#Smoke Shop in Concord

[thatsmzbitchtoyou]

Yuletide Chapter 1

I started this back in November, but obviously didn't finish it in time for the holidays. But I hope y'all will like it anyways.

Summary:  Mr. Strange and his nephew Mr. Barnes were…different.  The little town of Concord, Massachusetts isn’t used to the pharmacists’ strange ways, with rumors swirling of wizards and magic spells.  Y/N doesn’t believe in any of those old folk tales, but does feel a pull towards Mr. Barnes, despite his standoffishness.  Maybe his heart will melt during the most wonderful time of the year.  Or maybe she’ll fall head first into a fantastical world she never thought possible.

*Set in early 1800s America

Next chapter

“Lady Y/L/N!”

Y/N turned to see her best friend, Wanda, jog towards her, almost slipping on the snow covered road.  She smiled brightly at her.  “Hello dearest!” she greeted her when Wanda reached her.  Y/N took Wanda’s hands in hers and squeezed them.  “Stop with the ladyship, please, for the thousandth time!”

“You know I love to tease,” Wanda said with a wry smile.  “You’re coming to my family’s early Yule party tonight, aren’t you?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Y/N nodded.  They fell in step walking down the street, their arms hooked together as they gossiped about the party and what they were wearing.  Y/N stopped at one of the shops, picking up some ribbon for her hair for the party and then walking toward the apothecary.

“Oh, not here,” Wanda whined, pulling Y/N’s arm.  “We already have to deal with them tonight at the party.  Father wouldn’t let me not invite them.”

“Don’t be rude, Wanda,” Y/N chastised her, pulling her arm out of her grasp.  “Mr. Strange and Mr. Barnes are not the ogres you and everyone else try to make them out to be.”

“Not ogres,” Wanda said, eyeing the shop.  “Wizards.”

Y/N rolled her eyes.  “Healers.  Pharmacists.  There’s no such thing as wizards, don’t be ridiculous.”

Wanda shook her head and Y/N huffed.  “I’m going to get ready for the party,” Wanda said, turning away.  “See you tonight!”

Y/N gave her an unimpressed look and shook her head disappointedly, turning and walking up the steps to the apothecary.  Steven Strange and his adopted nephew, James “Bucky” Barnes, had moved into town a little over a year ago, setting up shop along the main street selling their remedies, medicines, and hygiene products.  There were plenty of rumors swirling among the locals about the pair, but the people collectively needed their tinctures and remedies, so they begrudgingly shopped at the apothecary.  Y/N personally loved it.  It was a quaint shop, filled with bottles of all different shapes, sizes and multicolored liquids and herbs lining the shelves and counters.  

As she entered the shop she took her gloves off and ran her hands through the large bowl of stones that was placed next to the door then scooped some of the smoke rising from incense burning next to the bowl and made a washing motion over her head with it, a ritual that Mr. Strange had taught her when she first visited, supposedly meant to offer an energetic peace offering.  She wasn’t a particularly religious or spiritual person, but thought it a kind and respectful gesture.

“Ah, my favorite customer,” Mr. Strange’s voice rang out from behind the counter opposite the door.  

Y/N turned to him and smiled.  “Mr. Strange,” she greeted him.  

“Miss Y/L/N,” he smiled back.  “What can I do for you today?”

She approached the counter, quickly glancing around the shop.  “I’m all out of the lavender and lemon balm you suggested,” she said.  “I’ve grown quite accustomed to it and haven’t had a good night’s sleep since I ran out a few days ago.”

“Ha, they are quite calming,” Mr. Strange chuckled.  He stooped down to look under the counter then frowned.  “Oh, I’m out here…one second,” he said and turned to the door in the corner that led to the back area of the shop.  “Bucky!”

There was a loud grunt and clattering from beyond the door, then grumbling as heavy footsteps headed toward the front.  Y/N’s heart fluttered and she tried to calm herself so her blush wouldn’t be so obvious.  The door opened and Bucky walked through, freezing momentarily when he saw Y/N but quickly focusing back on Mr. Strange and walking toward him.  If Y/N were honest with herself, a big part of the reason she liked to come to the apothecary was because of Bucky.  He wasn’t particularly well mannered, a bit rough around the edges, but he was one of the most beautiful men she had ever seen in her life, and was very talented in creating the concoctions and tinctures that were best sellers in the shop.

“Yes?” he asked gruffly.

“Could you fetch some more of the lavender lemon balm for Miss Y/L/N?” Mr. Strange asked.

Bucky glanced at her again and Y/N gave him a small smile.  His bright blue eyes were scrutinizing and analytical, and he sighed before looking back at his uncle.  “Alright,” he said simply, and trudged to the back.

Mr. Strange rolled his eyes and turned to Y/N.  “I apologize, as always, for my nephew’s rudeness.”

Y/N waved her hand.  “It’s not a sin to not be sociable.”  Mr. Strange grinned.  Just then Bucky came back out from the back holding multiple jars of the lavender lemon balm in a basket and plopped it on the counter in front of her.  “Thank you, Mr. Barnes,” she said quickly before he could retreat.  Bucky looked at her in surprise like he did every time she addressed him directly.  He blinked and nodded at her before turning and walking away quickly, shutting the door behind him.  

Mr. Strange sighed heavily, rubbing his eyes and making Y/N giggle.  “Again, apologies,” he groaned.  “How many would you like?”

“All of them,” Y/N said.  

“That will be $5,” he said, taking the balms out of his basket and putting them into hers that she set on the counter as she pulled out her money bag.

“Mr. Strange, for all these it must be more than $5,” Y/N said with narrowed eyes.

“Consider it a ‘favorite customer’ discount,” he said with a wink.

Y/N shook her head and took out the money.  “You are too kind to me,” she sighed, handing it over to him.  “I will see you both at the Maximoffs party tonight?”

“Definitely,” Mr. Strange nodded.  “You will save me a dance, won’t you?”

Y/N laughed as she put her gloves back on and situated her basket in her grip.  “Most definitely,” she said as she turned and walked to the door.  “Thank you, Mr. Strange,” she said as she opened the door and left.

“Anytime my dear!”

She waved as she walked down the steps and through main street back towards her home.  She hoped that Bucky would actually show up tonight, unlike all the other parties he refused to attend.  Maybe Mr. Strange would be able to convince him this time.  Maybe she could convince him to dance with her?  She snuggled further into her coat as the winter chill whipped around her, just in time for a Yuletide ball.

***

Y/N walked into Wanda’s home later that night accompanied by her guardian and family friend, Bruce Banner, an elderly man who was gracious enough to take her in when her parents passed.  She had needed someone she could trust to not take advantage of her inheritance and also let her live her life without pressuring her to marry all the time.  Bruce was quiet and progressive, encouraging her to go to university and travel.  “It’s your money, do with it what you wish,” he had said.  He was happy to just be her companion to parties and stay out of her way.

He helped her out of her fur coat and hung it up with the rest of the attendees' coats and hats by the door, smiling as she adjusted her dress and tapped off the snow from her shoes.  “You’re a vision in red, my darling,” he complimented her, holding his arm out to her.

“Charmer,” Y/N smiled back at him.  She had gone full holiday for her outfit, wearing a deep but vibrant red tartan dress with lace edges along each ruffle layer, and the long puffy sleeves sitting just off her shoulders.  Her hair was mostly tied back by the ribbon she had bought that day as well as ruby pins and sprigs of holly with red berries to complement the dress, some curls meticulously pulled out from the binding that brushed against her shoulders and framed her face.  Her gold and pearl earrings complemented the gold thin chain inlaid with small pearls at her neck that nestled on her sternum.  

“You’ll surely be quite busy dancing tonight,” Bruce continued, leading her through the house to the dance hall.  “These men don’t stand a chance against your beauty.”

“Please Bruce, you flatter me too much,” Y/N giggled as they entered the dance hall near the back of the house.

“Mr. Banner and Miss Y/L/N!” a butler called their names loudly as they stepped through the doorway.

Wanda’s excited squeal echoed through the hall as she hurried through the crowd of people that turned to look at them.  “You made it!” she said, gripping Y/N’s free hand and giving a quick head bow to Bruce.  “I’m going to steal her from you Mr. Banner.”

“I would expect nothing less,” he laughed, pulling Y/N’s arm from around his arm and kissing her knuckles before gesturing for her to go ahead.  Y/N smiled at him then followed Wanda through the crowd towards the opposite side of the hall.  They stopped in front of Wanda’s parents.  

“Ah, Miss Y/L/N,” her father greeted her with a wide smile.  “How wonderful for you and Mr. Banner to join us.”

“Thank you for the invitation,” Y/N said, giving him a head bow.  “I wouldn’t miss a Maximoff party.”

The clearing of a throat made her look to the side to find Pietro, Wanda’s brother, looking at her angrily.  Y/N’s lips tightened.  She and Pietro had been courting a year and a half before, and it had fallen apart when his jealousy got the better of him and he publicly embarrassed her at another party.  It was unfortunate that he was related to Wanda, otherwise she would wish to never see him again.

“Mr. Maximoff,” she greeted him with a slight head bow.

“Miss Y/L/N,” he huffed, barely nodding his head back.

Wanda rolled her eyes and pulled her away to a group of women in a corner all talking to each other.  They were each pulled away as the music started to dance with the men in town.  The dance hall quickly became loud and even more crowded, and after another fast dance Y/N quickly retreated to the refreshment table, drinking the water available as she fanned herself.

“Miss Y/L/N!”

She turned to see Mr. Strange approaching her.  “Mr. Strange!  You made it!” she smiled, walking over to him.  

“I’m here to claim that dance,” he said, looking her over.  “You are breathtaking.”

“Oh please,” Y/N blushed.  “You’re too kind.”  He outstretched his hand and she happily took it.

“Shall we?” he asked as a new song started.

“We shall,” she giggled as he led her to the dance floor.  They spoke candidly as they danced, and she enjoyed herself more than she had with any of the others that night.  As the song came to an end Mr. Strange guided her to a corner of the room and bowed to her when it was over before turning her around.  She gasped when she came face to face with Bucky, who looked just as surprised as she did.

“There you are, nephew,” Mr. Strange said.  “I insist you give him his first dance, Miss Y/L/N,” he said emphatically.

Y/N’s eyes widened as her gaze snapped between the two of them.  Bucky frowned at Mr. Strange, his jaw ticking in annoyance.  “Oh, um, of course only if Mr. Barnes would like to–”

“Fine,” Bucky grunted, like he was accepting a dare.  He sighed before looking at her.  He held out his hand begrudgingly as the new song started.  It was a much slower song, and Y/N’s heart raced as she slowly took his hand, marveling at just how small her hand looked in his.  He led her to the dance floor, accompanied by a flurry of whispers and curious eyes watching them together.

Once they reached the middle of the dance floor he twirled her around to face him and pulled her toward him, his left hand holding her waist while his right hand cradled her left.  Y/N was closer to him than she ever had been before, and she couldn’t seem to calm herself enough to stop the jittery feeling that was making her fingers shake as her left hand gripped his bicep.  He was holding her closer to himself than was considered proper or normal for public dancing, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care.

“You look very nice,” he said quietly, his eyes scanning the people around them as he led her through the steps.

Y/N smiled up at him.  “Thank you.  You look quite dashing yourself,” she complimented him back.  If she wasn’t mistaken she thought she saw him blush.  “It’s good to see you at a party,” she continued, hoping to keep the conversation going.

Bucky’s eyes met hers, analyzing her once again.  “I don’t like parties,” he said matter-of-factly.  “Too loud.  Too many people.”

“I can understand that,” Y/N nodded.  The silence stretched between them for a minute, and she tried desperately to find something else to say.  “Out of all the things you and your uncle make, what is your favorite thing in the shop?”

Bucky’s eyes softened, his lips twitching into an almost smile in amusement.  “I can’t tell you,” he said.

Y/N frowned.  “Why not?”

“It’s a secret…recipe,” he said with a small smirk.  Y/N smiled widely at his tease.  “Let me guess, your favorite is the lavender lemon balms?” he asked with narrowed eyes.

Y/N arched an eyebrow at him.  “Those are a close second,” she replied.  

Bucky’s eyebrows raised in question.  “Then what’s the first?”

She smirked back at him.  “I can’t tell you.  It’s a secret.”

Bucky’s head tilted at her, his gaze analytical once again.  The song was reaching its end and he guided her through the last steps until they separated just enough to bow to each other before staring at each other.  He opened his mouth as if to say something but was suddenly pushed roughly from behind, stumbling forward into her.  Y/N caught him with a gasp before he could fully fall, his arms wrapped around her waist and his face almost nuzzling into her bosom.  Her head snapped up to see who pushed him, and found Pietro glaring at them both.

“Pietro!” Wanda scolded him, pushing through the crowd that was forming around them.  “What is wrong with you?” She turned to Y/N and Bucky.  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Barnes.”

Bucky quickly pulled himself up, his face looking flushed with anger and embarrassment.  He whirled around to glare back at Pietro.  Y/N quickly stepped between them, facing Pietro.  “You embarrass me again, Pietro,” she hissed at him.  “Have you no shame?”

Pietro looked wounded at her reprimand and audibly gulped as he looked around at the people around them.  Mr. Maximoff pushed through the crowd as well and glared at Pietro before facing Bucky.  “I’m sorry Mr. Barnes.”  Mr. Strange pushed through until he gripped Bucky’s shoulder.  “Mr. Strange,” Mr. Maximoff nodded at him.  “I’m very sorry for my son’s impropriety.  Please accept my deepest apologies.”

“It’s quite alright,” Mr. Strange said with a guarded smile, subtly pulling Bucky back.  “Lovers scorned and what not.”

Y/N hung her head and sighed in embarrassment.  Mr. Maximoff gave Mr. Strange a grateful smile and turned to the crowd.  “Nothing to see here, carry on maestro!”

The conductor of the small concerto in the corner turned back to the musicians and quickly started another song to distract everyone.  Mr. Maximoff gave Y/N a quick smile before turning on Pietro and roughly pulling him away to talk to him.  Mr. Strange pulled Bucky away toward the dance hall entrance door and Y/N was about to follow them when Wanda intercepted her.  “I’m sorry dearest,” she said, squeezing Y/N’s hands.  “He’s just an idiot.”

“Yes,” Y/N agreed, trying to pull away.  “Please, I must go–”

“Why?” Wanda asked.  

“I’ll be right back,” Y/N quickly smiled at her then pulled away and headed for the door.  She walked down the hallway towards the front door and stopped when she heard raised voices around the corner near the front door.

“Imbeciles.  You drag me across the east coast to this place and we land in just another simple, boring, moronic town.  We’re wasting our time here trying to fit in–”

“Bucky please,” Mr. Strange’s voice interrupted.  “I told you Concord was a good place to lay low and start over.  We can practice in peace here–”

“No we can’t!” Bucky grunted.  “Hiding in the woods or the back room of the shop?  In the dead of night?  These people are no better than the last ones.”  There was a rustling of fabric and then the door being wrenched open.  “I’ll see you at home,” he huffed before slamming the door.

Y/N scurried behind an alcove in the wall as she heard Mr. Strange’s heavy sigh and footsteps coming back around the corner.  Once he passed her and headed back to the dance hall she quickly went to the front door.  She grabbed her coat and shrugged it on before following Bucky out the door.  She wasn’t sure what it was that he and Mr. Strange were talking about, but felt the need to make sure he was okay.

She squinted into the night and saw his moonlit outline moving toward the treeline just beyond the Maximoff property.  She jogged off the porch and followed him, picking up her skirts so she wouldn’t trip in the snow.  When she broke the treeline she found a small trail of his footprints, the snow seemingly glowing in the moonlight peaking through the branches above.  She did her best to keep up, her skirts getting heavier as they soaked through from the snow, her dress boots not helping to trek through the icy undergrowth.  She was panting as she leaned against a tree to catch her breath, then saw something strange from the corner of her eye.  Her head whipped around to her left, squinting through the trees.  A strange light was flitting through the dead leaves that still clung to some of the trees.  

Y/N slowly trudged over toward the light, her breath coming out in large puffs in the freezing air.  She stayed hidden by the trees until she could peek through the branches that were tightly knit in the area.  Bucky was just beyond the trees in a small clearing, kneeling on one knee in the snow as he looked up at the moon.  He was mumbling something she couldn’t hear or understand, then stood and held up his left hand.  His fingers clenched into a fist, then as he flexed them back out a light appeared in his palm.  Y/N’s eyes widened and she silently gasped, her hand covering her mouth.  Magic?  The light in his palm traveled between his fingers, almost bouncing playfully around his hand.  He lifted his right hand and did a strange motion with his fingers and the light expanded into an image.  Y/N squinted to see it was a glowing fairy.  He released the fairy from his hold and it started to fly and dance around the clearing.  Y/N’s mouth was agape in shock as he continued to create more images of light.  A fox, a deer, more fairies, sprites and other mythical creatures.  His voice was low as he murmured the words she couldn’t understand, then he started humming a tune she didn’t recognize.

The light magic figures all danced, trotted, flew and ran around the clearing, all of them in perfect tandem with each other.  Bucky looked around at them all and smiled.  Y/N was caught off guard by his smile, having never seen it before.  It was bright and blinding, and it brought a smile to her face to see it.  This made him happy.  The magic was his happiness.

Some of the light fairies suddenly flew through the trees and approached her.  Y/N gasped and froze, watching them fly around her.  They seemed sentient in a way as they scrutinized her, getting incredibly close to her face and squinting their tiny eyes.  One of the sprites hovered close and kissed her cheek.  Y/N giggled quietly, the kiss feeling like a snowflake falling on her skin.  She turned and looked at the sprite with a smile, holding her finger out.  The sprite smiled back and sat on her finger, gazing up at her.  The other little fairies and sprites that surrounded her flitted around in excitement.  Y/N couldn’t quite believe her eyes.  

She was so distracted that the sudden clasp of a hand at her shoulder made her yelp.  The magic all disappeared in an instant and she whirled around to look up and see Bucky glaring down at her.  Y/N panicked, ripped herself out of his grasp and ran back the way she came.  

“Y/N, wait!”

She heard his heavy footsteps crunch the snow as she tried to find her way back to the house.  The moonlight was playing tricks on her as she got lost in the trees, the trail disappearing.  Y/N’s skirts were heavy, weighing her down as she tripped and fell in the snow repeatedly trying to find her way out.  Bucky wasn’t far behind her, his own panting breaths and grunts echoing in the woods around them.  She wasn’t sure what he wanted or had planned for her since she caught him doing magic.  It didn’t seem like dark magic, but she didn’t know what he was capable of.  Suddenly her ankle twisted on a root that was hidden in the snow and she tumbled down a small hill.  She tried to catch herself but the ice was slippery, and she heard Bucky’s echoing call to her as she hit her head on something hard and blacked out.

[hannahxinterrupted]

✡️ BIOGRAPHY ✡️PINTEREST ✡️ PLAYLIST ✡️JUNE ✡️

Basic Information

FULL NAME hannah elyse kaplan NICKNAME(S) han, hannah banana OCCUPATION art therapist for correctional and rehab programs AGE thirty-seven DATE OF BIRTH october 22nd NATIONALITY american GENDER & PRONOUNS cis female & she/her ORIENTATION panromantic pansexual LIBIDO high RELIGION jewish

Physical Information

FACE CLAIM natalie portman HEIGHT 4'11 EYE COLOUR brown HAIR COLOUR + STYLE brunette, long, wavy TATTOO(S) ruth written behind her ear in hebrew SCAR(S) cesarian scar, a long faded scar that starts above her eyebrow and dips into her smile line, a thick surgical scar resting her on right collar bone, several small scars on her hands from self defense wounds, a scar that traces her forehead hidden in her hairline. PIERCING(S) ears, belly button, a tongue piercing that was removed years ago. JEWLERY golden star of david necklace, various rings

Background Information

HOMETOWN concord, new hampshire CURRENT RESIDENCE the wexley, new york LANGUAGE(S) english, hebrew, asl SOCIAL CLASS upper middle class DEGREE(S) bachelor of fine arts, masters of art therapy PARENT #1 neve kaplan - killed by the infected PARENT #2 eric kaplan - killed by the infected SIBLING(S) rachel kaplan - killed by other survivors CHILD(REN)��june ruth kaplan, 6 PET(S) lady - brown lab - service animal - MIA RELATIONSHIP divorced for 5 years RAP SHEET? multiple DUIs and petty theft charges as a minor

Mental & Physical Health

MORAL ALIGNMENT neutral good AILMENTS migraines NEURODIVERGENCE(S) night terrors, ptsd, agoraphobia

Vices & Habits

SMOKES? sometimes no DRINKS? yes DRUGS? weed, thc, etc VIOLENT? no SELF-DESTRUCTIVE? sometimes HOBBIES canning, making jams, foraging, painting, drawing, journaling, praying, flower pressing, LIKES animals, baking, dancing, shopping, hiking, wildflowers, classic movies, sweaters, teas, DISLIKES social media, smartphones, art critics, confrontation, commitment, musicals, superheroes

[urbanwoods56]

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[abookishdreamer]

Character Intro: Calocagathia (Kingdom of Ichor)

Nicknames- Aggie by her family & the others

Age- 13 (immortal)

Location- Little Athens, New Olympus

Personality- She's an overachieving perfectionist that believes in the good of people & the world. She doesn't aim for anything less than of her high expectations. She tends to be overly critical of herself and others, caring deeply about others' opinions of her.

She has the standard abilities of a goddess except shapeshfiting. As the goddess of nobility & goodness her other powers/abilities include limited photokinesis, bravery inducement in others, limited truth sense, and having an innate sense on how noble a person is.

Aggie comes from a respectable godly family. Her parents are Soter (god of safety) & Praxidike (goddess of judicial punishment) while her older sisters are Arete (goddess of virtue, valor, & excellence) and Homonoia (goddess of concord).

Other members of her extended family includes her paternal aunt Soteria (goddess of safety), her maternal aunt Amphictyonis (Amy) (goddess of diplomacy), as well as her cousins Eleos (Ellie) (goddess of mercy, pity, & compassion) and Eulabeia (goddess of caution).

She lives with her parents at their townhouse in the Little Athens neighborhood of New Olympus.

Her bedroom is mainly white with a minimalist aesthetic, complete with clear & structural furniture pieces. She has a large collection of books as well.

She was homeschooled as a small child, stopping just a year ago when Aggie was enrolled in Olympion Middle, an esteemed junior high school in the city (located on the same compound as the elementary & high schools) that her cousins attend shortly after her 12th birthday.

With school on break, Aggie will return as an eighth grader. Other godly kids in the school include Thrasos (god of boldness, insolence, recklessness, & courage), Deucalion, Anaideia (goddess of ruthlessness, shamelessness, & unforgiveness), Pandia (goddess of the full moon), Achelois (goddess of the moon & healing), Krysothemis (Kristy), Epidotes (god of purity), Pompe (goddess of rites), Telete (goddess of prayers), Philia (goddess of friendship), Dysis (goddess of the sunset), E.B, and Thespios (god of acting).

The memory of her first day is one she doesn't like revisiting- a day of sweaty palms and anxiety riddled nerves.

Aggie loves wearing jeweled headbands! Most of her allowance goes towards buying them, with books being a close second.

Her favorite go-to drink is a medium coconut lychee splash from The Roasted Bean. She also likes ginger ale, sparkling peach & lemon infused water, iced tea, lemonade, sweet tea, apple juice, pineapple soda, & white tea.

Now Aggie is her usual controlled assured self when it comes to school. She's known (started by Anaideia) for being a grade grubber. When she once recieved an A minus for an essay for her literature class, she did what she thought was best- writing a four page essay detailing the reasons why her original essay was worthy of an A plus!

She likes listening to classical and pop music.

Her other favorite classes include home economics and history. With free periods on her class schedule Aggie likes to spend them at the school library, sometimes getting a head start on homework or catching up with reading.

She loves the chicken salad sandwich from The Bread Box.

An embarrassing shopping trip she had with her mom was when they went to the mall for her first bra.

With her social life in school, Aggie stays as far away from Anaideia as possible, shuddering at the thought of her "sociopathic smile." There was one time when she walked in on her & a few of her friends smoking cigarettes in the girl's bathroom.

At her mom's insistence, Aggie sits with the kids of The Litae at lunch (where they're known as the "Drool Crew").

She's friendly towards Pandia, Achelois, and Philia, but she has her own group of friends that she likes hanging out with whenever she's able to- a harpy named Avra, an anthousai named Primrose, and mortals named Vasilis & Ioli.

The only other student Aggie dislikes more than Anaideia is Thespios. She hates his laugh, his arrogant smug smile, his dimples, his complete disregard for the rules & authority, his scent of musk and cinnamon, his piercing violet blue eyes, his full lips, and his pillow soft curly hair.

She doesn't wear any makeup instead opting for lip gloss and tinted lip balm. Aggie's a fan of LipCalm's tinted lip balm in "healing hibiscus."

The EverPure green tea mask stick, the Olive Visibly oil toner, & the Sunshine Radiance glow activating exfoliater have been god sends in dealing with her acne.

Aggie's relationship with her immediate family has been distant for a while. She feels as though her parents have been too busy to have a normal conversation & she hasn't really seen her sisters since they moved to the state of Athens. She'll take any time she can with her parents, soaking it up like a sponge whether it's an early morning quick ten minute jog with her mom or having her dad help with homework.

She's seen her aunt Amy (goddess of diplomacy) three times in the past year.

Her favorite dessert from Hollyhock's Bakery is the vanilla pudding pie! She also likes the white chocolate chip-macadamia nut cookies.

Aside from school, Aggie has quite the full plate! She volunteers at Psomí & Zoí, the soup kitchen owned by Penia (goddess of poverty) and Ptocheia (goddess of beggary), has a junior internship with The Litae, and is also training to become an Olympian Miss- a debutante making a formal introduction into proper society, having even begun taking weekend classes at Kyría Aristeía, the charm school owned by Peitharchia (goddess of obedience & discipline).

She shocked herself & her family when she came across a wild dragon, successfully bonding with it a few months ago! When Draco (god of dragons) showed up with his dragon control crew to take the she-dragon to a sanctuary, Aggie spoke up, deciding to keep her as a pet/companion. She ended up naming the dragon Lightheart who has breathtaking ivory & shimmering gold scales, cream‐gold claws and crests with cream colored wing membranes. She's usually her mode for transportation to school and other commitments.

Aggie is well aware of the not-so-subtle hints that her mom and Lití (the oldest of The Litae & mom to Epidotes) have been dropping for them to get together. There was even this "group date" with Aggie & her parents and Lití & her son at the Athens Museum of History.

She also suspects that Epidotes has a crush on her. Aggie does think he's the sweetest guy- offering to carry her books and bookbag, offering to pay for her lunch when she's short a few drachmas, & holding out doors like the perfect gentleman, but she doesn't have romantic feelings for him.

Matters have been more confusing due to a moment she shared with Thespios. While enjoying an early ride on dragonback before dinner, Aggie stopped for a bit at Eaglepoint Park where she came across Thespios & his dragon. He challenged her to a race and Aggie surprised herself by accepting. They rode in the sky, both of them landing past the outskirts of the Hearthwood neighborhood. They shared some snacks he had while they talked about seemingly everything- their interests, school, the fears, & their dreams. They even almost kissed before Aggie pulled away, noticing the sun sinking further and further from the sky. That was the first & only time she's been late for dinner. The next day at school, Thespios ignored her, leaving Aggie feeling confused, hurt, & rejected.

Her favorite musical artist is Pale Blu, her go-to song being "Ashes of Freedom." She's also been getting into the musical artist Summerstar.

For her 13th birthday, Aggie got a white Luxuria shoulder bag from her older sisters. It cost 500 drachmas.

To celebrate her name being on the school's honor roll (having an outstanding 100%), her parents gave her a yellow gold charm bracelet from Euryphaessa. It was money well spent, costing over 3,000 drachmas.

In the pantheon she also admires Eikono (goddess of iconography & literature); is a member of her book subscription service, Athena (goddess of wisdom), Litismós (goddess of culture), Hestia (goddess of the hearth), Dike (goddess of justice), The Muses- especially Calliope (muse of epic poetry) & Clio (muse of history), as well as Hemera (goddess of the day).

There are talks for Aggie to be mentored by Aletheia (goddess of truth).

Her favorite book series of all time is The Daughters of Corinth, a regency era adult historical romance series following a group of five best friends and their subsequent love stories written by Philyra (goddess of perfume, paper, & beauty).

Aggie has been to every single book signing as well as getting multiple copies/formats of the book series, including the special edition hardcovers- that has white gold sprayed edges. Her favorite book in the series is A Study in Silk, which follows the love story of aspiring dressmaker Emmeline and the broodish rake Oliver. Enemies-to-lovers is Aggie's favorite trope!

Her and Telete have buddy read the last book The Trouble With a Heiress together, which follows the love story of prim & proper Jane (the richest girl in the group of friends) and the poor bookish intellectual William.

A guilty pleasure for her are chicken tenders. She'll sometimes buy a five piece with honey mustard dipping sauce from Olympic Chef. Aggie also likes the miso soup with squid sashimi from The Ocean Roll.

Aside from reading books, she's also an avid reader of the magazines Modern Olympus, Regalia, & O Dianooumenos.

In her free time Aggie enjoys fencing, ballet, chess, reading, writing in her journal (where she feels she can be her most honest), knitting, horseback riding, tennis, field hockey, going to museums, and pottery.

Her all time favorite meal is white rice served with grilled halibut (topped in a creamy white sauce, onions, & feta cheese).

"No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted."

[trivialbob]

Saturday night in Watertown was fun. After leaving the coffee shop in the morning I walked around, seeing which small bars I’d like to visit that evening. At one of them I had lunch. The bartenders were nice people.

That evening, after her tournament was over, I brought Sheila back with me. A bartender from earlier was still there. This time she was on our side of the bar. She was amused that I returned with my wife. The off-duty bartender was drinking a Spicy Pickle Monster sour ale. Though I’d ordered a different beer, as soon as I saw the can I declared I needed a Spicy Pickle Monster ale. Sheila took my beer so I could have one. It was good.

At lunch I saw these two guys. They were still there at 5:30 PM. I would not have gambled they’d be standing by 7 PM though. One clearly had an internal struggle, between drinking another 16 oz. can of beer and going out in the cold for a smoke. He held an unlit cig, sometimes putting it to his lips. Busch Light 1, Marlboro, 0. The picture is intentionally blurry, as I was trying to evoke what those two would see in a mirror.

At the second bar we chatted with a hilarious, outspoken bartender. Picture Max from Two Broke Girls. Another couple sat by us. The five of us had a great time talking.

I had a Diet Coke there (had to drive later). Sheila selected a delightful American light beer. The tab for both was $2.75. That low price got me tingly all over.

For a tip I did mental math. 28 x 2 = 56. Dilemma: I didn’t have two quarters, a nickel and a penny. My wife didn’t care for my calculation, pointing out the bartender had opened a can of Shiner Pickle Seltzer for all of us to sample (no charge) after hearing me talk about Spicy Pickle Monster. Impressing my lady, I left a fiver as I wondered, would we find another pickle flavored beverage at the next bar? Was this some sort of promotion for the local pickleball tournament?

As we walked to the next bar we passed this vintage AMC Concord station wagon. I like the sign on the door. Does Watertown have a thriving hipster population? Is my federal government trying to make the most of our money by keeping a 42-year-old car in service? What official business was happening at 7 PM on a Saturday night?

Next we walked to a nice steakhouse for dinner. I enjoyed a smoked Manhattan with my meal. Didn’t get any pictures. I don’t think one of the bartenders would have liked it. Picture Darlene from The Connors. We watched the bartenders make a few of them. Made me want my own culinary torch.

Finally we ended up at a local brewery. This place had a really nice food menu as well as a healthy beer list. If I get back to this city that’s where I’ll eat dinner for sure. Sheila and I talked to the owner as we had a beer and tasted some samples he gave us.

We assembled a mix-pack to bring home. Tonight, as we watch the Packers game, I’m drinking Betty’s Breakfast Stout in honor of my mom. She didn’t drink beer, would have hated a stout, but she did eat breakfast, and her name was Betty.

Last note: Sheila and her partner finished in 2nd place in the pickleball women’s division. She wore her medal out to the bars and restaurant, hoping for a free drink. That made me so proud. A guy at the first bar wanted to buy her a PBR, if she sat with him. Good think she declined, because she would have missed out on the Spicy Pickle Monster sour ale.

[avocado-frog]

Forget-me-not. 6

Rating: T Warnings: Past murders, kidnappings Chapter title: 11/12/2018 Chapter length: 2,000 words Summary: The twins split up for their last day in the city

They had ended up staying in New Hampshire much longer than they'd been expecting. Two days when they should've only stayed for one. She wasn't sure why.

Leo had found a city, Concord, she was sure, and thought it'd be a nice change from their small town in Maine, so they'd stopped. Leo hadn't wanted to spend money on an overpriced hotel, so they resorted to sleeping in the back of the van, with an assortment of pillows and blankets.

Neither of them had ever been inside the back of the van before. It had been restricted by their parents, and if they ever went anywhere as kids, it was with their cousins, or on a bus. Their parents never took them anywhere, obviously, they'd hardly ever been inside the van.

And during the total of three times Leo stole the vehicle, she never bothered to look. Maybe, if she had, she would've figured it all out sooner.

The back of the van was carpeted, and had two rows of black, plastic chairs on each side. The walls were gray, and there were no windows. A black divider was put up in between the back and the front seats, covered up again with metal bars. Neither of them had wanted to ask what it had been for. After the first day of driving and briefly exploring the city, they had just passed out back there. And it had been fantastic. A ten out of ten nap.

Leo woke up the next morning to five missed calls from her mother, and ten from her father, so they were still alive, which Leo had mixed feelings about. A few from the kids at school, asking where she'd been for nearly two weeks. She deleted all the notifications, and leaned against one of the plastic seats.

"I'm going out to find a library or something," Leo decided. It was their last day there before they kept going. "Might have something on where we came from. Or why I can shoot fire out of my hands, and why trees come out of your hands.."

"Good idea." Cass nodded, and stood up. "Call if you find anything important, okay?"

"Sure." Leo pushed the door on the back of the van open, it was locked from the outside, and there was no way of opening it from the inside, so they had kept the door unlocked. "Meet you back here at seven."

"Alright, have fun!"

Leo smiled back as she shut the door, staring out into the city from the car's spot on a hill. She couldn't remember ever leaving the town she'd grown up in, so seeing so many buildings in one place was a definite shock.

She walked down the sidewalk, unsure where she was going, feeling horribly out of place, a bit uneasy with so many people in one spot at the same time. Three stray dogs- she assumed they were stray- barked, long nails scraping against the sidewalk as they chased after a cat, who hissed from the inside of garbage bin in the alleyway. She jumped to avoid the dogs, into the road, where the horn of a car blared, causing her to run right back for the sidewalk.

Gasoline fumes and cigarrette smoke together made her nauseous. Off in the distance, a child was screaming to get a toy from a window shop, all sorts of music blasted through the glass windows of speeding cars.

Leo twisted her hands together to avoid simply crying from all of it, and paused to stare at a street corner building, with stained glass windows and a cardboard cutout of a tree in the window. Most certainly a bookstore of some sort.

They had a library in their town in Maine, though it had been small and Leo hadn't gone in a while. It'd been a nice spot to be when it rained, it was always warm on the inside. There had only been a few shelves of books, but they had a kid's section, with a cardboard tree similar to the one in the windows of this building.

As a kid, she had always gone straight to the classic novel section, especially during October, when they sold old horror novels. Frankenstein had always been her favorite, although she had read all of them before.

There was one that she read with Marcy, that stuck with the both of them for a long time. It had a boy who grew up in a family of vampire hunters, only to become a vampire later in the book. It detailed the boy's transformation. The aversion to silver, to sunlight, to garlic, it showed how his teeth formed into something sharp, how his eyes glowed silver.

After reading that book, Leo and Marcy would play in the woods. Leo would be the vampire almost every time, and Marcy would be the hunter, carrying a small stick. Leo would act out the transformation, just before going to attack Marcy, who would go to hide somewhere. The game always diverged into them hitting each other with sticks.

The bell on the door dinged as she entered the library, and she glanced around. The librarian gave her an odd look from behind green glasses, and Leo gave her a thin smile in response. There didn't seem to be many people there, despite the crowds walking outside.

It was a warm place, the walls were made out of mahogany wood, yellow lights hung off of chains on the ceiling, and a group of leather couches stood together in a circle. There was a brick fireplace against the wall, which seemed like a... rather unfortunate decoration for a library.

She kept wandering around. There was a metal railing by wooden stairs that led to a coffee shop, that held about five people. She stopped at the row of bookshelves labeled as the history section.

Magic was a subject that usually went with either science or history classes, though it was only touched on for a week or two. The knowledge of magic in their history was restricted, and heavily controlled. Everyone knew the basics, the different types of magic (there were eleven), how to tell if someone could do magic (specific blood types, as well as the trademarked gold or silver eyes), and that they had all mostly died out in the early 1900s (and no one knew how).

What Leo was looking for was any book that could that would tell her exactly how they had died out, and any sort of clue as to where she had really come from.

And of course, because the knowledge was so heavily controlled and restricted to the general public, there weren't any books that could help her. Looking it up on the internet didn't help, either.

Regular history books only mentioned the use of magic. It had been the most prominent in the fifteenth century, when it had first been discovered. There were some wars, where the more dangerous ones (fire, ice, lightning, and the rarer types who could control shadows and stuff) were used to fight, and several other wars that followed the same structure, and then the early twentieth century, when they all simply died off. Some started disappearing, and others were killed. The results were that only a few magic people were still alive, as it was mostly a genetic trait. Other than herself and Cass, she hadn't met anyone else that could do magic.

A lot of them actually used colored contact lenses, as one of the ways someone could tell was eye color. Gold and silver eyes were the two types, although she didn't know what the difference was.

"...You've been staring at the same book for ten minutes. ...I kinda... need to get through-"

Leo whipped around, making brief eye contact with a boy her age- give or take two years- a few inches shorter. The pin on the strap of his black backpack was of the Portuguese flag, (maybe. Leo also failed geography) a few metal pins from some video games Leo didn't recognize, and the trans flag.

The boy had a bright, wide grin on his face, blue hair plastered over his eyes. Around his neck was a green lanyard with his name on it, Jaxon Torres, she read. Must have been a volunteer, far too young to actually work there. He had a stack of books in his arms, wore a blue jacket over a green sweater, a dinosaur printed on the front.

"Right, sorry," Leo managed to mumble, finally, after a minute, moving away. The kid- Jaxon, probably- carefully started to line books on the shelves, mumbling a string of numbers to himself. His hands were shaky enough that it looked like it would be an inconvenience, he stumbled a bit when he walked.

"What're lookin' for?" He asked, voice chipper. Customer-service voice, Leo could tell. He laughed, a little nervously. "...I don't really know where... a lot of the stuff here is, honestly."

Leo had been keeping half of the pictures she and Cass found in her pocket, while Cass had the other half. Jaxon must've seen the sliver of paper, because he simply reached right into her pocket to grab it. Leo glared, coming to the sudden realization that he had the photo in his hands, and lunged at him.

His eyes- comically wide and bright silver- blinked a couple of times, already-shaky hands trembling a bit more. He laughed again, and handed the picture back.

Leo stole it back swiftly, shoving it back in her pocket, still glaring sharply at the boy. His hands shot up, a small smile still planted on his face.

"Sorry about that." He lowered his hands. "Any particular reason you're carrying a picture of my sister around?"

Leo faltered, paused, heart jumped, and then stopped working entirely. She stared at him for a minute. "Your- what?"

"I don't recognize you," Jaxon said, blunt. "What's your name?"

And it was only fair that Leo told him. After all, she knew his name without him even telling her, just off of the nametag around his neck. And, if he knew the girl in the photo, the blonde one, he could be of some use.

"It's Leo."

"Leo, Leo, Leo," he mumbled to himself, scratching his neck with his hand. His nails were painted; yellow and glittery. "Oh! I recognize the name! ...I think my brother had a friend named Leo, couple years ago. She died, though. Anyways-!"

"What- no, hang on-" Leo took a small step back. "Died?"

"Oh, yeah, totally." For a minute, all she could hear was the heater's low hum in the distance, the crackling of the fireplace. "Like, super dead."

Leo blinked again. "Right, well, what happened to her?"

"Oh, I dunno! Logan doesn't like to talk about it. Neither does Lily. Anyways, you haven't said why you have that picture."

It was the picture of Leo as a kid, as well as the blonde girl- Lily- picking dandelions, holding hands.

"Well, you haven't told me your name. Why should I tell you anything?" It was a little too defensive for what the situation required, honestly, and Leo already knew his name. It didn't matter.

"Oh, right!" A blinding grin. "I'm Jaxon! I'm-" he pointed at Lily in the picture. "-her brother! Sort of... unofficially. As of like, five years ago. And Logan's brother, also unofficially."

Somehow, the kid was just disarming enough that Leo ended up telling him much more than she wanted to.

"I found the picture in my..." she hesitated. "...mom's closet. Along with some other ones, too. I'm sort of just trying to find out what's going on."

"Hmm, well..." Jaxon paused. He leaned closer, eyes narrowed. He backed up fast, eyes blowing wide again. "Oh! You're like me, then!"

He showed her the back of his hand, to show a tattoo of a yellow lightning bolt, like that was supposed to explain everything.

When she merely gave a helpless shrug, he shrugged back. "Well! Good luck finding my siblings, then! I've got to get to the store, we're having soup. See you later!"

And he was gone before Leo could stop him to ask more questions, like where he lived so she could talk to those kids, Lily and Logan.

Giving up on the library, Leo started to leave.

---

Dylan startled, stopping in the gravel, at seeing someone new in the garden.

Really, they knew it wasn't theirs, (though, they were the only one who took care of the flowers anymore) so it shouldn't have been that unusual. Other people could go to the garden if they wanted, it wasn't like it was a secret.

But still, it was November, and Dylan always chose the mornings to go to the garden, because if there usually wasn't anyone there during the day, there definitely wasn't usually anyone there in the mornings.

The girl walking down the gravel path, coated in light, cold snow, had brown hair to her back and wore a brown coat to match, and that was all Dylan could see. She looked maybe their sister's age (fifteen, sixteen in a month) and had knelt down to the ground at some point, hand pressed into the snow-covered soil.

Curious, Dylan's grip on their notebook tightened, as they decided to see what she was doing. They chewed on the tip of their pencil, a little bit nervous, only getting about six steps before the girl lifted her hand up, a purple flower pulled itself out of the dirt.

Dylan stopped, and gripped the notebook tighter, crumpling the pages in their fingers, staring at the flower, thoughts racing.

Magic? Maybe. They didn't know anyone with plant magic. Did she know about the others? Why would she do that where people could see? What if someone else was there?

She stood up, breaking Dylan out of their thoughts, and started to walk away. Against their better judgement, and with a surge of adrenaline, they ran forward, tapping the girl on the shoulder. She turned around, smiling.

Gold eyes, definitely, framed with black glasses, freckles along her nose, face tinted a bit pink from the cold. She started talking, way too fast for Dylan to lipread, not that they could, anyways.

In any case, she had a hand on their shoulder to keep them there while she talked, she seemed friendly enough, but the hand- Dylan shrugged it away, she looked a bit apologetic. They pulled at their hat anxiously, glancing back towards the street, where they could see their house.

A polaroid picture slipped into their hand, and Dylan's heart stopped for what had to have been the third time in the past ten minutes.

The picture was of a group of kids, who they could easily recognize. Logan, the boy in the middle holding the hand of a girl who they didn't really know, but knew to be his sister, and Lily, arm around the shoulder of- who they had to assume to be the girl.

Now thoroughly upset, Dylan held out a hand to stop her rambling, shifting their sketchbook to open up a blank page, reluctantly handing her one of their pencils. (It was one of their good ones, too.)

"You need me to write?" The girl signed, and Dylan blinked, slightly surprised- relieved, actually- that she understood. They nodded, and reached for the pencil. She slipped that, along with the notebook, into their hand.

Dylan wrote that, one, they couldn't hear, and that if she could sign what she was saying, that would be great, but she could write, if she couldn't, and two, that the kids in the picture were their siblings- adoptive, and they sort of wished they'd kept that one to themself, three, they wanted to know who she was and how she got that picture, and four, their name was Dylan.

I know some, the girl wrote on the paper, my grandmother is deaf, but I'm not fluent. My sister found a bunch of pictures hidden. Don't know who any of the people are. And she handed the notebook back to sign, "it's nice to meet you, I'm Cass."

Though, she did mix up the A sign and S sign, but Dylan got it.

She wasn't lying, (probably) because they saw a flower rise up from the ground into a full bloom. Looking back at the purple flower, it wasn't one that could survive the winter, and it definitely hadn't been there before. The spring prior, Dylan hadn't planted anything purple.

Behind black-rimmed glasses, she had gold eyes, which was also a telling sign of magic, if the plant coming from thin air wasn't, though Dylan didn't see any mark on her hand. They frowned a little.

She was looking for Logan and Lily. Dylan lived with them, right across the street.

They guessed it wouldn't hurt. They wrote a phone number- theirs- down on the paper, handing it back expectantly. She tore the paper from the notebook, which Dylan decidedly didn't appreciate, and handed it back to them, smiling, walking away.

A few minutes after she disappeared out of sight, Dylan's phone buzzed, a new number texted them to say that it was, in fact, Cass from the garden. Dylan nodded once, slid the phone back into their green coat, and looked down at the flower, kneeling in the gravel, taking a few minutes to draw the plant.

Their hands got too cold to keep going, as snow melted through the fabric of their gloves. Frowning, disgusted by the texture of the wet fabric, they started the short walk home.

[chupacabrasmustdie]

As luck would have it

Apparently fall is rekindling (ha) my love for FO4, so I might just get around posting the stuff I've written for That Sosu Who Doesn't Quite Belong, you know?

Shortfic, gen, a couple of F-bombs here and there - on the road to Fort Hagen, the sole survivor reminisces. Scroll down or read it on AO3!

Thanks to the ever great @venatohru ​​ for going over this <3 remaining mistakes all mine.

---

“He’s fucking with us,” Graham panted, hands on his knees. They had to take a break, else his lungs would burst any moment now. Wouldn’t do to have a heart attack before they found Kellogg, he thought, dropping gracelessly onto a crate next to the campfire.

Valentine was right behind him, seemingly unfazed by their lengthy run. “You think so too? I mean, I’m grateful for the handy clues,” he said, indicating the cigar butts on the ground, “but this is beginning to look a lot like Hop-o'-my-Thumb.”

Graham scratched the back of Dogmeat’s head and the mutt let out a happy bark. “We are about to meet the ogre, I guess.”

“Someone knows their classics,” Valentine chuckled, lighting up a cigarette. “Childhood fave? Or evening readings with your boy?”

Time to cross that bridge, then. Graham shifted on his makeshift seat. "Yeah, um. About that…”

Valentine turned to face him, yellow eyes glowing softly through the plumes of smoke from his cigarette. “I’m listening.”

“He’s not my boy, not exactly. I mean, I didn’t lie about the kidnapping. He needs to be rescued, and I need your help doing so.”

“Go on.”

“But he’s not - my son. I shouldn’t be here,” Graham mumbled, dragging his hands over his face. “I shouldn’t be here.”

A pause. “Well, you certainly are a long way from home. Ever heard of survivor’s guilt?”

“Yes, but this isn’t it,” Graham snapped. “I took someone’s place in the vault, okay? I didn’t mean to - everything happened so fast. We were home with Nora - the kid’s mother - when they made the TV announcement. Nuclear detonations, they said. Then the alarms went off…” He remembered holding the door open so Nora could get out, carrying a screaming baby Shaun. Distressed neighbours gathering in the street. The race up the hill and through the gates of the Vault-Tec facility, and the people left behind, screaming to be let inside.

A small clump of ash fell from the tip of Valentine’s cigarette. “Where was the father?”

“In Concord. Getting a haircut, so he’d look his best for the veteran thing. A haircut, for fuck’s sake!” Graham waited for the lump in his throat to go away. “I didn’t want to take his place. I was hoping he could make it in time, meet us at the vault…” He supposed both he and Nora had known, deep down, that there would be no such thing as going back for survivors; a member of the Vault-Tec staff had handed him Shaun while they gave Nora a sedative. The baby might have grown used to him during the time he’d stayed in Sanctuary, but he hadn't stopped crying until he was in Nora’s arms again. Through the small glass windows of their cryo pods, he’d watched her try to lull the kid to sleep, her chest still heaving with sobs.

“We’ll get him back,” Valentine said, his voice surprisingly gentle. “Thanks for sharing this with me. I know it must've cost you."

“I’m sorry. For not being honest about this. I just… I don’t know. I felt shitty, I guess.” With good reason. “I didn’t mean to disrespect you… or your secretary."

The detective’s scoff made Graham wonder just how much of his cover story they'd actually bought. “Don’t worry about it. If Ellie had thought this was essential to the case, she would’ve pushed on.”

Not a whole lot, then. “Sounds like you have total faith in her.”

Valentine’s penciled brows shot up. “Ellie? Of course. I might be doing the field work, but she’s the one running the shop. What, you think synths can’t appreciate humans?”

“I - sorry. This is still new to me,” Graham sputtered. “I didn’t mean to insult you.”

“Eh, it’s alright. Not a whole lot of people care about my feelings, so for what it’s worth, you’re good in my book.” Valentine drummed his fingers on his thighs. “Ready to take on the ogre?”

Graham’s stomach churned. Shooting mole rats from a distance was one thing; confronting a fully-armed mercenary with a reputation for ruthlessness was another. Stronger than fear, though, was the knowledge that whatever life he'd been gifted, he owed to Nate and Nora- and if he didn’t step up for their child, who would?

“Bring it on.”

[duskastormgrove]

SSO February Prompt Day 14: Your Valentine

something different for this prompt, i decided to write and post something for the first time in 6 years!

this is a oneshot about my oc making a gift for ydris, i had intended for it to be able to be interpreted as platonic but uhhh that didn’t happen! anyway don’t razz me too hard im out of practice.

This was not nearly enough bee balm. Duska had thought her crafting larder well stocked but while she had flax coming out of her ears her supply of bee balm meant the dye would not nearly be purple enough. She had a full day of stutching, crimping and brushing the flax and spinning it into thread, there was no way she could spare the time to grab more. However, Duska was lucky enough to have very loyal (and very bored) friends, and her first instinct was to pull up her chat with Alex.

D: girl help

A: what you need bb

D: bee balm

D: as much as you can carry

A: can I ask what for?

D: valentine’s gift I’m making

A: :o

A: omw

True to her word, Alex was in Valedale and jogging to the workshop within the hour. In her arms was a bundle of bee balm and her fingers were faintly green from furiously yanking up the stems.

“You’re a lifesaver Alex,”Duska groaned in relief, immediately relieving her friend of her burden and starting to strip the blossoms from the stems.

“Least I could do considering you helped me ask Maya out last Christmas!” Alex hoisted herself up onto the only uncluttered workbench to watch Duska work. She was silent for all of thirty seconds before the prodding began, “sooooo, who’s the lucky person?”

Duska pointedly ignored her and threw the flowers into a boiling pot. She stirred and hummed in a satisfied way when the violet colour began to bleed into the water. She didn’t look up when Alex came to stand behind her and look into the pot as well. Eventually Duska banged the spoon on the side of the pot and dropped it onto the bench.

“You’re thinking too hard, I can see the smoke coming out of your ears,” she snapped, jabbing a finger at Alex’s forehead.

“It’s just- the colour looked familiar but like, I don’t want to assume or anything but uh… it’s circus bae, right?”

“Please. Never call him that again I feel part of me die when you do,” Duska moaned, rubbing her temples. “But yes, I’m making a new ringmaster’s jacket for Ydris. I felt bad I scorched his usual one.”

“When he was keeping Concorde prisoner and turned you into a 5 carat Lusitano?”

“You know it wasn’t out of malice, Alex. It’s hard to explain but when he talked about Pandoria under threat from Garnok he seemed so hopeless and scared. I really think he was desperate and taking desperate measures.”

Alex was quiet for a while and sat herself back on the workbench. Duska put the lid on the pot and waited until it started rattling before she turned the heat down to a simmer. Another hour or so and she could start straining the colour away from the flowers. In the meantime she could stutch more flax and get it ready to be spun on the wheel. She might even have time to make cloth on the loom today!

“Is this the part where you beat the shit out of the plants?” Alex asked, swinging her legs in excitement, “Can I help out? Please? I’ll beat it up so good I promise!” Duska sighed but laid the stems over the board and showed Alex how to beat the fibres out properly with the stutching stick. Soon the Lightning Circle Rider was happily smacking the flax and Duska could sit at the wheel and start spinning lengths of thread from the flax she’d stutched, crimped and brushed out earlier. The sounds of the wheel turning and the steady thumpthumpthump of Alex working away were almost soothing to Duska’s ears. Alex was a chatty type of friend, moreso than Lisa or Anne but there was no such thing as an uncomfortable silence with her, simply working in the same room was enough for her, especially if she thought she was being helpful.

“All finished!” Alex proclaimed as she ran the last of the coarse flax through the brush, “Can I do anything else Dus?”

“Nothing that I can think of,” Duska said regretfully, “thanks so much for today, I really appreciate it.”

“Eh, that’s what pals are for!” Alex said, slapping a hand on Duska’s shoulder and went to leave the workshop, “I’ll see you at the Galentine’s trail ride!” Duska waved fondly and rolled her shoulders before hunching back over the spinning wheel, just an hour or so more and she could move to the loom, another backbreaker.

“Oh and Duska?” Duska looked up from the wheel, to see Alex’s face, smiling but with a worried crease to her brow, “Be careful alright?”

 ---------------------

“Sorry I’m late Daxton, took forever to load these screens onto Clover’s back, nearly dropped them in the Hollow Woods too!” Duska hipchecked the door to Daxton’s shop open and sidled in sideways with the two enormous screens she had prepared in advance. Silk, for the inside of the jacket, had a fairly straightforward dyeing process that would lead to a nice pattern. For this one in particular she only needed two screens but she also needed dye baths and a silk dyeing setup she simply didn’t have. This is where Daxton came in. The anxious tailor had a delightful array of fancy tailor tools and was willing to help her in return for all the deliveries and favours she’d done for him in the last two years.

“Don’t worry, things are slow today,” Daxton reassured her as he grabbed the other side of the screens and helped Duska carry them to the back, “Give me a second I want to clean these up, go check those fabric samples on the desk and make sure they’re the colours you want.” Duska did as instructed, while Daxton polished the screens off with a cloth that reminded her of a cloth she used to scrub the dust off of her horses before a show.

“All good, these are exactly what I’m looking for,” Duska said, laying the fabric down and grabbing a roll of silk material to lay across the rack. She taped it flat and Daxton lay the screen over it, double-checking the placement before he grabbed the bottle of dye. The purple dye went on first and Daxton dragged a large squeegee across the screen to spread it evenly onto the silk. When he moved the screen to the next spot Duska could see the purple pattern, with white blank spaces waiting for the next dye.

“Oh fuck yeah this looks awesome Dax!” she exclaimed and the tailor shushed her.

“Please! I need to concentrate or something awful might happen!” Not willing to take a chance on whether or not this was Daxton’s paranoia at work or an actual possibility, Duska kept silent and simply hovered over his shoulder and watched until the fabric was covered in purple dye.

“Next screen,” Daxton said, wiping sweat from his forehead. Duska hurried to remove the old one and set up the new one. She felt strangely useless here, with Daxton in his element and blasting through silk like no one’s business. This time the gold dye was poured on, and it filled the blank spaces the first screen had left. By the time Daxton reached the end of the roll it was filled entirely with the repeating pattern and Duska was waiting anxiously with a glass of water.

“Aideen’s light, Dax! This is perfect!”

“Okay, we’ll wait until it dries and then you can take it home!” Daxton readjusted his thick glasses to admire his handiwork and gratefully took the glass, “What are you making with this anyway?”

“Oh it’s a Valentine’s day gift.”

The colour drained from Daxton’s face and the hand holding his water began to tremble.

“Jeepers, glad you didn’t tell me it was so important, I would’ve messed it up for sure!”

 -------------------------

It wasn’t unusual for Farah to find her chief apprentice clattering around in the workshop before dawn. Duska was a hard worker and liked to get the orders done and delivered early to free up the rest of her day. She was a busy woman from what Farah saw of her zooming around on various horses and doing chores for residents of Valedale. What was unusual, was the amount of swearing coming from down by the river.

“Everything okay here?” she asked cautiously. Duska looked up, several pins hanging from her mouth and fabric aggressively clutched in her hands.

“It’s fine. It’s… swell.”

“Not sure I believe that one,” Farah laughed, feeling it was safe to approach her apprentice, “Let me in there, I can help out, are we doing a jacket?” She might have felt bad for intruding but Duska’s immediate look of relief assuaged those worries.

“It’s the lapels, I’m stuggling with them, if you could fix them I could finally start the epaulettes?” Duska asked hopefully.

“No problem, it’s a beautiful jacket so far, I love the silk pattern!”

“Thanks, Daxton helped me out with it, it turned out exactly how I wanted,” Duska explained as she went around the back of the mannequin to start sewing the golden fringed epaulettes onto the shoulders, “This is the first time I’ve made a Valentine’s gift, I’m… admittedly a little stressed about it.” Farah raised an eyebrow.

“It’s a lot of effort for a Valentine’s gift.”

“Well, he doesn’t celebrate Christmas, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a birthday.”

“He… doesn’t-”

“Don’t worry about it. Just know this is the best time for a gift.” Farah didn’t quite know how to respond so she simply continued on with the lapels in silence. Well, almost silence. Her grandmother always sang while she worked so Farah had picked up the habit too. If she listened carefully after a while she could hear Duska quietly humming along. The two of them finished their respective tasks fairly quickly, and stood back to look at the whole piece together.

“Looks good! Just the cuffs and buttons left yeah? I can help with them if you’d like?” Farah offered, but Duska shook her head.

“I want to do the finishing touches myself, feels a bit more personal that way, if that makes sense?”

“No, no, I get it. Best of luck with it, whoever the lucky person is he’s sure to love it!” Farah turned to go back to the request board, she’d cover the orders today, Duska deserved the day to herself to finish her work. Farah couldn’t help but wonder who such an extravagant ringmaster’s jacket would be meant for.

 -----------------------

February 14th. Now or never. Duska had been tense all morning, and now as she was carefully packing the box into her delivery satchel she almost felt queasy with nerves. This wasn’t such a big deal, the jacket was nice! Ydris wasn’t going to blast her to dust because she gave him a gift, was he? At worst he’d treat it the same as Isebell’s Yule gift and simply not open it. That would almost be preferable. It was still early in the morning so maybe she could simply drop the package into the delivery box and take off before she was noticed. That was a pretty solid plan, she’d have to leave straight away though.

“Duska?”

There goes that plan.

“Sorry Duska, but if you’re heading in that direction could you deliver this herbal tea to Mrs. Holdsworth?” Farah looked contrite enough that Duska loaded the tea into the bag without a word. She was taking Cinder, her beloved soul horse, if any horse was going to give her the confidence she needed it would be the silver dapple mare. With a pat and a cluck of her tongue, Cinder ambled towards the woodland road to Silverglade Village and beyond. A short detour to Moorland wouldn’t add too much time to her journey, not with the way Cinder liked to gallop down the trail leading there. Speaking of which, the warmblood began to toss her head and pull at the bit when they cleared the woods.

“Alright lady, let ‘em have it,”Duska acquiesced, letting the reins go long. Cinder took off with glee, mane flapping, hooves pounding, and nearly jostling Duska right out of the saddle. This pace would definitely keep them on time!

 “I have your tea leaves Mrs. H,” Duska greeted her favourite neighbourhood witch.

“Thank you darling, sit down and have a cup with me why don’t you?” Mrs Holdsworth patted the picnic bench and Duska was sorely tempted to delay the inevitable by having tea and a chat with her.

“Sorry but, I kind of have an important delivery to do, maybe tomorrow?”

“A gift for a paramour?” Mrs. Holdsworth guessed, a little too accurately and with a glint in her eye.

“Ugh. Who told you?”

“Alex is never a great keeper of secrets, but to give her credit she only confided in me because she was worried,” Mrs. Holdsworth propped her cane against the bench and sat down, “Let me have a peek.” Duska reluctantly dismounted and let Cinder graze while she carefully unboxed the jacket and displayed it to the wise old woman.

Mrs. Holdsworth took her time examining the jacket, turning over the sleeves, peering at the stitching over her half rim glasses and rubbing a thumb over the silk lining. Duska almost felt like she was being assessed for an exam. She wanted to get a good grade on the ‘Old Woman Critiques Your Lovesick Tailoring Exam’. A totally fine and normal thing to want.

“Hm!” Mrs. Holdsworth finally proclaimed. She shuffled over to the base of one of the cherry trees in her yard and bent down, grabbing a handful of grass in the shadow of the tree. “Show me the front again?” Duska flipped the jacket and came closer, careful not to let the coattails drag in the dirt. Mrs. Holdsworth threaded the grass through one of the button holes and tied a knot in the stems. She put her hands on her hips and nodded approvingly. “There you are dearie, now off you go, Valentine’s Day waits for no one!”

Duska repacked the jacket cautiously and looked closer at the grass. Instead of simple blades, Mrs. Holdsworth had put a small bouquet of clovers into the topmost button hole.

------------------------

Time was now of the essence. Duska slid off Cinder’s back as soon she skidded to a halt at Nilmer’s Highland and sprinted to the delivery box. Any courage she’d built up on her exhilarating gallop to get there was rapidly deserting her and she wanted to vault back onto Cinder and scamper back to Valedale as fast as humanly possible. Still, ‘fast as humanly possible’ wasn’t enough to outspeed a leisurely Pandorian stroll, as to her horror, the door of the wagon swung open just as the delivery box lid swung closed.

“Little dove!” Ydris boomed, “to what do I owe the pleasure? I don’t recall making an order at Ms. Farah’s quaint little workshop.” Duska couldn’t do anything to intervene as Ydris flipped the lid and dipped his hand in for the box. “Oh?” He hummed, gently tugging at the ribbon, “a gift for the amazing Ydris? I appear to have an admirer, my dove.”

“Sure seems so,” Duska managed through gritted teeth. He smirked at her and started to prod and poke and shake the box, holding it to his ear and tapping a rhythm on the side. “I know you’re not from around here,” Duska intoned heavily, “but it’s considered rude to look at the box and not open it.”

“Silly me! Let me unravel this mystery!” With one yank on the ribbon the knot fell apart, somehow, and Ydris discarded it over his shoulder. He opened the lid, casting that to one side and too khold of the jacket by the lapels, letting the other half of the packaging fall too. “What do we have… here...?”

Duska held her breath as Ydris fell silent. Silence was unnerving with the ringmaster, as was the look he was giving his gift. His face was carefully expressionless as he turned the coat over, gently brushing his hand over the eggplant purple linen. He drifted up to the golden epaulettes, twirling the fringe between his fingers. Finally he opened the jacket, revealing the purple and gold repeating pattern of-

“Panda rays,” he breathed. There was something almost reverent about the way he traced their shapes and Duska felt almost like she shouldn’t be watching him.

“Yeah they’re one of the nicer things I’ve met from Pandoria, sweet little guys,” she responded, looking to fill the awkward quiet. Ydris looked over at her, seeming surprised at her presence, like he’d forgotten she was there. He shook his head and his smirk was back in its usual place.

“One of? Should I consider that a compliment?” Ydris held the jacket out to her and a horrible swooping feeling in her stomach made her hands shake as she took it, but she was quickly relieved of it again as he whipped his old coat off and traded it for his new one in one fluid motion. He pulled the jacket on with a flourish and twirled in a circle to make the tailcoats flare outwards. “How do I look, little dove?”

“I’d trust you to run a circus looking like that,” Duska smiled weakly, feeling relieved that the ringmaster seemed to like it.

“Ah,” Ydris’ twirling came to a stop and he looked suddenly thoughtful, “but I cannot accept this, I have nothing to give you in return.” Duska began to stammer that there was no need to return the favour but Ydris shushed her. “All I can offer, temporarily, is this.”

He took her hand, softly, gently, like a breeze gently tugging it upwards. He leaned forward, all two metres of him, and when she could feel his breath on her skin he snapped his eyes up to meet hers.

“May I?” Thrown by his question Duska just nodded, and he gently pressed his lips to the back of her hand. Her skin tingled and when she dared to look a soft pink mark was glowing on her hand. “Anytime, anywhere, press here and call me, and I’ll come and find you, no matter what, that is a solemn vow, my dove,” Ydris murmured, in a tone far softer than she’d ever heard from him before.

“T-thank you, Ydris, this is… it’s… I’m honoured you’d trust me with this.” Ydris stood upright, straightening his jacket and looking almost flustered.

“Yes well, maybe wear gloves around your druid friends. It’s a one-way ticket to the druid jail under that quaint summer house.”

“Well if that happens you’ll have to come and rescue me like a dashing knight, won’t you?” Ydris smirked but Duska didn’t miss the faint blush that appeared on his cheeks. It almost glowed like the mark he’d left on her.

“I suppose I shall, and I shall do it looking quite splendid, little dove.”

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[aloysiavirgata]

Korban

Title: Korban

Author: Aloysia Virgata

Rating: Teen

Timeline: Post The Truth

Summary:   Mulder puts his arm around her, drawing her head against his shoulder. “So do, uh, do you really believe it all? The Virgin Birth, the Temptation in the Desert, the literal rising from the dead?”

*** The room has been theirs for over two months. It’s a cash-in-paper-envelopes sort of place, where the mattresses sag and the windows are made of scuffed plexiglass. They spent Valentine’s Day here, a half gallon of Moose Tracks ice cream and used condoms in the plastic wastebasket. He wonders sometimes if she’s actually afraid of another pregnancy, or if it’s just the last layer of herself she can hold back.

He doesn’t ask, acceptance being a gift he can give.

For her 39th birthday, Mulder had managed a Carvel cake and a small bottle of good lotion. He made mushroom ravioli for dinner, with a side of overcooked peas. He narrated his preparations in a Julia Child voice while they drank  wine from a screw-top bottle. They ate the cake with plastic sporks until it melted into sludge.

He sang Happy Birthday to her again and she laughed, but her eyes were too bright. They sat bundled under the comforter on the concrete patio for a long time, watching everything but each other. Trucks thundered down the highway towards the weigh station, carrying milk and oil and Japanese electronics. Scully stared at the stars until her eyes swam. She fell asleep with her head tipped back beneath them, and Mulder carried her to bed. They began her 40th year in the shower, pliant and frictionless in the wafting steam.

Early spring now, heaps of dirty slush melted back into deep reservoirs beneath the warming belly of the earth. There are feathery leaves unfurling from fresh mulch, and whipped cream blossoms on trees. Teenagers loiter in the parking lot, smoking and drinking malt liquor. They wander to and from the fire department carnival, slouchy and giggling in the lengthening evenings.

Inside, little changes. The upholstery on the couch is still rough and nubby, a sort of gray ropey material that Scully softens with thrift store blankets. They have their feet propped on the scarred oak coffee table, Scully’s toenails painted pink with dollar store polish. A bottle of Manischewitz Concord Grape sits in the middle of the table, uncapped. On the wood cabinet TV, Nefertiti is wearing turquoise gauze and Revlon lipstick and a technicolor Moses shakes his fist.

Scully spreads a tea towel across her lap, picking at the loose threads on it. Her hair is choppy with long sideswept bangs, the color of the waxy chocolate Easter bunny by her foot. Their eyes are the same arresting blue.

Beside her, Mulder is sunken deep into the cushions, leggy and scruffy with a flop of bangs and a three day beard. In his big hand, he spreads his matzah with ham salad that resembles chewed bubble gum. Scully bought it from the deli attached to the Exxon station, along with the coconut lamb cake that stares at them with blank licorice drop eyes. It smells like cheap sunblock, a hint of the coming summer.

“Stop judging me,” Mulder warns it, poking its jellybean nose. The lamb remains inscrutable in a nest of Easter grass.

Scully swats his hand. “Leave it alone.”

He scowls, takes a bite of his food. “Oh, Scully,” he says in dismay. “This is really disgusting.” He opens his mouth and lets the bright pink mass fall into a napkin. He chugs a plastic cup of water.

Scully takes a bite of her own food, cupping her hand to catch the matzah crumbs. “My mom always made it the day after Easter. It’s no different than tuna salad or chicken salad.”

“It’s very different,” Mulder asserts, decapitating a yellow Peep. “It tastes like exhaust fumes and looks like something you’d jam a scalpel into.”

She crams a piece in her mouth, chewing it inches from his face. She huffs her breath at him after she swallows.

Mulder wrinkles his nose. “You make confession with that mouth?”

She crosses herself. “Bless me Father, for I am living in sin with an infidel.”

“I’m fidel,” Mulder protests. “Just to different things.”

“I know,” she says, and nudges his foot with hers.

“…son of Amram and Yochebel,” intones Charleton Heston from the TV.

Mulder picks up the bottle of Manischewitz. “Shot,” he says, taking a swig from the bottle. He passes it to Scully who does the same.

“Now that is disgusting,” she says, wincing. “Communion wine is better than this.”

“Yeah, it’s not great. But your Catholic asses harassed my people every time we tried to settle anywhere for more than a century or so. That’s not a stable foundation for outstanding viticulture.”

Scully, buzzy and puckish, whispers, “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.”

“Too soon, Scully. Unless this is the lead in to a bondage fetish.”

“Don’t have my handcuffs anymore.” She picks up two forks from the table. “You wanna eat this lamb?”

Mulder regards it with mild disapproval. “At least Passover food has a reason for tasting like shit. Bread of affliction and so forth. But you’re celebrating the miracle of the Risen Lord with ham paste and sponge chickens. You need to get it together, Dana Katherine.”

“Well excuse me, but I don’t usually do my holiday shopping at a place where I can also get an oil change.” She stabs the lamb in the ear with her fork, removing a large chunk of it. She steers it towards Mulder’s mouth, making an airplane noise.

He takes an experimental bite, the gritty icing thick on his tongue. “This isn’t the worst,” he allows, chewing.

“Imagine my relief.” She eats the rest of the ear, a treat she usually lost to her siblings. The coconut is dense and chewy, full of sense memory.

Mulder puts his arm around her, drawing her head against his shoulder. “So do, uh, do you really believe it all? The Virgin Birth, the Temptation in the Desert, the literal rising from the dead?” He knows it’s an unfair question, knows her faith is raw and shaken these days, but he wants to understand. He longs to see the structure she does in the universe, the benevolent architecture of the grand design.

She sighs, burrowing in. Does she? Did she ever? “It’s complicated,” she tells them both.

He kisses her murky brown head. “I know.”

Scully pulls off the lamb’s nose, the same pink as her toenails. She turns it over in her fingers, frosting stuck to the smooth shell of it. She polishes it on the tea towel. “I believe in God. I believe that He acted through Christ to show us a better way to live. I believe that the stories about Christ, whether literal or allegorical, have value and purpose. I believe they can guide one through a meaningful life. So it almost doesn’t matter, in a way, how precisely they’ve been recounted.”

Mulder eats the jellybean from her fingers, tasting coconut and her tea tree lotion. “So like… the real Resurrection is the friends we made along the way?”

She slaps him lightly, laughing. “Something like that, yeah.”

He cups his hand around the sweep of her jaw, thumbs the tender spot behind her ear. She blushes. After all this time, still, she blushes. It moves him profoundly, re-confirms her as the center of his small orbit.

She smiles like the sun.

Across the room, in the tacky splendor of 1956, Moses is scowling at Pharaoh. His loyalties are torn between those that rescued him from that drifting cradle and those who put him into it. Mulder thinks of his own son, safe in a household of strangers, drawn from his basket of reeds.

He takes a long swallow of his wine, eats another piece of the lamb.

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The French Connection - Chapter 4

A HardyxMiller AU

Ellie Miller is left to go on her honeymoon alone after a devastating secret about her fiance comes to light - halfway through the wedding ceremony.  Sitting in St Pancras International in London waiting for her train, she runs into none other than her uni rival/best friend Alec Hardy, on the run from his own recent heartbreak.

They decide to make use of Ellie’s pre-paid trip, rekindling their friendship and escaping real life; yet, it turns out their years at uni are the hardest to outrun. Based on this prompt from @timepetalscollective  

Chapters will be posted every Wednesday and Sunday.  Beta’d by the wonderful @stupidsatsuma

Masterlist  |  AO3

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Despite Hardy’s playful jabs, Ellie had built free-time into the schedule for them to do as they pleased.  Given that the trip had been intended as a honeymoon she had expected to spend that time in bed, but with Hardy as her travel companion instead, they decided to lounge by the hotel pool, relaxing and playing in the water, earning themselves plenty of disapproving glares from the other guests.

After showering and changing they headed out for the day, strolling past the Louvre again to the Place de la Concorde, where the Champs-Elysee began.  The most famous street in Paris, they quickly located a café charming enough for Ellie’s standards and had pastries for lunch.

Once fed they continued on down the boulevard towards l’Arc de Triumphe, Ellie oohing and aahing at all the expensive shops they passed.

“Can you imagine having the money to spend along here?” she wanted to know, when he all but forcefully dragged her away from a Louboutin shop.  “To just shop to your heart’s content, money no issue.  As much as I love my job, I can’t deny I wouldn’t mind a better salary.”

“We’re not in it for the money,” Hardy rolled his eyes, palm pressed firmly between her shoulder blades in an attempt to keep her walking straight without getting sidetracked.  “Besides, this is all just… stuff.  It’s not inherently better than more reasonably-priced items, people just think it is ‘cause it’s got a ‘name’.  Who cares?”

Ellie peered up at him, smirking slightly.  “So you have no interest in that Paul Smith store?”

His head automatically turned in the direction she gestured, before his back stiffened and he glared down at her.  “Not funny.”

“There actually was one, next block over from the Tuileries.”

“Shut up, Miller,” he fell back on an old standby, before pointing at a store front.  “Don’t you have something from ‘Lou-is Vut-ton’ already?”

“Oooh!”

-

Once they reached Place Charles de Gaulle, they stopped to stare at the roundabout, with easily a hundred cars flying around and off onto one of the dozen streets that spread out from there.

“How the hell are we supposed to get over there?” Hardy wanted to know, staring incredulously at the throngs of people inside the roped-off section of the circle, where the Arch itself sat.  “Teleport?  Walk through traffic?  Call Mary fucking Poppins?”

Ellie shrugged, before a sign caught her eye and jogged her memory.  “There’s a tunnel!”

“A tunnel?”

“Yes, a tunnel,” she repeated, already heading in that direction.  “Keep up.  It takes us under the roadway.”

He was muttering behind her but she paid him little attention, starting down the steps amid a throng of other sightseers.  Barely three minutes later they came up just in front of the Arch, and having enough presence of mind to step out of the way, she stopped dead to gape.

“I can’t believe I’m here,” she whispered, yelping when someone brushed her elbow.

“It’s just me,” Hardy grumped.  “Right, so what’s so special about this?”

She studied his face for a moment, before judging him to be more troublemaker than ignoramus.  “Shut up.  We’re going up to the top.”

“Why?”  He trailed behind obediently anyway, as they joined the ticket queue.  “What’s up there?”

“‘What’s up there?’” she mocked.  “A gorgeous view of the city, feel the wind in your hair… honestly, you’ve been such a grump since we left the hotel.  It’s Paris, just try to enjoy it and not be… you for a while, yeah?”

“Fine.”  Hardy made a face and she made one right back, distracted out of her irritation by the small giggles of the children in line behind them.  Smiling awkwardly at them she turned to face forward, glad to not be looking at Hardy when she overheard the conversation behind them.

“Mummy?” the little girl attempted to whisper, “Why were they arguing like that?  Aren’t they happy to be here?”

The mother answered her daughter quietly, though clearly not quietly enough – “They weren’t arguing, they were bickering, like how Daddy and I do.”

“What does that mean?”

“That even people in love sometimes get annoyed with each other, but even when they say mean things, they still love each other, and they both know it, even if they don’t like each other in that moment.”

“Like when Daddy leaves the toilet seat up?  Or Jason steals my Barbies?”

“Exactly.”

Ellie’s spine stiffened, listening, and she fought very hard not to peek at Hardy’s face to see if he’d heard.

In love?  Us?  Not bloody likely.

-

They took their time going back up the Champs-Elysee on the opposite side, Ellie doing her best not to look at or speak to Hardy any more than necessary, ideally without his noticing.

“The hell is wrong with you?” he finally asked, when they passed the third bakery in a row that Ellie gave no attention.  “Was it that garbage you had for lunch?  I said you’d regret it.”

Ellie scowled.  “I am in France,” she said sternly, “so I am eating French food.  Why is that such a difficult concept?”

“Then what’s the problem?”

He mustn’t have heard them talking behind us, she realized; she’d been too focused on avoiding him to notice he was no different.  Thank God.

“I’m just thinking about dinner,” she lied, grimacing as she remembered the reservations they had.

“D’you have somewhere in mind?”

“Actually…  I have reservations.  Ones already paid for, unfortunately.”

“Where?”

Ellie gave him her best sweet smile, hoping in vain to butter him up.  “Restaurant 58.”

He stopped dead, crossing his arms and arching an eyebrow.  “I’m not playing twenty fucking questions.  Just tell me.”

“All right.”  She tilted her head, walking again, waiting for him to catch up to say, “It’s on the first level of la Tour Eiffel.  A guaranteed view of the Trocadero, the park that’s on the other side of the river that you always see in pictures of Paris.”

“Sounds romantic,” Hardy said cautiously, looking genuinely concerned.  “You sure?”

“Already paid for,” she repeated.  “And the weather’s supposed to be beautiful, thank God.  It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Please?”

He sighed, reluctantly unfolding his arms, before nodding.  “‘Course. Your trip.”

“Brilliant!”

-

Once back at the room they started getting ready for an early-for-Paris seating, Ellie taking the shower first so Hardy could be in there while she fussed with her hair and makeup.

She was just struggling with her zipper when Hardy knocked on the door, and she called him in.  “Perfect timing!  Zip me up?” she asked, turning her back on him as he entered the room and sweeping her hair out of the way.

“Erm, sure.”  He came up behind her, and she was hyper aware of him as nimble fingers pinched the dress together and pulled the zip up.

“There’s a button, too,” she mentioned, and he did that as well, before easing her long, loose tresses from her grip and fluffing them along her back, before smoothing his palms over her shoulders.

Ellie’s breath hitched, his touch stirring up surprising emotions.  It was light, barely touching her, but she felt it like an electric shock, crackling through her.

“You look beautiful,” he murmured, stepping away.

“Thanks.  The dress is new.”  Unsure of what to do with her hands she smoothed the skirt of the dress down.  She’d bought it for the trip, a sexy little dress expected to make Joe’s knees weak.  Navy blue and lace, the off-the-shoulder wide bands kept her neck and shoulders bare, perfect for a summer evening out.  She felt beautiful and elegant, and utterly alone.  Much as she’d tried to not dwell on it, and having succeeded most of the day, preparing for an admittedly romantic dinner had made her long for her almost-husband.  The betrayal still stung, burned really, a dark mass in her gut that made her blood burn just to think of it, but forty-eight hours previous she’d been preparing to spend her life with the man.

That didn’t fade overnight, much as she prayed it would.  She’d wasted three years of her life with Joe, hoping and planning for a future that had evaporated in a puff of smoke.  She was angry, humiliated, a righteous indignation stiffening her spine.  Yet the way Hardy looked at her, treated her as if nothing special or unusual had happened, helped.  She didn’t want to be coddled, like her sister would’ve tried to do, or patronized and made to feel guilty and at fault, like her parents had berated her.

She wanted to be uni-Ellie again, challenged and equaled.  Hardy would pull no punches, wouldn’t sugar-coat anything.  He would just let her be in the moment.

“Ready?” he asked, shifting awkwardly and breaking her from her spell.

“Yes.”  As they headed headed for the lift, she admired his navy suit, amused to find he’d coordinated himself with her dress.

“You look nice.”

“Thanks.”  He offered her his arm, guiding her to the lobby as she ordered a car on her phone.

The Uber driver took the scenic path, which cut in front of the Louvre and passed the glass pyramid, making her smile at the famous sight.  Crossing that bridge to the other bank they rode along the river, taking in the happy couples and families strolling along the path.  Everything seemed so bright, and peaceful, and everything she’d hoped it would be.

“I have to let you off here,” their driver said abruptly.  “Security reasons. Is this okay?”

“Fine, thanks,” Ellie smiled brightly, waiting until Hardy had slid out to follow him.  They weren’t far, could easily see the tower, and she didn’t mind a little extra walk.  Her heels were comfortable, and she was in Paris – c’est la vie.

Once on the sidewalk he offered her his arm again, and she had to admit as they walked that it improved the experience.  “It’s nice, approaching on foot.  Gives you more a sense of the magnitude.”

“It is pretty impressive, I suppose,” he agreed.  “You know it was built as the entrance to the 1889 World’s Fair?”

“Really?”

“Everyone hated it.  Was only permitted for twenty years, but by then it had become a landmark.”

“Hard to imagine Paris without it.”

“Right?”

Ellie had pre-printed tickets, so they were able to go to a special line that took them right up to the restaurant.  The ride up the lift through the leg of the Tower was a thrill, and she was grinning widely by the time they stepped off.  “This is gorgeous!”

The walls were all glass to improve the view, curving with the shape of the Tower.  She’d paid for a guaranteed view of the Trocadero, and they only had to wait a few minutes to be seated.  The restaurant was minimally decorated, subtle in design so as to not take away from the specialness of the location and views.

“This is nice,” Hardy admitted as they settled in their seats, taking in the view before looking at the menu.

“Right?  It won’t get dark until we’re done, but once we are we can go outside – dinner included the price of the ticket for the Tower itself.”

“Great.”

They studied the menu, sitting in a calm silence until after their orders had been placed and their wine poured.

“Hang on,” Hardy blurted, as she brought wine glass to her lips.

“What?”

He held his own out towards her.  “To… to finding the silver lining.  Or the open window.  Or whatever trite motivational fortune-cookie saying you prefer.”

“Well said.”

“Shut up.  Point being…”  Hardy hesitated a moment, glancing around the restaurant and out the window before settling his eyes on her, sincerity shining there.  “I’m very glad I ran into you, and I’m happy to be here with you now.  I hope you can say the same.”

A small smile bloomed on her face.  “I can,” she said honestly. “Better to find out before the wedding rather than after, I suppose.  And it is good to see you again.”

They clinked wine glasses, drinking to the strangest toast she’d ever heard.

And yet somehow it still felt right.

-

After a meal where the food was as enjoyable as the company, and an awe-inspiring sunset, they exited the restaurant onto the first level to join the throngs of other tourists trying to take in the city by moonlight.

Ellie’s good mood soured slightly; she’d had the naïve but romantic hope that somehow, she and Joe would be alone on the Tower after dinner, like something out of a movie.  I should have expected this.

“El.”  Hardy tugged her by the elbow, and she turned to him, frowning.

“What?”

But he had disappeared into the crowd, and sighing, she eased her way past the groups, mostly couples, in the direction he’d gone.  Finally she found him at the steps up to the next level, waiting impatiently.

They went up together, Ellie clutching tightly to the handrail just to be safe, unused to climbing steps in heels.  After the first dozen Hardy came onto her step, resting his hand on her back to offer support.

When they reached the second level, she looked up at him and said dryly, “We are so taking the lift down,” before noticing the view and promptly forgetting her complaint.  “Oh, look at this.”

It was far less crowded on the second level, and they were able to find a relatively private spot.  Ellie leaned against the railing, almost pressing her face to the protective lattice-work keeping anyone from falling.  “It’s so beautiful.”

“Yeah.”  Hardy’s voice was heavy with emotion, the same way it had been the previous morning watching the sunrise, and she was afraid to look at him for a moment.

“Thank you.  Thank you for coming with me.  If you hadn’t been there, I don’t know if I would’ve gotten on the train,” she confessed, staring determinedly at a boat making its way along the river.  “I probably would’ve just checked into a hotel and slept the week away, or something, and missed out on the beauty and wonder.  God, to think I’d have given up the trip of a lifetime to Paris for a bloke.”

Hardy leaned against the railing beside her, sighing.  “I had no idea where I was going to go.  I’d even been considering going up to Glasgow and visiting family.”  He shivered dramatically in disgust, making her laugh softly.  “So, thank you for the invite.  I hadn’t known how much I missed you until I saw you again.”

Touched, she turned to face him at last, giving him a watery smile.  “I missed you too.”  Rising up on her toes she leaned in, aiming for his cheek.  Later, when she would spend half the night lying awake replaying this moment, she wouldn’t be able to tell if he moved because of bad luck or if he’d misunderstood, but Hardy’s face turned to her at the last possible second, and instead of the innocent kiss to the cheek she had intended, her lips landed squarely on his.

Oh my God, she thought, freezing in surprise at the admittedly delightful feel of his mouth against hers.  Then he leaned forward slightly, into the kiss, and the only thing running through her mind was what the fuck?

Jerking her head back her jaw dropped, as she stared up at him, watching his eyes widen and his throat work as he swallowed.

What was that?!

[ramu6583844-blog]

Best Nice Wishes For Wedding

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This calls for well done and undoubtedly champagne.

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You parents are uncommon together. So happy for both of you!

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True well done.

Most smoking well done and love!

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Feeling such a lot of satisfaction for both of you as you join your lives in marriage!

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Thankful for inviting us to eat and drink while you get hitched. Very much done!

Our marriage mentor: love, regard and… clean the restroom.

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On your huge day today, you have now ended up being two from one. Does that mean I will get two birthday presents from you both reliably?

As Bill and Ted expressed, 'Be astonishing to each other.'

Getting hitched takes after going to performance school. May there be more spoof than show.

Marriage is so flawless. You have finally found that one individual you find the opportunity to aggravate all through your life.

Today I comprehended that life isn't sensible for single people like me. Starting not very far in the past I expected to get you a present just once consistently on your birthday. By and by I have two birthday occasions notwithstanding a wedding remembrance to buy presents for. Congratulations to my nearest buddy on getting hitched.

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