me to watch

@never2old4lionking: hope the latter, need you alive tonight x

@y/n: yes exactly, Spanish lessons are v important ! I’ll tell her that.

@never2old4lionking: okay, ill see you soon, if anything doesn’t work just say you come for me, ill put your names on my list of guests

You shared your and your friends name and put your laptop off and away, ‘’ so now we can go back to what I was texting you about originally , outfits, but now thanks to you I have an extra event, not only teaching spanish but also watching her play, I don’t even have a barca shirt’’

‘’which is crazy by the way’’ your friend interrupted you ‘’but I have three, so you can borrow one, do you want a training shirt, a shirt with my name on the back or Putellas?’’

‘’Who is Putellas’’

‘’omg, wait ill send you a picture’’

…

‘’oh her!, yeah I like her, she asked if they could sit in the café, she is polite’’

‘’that’s the team captain- , ugh y/n I love you so much, do you know how many people would lose their shit by what just happened, getting tickets to watch them from an actual player’’

‘’okay calm down, they’re just people, and they happen to have a special job, but should I behave different then?’’

‘’no no, I think this only happens to you because you are so pure’’ your best friend said

‘’oh come on’’ you called out ‘’just say thank you for the ticket, not all this soppy shit please’’

////

After your friend and you had hung up, your mom had called if you wanted to eat at your parents tonight, you briefly explained the situation, telling her you were eating dinner at someone else’s house and the plan about teaching her some Spanish.

But your mother saw right through you as usual, "so a date" she said excitedly ‘’wait you should bring desert, I made tiramisu, ill drop it off right now’’

Before you could even begin to form an answer she had hung up, 15 minutes later your doorbell rang and a bit after that your mom was gone again and you had an entire glass tray of tiramisu in your fridge.

You texted her thanks with a red heart, knowing she was the best mother you could ever wish for.

Your mom replied, ‘’good luck, she’s cute, hope it goes well’’

You didn't understand why your mother would know she was 'cute' but replied 'thanks'

////

Your friend and you had gotten through all the entrances and security and were finally sitting on the seats assigned to you. You were both wearing a denim skirt and an FC Barcelona shirt.

The team was doing a warm up and there was music blasting trough the speakers ‘’damn’’ you said to your friend ‘’was it always such a spectacle, they are putting on a whole show’’

‘’I mean live in the stadium it’s a show yes, honestly I should’ve thought of this sceme wayyy earlier, what a master plan! You flirt with players, we get to go to the matches for free’’ she laughed.

‘’you can forget it bitch’’ you said pushing her side

‘’what’’ she innocently said ‘’if Bronze doesn’t work out you could try Putellas, she is fruity too, and your already wearing her name’’ she laughed at that last part.

You pushed your friend again ‘’well shut up otherwise this’ll be the first and last time , I didn’t want to wear your name, what if she thought you were my girlfriend’’ you fake gagged.

Now it was your friends turn to push you ‘there was another option you know, the training one’’.

‘’Okay maybe I want to provoke her a bit’’ you admitted.

Your friend looked at you stunned not even knowing what to say.

‘’what?’’ you shrugged ‘’it will be funny, and if not, then I know I wont have to waste time on her’’.

‘’And you wonder why you are single?’’

////

Your friends hand waved before your eyes , you blinked.

‘’hellooo y/n’’ ‘’ the ball is on the other side of the field you know’’ she whispered.

FC Barcelona was 4 nil ahead and currently in ball possession, but that was indeed not what you were looking at, you were looking at nr.15 who had pulled her shirt up to wipe her sweaty face and was now running forward again.

‘’Damn, did you see her abs’’ you quietly said

‘’Bruh y/n, since when are you such a horny mf’’ she quietly replied.

‘’Its been a while okay, but also she’s very hot, it cant just be me’’

‘’No there are thousands of thirstraps made about her’’ your friend laughed.

‘the what what?’’

‘’huh’’ she now looked at you ‘’you don’t know what those are?, oh you are in for a treat!’’

She quickly showed you some things on her phone.

‘’NO’’ you held a hand before your eyes ‘’í cant be watching this, this is not okay, I am supposed to meet the woman in a few hours, sit next to her and all that, eat dinner, teaching her Spanish, damn’’

‘’sorry’’ your friend said, putting her phone away and holding her hands in the air.

‘’Wait can I see it one more time’’.

‘’Nahhhh’’ she laughed, ‘’you are right, you have to act normal later, just watch her here, look’’

And you were just in time to see her score with an header assisted with a corner shot from Guijarro.

////

That evening, after you had changed at home, you rang Lucy’s doorbell with a stack of books in your hands.

‘’Hello pretty lady, come in’’ Lucy called trough the intercom.

On the table there was paella, you were sure she had ordered it, even recognizing were she had ordered it, because you loved that shop too.

‘’Sorry I didn’t have time to cook, I had this thing this afternoon’’ Lucy joked.

‘’Ah, no worries, I had a busy afternoon myself’’ you joked back.

‘’Yeah I tried to look for you but sadly didn’t see you, you did come right?’’

‘’Ofcourse, wouldn’t want to miss that header of yours, wait’’ you said as you got your phone ‘’ill show you pictures’’

You showed her the pictures of you and your friend, you paused when it was a photo with your back visible, look we had a really good view, ‘’thanks again for the tickets, my friend had the best time also’’.

‘’Nice shirt’’ lucy grinned ‘’didn’t have a better one?’’

‘’To be honest, I borrowed this shirt from my friend, I don’t own any football shirts'' you grinned ''but whats wrong with it, you don’t like your captains shirt?’’

‘’No you look good, bet you’ll look even better with Bronze on the back’’ Lucy said still grinning.

‘’Hm, I’ll think about it, maybe if she scores more beautiful goals like that, I’ll walk past the Barca store and grab one’’. You said, acting unbothered.

‘’Okay okay, challenge accepted, next goal I score, you will wear a Bronze shirt’’.

‘’Sure’’ you laughed.

////

The evening went on, the two of you ate and practiced some Spanish, the books hadn’t been opened at all, it was more like Lucy said sentences and you translated them into Spanish and she repeated them to you and then used them in context.

‘’And what is -you played well today-‘’ Lucy asked

‘’Do you just want me to say that to you?’’ you laughed

‘no no’ Lucy laughed ‘now it sounds really bad, yeah no, I want to say it to Aitana, she cant speak english at all really, now i just say bien bien bien to her every second, feeling like a fool’’..

‘’ah okay, its ‘‘jugaste bien hoy’’ you laughed.

Lucy said it a few times, you looked at her nodding because her pronunciation was perfect.

The two of you were sat at the same side of the table, turned in your seats, facing each other.

Then she said ‘’I really want to kiss you right now’’

‘’Okay, I don’t even want to know who you’ll be saying that to’’ you joked, but its "Tengo muchas ganas de besarte ahora mismo". You looked her in her eyes.

‘’si, me too’’ Lucy grinned as she leaned in.

You accepted the initiation and pressed your lips against hers. She tasted amazing and also a bit like the paella you just ate. She placed her hands on you, trying to get you closer. You obliged and scooted forward. After the gentle exploration of each others mouths you pulled away slowly ‘’hmm, that was nice’’ you said, smiling at her.

Lucy nodded and smiled back ‘’very'', ''and just for clarification, that last sentence I did just wanted you to say to me''. She said while turning her chair, so she had the back rest in her back again but was still facing you.

You leaned in again, smiling against her lips you whispered ‘’I figured’’ and you kissed her again.

Her hands found your hips again, trying to pull you even closer to her, which wasn’t possible because your legs where already pushed against hers. The kiss deepened and you had your hand on the back of Lucy’s head. She was still pulling you towards her, you pulled from her mouth and kissed along her jaw. ‘’Come here’’ Lucy said with a heavy voice. ‘’Are you sure?, aren’t your legs like… tired and in need for a rest?’’ you whispered in her ear and kissed it softly.

Lucy laughed and held your face in front of hers ‘’thank you for caring but I really want you to sit on my lap,’’ ‘if you want that too ofcourse’’

You got up on her lap ‘’I haven’t learned you a lot of Spanish and now I’m disturbing your recovery, I hope I don’t have a bad influence on you..’’ you said in a seducing voice pointing a finger in her chest.

‘’Well, it sounds bad when you list it like that, luckily the dinner went well, but maybe we should make an extra effort for dessert’’ she wiggled her eyebrows at you on the last part.

‘’Mierda!’’ you said as you stood up. ‘’Shit, dessert’’

‘’I’m sorry’’ she looked a bit shocked ‘’did I take it too far, too fast?’’

You took her hand and said ‘’no, no, sorry for scaring you, I just remembered when you said dessert, that I forgot the dessert, its still in my fridge at home, mom made it and wanted me to bring it’’.

‘’You talked with your mom about me?’’ she grinned as she stood up.

‘’yeah, well no, I said I was going to eat dinner somewhere else when she asked me to eat at home, and then she filled in herself that it was a date and then she dropped off a tiramisu and emphasized that I had to take it with me because she was sure my date would like it’’ you rolled your eyes at that last part ‘’but I forgot so I don’t even know why I bring it up’’.

‘’ugh, I love Elena’’ Lucy said ‘your mom is actually amazing you know’’.

‘’huhhh, how do you know my moms name???’’

Lucy chuckled ‘’the beautiful lady behind the counter in the weekends? Oh you know, we talk about our shared interests’’

‘’Like?’’ you asked, faking a stern look at Lucy.

Lucy chuckled again and closed the gap between the two of you ‘’just food, nice weather and you know.. you’’. She laughed ‘’funny story actually, this morning she asked me If I wanted to eat dinner with her and her husband, eh your dad, because I had inspired her to make tiramisu again but she had made 2 trays accidentally and now she had to much, but I said to her that I really liked the offer but that I had a dinner date tonight, but that wanted a raincheck, but that she didn’t understand,,.. speaking of that, how do I explain raincheck in Spanish’’

You laughed and gave her a quick kiss ‘’wait now her text makes sense’’.

‘’what did she say’’ Lucy asked excitedly.

‘’She’s cute, hope it goes well, . I wondered how she could ever know’’ when you saw her cocky smile you pushed her to her chest ‘’don’t let it go to your head stupid’’.

‘’Soooo, are we going to yours?’’ She asked.

‘’Well I guess if you want that dessert, then yeah’’ you said ‘’but the dessert you were talking about just now also sounds kinda good?’’

She gasped jokingly ‘’kinda good, you mean amazing, mind blowing, indescribable?’’

You laughed ‘’woooww, cocky much?’’

‘’Well I guess we should go to yours, then have both and you can rate it yourself’’ Lucy grinned.

////

The two of you were making out in the elevator but then the ‘ding’ sounded, that indicated you had reached the top floor, the floor of your apartment.

You had an apartment in the center of Barcelona, a quaint old building with nice high ceilings.

You opened the door and dropped your keys in the bowl that stood on the cupboard in the hallway.

‘’Wow’’ Lucy chimed ‘’this is nice, your place has so much character’’.

Your place had dark oak floors, and the accents of your interior were dark green with gold and orange accessories, there were plants here and there, including in the kitchen, where there were plants with edible leaves such as basil and chives. It was pleasantly cool in the apartment, not because of air conditioning but because the walls were so thick and all the window shutters had been closed all day.

‘’yeah i love this place, bought it a year ago through an acquaintance, I was really lucky getting it’’

Lucy smiled at you ‘’show me around?’’

////

After a while of looking at your view from the roof terrace you stood back in your bedroom, the air between the two of you thick with unanswered lust, as she stretched as you closed the balcony door you saw her abs as her t- shirt lifted up a little, she was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and you saw an edge of her underwear, she was wearing boxers, - god - you thought to yourself - she's so incredibly attractive- and you couldn't help but I thought back to the thirst trap your best friend had shown you that afternoon.

You left the key in the door and walked over to her "where were we" you said softly in her ear as your hand disappeared under her shirt.

‘’hmm’’ she groaned as you placed wet kisses from her ear to her neck.

She picked you up and walked to your bed, "I believe we were kissing in the elevator, but I guess we can continue here."

Lucy sat on the edge of the bed with you on your lap, you pulled her shirt over her head, she wanted to do this to you too but you stopped her when you suddenly remembered that you hadn't put on any sexy underwear at all, you had wearing comfortable underwear that you had been wearing all day and when you changed to go to Lucy's for dinner you had only changed your clothes.

‘’Wait’’ you said ‘’i- im, I think im a bit underdressed’’ and your cheeks got red.

Lucy laughed ‘’and I thought your English was perfect, do you mean overdressed? because that's exactly what I wanted to help you with’’

You chuckled and held her shoulders, then you spoke in an uncertain voice ‘I mean my underwear, I’m wearing an ugly pair, I hadn’t really planned this far ahead’’.

Lucy brushed some hair out of your face, ''what do you want me to do, I'm sure whatever you wear you look perfect, but if you want me to do something or nothing, just say so, just talk to me pretty girl’’

You looked down and saw Lucy's beautiful body, she was wearing a black bra that fit perfectly around her breasts and below that her bulging abs were visible ‘’is it stupid if I put on lingerie now and then come back to you?’’

‘’I mean, you don’t have to do it for me, but if it gives you confidence I’m all for it’’ Lucy said as she took your hands from her shoulders ‘’or I can just undress you very quickly with my eyes closed’’ she smirked.

‘’Oh really, you don’t want to see, is that how much you care?’’ You teased pretending to be offended and crossing your arms.

She tickled you , making you squirm in her lap, you ducked to the side, onto the bed, and tried to crawl away from her.

‘’Okay okay, I surrender!!!’’ you screamed out laughing into the bed, almost running out of oxygen.

She rolled off of you and was now lying next to you on her side, you also turned to your side and you looked at each other, when your eyes met you both burst out laughing.

You stood up and she looked at you confused, ''give me one second'' you said to her, while quickly pulling a dark blue lingerie set from your closet drawer and disappearing into the bathroom.

That evening you wore tanned shorts and a matching blouse, both made of linen, with a very light green tank top underneath. You quickly took it all off and put on the blue set, then you just put your blouse over it, not caring to put on the pants and top anymore.

You opened the sliding bathroom door again and saw Lucy now lying straight on the bed, leaning on her elbows, with an expectant look in your direction. When she saw you, without pants, she sat up. You already walked over to her and climbed onto the bed until you were sitting on her lap again, for the third time this evening.

When your blouse, which you had not buttoned, fell open, her eyes took in your body.

''It's rude to stare'' you whispered as her gaze was still rested on your body.

She looked up, and you swore you recognized a twinkle in her eyes, ‘’sorry’’ Lucy said ‘’we talked about this before, pretty girls being distracting and all that’’.

You kissed her and pushed her back, forcing her to lay down again, after a hungry kiss your lips wandered to her jaw, neck, chest, then you removed her bra, she quickly cooperated.

You licked her nipples and placed some kisses along both boobs. You kissed lower and lower and landed at her stomach. You licked the lines of her toned muscles and sloppely kissed all the way to her hip bones.

She was still wearing pants, when you looked up you saw Lucy leaning on her elbows watching what you were doing, you raised your eyebrows as a form of asking for consent, she nodded eagerly, her eyes were full of lust and her pupils were dilated.

You undid the button of her pants and unzipped them, she already lifted her hips up to give you room to take off the shorts. Then you saw the black Calvin Klein boxers, with the white elastic band that you had seen a small glimpse of before, a dark spot was visible between her legs.

You placed your hands on the inside of her thighs and leaned towards her face for another kiss.

When your tongue slipped inside her mouth and your hands went a little higher up on her legs, she let out a low moan.

She tried to push the blouse you were still wearing off your shoulders, you took it off while you were still kissing and flung it somewhere next to the bed, you took of her underpants.

Lucy tried to flip the two of you ‘’nuh uh’’ you laughed after you broke the kiss and looked at her. ‘’don’t be impatient, let me make you feel good’’. You repositioned yourself so only one of your legs was in between Lucy’s and as you started kissing her neck again you pushed your knee against her core. Lucy groaned and her hips started moving, searching for some friction.

Leaving a trail of kisses along her body, you find yourself between her legs, you kissed her hips, thighs, groin, slowly working to her aching, throbbing pussy.

Lucy's hand found its place in your hair, she didn't hold it very tight but tight enough to direct your head to where she needed it most.

You decided you had teased her enough and started working with your tongue, after a few minutes she was a moaning mess, you licked her clit and also wanted to use your hand to satisfy her but you didn't know if she would like that so you looked up and asked "can I use my fingers?"

Lucy, who had laid her head down on the pillow, looked at you between her legs, your chin was glistening and there was a glint of lust in your eyes, which combined with you asking for consent could make her cum on the spot.

‘’mhmm’’ lucy moaned, her eyes rolling back ‘’please y/n, use your fingers’’.

In a few minutes you made her come, you had noticed that she wasn't really loud in the bedroom, well, of course you hadn't seen that much yet but so far it was only low groans and moans and the few words they had exchanged, you found it exciting when she had said your name and wanted to hear more.

So as you worked Lucy through her orgasm, you started to build up again, moving your fingers from circling her clit, back to inside her. Deserving a moan.

You brought your mouth back to her clit and hummed against it tasting her again. You sucked and licked, trying to discern from her reactions what made her feel best.

You took your time slowly working her up again, taking into account that she was still sensitive from the first orgasm.

When you found a good rhythm and did something that really worked for lucy, her grip on your hair tightened, "like that y/n’’ she said in a shrill voice.

Hearing your name from her mouth again was exactly what you needed and you pushed her over the edge again.

This time she came harder than the last, her legs clenched around your face, after her high, you gradually slowed your rhythm and cleaned her with your tongue.

You crawled up, because you wanted to kiss her again, and saw that she had a hand in front of her face, you pulled it aside and saw her with a completely blown out face, her cheeks were pink, her forehead was clammy and her eyes held complete bliss.

‘’Can I kiss you’’ you asked, not knowing if she would want to taste herself.

She looked at you smiling ‘’Of course you can, pretty girl’’.

‘’So… tiramisu?’’ Lucy asked as she pulled away from the kiss slowly regaining her consciousness.

‘’yeah’’ you said with a little disappointment in your voice, secretly hoping that she would give you something in return.

Lucy laughed, she had hoped this would be your reaction, now knowing that you wanted her as much as she wanted you, she said ''because I need some fuel for later'' and gave you one more kiss.

You threw a t-shirt and some briefs at her and walked to the kitchen, you were still wearing the blue underwear yourself, you put up your hair in a bun but you didn't put any clothes back on, enjoying Lucy's eyes roaming your body.

The cool air in the kitchen made your nipples hard, while you grabbed the tiramisu from the fridge and served it up, Lucy sat down at the cooking island on one of the stools.

"This feels like a dream" she said swooning, you looked up and asked "a dream?"

"Yes" she said, her eyes glued to your breasts "I'm in Barcelona with the prettiest lady I've ever seen, who just made me cum twice and now she's serving me the best tiramisu I will ever eat."

You laughed ‘’first of all, my eyes are up here’’ Lucy looked at you smugly ‘’and second of all , you haven’t even taste-

Before she could say another word Lucy had put a spoon full of the dessert into her mouth, her eyes rolled back dramatically and she moaned ‘’soooo delicious, definitelyy the best tiramisu I've eeever had’’.

You couldn't suppress your laugh, ''okay, even better, I was going to rate the two desserts, remember?’’ ‘’You don't like losing right, so you'll have to try your very best’’ you teased.

‘’i guess so’’ she smirked.

…

When you put the tray back in the refrigerator and put the plates in the dishwasher and was getting a cloth to wipe the counter, you felt Lucy coming up behind you.

She kissed your neck, while her hands held your hips, she whispered against your skin "I'm full of energy again" she kissed you just behind your ear, you shivered "how are you feeling?" Lucy asked.

‘’g- great’’ you muttered as Lucy pressed her front into your back.

‘’I forgot were your bedroom was, could you show me again’’ she whispered.

You giggled and turned around in her arms "got distracted during the tour?"

‘’Yeah like I told you before, pretty girls and all that’’ Lucy said to you and kissed you, she tasted like cacao and cream, you jumped a little when you were suddenly lifted up and grabbed onto Lucy tightly ‘’I got you’’ she said.

She walked you to the bed and carefully laid you down, you grinned at her.

‘’What?’’ Lucy asked suddenly a bit shy.

‘’You apparently knew where the bedroom was after all, I hope pretty girl wasn’t a lie..’’ you fake pouted.

‘’such a pretty girl’’ Lucy said as she sat on her knees between your legs, she looked at your breasts while her hands trailed up and down your thighs.

‘’do you like them?’’ you chuckled.

Lucy shifted her gaze to meet your eyes, she looked confused ‘’them?’’

‘’My tits’’ you said placing a hand on your chest ‘’you keep looking at them’’ you say still chuckling.

‘’hmm I don’t know, I haven’t met them properly’’ Lucy said resting her eyes back on your boobs.

That statement turned your chuckle into a laugh, you sat up a bit more and took of your bra, you laid down again, pulling a pillow under your head.

Lucy looked eagerly and repositioned herself so she could reach your nipples with her mouth.

…

She slowly kissed her way down, you felt the air on the wet trail left behind, you thought it took way too long, Lucy took her time and seemed to kiss every inch of your body except where you wanted it most right now.

The goosebumps all over your body and the palpitations between your legs were almost too much, Lucy looked up at you, as your back arched and saw your frustrated look.

“Let's finally take this off,” she said as her fingers pulled at the sides of your thong, you lifted your ass off the bed so quickly that she laughed and she imitated what you had said to her earlier that night ‘’don’t be impatient, let me make you feel good’’.

‘’Impatient?’’ you moaned ‘’I waited all damn day’’.

‘’All evening’’, she tried to correct you.

You shook your head, ‘’no, you knew what you were doing when you lifted your shirt during warm up’’ you said pretending to be frustrated.

‘’hmmm, told you it was hotter irl’’ she laughed as she took her shirt off.

Your gaze immediately trailed to her abs.

‘’And you called me out for staring’’ she gasped ‘’don’t burn holes in them please’’ she joked as she put her hands before your eyes and kissed you.

A moan escaped your throat as the kiss became hotter and her hands were no longer in front of your eyes but everywhere else on your body.

She lowered herself to your pulsating heat, gliding two fingers between your labia she looked at you. You nodded eagerly and bit your lip.

She teased your entrance with her fingers and pushed one in slowly, your head fell back on the pillow and you closed your eyes to be able to put all your focus on the sensations that overtook your body.

As she slowly pumped in and out she kissed your inner thigh, you groaned from the extra sensation.

When Lucy felt you were ready for it she entered you with a second finger earning her another moan from you, she watched your reaction closely and had figured your body out quit quickly.

With her tongue on your clit and her fingers working magic you were almost coming undone already, she looked up at you ‘’don’t hold back y/n, come for me pretty girl’’ she cooed.

When her mouth was back on your sensitive button it didn't take long before the knot in your abdomen untied and you felt your orgasm ripple through your entire body.

She lapped up your orgasm and looked at you from in between your legs.

That image sparked a new hunger within you and you were ready to continue, you looked at her with longing in your eyes.

She came up to kiss you, but before your lips touched she asked "would you like to sit on my face now?"

You gulped and almost ran out of breath to answer ''yeah'', you answered breathing heavily from anticipation and the aftermath of the orgasm you had just had.

She kissed you and steered your body so that you were sitting on her lap again, it was so effortless, lucy was very strong, it turned you on how it felt like you weighed nothing to her.

You moaned into her mouth as you tasted yourself on her tongue.

You were holding the headboard as you were riding Lucy’s face, she seemed to be just as lost in the action as you were, she held you down with her hands, squeezing your ass, making you lean even deeper on her face.

You had thrown your head back and the noises you produced excited Lucy even more.

She moaned beneath you, the vibrations of that making you feel even better than you already did.

When you rutted against her face a couple more times, you came again, you rode out your high and when you felt Lucy's grip loosen you got off and laid down next to her on the bed.

Your chest rose and fell violently as you tried to catch your breath again.

Next to you, Lucy was now laying on her side, looking at you with her head resting on her hand.

You turned so that you were now lying on your side as well.

She took your hand in hers, brushing your fingers with hers ‘’was it good?’’

‘’hmm, very’’ you said closing your eyes.

She kissed your neck and your chest again ‘’ready for more’’ she asked against your skin.

You were actually quite tired already, but your hunger for more off Lucy was greater than that.

You moaned as she took a nipple into her mouth, her hand travelling further down, she entered you again, with two fingers, not just one first to let you get used to it like before.

You felt the tension in your core building up again, Lucy had an effect on you that you had never had with anyone else, just by seeing her you got impossibly turned on

She positioned herself so that she was thrusting her lower body with her hand, the fingers of which were inside you.

Now that she was sitting up straighter you had a perfect view of her abdominal muscles that flexed with every movement.

The ungodly pace she maintained, that made you feel like your body was leaving itself, floating on a cloud of pleasure, could possibly only be achieved by professional athletes, and you were amazed that she managed to do this even after 90 minutes of playing.

When she reached for your clit with her other hand and stimulated it exactly how you needed it, you came for the third time that evening.

But it was a different feeling, it overtook you, you were completely disconnected from the world and swallowed up by a sensation of pleasure that you had never felt before.

You felt so much wetness between your legs that you thought you had peed yourself, you felt it gushing out of you and when Lucy pulled out her fingers only to dip her head in, you couldn’t control they way your body reacted.

You head flung back and you arched your back, your hips jolted.

Lucy played into it and tried to push you over the edge again without overstimulating you.

It worked because you felt it happened again, this time your liquid gushed all over the lower part of Lucy's face who was still not moving away.

You were a moaning mess and you couldn't feel parts of your body, you felt too weak to push her away but you couldn't take any more.

Just as you were about to try and talk she stopped and was now placing soft kisses on you, all the way back up and she ended with a kiss on your forehead before plopping herself down next to you.

You summoned every bit of energy within yourself to turn towards her and lay down against her, half on top of her, with your head on her chest.

Her hand was on your back and every now and then she trailed a light pattern on your skin with her nails.

After a couple more minutes of blissful silence she spoke ‘’how do you feel?’’.

‘’Hmmm’’ you uttered not quite being able to speak just yet.

‘’Do you have a bathtub?’’ she asked you.

You moved your head against her chest and made a noise, you were sure she wouldn't understand but she gently got out from under you and walked to the bathroom.

…

After you heard the bath running for a while, and hearing other noises you thought were from lucy looking for some clothes and towels, you saw lucy nearing you again.

You smiled at her, having regained some of your bodily functions again.

‘’Hey pretty girl’’ she said softly ‘’ready for a bath?’’

‘’Only if you join me’’ you said cheekily, you stood up and intended to walk to your bathroom only to find yourself stumbling over your own feet.

‘’woah’’ Lucy said as she caught you ‘’wait let me help’’.

You yelped as she easily lifted you of the ground and walked you to the bath, she lowered you in carefully ‘’is the temperature good?’’ she asked.

‘’Perfect’’ you say ‘’are you coming in too?’’ looking at her expectantly.

‘’In a second pretty girl’’ she said a placed a kiss on you forehead ‘’were do you keep you bed sheets?’’

Your cheeks became redder then a tomato as you told her were she could find clean bedding.

‘Heyyy’’ Lucy said while cupping your face ‘’your not embarrassed are you?’’

You looked away ‘’yeah I am a little bit, it felt like I wedded the bed and just now tripping over my own feet, that was also kinda embarrassing’’.

‘’No, don’t be please, you just squirted and your legs will work again after the bath’’ Lucy smiled at you ‘’don’t be embarrassed pretty girl, it was very hot’’.

…

After the bath the two of you were drying off and Lucy asked, "Do you want me to go or stay?"

You looked at her in surprise ''stay of course’’ .. ‘’or did you want to leave?’’

‘’No’’ Lucy said ‘’I really like to be with you’’

‘’Is this some weird way of saying the sex was good’’ you joked

Lucy laughed ‘’no, but I’m glad you feel that way, I meant that.. I .. I if we .. would you’’.

‘’Oh spit it out’’ you laughed at Lucy getting lost for words ‘’ for a lady who just did all that, you can't be get all shy now’’ you poked her side causing her to drop her towel.

She quickly pulled it back up and around her and grinned ‘’do you want to date me?’’

You were still laughing about her nervousness but hearing the question you dropped your jaw ‘’you would want to date me?’’ you asked suspiciously.

She looked at you questioningly, and then a grin came on her face, ‘’yes I need unlimited desserts’’.

‘’’woowwww, you could just befriend my mom you know’ .. ‘’don’t need to date me for that’’ you scoffed.

‘’Well yes, those desserts too ofcourse , but they can not teach me Spanish’’ she said, still wearing that shit eating grin.

You gasped exaggeratedly and reached for your heart ‘’is that all I am to you, a Spanish teaching dessert’’.

‘’well I mean, we said you would give ratings but if I may take the liberty to compare only the flavors, I don't know which would win, tiramisu on a close second I think’’ she winked at you.

You were too stunned to speak.

She went on ‘’but if we discuss the complete picture, the tiramisu obviously doesn't come anywhere close’’

‘’You have such a way with words’’ you say ‘’such a way with everything’’.

‘’Thanks?’’ she laughed ‘’ I hope it’s a compliment?’’

‘’Yes, it’s a compliment, it’s the reason why I say yes to your question’’.

more parts

#lucy bronze smut #lucy bronze #woso fanfics #woso smut #lucy bronze x reader #smut #woso imagine #woso x reader

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boogiewoogieweeb · 3 months

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would LOVE to hear about the ned quits the navy one 👀👀

hi kay! thank you for the ask!

it's more of a nebulous, 100+ bullet point listicle of an au than an actual wip at this point, but i'm more than happy to yap on about it:

it's essentially a ned-centric post-rescue joplittle au in which ross ex machina saves a handful of the expedition survivors (including some of the mutineers). it mostly follows the show's timeline, with some self-indulgent exceptions regarding canonical character death (jfj doesn't die, for instance. he and francis had their 'wedding night' scene, but francis couldn't go through with it, and jfj is not quite as scorbutic in this au).

aboard the investigator, ned learns that jopson survived being abandoned, and has to wrestle with his conscience. he tries apologizing to jops, only to be soundly and coldly rebuffed in the attempt. this shakes ned to his core, and he questions the purpose of his own survival. things only get worse for his mental state when he overhears francis tell jcr that he feels personally responsible for what happened to the men after he got captured by the mutineers.

this makes ned question his entire naval career, and what it means to be a good man. after some soul searching, and further developments once they reach ye olde england (including an inquest by the admiralty; and sending francis money on the condition of anonymity to help pay for jops' recovery), ned decides to quit the navy and start a shipping venture of his own with the help of his (legendary) brother, james, and some rich benefactors thanks to his connection to lady jane.

things go moderately well. james invites ned to come live with him for a spell, their business grows lucrative, and ned slowly relearns what it means to be, if not happy, then at least content. until a very angry jops shows up on his doorstep one day and goes, "so. it's come to my attention that it's not captain crozier, but you i have to thank for funding my recovery". this leads to them having it out in the foyer, with jops angrily telling ned he doesn't need his charity, and ned replying even more angrily that it's not charity; but he had to do things behind jops' back because he knew jops would never accept his help otherwise.

eventually, jops asks him why he's so deadset on helping, and ned - without thinking - blurts out: “my heart stopped beating the day i left you behind, and only restarted when i learned that you’d survived. but by the time i could tell you so, however, you already hated me. and now, all i have left is my ability to care for you from afar.”

they're both stunned into silence by the admission. ned, in a near panic, hastily tries to salvage what little dignity he has left by vowing to stay away from jops forever if that's what he truly wants.

but instead of turning away in disgust, jops breaks down right in front of ned and simply says, "it would've been easier for both of us if only i was capable of hating you."

smth smth emotional catharsis. and then james little - gay legend that he is - walks in on them having their heart-to-heart, takes one look at jops and goes, "oh, this explains so much about why ned's Been Like This™ since he got back."

cue happy ending, applause, etc.

and yeah, that's basically ned quits the navy in a nutshell! i'd be more than happy to share the full bullet point list on here for anyone who'd like to know more.

once again kay, thank you for picking my guilty pleasure au to ask about! i hope you enjoyed learning more about it 💖

#my asks #tag game

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waffles-art-writing · 2 years

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Forgotten Keys - Soap Mactavish x Fem! Reader

Summary: Off duty, it’s nearly christmas and dog sitting? Feeding a mangy mutt which ends up with you locked outside your own home, no way to get inside unless you want to kick your door in, which you don’t want to deal with. No phone, no keys, trip to town on foot you guess. Sudden near miss and a yelling match with a stranger, another man who comes to diffuse the situation, you soon come to realise who that man is.

(There may be a part two if wanted lol)

Got inspo by another fix that someone wrote, it was a Reader x Ghost though and they bumped into each other at the supermarket. Please if anyone knows who wrote tell me so i can credit them for giving me inspo!

Proofread: Somewhat

Pairing: Soap x Fem!Reader

WordCount: 3K-ish

Age Rating: PG 13

Codename: (You Choose :) )

KEY: Y/N - Your Name, L/N - Last Name, C/N - Codename.

Warning/Info: Slow Burn, Cursing, Fluffy Fluff! Sweet and Gentle Soap, Lime (a bit of a spicy make out sesh)

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It’s cold in Scotland.

Obviously.

It is only a few thousand Kilometres from the North Pole.

You moved here just before joining the military, only because your uncle and aunt needed some help with the small farm they had. You quickly fell in love with the small village, it was a town bordering England and Scotland. Duns. Small town, the type of town where everyone knows everyone through someone else, not unusual for a small Scottish town. You could walk your dog and be greeted by at least five people that knew you, or they know you through someone else. Even if you live a couple minutes out of town on a farm, at least someone will say Good Morning of some sort. Kinda nice but somewhat weird if you dive into the connections deep enough.

You roll out of bed, knowing you have to get up, knowing you have basically nothing in the pantry, maybe a bag of potato chips.. Maybe? And some Coffee and tea. You do know that there is beer in the fridge, only a few bottles, maybe something frozen in the freezer? And the box full of essentials your aunt and uncle gave you when you got back. But god you couldn’t remember what there is, the day you got the call that you were needed for a mission with the 141 you practically gave all your food to your neighbour just down the street or your uncle and aunt. You don’t live far out of town, maybe a ten to fifteen minute walk? Basically a 10 minute walk to the golf course on the other side of the farmland your property backs onto. It’s nice out here but, if you wanted to go get food you gotta drive or you could risk freezing your tits off. Enough wallowing in bed, while the birds outside chirp, and the sound of the neighbours dog barking next door. You gotta feed it, they have gone away for the holidays and asked for you to feed it before their coworker? Friend? Who knows, shows up to take it with them. Which is today hopefully.

After pulling on some fuzzy socks on your feet, some random pair of cargo pants, and a hoodie. You head downstairs, you wander into the kitchen, the tiles cool under your sock wrapped feet. You fill the kettle with water and put it on to boil, you rub the sleep from your eyes as you look out the large window just above the kitchen sink where you can see your back garden and farmland past that. Another howling bark sounds out to your right, making you groan as you trudge to the front door, slipping on your already caked in mud rain boots, taking the heavy winter coat off the hook and adventuring outside into the crisp air of the winter morning. You trudge your way across your driveway, stomping through the snow, trying your best to avoid the ice underneath. You reach the side gate that leads into the back yard, you set out to find the key that's now buried under a few inches of snow and the doormat. “Fuck sakes…” you grumble as you kick the snow away, not wanting to take your hands out of your pockets.

Bark, Bark, Yap.

“Oh my god. Shut up!” You spit out to the small dog on the other side of the door, the small curly haired dog is bouncing around like some child on a sugar high on their birthday. You manage to find the key, quickly unlocking the door to let the dog out. Not caring if it freezes to death at this point, you manage to feed the mangy mutt without a problem and lock it back inside the house. Putting the key under a plant pot so it's easier to get if you need some reason to go back in there. Whoever it is that's supposed to take the dog is coming to get it today, at like lunch? Afternoon? Who cares, you don’t.

You trudge back to your place, almost landing ass first on the ice but catching yourself just before you hit the hard ground. You groan as you go to open the door, expecting it to open. Nothing, you try again twisting the handle every which way, nothing. You kick the bottom of the door to see if it’s just stuck, nothing. “No, no no no.” You curse under your breath as you take off running to the side of the house, trying the side door, no success. Back door to no avail, you check to see if any of the ground floor windows are cracked open a touch, no luck. Nothing, no way in. Your windows upstairs are locked tight due to ice. “No! Fuck, shit. This can't be happening!” You check everywhere that you have left a spare key in the past, then it dawns on you. Spare key is in your car… your locked car, one covered in snow and ice. Yeah that shitbox that's sitting happily in your driveway, taunting you with the key sitting in the cup holder of your middle console. Your face is pressed up against the glass, tears of anger, annoyance and stress form in your eyes as you slide down the side of your car. You would prefer to get shot over this any day.

You sigh as you stand up, dusting off the snow from your pants.

Your mission; get to the locksmith in town, get help, get five spare keys made to hide around your property, hot shower then drink your day away then sleep. Good Mission.

You trudge your way to town, your feet occasionally sliding on the road, the slight hill your home sits on doesn’t help. The occasional car goes past, in the wrong direction of course. Your hood is up, shoulders to your ears, hands shoved deep into your pockets. “Fuckin’ worst break ever” you curse as you start walking past more houses, families happily inside, warm and cozy, watching cringy christmas movies, sipping hot tea or hot chocolates. While you’re stuck outside on a sunny but cold winter's day, trudging to town in rubber rain boots, cargo pants that aren’t that warm, only a hoodie and jacket to keep you warm from the cold's sharp bite.

You pass a couple that is walking their dog, happily chatting, beanies and gloves, probably fuzzy socks as well. You huff as you turn the corner, seeing the market square come into view. Your soul desire is to just get to the gas station that's just past the market square. No wallet on you either, so there’s no possible way you could get a hot drink for the road. The smell from the bakery floods your nose, the sound of christmas carols, folk songs and whatever else there is playing sounds out from the small stores around the square. Kids laughing and screaming, parents talking as their kids play in the snow, all wrapped up from head to toe in warm clothing.

You finally make it to the gas station, almost. You look both ways before crossing the road, being careful to walk where there doesn’t seem to be ice, your feet slip on the ice ever so slightly. You see someone coming around the corner, mere yards from you, you're quick to throw yourself to the curb knowing the car won’t stop. You push yourself to your feet, whipping around to confront the dickhead who nearly ran you over. “What the hell man! Look with your fucking eyes!” You scream as you see a man step out of his car that is now poorly parked on the side of the road, its front tire on the curb. “Ya the one who should be lookin’ where she's going!” He barks back. You stand your ground and clench your fist.

“Maybe quit lookin’ at yer bloody phone and pay attention to the world around you, you think you're so big hotshot? Pull yer head outta ya arse and learn to drive!” “Oh shut it girly! Ya sure can’t say shit, yer the one walkin’!” “Oh why you little-” “Oi! Hey! Cut it out, what the hell are ya screaming about?” Another man’s voice cuts through. Your eyes are trained on the man in front of you, you're seething, you're holding back the urge to deck this man right here and now is powerful. “How about you just back off mate, get your arse back in your car and go home.” The new man growls out as he stands next to you, you watch as the idiotic driver looks from the other man to you. “Bet you can’t do shit even if you tried.” You raise your brow as you step forward about to lunge at the man, he’s short and stocky, you could take him. Arms wrap around your waist as you scream at the man who’s backing away to his car. You spit out any insult you can think of as you fight against the arms around you. “Aye, Lass calm down. He’s about to cry if you keep this up.” You freeze in your squirming to bash the man's head in. The arms that are around your waist loosen their hold on you, allowing you to turn to see who was holding you back.

Your eyes widen when you see the sky blue eyes, the mohawk and cocky smirk. “Soap?!” You gasp, wrapping the man in a hug. “It’s good to see you two Lass” he laughs as he holds you close, savouring your warm embrace.

“What the hell are ya’ doing here Mactavish?” You question as you let him go, looking him up and down. He’s clad in winter gear, better than what you have on, including some gloves. “Could ask you the same thing C/N” he smiles as he looks you up and down, his brows furrowing slightly at the state you’re in. “I live here, on the other side of town, a few minutes out” You shrug, temporarily forgetting why you're here in the first place. “Not surprised, but you don’t look that prepared to be walking the streets” he points out, motioning to your lack of cold weather gear. “Oh” you breathe out, your cheeks heating up, a strong contrast to the freezing temperature they were just moments ago. “This is gonna sound really stupid, I locked myself out of my house…” You chuckled nervously, finding the muddy snow beneath your boots a lot more interesting than the man in front of you, he laughs, it makes you smile as you start chuckling with him.

“How the hell did you manage that?” He chokes out while laughing. “Feeding the neighbours mangy mutt” you groan, “I forgot to bring the keys with me, and muscle memory kicked in and locked the door from the inside before closing it” you sigh. Soap shakes his head, placing a hand on your shoulder, “and you walked all that way here?” “Yep.” “Christ Lass, let me give you a ride at least” you shake your head as you walk with him towards the gas station. “No, no. It’s okay. I was just gonna ask the guy who works here who is also a locksmith to give me a ride and help me” you smile at the man next to you. “Lass, I don’t want you to waste your money on something that I can help you with.” You look at Soap with an awkward smile. “… you left your wallet as well didn’t you?” You nod your head, “and my phone…” you mumble under your breath as you notice him stopping at what you would guess is his car. A nice Jeep Wrangler. “God you are a numpty ain’t ya? Take this, go get yourself something warm” he states as he hands you a few notes of cash. You look at the money in his hand, looking back up at him. “Just take it before you starve to death.” He grabs your hand and slaps the money in it, making sure you are holding it properly. “Do you want anything? It is your money Soap…” he shakes his head as he starts fueling the vehicle. “Go get yourself something Lass, I’ll be there shortly.” He nods his head towards the building of the gas station. “O-Okay” you state as you make your way to the building, sighing when the warm air meets your frozen skin.

You’re still standing in front of the pie warmer when Soap walks in, he chuckles lightly, walking up behind you wrapping an arm around your shoulder. “Still looking Lass?” He looks down at you, noticing you holding the money close to your chest. “C/N?” His voice now low as he nudges you slightly. “I don’t know which one to get…” you mumble as you stare at the hot savouries in front of you. Soap grabs a pie, steak and cheese, no surprise there. He grabs another one, the one you like most. “There, done. C’mon” he pulls you gently by the hand to the counter. You attempt to pay with the cash Soap gave you but he beats you to it with his card, paying for the food and gas quickly. You two leave thanking the workers. “Here’s the cash since I didn’t use it” you hold the cash out to the Scotsman, he looks at you with a smile, gently pushing your hand away. “Keep it, I don’t need it. Now get in before you freeze.” You sigh as you get into the passenger side, thankful to be in the warmth.

The drive to your place is short, filled with chatter as you talk about plans for the holidays. Soap is planning on just driving around, having some time to himself away from the busy life of family before going to his cousin's place for Boxing Day, only a few hours away from your town. Christmas Day is just by himself this year. You’re having a calm Christmas with your Aunt and Uncle, your half sister coming up with her husband and her kids for Boxing Day from Alnwick over the border in England, and the annual family call. You continue chatting while you eat your pies, sitting in your driveway before Soap gets to work on unlocking your house for you.

“There we go, you’re in.” He smiles as he stands up, placing the small tools back inside the glove box. You sigh in relief as you push the door open further, making sure it's unlocked. “Thank you so much Soap!” You wrap your arms around his shoulder, thanking him with a hug. His arms wrap around your waist bringing you closer, a smile on his face. “Any time Lass.” You pull back, your hands resting on his shoulders, his hands still on your waist.

You two have always been close when you joined the 141, you two kinda just clicked. Yes you got along with the others, but you two always had this way of just knowing if the other is off. Upset, angry, annoyed, tired, or just needing comfort. Yes sometimes you’d pass out on the couch together while watching a show, if one of you got too drunk the other was there to support them. If you were under the weather, Soap was always there to make you laugh or just give you company if you wanted it. You were like two peas in a pod, you didn't want to admit it to yourself, much less anyone else. But you did find Soap someone you could see yourself having a relationship with, you might even say you have a crush on him. You’d never admit that, you sure as hell wouldn't tell the very man that's in front of you that either. Even if you did, it might get in the way of your job, might even cause one fo you to join a different task force.

“Do… Do you wanna come in?” You ask softly as you let your hands slide off his shoulders, motioning into your home. Soap smiles as he lets go of your waist - albeit reluctantly - “If you don’t mind” you shake your head lightly, letting him walk in. You kick your boots off and hang your coat up, leaving them by the door neatly, Soap following your actions. “Nice place you’ve got here.” He states. None of the walls have photos, you never really cared to decorate as you're barely home, there's the old picture frame on the mantle above the fireplace. A fake plant on the dining table just off from the kitchen. “Thanks. It’s not much, but it's home I guess.” You state as you make your way into the kitchen. “Tea? Coffee?” Soap chuckles at this “I ain’t not Brit” “Oh shut it MacTavish” you both fall back into comfortable conversation, you making a cup of tea for yourself and Coffee for Soap.

You feel Soap come up from behind you, wrapping his arms around your middle, resting his chin on the top of your head. “Soap?” You question quietly as you stand still, soaking in the warmth but confused by his sudden need to hold you. He doesn’t reply, you can see his reflection in the window. He’s watching you through the reflection, you smile softly when you make eye contact, his grip tightens slightly. “Johnny… You can call me Johnny” he mumbles into your hair, you hum in response. You turn around in his arms, bringing your hands up to his jaw, his stubble rough against the palm of your hand. “What’s wrong Johnny?” You ask quietly, unsure what’s gotten him so quiet suddenly. He leans into your touch, his eyes fluttering closed, he's tired, exhausted, drained. His hands rest on your hips, his thumbs rubbing soft circles into the fabric of your pants, he's fidgeting. You gently trail the hand he isn’t leaning into down his arm to rest over one of his own, you step to the side slowly, guiding him upstairs. He follows behind you, letting you lead him through the house, upstairs is darker than the rest of the house, the curtains still drawn in your room, a small amount of sun filtering through the small gap. You pull him towards your bed, the covers still a mess from you getting up earlier in the day.

You’re laying on your bed, Soap wrapped around your abdomen, head nestled into your neck. Your hand combs through his mohawk, nails gently running across his scalp. His arms are securely wrapped around you, his grip not faltering. “Johnny?” You whisper, nervous to break the comfortable silence. “Mmh?” He mumbles into your neck, his breath warm against your skin. “Would you like to stay…” you pause, sighing as you push down the nerves. “Would you like to stay with me, like over the holidays, till you gotta go to your cousins?” Your heart races, waiting for his reply. Did you just fuck everything up? Did you read into this friendship wrong? Did his lingering touches mean nothing? “Gladly, only if you're sure ya can put up with me that is.” He chuckles softly, his arms pulling you closer.

“If this is what we do everyday then I’m sure I can” you giggle as you feel him nuzzle your neck, your hands finding purchase on his shoulder, attempting to push him away gently, his stubble tickling your neck. You open your eyes when you feel him pull away, he’s looking at you, a small smile on his face. Not a smirk, not a teasing smile or a shit eating grin. A happy, content smile. One of his hands cups your jaw, his eyes glancing between your eyes and your lips, his silent question dancing in his eyes.

There’s mere inches between you, he closes the gap, his lips locking onto yours. Gentle, caring, loving kiss. Your arms wrap around his shoulders, pulling him as close as possible, not wanting this euphoria to end. He leaves you breathless when he pulls away to allow you to breathe. “Are you okay with this Y/N?” You answer his question by pulling him back into the kiss, heavy and heated, still passionate and loving.

Your tongues dance, the desire to taste the other overwhelming. His hand holds your waist, fingers dancing under your hoodie. He pushes you into the bed, supporting himself on his left forearm. You moan into his mouth when he slides his hand up your side. “Fuck, you taste like heaven Lass” he mumbles into the kiss, his mind a jumbled mess. Yours not much different, your hands run down his chest, stopping at the hem of his shirt. “Johnny- fuck. I didn’t think you liked me like this” you chuckle as he kisses your jaw, his hand that's under your hoodie slides up your back.

Bringing you closer to his chest, he kisses your neck. “I thought you weren’t interested in me, but I guess we were both wrong.” he chuckles as he feels your hands trace his taut muscles. You smile as he lifts his head, he looks at you with soft, loving eyes, with a genuine smile as he commits everything he sees in front of him to memory.

“Will you be mine, Lass?” Your eyes widen, so does your smile. “Yes, of course” Soap seals it with a kiss, his hands bringing you as close as possible, your own arms wrapping around his shoulder, hands running through his mohawk.

A/N: Ugh i want this man so bad ughhhh

#soap x y/n #soap x you #soap mactavish #soap cod #soap mw2 #soap x reader #soap call of duty #fanfic #x y/n #slow burn #soap fluff #cod x reader #cod mwii #cod fanfic

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amydimmer · 5 months

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Hi (: I just saw your blog that read you love to yap about the lore of your ocs. And I would love to hear about it! Especially Leonardo and Elizabeth (I just love old married couple characters, they’re always so sweet) . But Aina seems also pretty cool.

Oh and also Leonardo is the personification of Portugal and Elizabeth of England, right? I wasn’t so sure from your post. Btw I’m sorry you got banned but it led me to find your work and even though it’s not that much yet but it looks very cool. (Sorry if I’m not making much sense, English isn’t my first language)

Hi there! Yup. I'm a professional yapper Graduated top of my class at Yapology of Old Couple Ships.

Let's dive into that!

I think I didn't develop my idea enough, I'm so sorry! I make ocs out of countries, yes.

This all started out in school for me. I enjoyed imagining countries as single people instead of full governments. As a kid, it's just an easier way to digest history classes :) It was a fun exercise too, and I ended up wanting to illustrate that concept…Here we are now. If it says anything, my major is International Affairs/PoliSci…Yeah. I grew attached.

Leonardo and Elizabeth are my favourites to write about, they're just lovely…Although deadly. We know how history goes down with these tiny-but-mighty islands.

They met ages ago, in a siege in Lisbon. Elizabeth was sailing somewhere else, but the weather seemed to be turning on her and her crew. It was safer to stop and go back to the seas whenever the skies cleared out.

She'd been meet by the people living by the shore, and asked if there was any way she and her crew could stay somewhere in town, to avoid the storm, and get some supplies they were running out of. Leonardo was on his way to Lisbon, as it was being stormed. He didn't have much time to give each member of that foreign crew a bed and meal for the night, so he bought a bit of time with a deal. If Elizabeth and her crew could help he and his men protect the city, then they could stay. And deal! I guess you can say their first "date" was in a battlefield. How romantic is that? I guess very romantic, because Elizabeth stayed there for a couple more days.

Though they weren't victorious, these two found a little spark.

Elizabeth admired Leonardo's kindness on helping her friends, and also the cheerfulness and spontaneity he had when they left battle. He has this BIG laugh, he's very silly with his friends, even if the battle wasn't taking good turns...Really charming to her.

As for Leonardo, he had gotten himself hurt in the big fight. He would've gotten a worse wound, if Elizabeth hadn't seen it coming and hadn't pushed him away. She dragged him to the palace when it all ended, and put herself to clean and bandage Leo up. He liked that she was so handy with it, and so smart (and also gently scolding him for being so reckless in the middle of a fight). He likes how grounded she is, compared to him.

They kindled a sweet friendship from then on…But if you ask me, Elizabeth was getting butterflies in her stomach since the day she left that silly guy ;)

They met many more times and exchanged letters very often. They liked going to the beach together, or just going for a walk. Even just sitting and chatting, they just liked being close.

Oh, what a mouthful they are. I thought start at how they met was good! Of course, being immortal means you have a few more hundreds of years of history, and these two alone have more than a lifetime together! This is just the very beginning of this old timey sunshine x raincloud duo.

I must say, this a very SLOW burn. Leonardo takes his sweet time to propose, even when Elizabeth dropped all the hints!

I'm very happy to hear you're enjoying so far :) I was a bit sceptical about coming back to this blog, but I'm remembering what made it so fun back in the day!

Alas, since you got this far reading, here's a treat:

Ps.: Your English is good, I'm sure Elizabeth is proud ;)

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the-firebird69 · 1 year

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Watch "Seal - Kiss From A Rose(OST Batman Forever)" on YouTube

youtube

This is my character and I can tell you that what happened was horrible and I woke up out of what I thought was a coma and I was still alive and I fell quite a ways and my fall was broken I never have things and after I fell and I heard this is a grapevine a rose saw a Rose fell on me from above and I thought that's unique it hasn't happened yet and my friend said my nephew says it's self-defense mechanism of your brain and he wants to explain what it means from his interpretation I do hear what he's saying

Garth

From my point of view it's about you and Big Joe when you were in Port Charlotte and you're talking about the characters a little bit in the song and the showing them and it's Dan and it looks like Stan because it is and he was there occasionally as a patient and he was Bernie and he showed that a little and he was the fungus guy and it shows him a little sickly and odd and they showed and yeah they're making analogy to our son and they showed several other things that relate to Port Charlotte the biggest is the bat and it's a giant bat like the bat signal and he says he's standing right next to her when he was kissed by a rose meetings that he died a little there and that he was saved by them and his clan and related and they do it and do it for a long time because of Dave and he was astonished by it and said what can I do we're in a lot of trouble and they start to work and the story is about Dan is trying to control people by saying stuff is very wrong and it's kind of cover but didn't work cuz all the leaders just seen around yapping and he's explaining to them that they're fighting for real and that the max are in their mist and are Robin and that's the name of the game that they're being robbed and it's like the old days including Tommy f and his two-faced and you heard that when you say stuff and you're saying baby and they're calling our son that a lot now because he's the size of a baby compared to what he will be and it's not true she's more like child and they say that too and he says when you tell us what the snow is it makes us wake up and it is from the ships pushing the air down and Tommy F goes nuts and says you're fighting me a lot and it's them and they're sitting there doing for you it says I can't get in here they tried doing it joint venture and they can't get in here so it's an awesome show it's an awesome video it's not the Batman we were talking about oh boy it's powerful and Garth is really feeling it now and he is going to go for it and he's going to do these things the movies and more and it's with Sherry oddly enough and she wants to do it too and show people this is what it is and we're in trouble cuz now the lieutenant governor position is a question and their fleet is in question right now they're not doing anything and they're hovering around and try and find spots to land and they can't nobody will let them stay in one place for very long if they stay near us we'll end up taking it over so he's trying to find a place where he can go and trying to negotiating out near the Philippines and they said no Marshall Islands said no Australia said no New Zealand said definitely not and he started the New England which is terrible the upper Midwest doesn't have any room the Midwest is the nightmare she's still looking around and those islands are way too hot and Brazil's not the place for him he found that out because the empire is there so he doesn't know what to do and Tunisia a check there and there's like a little place there and VGA can't stop him and he might do that because there's no other place and they have to land do repairs get filled up and so he's going to go there and try it

Thor Freya

and it's been calling when it says it's going and didn't think you could do anything so Sherry is trying to help him so we're trying to help them. And it's not the location of the rebel base that was that death Star following them and that was Jason but there's a few other things happening and this is me her back. New developments here

-the max retired of hearing the long and winding sound of these warlocks they don't want to hear it and it is a terrible terrible day for them they're running around and they're full of hate and they can't stand anyone and they're getting out weapons and people are shooting them and it's having quite a bit there's really no help in them now and everyone says it they're out there doing the wrong thing no matter what and it's happening here in town that they're just getting armed so people won't kidnap them and it's true they're doing that. There's a ton of it going on. Huge amounts of arrests and it's not slowing down it's a giant giant gamut and it is increasing and ferocity

-there's a giant number of people here who are upset with how people are behaving and that's growing as well and they're tired of being poor and eating like s*** and seeing s***** people and getting crapped on by people who don't know how to do anything and never behave correctly and cross-dressed perfectly is sick of men who act like women and women who act like men it's going on now that it will not last that's what they say and they're seeking them out on special warrant all the time and he's right it's getting late so I'm going to belt it out

-those tanks are in service it was like 5 million of them and they are cleaning out the entire woods cleaning out the middle area they're going after bugs and burning them and they're burning them many times and they are going after huge ones and shooting them and they're going after any more luck out there and they're bringing them to the incinerator and they're getting rid of them and they're going across the state and they're going to hold the territory and not allow them to keep on pouring in and they're plugging up all of the tunnels to prevent access and it started early this morning and they got all the way as far as like Arcadia which is not far now right now they're like at maybe 15 miles outside lake placid so they went about 30 miles and that's pretty far and it's a big huge line and they have to hold it further over and they're not going to get far and the highway is shut down and the max were forced to join up down there or they get hurt cuz there's too many so they're leaving the city and the idiots think they own it and it's going to get occupied temporarily and the foreigners had to join the military and they had to do it very quickly and there's a way and it's really nasty it's forced but they're smart enough to and it's going on now there's a ton of it okay and that means I'm signing on but there's also a big push it just started and they're going across the countryside and they're leaving troops to hold and they're putting outposts in and it's not fun we have to be there and we have to do it too there is a wall and it's going up in the middle and right now it's about 250 miles long in South Florida and up in North Florida it's about 300 and the state is not that long it's about 600 miles long so there's only a small section in the middle and that's going in in a few minutes and there's a wall around Sarasota county around Hillsboro and this one around Brandon area and Tampa and this one that's going up around Miami and it's going to be several here one of them will be up and it's around punta Gorda tonight they want these people out and they're putting them out and they're taking them to that place and they had a husband move him and it still will to threaten him and us to move them there to get rid of them. And it's going on right now it's a huge thing it's nerve-wracking it worse morlock make it worse for me and many others.

-there's a huge number of people and they're telling everybody that were going after two and I can't stand here yet so I guess I get grabbed

-we need Intel too and I'm putting it out there now

-giant waves we're coming across no they're not now huge waves coming from ships coming down no they're not big walls going up everywhere yes we're putting them up in the Midwest and quite rapidly we're putting up huge ones and they're going up now and they're huge around the cities they're about 2 miles and around the outskirts for about 50 ft and we're putting them in a very fast and I'm putting some in the upper Midwest and very fast we're sick of it and the areas are emptying out or they're trying to attack the wall and they die or the empty out and try and attack the wolf in the outside and they die and it is a nightmare but that's basically what happens a very large scale there's like 20 major cities out there and 2,000 regular cities and 20,000 small ones and run 800,000 lb and all of them are being walled off he'll be walled off by the end of the week and probably empty by the end of the other next week if not sooner as you wall it off the empty out so they might even be empty by Sunday this coming Sunday huge numbers too I'm leaving and they can't go south so they're going west and that place is a bad house there's no reason to be there and now we have to it's crazy they want to invades the Midwest now I'll come down the South and go that route

-this absolutely no way out of Florida for these people they're becoming antsy jittery nervous and they're engaging people and they're picking fights and then they're saying we have to fight them and we have to they say and it's on and to try and get regular flights and going to skies it's horrible scene there's a lot of it going on in terms of kidnapping in terms of Max and they get revenge it's just getting faster and faster until they're out and globally too they went after a ton of trumpsters and found tons of money and stuff and doing it now and it's growing pretty soon they'll be out we think maybe Friday most of them will be out and the ones that are not we'll try and hide instead of bad mountains our son well they're trying to do it from where they are and they get looking that's having a few times

-only a couple more things there's a huge British force of Max going around they're brutish and we must stop them and we have to be in there they won't let us in it's not as big as other ones but it force your way in they trying to force you out and they know each other are and nasty things so he says they have a procedure for that and we're going to ask and we're going to start doing it they said

-massive massive numbers of Max are coming down here they hear the situation is done and they understand it and they're moving out almost forcing them to do the job they don't have it

-whole other items are doing Fair we have a lot of projects underway we need tons and tons of troops we need tons of people and factories for the projects and a lot more than we have now and we have it listed how many and it's not really accurate and we need to change it to reflect a lot more and right now we have to actually offer some honest stuff to our people and it's going to go on shortly

-the people next door are starting their stuff they are dangerous and they need to be negated immediately and I'm sending notes to us to that effect and thank you all Godspeed and have a great night we're doing well we're doing the best we've ever done but we do need more troops we need all of us to sign on, my husband says every second of the day that you don't sign on you're putting some people of ours in Jeopardy here on Earth because we need you in service to help save our people here and the guilt will rest on you because it should for not joining up and we're telling you you need to and we're asking you to and we need help ourselves and we can feel it all the time a listing tremendous loads ourselves to protect ours and you and you must sign on to protect yourself and help with us and he's right that you are needed and if you not signed on it's your fault and it's harder here and we need to hear it

Hera

Zues

We're here with our son and daughter said and approve it and we want people to read the above last paragraph our people here well that's okay but we need people to see it

Thor Freya

Olympus

#Youtube

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jegulusofwesper · 2 years

Text

my favourite quotes from the books i read so far this year

“Good of you to join us, Ash.” Aiden grins as sadism sparks in his eyes. “Now look away from my wife before I create a diplomatic problem between England and the US.” ~ Twisted Kingdom - Rina Kent (dark romance, enemies to lovers)

Reading is one of my defence mechanisms to not get caught up in the world. The world makes me think of worldly things, like that night, I hate that night. ~ Ruthless Empire - Rina Kent

She must be going for intimidation, but all I see is a yapping chihuahua. ~ His Revelry - Bailey Nicole (LGBT, friends to enemies to lovers, knife play)

“Can I pick the music?” He narrows his eyes at me. “No, I know Joe your mind works. I’m not grinding on you to ‘is this the way to Amarillo’, or any song from six: the musical” ~ Nannying For The Neighbors - Lily Gold (RH, single dad, strippers, Harry Potter references)

“I doubt she even knows how to walk in heels.” “Then you’ll teach her,” my mother says. “I don’t know how to walk in heels, either,” I say sarcastically. // “If you ever talk to my wife like that again, I’ll empty that clip in your chest.” ~ Brutal Prince - Sophie Lark (ENEMIES to lovers - I’m pretty sure this is the one where he’s allergic to strawberries and she eats some before she kisses him and he goes into anaphylactic shock then tried to drown her in the pool so she “knows how it feels to not be able to breathe”, mafia romance)

Good luck? Have a lovely time, Mal. Hope you find a pretty Grisha, fall deeply in love, and make lots of gorgeous, disgustingly talented babies together. Oh well maybe he’ll fall in a ditch on his way there. ~ Shadow and Bone - Leigh Bardugo (fantasy, romance, YA, adventure)

Sturmhond twisted, and in a flash, he’d slipped Mal’s grip. A knife was in his hand, pulled from somewhere up his sleeve. “Step back, Orestrev. I’m keeping my temper for her sake, but I’d just as soon gut you like a carp.” ~ Siege and Storm - Leigh Bardugo (fantasy, romance, YA, adventure)

Kaz knew death. He could feel it’s presence on the ship now, looming over them, ready to take his wraith. // “You, Inej, you.” // Kaz bit him. // I’m going to get my money, Kaz vowed. And I’m going to get my girl. ~ Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo

Kanej version. “I would have come for you. I would have come for you. And if I could walk, I’d crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we’d fight our way out together. Knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that’s what we do we never stop fighting.” ~ Crooked Kingdom - Leigh Bardugo

Wesper version. Kuwei turned to Jesper. “You should visit me in Ravka. We could learn to use our powers together.” “How about I push you in the canal and we see if you know how to swim.” Wylan said with a very passable imitation of Kaz’s glare. Jesper shrugged. “I’ve heard he’s one of the richest men in Ketterdam. I couldn’t cross him.” ~ Crooked Kingdom - Leigh Bardugo

Helnik version. “I have been made to protect you. Even in death, I will find a way. Bury me so I can go to Djel. Bury me so I can take root and follow the water north.” “I promise, Matthias. I’ll take you home.” “Nina, I am already home.” ~ Crooked Kingdom - Leigh Bardugo

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t pull your lungs out through your mouth” ~ The Duke and I - Julia Quinn (tw: rape)

“You know what, Harry? You’re a pathetic, homophobic, self obsessed DICK and I really dislike you. Happy fucking birthday.” ~ Heartstopper 1 - Alice Oseman (LGBT, YA)

“Wait why are you crying?” “I just… seeing you sad makes me sad.” // “Why are straight people like this?” ~ Heartstopper 2 - Alice Oseman (LGBT, YA)

“I know but - it’s annoying when people think we’re just…” “Best platonic bros?” “…Oh my god” ~ Heartstopper 3 - Alice Oseman (LGBT, YA, tw: self harm, ED)

“You are a pathetic little man. Talk about my brother like that again and I’ll end you.” (You have no clue how much I love Tori for this ❤️)~ Heartstopper 4 - Alice Oseman (LGBT, YA, tw: self harm, ED)

My worst fear has gone from “grandma’s rag doll” to “being spiritually double penetrated by an ancient ghost” in the space of two days. // “Aside from the trauma, I’m great.” ~ The Fell of Dark - Caleb Roehig

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redladydeath · 3 years

Text

jhgfdfghjkhgf i was going to just post this in the video’s comment section but for some reason that’s not working so here’re act one of the william and mary play:

Mary: Look, you’re my best friend, okay? And, um, best friends tell each other everything, right? Oh my god. Excuse me. Oh, Maria Regina, it was awful! He was awful, William, my Dutch cousin, or as father likes to call him “the Dutch Dog” *laughs*… I had the honor of being forced to dine with the extended family. My little Dutch cousin William– and was he rude! Oh my god. He spent the entire meal either staring at me or grimacing at the food. No manners. And he’s old too, like, at least thirty, not that you’d know by looking at him, he’s very short, but old enough to know better, and all that I could hear the entire time was his breathing– no, no, no– wheezing, with his tiny little child-sized mouth. *imitates wheezing* [indecipherable] –cause he had [indecipherable] big monster of a nose to use, but I guess that was out of commission. And King Charles II– God save him– and all twelve of his spaniels, seated at the table, eating off of the plates– how am I related to these people?

Anne: Mary!

Mary: Shh! Shh! My sister! We’re fighting! Oh god. Uncle Charles– God save him– William... ew. I’ve never fit in with this entire family and now I find out that my sister’s been ta… my sister– No, no I will not stand here and idly gossip. My sister– no. Sh– no. Sh– no. Sh– nope! Betty!

Betty: Yes, your ladyship?

Mary: Um, take Maria Regina will you?

Betty: Yes, your ladyship. Anne has been screaming for you, your ladyship.

Mary: Yes, tell her I’m dead.

Betty: Yes, your ladyship.

Mary: No, don’t, that’ll get her hopes up. Tell her that I’m resting– exhausted from a fascinating dinner with our exotic Dutch cousin.

Betty: Yes, your ladyship.

Mary: And I can trust you all? Oh, um, and would you bring me an ink, pen, and paper?

Betty: Yes, your ladyship.

Mary: How’s this? Dearest, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear... girlfriend– no, no, no... lover– no, too saucy– um... husband? Yeah… it’s a woman, but we’re gonna call her a husband. Don’t get confused! Um, dearest husband, after my prayers to all-mighty God, I’ve come to make peace with you, for it is a strange thing for a man and a wife to quarrel. What more can I say to prove that I love with more zeal than any lover can? You are loved with a love never known by man–

Anne: Mary!

Mary: You are loved more than can be expressed–

Anne: Mary!

Mary: By your ever-obedient–

Anne: Mary!

Mary: SHUT UP!! –wife. But to my great sorrow, I find out that you’ve been corresponding with *whispered* my sister!

Anne: Mary!

Mary: Shut up! Oh, to be your humble servant! To kiss the ground where you go–

Anne: What are you doing?!

Mary: Shut up! Oh, to be your dog on a string, your fish in a net, your limber trout–

Anne: She writes me too, you know!

Mary: No, she doesn’t!

Anne: Yes, she does!

Mary: Shut up! [indecipherable] If my letter has made the effect, dear “husband”, on your hard ear, I may without scruple call you my dearest, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear husband.

Anne: She is not your husband and your letter to her are weird. Also, she sends me letters and calls me her husband and loves me more than she loves you and you’re a lesbian!

Mary: That word doesn’t even exist yet, Anne!

Anne: Lesbian!

Mary: Keep your voice down!

Anne: She writes me more letters.

Mary: Our love is forbidden.

Anne: Get over yourself!

Mary: She knows unlike you I’ll be queen!

Anne: Whatever. I don’t care. I don’t even want to be queen.

Mary: Oh, good, cause you never will be.

Anne: Of course I will! When your head gets so damned big from all the bullshit praise, even your ugly, masculine, lesbian neck won’t be able to support its weight. Snap! And your head will fall off, like our poor headless grandpa Charles–

Mary and Anne: God save him!

Mary: To imagine the death of a monarch is treason, I could look you in the Tower.

Anne: You couldn’t!

Mary: When I’m queen.

Anne: You wouldn’t!

Mary: I could!

Anne: Nu-uh!

Mary: Uh-huh!

Anne: You wouldn’t be the first queen to do that to a little sister.

Mary: Well, you came in here and started it.

Anne: I know. I have something to tell you.

Mary: You could’ve waited!

Anne: I have a memory. About mummy.

Mary: Did you? Really? Would you tell me?

Anne: When we knew she wouldn’t make it much longer, she asked me to come to her bedside. She had just got her blood let, so she was speaking very openly.

Mary: It’s okay, Anne!

Anne: She asked me “Do you know why I named your older sister Mary but named you after me?”

Mary: Why?

Anne: Mummy said… “Because prefer you to that bitch older sister!”

Mary: Leave!

Anne: Mom liked me more!

Mary: I was named after a queen!

Anne: Yeah, Bloody Mary! “Oh, look at me! I’m named after a fat, bloated Tudor Catholic!”

Mary and Anne: *spit*

Mary: Leave!

Anne: I just came in here to ask how dinner went.

Mary: It was lovely. Leave!

Anne: Was it? I bet it was boring.

Mary: Only for a child but when you’re fifteen years old you appreciate stimulating conversation!

Anne: [indecipherable]

Mary: Good!

Anne: Was he… stimulating?

Mary: Ew! I mean… yes.

Anne: What was he like?

Mary: Tall, dark, handsome.

Anne: Really? Tall, dark, and handsome?

Mary: Mmyeah.

Anne: I’m jealous.

Mary: You should be.

Anne: Did he stare at you?

Mary: What? No.

Anne: I guess he wouldn’t. Not after what I have heard.

Mary: Oh, I don’t even want to hear your idle gossip– what did you hear?

Anne: Oh, it’s just that father told me that Uncle Charles–

Mary and Anne: God save him!

Anne: –Tried to marry you off to him.

Mary: What?

Anne: For some Dutch alliance.

Mary: What?

Anne: Yeah. He turned you down though.

Mary: He turned me down?

Anne: Three times.

Mary: What?

Anne: And here I was going to come in and make fun of you! I thought William was a tiny little goblin man. That would’ve been so embarrassing!

Mary: Right…

Anne: If you were turned down by an ugly little goblin man.

Mary: Right…

Anne: Three times!

Mary: Leave!

Anne: Why?

Mary: Leave!

Anne: I thought he was stimulating!

Mary: I want to be alone!

Anne: Mary the Martyr, you’re so weird! Maybe you’ll actually fit in if you didn’t lock yourself in your room all the time writing creepy letters. Some queen you’ll be! You’re friends with a fish!

Mary: Well, I will be queen whether I want to or not!

Anne: Mary the Martyr, you’re engaged to Louis the fucking XIV, what right do you have to be mad at me?

Mary: ...Have you seen the latest portrait of Louis?

Anne: Yeah!

Mary and Anne: *squee*

Anne: He’s fucking gorgeous! Even for a Catholic!

Mary and Anne: *spit*

Anne: Milky skin, so fucking rich! Full deep eyes, tight little French ass…

Mary: Anne! God is listening!

Anne: [indecipherable] I’m just appreciating the work! Those portraits are rarely accurate though. You saw the portrait of Uncle Charles–

Mary and Anne: God save him!

Anne: –He looked like a Roman god dipped in oil.

Mary: What?

Anne: He glistened Mary! Like a buttered up Roman statue! In reality, he looks more like butter. Well… butter with syphilis.

Mary: Oh my god, you can be quite cruel Anne.

Anne: I’m destined to marry one of our fat, inbred cousins, so I’m allowed to be.

Mary: Sorry.

Anne: Yeah, it’s whatever. Well, I’m going! Unlike you I actually have friends to hang out with.

Mary: Oh, bad company ruins good morals.

Anne: Fuck you! See you at dinner.

Mary: That’s why that little Dutch dwarf was staring at me. Oh my God, could you imagine that tiny, wheezing little man crawling into your bed every night– oh my god, it’s an offensive thought! But the most offensive part? He said no! He said no to me! Oh my God, the man is a slug! William of Orange– blegh! And Uncle Charles– God save him– tried to make me marry that, not that I would’ve! No! I would’ve told him off, right to his face. I’m not afraid of him! I will not be made a sacrificial lamb. I would’ve told him off to his face! Right to his tiny, regal, little mustache: “No, Uncle! You may be king, but I will not marry that creature! Put me in chains; lock me in the Tower; feed me to the ghost of Cromwell; I absolutely refuse to marry that creature!” I would’ve told him off. I will not be made a sacrificial lamb!

*fanfare*

Mary: Oh, Jesus Christ.

Betty: Your uncle, King Charles II– God save him– is here your ladyship.

Mary: Okay, send him in.

Betty: Yes, your ladyship.

*dogs yapping*

Charles: Quiet, quiet, quiet! [indecipherable] Good doggy-woggys! Now, niece!

Mary: Oh, Uncle, God save you–

Charles: Rise dear! You’re one of the few girls at court I’d rather not see on her knees.

Mary: Oh– ew.

Charles: Oyster?

Groom of the Stool: Yes, your majesty! *grunting*

Charles: I’ve just come from your mother and father’s apartments.

Mary: She’s not my mother.

Charles: Charming lady, your new mummy. She’s got those bovine hips, so I assume she’ll be plopping out heirs as soon as James’ dousing rod directs her away from foreign [indecipherable].

Mary: Oh my God.

Charles: Oyster?

Groom of the Stool: Yes, your majesty! *grunting*

Charles: If God is good– and we know he is– she’ll give birth to a few boys before she’s spent. Women are quite fragile, as you know Mary. It’s especially hard with our good Stuart stock and– Oh, Dicky, no, no hump, no hump, daddy has a [indecipherable]. Might we can hope for a few younger brothers– you’d like that, wouldn’t you Mary?

Mary: Oh, yes, dear uncle. How I love being an older sister to our dear, simple Anne and how I’d revel in the opportunity to be an older sister again.

Charles: Oyster?

Groom of the Stool: Yes, your majesty! *grunting*

Charles: [indecipherable] England [indecipherable] worry that another woman would take the throne.

Mary: Yes, poor England.

Charles: Yes.

Mary: Ah, ah, ah, ah!

Charles: Dicky! If that heifer can squeeze out just one little boy, England is saved! Oh, Mary, you see it’s not that women shouldn’t be involved in politics, it’s that they can’t. Their brains aren’t built for it! I don’t even know if you can comprehend what I’m saying to you right now!

Mary: I’m lost.

Charles: Yes, I assumed so. Oyster?

Groom of the Stool: Yes, your majesty! *grunting*

Charles: *chocking, spits* [indecipherable] Go on, up! [indecipherable] Now, where were we? Yes– women are not fit to rule.

Mary: Sorry, once more.

Charles: I am king.

Mary: You are king.

Charles: I am a great king.

Mary: You are a great king.

Charles: Women… cannot be kings.

Mary: No, they’re queens.

Charles: …Very good Mary! I’m very proud. That’s a real thought you just had!

Mary: I’m lost again.

Charles: So, if I am king and women…?

Mary: Can’t be kings.

Charles: Then women…?

Mary: Can’t be great kings?

Charles: Exactly! I am very impressed with your understanding of Restoration politics. As king, I’ve found it requires tremendous subtlety. OW! Dicky, get off! Dicky, don’t let–! God, you bastard! Bite that hand that feeds you, ey? Groom of the Stool!

Groom of the Stool: Yes, your majesty?

Charles: Lock him in the Tower!

Groom of the Stool: Yes, your majesty.

Charles: You made a big mistake, Dicky! No [indecipherable] bites a sovereign.

Groom of the Stool: Yes, your majesty!

Charles: Now, let us break our conversation into greater areas regarding your sex.

Mary: Ah, like needle crappy gossip.

Charles: And… boys.

Mary: Ah, yes, boys.

Charles: And… marriage.

Mary: Ah, yes, my purpose in life.

Charles: You a beautiful Stuart girl– Protestant– a large Protestant wedding to a regal, Protestant husband.

Mary: No, ha, Louis’ Catholic.

Charles: Louis? Yes, he’s Catholic.

Mary: Right, but you just said–

Charles: You, a beautiful Stuart girl–

Mary: Oh no!

Charles: A large Protestant wedding–

Mary: Oh, god!

Charles: To a regal–

Mary: No!

Charles: Protestant...

Mary: Please!

Charles: Did you enjoy dinner last night? You [indecipherable] to impressed your cousin.

Mary: No.

Charles: William! Were you taken by him, Mary?

Mary: *bahing*

Charles: He was very taken by you.

Mary: *bahing*

Charles: Your first cousin, so you’ll have a lot in common!

Mary: *bahing*

Charles: My dead sister’s boy! She was a real bitch.

Mary: *bahing*

Charles: And you’ll have the line of succession, so you won’t have to worry about being queen, Mary. William can handle it. Sorry he’s such a cold, ugly bastard.

Mary: *spluttering*

Charles: Your Catholic father *spits* is pissed. Not surprising, but I ordered him to shut the fuck up about it. The wedding is next week. La~!

Mary: Wait! Anne!

Charles: Oh, you’re too thoughtful, dear girl! Anne will be fine on her own.

Mary: No, no, no, marry Anne off to William!

Charles: Certainly not! You’re next in line after your idiot father. We’ll marry Anne off to one of the fat, inbred cousins.

Mary: But I learned French!

Charles: And now you’ll get to learn Dutch! It’s not a beautiful language, but it matches the people. The king exits!

Mary: *sobbing*

*church music / exert of “Aria” by Marco Rosano*

Priest: Gathered! His Royal Highness Charles II!

Ensemble: GOD SAVE HIM!

Priest: The bride’s father James (the eventual second)– what? Your father refused to attend!

Mary: *sobbing*

Priest: We are gathered today in the eyes of our Protestant God to witness the eternal joining of two people, and more importantly, two nations. Our beloved England and our at-least-for-the-time-being-not-enemy Holland.

*fanfare*

Priest: The Dutch Stand Stadtholder! ...William? ...The Prince of Orange!

William: *violent coughing*

Priest: William? You good?

William: Ja.

Priest: Do you need a minute?

William: [indecipherable]

Priest: Okay! So… the, uh… the Dutch Stadtholder! The Prince of Orang– William?

William: *violent coughing* [indecipherable]

Priest: We are gathered– we are– we’re gathered– we are gathered– gathered– and we are gathered–

William: [Dutch word]

Priest: Pardon?

William: [Dutch word]

Priest: Sorry, I–

William: [Dutch word], stepping [Dutch word].

Priest: Oh, yes. *groaning* NOW! We are gathered for the joining of two people, two nations, and one [indecipherable] faith. Do you, Mary, take a solemn vow to obey and honor William until you’re parted by death? Okay, good. Do you, William, take a solemn vow to take Mary as your bride and treat her with whatever respect you happen to feel like showing her? Alright, whoo! You’re all good in here. You may kiss the bride.

William: *violent coughing*

*retro dance music* / exert of “Oh! Oh! I'm Goin' Home” by The Peppers

Mary: Wow. Midnight. Where did the time go?

William: Time for bed.

Mary: Right. Yup. Time for bed. It’s late and… it’s late and… it’s late and… it’s time for bed and there’s the bed, it’s time for bed and… we’re married now.

Charles: Now, nephew! To your purpose! God save Saint George and England! *giggling*

Mary: Right, historically, um, all of that actually happened. Well– oh, sorry, I was talking to someone else. Well, I guess it’s late, right? It’s late and it’s, um, time to go do– time to do– time to go do do do do do do do do doing of it. Ah! Wow. A ring… Is it for me? …Should I take it? …I’ll take it. Wow… a ruby… yes, ruby– rubies are very– rubies are red! Red. Rubies are… pink actually, now that I look at it. Funny, they’re really much more pink. Everyone always says “ruby red” but they’re much more pink when you look at it, oh look at that, it’s–

William: My mother’s.

Mary: Your mother’s? Wow. Beautiful. Ring. That was your mother’s. Ring, ruby, ring, ruby, ring–

William: She’s dead.

Mary: What? Oh, I’m sorry. About that– that she’s dead. What happened? Sorry! No, none of my business. Poor Mum! Um, my mom is dead. Died when I was a child so… I know what it’s like. To have a dead mum. *awkward laughter*

William: You don’t have to smile for me. You don’t have to pretend.

Mary: Dearest dear, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear husband– this is the woman again, um... You’ll find a pair of horns on your front door for… it appears I’ve taken another husband. Hm…

*whistle*

Anne: I brought you a going-away present. It’s another goldfish.

Mary: Thank you, sister.

Anne: I knew you already that one, so you’d like it. I hope they don’t eat each other. Do goldfish eat each other? Is it a long trip to Holland?

Mary: I don’t know!

Anne: You seem glum. Story time! When Aunt Catherine–

Mary and Anne: God save her!

Anne: Married Uncle Charlie–

Mary and Anne: God save him!

Anne: She had to leave Portugal in order to marry him. She hadn’t even met him yet, so I guess it could be worse.

Mary: Yes, but she came to England, I’m leaving it!

Anne: Yeah, fair. Just trying to help.

Mary: I don’t need your help, dear sister, this is my cross to bear.

Anne: Saint Mary the Martyr of English diplomacy! If only you were Catholic.

Mary and Anne: *spit*

*whistle*

Mary: I’ve never left London, that’s what scares me the most. God be with thee, sister. God be with thee, England.

William: …Two.

Mary: Oh. Yes, Anne got me one as a going-away pr– okay.

Anne: I hate him.

Mary: Well, he’s your brother now.

Anne: Please, I hated him when he was my cousin. I think you should be the first Protestant saint just for sleeping with him. I can’t even imagine!

Mary: …Neither can I.

Anne: WHAT?! TELL ME EVERYTHING!!

Mary: Well, considering we haven’t, that’s everything to tell!

Anne: Oh my God! You’ve been married a week!

Mary: This stays between you and me, Anne!

Anne: Oh, but Mary, I have to tell my friends!

Mary: I don’t like your friends!

Anne: Fuck you! The court would die if they knew!

Mary: No!

Anne: But Mary, you can’t tell something this juicy and force me to hold it inside!

Mary: Shh!

Anne: But it’s not you Mary, it’s him. That puny prig.

Mary: No.

Anne: But you don’t even like him!

Mary: What wife likes her husband?

Anne: He’s so gross and I used to think you were gross, but he’s like, super gross. Oh thank God you’re not screwing! Your kids would be so gro– I didn’t realize Papa hadn’t told you the truth about him!

Mary: Oh, what did father say?

Anne: He buggers boys. Said he buggers boys. Said if he takes the throne, England gets two queens.

Mary: …I’ll have nothing to do with silly, irreverent myths, Anne… And tell my other husband I’ll send her the new address.

Anne: Gross! [indecipherable] each other!

*Dutch folk music* / exert of “Klompe Dans” by Camerata Trajectina

Citizen: Welkom in Nederland!

Mary: Oh, yes, thank you.

Citizen: Welkom in Nederland!

Mary: Ah, yes, thank you.

Citizen: Welkom in Nederland!

Mary: Thank you.

*fanfare*

Mary: Oh, good day William!

Citizens: Welkom in Nederland!

Mary: Life in Holland. It’s beautiful. It’s very, very clean.

Citizen: Welkom in Nederland!

Betty: Your ladyship?

Citizens: Welkom in Nederland!

Mary: Thank you! Please keep talking, Betty.

Betty: Your ladyship–

Citizens: Welkom in Nederland!

Mary: Anything in English– thank you!

Betty: *whispers*

Mary: Dank u.

Citizens: Ooo!

*fanfare*

Betty: Supper time!

Mary: I’m not hungry.

Betty: Not you, your ladyship.

Citizen: Welkom in Nederland…

Mary: …Dank u.

Citizens: Ooo!

Mary: I must grin when my heart is fit to break, I must speak when my heart is so oppressed I can scarcely breathe.

Betty: Oh, that’s real pretty. The Bastard, your ladyship.

Mary: The Bastard?

Betty: Your half-cousin, King Charles II– God Save Him–’s bastard son, your ladyship.

Mary: Here?

Betty: Uh-huh.

Mary: Whoo!

Monmouth: Cousin!

William: Let me not interrupt your reunion. Continue this.

Mary: How’s home?

Monmouth: England is good! The family not so much. My father, Charles II–

Mary and Monmouth: God save him!

Monmouth: –seems ill. Parliament hates your father, James (the eventual second) since he’s decided to be Catholic–

Mary and Monmouth: *spit*

Monmouth: –since we just had nine years of civil war, ugh! People would rather avoid any foreseeable royalist drama, so Parliament wrote the Exclusion Act to keep your father off the throne.

Mary: Oh no!

Monmouth: No! Charles II–

Mary and Monmouth: God save him!

Monmouth: –refused to sign it.

Mary: Oh, good.

Monmouth: No! That’s why [indecipherable] is shit! Charles II–

Mary and Monmouth: God save him!

Monmouth: –dissolved Parliament, hoping to form a more moderate one.

Mary: Oh, good!

Monmouth: No! Bad! A group of Protestants then tried to blow up my papa Charlie–

Mary and Monmouth: God save him!

Monmouth: –on his way back from a race to [indecipherable]!

Mary: Oh no!

Monmouth: Oh yes!

Monmouth: –[indecipherable] watching the race, ALL OF NEWMARKET CAUGHT ON FIRE!!

Mary: Oh no!

Monmouth: No, that’s good! Charles’– God save him– house in Newmarket was destroyed, so they had to leave the race early, thus foiling the plot to kill him!

Mary: Oh, God is very generous to our family. And how’s Anne?

Monmouth: Married.

Mary: Oh, to one of the inbred cousins?

Monmouth: We’re royal! Inbred cousins are the only dignified option! How’s life in the Dutch court?

Mary: Um… clean, it’s very, very clean.

Monmouth: Ah, thank God you have William.

Mary: *hysterical laughter* ...Yes. No, I do see William from time to time. He likes to walk from stage left to stage right to stage right to stage left.

Monmouth: Incredibly generous man– looking forward to our dinner tonight! He invited me to hunt tomorrow and all the rest of next week! Very charming!

Mary: You’ve only been onstage for a minute and a half!

Betty: There are more officials for you to meet, your ladyship.

Monmouth: See you around, cuz. Ch-cha! …Ch-cha!

Citizen: Welkom in Nederland!

Mary: Dank u.

Citizens: Ooo!

William: …Welkom in Nederland! *laughter, interrupted by violent coughing*

*fanfare*

Citizen: Welkom in Nederland!

Betty: Alright! Her ladyship has another engagement she must prepare for, so sorry!

Mary: Ugh, what’s next Betty?

Betty: Nothing, your ladyship. I just think you’ve been gawked at enough today.

Mary: Oh, thank you Betty!

Betty: What’s a lady-in-waiting for?

Mary: But I’m afraid William might be cross once he finds out I didn’t finish all the state greetings. I guess I’d actually have to spend time with him for him to be cross with me.

Betty: He’s not one to get cross about things; he’s quite charming actually if you get past the hermetic silence.

Mary: I suppose he prefers the company of *whispered* his men?

*fanfare*

William and Monmouth: *laughing*

William: *starts coughing violently*

Monmouth: I love this guy!

*fanfare*

Betty: You’ve heard that already, have you?

Mary: Is it true?

Betty: Rumors, your ladyship. I also heard rumors of a girl who wrote letters to a woman she called her husband. And I now know a woman who still writes these letters!

Mary: Dismissed!

Betty: Your ladyship.

Mary: Wait. Put the children to bed, will you? Wait– wait, wait wait– just [indecipherable]. Don’t judge me! Dearest, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear– stop!– husband… Let me start again: Dearest, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear husband: You’ve not responded to any of my letter as of late!

Anne: Dearest sister!

Mary: Oh good God, Anne! Still able to interrupt me from across the English Chanel!

Anne: It is with good nice that I write. Since we last spoke… I’m pregnant!

Mary and Anne: *squeeing*

Anne: I know! I know! I fucking know! Ah, someone has to produce some heirs in this family!

Mary: Hey…

Anne: What have you been up to? Oh! My friends are here! Thank you, sis!

Mary: Anne is pregnant. My younger sister is pregnant …I’m jealous! Ugh!

*fanfare*

William and Monmouth: To hunt!

Monmouth: ♪ I’ll sing you eight, O! ♪

William and Monmouth: ♪ Green grow the rushes, O! ♪

William: ♪ What are your eight, O? ♪

Monmouth: ♪ Eight for the April Rainers! ♪

William: ♪ Seven for the seven stars in the sky! ♪

William and Monmouth: ♪ Six for the six proud walkers! ♪ Five for the symbols at your door! ♪ Four for the Gospel makers! ♪ THREE, THREE THE RIVALS! ♪ Two, two the lily-white boys! ♪ Clothed all in green, O! ♪ One is one and all alone! ♪ And evermore shall be so! ♪

*fanfare*

Mary: Betty!

Betty: *imitating the song*

Mary: Stop!

Betty: Oh! Yes, your ladyship.

Mary: My cousin, the Bastard, and Prince William have been spending an awful lot of time together!

Betty: William loves the hunt.

Mary: How do you know?!

Betty: He told me!

Mary: You’ve spoken with him? Am I the only person in the entire world who’s not had a single conversation with my husband?!

Betty: You just need to catch him in the right mood.

*fanfare*

Mary: Dearest, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear– Oh my God, you’re pathetic! Two husbands and neither one replies!

Anne: Okay, so I wasn’t pregnant. Well, I was, but I’m not anymore.

Mary: Oh… Anne I’m so sorry!

Anne: I know. But I will be again. Maybe tonight! God be with me!

Mary: I don’t have to be Mary the Martyr. I can fix him. I can make it work. It’s a job, right? I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I’m just doing my job!

*fanfare*

Mary: Oh, William! Um, I was wondering–

William: Nothing!

Monmouth: The hunt did not go well!

William: Ugh!

Anne: Yup, pregnant!

Mary: Again? Wow!

*fanfare*

Mary: Oh, William! I’d love to talk with you!

William: …but–but–but we’re going to the hunt?

Mary: Yes, but I’d really like to talk with you.

William: …Okay?

Mary: In private.

William: Um… After the hunt?

Mary: Yeah, okay, sure.

*fanfare*

Anne: Okay, that pregnancy wasn’t meant to be, but tonight, THIS IS THE ONE!

Mary: Tonight, this is the one!

*fanfare*

Mary: Oh, William! I’m so looking forward to our evening!

William: Not in the mood!

Monmouth: The stag got away!

*fanfare*

Mary: The stag got away…

Anne: Pregnant!

Mary: Ugh!

*fanfare*

Mary: William, wait! Tonight?

William: Eh!

Mary: Wait! Here, for good luck!

Monmouth: *retching*

*fanfare*

Mary: Tonight! Tonight!

*fanfare*

Mary: Oh, husband! How was the hunt?

William: I got the stag!

Mary: Oh, you must be very merry!

William: I… uh… I’m exhausted. Ugh…

Monmouth: Come on. Shake it off.

William: *violent coughing*

*fanfare*

Mary: I will force myself to love this creature.

*fanfare*

Mary: *screams* ...Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh! It must have been a chill!

William: [indecipherable]!

Mary: Oh, oh no! Oh no! Oh, my slipper! Oh, I–I’m so sorry to, uh, keep you from you duties!

William: I’ve been meaning to schedule a time for our talk.

Mary: Oh, you remembered?

William: What was the subject?

Mary: Us. You and me. Us and our… duties.

William: Ah. Our political duties are not as rulers, but as first citizens. Stadtholder means “the first citizen.” It is very different from life in England. For example, no Dutch citizen kisses my hand. In the Netherlands, we are all equals. Calvinists, Protestants, Jews– even the Jews Mary. [indecipherable] Do you like Holland?

Mary: Oh, it’s very, very clean. I’m not, um… I’m not sure if I’m fitting in.

William: Well, I don’t fit in and I was born here.

Mary: I feel the same way about my family.

William: Our family.

Mary: You’re very close to the Bastard, you know. Hunting and… actually talking and I was thinking, now that we’re actually talking, Anne is pregnant… again.

William: Ja? ...Yes? …This life is not the life you wanted, is that a true thing I just said? Bastard! Where is [indecipherable]?!

Monmouth: *whispers*

William: Your uncle, Charles II–

Mary: God save him!

William: –he’s dead.

Charles: …Oh.

Anne: I had a miscarriage. Oh, and Daddy’s the king now. God save him.

William: To his newly crowned majesty– James II– I send you greetings–

*evil music / exert of “Allegro” by Marco Rosano*

James: James II! Boy, you’re the husband of my eldest daughter, the heir apparent to the throne of England, my father’s grandchild, my son-in-law: it’s King James II!

William: Ah. From one very close ally to another very, very close ally– that is what we still are, right?

James: Say it! Say my name, William!

William: King James II?

James: YES! That’s me, the king! Say it again!

William: King James II, I first wish to send you condolences on the death of your brother, God save hi–

James: I was at his bed when he passed.

William: Surely, you provided much comfort to Charles–

James: Oh, “surely provided much comfort to Charles,” yes! He converted, on his deathbed, to Catholicism!

William: *spits*

James: I’ll never forget his final words to me: “Make sure my whores don’t starve!” Men of power keep mistresses, you know… Do you know that, William?

William: …Well, uh, the reason I write is because, well, I have an offer for you. You see, here in Europe we have a little club. I call it “a league”. Not everyone is allowed into it, actually, but England most definitely would be allowed in “the league”. It is what may be described as “exclusive”. A lot of really great countries have joined: uh, Austria, Spain, the Netherlands, even Savoy.

James: Which countries are not allowed?

William: France.

James: Oh, don’t like Louis, do we?

William: No, I don’t! Louis wants to be king of Europe and he– he is routinely invading us here in Holland. Your son-in-law: who is that? That is me! Which I know you aren’t thrilled about, but your daughter is the Princess of Orange. Louis XIV is invading not just my country, but also her country.

James: Please. Mary’s country is, and always will be, England!

William: And as the future Queen of England, you should protect her.

James: I wouldn’t be so sure about Mary. While she is the eldest, she’s still a woman, and unlike you, William, I plan to perform kingly duties with my queen.

William: I just wanted to invite you to our league.

James: I’m very important, I’ve got to go.

William: France is at our borders as we speak!

James: That’s not my problem. Mary was betrothed to him for years, you know, before she married you. My idiot brother made that happen against my protests but I’m the king now! I wasn’t supposed to be, but God wanted me. God needs me! Sixty years of second-fiddle to King Syphilis and now I’m calling the shots, William! I don’t need you, you need me, and frankly, I don’t really like you.

*evil music / exert of “Allegro” by Marco Rosano*

James: Shh!

William: Why you do that?

*evil music / exert of “Allegro” by Marco Rosano*

James: Shh!! Thank you. Ooo, ooo, how they all loved my brother Charles the Pervert– forced me to marry my daughter to that Dutch abortion! Now, I’d like to speak to the court! You all like… gossip, don’t you? Let’s talk about William.

*retro music / exert of “O Samba Brasileiro” by Walter Wanderley*

Mary: They’re laughing, Maria Regina. They’ve been whispering all morning and I don’t– I don’t want to sound paranoid but… I hear my name. I hear William’s name and I hear… Betty’s name.

Messengers: God save him!

Mary: Hello?

Messenger 1: Your father sends us–

Messenger 2: God save him!

Messenger 1: James II–

Messenger 2: Long may he reign!

Mary: Oh, Father sends you?

Messengers: God save him, yes!

Messenger 2: In his infinite and divine wisdom, we were sent to you–

Messenger 1: His oldest daughter–

Messenger 2: Possibly the future queen–

Mary: Possibly?

Messenger 1: Your mother, the queen–

Mary: She’s not my mother.

Messenger 2: Is hoping to reward England with many sons–

Messenger 1: But one’s eyes are to the future–

Messenger 2: He hasn’t forgotten his eldest.

Mary: Oh, we haven’t spoken–

Messenger 1: He thinks of you often.

Mary: Well, he doesn’t write.

Messenger 1: It’s not that he thinks of you as you are–

Mary: Okay…?

Messenger 2: More for what you could be.

Mary: Well, I’m just happy that he’s thinking of me.

Messenger 2: He’s thinking of your soul.

Messenger 1: Your eternal soul.

Messenger 2: Your eternal, everlasting soul.

Mary: Yup, those both mean the same thing.

Messenger 1: Since Jesus was crucified–

Messenger 2: [indecipherable], mind you–

Mary: Yes, I’ve heard.

Messenger 1: A church was born–

Messenger 2: The Catholic Church!

Mary: *spits* Oh, sorry, habit.

Messenger 1: James–

Messenger 2: King James–

Messengers: God save him!

Messenger 1: Has sent us–

Messenger 2: In his infinite and sacred judgment–

Messengers: To convert you to Catholicism!

Mary: …Yeah, no, I’m good.

Messenger 1: It’s the true faith.

Mary: Yes, next time he could just write.

Messenger 2: [indecipherable] reading materials!

Mary: Right, or even visit–

Messenger 1: [indecipherable] all the celebrities are Catholic.

Messenger 2: Wow, really?

Messenger 1: Really!

Messengers: Like who?

Messenger 2: The pope, you ever heard of him?

Messenger 1: Of course! Wow, the pope is Catholic?

Messengers: Who else?

Messenger 2: God!

Mary: Debatable.

Messengers: Who else?

Messenger 2: Louis XIV.

Messenger 1: Whoah, he’s a heartthrob.

Mary: Yes, okay, I’ve heard enough!

Messenger 1: But Louis’ such a hunk!

Messenger 2: And Catholic!

Messenger 1: And… He’s Catholic?

Messenger 2: You better believe it!

Messengers: A Catholic hunk!

Mary: Okay, I’m married!

Messenger 1: For now.

Mary: …Excuse me?

Messenger 1: Hard to ignore the rumors–

Messenger 2: Naughty rumors–

Messenger 1: Everyone’s tittling–

Messenger 2: A-tittle here, a-tittle there–

Messengers: Tittle everywhere!

Messenger 1: That little Dutch devil–

Messenger 2: Evil Protestant pervert–

Mary: Oh, no, no, no, him buggering boys– that’s just a rumor!

Messenger 1: Boys?!

Messenger 2: Buggering?!

Messenger 1: Boys?!

Messenger 2: Buggering?!

Messengers: Buggering boys?!

Messenger 1: More like buggering the help.

Messenger 2: Dutch devil!

Mary: With the help?

Messengers: Buggering the help.

Messenger 1: Yes, everyone knows–

Messenger 2: Knows her name even.

Mary: Do you know their name?

Messenger 1: Well, I’ve said everyone–

Messenger 2: We’re part of everyone–

Mary: So, yes?

Messengers: Yes!

Mary: What’s his name?

Messenger 1: His name?

Messenger 2: His name?

Messengers: Squinty Betty!

Messenger 1: Squinty Betty’s a man?

Messenger 2: I didn’t know she was a man!

Messeger 1: No, I bet Betty’s a man.

Messenger 2: No, man, she’s a wo-man.

Messenger 1: Wo-man?

Messengers: Wo-man, she’s a wo-man!

Mary: Wait, Squinty Betty?!

Messenger 1: And the Dutch devil!

Messenger 2: Evil Dutch devil!

Messenger 1: Evil!

Messenger 2: Evil: that’s not good!

Messenger 1: No, it’s not good!

Messenger 2: That’s the opposite of good!

Messengers: And what’s the opposite of good?

Mary: Evil!

Messangers: *scream*

Mary: *screams*

Messenger 1: [indecipherable] James–

Messenger 2: King James–

Messengers: God save him!

Messenger 1: Has the fires burning.

Mary: Fires?

Messenger 2: To feel the heat.

Messenger 1: Ow!

Messenger 2: Careful.

Messenger 1: It’s the heat.

Messenger 2: I feel it.

Messenger 1: [indecipherable] King James [indecipherable] our beloved England [indecipherable] burning more evil people than Charles ever did.

Mary: Wait, he’s burning people?

Messenger 2: [indecipherable]

Messenger 1: Evil people!

Mary: He’s burning people?!

Messenger 2: [indecipherable]

Messenger 1: Evil people!

Mary: Father’s burning people?!

Messenger 2: [indecipherable]

Messenger 1: Evil people!

Mary: Jesus!

Messengers: Praise him!

Messenger 1: Praise Jesus!

Messenger 2: Praise God!

Messenger 1: Praise the pope!

Messenger 2: And above all, praise the king!

Messengers: God save King James II, long may he reign!

Mary: …William and Betty– no… No, I’ll have nothing to do with silly, irreverent myths… Betty! Um, throw these away. And, um, put the children to bed, will you? Oh– oh– oh– oh– oh, um… question: how is it you always to find William in such a talkative mood?

Betty: I just run into him.

*laid back retro music / exert of “Rain” by Walter Wanderley*

Mary: It’s late. No, you don’t have to leave. You were in Betty’s room. Do you know how I know that? Maybe because the entire court is talking about it! No, you don’t need to talk! I have tried to get you to talk for months, you do not need to talk now! Fuck off, Betty! The longest I’ve ever spent with you is [indecipherable]. You’re impossible! You’re thick! Uncaring! Cruel! My life here is suffering and now you make me the fool? To my father, to the court, and to myself! I’m the fool! You know, it was better when I thought you were gay; I thought “Well, at least it’s not my fault” but now I know, “No, it is my fault!” You turned down marrying me once before, why did you have to say yes this time? I was engaged to Louis XIV! I could’ve been in Versailles, in the most beautiful place on Earth and I would’ve been happy– no, I would be happy! And I would be liked and my family would love me and I would’ve done everything right, but then you came along! And ruined it! And everything! And me! And– this isn’t right! No! This is not how this was supposed to go! It was supposed to be me and Louis and it would’ve been right and normal and then I would be normal and happy and I don’t know– I don’t know why you had to say yes this time! Louis– Louis– Louis is– Louis– Louis– Louis– Louis– Louis– Louis– Louis’ the king! Right? Right? And he’s beautiful! I assume. I’ve seen the portraits– which are rarely accurate– but I’ve always wanted to marry him! Well, I was always supposed to marry him– but at least he’s nice! Yes, I’ve not met him, but at least I’ve heard that he’s ni– well, I guess I’ve actually not heard anything, but I was alway supposed to ma– Well, I guess I always– Okay, well, I guess I’ve never really actually thought about it! Well, I guess I never actually like Louis, or men… Men in general. I mean, I write to a woman who I call my husband, and I’ve always had a crush on her, but she’s not very nice to me, and she writes to my sister more than she writes to me, AND I DON’T KNOW IF I’M A LESBIAN, OKAY?! I don’t like men! But I don’t know if I like women either– historically speaking, there’s some things we just can’t know about me, okay, historically speaking– but personally speaking, you know what? I’M FIFTEEN YEARS OLD!! How am I supposed to know?! You know what? No! I didn’t want to marry Louis, now that I think about it, because, well, I never actually thought about it because, well, I’M NEVER SUPPOSED TO THINK! But I am gonna think! Like you said, we’re just first citizens here, right? So I’m allowed to think! So I��m gonna think! So I’m gonna think! Right, let me think! …Okay. I have something to say. I’m fifteen years old, William. Do you have any idea how scary this is? Leaving my country, marrying you, a stranger, I… I don’t speak the language, I don’t have any friends, and you, my husband, are still a stranger. You don’t have to love me. You don’t have to like me. But please don’t be cruel to me. I… I do not know how much… more a fifteen year old girl can take.

William: …Betty’s a spy. Before I married you, I had asked her to inform me about you.

Mary: Yeah, a spy, that’s the best you could come up with–

William: It’s true.

Mary: Yes, my lady-in-waiting is a spy! …Well, what did Betty the spy say?

William: She said you weren’t like your family.

Mary: Well, I tried to be like them.

William: I never tried.

Mary: Well, I think that makes you honest.

William: But not liked.

Mary: Well, they don’t like either of us. We share that at least.

William: I need to say something.

Mary: Okay! Good! Yeah! Okay! I’m here! I can listen! …Is it a problem? Is it personal? Is it about what I think it’s about? I know what it is, William.

William: You do?

Mary: Yes. It’s about–

Mary and William: Your penis / Your father

William: Wait, what?!

Mary: What about my father?

William: He terrifies me.

Mary: Oh, yeah, me too.

William: The balance of peace in this world is a delicate thing and James isn’t.

Mary: You can talk to me about these things, William. I know who my father is, you’re not going to hurt my feelings.

William: Yes… My penis?

Mary: Oh, um, well, I mean… why haven’t we…?

William: I’m uncomfortable around–

Mary: Me.

William: …people.

Mary: Oh, yeah, well, same, haha... But, um… It’s just a job, right? We would just be… doing our… our job.

*classical music / exert of “Zadok The Priest, Hwv 258″ by the English Chamber Orchestra*

William: *panting*

Mary: I HAVE NEWS! …I’M PREGNANT!! I did it! William did it! We, um… well, obviously, we did it. Oh my God, I feel a strange thing!

William: Are you okay?!

Mary: No! Yes! No! …I feel… happy.

*cheerful folk music / “Bransle de Bourgogne” by Brisk Recorder Quartet Amsterdam*

Anne: I have news!

Mary: Hello, Anne!

Anne: Hello, Mary.

Mary: You’re pregnant?

Anne: No, Mumsy is.

Mary: She’s not our mother.

Anne: They say if it’s a boy, God has chosen to make England Catholic again, but that’s only a 50-50 chance.

Mary: No, he wouldn’t baptize him Catholic, Anne.

Anne: I wouldn’t be so sure.

Mary: But we’ve just had nine years of civil war, why would he lead us into another?

Anne: To save us from the Dutch Devil.

William: Me?

Anne: I prefer “the Dutch Abortion” but “devil” isn’t bad. Gotta go!

Mary: God be with thee, Anne.

Anne: P.S. I may be pregnant, not sure.

*cheerful folk music / “Bransle de Bourgogne” by Brisk Recorder Quartet Amsterdam*

Mary: Ohhh!

Messengers: Glorious day!

Messenger 1: Tra-la!

Messenger 2: We’ve been sent to you by your father, the king!

Messenger 1: God save him!

Messenger 2: Long may he reign!

Mary: Again, he could always just write.

Messenger 1: He has his own pregnancy to attend to.

Messenger 2: His future son!

Mary: Are you certain about that?

Messenger 1: God ordained it!

Messenger 2: A Catholic England!

Messengers: Tra-la!

Messenger 1: We’ve been sent to beseech you.

Messenger 2: Consider your child’s–

Messenger 1: Everlasting soul!

Messenger 2: Baptize your child in the Catholic faith!

Mary: *spits* …morning sickness.

Messenger 1: For your child!

Messenger 2: For your father!

Messenger 1: You must respect him!

Messenger 2: Honor him!

Messenger 1: It’s in the Bible!

Messenger 2: “Honor thy father”!

Messengers: The Fifth Commandment!

Messenger 1: Honor the king of England!

Messenger 2: God save him!

Messenger 1: Long may he reign!

Messenger 2: For England!

Messengers: Make the baby Catholic!

William: Mary?

Mary: Yes?

William: Honor is not obeying.

*cheerful folk music / “Bransle de Bourgogne” by Brisk Recorder Quartet Amsterdam*

Anne: I have news!

Mary: You’re pregnant.

Anne: Besides that, Mary, but yes.

Mary: Oh, congratulations!

Anne: Yes, same to you!

Mary: Thank you!

Anne: Thank you! I have news: people are talking about Mother’s pregnancy–

Mary: Ah, she’s not our mother.

Anne: –And they think it’s all a big fake! Everyone is saying how [video skips]

Mary: Who’s saying that?

Anne: The court, Parliament, everyone! Oh, they don’t like Papa; they say every nineteen out of twenty want him gone.

Mary: Yes, but not likely cause the king does not–

William: Mary–

Anne: Ew!

Mary: Anne!

Anne: Sorry… Hello, William… glad you got my sister pregnant. *retches*

Mary: No. No, it’s not right for me to dance… No! No, I can have this moment! I can be happy! Yeah, nothing’s gonna stop me– *claps* –from enjoying this moment! Go ahead!

*cheerful folk music / “Bransle de Bourgogne” by Brisk Recorder Quartet Amsterdam*

Monmouth: Ah! I thank you for the generosity both you and William have shown me over the last undetermined period of time, but I must leave.

William: Oh, where’re you going? I was going to plan another hunt.

Monmouth: There comes a time in every mans life where the cruel, [indecipherable] eye of destiny looks upon him! The hero of every story has his moment of action! [indecipherable] standing on the precipice of glory to see the apotheosis of my journey’s end on that glorious mountain green! Today I sail! This story shall no longer wander unguided like an orphan clinging from one vague historical anecdote to another! No! Search no longer, poor play, for you have found your hero! And that hero… it’s me. Someone has to save our England! I have a mighty army of almost one hundred men! Eighty two to be exact!

Mary: Wait, with eighty two men you’re planning to–

Monmouth: Invade England, seize the crown, depose your father, my uncle, and save England from Catholic *spits* tyranny?

Mary: You’re planning on doing this with…

Monmouth: Eighty two men! Historically, this is what I did, so yah. [indecipherable] sweet cousin, it will be a Protestant England! ALL HAIL KING BASTARD THE FIRST! CHA-CHAH! Ah! He-yaaaaaaaaaaaa!!

Mary: Eighty two men can’t overthrow the king of England!

William: He’s hoping the people will rise.

Mary: What would they do to father?

William: Kill him.

Mary: Ah! Ah!

William: Okay, okay, okay! The Bastard doesn’t have any support, your father will be fine! You can have this moment; you deserve to be happy.

Mary: How? I may not like my family, but I love them. Yes, I-I deserve to be happy, but Father doesn’t deserve to die!

William: He won’t, he’ll be fine!

Mary: You can’t know that for sure.

William: I do! …I-I promise you– I-I… I promise on the life of our child that nothing will happen to your father. I’ll see to it.

Mary: You will?

William: Mmhm.

Mary: …Okay… Okay, yes, okay… I’m happy.

William: Rest. Nurse? Take my wife to her bedchamber. Make sure she doesn’t want for anything.

Mary: Ooo!

William: [indecipherable]. James?

*evil music / exert of “Allegro” by Marco Rosano*

James: James?! Use my full title!

William: I have grave news.

James: Oh, has France invaded you again?

William: Your nephew, the Duke of Monmouth–

James: Who?

William: …The Bastard.

James: Oh, why didn’t you say?! How is the lad?

William: He’s leading an army to depose you and take the crown for himself.

James: *laughs* You’re having a laugh! …Shit! How dare he! Doesn’t he know who I am?! I’m the king! I’m very well respected and loved– everybody loves me! *gasps* Why doesn’t he love me?! Oh, he’s just a little shit bastard, I’ll crush him! How dare he not see how awesome I am! How powerful and strong and– oh! I am so mad right now! It was a good day too, it was going really well, I had just finished telling the queen “I’m gonna make it a good one today, you know!” Ugh, I am so mad right now I’m literally shaking! *gasps* I need to eat something!

William: I hope you now see that our relationship is very…

*execution drums / exert from “March to the Scaffold” by Paul Edward*

Headsman: *giggling* For your crimes against the crown, you are sentenced to death!

James: Say hello to your father for me, boy. Any last words?

Monmouth: Fuck off!

James: How dare you! Kill the bastard!

Headsman: God save the king!

James: No one questions my authority!

Monmouth: Piss off!

James: Bastard?!

Monmouth: I have still a few [indecipherable]

James: How dare you! [indecipherable]

Headsman: Thank you. One more!

James: Who’s the douchebag now, huh?

Monmouth: You are!

James: Bastard! [indecipherable] I am not a douchebag, I am the king of England!

Monmouth: Douche of England more like it!

James: Cut off his head!

Headsman: [indecipherable] does anyone want to take over, huh?

Monmouth: It takes– ugh! –and this is all true– ugh! –five blows! Ugh! King Douche II! Ugh– *splutters*

James: Who’s the douchebag now, huh? Not me. I am not a douche! You hear me, Bastard?! I am not a douche! You hear me, England? I am not a douche! I am King James II! Not King Douche II! King James II! Charles didn’t respect me, and you, you didn’t respect me, but my people will. OR I’LL FUCKING MAKE THEM! They will fucking tremble in love and adoration– ohh! I want hundreds to pay for this bastard’s actions! I don’t care who they were, if they even so much as saw him walk by, they are to be executed. Churchyard trees are to be littered with corpses, the military men will be order to play in time with the twitching of their feet! And if you think that this is too much, too cruel, I’ll remind you: One, I am just being historically accurate, and two, I am the goddamn motherfucking King of England! William!

William: …your majesty.

James: Oh, I couldn’t’ve done it without you! …But I know what this is. Scared to lose a few more windmills to Louis, huh? What, you thought that you could bribe me with this little quid-pro-quo?

William: I didn’t do it for you, I did it for Mary.

James: Mary? Don’t you dare bring my daughter into this. What? You thought that I was so stupid that little nugget of information would have me on all-fours like a whipped bitch begging to do you any favor you asked? No! That little shit was nothing! I could have fought him off while wiping my ass! I owe you nothing! France may be at your borders, but England could join them just as easily! God knows Louis and I talk about it. *laughs* Tip-toe around me, William. Now, I’d like to speak to my daughter. Now!

William: Mary, could you come here, please? I have a letter for you from your father.

Mary: He’s safe! Thank you, William!

James: Mary, my eldest daughter! *laughs* You know, I fought your uncle Charles about you having to marry that–

Mary: [indecipherable] William’s wonderful, actually. Yes, I–I miss my home very much, but Holland, it’s very, very clean.

James: [indecipherable] they tell me you’re considering a Catholic baptism.

Mary: Oh, no I’m not, Father.

James: You have a responsibility to me, Mary. Biblically, I am your father and you must honor me.

Mary: Well– I do honor you.

James: Then you must obey me.

Mary: Well, honor is not obeying.

James: From King Douche II to you now?

Mary: King Douche?

James: How dare you! I am very [indecipherable] you talk back to me. I am your father and you must honor me!

Mary: Enough of this.

James: You will make the child Catholic!

Mary: Stop!

James: We all know you have no choice. You’re a prisoner.

Mary: Please…

James: [indecipherable], Mary, there’s hope in the distance!

Mary: What are you suggesting?

James: Just because you… lie with the Dutch Dog doesn’t mean you need to get its flees.

Mary: He’s my husband!

James: *laughs* William isn’t long for this world.

Mary: What are you planning?

James: Oh, come now!

Mary: What are you plann– ah! Ah!

James: *laughs* You look like him. Can’t even walk without wheezing, spits blood; your time in the tower is almost over, Mary.

Mary: He is the father of my child. William, could you come here, please?

James: *scoffs* Is he the father? Last I heard, he couldn’t perform.

Mary: You’re one to talk!

James: My performance isn’t to be questioned!

Mary: I know the rumors of the queen’s great belly!

James: [indecipherable] rumors: just a few!

Mary: Nineteen out of twenty! That’s what– ah! Ah!

James: Make the child Catholic!

Mary: *spits*

James: Your mother–

Mary: She’s not my mother!

James: No, your real mother! Remember the day she died?

Mary: Please, Father, I’m in pain! I don’t want–

James: The day she died the priest came to administer her last rites, to cleanse her soul. Without it, your mother would be damned for all eternity! Her skin would scorch, blisters would form– weeping blisters!

Mary: *voice breaking* …William?

James: A priest came… and she refused him.

Mary: William! …That’s a lie!

James: After my counseling she refused the Protestant priest. The Catholic bishop was called in and all was confessed. So, in your philosophy, Mary, is it your mother or your child who’s damned to unfathomable pain and suffering? Which is the one true faith? If you baptize that child Protestant, it means you believe it’s your mother suffering, right now as we speak. Have you ever considered hellfire, Mary? *laughs* It’s something to think about. Oh! Your new mummy’s in labour now. Got to run.

Anne: Mary– and William *scoffs*– the queen’s had a baby. It’s a boy. They’ve baptized him Catholic *spits* toldja so. But there’s something else. I have some gossip! All of London– they think it’s a changeling! They think it’s not a real child. They think she snuck a child into her bed to pass off as our brother! Oh! Papa’s going mad. Something’s going to happen. Something bad.

William: May I see it?

Betty: There’s nothing to see. ...You should go to her, William.

*dramatic music / exert from “2020” by SUUNS*

♪ And what you see is really what you see ♪ ♪ What you, what you, what you, what you ♪ ♪ Do what you please, the thing what you see ♪ ♪ What you, what you, what you, what you ♪ ♪ And what you see you feel ♪ ♪ Coming real, take your way ♪ ♪ All through the way… ♪

~ Intermission ~

*guitar strumming*

Chorus: ♪ Good fortune [indecipherable] William and Mary [indecipherable]-tend ♪ ♪ May glories increase and their lives never end ♪ ♪ [indecipherable] daily successes our nation may find ♪ ♪ For England [indecipherable] they both are designed ♪

Mary: William?

William: Huh?

Mary: Why is there a Greek chorus?

William: [indecipherable] chorus now.

Mary: Yes, why?

Chorus: ♪ Over the hills and it must be done ♪ ♪ To England, Glorious Revolution! ♪ ♪ William commands and we will obey ♪ ♪ Over the hills and far away ♪

Mary: Shoot, shoot, shoot! What story with a Greek chorus ends well?!

William: It’s just a device, Mary, it doesn’t mean–

Mary: The letter! They’re here because of the letter!

William: We received a letter?

Mary: From England. They call themselves–

Chorus: ♪ THE IMMORTAL SEVEN! ♪

Mary and William: The Immortal Seven.

Mary: Parliament has invited us to England.

William: They’ve invited us to invade England.

Mary: Why would they do that?

William: I don’t know.

Mary: We can’t invade!

Chorus: ♪ Invade you must, there’s no time to waste ♪ ♪ James is a monster! Our country defaced ♪ ♪ Blood in the streets and corpses in trees ♪ ♪ Come and put our minds at ease ♪

William: Your father is in talks to invade with Louis. Where? Here! He’s–he’s had his boy and he’s baptized him Catholic and all of England is on the brink of Civil War again!

Mary: What does that have to do with us?

William: Um, well… They want us to depose your father.

Mary: It has to be us?

William: I don’t see another alternative.

Mary: Shoot, shoot, shoot! Is it right?

William: Right? We–we save England, we save the Netherlands, we keep Europe in balance– yes.

Mary: But is it right for a daughter to depose her father? It’s the Fifth Commandment, right? “Honor thy father!”

William: He doesn’t need to die.

Mary: Well, I know my history, William! You only depose a king by killing him. How many former kings do you see walking around?! But… He can’t invade Holland! It’s your country and you care so much for it and the people and it’s so very, very clean– Okay, yes! We should do this. But we have to do it a different way. No blood. No killing. If it’s an invasion, it has to be a bloodless invasion!

William: I don’t know…

Mary: Can you try?

William: Invade one of the most powerful countries in the world, other-throw its king, and not hurt anyone in the process?

Mary: Please?

William: …Ja.

Chorus: *gasps* ♪ What’s that you say? ♪ ♪ We prick up our ears ♪ ♪ [indecipherable] you come ♪ ♪ To end all our fears ♪ ♪ Think of what you both could be ♪ ♪ You’ll go down in history! ♪

Mary: We could, couldn’t we! Imagine all that “First Citizen” stuff here in the Netherlands– we could do that in England! You could bring all of your wonderful ideas to my country! Imagine: Freedom of religion!

William: Freedom of the press!

Mary: And no more torturing! Or bloody pomp and circumstance! And we do it bloodless! We ride into England and the people will rise with us and father will say “Oh wow, that’s what the people want!” And it’ll all work out [indecipherable] Why shouldn’t we be king and queen?! Neither one of us want the damn job so we’re the ones who should have it…

William: Would I be king?

Mary: Yes.

William: Who would you be?

Mary: The queen.

William: Right, but who’s the one in charge?

Mary: …Oh.

William: It would be you, you’re first in line.

Mary: Oh, me? No.

Chorus: *murmuring in agreement*

Mary: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! I’d rather not.

William: It’s not up to you, you’re first in line.

Mary: Ah, but you! You–you are after me!

William: Right, but you still come first.

Mary: But I don’t want to be queen– okay, wait, wait! Let me think… Okay, solution. ….We’ll… both be king and queen!

William: It does not work that way.

Mary: [spluttering] Listen! We go to England; you raise an army and depose– aw– depose father and then we say “Alright! We’re both king and queen!” What’re they gonna do, say no?

William: Joint monarchs– it would be a first.

Mary: [indecipherable] I don’t know if it’s right. God says to honor thy father, but… that doesn’t feel right.

William: We can say no, Mary.

Mary: No… You okay?

Anne: Yes, quite, sister.

Mary: Okay, good.

Anne: Stop staring at me!

Mary: Let’s keep going. And my heart says to bother you.

William: Your heart says that? What do we want to do?

Chorus: ♪ To England, to England! We sail, we sail! To England, to England! At last, at last! A tempest, a tempest! Begins, begins! And [indecipherable], and [indecipherable]! [indecipherable], [indecipherable]! ♪

Soloist: ♪ To England, we sail / [indecipherable] / [indecipherable] / [indecipherable] ♪

Chorus: ♪ The men are afraid ♪ ♪ There’s no debate ♪ ♪ Revolution now must wait ♪

*storm sounds*

Mary: Ahh!

William: THEY’RE CALLING IT THE CATHOLIC WIND! WE CANNOT SAIL FOR ENGLAND UNTIL IT PASSES! WE’VE ALREADY LOST A THOUSAND HORSES! WE HAVE FORTY THOUSAND MEN WAITING TO INVADE– BUT THIS WIND!!

Mary: There have been so many omens! This wind; the miscarriage! Is it a sign from God?! Can a daughter who deposes her father be a Christian?! Can doing what’s right and God’s will be at odds?!

William: WHAT?!

Mary: CAN DOING WHAT’S RIGHT AND GOD’S WILL BE AT ODDS?!

William: Oh, it is over.

Chorus: ♪ [indecipherable] ♪ ♪ William and Mary, our God has ordained ♪ ♪ Rex and Regina, this we say ♪ ♪ Sail on the future king’s birthday ♪

Mary: Wait, really?

William: Ja. It’s my birthday. The fourth. Historically, that’s just how it happened to work out.

Mary: Oh! Well, that’s a good omen, right? Happy birthday to you!

William: Yes.

Mary: William, wait! Look… I respect you. And, under normal circumstances, I would never breach this, um, unspoken agreement, but, um, it’s his birthday– ah, could we– um, uh– you know– could we do just one round of “Happy Birthday”? Um, what’s a good starting note? *hums* Is that good? *hums* Ready?

Mary, chorus, and audience: ♪ Happy birthday to you! ♪ ♪ Happy birthday to you! ♪ ♪ Happy birthday dear William! ♪ ♪ Happy birthday to your! ♪

*cheering*

William: This is the greatest birthday present I’ve ever received. Thank you.

Chorus: ♪ William has come and we will defend ♪ ♪ To kick out the tyrant and and then will ascend ♪ ♪ His first steps on English soil ♪ ♪ Defender of faith and [indecipherable] ♪

William: Hello? Where the hell is everyone?

Peasant: *screams* Oh, it’s [indecipherable] Day. Everyone’s busy catching cats.

William: Ah. Well, um, I am William of Orange, Defender of the Faith and– wait, why are you catching cats?

Peasant: To [indecipherable] the pope.

William: Ah. Well, I am William of Orange, Defende– the pope?

Peasant: *sighs* Not the real one sadly, but yeah. [indecipherable] cats and set them on fire.

William: Why you do this?

Peasant: For God! It’s tradition! …You’re not from around here are ya, foreigner!

Chorus: ♪ Over the hills and it must be done ♪ ♪ To England, Glorious Revolu– ♪

Peasant: [indecipherable] you are making such a racket!

William: I am William of Orange, Defender of the Faith!

*cat screeches*

Peasant: [indecipherable] you scared the cat!

William: Good woman, have you not heard of our coming?

Peasant: …[indecipherable] in England?

William: I–

Peasant: [indecipherable] and whip em til their backs be bloody!! Ngyeehhhhhhhhh!!

William: *screams* I AM WILLIAM OF ORANGE! I COME FROM THE HAGUE BY INVITATION OF PARLIAMENT! Good lady! We come to overthrow King James II.

Peasant: *spits*

William: Progress. I am the [indecipherable]’s husband and myself, third in line. We come to bring stability and religious… freedom to this… country.

Peasant: Oh, you and what army?

Chorus: ♪ We are [indecipherable] ♪ ♪ Join is so you [indecipherable] ♪ ♪ [indecipherable] ♪ ♪ James will soon be overthrown ♪

Peasant: Oh, [indecipherable], sir! I don’t have anything of worth but… I’d be proud to give you my cats.

William: *coughs*

Peasant: Oh, must be the cat smoke.

William: Oh, this air is filthy. I need a little rest.

Messenger: ♪ One man tried to poison your food ♪

Anne: ♪ Some with bullets [indecipherable] ♪

Chorus: ♪ Mostly [indecipherable] ready to fight ♪

Charles: ♪ [indecipherable] horse was white! ♪

William: Let us move forward!

James: William! What the hell do you think you’re doing?!

Chorus: ♪ James was appalled by the sight that he saw ♪

James: ♪ I’ll have your head, boy, remember [indecipherable]! ♪

Chorus: ♪ Soon his generals started to fall ♪

James: ♪ Troops, make an example of him! ♪

Chorus: ♪ James’ troops then began to abandon ♪ ♪ Our glorious William now [indecipherable] ♪

James: Did you not all swear your loyalty?! You are all my subjects! *gaps* Mary! Ungrateful daughter! You must swear your loyalty to your father! It is God’s will! The Fifth Commandment! Consider the hell– *splutters* What the hell? Anne, Messenger, and Monmouth: ♪ Blood from his nose ♪ ♪ [indecipherable] to God ♪ ♪ James was denied ♪ ♪ His royal throne ♪

James: No! No! What the hell?! *spluttering* The Fifth Commandment– shit! This is terribly inconvenient

Anne, Messenger, and Monmouth: ♪ To James [indecipherable] ♪ ♪ His nose really bled ♪

James: WAIT, WHAT?!!

Anne, Messenger, and Monmouth: ♪ To France, King James ♪ ♪ Finally fleeeeeeeeeeee– ♪

James: STOP SINGING!

Anne, Messenger, and Monmouth: ♪ –eeeeeeeedddddd ♪

James: What, is this really historically accurate?! You’re just gonna let me go, William?! HA! Coward! I will return, William, I promise you that! Mary! Ungrateful daughter! You will suffer the fait of an unfaithful daughter. This is not how my story was… suppose to be told… To France.

Chorus: ♪ William has won now that James has fled ♪

William: *prolonged violent coughing*

Chorus: ♪ London is happy! ♪ ♪ With bonfires lit ♪ ♪ Willy’s lungs can’t take the smoke ♪ ♪ And all the fog just made him choke ♪ ♪ Over the hills and it must be done ♪ ♪ To England, Glorious Revolution! ♪ ♪ William commanded and now we’ve won ♪ ♪ Our new day begins with the rising of the sun! ♪ ♪ Of the sun! ♪

William: *groaning, gasping for breath*

#redlady speaks #it takes. a really long time to transcribe something #history brainrot #william iii #mary ii #the glorious revolution #charles ii #james ii #queen anne #the stuarts

11 notes · View notes

sh1tbird-shantytown · 3 years

Note

Tommy doesn’t know who Queen is and Steve goes on a quest to get Tommy to listen to all different types of music. Billy gets dragged into the shenanigans. The three of them start hanging out together when Steve falls asleep, but he has a super bad nightmare. (I think they were probably drinking or smoking weed or both before. Which made the nightmare worse.) Then comes cuddling with Tommy choosing the music and light teasing.

i love this so much. they’re all musically ignorant in one way or another anyway. lemme just sprint with this now :)

---

He was just trying to get his history books, it wasn't his fault that their lockers were right next to each other. Or that Tommy was apparently living under a heavy rock.

“I’ve never heard of Queen, unless you’re talking about the Queen of England or some shit. Other than that, I’m at a loss.” Tommy was yapping to one of Carol’s friends. Sarah? Betty? They all looked the same honestly.

“What do you mean you’ve never heard of Queen?” Steve hadn’t actually really meant to just start abruptly start speaking to Tommy again, but here they were. In the hallway. Around nosey onlookers. And Sarah-Betty who was definitely staring and definitely not happy for the intrusion.

Tommy grinned boyishly, “Talkin’ to me again, Harrington?”

Steve didn’t let up, “You haven’t heard of Queen? Freddie Mercury? Brian May? They’ve been all over the radio for years, man.” Tommy died down a little with the snarky attitude, but the flare was still there through the dilution.

“I don’t know, Harrington. Guess I have too many people around to pay attention to the radio much anymore.” Tommy crossed his arms and Steve almost gave up as the bilious emotions started up towards the boy again.

Steve shook his head, “Meet me at my house tonight at 6. I’ll order in and I’ll show you myself what Queen is. ‘Kay, Tom?” Now that really took the other aback.

“It’s been, what, a year?” Hands on his hips just as Steve was doing, “All of a sudden you’re interested again?”

Steve looked him in the eye and nodded, “Six o’clock on the dot, Tommy. Be there!” he pivoted on his heel and blended in the crowd.

He had the pizza box and the stereo up and ready to jam long before the bell rung. Only three minutes late. It was honestly a record for Tommy, Steve knew for a fact that Tommy had the worst time management skills. Which also made Steve a little on edge as he opened the door. He wasn’t actually that surprised to find Billy Hargrove right there beside Tommy. Both grinning in their own devilish manners.

Steve vamped them with the most unimpressed look he could produce and traveled back inside, “Well, come on!” he ordered impatiently.

Billy spoke up first as they entered the living area, “Nice place, very...” he seemed to contemplate a moment as he examined the vacant side tables and mantle, “Modern.”

“Tell me about it,” he rolled his eyes, “I’ll go get beer,” he started making his way towards the kitchen. “Pizza’s on the coffee table, don’t make a mess.”

When he returned there wasn’t any mess on the floors or furniture, but Tommy had enough sauce on the corners of his mouth and cheeks to slather a whole slice itself.

“Oh, Tommy,” he sighed and grabbed a napkin to clean the sauce before it dried. Billy and Tommy stared like owls but Steve ignored them and instead focused on putting the first cassette in. “Now listen, no one gets to speak.” He pointed to the table, “You have free food and drinks, so indulge me,” he took his own seat on the floor between them. A Night at the Opera.

“Well this is eerie,” Tommy griminced and bit into another slice. His face lifted a moment later as the song changed gears, “Oh wait, no I change my mind, this is cool.”

“Have you found a new toy to replace me? Can you face me? But now you can kiss my ass goodbye Feel good, are you satisfied?”

Steve looked at Tommy and found him already looking back.

Billy coughed, “Next, Pretty Boy?”

“Bicycling on every Wednesday evening Thursday, I go waltzing to the zoo”

Tommy swayed with the steady smoothness, “I like this one, I like it a lot.” Billy’s thigh brushed and planted against Steve’s shoulder as they watched Tommy tap along. The touch sizzled excitingly.

“I'm in love with my car Got a feel for my automobile Get a grip on my boy-racer rollbar Such a thrill when your radials squeal“

Tommy’s face pinched just a little, nose wrinkled cutely, ”I don’t know about this one. Sounds like a song Billy might appreciate a bit more. WIth Margo and all that.”

Tommy smiled at Billy and Steve felt something churn in is tummy, “Margo?” he tilted his head back so it rested on Billy’s knee in order to look at him.

Billy sighed and tilted his own head back to take a sip of the beer can he'd been working on, “It’s my car’s name, after my dog when I was a kid.” Steve shifted back so he was facing the stereo again after nodding once.

“Oh, you're the first one when things turn out bad You know I'll never be lonely You're my only one And I love the things I really love the things that you do“

Tommy immediately smiled at the opening and his foot made its way from nudging him happily to resting in Steve’s lap, “This one is my favorite.”

“Really?” Steve and Billy asked simultaneously. Steve turned his head painfully fast and they stared in mutual shock. They were quick to get over it though and both went back to waiting for Tommy’s decisive nod. His eyes were closed and calm in enjoyment. So, Steve forcefully settled whatever Billy had stirred and did the same, back rested against both boy’s shins comfortably.

“My sweet lady Though it seems like we wait forever Stay sweet, baby Believe and we've got everything we need“

“That one was...interesting,” Tommy commented.

Billy snorted as Steve smiled, “I’d say.”

“I feel like dancing in the rain Can I have a volunteer? Just keep right on dancing What a damn jolly good idea“

Tommy smiled sweetly through the that one, Steve felt as though he didn’t need to ask why.

“I dreamed I saw on a moonlit stair Spreading his hands on the multitude there A man who cried for a love gone stale And ice cold hearts of charity bare“

“How come they are so short and so long at random? It’s weird,” Tommy leaned forward and grabbed another beer, condensation dripping onto Steve’s bare knee.

“Sometimes things are more difficult to interpret,” Billy answered. Steve leaned a little more into them as he felt his hips settle.

“Oh, back, hurry back Please bring it back home to me Because you don't know what it means to me Love of my life“

“That was kinda sad,” Billy was the one to say something between the track then.

Steve agreed, “Yeah, a little.” He felt eyes on his head but gazed instead on the slight glow to the stereo.

“Take good care of what you've got My father said to me As he puffed his pipe and baby B. He dandled on his knee Don't fool with fools who'll turn away Keep all good company“

Steve felt a leg press firmer into his shoulder and he laid his head on it, above him Billy sighed just above being silent, “How was that one, Tom?”

Tommy didn’t answer for a moment, “I’m not sure. It sounded good.” The feet in Steve’s lap crossed themselves jitteringly.

“Open your eyes, Look up to the skies and see, I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy, Because I'm easy come, easy go, Little high, little low“

“That one was freaky,” Tommy sat forward in awe, “But it was also awesome.” Eventually the last cord divvied out, all of them lazy with alcohol and sleepy with muddled calm that none of them had felt in a while. Although, Steve already was sleep on Billy’s knee. He didn’t get the chance to regret the beer he’d consumed before he was overrun with horrific, viney tunnels and humongous monsters. Screams of people he knew and cared for. Dustin, Nancy, his parents, Johnathon, El, Lucas. But what had him waking up in a bolt, yelping and screaming, was the one’s from Billy and Tommy. The pain those ones harbored, the ones that made Steve tremble too much to bare.

Heavy hands grasped his shoulders and softer ones held his face when he came to. He closed his mouth and the wailing stopped just as it had reached his ears.

“Steve! Steve- sh, it’s alright, Stevie,” Tommy’s voice filtered in subtly and he thought he heard a breeze from behind.

“We should get him to bed,” Billy said and the warmth from behind Steve was suddenly gone. He didn’t know what he must of done, was too out of it, but suddenly he was in someone's arms and being coddled.

“It’s okay, Pretty Boy, we’re still here.”

And then they were in a bed, and his room by the looks of the plaid and blue walls. He had two bodies on either side, and while the comfort he felt was something he couldn’t recognize. It was something new and he felt he should feel overwhelmed by all the sudden figures beside him. But instead he felt relieved and willingly open to allow these two boys in with limited hesitation. What a change in events. Truly.

“Talk to us, Stevie,” Tommy whispered in his ear.

“Have you heard of Blondie?” he whispered a bit hoarsely.

“No. Unless that’s Billy.”

“Add that to the list of things Tommy needs to learn about.” He got a slight tickle above his ribs in response from Billy. Steve held in his laugh as best he could but Billy didn’t stop the movement until he finally coughed out a yelp in protest. He tried his best to portray a steady glare in return but it didn’t quite work. “What about The Smiths?”

“Nadda.”

“Tears for Fears?”

“Mmm,” Tommy finally came into clear vision for Steve to see, even in the dark, “Maybe, maybe not.” He was grinning like the dumbass Steve knew he was. And then he was gone.

“Wah-?” he almost whined. Almost.

“Don’t worry, Stevie,” there was a clicking sound, “I’m just trying to culture you up a bit. Gotta keep you calm so we can actually get so sleep.” He laughed loudly when he seemingly found something. Tree branch arms coiled around Steve’s waist and he couldn’t be bothered to tell Billy off as the warmth radiated into his skin and heart.

Tommy came back while the Eurythmics, of all people, made some sort of soft noise through the room. And Tommy’s own hands somehow managed to sneak their way past Billy’s and just barely grazed his ass. The blanket bundled them all together and Steve felt as though he finally had the loves of his life in sight. That definite path made for him. Finally and just maybe.

send me headcannons!<3

#stranger things #asks #kegboys #steve harrington #billy hargrove #tommy h #tommy hagan #this sucks #but i’m tired so that’s like a partial excuse #thank you for the ask!#sorry it’s not the best

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zankivich · 5 years

Text

Neighbors: Shawn x Plus Size Reader Chapter 13

a/n: Hi there. This is going to be good. I promise. Take some deep breaths. Relax a little. Let yourself fall into it. There’s a lot of build up here but it will all make sense in a little while. I promise. If you hate it that’s cool, you can come yell at me. I’ll understand. But I love you? If you like it enough to want to buy me a ko-fi I’d love you forever!

Trigger Warnings: details of sex, anxiety attack

*y/n’s point of view*

Going home is good for a while. You start a huge campaign with Roger’s Stadium to do their new branding. It’s kind of Shawn adjacent, but distant enough that no one brings it up that your boyfriend just happened to sell out a show there. You got to pick someone to help do the low-level research and you quickly paired up with Stu. It meant late nights in the office with your best friend doing what you did best. Marketing was your thing. Understanding different demographics of people and what got through to them best was something that you’d never had to be taught in the classroom. It came naturally. So communicating your product, connecting with people was just fun for you. It just so happened to come with a lovely commission on the side.

You meet with Gina, to confirm and solidify your pitch, but also apparently for a wellness check. After a lifetime of male bosses, you’d never once had one of those, but the second you sat down in her office she quickly flipped the lid on your ipad and made you talk about yourself instead.

“How are you?” She asked.

Your eyes widened slightly. “I...I’m good. How are you?”

“I’m okay,” She chuckled. “You’re used to jumping right into things, aye? Is that it?”

“I guess. Most bosses usually just want me to do the job and move on.”

“Ah. Then this should be a lovely change of pace for you. I have no interest in what you do professionally if you’re not doing okay holistically. The two are deeply intertwined. I’m not saying we’re going to be best friends. In fact we probably shouldn’t but, if at no other point in your day is someone asking you how you’ve been, let that be what your time with me looks like, okay?”

“Okay.” You murmured letting your shoulders relax slightly. “Okay.”

“So I ask you again, how are you doing y/n?”

“Things are good, actually. Stu and I work so well together that sometimes I can’t tell when our friendship stops and when the work begins. We just understand each other’s minds in a really productive way, so it’s really nice to be able to work together.”

She gave you that smile again that said you were doing something wrong causing you to pause again.

“What?”

“I guess I’m just curious how often when someone asks you how you’re doing you immediately start talking about work.”

You signed, hands twisted up in your lap as you struggled to maintain eye contact with her.

“Yea well...There’s not really much going on for me outside of work right now so?”

“Really? What about that famous boyfriend of yours everyone’s always yapping about?”

You snorted. “Famous boyfriend is getting ready for his very famous tour in England at the moment.”

“England, aye? That’s where you flew out to a few weeks ago right?”

“Yea. We uh had a fight that was bit my fault, so I went to apologize and smooth things over. He’ll be heading for Amsterdam come March though.”

She nodded. “That’s a lot for you to handle, I’m guessing. You must fly a lot to go see him? That’s hard considering your job here.”

You peered down at your lap again.

“This is actually the first time we’re doing the whole long term long distance thing. I’m sure we’ll be fine. It’s all a learning curve though. I uh I was planning on going to Amsterdam for the first two shows but that will probably be the last time I leave for at least a few months. I won’t see him for most of the year.”

“Well, shit. That just sucks.”

You smiled. “Yea, little bit. But he says he’ll fly back as often as he can. And with social media and technology now a days I can still talk to him for like hours. We’ll be okay. The hardest part is just keeping myself busy, and thankfully I’m pretty good at that.”

“What about family and friends?”

“Family is...complicated. Friends is Stu and his boyfriend Brian. Most of the people in the office are much older than me though, and we just don’t really care about the same things. I’m good though, I’ve always been the kind of person to go out and do whatever makes me happy. I don’t need a bunch of people around for that.”

She laughed again. “Well isn’t that nice to know. I suppose you can show me your pitch now.”

She loves it. And it’s incredibly validating, and takes a lot of stress of your shoulders. Now all that was left to do was to present the real thing and hope that they liked your design. It seemed like a cause for celebration. So you and Stu made plans to get all gussied up, go out to a fancy dinner, and get wine drunk together before eight pm. You tried to give Shawn a call, he knew how stressed you’d been about it after all, but it went to voicemail. So, you tucked your phone in your purse and went out to have a good fucking time.

“To being in our mid-twenties and finally hitting the fucking glow up! We are in our prime motherfucker!” Stu grinned cheersing his glass against yours.

You snorted. “We sure fucking are. When Ari said it feels so good to be so young and so successful, bitch was not lying.”

“Ugh. I wanna die and come back as that song. I thought that the thing I hated you most for was getting to see Shawn Mendes’ dick in person, but I think it’s that you have the ability to meet my fairy godmother, Ariana Grande, and there’s just nothing I can do about it.”

You peered over at your best friend over the rim of your glass with raised eyebrows.

“Stu...Are you sexually attracted to my boyfriend?”

His eyes widened slightly and his lips parted like a goldfish flopping on a dry surface begging for water. The idiot.

“To be fair...The entire office wants to fuck your boyfriend. Not just me!”

“Wow...That does not make me feel any better you sleez!” You chortled. “You’re my best friend!”

“It’s not like I would pursue it! Besides, Shawn Mendes was on our hall pass list far before you two were playing footsie behind my back.”

“I beg your pardon? And stop calling him by his full name, it gives me the creeps.”

He rolled his eyes at you. “The minute that man figured out how to put on a suit, Brian told me straight up if he ever found out Shawn went the other way, he would leave my ass in a heartbeat.”

“Jesus. So the whole world wants to screw my boyfriend?”

“Little bit, babes. But, you’re the only one who gets to! Don’t worry about the rest of us horny idiots.” He smiled.

“Have I ever told you how good you are at consoling me?”

“No.”

“Good.” You smirked. “You suck at it.”

He swatted at you playfully allowing both of you some time to look over your menus. At least that’s what you thought you were doing. It only took a few minutes of not so subtle stares for you to get the hint. The more you got used to being with Shawn the more you picked up on stuff like that.

“What is it now, Stu?” You sighed plopping your menu down.

“Well...Don’t take this the wrong way, because I completely don’t mean it in a predatory, creepy one at all but...What’s the dick like?”

“Oh god.”

He sighed. “We used to talk about all our hookups! I just want to know that my bestie is getting the dicking down that she deserves. It just so happens that this is internationally famous dick.”

Your best friend was a complete and total dumbass. But, you loved him. And you loved Shawn. And quite honestly not getting to share your experiences with someone was tough. It was hard because you knew Stu might not be able to relate to some of the things you were now experiencing as a result of your relationship, but he was also the person you went to for just about everything and vice versa. Also...sometimes a girl needs to gloat.

You peer around the restaurant as if a pap or one of Shawn’s fans might be lurking around every corner. (Sometimes, it felt like they were.) Stu leaned in in his nosey ass manner

“So like...it’s the best dick I’ve ever had in my life.” You whispered.

“Shut the fuck up.”

You whined dramatically. “I wish I was kidding. The whole hour and a half shows every night of the week translates so well into the bedroom. His stamina is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. His breath control allows him to go down on me for insane amounts of time. I’m talking like the bastard has evolved gills or some shit!”

Stu cracked up laughing and clanked his glass happily against yours.

“To evolving gills, bitch!”

You snorted happily and cheers’d with him again.

“Wait Stu, something happened.” You murmured moving closer in your seat to lean across the table.

“What? What?”

“So I went to the UK obviously to make up for things and I found this plus-size lingerie store while I was there so I thought it might get his mind off things if we like had some fun or whatever.”

“Okay….AND?”

“And so we’re doing...you know, it. And out of nowhere this dominant side of him comes out that honest to god made me wetter than the ocean seas.”

He raised an eyebrow at you. “What the hell does that mean? What did he do?”

You bit your lip taking another gander around the restaurant only for him to swat at you about getting shy just as you were getting to the good part.

“I was somewhat bent over, I guess you could say.”

“Great so you were doing doggy style, get to the kinky shit, sis.”

You rolled your eyes. “I don’t know… It just like started to feel really good and I had a feeling that I was going to…”

“Cum?”

You shook your head softly.

He gasped. “Squirt?”

You nodded.

“Oh. My. God. He’s really dicking you to explosion.”

“Yes. That is accurate. Anyway, I’ve never done that while he was in me before so I guess I started pushing against his hips because it felt so good? And he pulled my arms behind my back randomly and literally fucked me through it. Even when I was screaming louder than I’ve ever screamed before. He said, and I quote: ‘Baby, just let me give it to you. Let me make you feel good like only I can.’ and I just...holy shit Stu it was the best orgasm of my life.”

“You memorized a quote during sex? That is the biggest dick energy I’ve ever heard in my life. I have to go home and now slap my boyfriend because you’ve told me that story. I hope you’re satisfied, ruining other people's relationships. Holy shit, y/n.”

You licked at your lips and smile up at the sky as if God had something to do with it and not your wonderfully aggressive boyfriend.

“Yea. I know.” you sighed dreamily. “I love him.”

Meanwhile…

*Shawn’s point of view*

“What’s your problem? Y/n not texting you back?” Brian asked as Shawn tossed his phone back onto the couch.

He rolled his eyes. “No. But I am a perfectly grown adult who doesn’t need his girlfriend’s constant validation to feel secure in our relationship, Brian!”

“That what the self-help books telling you, bud?”

Brian was walking past after having turned the tv on and he very purposely tripped him. Jackass.

“Is you not getting to blow your load at least three times a day gonna make you an asshole this whole entire tour?”

He reached for a pillow and quickly socked his best friend in the face.

“Why are you such a dickhead, dickhead?!” He snorted. “There’s nothing I can do about having an incredible sex life. That is not my fault!”

“Incredible sex life, my ass!”

He put his hand over his heart and gave him the most sincere face he could offer.

“Bri...it’s a great fuckin’ sex life. Best of my whole life.”

“What does she shoot beams of light out her pussy or something?”

“This is why women hate our whole gender by the way. No, jackass, but she might as well. She is soft and passionate and beautiful and...vocal. Everytime I think I’m in control she does something to put me in my place. It’s wild. She’s fuckin wild.” He sighed collapsing back against the couch. “God, she’s perfect, man.”

Sure, he missed her. He always missed her. But, he also just appreciated everything about her. And talking about their love life wasn’t out of disrespect at all. It was more like bragging out of love for everything that they were together. And also because when it came to sex...they were kind of incredibly good at it.

“You two fuck like bunny rabbits. I’d almost be impressed if it wasn’t a complete inconvenience ninety nine percent of the time.”

Shawn rolled his eyes. “How is our love making an inconvenience to you, oh poor wonderful Brian?!”

“Oh don’t even get me started! Exhibit A, you invite all of us over to your apartment for a party in December. We’re supposed to get incredibly hammered and play mario kart. Not even forty-five minutes into the damn thing, you two assholes disappear into the bedroom, WITH the game system I might add, with the door locked for over an hour. The only reason you even came back out was because y/n wanted more tequila!”

“Hmm...that was a beautiful night. She sounds like a symphony when she cums.” He sighed to himself.

“Gross. Exhibit B! We go to the after party for the billboard awards. It’s supposed to be a good fuckin’ time for everyone--”

“Hey! We had a good fuckin’ time that night! We shared a blunt with Post Malone, Alessia, and fucking Ariana Grande. What could you possibly have to complain about?!”

“Why yes Shawn, that we did. But do you remember what happened after that?” He paused for the briefest of moments before very quickly continuing on. “Y/n for some reason found you smoking to be the hottest thing in the world and decided that she had to have you right then and there. You two left the fucking party and Alessia and I had to uber back to the hotel.”

“Well that is...yea I don’t really have an excuse for that one. Not our best moment. But trust me you didn’t want to be in that car anyway, I ripped her dress that night. It was a bit of a shit show. The only reason the paps didn’t get us was because we penguin waddled inside to hide it.”

“The moral of the story is, as happy as I am that you guys are trying to set an olympic record for fucking, you both suck!”

“You’ve got me there. We both suck...incredibly well I might add.”

He hit him with a pillow and left the room. What are best friends for anyway?

*y/n’s point of view*

“How are things going with Bry?” You asked as Stu worked to pack their bowl.

What better way to celebrate their wonderful friendship date, then ending it with a little weed?

He lit the bowl and took a deep hit, letting it sit in his lungs as he handed it over.

Stu groaned. “They’d be fine if he would get his shit together and propose to me already.”

You took a hit of your own and laughed.

“If you want to marry him so much, why don’t you propose?”

“I’m the one who asked him out in the first place! I’m the one who single handedly kept our relationship going through college. I told him point blank that he needed to propose and for some reason, five years later I’m still missing a ring on my finger!”

“Do you want me to talk to him? Give him the hint?”

He rolled his eyes. “As wonderful as that sounds, no. I want him to want to be with me. I just want him to take a little initiative ya know?”

You each took another hit of the bowl and leaned against each other and the high took over.

“I get it. You want to feel confident in your future. You wanna know he’s gonna be there when you need him. That’s a valid feeling.” You assured him.

“We’ve just been together for so long. And most of the time we are so good together. We communicate well, we have fun together. I just want to know that we’re both feeling the same things. Sometimes he seems so sure that he just thinks we don’t need to talk about it at all.”

“Damn. I think Shawn and I might be the opposite. I think all he wants is for me to talk more.”

Stu chuckled. “No shit. It took me getting you high in my college dorm for you to even tell me anything even remotely personal about yourself. Shawn’s sappy ass probably thinks it’s like talking to a wall.”

“Very funny asshole. I can’t help it okay? I’m the baby of four kids. By the time I was growing up, no one had time to listen to me whine and complain about shit. Shawn just...he understands all of his emotions so well, and he spends so much of his life reflecting on everything no matter how busy he is. I’m trying though. I know it’s necessary, It’s just hard.”

“Do you think you two will be okay with all the touring?” He asked.

Wasn’t that just the million dollar question? You didn’t know how to explain that when you were together it seemed like you could take on the world, like you could do anything together, but that when you were apart you’d never felt weaker. It all feel so sappy and so high school. Not being able to live on your own and per your own person? You wanted to be better than that. And admitting anything else out loud, even to Stu, shook the very foundation of the persona you were trying to force yourself to be.

“Shawn thinks we will be.” You mumbled.

“I didn’t ask what Shawn thinks. I’m your best friend, you can tell me of all people.”

“It’s just harder when we’re apart. So, I fly into whatever country he’s in and we fuck and we go out to dinner and maybe we get high because that’s all there is when you’re together for two or three days. And it’s not until I come back home that I even realize it. Cause when we’re together, I can’t imagine being anywhere else. I could honestly sit in one of those green rooms and just watch him all day, and I’d be happy. I love him that much. But when I get some distance, when I’m back home I realize just how little there is. How little there will be for the rest of the year. I just...I guess I’m hoping I can hold on. Because when I’m with him? It’s the greatest pleasure I’ve ever known.”

“Holy shit babes...That’s deep. C’mere.”

He wrapped his arm loosely around you. You passed the bowl back and forth a few more times until the world grew fuzzy and calm and you were each happier for it. It was a good way to end the night.

***

It’s four in the afternoon. You have a meeting in fifteen minutes to go over revenue for the department. These meetings always made you super anxious. You were the only female senior executive, so any conversation you had about revenue was always in a room full of men. It didn’t help that a lot of the assholes in the office didn’t like the way you were offered the job and definitely held a grudge. You were always dead set on having the best numbers, so no one could say shit. Your stomach was tied up in knots and you just wanted to get it over with, so you could go home and drink a glass--or three--of wine. You’d been stressed about it all week, and it only made it worse that you had started sleeping in Shawn’s apartment because the smell of his sheets was sometimes the only thing that could lull you into sleep only for the smell to eventually fade away. There was tension in your neck and in your shoulders from the tossing and turning, and you just needed the week to be over.

Your phone started to vibrate on your desk and you almost chucked it at the wall. When you saw that it was Shawn wanting to facetime you honestly weren’t sure if that made it better or worse. But, Shawn tended to get anxious when you didn’t answer, so you took a deep breath and opened the phone.

“Babe!” He smiled immediately as his image came slowly into focus.

He must’ve been walking somewhere with the team cause he wasn’t looking at his phone right away. You didn’t really have time for this.

“Hey Shawn. Look, what is it? I’m uh I’m kinda busy.”

“Wait just one sec.” He scrambled a little with the phone before he was finally staring at you, wild curls and beautiful brown eyes to boot. “What’s wrong? You sound stressed.”

“I am stressed. I have a meeting in ten, Shawn; what can I do for you?”

He frowned. “I don’t need you to do anything for me. I just wanted to see you. Hey Jake, I’m gonna go sit for a minute alone alright? I’ll be back.”

“No, Shawn don’t--” But he was already walking away from the group.

“What’s going on, right now? Talk to me.”

Your initial instinct was to tell him nothing was going on, that you didn’t want to talk, you just wanted to muscle through. But you couldn’t help but remember your conversation with Stu a few days ago. It felt hypocritical to say you were trying to communicate if every time your boyfriend asked you to communicate you shut down.

You closed your eyes and pinched the bridge of your nose between your thumb and forefinger.

“I have a meeting, okay? That’s all” You mumbled feeling like an incessant toddler.

He nodded. “Okay, you have a meeting. You’ve told me that. You’ve got a meeting that’s stressing you out. You look flustered. What else is going on?”

“Nothing else is going on. I’m just really stressed at the moment.”

He sighed. “Sweetheart, you don’t need to fight me on this. I only want to help you. You’re breathing is uneven. Are you feeling anxious right now?”

“I--I don’t know. Yea, sure, I feel anxious.”

“How long have you felt anxious, honey?”

“Shawn, what the hell does this have to do with anything?!” you snapped the irritation getting to you.

“I think you might be having an anxiety attack. Try and take a deep breath with me. I know you’re feeling upset, but let’s just breathe for a little bit.”

“An anxiety attack? Shawn what--”

“Hush. Just fucking listen to me okay?”

You stumbled into silence and watched as your boyfriend did his best to calm you down. He had you lean the phone against your desk so that you could place one hand over your stomach and the other over your heart. He had you use your stomach as a guide to let your lungs fill with air, breathing slowly and letting the tension in your back and neck to ease out. His voice was low, calm, and incredibly soothing in your ear. You may have offered him comfort before, but this was something new entirely. At least Shawn could tell when he needed help. You were so delusional about your own wellbeing that you hadn’t even been aware you needed it. It wasn’t until you felt your heart rate calm and your shoulders drop that you felt infinitely better. With this relief came a rather odd rush of sadness that left you crying in the middle of your office in broad daylight.

“Hey,” He cooed face moving closer to his screen. “Why are you crying, y/n?”

“I don’t even fucking know.” You sighed trying to catch the tears before they fall. “I really thought I was fine, Shawn. I thought I was okay.”

“That’s alright. That’s why I’m here. To catch the things you let slip. You do the exact same thing for me all of this time. It’s okay to lean on me once in a while, you know?”

You nodded softly with a sniffle. “I really do have to go to my meeting though.”

“Go. Call me when you get home from work okay? Take a shower, relax a little bit. I’m a few hours ahead of you here, but just call and I’ll be there. We can talk through it.”

“Okay. Okay, I’ll do that.” You mumbled.

“You’re gonna do great, sweetie. I love you so much, okay?”

“I love you too. I’ll talk to you later.”

*four hours later*

“Is that my bed?” Shawn asked leaning back with an arm behind his head with abs on full display.

Ugh.

You nodded. “I’ve been sleeping here a little better lately...Is that okay?”

“Yea! Of course it is. Nothing makes me happier than you sleeping there. That spaces is yours too. That’s why I gave you the key to begin with.”

“Okay.” You murmured not being able to hide the smile that his words brought to your face. “You could probably send me a sweatshirt or something that you’ve worn recently though. The sheets hardly even smell like you anymore.”

He grinned. “I’d love to sweetheart. It’s just that by the time something could get to you from Amsterdam, I think you might actually have already flown to Amsterdam. I’ll be sure to send you back with plenty of material.”

“Good.”

“So...you ready to talk about it?”

“Ugh, I am surprised you're not a licensed therapist with how much you want me to talk about my feelings.” you whined. “How did you even know it was an anxiety attack?”

“I just remembered when I was going through my panic attacks at first, that I didn’t even know what they were called. The doctor said these two words, panic attack and anxiety attack, and I didn’t really know the difference. They sort of sound the same. But you know how like when it gets really bad for me it’s like...super quick? Like one second I’m just thinking about something bad and then the next I can’t see my way out of it?”

“Yea. That’s usually when we start breathing together.”

He smiled. “Exactly. I guess anxiety attacks can be a little slower. My doctor said they can actually happen over a period of days. It’s what makes them harder to detect, but it can also make them much harder on the body. It’s like thinking about something until it consumes you. Not being able to sleep, irritability--even at very lovable and cuddly boyfriends, muscle tension. You seemed to check a lot of boxes, honey.”

“I’m sure loveable and cuddly boyfriends was right in the symptom description, aye?”

“You’re deflecting.”

“You’re digging.”

“I am trying to take an ounce of burden off your back, and you are making it incredibly difficult.”

You closed your eyes and took a deep breath telling yourself to stop being such a little bitch. He was there. He wasn’t going to leave. You could trust him.

“It’s okay to talk to me, y/n. I’m not going to hurt you.” He murmured.

You groaned. “I know. I know.”

“It’s just that...if it were anyone else I’d say that you should find someone to talk to, anyone to talk to but I . . .I’m supposed to be your person. You’re my person and I just--I don’t know y/n, how do I help you through this if you won’t let me?”

“I’m trying Shawn. I swear I am.”

“Hey I know. And I’m trying to be understanding of how hard it is for you. But, I’m also trying to help. I’m gonna need you to at least meet me halfway.”

You nodded sullenly, fingers bunching up in the blankets at the thought of failing him, of not being able to be what he needed.

Shawn sighed. “It’s uh...it’s getting pretty late here. Let’s just talk tomorrow, yea?”

You peered at him through the phone unable to discern how deep of a situation this was from halfway across the world.

“Are you angry with me?”

“N--No. Honey, I’m not angry. I’m just...tired. I’ll call you when it’s morning for you okay?”

“Okay. I love you, Shawn.”

“I love you too. Get some sleep.”

That was certainly easier said than done.

***

*Shawn’s point of view*

He’s in the middle of a meeting when his phone starts to buzz on the table. And he can’t help but reach for it just in case it’s y/n. It is.

y/n: so I couldn’t sleep last night. Surprise. And I just kept thinking about everything that you said, and it made feel really shitty.

y/n: not to say that you made me feel shitty just that that’s how I was feeling

y/n: anyway. I couldn’t sleep, so I tried to think about how I feel and I tried to write it down. I thought I could share it with you. Idk if it’ll help at all I just don’t want to keep letting you down.

y/n: so check your email if you have time. I love you. K. Bye.

And of course the rest of his meeting is absolutely useless. Of course all he can think about is her, about what she might be thinking, about what she might be feeling. And there’s a much bigger part of him than he’d like to admit, that’s wants nothing more than to fly home and cuddle the hell out of her until she gets some rest. The distance between the two of them felt heavier than ever.

“You’ve got forty-five minutes for lunch. Then we’re at the venue for run throughs. Final creative meeting for tour outfits after okay?” Andrew ordered.

Shawn nodded already in search of his laptop.

“Can you have Jake bring me something for the drive? I’m not gonna have time for anything else.”

“Why not?”

“Something is wrong with y/n. I need to check in okay?”

He was so unwilling to focus on anything other than y/n that if Andrew had anything else to say, he didn’t notice. He set up his laptop and found a space to sit in the quiet and read.

So...This is weird. I haven’t written anything like this since my diary in the eighth grade. I just um am tired a lot lately. I don’t think it’s work because I love what I do so much. I guess that’s not great either because I just keep working even when I’m exhausted. And it’s not you. Jesus, it most certainly is not you. I keep thinking that my love for is going to plateau or something, but it never does. It just keeps growing infinitely. I’m not sure if it’s the distance between us at the moment. When I first got home it actually felt good to get back into my routine. I think it’s not until I can’t sleep that I roll over and see you aren’t there that it hits me. It’d just so odd for me Shawn. I want to hold you and talk to you and I can’t because you’re not here. And there isn’t anything that either of us can do about it. I’m not used to there not being a solution. I’ve always been so good at solving things, that now that I can’t I feel like a waste of space. And I know that if I told you you’d tell me to call you but you’re six hours ahead of me right now. Everytime we talk it feels like I’m keeping you from something more important, and I don’t want to do that. I want you to be happy and to tour and have all the success in the world. I think also, and this is just me being honest with myself, even with the people I’ve loved most in my life I haven’t always had my needs prioritized. My mom. My brothers. My dad. So I really try to take care of myself and prioritize myself. I never learned how to let someone else do it for me, because every time I tried I got let down. Your so endlessly kind to me. And you love me like i’ve never been loved before. Me not letting you in when I’m struggling is not malicious it’s just innate. I’m trying to unlearn these things and it’s much harder to do when I don’t even realize that I’m doing them. I’m sorry if I upset you. I’m sorry that you stayed up for me last night only to be disappointed. You mean more to me than a hundred of these pages could explain. I know I keep asking for time, for some leeway, and maybe your getting sick of that. I guess I’m sorry for that too. I promise you it’ll be different, if you let me try. I want to try. I love you enough to do that for us.

He sits with it for a while. There’s a feeling in his chest that he’s never had with y/n before and then there’s another feeling into response to it. He gets out the app on his phone and meditates for a while because he just doesn’t know what it is at first. And it isn’t until after he’s breathed for twenty minutes and they’re in the car on the way to his next meeting that he gets this overwhelming wave of deja vu. It’s so visceral that he feels himself become sixteen again. He watches himself get off the plan in Toronto and drive to his first girlfriend’s house. He watches him explain to her that he’s got to go away and live his dream, and that them being together is only going to hurt her, that it would kill him to keep hurting her. This idea that...it doesn’t matter how much we love each other, it’s never gonna matter, because all I’m ever gonna do it hurt you. And if I love you, if I truly and genuinely love you, then isn’t the greatest act of love I could ever show you to let you go?

It fills him with anger. Anger because this was meant to be different. In hindsight it makes him feel like a child who had been shouting at the top of his lungs that he knew something that he so clearly didn’t. Maybe Andrew was right. Maybe Brian had gotten annoyed for a legitimate reason. Maybe their love wasn’t what he thought it was. Or, even worse, maybe there love was everything it felt like. Maybe it was larger than the two of them, maybe it was complex and beautiful and wonderful. But, maybe that only meant it would consume them in the end.

After that there’s nothing but sorrow. Because his thread, his being, his life was so deeply intertwined with her’s that he could see no way out, couldn’t imagine not being with her.

For the first time in a long time he was completely at a loss. And it seemed as though he had opened up a can of worms that was only going to hurt them in the end. What the hell was he supposed to do now?

Taglist: @kitykatnumber @lou-and-me @ourlittleshawnie @mutuallynotmutual @wanderingmendes @peacedolantwins2 @chels-nyc @justbeingoceana @hayyitsfayy @claredolphinbear24 @september-lace @literallyshawn @mchutchmendes @liliane106 @iloveshawnieboi @samwillllson @illloveyouforever1 @grittyisaho

#shawn mendes #Shawn mendes fanfic #Shawn mendes fic #Shawn mendes fanfiction #Shawn mendes fluff #Shawn mendes angst #Shawn mendes au #Shawn mendes one shot #shawn mendes smut #Shawn mendes series #Shawn mendes blurb #Shawn mendes x you #Shawn mendes x y/n #Shawn mendes x reader #Shawn mendes x fat reader #Shawn mendes x thick reader #neighbors fic

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sailorportia · 6 years

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Looking Sharp

Fandom: Little Witch Academia

Pairing: Hannah England x Akko Kagari

Femslash February 2019 [Index Post] Day Five: Sharp

approx. 1,800 words, rated T

also available on Ao3

In which Hannah and Akko bond over something they have in common... sharp teeth...

"Babs," Hannah said, "if I ever look like I'm going to say something stupid, I want you to sew my mouth shut for me."

"Sorry, Han. I'm afraid I don't know how to sew."

"That would be a pretty bad idea," Amanda said. "After all, those big fangs of yours need all the room they can get."

Hannah groaned. "Can we not have one lunch, just one meal where you gremlins don't make some half-assed joke about my teeth!?"

Hannah had been trying to rein in her sharp tongue. She really was. But sometimes she still had trouble keeping herself in check. One day she lost her temper at Sucy and made a snappy remark about her gloomy demeanour. Sucy retort was that she didn't want to hear that from a girl with "creepy fangs." Sucy let it go at that, but everyone else thought it was a riot. Cue three weeks of comments about her so-called fangs, every time she opened her mouth.

"Seriously," Hannah said. "You girls need to grow up already. That joke got old ages ago."

"Not as old as a thousand year-old vampire like you," Amanda said.

Hannah rolled her eyes and made the mistake of biting into an apple.

"She's sucking the life out of that apple!" Stanbot said. Constanze's shoulders shook, indicating laughter. The rest of the group joined in. Except for one.

Oddly enough, the only person who wasn't being a pain in the neck about the whole affair was Akko, of all people. She was even being nice. Unusually nice.

"Knock it off, guys," Akko said. "If you keep yapping you'll never finish your lunch."

"Defending Hannah again?" Diana raised an eyebrow.

"Maybe Akko wants to get bitten next," Jasminka said.

"I've always thought I was a snack." Akko laughed. Everyone else went back to eating their lunches and the subject of conversation changed. Akko flashed Hannah a smile and a wink.

Hannah suddenly became very interested in the contents of her plate. Naturally she appreciated Akko coming to her defence, but she was utterly confused as to why. After all, what did she and Akko have in common?

She got her answer later, that night.

It was almost curfew; Hannah was in one of the bathrooms, checking out her so-called fangs in the mirror. "They aren't that big, really they?" she said aloud.

"Eh, I've seen bigger."

Hannah screamed and turned around, face flushing from the embarrassment of being caught. "By the nine!" she exclaimed. "Don't sneak up on me like that, Akko!"

The interloper was leaning up against the wall. Akko looked unusually calm, cool. The glint in her eyes implied a shared secret between the two of them, her smile alluding to some joke that Hannah hadn't been let in on yet.

"Y'know, you really should do a better job of hiding your fangs," Akko said. "Our classmates are going to figure it out soon if you're not careful."

"Figure out what?" Hannah asked.

"Oh, don't play coy," Akko said. "That's the right word, right? I learned that one from Diana. Wait, what was I saying? Oh right. You know what I'm talking about."

"Actually I'm more confused than ever."

Akko pouted. "C'mon! You don't need to hide it! I've never met another one out in the wild before!"

"Another what?"

Akko squinted at her. "Wait, do you really not know? Are you... oh. You're not one of us, are you?"

"One of what? Who's us? You're impossible!" Hannah groaned and turned back around unable to face Akko out of frustration.

And that's when she saw it. Or rather, didn't see it.

Akko's reflection.

Hannah looked back a third time. Akko smiled nervously, revealing the fangs Hannah hadn't never noticed before.

"You're a vampire."

"Sharp of you to notice," Akko said, wincing. "I thought you were one too. But you're not. This is awkward, huh?" And there was the explanation for Akko's kind behaviour toward Hannah; she thought they were two of a kind.

"Wait, you thought I was a vampire too? Because of my," Hannah hesitated, "perfectly normal-sized canine teeth?"

Akko laughed. "They're actually a little big. I mean, I'm a real vampire, and even I thought they were the real thing."

"Ha ha, very funny. Alright, miss real vampire, if you thought I was vampire, then why would I be looking at my teeth in a mirror I can't see myself in?"

"I dunno," Akko replied. "Maybe you were just trying to blend in with the humans?"

"You can literally see my reflection in the mirror."

"Yeah, well I'm not very perceptive. Am I?"

"I'll say."

Akko looked at her feet, then at Hannah, then back at her feet. "You're taking this kinda well," she said.

"Well, yeah," Hannah said. "It's not like I'd feel threatened by a vampire, even when the vampire is you."

"Hey, just because I'm super nice—"

"Not where I was going, but I like your optimism."

"—doesn't mean I don't still need blood," Akko said sternly. "I still get really thirsty sometimes. And when I get really thirsty, I just want to bite someone."

Hannah could see the signs of her classmate's suppressed urges even from the other side of the bathroom. Her hands twitching, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, the way she leaned away from Hannah as if she needed the extra distance between them. Hannah looked into Akko's eyes and saw an urgent, pressing need that would have to be satisfied.

"Are you... thirsty right now?"

Akko rubbed the back of her neck. "I ran out of my blood supply. I was hoping to bum some off of you, but since you're not a vampire..." She shrugged.

The solution to that problem was obvious to Hannah. It should've been obvious to Akko. Maybe she was avoiding it out of... embarrassment...

"If you need blood that bad, you could always..." Hannah trailed off. She moved her head to the side, exposing her neck, hoping Akko would get the message so she wouldn't have to say it out loud.

"I could always what?" Akko cocked her head as well. "C'mon, tell me! What are you—" Her eyes widened, either in realization or in bloodlust. "You want me to bite you!?"

"I don't w-w-want you to bite me!" Hannah yelped. "But I can't let you run around the school biting people like some kind of mosquito! Just take some blood from me until you replenish your supply or whatever."

Akko considered it. "That would work, but are you sure? It'll hurt."

"You've always been a pain in the neck," Hannah said. "What's a little bit more?"

"It's more than just a pinch!"

"I'll just bite you back then," Hannah said. "Then we'll be even."

Akko blushed. "H-Hannah! You perv! At least buy me a drink first!"

Hannah blushed as well at the thought of breaking some kind of vampire social protocol. Biting humans was okay but getting bitten was lewd somehow? "Just bite me already before someone walks in or something." She offered her flushed neck.

Akko was too thirsty to argue. She crossed the bathroom and came in close to Hannah. With calmness intended to reassure, she placed one hand on Hannah's shoulder and used the other to pull her collar out of the way. Mumbling a warning for her not to flinch, Akko brought her mouth to Hannah's neck and sank her fangs into the soft flesh.

A moan broke through Hannah's lips. Akko hadn't exaggerated; it did hurt. But it also felt good. Really good. Hannah told herself that the surge of heat tingling its way through her body was some mechanism that vampires had evolved to keep their prey complacent. It certainly had nothing to do with how nice Akko's lips felt against her neck. As Akko drank from her, she pressed up against Hannah, pushing her back up against the sink. The strength in Hannah's legs faded and she clung to Akko for support, her fingers gripping the back of Akko's uniform.

When she had her fill, Akko pulled her fangs out and—as she always did when she fed—kissed the twin wounds, to make them better. Hannah squeaked at the kiss, but didn't object. She released the tension in her arms and Akko stepped back. She wiped away the blood on her lips with her hand, which she then licked clean. "You're all good? The wound should close up soon. Something about vampire saliva."

Hannah nodded. She felt a little light-headed. Nothing she couldn't handle. The bite stung. She could handle that too. What she couldn't handle was the overwhelming desire to make good on that suggestion she'd made before. She chalked that up to vampire nonsense as well.

"You've had your snack," Hannah said breathily. "Now it's my turn."

She pulled at Akko's collar and ran a finger down the side of her neck. Akko shivered in response and didn't resist when Hannah lowered her head and nibbled at Akko's neck, taking skin between her teeth and tugging gently. Then she imitated Akko and pressed her teeth into Akko's skin, making a low sound in her throat as she did. Hannah's so-called fangs weren't nearly as sharp as Akko's and obviously didn't pierce the skin, but they still hurt quite a bit. The vampire yelped, but rather than try to get away, she clung held Hannah closer. Akko wasn't used to being on this side of the biting, but she didn't mind it.

Once she had her fun, Hannah pushed Akko away, perhaps to make sure things didn't go any further.

Akko covered her face with her hands. "I can't believe you actually did it. Biting a vampire? Who does that?"

"You're a supernatural creature that lives off blood and that's weird to you?"

Akko uncovered her face, which was blushing furiously. "I bite people cuz I need to! You did it cuz you were into it!"

"I was not 'into it!'"

"You totally were! You moaned!"

"Y-you're imagining things!"

The two of them glared at each other, nose to nose. They were both slightly out of breath, and the sound of their panting did nothing to quell the desires bubbling under the surface.

"We should be going," Akko said. "We don't want anyone wondering where we are." And more to the point, wondering why they were both missing together.

She was about to leave when Hannah spoke up. "If you ever run out of blood again," she said hesitantly, "you can come to me for a quick fix."

Akko laughed. "Are you going to bite me again if I do?"

Hannah bit her lip as she considered the possibilities. "Maybe. If I can't think of anything better to do..."

#femslashfeb2019 #little witch academia #lwa #hanakko #hannah england #akko kagari #my fanfiction #femslash #yuri #fan fiction #don't kinkshame me

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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What Happens When Ordinary People End Up in Trump’s Tweets https://nyti.ms/32bCiou

🍁🏈🍂🍻🍁🏈🍂🍻🍁🏈🍂🍻🍁🏈

What Happens When Ordinary People End Up in Trump’s Tweets

By MATT FLEGENHEIMER | Published Nov. 2, 2019 | New York Times | Posted November 3, 2019 |

McCALLA, Ala. — The evening of April 29 passed like many others for Ben Rawls, a fire lieutenant in Tuscaloosa: settled in the rocking chair on his porch, amid empty beer cans and mosquito-fighting candles, tweeting to an audience of dozens until he got sleepy.

“Granted I am in Alabama,” Mr. Rawls, 45, wrote around 11 p.m., after a major firefighters’ union endorsed Joseph R. Biden Jr. for president, “but most of the firefighters I talk to are voting @realDonaldTrump.”

The morning of May 1, some 36 hours later, was less typical.

Mr. Rawls showered and took his daughters to school. He ignored his phone, until it yapped so insistently that he had to look. An ashbin of Twitter comments greeted him: Racist. Moron. “‘Toothless’ — that was a good one,” he recalled.

The most curious posts disputed Mr. Rawls’s very existence. Strangers accused him of being a bot. He replied to one with a video he recorded in his pickup. “Here I am,” he said to the camera. “No faking here.”

All told, it took about 12 hours for him to solve the mystery. Back in his rocking chair, he stared at a fellow Twitter user’s note of congratulations: Mr. Rawls had been retweeted by the president of the United States.

Along with the Republican allies, Fox News hosts and conspiracy-mongering trolls whose messages President Trump pinballs across the political arena, he has also elevated regular people whose words he finds pleasing. Perhaps no group understands the praise-seeking cyclone that is @realDonaldTrump better than these arbitrary few who have lived inside it, briefly and usually unwittingly.

Their brushes with cybercelebrity are a portal into the Twitter feedback loop powered and experienced by Mr. Trump — dark, caustic, skimpy on nuance — where the ripples of a single presidential tweet can be hard to fathom unless measured against the relative anonymity to which these users were accustomed. Mr. Rawls got 2,700 retweets and 14,000 “likes” with the boost from Mr. Trump. The reach of his tweets before and since, he estimated, was approximately zero.

For many of the retweeted, the temporary platform stands as a testament to a style of politics they have never seen before — one that has bonded the president to his followers, virtual or otherwise.

“No other president has ever done stuff like this,” said Curtis Vincent, a 35-year old in Bowling Green, Ky., who operates one of the more than 215 unverified accounts Mr. Trump has retweeted since taking office. “They’ve been on a higher pedestal.”

Mr. Rawls, Mr. Vincent and several others were retweeted by Mr. Trump on May 1 after responding to a post by a Fox News personality, Dan Bongino, about the fire union’s endorsing Mr. Biden.

Joining them in temporary Twitter fame was Joelle Palombo, 46, a Southern California resident with 11 followers, who had largely used her account to cheer on her daughter’s soccer team. But after Mr. Bongino tweeted that “NONE of the firemen” he knew were with Mr. Biden, she replied with a note of support for Mr. Trump from one “fire family” out West.

The flood of reactions so spooked Ms. Palombo that she enlisted her teenage son to help block anyone she saw in her feed. The purge took three days, she said, and included the president, who she did not realize had retweeted her until a reporter told her months later.

“I went and looked at his account, and I blocked him,” Ms. Palombo said of Mr. Trump. “That’s how scared I was. I’m just one tiny hair on a dog. Are you kidding me?”

Although her affection for the president persists, Ms. Palombo questions the value of his favored medium. “How many hours of the day do people put in to do this?” she said. “I don’t need to have a voice on this. I’ll vote.”

Others have found more purpose in the practice. Mr. Rawls described himself as a reluctant Trump voter in 2016. He preferred Ted Cruz during the Republican primary, and he winces at some of the president’s choices, including insulting John McCain well after the senator’s death.

But as the 2020 election approaches, Mr. Rawls suggests, the president’s Twitter output is a more effective galvanizer than even the slickest campaign ad. “The tweeting doesn’t bother me so much anymore,” he said. “I don’t really feel like I wasted a vote.”

And the validation of the president’s retweet has encouraged his own more quarrelsome instincts. “Before all this happened, I would type something out and say, ‘People will think I’m crazy,’” he recalled, citing prospective tweets that he scrapped.

Since May, these second thoughts have been rarer. He has called Anthony Scaramucci, the former White House communications director, a “bitter jerk.” He has shared a doctored video of Speaker Nancy Pelosi appearing to slur her words. He has weaponized a gif of Judge Judy (“Either you are playing dumb, or it’s not an act”) to mock Representative Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat promoting gun control.

“I’m a little bit less of a wallflower than I used to be,” Mr. Rawls said, crediting Mr. Trump’s retweet. “I guess you could say I was more emboldened.”

CATCHING HIS EYE

Capital letters help. Sentence structure can be disregarded. Mornings, East Coast time, are best.

Grabbing Mr. Trump’s attention on Twitter is more art than science — and, often, more fluke than art. But some who have been retweeted say there are certain flourishes that can improve the odds.

The surest path is echoing Mr. Trump’s voice. The user @fiiibuster, whose profile boasts that he has been retweeted twice by the president, has built a following of more than 38,000 accounts — and won the digital stamp of approval from a man with 66 million — through a steady offering of posts that resemble Mr. Trump’s own. Among the words in @fiiibuster’s retweeted messages: “security,” “prosperity,” “America first,” “Pathetic,” “bad reporter,” “shame!”

In other cases, Mr. Trump has gravitated toward those who share his taste in reading. A few weeks ago, he retweeted Cathy Buffaloe, 70, a retired librarian in Walton County, Ga., after she quoted a Wall Street Journal column criticizing Representative Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

When she told her husband what had happened, he asked if she had simply dreamed it. She took screenshots to show to friends and gained about 200 followers. “It isn’t often that ‘regular’ people have an opportunity to be heard concerning national issues,” Ms. Buffaloe said in an email.

J. T. Lewis, a 19-year-old Republican candidate for the Connecticut State Senate whose brother Jesse was killed in the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012, was retweeted last year after writing a flattering message to Mr. Trump. When he traveled to Washington months later to meet with the president as part of a school safety event, Mr. Lewis brought a printout of the tweet.

“He smirked and signed it,” he said. “It’s in my room somewhere.”

Mr. Lewis said he hoped the president’s imprimatur would show that Mr. Trump was not in league with the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who has spread bogus claims about the Sandy Hook shooting, including asserting that the victims’ families were actors and part of a plot to confiscate guns. (In 2015, Mr. Trump appeared on Mr. Jones’s “Infowars” program and praised him.)

But Mr. Lewis is skeptical that getting through to Mr. Trump owes to any elaborate strategy. “I don’t think things are planned out the way we think they are from the outside,” he said. “I think that was literally just: Guy in pajamas, ‘Oh, this is a nice tweet.’”

THE WRONG IVANKA

“The fingers aren’t as good as the brain,” the president once explained, discussing the typos he makes on Twitter.

And those fingers have at times conferred a spotlight on unsuspecting tweeters with low opinions of him.

In a tweet one night in January 2017, just before his inauguration, Mr. Trump shared a message calling his daughter Ivanka “a woman with real character and class” and tagging @ivanka.

That Twitter handle belongs to Ivanka Majic, 45, a technology researcher in Brighton, England, who shares a first name and little else with the president’s daughter. Ms. Majic woke up to media inquiries and a dilemma.

“There’s a decision to be made,” she said in an interview. “If you’re going to say something, what are you going to say?”

Ms. Majic recognized she would probably never be handed a megaphone like this again. “He was a bit unlucky, really, that it was my Twitter account,” she said.

She settled on this: “You’re a man with great responsibilities. May I suggest more care on Twitter and more time learning about #climatechange.”

Instantly, Ms. Majic became something of a local luminary as her progressive city strained to process Mr. Trump’s victory. Days later, at the London chapter of the global Women’s March, one attendee’s sign read, “@Ivanka, loving your work!”

In the years since, Ms. Majic has celebrated an annual “Trumpiversary” to mark the occasion. But one news clipping from the time still grates.

“There was one article that said, ‘Ivanka only has 2,700 followers,’” she remembered. “I was like, ‘That’s quite good for a normal person!’”

_______

Karen Yourish and Larry Buchanan contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research. Produced by Gray Beltran and Rumsey Taylor.

🍁🏈🍂🍻🍁🏈🍂🍻🍁🏈🍂🍻🍁🏈

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detafo · 6 years

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Below is a thing I copy/pasted from, my LiveJournal, Nov 11, 2007... I have no freaking idea.

MY STORY Hi, my name is: Allison But you can call me: Al Never in my life have I: Grown mould in an orange juice bottle as I am doing right now... The one person who can drive me nuts is: Old and crabby and there's 32 of them... 1 just isnt enough. My high school is: currently looking into raising money to rebuild the building that burnt down 2 years ago and no I didn't do it. When I’m nervous: I bite my nails... and probably the nails of the idiot sitting next to me when I'm nervous. The last song I listened to was: You Can't Stop The Beat - HAIRSPRAY OBCR If I were to get married right now it would be to: some random asshole that I'd ditch in 55 hours, just like Britney My hair is: behaving badly. When I was 4: I was old enough for little legos. Last Christmas: I was alone I should be: In bed When I look down I see: My lap The happiest recent event was: going out and getting dinner If I were a character on ‘Friends’: I would be Joey - I'm thick, I'm Italian... how YOU doin'? By this time next year: I will be in Melbourne. You have all been warned, bitches! My current gripe is: m'I lsydexic! I have a hard time understanding: The basic rules of nature that cause a human being to add two numbers together, therefore getting an totally different number and then using that number as a margin of how many times they should squeeze a pimple on their face, and then use the two beginning numbers as a margin of how many years they have to spend in therapy for thinking crazed thoughts of killing innocent kittens and slathering margarine on their faces while singing "Baby Got Back" and quoting lines from Jackass that no one even remembers being in the show or the movies. There’s these girls: down the street. They have penises. If I won an award, the first person I would tell would be: Myself. "Hey, dipshit, you won." I want to buy: Your soul. Where do you plan to visit: My room... and hope I don't get swallowed by the warzone that it currently is. If you spent the night at my house: You'd probably leave straight away, screaming bloody murder. The world could do without: really big books that make excellent murder weapons. Most recent thing I’ve bought myself: An icecream, because it said WORLD DOMINATION on the wrapper... I had to see if it started with "HOW TO ACHIEVE" Most recent thing someone else bought me: A jelly KILLER PYTHON so I could have something to eat. My middle name is: Hucklebilly, dumbass. In the morning I: wait til I hear the neighbors going at it like rabbits and hide my head under the pillow before shooting myself in the foot with a paintball gun, because I want to be just like Bam Margera... that is why I have no fucking life. Shut the fuck up. Last night I was: deciding whether or not world domination was a serious career option. Probably not, so I'll use it as a lovely little hobby to do in my spare time. As well as making homing pigeons spread the word about impending doom. That is, because I don't believe in email. There’s this guy I know who: is a drag queen and oh my, isn't he just a lovely little charmer when he wants to be? If I was an animal I’d be a: fox terrier, so that I could be annoying and yap and jump on people and pee on lamp posts and fire hydrants and chew on shoes and chase cats for no reason and then sniff other dogs butts because that's just what kind of kinkiness I'm into. A better name for me would be: Hucklebilly, pig breath. Tomorrow I am: not working, and can behave badly in a normal fashion. And not do any more of these really stupid survey things that Nicholas always posts and makes me feel obligated to keep it moving. Tonight I am: Sitting here typing out the most fucked up, retarded answers to these question that my sleep-addled mind and come up with. My birthday is: Not for another 348 days You got this from: A survey geek in Melbourne who, like me, has no life.

Hmmm... I had issues...

MY STORY Hi, my name is: Allison But you can call me: Alli Never in my life have I: had a friend who would bail me out of jail The one person who can drive me nuts is: the bitch next door with her bitchy random crap My high school is: doing who knows what. I haven’t been in high school for 15 years... do you think I care? When I’m nervous: I make inappropriate jokes The last song I listened to was: Secret - The Pierces If I were to get married right now it would be to: someone with a nice voice. My hair is: clean When I was 4: I had an imaginary friend named Pokey Last Christmas: I got a whole bunch of Hufflepuff stuff I should be: ... doing something constructive When I look down I see: My keyboard The happiest recent event was: having a beer If I were a character on ‘Friends’: I would still be Joey. Idiot. By this time next year: I have no clue... planning my holiday to England?? My current gripe is: pedophiles trying to find shelter under the Pride umbrella I have a hard time understanding: sports scores There’s these girls: they awesome. If I won an award, the first person I would tell would be: My mum I want to buy: Too many things Where do you plan to visit: England... one day If you spent the night at my house: You’d be terrified by the sound of my snoring The world could do without: the entire Trump family Most recent thing I’ve bought myself: A case of beer Most recent thing someone else bought me: Phone credit My middle name is: Ruth In the morning I: I will be jittery because I can’t wait for my new tattoo Last night I was: sleeping There’s this guy I know who: knows a guy, who knows a guy... you know? If I was an animal I’d be a: A cat. I’m a lazy piece of crap. A better name for me would be: Detafo Tomorrow I am: getting a new tattoo Tonight I am: getting drunk My birthday is: a day where people celebrate me getting older. You got this from: My old LiveJournal.

#wtnv #alli in real life

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rather-impertinent · 7 years

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The Girl Next Door: Chapter 2

A/N: Hi friends!! Sorry for the very long wait for this chapter, I’ve been ill since Christmas and haven’t really felt like writing, so apologies for any glaring mistakes in this! I hope you enjoy and I would love to know your thoughts xo

He had stared at the beautiful woman in front of him with uncharacteristic unease. Why was she looking at him as though she was in on a joke that he wasn’t privy to? “Uh- my name is Dwight. Enys. And you?” She’d smiled wider, for some reason, her teeth becoming exposed between her pink stained lips. “Dwight,” she repeated with smirk, liking the feel of the name on her tongue, “such a quaint name.” Quaint? Who the fuck uses the word quaint in normal conversation? What does that even mean? “I’m Caroline,” she’d stated confidently, but hesitated before continuing, “Penvenen.”

Once Dwight got over the shock that the girl sitting opposite him was a Penvenen, one of the riches families in Cornwall if not in all of England itself, they exchanged typical small talk: what Caroline thought of the neighbourhood, if Dwight liked being a doctor, Horace’s age, etc etc. But the most interesting part of their meeting was that she had mocked him as he left. “Goodnight, Dr Enys,” She had said with emphasis, cocking her eyebrow and looking at him with intrigue. The use of his professional name had turned the corners of his mouth. He regarded her with a wry side smile, and matched her amused tone as nodded politely, “Goodnight, Miss Penvenen.”

Since that night, Dr Dwight Enys had spent an unhealthy amount of time reliving this strange, banter-filled exchange. He convinced himself it was merely because his job was often either monotonous or very stressful, and the thought of their exchange helped to alleviate the symptoms of both. He had, regrettably, not seen her very often since she moved in last month, and their conversations were mostly limited to meeting in the stairway as Dwight rushed to work or trudged up the stairs to his flat, usually running late or too tired to make amusing conversation. Dwight sighed over his completed paperwork as he checked the clock in the staff room, which read 9:50am. How had he only been here for 2 hours? Thank Christ he was due in theatre soon. Dwight took a sip of his milky, luke warm tea - wishing he’d gotten a coffee instead - as he double checked his schedule for the day. He frowned at the two back-to-back keyhole surgeries he was due to perform today as he realised they would mean a quick pot noodle and double espresso for lunch. “Dr Enys?” A sweet voice called from the doorway. Dwight looked up from his schedule and was met by his friend Verity’s big, brown, kind eyes. She was everybody’s favourite staff nurse. “Yes, Verity?” He smiled slightly. She returned his smile. “They’re waiting for you in operating room 3,” she informed him professionally. He nodded his head and stood up, gearing himself up to perform a routine gastric bypass, barely managing to stifle a sigh. He couldn’t wait to go home. Just to see his bed. Not on the off chance he might see Caroline. Only his bed, obviously.

“Was that a yawn, Horace?” Caroline asked the clearly yawning pug who lay splayed out next to her on the large, grey sofa. “Do find it really boring here, my darling?” She smoothed the wrinkles on his forehead. She had to admit she was becoming slightly agitated herself. Her life with her Uncle Ray had become increasingly claustrophobic the past couple of years, and when Caroline expressed a wish to go to university he had swiftly put his foot down and insisted that she focused on her modelling career. And so she had; out of her deep love for him. For 5 years she had posed, walked, competed and crash dieted; but there’s only so much one can take. They had a terrible row the day she quit and an even bigger one the next day when she... No. She would not think about that. She tightened her ponytail and glanced out of the window, which revealed a clear, somewhat sunny day outside. “Well, Horace, what do you say we alleviate our boredom with a nice walk?” The mention of a walk caused Horace to go into a frenzy. He barked incessantly for his mistress to put her shoes on and grab his harness; as his chubby legs carried him as quickly as possible to the door. Caroline laughed as he continued to yap at her heels and she stepped into her black ankle-boots. “Alright, alright! I’m ready! Hold on, I’ll just grab my purse, so I’ll remember to get some food in the shop once I drop you back home.” She wrapped her trenchcoat on before picking up her keys, a small Dior handbag which contained her purse and her headphones before leaving the flat. Once on the landing, she secured Horace’s harness and glanced at door number 17 opposite her own, wondering if her handsome neighbour was in and if it would be weird to call on him. He was, after all, the closest thing she had to a friend in the entire world right now, which was quite sad given they’d only had about 4 short conversations. She hadn’t seen him for a while, but she heard him leave and return from work almost every day. She wondered if he ever did anything besides work. Maybe he was as lonely as she was? Horace’s impatient yapping quickly banished all thoughts of Dwight from her mind, as she turned her attention to the most important man in her life: her pug.

Dr Dwight Enys checked the time before he turned his car engine off. The dashboard informed him that it was 6:13pm. It had been a long day, but the two successful surgeries had brightened his mood, and a patient of his – a sweet old lady – had insisted that he accept some flowers for saving her son’s life last week. He had given the flowers to Verity, who had nearly cried at the tiny gesture, which had in turn only increased Dwight’s suspicions that she was pregnant. Experience, or rather Ross’s experience, had told him that asking a woman if she was pregnant was not, under any circumstance, a suitable question. He pondered this thought as he unlocked the outside door to his flat building, his heart nearly stopping at the sight the woman standing just inside.

“Hey, Caroline!” Dwight greeted her brightly. Oh, my God, you are so stupid, Enys, the voice inside his head taunted him. The voice just so happened to take the form of Ross Poldark’s dulcet tones, his dearest friend in the world. Who he occasionally wanted to slap the shit out of, but mostly wanted to hug.

Caroline was bent over with her back to Dwight, her long ponytail drapped over her shoulder. She turned to face him, her face pink with effort as she attempted to lift very large, rather heavy-looking shopping bags. “Oh, Dr Enys! Hello!” She smiled at him, trying to look nonchalant and failing.

Dwight laughed at the use of his professional name and at her stubborn attempts to carry all the bags herself. “Please call me Dwight. Can I help you with those?” he offered politely, biting back a smile.

“As you say, Dr Enys!” she replied almost automatically, as if unable to help teasing him. Caroline then huffed, annoyed at having been defeated by the stupid bags for life, but her hands were so red and imprinted from the plastic handles she was genuinely worried they might scar. She should ask Dwight later. “Well, normally I would decline under the assertion that I am a strong, independent woman but these bags are fucking heavy so, yes, please. I would love some help.”

He laughed at her and took all her groceries, feeling quite pleased with himself at how easily his muscles handled the weight of the three giant shopping bags. “How are you settling in?”

She flashed a proud smile at him, “Well, actually. Honestly, if Uncle Ray could see me now I’m sure he’d for–,” she stopped short and swallowed slightly, before her face settled into perfect indifference as though she had just been describing the weather outside. “Well, maybe he’d put my allowance into my bank account quicker! It’s so weird that he’s forgotten.” She had said so with such casualness that Dwight knew she was genuinely oblivious to the fact that no such allowance was ever going to be paid to her.

He bit his cheek slightly, debating whether to intervene or not. “Err, Caroline,” he began cautiously as they climbed the final few stairs to their landing, “since you seem to have – erm – fallen out with your uncle in some way, do you think it’s likely he’ll put any money into your bank account?”

Her mouth slowly fell open as the realisation dawned on her. She paled in horror, and gawped at Dwight with large, panicked eyes. “Oh, my God! What am I going to do?!”

There seemed to be only one, obvious, solution to Dwight. “You could get a job?”

She wrung her hands and then shook them out nervously. “I don’t really have much experience. I went on a gap year. I’ve organised loads of charity dos, and done some modelling, but I’ve never really had a normal, proper job before.”

Modelling. That makes sense.

“Well at least you have some experience,” Dwight encouraged. His encouragement didn’t seem to help much, which caused a short, awkward pause. “Is there anything you’re particularly good at?”

She pulled an uncertain face, her features scrunched together in concentration. “Hmmm… Oh! I can make good hot chocolate! My mum taught me her special recipe when I was little!” Dwight didn’t know how good this hot chocolate was, but judging by her puffed up chest and the gleam in her eye, it must be pretty spectacular.

“Great! Maybe a coffee shop or something then?” He clicked his fingers, a lightbulb going off in his head. “Hold on, actually, I might be able to arrange something...” He retrieved phone from his trouser pocket and called an all too familiar number.

“Hello?” a sleepy sounding voice answered.

“Hi, Dem!”

The voice immediately brightened. “Hi, Dwight! How are you? Are you still coming out tomorrow night?”

Fuck. He forgot about that. Why does he always agree to things so far in advance? “I’m good thanks, you? Erm, yeah, maybe.”

“What do you mean ‘maybe’? You’re coming. We’re worried about you, Dwight. All you do is work or sit in your flat by yourself eating Sainsbury’s ready meals while watching reruns of Grey’s Anatomy. The only people you ever talk to are either other doctors, ill people or me and Ross. You are coming out!”

“Alright, fine!” He caved, a little impatiently. “Listen, that’s not why I called, I actually need a huge favour from you.”

Dwight then heard a slight rustling noise, as if the microphone was being covered in some way. “Julia! Put that down, it’s not a toy!” The rustle disappeared but there was now a faint whimpering sound in the background. “Sorry. So, what’s the favour?”

“I, um–,” Dwight looked at Caroline, who was listening intently to their conversation, apparently not caring that eavesdropping could be considered rude. He wandered off a little, hoping to be more out of earshot in case his plan didn’t work. “I have this... friend... who really needs a job. Like, really, really needs a job. Could you ask John if he needs any staff at the cafe? Even part time?” He held his breath slightly and looked out at the city lights from the window of the third-floor landing.

A pause. “Is this friend a girl?” Dwight could hear that Demelza was smiling.

He sighed, knowing the onslaught of questions that now awaited him tomorrow night at the pub. “Yes, but that is beside the point. Can you just please-“

She squeaked, loud enough that it possibly damaged his cochlea. “Holy shit! You haven’t spoken to a girl in years! Literal years, Dwight! I want to meet her! You have to bring her out tomorrow before I ask John.”

Dwight’s eyes grew wide in panic and a light blush covered his cheeks. “No, Dem, please,” he groaned into the phone. “Honestly, we’re not even that–“

“Nope, no excuses,” Demelza sang down the phone, “Bring her tomorrow or no job. Bye Dwight!” She sounded annoyingly pleased with herself. “Julia! Come say bye to Uncle Dwight!”

There was a squeal – and then loud crash of what Dwight assumed to be lego blocks – followed by stomping feet and clattering as the phone was exchanged. “Bye unca Dwight,” the infant burbled into the phone, still not quite managing to master her le endings.

The sound of her sweet little voice caused Dwight to forget that he was annoyed at the child’s mother. “Bye Juju, I’ll see you on Sunday!” Caroline furrowed her brows at Dwight’s heightened tone.

“See you on Sundway unca Dwight!” The phoned then dropped, likely onto the tiled floor of the Poldark kitchen, before it went dead following a long-suffering sigh from Demelza.

Caroline stared at Dwight’s back, absently wondering if he had nice back muscles underneath his coat, while waiting for him to turn around, feeling somewhat annoyed to not be the focus of his attention. She was always the focus of men’s attention. Why wasn’t he looking at her? And who was he talking to it? It definitely sounded like a woman. “Well?” Caroline asked in apprehension, having not caught the last part of the conversation as Dwight had wandered over to the window that stood between their respective front doors.

Dwight rubbed the back of his neck hoping it would help to keep the embarrassed red flush from appearing. “Well, actually, there’s a slight complication...”

#carolight #girl next door au #poldark fanfic

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unsettlingshortstories · 4 years

Text

The Road Virus Heads North

Stephen King (1999)

Richard Kinnell wasn't frightened when he first saw the picture at the yard sale in Rosewood.

He was fascinated by it, and he felt he'd had the good luck to find something which might be very special, but fright? No. It didn't occur to him until later ("not until it was too late," as he might have written in one of his own numbingly successful novels) that he had felt much the same way about certain illegal drugs as a young man.

He had gone down to Boston to participate in a PEN/New England conference tided "The Threat of Popularity." You could count on PEN to come up with such subjects, Kinnell had found; it was actually sort of comforting. He drove the two hundred and sixty miles from Derry rather than flying because he'd come to a plot impasse on his latest book and wanted some quiet time to try to work it out.

At the conference, he sat on a panel where people who should have known better asked him where he got his ideas and if he ever scared himself. He left the city by way of the Tobin Bridge, then got on Route 1. He never took the turnpike when he was trying to work out problems; the turnpike lulled him into a state that was like dreamless, waking sleep. It was restful, but not very creative. The stop-and-go traffic on the coast road, however, acted like grit inside an oyster-it created a fair amount of mental activity ... and sometimes even a pearl.

Not, he supposed, that his critics would use that word. In an issue of Esquire last year, Bradley Simons had begun his review of Nightmare City this way: "Richard Kinnell, who writes like Jeffery Dahmer cooks, has suffered a fresh bout of projectile vomiting. He has tided this most recent mass of ejecta Nightmare City."

Route 1 took him through Revere, Malden, Everett, and up the coast to Newburyport. Beyond Newburyport and just south of the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border was the tidy little town of Rosewood. A mile or so beyond the town center, he saw an array of cheap-looking goods spread out on the lawn of a two-story Cape. Propped against an avocado-colored electric stove was a sign reading YARD SALE. Cars were parked on both sides of the road, creating one of those bottlenecks which travelers unaffected by the yard sale mystique curse their way through. Kinnell liked yard sales, particularly the boxes of old books you sometimes found at them. He drove through the bottleneck, parked his Audi at the head of the line of cars pointed toward Maine and New Hampshire, then walked back.

A dozen or so people were circulating on the littered front lawn of the blue-and-gray Cape Cod. A large television stood to the left of the cement walk, its feet planted on four paper ashtrays that were doing absolutely nothing to protect the lawn. On top was a sign reading MAKE AN OFFER-YOU MIGHT BE SURPRISED. An electrical cord, augmented by an extension, mailed back from the TV and through the open front door. A fat woman sat in a lawn chair before it, shaded by an umbrella with CINZANO printed on the colorful scalloped flaps. There was a card table beside her with a cigar box, a pad of paper, and another handlettered sign on it. This sign read ALL SALES CASH, ALL SALES FINAL. The TV was on, turned to an afternoon soap opera where two beautiful young people looked on the verge of having deeply unsafe sex. The fat

woman glanced at Kinnell, then back at the TV. She looked at it for a moment, then looked back at him again. This time her mouth was slightly sprung.

Ah, Kinnell thought, looking around for the liquor box fined with paperbacks that was sure to be here someplace, a fan.

He didn't see any paperbacks, but he saw the picture, leaning against an ironing board and held in place by a couple of plastic laundry baskets, and his breath stopped in his throat. He wanted it at once.

He walked over with a casualness that felt exaggerated and dropped to one knee in front of it. The painting was a watercolor, and technically very good. Kinnell didn't care about that; technique didn't interest him (a fact the critics of his own work had duly noted). What he liked in works of art was content, and the more unsettling the better. This picture scored high in that department. He knelt between the two laundry baskets, which had been filled with a jumble of small appliances, and let his fingers slip over the glass facing of the picture. He glanced around briefly, looking for others like it, and saw none - only the usual yard sale art collection of Little Bo Peeps, praying hands, and gambling dogs.

He looked back at the framed watercolor, and in his mind he was already moving his suitcase into the backseat of the Audi so he could slip the picture comfortably into the trunk.

It showed a young man behind the wheel of a muscle car-maybe a Grand Am, maybe a GTX, something with a T-top, anyway - crossing the Tobin Bridge at sunset. The T-top was off, turning the black car into a half-assed convertible. The young man's left arm. was cocked on the door, his right wrist was draped casually over the wheel. Behind him, the sky was a bruise-colored mass of yellows and grays, streaked with veins of pink. The young man had lank blond hair that spilled over his low forehead. He was grinning, and his parted lips revealed teeth which were not teeth at all but fangs.

Or maybe they're filed to points, Kinnell thought. Maybe he's supposed to be a cannibal.

He liked that; liked the idea of a cannibal crossing the Tobin Bridge at sunset. In a Grand Am. He knew what most of the audience at the PEN panel discussion would have thought - Oh, yes, great picture for Rich Kinnell he probably wants it for inspiration, a feather to tickle his tired old gorge into one more fit of projectile vomiting-but most of those folks were ignoramuses, at least as far as his work went, and what was more, they treasured their ignorance, cossetted it the way some people inexplicably treasured and cossetted those stupid, mean-spirited little dogs that yapped at visitors and sometimes bit the paperboy's ankles. He hadn't been attracted to this painting because he wrote horror stories; he wrote horror stories because he was attracted to things like this painting. His fans sent him stuff - pictures, mostly - and he threw most of them away, not because they were bad art but because they were tiresome and predictable. One fan from Omaha had sent him a little ceramic sculpture of a screaming, horrified monkey's head poking out of a refrigerator door, however, and that one he had kept. It was unskillfully executed, but there was an unexpected juxtaposition there that lit UP his dials. This painting had some of the same quality, but it was even better. Much better.

As he was reaching for it, wanting to pick it up right now, this second, wanting to tuck it under his arm and proclaim his intentions, a voice spoke up behind him: "Aren't you Richard Kinnell?"

He jumped, then turned. The fat woman was standing directly behind him, blotting out most of the immediate landscape. She had put on fresh lipstick before approaching, and now her mouth had been transformed into a bleeding grin.

"Yes, I am," he said, smiling back.

Her eyes dropped to the picture. "I should have known you'd go right to that," she said, simpering. "It's so You."

"It is, isn't it?" he said, and smiled his best celebrity smile. "How much would you need for it?"

"Forty-five dollars," she said. "I'll be honest with you, I started it at seventy, but nobody likes it, so now it's marked down. If you come back tomorrow, you can probably have it for thirty." The simper had grown to frightening proportions. Kinnell could see little gray spit-buds in the dimples at the comers of her stretched mouth.

"I don't think I want to take that chance," he said. "I'll write you a check right now."

The simper continued to stretch; the woman now looked like some grotesque John Waters parody. Divine does Shirley Temple. "I'm really not supposed to take checks, but all right," she said, her tone that of a teenage girl finally consenting to have sex with her boyfriend. "Only while you have your pen out, could you write an autograph for my daughter? Her name is Michela?"

"What a beautiful name," Kinnell said automatically. He took the picture and followed the fat woman back to the card table. On the TV next to it, the lustful young people had been temporarily displaced by an elderly woman gobbling bran flakes.

" Michela reads all your books," the fat woman said. "Where in the world do you get all those crazy ideas?"

"I don't know," Kinnell said, smiling more widely than ever. "They just come to me. Isn't that amazing?. "

The yard sale minder's name was Judy Diment, and she lived in the house next door. When Kinnell asked her if she knew who the artist happened to be, she said she certainly did; Bobby Hastings had done it, and Bobby Hastings was the reason she was selling off the Hastings' things. "That's the only painting he didn't bum," she said. "Poor Iris! She's the one I really feel sorry for. I don't think George cared much, really. And I know he didn't understand why she wants to sell the house." She rolled her eyes in her large, sweaty face - the old can-you-imagine-that look. She took Kinnell's check when he tore it off, then gave him the pad where she had written down all the items she'd sold and the prices she'd obtained for them. "Just make it out to Michela," she said. "Pretty please with sugar on it?" The simper reappeared, like an old acquaintance you'd hoped was dead.

"Uh-huh," Kinnell said, and wrote his standard thanks-for-being-a-fan message. He didn't have to watch his hands or even think about it anymore, not after twenty-five years of writing autographs. "Tell me about the picture, and the Hastingses."

Judy Diment folded her pudgy hands in the manner of a woman about to recite a favorite story.

"Bobby was just twenty-three when he killed himself this spring. Can you believe that? He was the tortured genius type, you know, but still living at home." Her eyes rolled, again asking Kinnell if he could imagine it. "He must have had seventy, eighty paintings, plus all his sketchbooks. Down in the basement, they were." She pointed her chin at the Cape Cod, then looked at the picture of the fiendish young man driving across the Tobin Bridge at sunset. "Iris-that's Bobby's mother - said most of them were real bad, lots worse'n this. Stuff that'd curl your hair." She lowered her voice to a whisper, glancing at a woman who was looking at the Hastings' mismatched silverware and a pretty good collection of old McDonald's plastic glasses in a Honey, I Shrunk the Kids motif. "Most of them had sex stuff in them."

"Oh no," Kinnell said.

"He did the worst ones after he got on drugs," Judy Diment continued. "After he was dead-he hung himself down in the basement, where he used to paint-they found over a hundred of those little bottles they sell crack cocaine in. Aren't drugs awful, Mr. Kinnell?"

"They sure are."

"Anyway, I guess he finally just got to the end of his rope, no pun intended. He took all of his sketches and paintings out into the back yard-except for that one, I guess - and burned them. Then he hung himself down in the basement. He pinned a note to his shirt. It said, 'I can't stand what's happening to me.' Isn't that awful, Mr. Kinnell? Isn't that just the awfulest thing you ever heard?"

'Yes," Kinnell said, sincerely enough. "It just about is."

'Like I say, I think George would go right on living in the house if he had his druthers, " Judy Diment said. She took the sheet of paper with Michela's autograph on it, held it up next to Kinnell's check, and shook her head, as if the similarity of the signatures amazed her. "But men are different."

"Are they?"

"Oh, yes, much less sensitive. By the end of his life, Bobby Hastings was just skin and bone, dirty all the time-you could smell him - and he wore the same T-shirt, day in and day out. It had a picture of the Led Zeppelins on it. His eyes were red, he had a scraggle on his cheeks that you couldn't quite call a beard, and his pimples were coming back, like he was a teenager again. But she loved him, because a mother's love sees past all those things."

The woman who had been looking at the silverware and the glasses came over with a set of Star Wars placemats. Mrs. Diment took five I dollars for them, wrote the sale carefully down on her pad below "ONE DOZ. ASSORTED POTHOLDERS & HOTPADS," then turned back to Kinnell.

They went out to Arizona," she said, "to stay with Iris's folks. I know George is looking for work out there in Flagstaff-he's a draftsman-but I don't know if he's found any yet. If he has, I suppose we might not ever see them again here in Rosewood. She marked out all the stuff she wanted me to sell-Iris did - and told me I could keep twenty percent for my trouble. I'll send a check for the rest. There won't be much." She sighed.

"The picture is great," Kinnell said.

"Yeah, too bad he burned the rest, because most of this other stuff is your standard yard sale crap, pardon my French. What's that?"

Kinnell had turned the picture around. There was a length of Dymotape pasted to the back.

"A tide, I think."

"What does it say?"

He grabbed the picture by the sides and held it up so she could read it for herself This put the picture at eye level to him, and he studied it eagerly, once again taken by the simpleminded weirdness of the subject., kid behind the wheel of a muscle car, a kid with a nasty, knowing grin that revealed the filed points of an even nastier set of teeth.

It fits, he thought. If ever a title futted a painting, this one does.

" The Road Virus Heads North," she read. "I never noticed that when my boys were lugging stuff out. Is it the tide, do you think?"

"Must be." Kinnell couldn't take his eyes off the blond kid's grin. I know something, the grin said. I know something you never will.

"Well, I guess you'd have to believe the fella who did this was high on drugs," she said, sounding upset - authentically upset, Kinnell thought. "No wonder he could kill himself and break his mamma's heart."

"I've got to be heading north myself," Kinnell said, tucking the picture under his arm. "Thanks for-"

" Mr. Kinnell?"

"Yes?"

"Can I see your driver's license?" She apparently found nothing ironic or even amusing in this request. "I ought to write the number on the back of your check."

Kinnell put the picture down so he could dig for his wallet. "Sure. You bet."

The woman who'd bought the Star Wars placemats had paused on her way back to her car to watch some of the soap opera playing on the lawn TV. Now she glanced at the picture, which Kinnell had propped against his shins.

"Ag," she said. "Who'd want an ugly old thing like that? I'd think about it every time I turned the lights out."

"What's wrong with that?" Kinnell asked.

Kinnell's Aunt Trudy lived in Wells, which is about six miles north of the Maine - New Hampshire border. Kinnell pulled off at the exit which circled the bright green Wells water tower, the one with the comic sign on it (KEEP MAINE GREEN, BRING MONEY in letters four feet high), and five minutes later he was turning into the driveway of her neat little saltbox house. No TV sinking into the lawn on paper ashtrays here, only Aunt Trudy's amiable masses of flowers. Kinnell needed to pee and hadn't wanted to take care of that in a roadside rest stop when he could come here, but he also wanted an update on all the family gossip. Aunt Trudy retailed the best; she was to gossip what Zabar's is to deli. Also, of course, he wanted to show her his new acquisition.

She came out to meet him, gave him a hug, and covered his face with her patented little birdy-kisses, the ones that had made him shiver all over as a kid.

"Want to see something?" he asked her. "It'll blow your pantyhose off."

"What a charming thought," Aunt Trudy said, clasping her elbows in her palms and looking at him with amusement.

He opened the trunk and took out his new picture. It affected her, all right, but not in the way he had expected. The color fell out of her face in a sheet-he had never seen anything quite like it in his entire life. "It's horrible," she said in a tight, controlled voice. "I hate it. I suppose I can see what attracted you to it, Richie, but what you play at, it does for, real. Put it back in your trunk, like a good boy. And when you get to the Saco River, why don't you pull over into the breakdown lane and throw it in?"

He gaped at her. Aunt Trudy's lips were pressed tightly together to stop them trembling, and now her long, thin hands were not just clasping her elbows but clutching them, as if to keep her from flying away. At that moment she looked not sixty-one but ninety-one.

" Auntie?" Kinnell spoke tentatively, not sure what was going on here. "Auntie, what's wrong?"

"That." she said, unlocking her right hand and pointing at the picture. "I'm surprised you don't feel it more strongly yourself, an imaginative guy like you."

Well, he felt something, obviously he had, or he never would have unlimbered his checkbook in the first place. Aunt Trudy was feeling something else, though ... or something more. He turned the picture around so he could see it (he had been holding it out for her, so the side with the Dymotaped title faced him), and looked at it again. What he saw hit him in the chest and belly like a one-two punch.

The picture had changed, that was punch number one. Not much, but it had dearly changed. The young blond man's smile was wider, revealing more of those filed cannibal-teeth. His eyes were squinted down more, too, giving his face a look which was more knowing and nastier than ever.

The degree of a smile ... the vista of sharpened teeth widening slightly ... the tilt and squint of the eyes ... all pretty subjective stuff. A person could be mistaken about things like that, and of course he hadn't really studied the painting before buying it. Also, there had been the distraction of Mrs. Diment, who could probably talk the cock off a brass monkey.

But there was also punch number two, and that wasn't subjective. In the darkness of the Audi's trunk, the blond young man had turned his left arm, the one cocked on the door, so that Kinnell could now see a tattoo which had been hidden before. It was a vine-wrapped dagger with a bloody tip. Below it were words. Kinnell could make Out DEATH BEFORE, and he supposed you didn't have to be a big best-selling novelist to figure out the word that was still hidden. DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR was, after all, just the sort of a thing a hoodoo traveling man like this was apt to have on his arm. And an ace of spades or a pot plant on the other one, Kinnell thought.

"You hate it, don't you, Auntie?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, and now he saw an even more amazing thing: she had turned away from him, pretending to look out at the street (which was dozing and deserted in the hot afternoon sunlight), so she wouldn't have to look at the picture. "In fact, Auntie loathes it. Now put it away and come on into the house. I'll bet you need to use the bathroom."

Aunt Trudy recovered her savoir faire almost as soon as the watercolor was back in the trunk. They talked about Kinnell's mother (Pasadena), his sister (Baton Rouge), and his ex-wife, Sally (Nashua). Sally was a space-case who ran an animal shelter out of a double-wide trailer and published two newsletters each month. Survivors was filled with astral info and supposedly true tales of the spirit world; Visitors contained the reports of people who'd had close encounters with space aliens. Kinnell no longer went to fan conventions which specialized in fantasy and horror. One Sally in a lifetime, he sometimes told people, was enough.

When Aunt Trudy walked him back out to the car, it was fourthirty and he'd turned down the obligatory dinner invitation. "I can get most of the way back to Derry in daylight, if I leave now."

"Okay," she said. "And I'm sorry I was so mean about your picture. Of course you like it, you've always liked your ... your oddities. It just hit me the wrong way. That awful face. " She shuddered. "As if we were looking at him . . . and he was looking right back."

Kinnell grinned and kissed the tip of her nose. "You've got quite an imagination yourself, sweetheart."

"Of course, it runs in the family. Are you sure you don't want to use the facility again before you go?"

He shook his head. "That's not why I stop, anyway, not really."

"Oh? Why do you?"

He grinned. "Because you know who's being naughty and who's being nice. And you're not afraid to share what you know."

"Go on, get going," she said, pushing at his shoulder but clearly pleased. "If I were you, I'd want to get home quick. I wouldn't want that nasty guy riding along behind me in the dark, even in the trunk. I mean, did you see his teeth? Ag!"

He got on the turnpike, trading scenery for speed, and made it as far as the Gray service area before deciding to have another look at the picture. Some of his aunt's unease had transmitted itself to him like a germ, but he didn't think that was really the problem. The. problem was his perception that the picture had changed.

The service area featured the usual gourmet chow - burgers by Roy Rogers, cones by TCBY - and had a small, littered picnic and dogwalking area at the rear. Kinnell parked next to a van with Missouri plates, drew in a deep breath, let it out. He'd driven to Boston in order to kill some plot gremlins in the new book, which was pretty ironic. He'd spent the ride down working out what he'd say on the panel if certain tough questions were tossed at him, but none had been-once they'd found out he didn't know where he got his ideas, and yes, he did sometimes scare himself, they'd only wanted to know how you got an agent.

And now, heading back, he couldn't think of anything but the damned picture.

Had it changed? If it had, if the blond kid's arm had moved enough so he, Kinnell, could read a tattoo which had been partly hidden before, then he could write a column for one of Sally's magazines. Hell, a fourpart series. If, on the other hand, it wasn't changing, then ... what? He was suffering a hallucination? Having a breakdown? That was crap. His life was pretty much in order, and he felt good. Had, anyway, until his fascination with the picture had begun to waver into something else, something darker.

"Ah, fuck, you just saw it wrong the first time," he said out loud as he got out of the car. Well, maybe. Maybe. It wouldn't be the first time his head had screwed with his perceptions. That was also a part of what he did. Sometimes his imagination got a little ... well ...

"Feisty," Kinnell said, and opened the trunk. He took the picture out of the trunk and looked at it, and it was during the space of the ten seconds when he looked at it without remembering to breathe that he became authentically afraid of the thing, afraid the way you were afraid of a sudden dry rattle in the bushes, afraid the way you were when you saw an insect that would probably sting if you provoked it.

The blond driver was grinning insanely at him now-yes, at him, Kinnell was sure of it-with those filed cannibal-teeth exposed all the way to the gumlines. His eyes simultaneously glared and laughed. And the Tobin Bridge was gone. So was the Boston skyline. So was the sunset. It was almost dark in the painting now, the car and its wild rider illuminated by a single streetlamp that ran a buttery glow across the road and the car's chrome. It looked to Kinnell as if the car (he was pretty sure it was a Grand Am) was on the edge of a small town on Route 1, and he was pretty sure he knew what town it was-he had driven through it himself only a few hours ago.

"Rosewood," he muttered. "That's Rosewood. I'm pretty sure."

The Road Virus was heading north, all right, coming up Route 1 just as he had. The blond's left arm was still cocked out the window, but it had rotated enough back toward its original position so that Kinnell could no longer see the tattoo. But he knew it was there, didn't he? Yes, you bet.

The blond kid looked like a Metallica fan who had escaped from a mental asylum for the criminally insane.

"Jesus," Kinnell whispered, and the word seemed to come from someplace else, not from him. The strength suddenly ran out of his body, ran out like water from a bucket with a hole in the bottom, and he sat down heavily on the curb separating the parking lot from the dog-walking zone. He suddenly understood that this was the truth he'd missed in all his fiction, this was how people really reacted when they came face-to-face with something which made no rational sense. You felt as if you were bleeding to death, only inside your head.

"No wonder the guy who painted it killed himself," he croaked, still staring at the picture, at the ferocious grin, at the eyes that were both shrewd and stupid.

There was a note pinned to his shirt, Mrs. Diment had said. "I can't stand what's happening to me. " Isn't that awful, Mr. Kinnell?

Yes, it was awful, all right.

Really awful.

He got up, gripping the picture by its top, then strode across the dog-walking area. He kept his eyes trained strictly in front of him, looking for canine land mines. He did not look down at the picture. His legs felt trembly and untrustworthy, but they seemed to support him all right. just ahead, close to the belt of trees at the rear of the service area, was a pretty young thing in white shorts and a red halter. She was walking a cocker spaniel. She began to smile at Kinnell, then saw something in his face that straightened her lips out in a hurry. She headed left, and fast. The cocker didn't want to go that fast so she dragged it, coughing, in her wake.

The scrubby pines behind the service area sloped down to a boggy area that stank of plant and animal decomposition. The carpet of pine needles was a road litter fallout zone: burger wrappers, paper soft drink cups, TCBY napkins, beer cans, empty wine-cooler bottles, cigarette butts. He saw a used condom lying like a dead snail next to a torn pair of panties with the word TUESDAY stitched on them in cursive girly-girl script.

Now that he was here, he chanced another look down at the picture. He steeled himself for further changes even for the possibility that the painting would be in motion, like a movie in a frame - but there was none. There didn't have to be, Kinnell realized; the blond kid's face was enough. That stone-crazy grin. Those pointed teeth. The face said, Hey, old man, guess what? I'm done fucking with civilization. I'm a representative of the real generation X, the next millennium is tight here behind the wheel of this fine, high-steppin' mo-sheen.

Aunt Trudy's initial reaction to the painting had been to advise Kinnell that he should throw it into the Saco River. Auntie had been right. The Saco was now almost twenty miles behind him, but . .

"This'll do," he said. "I think this'll do just fine."

He raised the picture over his head like a guy holding up some kind of sports trophy for the postgame photographers and then heaved it down the slope. It flipped over twice, the frame caching winks of hazy late-day sun, then struck a tree. The glass facing shattered. The picture fell to the ground and then slid down the dry, needle-carpeted slope, as if down a chute. It landed in the bog, one comer of the frame protruding from a thick stand of reeds. Otherwise, there was nothing visible but the strew of broken glass, and Kinnell thought that went very well with the rest of the litter.

He turned and went back to his car, already picking up his mental trowel. He would wall this incident off in its own special niche, he thought ... and it occurred to him that that was probably what most people did when they ran into stuff like this. Liars and wannabees (or maybe in this case they were wannasees) wrote up their fantasies for publications like Survivors and called them truth; those who blundered into authentic occult phenomena kept their mouths shut and used those trowels. Because when cracks like this appeared in your life, you had to do something about them; if you didn't, they were apt to widen and sooner or later everything would fall in.

Kinnell glanced up and saw the pretty young thing watching him apprehensively from what she probably hoped was a safe distance. When she saw him looking at her, she turned around and started toward the restaurant building, once more dragging the cocker spaniel behind her and trying to keep as much sway Out of her hips as possible.

You think I'm crazy, don't you pretty girl? Kinnell thought. He saw he had left his trunk lid up. It gaped like a mouth. He slammed it shut. You and half the fiction-reading population of America, I guess. But I'm not crazy. Absolutely not. I just made a little mistake, that's all. Stopped at a yard sale I should have passed up. Anyone could have done it. You could have done it. And that picture

" What picture?" Rich Kinnell asked the hot summer evening, and tried on a smile. "I don't see any picture."

He slid behind the wheel of his Audi and started the engine. He looked at the fuel gauge and saw it had dropped under a half. He was going to need gas before he got home, but he thought he'd fill the tank a little further up the line. Right now all he wanted to do was to put a belt of miles - as thick a one as possible - between him and the discarded painting.

Once outside the city limits of Derry, Kansas Street becomes Kansas Road. As it approaches the incorporated town limits (an area that is actually open countryside), it becomes Kansas Lane. Not long after,, Kansas Lane passes between two fieldstone posts. Tar gives way to' gravel. What is one of Derry's busiest downtown streets eight miles east of here has become a driveway leading up a shallow hill, and on moonlit summer nights it glimmers like something out of an Alfred Noyes poem. At the top of the hill stands an angular, handsome barn-board structure with reflectorized windows, a stable that is actually a garage, and a satellite dish tilted at the stars. A waggish reporter from the Derry News once called it the House that Gore Built ... not meaning the vice president of the United States. Richard Kinnell simply called it home, and he parked in front of it that night with a sense of weary satisfaction. He felt as if he had lived through a week's worth of time since getting up in the Boston Harbor hotel that morning at nine o'clock.

No more yard sales, he thought, looking up at the moon. No more yard sales ever.

I "Amen," he said, and started toward the house. He probably should stick the car in the garage, but the hell with it. What he wanted right now was a drink, a light meal - something microwaveable - and then sleep. Preferably the kind without dreams. He couldn't wait to put this day behind him.

He stuck his key in the lock, turned it, and punched 3817 to silence the warning bleep from the burglar alarm panel. He turned on the front hall light, stepped through the door, pushed it shut behind him, began to turn, saw what was on the wall where his collection of framed book covers had been just two days ago, and screamed. In his head he screamed. Nothing actually came out of his mouth but a harsh exhalation of air. He heard a thump and a tuneless little jingle as his keys fell out of his relaxing hand and dropped to the carpet between his feet.

The Road Virus Heads North was no longer in the puckerbrush behind the Gray turnpike service area.

It was mounted on his entry wall.

It had changed yet again. The car was now parked in the driveway of the yard sale yard. The goods were still spread out everywhereglassware and furniture and ceramic knickknacks (Scottie dogs smoking pipes, bare-assed toddlers, winking fish), but now they gleamed beneath the light of the same skullface moon that rode in the sky above Kinnell's house. The TV was still there, too, and it was still on, casting its own pallid radiance onto the grass, and what lay in front of it, next to an overturned lawn chair. Judy Diment was on her back, and she was no longer all there. After a moment, Kinnell saw the rest. It was on the ironing board, dead eyes glowing like fifty-cent pieces in the moonlight.

The Grand Am's taillights were a blur of red-pink watercolor paint. It was Kinnell's first look at the car's back deck. Written across it in Old English letters were three words: THE ROAD VIRUS.

Makes perfect sense, Kinnell thought numbly. Not him, his car. Except for a guy like this, there's probably not much difference.

"This isn't happening," he whispered, except it was. Maybe it wouldn't have happened to someone a little less open to such things, but it was happening. And as he stared at the painting he found himself remembering the little sign on Judy Diment's card table. ALL SALES CASH, it had said (although she had taken his check, only adding his driver's license ID number for safety's sake). And it had said something else, too.

ALL SALES FINAL.

Kinnell walked past the picture and into the living room. He felt like a stranger inside his own body, and he sensed part of his mind groping for the trowel he had used earlier. He seemed to have misplaced it.

He turned on the TV, then the Toshiba satellite tuner which sat on top of it. He turned to V-14, and all the time he could feel the picture out there in the hall, pushing at the back of his head. The picture that had somehow beaten him here.

"Must have known a shortcut," Kinnell said, and laughed.

He hadn't been able to see much of the blond in this version of the picture, but there had been a blur behind the wheel which Kinnell assumed had been him. The Road Virus had finished his business in Rosewood. It was time to move north. Next stop

He brought a heavy steel door down on that thought, cutting it off before he could see all of it. "After all, I could still be imagining all this," he told the empty living room. Instead of comforting him, the hoarse, shaky quality of his voice frightened him even more. "This could be ... But he couldn't finish. All that came to him was an old song, belted out in the pseudo-hip style of some early '50s Sinatra done: This could be the start of something BIG ...

The tune oozing from the TV's stereo speakers wasn't Sinatra but Paul Simon, arranged for strings. The white computer type on the blue screen said WELCOME TO NEW ENGLAND NEWSWIRE. There were ordering instructions below this, but Kinnell didn't have to read them; he was a Newswire junkie and knew the drill by heart. He dialed, punched in his Mastercard number, then 508.

"You have ordered Newswire for [slight pause] central and northem Massachusetts," the robot voice said. "Thank you very m--"

Kinnell dropped the phone back into the cradle and stood looking at the New England Newswire logo, snapping his fingers nervously. "Come on," he said. "Come on, come on."

The screen flickered then, and the blue background became green. Words began scrolling up, something about a house fire in Taunton. This was followed by the latest on a dog-racing scandal, then tonight's weather - clear and mild. Kinnell was starting to relax, starting to wonder if he'd really seen what he thought he'd seen on the entryway wall or if it had been a bit of travel-induced fugue, when the TV beeped shrilly and the words BREAKING NEWS appeared. He stood watching the caps scroll up.

NENphAUG19/8:40P A ROSEWOOD WOMAN HAS BEEN BRUTALLY MURDER-ED WHILE DOING A FAVOR FOR AN ABSENT FRIEND. 38-YEAR-OLD JUDITH DIMENT WAS SAVAGELY HACKED TO DEATH ON THE LAWN OF HER NEIGHBOR'S HOUSE, WHERE SHE HAD BEEN CONDUCTING A YARD SALE. NO SCREAMS WERE HEARD AND MRS. DIMENT WAS NOT FOUND UNTIL EIGHT O'CLOCK, WHEN A NEIGHBOR ACROSS THE STREET CAME OVER TO COMPLAIN ABOUT LOUD TELEVISION NOISE. THE NEIGHBOR, DAVID GRAVES, SAID THAT MRS. DIMENT HAD BEEN DECAPITATED. "HER HEAD WAS ON THE IRONING BOARD," HE SAID. "IT WAS THE MOST AWFUL THING I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE." GRAVES SAID HE HEARD NO SIGNS OF A STRUGGLE, ONLY THE TV AND, SHORTLY BEFORE FINDING THE BODY, A LOUD CAR, POSSIBLY EQUIPPED WITH A GLASSPACK MUFFLER, ACCELERATING AWAY FROM THE VICINITY ALONG ROUTE ONE. SPECULATION THAT THIS VEHICLE MAY HAVE BELONGED TO THE KILLER

Except that wasn't speculation; that was a simple fact.

Breathing hard, not quite panting, Kinnell hurried back into the entryway. The picture was still there, but it had changed once more. Now it showed two glaring white circles - headlights - with the dark shape of the car hulking behind them.

He's on the move again, Kinnell thought, and Aunt Trudy was on top of his mind now - sweet Aunt Trudy, who always knew who had been naughty and who had been nice. Aunt Trudy, who lived in Wells, no more than forty miles from Rosewood.

" God, please God, please send him by the coast road," Kinnell said, reaching for the picture. Was it his imagination or were the headlights farther apart now, as if the car were actually moving before his eyes ... but stealthily, the way the minute hand moved on a Pocket watch? "Send him by the coast road, please."

He tore the picture off the wall and ran back into the living room with it. The screen was in place before the fireplace, of course; it would be at least two months before a fire was wanted in here. Kinnell batted it aside and threw the painting in, breaking the glass fronting-which he had already broken once, at the Gray service area - against the firedogs. Then he pelted for the kitchen, wondering what he would do if this didn't work either.

It has to, he thought. It will because it has to, and that's A there is to it.

He opened the kitchen cabinets and pawed through them, spilling the oatmeal, spilling a canister of salt, spilling the vinegar. The bottle broken open on the counter and assaulted his nose and eyes with the high stink.

Not there. What he wanted wasn't there.

He raced into the pantry, looked behind the door - nothing but a plastic bucket and an 0 Cedar - and then on the shelf by the dryer. There it was, next to the briquets.

Lighter fluid.

He grabbed it and ran back, glancing at the telephone on the kitchen wall as he hurried by. He wanted to stop, wanted to call Aunt Trudy. Credibility wasn't an issue with her; if her favorite nephew called and told her to get out of the house, to get out light now, she would do it ... but what if the blond kid followed her? Chased her?

And he would. Kinnell knew he would.

He hurried across the living room and stopped in front of the fireplace.

"Jesus," he whispered. "Jesus, no."

The picture beneath the splintered glass no longer showed oncoming headlights. Now it showed the Grand Am on a sharply curving piece of road that could only be an exit ramp. Moonlight shone like liquid satin on the car's dark flank. In the background was a water tower, and the words on it were easily readable in the moonlight. KEEP MAINE GREEN, they said. BRING MONEY.

Kinnell didn't hit the picture with the first squeeze of lighter fluid; his hands were shaking badly and the aromatic liquid simply ran down the unbroken part of the glass, blurring the Road Virus's back deck. He took a deep breath, aimed, then squeezed again. This time the lighter fluid squirted in through the jagged hole made by one of the firedogs and ran down the picture, cutting through the paint, making it run, turning a Goodyear Wide Oval into a sooty teardrop.

Kinnell took one of the ornamental matches from the jar on the mantel, struck it on the hearth, and poked it in through the hole in the glass. The painting caught at once, fire billowing up and down across the Grand Am and the water tower. The remaining glass in the frame turned black, then broke outward in a shower of flaming pieces. Kinnell crunched them under his sneakers, putting them out before they could set the rug on fire.

He went to the phone and punched in Aunt Trudy's number, unaware that he was crying. On the third ring, his aunt's answering machine picked up. "Hello," Aunt Trudy said, "I know it encourages the burglars to say things like this, but I've gone up to Kennebunk to watch the new Harrison Ford movie. If you intend to break in, please don't take my china pigs. If you want to leave a message, do so at the beep."

Kinnell waited, then, keeping his voice as steady as possible, he said:

"It's Richie, Aunt Trudy. Call me when you get back, okay? No matter how late."

He hung up, looked at the TV, then dialed Newswire again, this time punching in the Maine area code. While the computers on the other end processed his order, he went back and used a poker to jab at the blackened, twisted thing in the fireplace. The stench was ghastly - it made the spilled vinegar smell like a flowerpatch in comparison-but Kinnell found he didn't mind. The picture was entirely gone, reduced to ash, and that made it worthwhile.

Mat if it comes back again?

"It won't," he said, putting the poker back and returning to the TV. "I'm sure it won't."

But every time the news scroll started to recycle, he got up to check. The picture was just ashes on the hearth ... and there was no word of elderly women being murdered in the Wells-Saco-Kennebunk area of the state. Kinnell kept watching, almost expecting to see A GRAND AM MOVING AT HIGH SPEED CRASHED INTO A KENNEBUNK MOVIE THEATER TONIGHT, KILLING AT LEAST TEN, but nothing of the sort showed up.

At a quarter of eleven the telephone rang. Kinnell snatched it up. "Hello?"

"It's Trudy, dear. Are you all right?"

"Yes, fine."

"You don't sound fine," she said. "Your voice sounds trembly and funny. What's wrong? What is it?" And then, chilling him but not really surprising him: "It's that picture you were so pleased with, isn't it? That goddamned picture!"

It calmed him somehow, that she should guess so much ... and, of course, there was the relief of knowing she was safe.

"Well, maybe," he said. "I had the heebie-jeebies all the way back here, so I burned it. In the fireplace."

She's going to find out about Judy Diment, you know, a voice inside warned. She doesn't have a twenty-thousand-dollar satellite hookup, but she does subscribe to the Union-Leader and this'll be on the front page. She'll put two and two together. She's far from stupid.

Yes, that was undoubtedly true, but further explanations could wait until the morning, when he might be a little less freaked ... when he might've found a way to think about the Road Virus without losing his mind ... and when he'd begun to be sure it was really over.

"Good!" she said emphatically. "You ought to scatter the ashes, too!" She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was lower. "You were worried about me, weren't you? Because you showed it to me.

"A little, yes."

"But you feel better now?"

He leaned back and closed his eyes. It was true, he did. "Uh-huh. How was the movie?"

"Good. Harrison Ford looks wonderful in a uniform. Now, if he'd just get rid of that little bump on his chin . . ."

"Good night, Aunt Trudy. We'll talk tomorrow."

"Will we?"

"Yes," he said. "I think so."

He hung up, went over to the fireplace again, and stirred the ashes with the poker. He could see a scrap of fender and a ragged little flap of road, but that was it. Fire was what it had needed all along, apparently. Wasn't that how you usually killed supernatural emissaries of evil? Of course it was. He'd used it a few times himself, most notably in The Departing, his haunted train station novel.

"Yes, indeed," he said. "Bum, baby, bum."

He thought about getting the drink he'd promised himself, then remembered the spilled bottle of vinegar (which by now would probably be soaking into the spilled oatmeal-what a thought). He decided he would simply go on upstairs instead. In a book-one by Richard Kinnell, for instance - sleep would be out of the question after the sort of thing which had just happened to him.

In real life, he thought he might sleep just fine.

He actually dozed off in the shower, leaning against the back wall with his hair full of shampoo and the water beating on his chest. He was at the yard sale again, and the TV standing on the paper ashtrays was broadcasting Judy Diment. Her head was back on, but Kinnell could see the medical examiner's primitive industrial stitchwork; it circled her throat like a grisly necklace. "Now this New England Newswire update," she said, and Kinnell, who had always been a vivid dreamer, could actually see the stitches on her neck stretch and relax as she spoke. "Bobby Hastings took all his paintings and burned them, including yours, Mr. Kinnell ... and it is yours, as I'm sure you know. All sales are final, you saw the sign. Why, you just ought to be glad I took your check."

Burned all his paintings, yes, of course he did, Kinnell thought in his watery dream. He couldn't stand what was happening to him, that's what the note said, and when you get to that point in the festivities, you don't pause to see if you want to except one special piece of work from the bonfire. It's just that you got something special into The Road Virus Heads North, didn't you, Bobby? And probably completely by accident. You were talented, I could see that right away, but talent has nothing to do with what's going on in that picture.

"Some things are just good at survival," Judy Diment said on the TV. "They keep coming back no matter how hard you try to get rid of them. They keep coming back like viruses."

Kinnell reached out and changed the channel, but apparently there was nothing on all the way around the dial except for The Judy Diment Show.

" You might say he opened a hole into the basement of the universe," she was saying now. "Bobby Hastings, I mean. And this is what drove out. Nice, isn't it?"

Kinnell's feet slid then, not enough to go out from under him completely, but enough to snap him to.

He opened his eyes, winced at the immediate sting of the soap (Prell had run down his face in thick white rivulets while he had been dozing), and cupped his hands under the shower-spray to splash it away. He did this once and was reaching out to do it again when he heard something. A ragged rumbling sound.

Don't be stupid, he told himself. All you hear is the shower. The rest is only imagination.

Except it wasn't.

Kinnell reached out and turned off the water.

The rumbling sound continued. Low and powerful. Coming from outside.

He got out of the shower and walked, dripping, across his bedroom on the second floor. There was still enough shampoo in his hair to make him look as if it had turned white while he was dozing-as if his dream of Judy Diment had turned it white.

My did I ever stop at that yard sale? he asked himself, but for this he had no answer. He supposed no one ever did.

The rumbling sound grew louder as he approached the window overlooking the driveway-the driveway that glimmered in the summer moonlight like something out of an Alfred Noyes poem.

As he brushed aside the curtain and looked out, he found himself thinking of his ex-wife, Sally, whom he had met at the World Fantasy Convention in 1978. Sally, who now published two magazines out of

her trailer home, one called Survivors, one called Visitors. Looking down at the driveway, these two tides came together in Kinnell's mind like a double image in a stereopticon.

He had a visitor who was definitely a survivor.

The Grand Am idled in front of the house, the white haze from its twin chromed tailpipes rising in the still night air. The Old English letters on the back deck were perfectly readable. The driver's side door stood open, and that wasn't all; the light spilling down the porch steps suggested that Kinnell's front door was also open.

Forgot to lock it, Kinnell thought, wiping soap off his forehead with a hand he could no longer feel. Forgot to reset the burglar alarm, too . not that it would have made much difference to this guy.

Well, he might have caused it to detour around Aunt Trudy, and that was something, but just now the thought brought him no comfort.

Survivors.

The soft rumble of the big engine, probably at least a 442 with a four-barrel carb, reground valves, fuel injection.

He turned slowly on legs that had lost all feeling, a naked man with a headful of soap, and saw the picture over his bed, just as he'd known he would. In it, the Grand Am stood in his driveway with the driver's door open and two plumes of exhaust rising from the chromed tailpipes. From this angle he could also see his own front door, standing open, and a long man-shaped shadow stretching down the hall.

Survivors.

Survivors and visitors.

Now he could hear feet ascending the stairs. It was a heavy tread, and he knew without having to see that the blond kid was wearing motorcycle boots. People with DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR tattooed on their arms always wore motorcycle boots, just as they always smoked unfiltered Camels. These things were like a national law.

And the knife. He would be carrying a long, sharp knife - more of a machete, actually, the sort of knife that could strike off a person's head in a single sweeping stroke.

And he would be grinning, showing those filed cannibal-teeth.

Kinnell knew these things. He was an imaginative guy, after all.

He didn't need anyone to draw him a picture.

"No," he whispered, suddenly conscious of his global nakedness, suddenly freezing all the way around his skin. "No, please, go away." But the footfalls kept coming, of course they did. You couldn't tell a guy like this to go away. It didn't work; it wasn't the way the story was supposed to end.

Kinnell could hear him nearing the top of the stairs. Outside the Grand Am went on rumbling in the moonlight.

The feet coming down the hall now, worn bootheels rapping on polished hardwood.

A terrible paralysis had gripped Kinnell. He threw it off with an effort and bolted toward the bedroom door, wanting to lock it before the thing could get in here, but he slipped in a puddle of soapy water and this time he did go down, flat on his back on the oak planks, and what he saw as the door clicked open and the motorcycle boots crossed the room toward where he lay, naked and with his hair full of Prell, was the picture hanging on the wall over his bed, the picture of the Road Virus idling in front of his house with the driver's side door open.

The driver's side bucket seat, he saw, was full of blood. I'm going outside, I think, Kinnell thought, and closed his eyes.

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