#also bay window add-ons when?

[embras-grace]

Ori enjoying a peaceful autumn evening with their four palicats and some light reading about Palia laws.

[itsallyscorner]

At Fault | MV1

pairing: Max Verstappen x reader

summary: Max invites his ex to a gp and upsets you. Soft and stubborn Max, but he’s a cutie. A mix between angst and fluff, but mostly fluff towards the end. Lots of reader just ranting. Plus a little cameo from the Ferrari WAGs <3.

warnings: Does Kelly count as a warning? Kinda of toxic, I’m not really sure? But who actually likes seeing their boyfriend’s ex girlfriend??

author’s note: Italics are flashbacks! This turned out longer than expected, but I hope you guys like it! It’s also been a while since I’ve written fics, so it there are any errors pls ignore them😭

The tension in the car was thick. So thick, Max believed he could cut it with a knife.

Your arms were crossed as you stared out the window while Max glanced at you wearily every other second. Thankfully, there were only three of you in the car. You and Max in the backseat, and the driver in front being separated by a divider. Though, Max was sure the driver was able to hear the current disagreement between you and him.

Max fidgeted with the lanyard of his paddock pass and stared at the side of your face. He knew he had upset you and honestly you had every right to be. You were biting the inside of your cheek in frustration trying to keep your emotions at bay. As much as you wanted to argue with Max about how you disagreed with his actions, he was due to race in a couple of hours and you didn’t want to add any more stress on his shoulders.

But Max wanted to talk about this now while you were both alone.

“Schatje, are you really mad?” Max asked quietly, leaning closer to you and trying to get you to face him. He truly didn’t mean to dampen your mood before the race. Most importantly, he didn’t like that he was the reason for you being upset. Your brows furrowed ever so slightly and a faint pout was on your lips, both indications that you were in fact not happy with him.

“Yes, Max, I am mad.” You answered, your voice trembling a bit. You had finally turned away from the window and were looking at him. Max felt a pang of guilt in his heart once he saw the look in your eyes. They weren’t glaring at him with the heat of anger, but they were soft and glossy, you were hurt—he hurt you.

Max cautiously reached out for your hand and tangled your fingers together, though your hand felt limp, like you didn’t want to hold his hand at all.

“I told you the truth.” Max said, leaning his head down trying to catch your eyes again. You took in a deep breath before turning to fully face him.

“Yes Max, you did and I absolutely appreciate it. I really do.” You began, grasping his hand between yours. “But that doesn’t make up for that fact that you’ve had this planned out for nearly a month and only told me thirty minutes ago!” You argued.

Thirty minutes ago, before your ride to the paddock can pick you guys up, Max had revealed that his ex-girlfriend, Kelly, and her daughter would be at the garage to watch the race. When you asked how they got passes to the garage, he shared that he had flown them out and provided them with passes for the weekend.

“So she’s been here all weekend?” You questioned him, arms crossed and a brow raised at him. The Italian heat felt even ten times worse as you grew frustrated with your boyfriend.

“Yeah, but they were at the Paddock Club, they’re going to watch the race from the garage though.” Max shrugged, as if it were not a big deal. He adjusted the bag on his shoulder and grasped your hand in his free one.

You couldn’t help the feeling of insecurity seeping into your bones. Kelly was rich and gorgeous, she was a model, and you weren’t. You had a normal job that offered you stability, paid you good money, and you knew how to clean up nice. However, you were no where near her level of anything or any of the other WAGs at that.

“You’ve known this whole time that she was here?” You asked quietly, your brows furrowed at him. You hated that you kept asking him questions, it was like you were interrogating him.

Max looked down at you, confusion etched on his face, “I did, schatje. I flew them out and got them some paddock passes.” You acted before you could speak, and shook your head at him, rolling your eyes in annoyance. Your boyfriend was one of the sweetest people you’ve ever met, however, many people took that as a sign to take advantage of him. While it took him longer to realize it, you noticed it instantly.

“I don’t understand why you’re so upset though, I told you the truth, it’s not like I’m doing anything with her.” Max defended himself, his hands wildly moving around. “She reached out telling me that P missed me and wanted to come to a race, it’s not for her, it’s for Penelope.”

“I understand that Max and as harsh as this sounds, Penelope isn’t your responsibility. I get that you helped raise her, but you guys broke up, you don’t need to provide for her anymore.” You threw a hand in the air, emphasizing your point. “Kelly’s fully capable of flying herself out and buying tickets to a race weekend.”

“I was just being nice.” Max raised his voice, also growing frustrated with the situation.

“And she’s still using you!” You fumed, tears welled in the corner of your eyes. “How many times does she have to use you for you to realize it? You guys broke up and she still manages to get what she wants out of you! Do you know how embarrassing it is to walk in and see her there?” You tried to reason with him. While many of his fans didn’t approve of Kelly, you knew Twitter would have a field day clowning you when they find out Kelly was present in the garage. Social media was never always a nice place and you’ve learned to ignore it, but that didn’t mean it stopped the hate from happening.

Max ran a hand through his hair and sighed.

“This is ridiculous.” He muttered under his breath, you scoffed and leaned back into your seat, staring at the window again.

“Do you not trust me?” Max asked forcibly, staring at the side of your head again. You let out a defeated sigh and turn your head to look at him, “I do trust you, Max.”

Max’s shoulders slouched as he leaned on the seat sideways, his body fully turned to you.

“Then why do you not trust me with this?” He pushed, nudging your knee with his, trying to get an answer out of you. He knew he was at fault and he just wanted to make it right.

“I don’t trust her.” You simply answered, feeling done with the conversation. The car turned, nearing the entrance of the paddock. You sniffled as you untucked your hair from behind your ears, removing your sunglasses from the top of your head.

“You don’t have to worry about her, schatje. I want you not her, there’s a reason why we broke up.” Max reassured, trying to ease the tension between the two of you.

The car came to a halt, a knock came from the driver, indicating that you guys arrived at the paddock. Before you could leave, you turned to Max and said, “Yet, she’s still here.”

ଓ⋆˙⟡₊ ⊹

Entering the paddock was always a frenzy. The moment you stepped out the car, fans were quick to recognize you, knowing that one of their favorite drivers were right behind you. You slid your sunglasses on and smoothed out the white maxi dress you wore. Max followed in suit and flashed a smile at the fans.

Shouldering his bag, he held his hand out to you, “I know you’re upset, but can I please hold your hand?”

You nodded and entangled your fingers with his. The two of you began your walk into the paddock hand in hand, as fans screamed and waved at Max. He gave your hand a squeeze before guiding you guys to some of the barricades and signing a few things for the fans.

After you guys scanned your passes, Max led you guys to the Red Bull garage. However, you came to a halt. Max was quick to look back at you, “You okay?”

“Yeah—I’m gonna meet up with Alex and Rebecca, if that’s okay? We were planning on seeing each other before the race.” You tell him. A small pout formed on Max’s lips, “Oh, okay, I’ll drop you off.” He offered, still holding your hand.

You and the girls decided to meet up at the Paddock Club. In front of the entrance, Max stood in front of you.

“You’ll come to the garage to watch, right? I need you there.” He asked quietly, so that people passing by cannot hear your conversation.

You nodded, “Yeah, I’ll be there before you’re in the car.”

Max mirrored your actions, “Okay, I love you.” He pulled you in by the waist and pressed a kiss onto your forehead. You squeezed his waist in response, “I love you too.”

Max watched as you entered the building, huffing to himself, while he watched you walk further and further into the building.

Placing your sunglasses above your head, you scan the room until you see one of the girls, Alex was the first to spot you, standing in her spot and waving at you to come over.

“Coucou mon amour!” She greeted you, (Hello, my love!) immediately wrapping you in a hug. You squeal as she squeezed you, “Helloo!” You giggled. You go to greet Rebecca, who is immediately giving you a knowing look. Being the older one amongst the three of you, she was often looked up to as the older sister.

She wrapped an arm around you and smoothed your back, “What’s wrong?” She asked while you got situated in the chair beside her.

You shook your head, “It’s just Max.”

Rebecca grabbed the bottle of champagne on the table and poured some into a flute glass. She offered you the glass, “Thank you, I needed this.”

She smiled watching you take a long sip from the glass, “Oh honey, I know.”

Alex pouted and nudged your foot with hers, “What happened with Max?”

“He invited Kelly to watch the race at the garage today.” You bluntly shared, slumping yourself in your chair.

Rebecca’s eyes widened, “Shut up.”

You raised a brow at her, “Oh, I didn’t even get to the kicker yet.”

Alex’s brows raised, “Which is?”

“He flew her out—he fucking flew her out and gave her tickets for the entire weekend.” You revealed through gritted teeth, still being aware of your surroundings. Rebecca cursed under her breath as Alex took your glass and refilled it with champagne.

Grabbing the glass, you continued, “She’s literally been here all weekend and he only told me this morning. I just don’t get it, they broke up, I don’t know why he’s still so concerned about her.” You took another long sip of champagne,

“What was the reason why?” Rebecca asked you.

“Apparently Penelope missed him—which I can believe, but did he really have to do all the providing when she can financially support herself? I get that he was trying to be nice, but still.” You grunt, fiddling with your glass.

Alex comfortingly rubbed your arm, “No, I get it, if Charles did the same thing with his ex, I’d also be upset.”

“I literally told him that she’s using him once again.” You threw your hands up. “If he wants her to be there so much, he might as well just get back with her. Like—am I crazy for losing my mind at the fact they were in contact with each other, even if it wasn’t in a romantic sense?”

Rebecca shook her head, “No, your feelings are absolutely valid. You’re just concerned and it obviously caught you off guard. He shouldn’t have been texting his ex in the first place.”

You groaned and held your head in your hands, “I hate feeling like this, it makes me question if he actually wants to be with me or not.”

Rebecca held her finger up, “I’m gonna stop you right there.” Placing her hand on your shoulder she says, “Max might be acting very stupid right now, but one thing I know for sure is that Max loves you and absolutely adores you. Without a doubt.”

Alex nodded, agreeing with Rebecca, “Like have you seen the way he looks at you? He literally worships the ground you walk on. I’m sure he’s beating himself up right now for doing what he did.”

“He loves you, (y/n), everyone who’s seen you guys together knows it. I don’t think he’d put himself in this kind of position on purpose, you’ve got that man wrapped around your finger, babe.” Rebecca reassured you, throwing her arm around your shoulder and pulling you into another hug.

“Come on cheer up, who cares if she’s in the garage today? You’re the one he’s gonna be going home with tonight.” You laughed shaking your head at her teasing.

“Hey! Tonight and every single night!” Alex pointed out raising her glass at you.

ଓ⋆˙⟡₊ ⊹

Two hours. It’s been two hours since Max has dropped you off at the Paddock Club and he still hasn’t heard back from you. He’s been distracted all day. During a meeting with Christian and some of the engineers, he couldn’t help but constantly check for a text from you, earning himself a scolding from the team principal. Checo and a couple of people from the team tried talking to him, but he wasn’t paying attention. His eyes wandered wondering when you would enter the garage.

He did in fact see Kelly and P—obviously he was expecting to see them since he invited them, but all he felt while talking to them was guilt. Guilty because he remembered the look of hurt and betrayal in your eyes and how he was the reason behind it. He hated it, he felt grimy, and dirty for going behind your back and texting Kelly. Not even ten minutes into catching up with the mother and daughter, Max realized that you were in fact correct. Kelly had used him again, instantly making advances on him despite knowing he was happily taken. But for the sake of P, Max made sure to be friendly though kept his distance to not feed into her mother’s schemes.

It was nearing lights out and you were still not in the garage. He had gone through his warm ups with Bradley, had his fireproofs and suit on, and even laced up his shoes. Still, no sight of you whatsoever in the garage. He was beginning to worry about you, sending you a couple of messages to your phone.

The car was due to be on the grid and there was about half an hour left till lights out. Max looked around the bustling garage, checking to see if you had snuck in without him seeing, though to no avail, you still weren’t there.

“Max…Max…Max?” GP tried to get Max’s attention. Snapping a finger in front of the driver’s face, Max’s eyes flickered over to his race engineer.

“What do you want now?” Max groaned, throwing his head back. To onlookers, it looked like a typical interaction between Max and GP. Though, GP felt like he was babysitting a child whose attention span couldn’t focus on one thing for more than a few seconds.

“Mate, I’ve been talking to you for the past five minutes.” GP claimed. Choosing to ignore the information he had just “briefed” Max on, he decided to be a friend.

“Where’s your head at?” GP asked Max. The Dutch man sighed, leaning against one of the storage units in the garage.

“I messed up with (y/n). I did something and it was my fault, I know it was. But she’s not happy with me at the moment and I just want to make it right.” Max summarized, not sharing any more details to protect the privacy of your relationship.

GP motioned towards Kelly who was talking to one of the other influencers in the garage, “Does it have to deal with that?”

“Unfortunately.” Max mumbled, crossing his arms and choosing to stare at the floor.

GP took a minute to stare at his driver. Max was deflated, he wasn’t as hyped for the race or over explaining some random fact about god knows what. Instead, Max kept to himself, greeting people when he had to and communicating with his team prior to the race. Other than that, Max chose to stare at his phone and look longingly outside the garage.

“Listen, I don’t know what exactly went down. But I’ve seen you with (y/n) and she clearly makes you happy, we’ve all see how lively you are with her around. You’ve got a lot of groveling to do bud, but it’ll be worth it.” GP advised, clapping Max on the back to wake him up.

“She’ll always be worth it.” Max quietly said, taking another glimpse at his phone. Only to be met with his wallpaper of you and him, with no notifications.

ଓ⋆˙⟡₊ ⊹

Christian Horner stared at his monitor at the pit wall watching as drivers and their teams gathered on the grid. He saw Checo by his car, taking a few sips of water before the race. When the camera panned to Max’s Red Bull, the driver was no where to be seen. Sparing him a second of wondering where his driver was, the camera cut to the garage where Max stood, race suit at his waist, looking no where near ready to participate in the race.

“Why is Max not in the car?” He turned to GP, stress evident on his face. GP turned in his seat and looked back into the garage to see Max pacing. Cursing under his breath, he excused himself from Christian and rushed to Max.

“Max, the race is literally about to start!”

Max stops his pacing and places his hands at his hips, “I need my girlfriend.”

“What?” Bradley and GP both stuttered out. Max deadpanned at the two men in front of him.

“(Y/n), I need to see her before the race.” Max demanded. Bradley pinched the bridge of his nose, “Max, she’ll be here after the race, you’ll be fine.” He pushed the balaclava towards Max’s chest, who simply let the mask fall at his feet.

GP sighed at Max, before calling one of the Red Bull employees.

“Please send out a search for (y/n), Max is refusing to get in the car.” He whispered to the intern. The girl looked at him confusingly but nodded and set out the garage.

ଓ⋆˙⟡₊ ⊹

You rushed as best as you could in kitten heels towards the Red Bull garage. You were supposed to be at the garage at least half an hour ago. You and the girls got caught up catching up with each other’s lives that none of you realized it was getting close to lights out. It truly was a funny sight, the three of you rushing out of the Paddock Club and running through the paddock like a bunch of maniacs.

“(Y/n)!” You heard someone yell. You stopped in your steps and looked around, only to see a girl dressed in Red Bull uniform. You recognized her, you believed her name was Nicole and was an intern for the team this season.

“Hey! Is Max on the grid already?” You approached her, a little sad that you missed seeing him before the race.

“No, he’s actually waiting for you. They’re sending out a search for you because he’s refusing to get in the car.” Nicole explained, placing a gentle hand on your back and guiding you through the crowd of fans and towards the garage.

ଓ⋆˙⟡₊ ⊹

GP released a sigh of relief once he saw you enter the garage. He shoved Max’s shoulder to avert his attention to you.

“What—oh,” Max began, only to stop himself and rush towards you. You met him half way, placing a hand on his elbow.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t meant to stay there for too long.” You quickly apologized. Max shook his head, “I don’t care, I’m just happy you’re here.”

Your brows furrowed at him, “Why are you here? Why aren’t you in the car yet?”

Max placed both his hands on your waist with a faint blush on his cheeks, “I need my goodluck kiss.”

You paused your actions, “You’re kidding me. Max, the race is about to start in five minutes!” You scolded your boyfriend.

“Please, schatje.” He pleaded, leaning closer towards you. Other team members and guests watched the both of you, the scene in front of them peaking their interests.

You gazed up at his stormy eyes, giving in because you knew he was stubborn and wouldn’t stop until he got his way. Plus, the team would hate you if you lowered their chances of scoring points this weekend.

“Just because I kiss you doesn’t mean I’m not mad at you anymore.” You clarified quietly. His forehead nodded against yours, “I know schatje. I promise to make it up to you, I really do.”

A small smile forms on your lips, “I know, Maxie.”

Max takes that as his sign to crash his lips onto yours. One of his hands support the back of your neck while the other rests on your lower back. You smile against his lips, pulling back and placing a peck right above the small mole on his upper lip.

“I love you.” You whispered to him.

“I love you too.” He whispered back. Before you can fully pull away from him he quickly adds, “I’m serious about my promise.”

“I know, baby.” You squeeze him comfortingly. “Now get out there and win the race. Stay safe.”

He pressed a kiss to your forehead as both you and GP ushered him towards his gear that’s been waiting to be put on.

ଓ⋆˙⟡₊ ⊹

A man of his word, Max won the race. With at least a five second gap between him and Lando, your boy was top step yet once again. As much as he won, the thrill of seeing him win and crossing the finish line never got old. You celebrated every win of his as if it were his first. You’d always be proud of him, whether he got pole or not.

Many of the engineers and members of the team began to rush towards the grid, eager to greet Max once he got out the car.

Looking around, you suddenly make eye contact with Kelly, who seemed to have been sizing you up. You weren’t really sure what look was on her face, but the hints of a snarl were on her lips. With her nose stuck up in the air, you watched as she carried her daughter and began to follow the rest of the team.

“Don’t mind her. You’re the one he wants to see when he gets out that car.” A voice said from beside you. You jumped, coming face to face with Christian. Your eyes widened at your boyfriend’s boss. Prior to the race, he was informed of the search party the entire team had for you to get Max in the car. While he was annoyed earlier, he thought it was rather cute that Max was so fond of you.

“You know, he’s never begged her for a good luck kiss.” Said Christian, a knowing look on his features. “You on the other hand—he can’t seem to function whenever you’re not around.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know he was gonna put that much of a fight earlier today.” You apologized, feeling a bit flustered. “He’s a bit stubborn sometimes.” You added, to which Christian chuckled at.

“Oh, I know. Max and I have worked together for years.” He stated. He glanced out the garage and motioned towards it, “C’mon now, I’m sure he’s already looking for you.”

ଓ⋆˙⟡₊ ⊹

You make your way through the crowd of Red Bull members, many of them recognizing you and helping you squeeze through till you were at the very front of the barricade.

Max was already out, helmet in his hand, while his other embraced GP and a couple other engineers. You watched as he high-fived Penelope, barely sparing a glance at her mother. A little burst of pride went off in your stomach, you couldn’t help it.

His blue orbs scanned the crowd of red and blue, looking for you. You yell his name, his eyes immediately finding yours. A smile breaks out on his face as he rushed over to you, dropping his helmet in the process. Despite the barricade between you two, he wraps both his arms tightly around you, lifting you off the ground.

“Max!” You squealed, your arms wrapping around his neck. His large hand found your cheek, slightly pulling you away from his neck so he can connect his lips with yours. Naturally, your lips moulded perfectly against his moving in synch. The team erupted in cheers around you.

“I’m so proud of you!” You tell him once your lips separate.

“I couldn’t have done it without you.” He grins, gently pinching your bottom lip between his pointer finger and thumb.

He couldn’t stay long, being told that he had to get to the podium for the trophy ceremony.

“I’ll see you after the podium, schatje!” He yelled with a wink over his shoulder, causing a blush to form on your cheeks.

ଓ⋆˙⟡₊ ⊹

The ceremony and the media tent took a while, you finally got to see Max an hour later. You were sitting in his driver’s room, when he bursted through the door already looking for you.

You stood up, smiling at him, “Hey.”

He mirrors your smile. Placing the trophy on the couch he opens his arms for you. You walk into the comfort of his hold, burying your head into the crook of his neck and wrapping your arms around his torso.

Finally it was just the two of you.

“I’m sorry.” You said, though it came out muffled against his skin. Max’s hands stopped the circular motions they were rubbing on your back.

“For what?”

You pulled back looking at him, “I overreacted about the whole Kelly thing. I should’ve taken your word for it.”

Max immediately shook his head, disagreeing with you. “No, you were absolutely right about her. I should’ve listened to you from the beginning. The moment I said hi to them she was already trying to come onto me—I avoided her by the way, I just entertained P.”

“I’m also sorry for what I said about P. I was in the wrong for that comment.” You said, a small grimace on your face when you remembered the off hand comment you made about the poor child.

Max chuckled, “Schatje, seriously, it’s okay.”

His calloused hands were rough against the soft skin of your face. He tucked a strand of hair behind your ear and cradled your jaw in his hand.

“I may have a soft spot for P, but they’re in my past. You’re my future, (y/n). The future that I only want and see myself in.” Max admitted. Your eyes gleamed at him, “You’re the future I want too, Maxie.”

“Good because you’re not getting rid of me that easily. You’re stuck with me.” He joked, squeezing your cheeks.

“I love you. So much. I know it seemed like I didn’t trust you today, but I want you to know that I do. I fully trust you with my life and I mean it.” You said, your fingers playing with the ends of his hair at the nape of his neck.

Max nodded, “I believe you. I love you too.”

The two of you basked in the silence and comfort of being in each others arms. Max was the first one to break the silence, “You don’t have plans after this right?”

You hummed against his neck, “Besides celebrating your win, nothing. Why?”

“Because I’m taking you out on a date.” Max proudly announced, a goofy smile on his lips.

“Don’t you wanna celebrate with the team?” You asked him. Max shook his head, “Nope, the only person I want to celebrate with tonight is you.”

You giggled at Max’s antics, “Whatever you say, Champ.”

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

Hal congrats on the 5k you absolutely deserve it.

I have a request for the 5k event so here it is

The reader is John's wife who's 9 months pregnant and basically about to burst. Reader goes into Labour while John is out on the field.

Again congratulations on 5k you absolutely deserve every single follower since your Storys are just chefs kiss. I'm very glad i found your blog when i did!

—Here Now

⇢ ˗ˏˋ 5k Drabble Masterlist ࿐ྂ

╰┈➤ ❝ [He nearly misses one of the most important moments of your lives together.] ❞

You had told him you would be fine, and, of course, John knew he could take your word—even if over these nine months he’d been more worried than he had been in his entire life. It would have been difficult for you to say how you were truly feeling about being home alone two days past your due date with no one but the birds outside to give you company. 

He had been up at arms about being with you through this, and the man’s stubbornness about that fact had made your face go soft with love. John was the most loyal man you’d ever met; add in a child on the way and he became no better than a hound baying at the scent of a fox. But this had apparently been so important that he’d asked you about the idea of being away for a day—a single day, the man had emphasized, even if the others had to stay wherever they were going for longer. He’d take the red-eye back the second after the time was up, a whole military Heli and all.

One day was far better than one week—far better than one month. So, you’d agreed albeit a bit reluctantly as the man reassured you he’d be back safe and whole. He’d be back for the birth. 

Yeah, that was a load of bullshit. 

You lay in the hospital room, panting and trying to keep your eyes open as the contractions hit once more; a whimper hidden as you bend your neck forward to let your chin hit your chest. 

“Shit,” you breathe, the nurse moving out of the room quickly to grab more water and the doctor for you. 

This had been going on for a good four hours—levels of shaking pain that lasted upwards of a minute and had been increasing in frequency more so in the last sixty minutes. They’d finally had you lay back on the bed only a little bit ago, and you knew at that point that John would be unable to make it for the birth of your first child.

The thought terrified you. 

You place a hand on your stomach and blink down at it, the raised half of the bed behind you and the chill of the room making you shiver. The buzz of the lights—the closed windows. Your heart is running not only from the thought of this, of all that could go wrong, but also because you now lacked the most steady rock you’d had in your entire life: John. He’d know what to tell you to make you calm down, to make your mind stop with all the panic. 

But he’s not here, and that alone makes you want to—

The door opens so quickly it nearly busts off of its hinges.

Your heart sputters, head jerking back as you wince from another contraction, this one far more painful and promising to stay for longer. Closer now. But your eyes blink on something more important. 

“I’m here, Love.” As if a phantom, John hurries through, a gaggle of wide-eyed nurses behind him before the door to your room is shut by firm hands. “Fuckin’ hell, Sweetheart, I’m ‘ere, it’s alright.”

He’s still in his gear—lacking weapons as those had probably been tossed away on Base—but vest and hat are present; the large boots with tucked pants and that compression shirt. You watch in shock as he speeds up to the side of your bed, taking your hand in his large one and squeezing. His other grabs the motion-less chair and drags it over with a grunt. 

“Now,” John says, shaking his head at you as you simply stare. “You squeeze my hand as hard as you well please then, yeah? Don’t care if you break a few fingers, Love, I’ve been through worse.” 

“How…” You mutter, tears welling in your eyes. “How did you…?”

He blinks those tiny blues at you, twitching his nose as his gaze darts down your body. 

“Had a feeling,” is all he says. 

You laugh through a sob and he presses his forehead into yours, hand on the base of your skull. 

“I’m here right now,” he utters. “Gonna have to have a few words with the little Muppet when they’re out about timing. Nearly made me bloody miss it.” 

“John Price,” you scolded lightly, laughing. 

He only hums and tries to hide his wide grin, eyes shimmering. 

By the time it’s all over, he holds the both of you to his vest-less top as he leans back beside your bare dewy skin, the small bundle kept to your chest with its gripping hands. John’s arm was around your shoulders, drawing you to him. You had fallen asleep not minutes prior, and the soldier kept watch as he always had when his girl was needing him. 

Well, girls now. 

He watches, not speaking, barely breathing, only pulling you closer to him as you sigh and shift. The baby, his and yours baby, gargles and kicks her little feet until he shifts a hand to assist your own in cupping her higher. His smile is uncontainable, just like the sudden glossiness to his eyes at such a tiny weight in his grip.

John watches, and he comes to a conclusion as he presses a deep kiss into your scalp, his thumb taken into the smallest grip that has ever held it. 

There was never a more beautiful sight than the one right in front of him. 

[mcmansionhell]

a fine selection of bonker facades from the DC suburbs

Howdy folks! In honor of Halloween, here are some of the scariest houses currently for sale in the ever-cursed suburbs of Washington, DC. It's been awhile since I checked in on this particular hotspot, and once more, it did not disappoint.

I'll just get this one out of the way. Long-time McMansion Hell-heads are well aware of this monster estate in Potomac, MD, once allegedly owned by a particular professional athlete who will not be named, because the house should suck on its own merit. The only nice thing I can say about this house is that the designers kept the materials and colors consistent, which adds some unity to what is, in reality, five turrets in a trench coat.

Some things, the economists tell us, are too big to fail. This is not one of them. Let's move on.

Many McMansions exist to mock the concept of architectural consistency and historical continuity. This is one of them. About every single type of expanded second-story window elaboration exists here: bay window, covered balcony, juliet balcony. None of them work. The house can't decide if its 19th century eclecticism or tony DC Georgian/Federal cocktail. The random cupola merely adds insult to injury.

I don't know where realtors learned how to do photoshop, but whoever taught them should have their Adobe licenses revoked. There's a certain type of McMansion I call a "hat house" - which is exactly what it sounds like. It's a house with multiple bays or masses and each has its own special hat. This is one of the most egregious examples because all of the hats are different shapes and scales. Not even the most Disney Theme Park pink sky and fairy lighting can mitigate the controlling aesthetic influence of hät.

No compilation of Bad Facades would be complete without at least one Frankentudor™. Rich people in America really like to harken back to the days of feudalism, yet uglier, more drab, and using materials mostly derived from petrochemicals. The lighting is not helping this house, which is about as gloomy, hulking, and bloated as they come.

I have some fondness for houses that derive new, inventive forms of being ugly. The spread eagle McMansion is one of them, two oblique wings with no real core. A corner lot specimen. This one is especially weird, with the quadruple portholes, the windowless bays, the mall foyer, and the hipped roof that's not quite clipped, complete with tacked on gables. Kind of neat, sad to say.

I know most of you won't agree, but I actually believe this is the worst McMansion of the set. The absolute banality of it, the out-of-proportion everything, the compound-like demeanor, the nonsensical spacing of the mind-numbingly identical windows. The most infuriating part is that whoever designed this had some kind of order, continuity, proportion in mind and just failed utterly at it, like Sideshow Bob stepping on all those rakes. I hate it!!!!

When rich people try to make overly-inflated temples to their dumb piles of money, it's deeply satisfying when they end up looking like this house, which is just a pile of roof and wall tacked on to the worst proportioned portico imaginable. Classic McMansion Hubris. Let us all laugh.

Now we're getting into the more eldritch horror part of the list. Some houses make me wonder if I have the same set of eyeballs and conceptions of what "a house" looks like as other people. This one is playing dress up games with foam stickers. It looks like Steve's shirt from Blues Clues. It abuses the prairie muntins, which is an insult to my chosen hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Bad house.

Not enough time is devoted on this blog to bad modernism, though it would be rather generous to call this house modern. It's more like postmodernism trying to remember what modernism looked like and tripping down a flight of stairs collecting random masses and windows on the way down. Houses like this give modern architecture a bad name. It's borderline libel. Also it looks like it was made out of cardboard.

This brings us to our final, and objectively worst house:

I don't even know what to say about this freak of architecture. I don't know how it came together or why. I don't know what it wants or even pretends to do. It is a horrorshow. Gables protruding from random places, stealth roof fragments, windows too small for the walls they're embedded in, a weird cathedral-like entrance, the mosquito-infested pond, the worst example of realtor sky I've ever seen, all of it is terrible. It's haunted. Trick or Treat, but without the treat.

Anyway, that does it for this installment. If you're curious about more McModern badness, this month's Patreon bonus post will be to your liking!

Happy Halloween and Día de Los Muertos!

If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including extra posts and livestreams.

Not into recurring payments? Try the tip jar, because media work is especially recession-vulnerable.

[disneyprincemuke]

you called * cl16

you called, so he came.

pairings: charles leclerc x fem!reader

warnings: none.

notes: well, now i'm in the mood to write this bc i just found out my ex-boyfriend now has a girlfriend so i aM PULLING THIS OUT FROM THE DEEPEST PART OF MY SADNESS AND GUT

(i quit drinking) // (to forget you) // (you called)

charles wasn't actually going to come. when you called him, you were slurring and stumbling over your words about how you wanted to see him. he told you it wasn't a great idea until you started full-out sobbing on the phone about how much you missed him.

it was then shortly cut to max scolding you in the background. something about how he already told you not to call charles, but you still did. then max took the phone from you and told him off sternly that he better not show up.

yet, here you are in the passenger seat of his car, buckling your seatbelt on.

carmen was more than shocked to see him at max's front door, but max blew his head off when he walked by and caught a glimpse of him.

but you managed to convince him to let you go, promising the man that you would send him a text message when you got back to your hotel.

"thank you for coming," you say barely above a whisper. your eyes are set on straight the car parked in front of his.

he sees your thumbs fumbling with one another. "of course," he answers, "you called."

you turn your head to the window, completely away from him. being in this car only brought back so many memories. you're a lot more sober than you were about 20 minutes ago, after you'd puked in the toilet after a quick sob.

being in this car gave you flashbacks to when you'd be driving around on the way to parties or the bar with the grid boys. it was in this car that he'd driven you around monte-carlo for your first date, ending up by the bay into a private yacht for dinner.

“but why?” you turn back to him, your doe eyes piercing into his. they’re slightly red from the crying, your makeup has been taken off (courtesy of max after you cried and puked), and your lips swollen. “why did you come?”

charles can’t find it in himself to start driving. he turns his head, avoiding your gaze. “i wanted to come see you.” and very softly, he adds, “i missed you.”

you freeze. you were expecting numerous types of responses but him admitting that he missed you was not one of them.

“what?” there's an expression on your face that he cannot fathom at all.

"i said i missed you," he says slower. though, with most of your relationship spent in the presence of alcohol, he knows pretty well that you're not even drunk anymore. you're just using it as an excuse,.

you stare at him, mouth gaping wordlessly at him. you scoff audibly and click your tongue. "you miss me?" you shriek, eyebrows furrowing at his confession. “you miss me? are you fucking serious right now, charles?”

“yeah?” he raises an eyebrow, genuinely not knowing how to respond to you.

"charles, we broke up." there's a sadness in your eye that made his chest ache. he knows very well that you did, in fact, break up.

"why are you saying that like it was a one-sided thing? you also agreed it's better off we just part ways." charles' growing frustration is very evident on his face, and it's still clear to you. "i didn't break up with you."

you still know when he's slowly getting irritated, or which expressions told you what's on his mind.

"because i saw you!" you throw your head back, running your hands through your hair as you tug on them roughly. "i watched you distance yourself from me, charles! the way you withdrew in the last couple of days we spent together, and apart. you called lesser, you stopped inviting me to your parties with friends, and you couldn't even look me in the eye anymore."

charles had no idea that this was what went through your mind. to him, he stopped inviting you to parties because he valued the fact that you hated waking up in the morning with a hangover. you had mentioned that it made getting up so much harder.

he started calling you lesser when you were apart because he was just simply busy. but, he did send you messages that he thought were enough to reassure you of the state of your fresh relationship.

not being able to look you in the eye had a simple explanation - he's fallen in love with you and has been afraid to admit it. after you spent a week apart busy with different projects and workload, he had picked you up from the airport for a race weekend and he felt it in his chest. he was just afraid to say it out loud for the fear that you would be too overwhelmed.

"that's not true." charles shakes his head. he turns his body away from you, looking ahead.

"then what's the truth?" you probe, lifting your shoulders to edge him for an answer. there is no way that you spent your days sulking over a man who missed you but never reached out.

but who are you to speak? you didn't either.

charles opens his mouth but quickly closes it. he shakes his head again. he contemplates the risk of saying it to you. you'd called him drunk, not expecting him to even pick up; it should be his turn to risk his feelings and possible embarrassment.

"i got scared," he says slowly, turning his head to look at you, "because i realised i love you. but i was just so scared to tell you. don't ask me why. i wanted to have you without the alcohol, that's why i didn't ask you out anymore."

"you can't just lie your way out of this, charles!" you scold with the roll of your eyes.

he rolls his eyes, finally starting up the car for a drive. "i'm going to drive you home now."

"yeah, maybe you should." you fold your arms over your chest and turn your head towards the window. your hotel isn't far, but it's quite a drive.

charles didn't even have the time to turn some music on, so you had sat in his car together in silence. the sound of the engine is the only thing that occupies the deafening stillness in the air.

you'd spent days locking yourself away, the thoughts of charles hopping on to someone else eating hours of your day away, taking up most of your breath as you'd sit on the floor crying with your cat in your arms.

to the point your mother had to remind you that charles is just a boy.

"do you mean it?" you break the silence as he turns into the lobby of the hotel. your eyes are glued to the window still with tears filling it to the brim.

you hear him sigh then shift in his seat. "of course, i do. i spent every waking moment of the past 6 weeks thinking of you and missing you. i hated every second i spent without you," he rambles. he takes a deep breath as the car comes to a slow stop. "i should have called you. i'm sorry."

you press your lips together. you turn to face him, but his stare is right ahead as he chews on the inside of his cheek. "i didn't think you liked me without the alcohol. i'm not as fun without it."

charles turns quickly to face you, instinctively grabbing your hands into his. "don't even say that," he pouts his lips out, "you are an even better person without it. please don't say that."

you close your eyes, knowing you might regret the decision in the morning. you open them and meet his blue eyes, a small smile stretching your lips.

what's the worst that could happen? if he meant his words, everything should be alright.

"do you want to have some coffee upstairs?"

you see relief wash over his face. with a deep breath, he exhales, his body melts into his car seat. he leans his head on his headrest. "as long as you promise me there's no alcohol."

[pudding-parade]

Tutorial: Importing an existing world into CAW

Note: I did not write this tutorial! I copy/pasted it from here. I just don't have confidence that TS3 websites will remain viable in the long term, so I'm preserving this mostly for my own future reference. But, maybe it will be helpful for other folks like me who aren't very CAW-savvy and just want to make some edits to an existing world in ways that you can't do in-game. The slightly edited original post is pasted behind the cut.

1) Install the world in the usual way in your fresh game folder. If it is a real prerequisite, in that Riverview objects are used in the world, you'll need to install Riverview too. Of course this also goes for Barnacle Bay or any other custom world EA may release separately. This is also a good time to check in your Installed Items whether any "foreign" CC came with it.

2) Start CAW and make a new world. It will ask for a .png, press the … box and you'll get a few 'starters', choose any. Accept all the rest and OK. You don't need to worry about parameters for your world as they will be overwritten later anyway. Save As the new world with a name you will use temporarily, not the definitive name you want to give it. Let's call it Temp.world for now. Close CAW.

3) Open S3PE and browse to the The Sims 3 Create A World Tool\UserToolData\Worlds and you'll find your Temp.world file. Open it.

4) Use Resource->Import->From package… and browse to your The Sims 3\InstalledWorlds and open the world file you want to "import". Accept the default settings for Import, when it asks you to save between packages, say No. It will show a progress bar so you'll know it's done. This may take a while.

5) Sort the resources by Type (click the "header") and find UNKN 0x296A6258 there. If all is well you should have two, one already deleted (struck out), right-click the other and select "Deleted" to delete it too. At the bottom of the file you should have two WPID resources, one already deleted, delete the other too.

6) Use the "close" button in the upper right to close S3PE. It will tell you the package has changed, choose Yes to save the changes. The reason for doing it this way is you'll know it's done when the S3PE window closes. This may take a while.

7) Start the CAW tool and open your Temp.world. Wait until the render window shows you a reasonable picture of something in the world. This may take a while and there is no real progress indication.

8) Right-click on the Temp.world on the left pane (World Layers) and choose Add/Edit description. Make sure the Name and Description fields are filled in. You can use your final name and description here. Also make sure there is a .png for the thumbnail. If there isn't, browse up one of the samples you got earlier or make sure you have one ready. This needs to be in the 24-bit 256x256 format!

9) Save As the world with the final name, let's say Final.world. It will give you a "wait" cursor for a while and then a normal cursor. Don't touch it!! It's not done! Leave the computer to it until a window pops up informing you the world is successfully saved.

The opposite direction is quite simple, just start CAW and use "Export world". It will put a .sims3pack in your The Sims 3\Exports folder. You can take that out and put it in the Download folder and install it as usual.

[thevirginwitch]

Celebrating the New Year

While those who follow the Wheel of the Year typically celebrate "The Witches' New Year" during Samhain, I wanted to throw together this presentation/event to give us all some ideas as we head into 2024!

2024 CALENDAR

Check out this post with a full 2024 astrological (and wheel of the year) calendar! 

2024 TAROT CARD

From your favorite tarot deck, pull a “Card of the Year”. This card will be the main “theme”, lesson, or general idea for your 2024! 

To dive deeper into the meaning of this card, feel free to use the spread below:

For more ideas, check out this post full of New Years Tarot Spreads!

JOURNALING PROMPTS

What are my “witchy” goals for the upcoming year? What are my “mundane” goals for the upcoming year?

What lessons or events can I reflect on from this year, to make 2024 more productive/better?

Write down one word to describe 2023.

What does 2024 look like for you?

SPELL & RITUAL IDEAS

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW

Deep clean your home, taking specific care to sweep dust/debris out of your front and back door. Even better if you move in a counterclockwise fashion throughout your home to banish any negative energies that may be lingering! To bring in “new” ideas, hang up new decorations that align with your new year goals, or add specific herbs that align with your intentions to window sills and the top of door frames. It’s also a great time to refresh any wards or protection symbols you might have around your house!

2024 CHARM BAG

Pull together a few objects that symbolize your new year: sigils, charms, herbs, etc. and throw them together in a charm bag. Keep this bag on your person when the clock strikes 12am! Keep it stashed away, and pull it out whenever you feel the need to have some of that energy with you throughout the new year.

MANIFESTATIONS

Utilize your favorite manifestation methods to bring your goals to fruition! My personal favorites include writing my “wishes” (or goals) on a bay leaf and burning it. However you prefer to manifest certain goals, new years is a great time to do so.

MAKING “NORMAL CELEBRATIONS” MORE WITCHY

If you are going to be around family or friends for new years, there are a handful of things you can make it a bit more witchy for yourself! For example: if you are drinking, don’t forget to pour out a small offering for your deities/God(s). If you have someone to kiss at midnight, and they consent to doing so, perhaps you could both perform some kind of ritual that involves the kiss “activating” the spell – for example, perform a “good luck” working for the new year, and involve the kiss as a part of the ritual!

Whether or not you celebrate the new year, I hope you all have a great holiday season!

Friendly reminder that this post was released 3 days early for my subscribers over on my Patreon! You can become a patron for $2/month and gain access to my unreleased drafts, research notes, early access to posts, and much more! You can also join for free to be notified whenever I post, and keep up-to-date on upcoming projects and announcements!

[feelbetterlove-books]

Hello I'm just dropping in to try and help spread some good vibes in the Bucktommy fandom, inspired by @thatmexisaurusrex so here are five headcanons:

Tommy got really into The Great Pottery Throw Down during the early days of quarantine, and he figured he could always use a new hobby, so there's a small kiln and a wheel set up in his garage. The wheel has been neglected a while, since Tommy found that he likes hand building much better, but when Buck finds out about it he goes down a rabbit hole learning about ceramics and he ends up being amazing at throwing, finds it very relaxing. There's already a bunch of Tommy's sculptural work decorating the house, but by the time Buck moves in there's also a lovely set of matching plates and bowls in the kitchen with a monogram of their initials stamped on them. A vase that's filled with fresh flowers every week. Their mugs came from Tommy's experimental efforts, all mismatched and they choose a different one to use every day based on their moods. Eventually, they work together to make a bird bath for the yard, which leads me to:

When Tommy's helicopter goes down, he's injured badly enough that a hospital bed gets set up in the living room and he barely leaves it for several weeks. During that time, Carla is hired to help take care of him and though Buck is there to keep him company as much as possible, he knows how boring a stretch of time off recovering can be. So, to help keep Tommy busy, he sets up a series of bird feeders outside their bay window where Tommy can look out with a pair of binoculars and identify and document all their visitors with a field guide and sketch book. He becomes Obsessed with this, names many of the frequent flyers, continues on to spend an extravagant amount of money on bulk bird seed every year, and makes sure the hummingbirds always have plenty of sugar water. Once he's healed, he and Buck, who is equally invested, plan hikes and trips around bird watching. They don't have any indoor pets but they love all their feathered friends.

Tommy was born a few days after Halloween and it has been his favorite holiday since he was a kid. He gleefully goes all out celebrating it and as a gift to himself, adds more decorations to his collection every year, some of which stay up inside permanently. He's this close to buying the 12 foot skeleton and Buck is not talking him out of it. They are beloved by trick-or-treaters for the display and the fact that they hand out full size candy bars. They prove they are very capable of executing a killer couples costume and scaring the socks off the 118 with some creepy antics at the party they host annually, but nobody can complain because it doubles as Tommy's birthday party.

The next time Buck hears about submissions being open for the firefighter calendar, he absolutely insists Tommy send in his photo. When he becomes Mr. June, (Buck's birth month, happy birthday to HIM) and is photographed for it stepping off his helicopter, stubble accentuating his cleft, flight suit only half on, tits out, sleeves tied around his waist, removing a pair of aviators, Buck loses his mind and buys so many copies of the calendar. The whole 118 and Harbor crew gets one on him. He has one in his locker displaying Tommy year round and one at home to actually use. He even mails a copy to his parents in PA and generally tells anyone who will listen about his hot firefighter pilot model boyfriend without a care for the teasing and groans he gets back, that's his man!!

I've seen a good amount of appreciation for Tommy and Buck's scars and tattoos and wrinkles, but off the top of my head I think Tommy's moles and freckles have been a bit overlooked. If we got to see more of his skin, you can tell he has a lot of them, on his stomach, arms, back, and chest, and Buck LOVES them. He can't really say why he finds them so attractive, but trust that he is kissing and tracing them every chance he gets, connecting the dots of his favorite constellation, and it makes Tommy feel so wanted. Maybe Tommy has some faint stretch marks around his pecs and shoulders too, from when he got really beefy and those little details that most people don't see but he knows well enough to draw on a map are Buck's favorite.

[pedropascalito]

The Last of Us Joel Miller Character Study S1E1: Kitchen Decor Scheme

Joel’s kitchen is homey and functional without being twee and I appreciate this insight into his personality via his home:

This kitchen decor and brown color scheme is so aggressively 90’s and looks like every kitchen I spent time in during that era. (We had two kitchens in my home and the second one we had for convenience never got updated and could have been their filming location.)

The contrasting white pantry doors and white appliances really add the final 90s touch, very believable to still be in place into 2003.

The microwave over the stove was a little fancy for this time, as I recall. Now it's standard practice.

Wrap that watermelon in some Saran Wrap please!

Sarah I know you have bigger problems coming up but the metal spatula on a nonstick pan is stressing me the fuck out. I love that Joel has never corrected her about this.

Tabasco on the table like a good Hill Country/Valley household always has. Love that detail. Cholula would also be appreciated.

And a bay window in the kitchen? Ooh he got money.

Vacuum behind the table is very functional.

You just know it’s only due to Sarah’s efforts that those plants are thriving.

I see medication on the shelf and I’m guessing it’s Joel’s and now I’m stressed he didn’t even have his meds when the world fell apart.

I love there are none of the following in his kitchen:

A big wooden spoon and fork

Baskets of various sizes nailed to the wall

Fake flower sprays

Thick curtains

Wooden word signs

[hometoursandotherstuff]

This 1912 home in Lake Bluff, Illinois didn't look that bad, but someone, (known only as MKE), didn't have the money to buy it, and hated what the current owners did, so he made a scathing webpage to plea for someone to make it right. He called the page "Rescue Me. Sincerely, David Adler" on behalf of the late architect who designed it. Here are the before & after pics of the 7bd, 5.5ba home. It's on the market again for $6.995M. But, does MKE approve?

I expected the entrance hall to look terrible, but it looked pristine. The top pic shows how perfect it looked. The bottom is how it is decorated today.

MKE wrote: The trouble begins after the dreamlike entry.  Let’s wander into the music room.  It is, well, green. However, the essential French details remain, just waiting to be uncovered. -It isn't easy being green.

The music room is now the dining room.

MKE wrote: The next room, likely the main salon, is decidedly pink. Pouf window treatments obscure perfectly proportioned French doors.  Adler surely paces through here in the darkest hours, spectral paintbrush in hand. -Oh please, rethink the pink!

The salon, now. Does it look more French? I think it does.

MKE approved of the library. He says: The library is pretty darned close to being perfect.  Nothing a little floor refinishing and wood oil can’t restore. -With a bit of restoration, the library will be a best seller.

The library is looking fine.

MKE wrote: Imagine taking breakfast in the solarium, and watching the seasons change. There is some weather-related damage, but it is certainly repairable.

Well, it's not really a breakfast room or solarium anymore. And, it looks like some of the doors were also eliminated.

MKE liked the fountain. He wrote: A wall-mounted fountain adds whimsy to the solarium.

Well, have no fear, the fountain's here.

MKE wrote of the dining room: Uh-oh, it’s time to tour the dining room. What happened here?  A ruin.  A magnificent one, but very much a ruin. The room is reminiscent of the dining room in the home Adler designed for the Ryerson family on Chicago’s Astor Street.  The amazing Louis V influence, the symmetry.  Under all that green, the impeccable bones are still intact.

It is no longer a dining room.

MKE wrote: The poor kitchen.  Adler must shed ghostly tears when he wafts through here. Yet the possibilities are endless.  Nothing that a gut job and some Peacock or Smallbone cabinetry won’t fix.

Well, they certainly did gut it. No doubt about that.

That concluded MKE's critique. Let's go on with our tour. This is the spacious primary bedroom.

A lovely bath. I always like a striped wallpaper, it just looks classy.

This secondary bedroom is a pretty plum.

And, here's another stunning bath.

The beautiful guest house.

Very nice.

Large patio along the pool.

The lot is 8.26 acres.

https://www.redfin.com/IL/Lake-Bluff/1010-Green-Bay-Rd-60044/home/17669471?

[labuenosairesfrancaise]

Prestwald Hall

Hi guys!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Night pics

Floorplans

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

great hall

long Library

formal dinning room

family room

playroom

formal gallery

a winter garden

14 rooms for family/guests + 3 service rooms

several bathrooms

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

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

Hope you like it.

You will need the usual CC I use:

all Felixandre cc

all The Jim,

SYB

Anachrosims

Regal Sims

King Falcon railing

The Golden Sanctuary

Cliffou

Dndr recolors

Harrie cc

Tuds

Lili's palace cc

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

Early Access: August 15

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

[schemmentisjacket]

Chapter 4 - First Day pt 1

Authors Note: Little something something about non binary queer new teacher coming in, leading to Melissa finding the one.

C:

Alarm blared pulling you from the depth of sleep, throwing on a pair of boxers and a sports bra, you headed from your bedroom into the room down the hall that you had converted into a gym room. 20 minutes of yoga to wake yourself up and relax your muscles, you moved into weights. Today was your first proper day of school with the kids. It was the first day you’d be going in properly dressed in your teaching clothes and a little bit of you really wanted to impress Melissa. It felt like there had been the start of some subtle flirting, especially after the outfit comment on Friday you really wanted to impress her.

You’d dropped her a message about the hockey on Saturday and then exchanged a couple of messages on Sunday when she told you about some great stuff she’d got at a famers market.

You’d also been talking to Jacob about introducing him to one of your friends, Ant.

They were planning to meet up later this week at a cosy gay bar you often frequented.

You snuck in an extra few reps to get a good pump in the biceps and shoulders. It was upper body, but you did a set of squats too. It wouldn’t hurt to add them today as well.

You cooled down with some stretched and rolling before jumping in the shower. The rainfall in the ceiling let the water cascade down your chest and back, skin glistening in the natural light that came through the big windows in the bathroom, the frosted glass to the walk in only hiding your body from the outside, not the light.

You towel dried off and headed into your closet to pick out your outfit for the day, before grabbing a quick breakfast downstairs. Teeth brushed and a quick hit off cologne completed your morning routine. Before you knew it you were out to the car with bag over one shoulder.

Melissa was leant against the hood of her car talking to Barbara as the black Jeep pulled into the carpark, pulling into a bay across from them.

She watched as Charlie stepped out of the car, black leather boots with a silver chain. Tailored black tapered trousers with a subtle check led to a fine knitted sweater in deep navy, a grey shirt collar buttoned poking up from beneath.

A short charcoal wool coat topped off the outfit, accessorised by a smart leather backpack.

Black leather gloves. Always with the gloves. She’d heard Barbra mention it briefly during a chat in prep week, but they’d just said it was ‘poor circulation’ and Barbara hadn’t pushed further.

‘Nice backpack, your first day?’ Melissa heckled over, eying them from head to toe as they walked over, trousers clinging to their thighs showing toned quads. Her brain short circuited briefly imagining how they looked from the back.

‘Yes Ma’am.’ Charlie replied in that low tone, ‘Dr Flinn reporting for duty and looking forward to it.’

‘At ease.’ Melissa laughed, hand falling on their arm, a soft smile on both their faces.

Barbara eyed them again. She had seen Melissa go through a few dates over the years post Joe but never really open up fully to anyone.

They all headed into school together, Charlie said they’d go ahead to drop their backpack off in the classroom and that they’d catch Melissa and Barbara up.

They shucked off their jacket and hung it up on the rack near their desk, set their water bottle on the desk from their backpack before heading to the teachers lounge.

Ask they walked into the room they noticed Melissa looking towards the door, her face lighting up seeing them, before a light blush came across her cheeks. Without their jacket on she could see way their jumper hugged their shoulders and arms, god they looked so strong. The way their bicep flexed as they lifted the coffee pot. They were still using her cup she’d said they should keep it for now, she didn’t want to ‘fight them with those guns’.

The way they threw an arm around Jacob giving him a side hug as he came into the room, immediately jumping into a conversation. God they looked so strong. What if they just took her by the waist, pulled her against their chest, peeled off their gloves and ran a hand across her jaw and into her hair. Brought her closer. Their breath mingling…

The trill of the bell broke her from the daydream.

(Below are a few scenarios I want to share between the two characters. All of them will happen but which should I use for the reveal of whats beneath their clothes.

A. There is an accident and they remove their jumper revealing themselves to Melissa (potential for this to be hidden from other characters for now) as they care for her. Also leads to Melissa visiting their house.

OR

B. When Jacob and Ant go on their date Charlie is there doing a side gig, Jacob messages Melissa and other teachers (or just melissa) and again a reveal happens. Again potentially just melissa and Jacob could know for now.

Also Should Jacob and Melissa be living together like in the show?)

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

North To The Future [Chapter 12: Iris]

The year is now 2000. You are just beginning your veterinary practice in Juneau, Alaska. Aegon is a mysterious, troubled newcomer to town. You kind of hate him. You are also kind of obsessed with him. Falling for him might legitimately ruin your life…but can you help it? Oh, and there’s a serial killer on the loose known only as the Ice Fisher.

Chapter warnings: Language, alcoholism, addiction, murder, discussions of sex, sexual content, violence, discussions of suicide, Taco Bell.

Word count: 7.1k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

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“It was New Year’s Eve,” you say, you know.

“New Year’s Eve, 1993.” Aegon checks the crimson-stained fistful of paper napkins he’s had jammed against his nose. His face is bloody and swollen and bruising; splotches darken from ash towards indigo as seconds tick by on the wall clock. Aegon winces under the stark florescent lights, stripped of all his shadows and secrets like a suspect being interrogated. A few tables away—far enough to give you the illusion of privacy, close enough to overhear any plots of escape—Aemond is clicking away on his BlackBerry, something you’ve never seen in person before. He is also dissecting, with great skepticism and plastic utensils, a Mexican pizza and Nachos Supreme. You aren’t sure what he had in mind when he asked for a restaurant within walking distance, but it certainly wasn’t Taco Bell.

“What happened?” you ask Aegon gently. It’s bad. It has to be bad.

He tops off his Mountain Dew with the bottle of Captain Morgan spiced rum that he added to his tab when the three of you returned to Ursa Minor for Aemond’s luggage: a single green Louis Vuitton suitcase that he had asked Dale to stow behind the bar. You have an order of Cinnamon Twists on your tray, but no appetite; you only sip tentatively at your own Mountain Dew, the ice cubes clinking in the paper cup. The Taco Bell employees watch reticently from their refuge on the other side of the cash register, like skittish animals in a zoo enclosure. The table that Trent mutilated is still wrapped with duct tape.

“Aegon?” you prompt.

“I went to a party.” He drags his fingers through his white-blond, blood-stained hair. It is wet from the snow, chaotic, untamed. His perpetually errant lock rests on his bruised cheekbone. “I was fucked up. I mean, everyone there was fucked up, but I was…combative, I guess. Do you know what a speedball is?”

“No,” you answer honestly. They don’t exactly run segments about things like that on 60 Minutes.

“It’s cocaine and heroin mixed together, and I’d never tried it before. I broke a window, I was shouting, I think I punched somebody. The people hosting knew my dad, so as a courtesy to him instead of calling the cops they called the house. My parents weren’t there. They were on a yacht out in Biscayne Bay, waiting for the fireworks to go off at midnight. Helaena was away at a boarding school in London.” He looks at you, his watery blue eyes slick and fearful.

“Aemond was the one who picked up the phone,” you realize.

“He was home with Daeron. He was sixteen, he didn’t even have a real driver’s license yet. He only had his learner’s permit.” Aegon guzzles down his Mountain Dew, adds more rum, stirs with his straw, takes another few gulps. “Aemond didn’t want me to get in trouble again. My parents were always screaming at me, they were always upset, and obviously Aemond had to live with that. He figured he could pick me up, drive me home, drag me upstairs to bed and my parents would never know the difference.”

You remember the twelve shallow scars blown across his chest like shrapnel. Car accident, he had told you. A long time ago.

“I fought him,” Aegon says. “I fought him all the way to the car, I fought him once I was inside. The security guys working the party handcuffed me to the armrest on the car door, but still, I was fighting. I was trying to get the key from Aemond. I dislocated a wrist and didn’t even realize it until later, my hand was swelling so badly the metal cuff was cutting into my skin. Aemond finally got my seatbelt on. And he was so preoccupied he forgot about his own.”

More rum and Mountain Dew, more self-medication. More cold, iron-heavy dread filling up your chest like seawater hemorrhaging into a sinking ship.

“We got on the MacArthur Causeway. Aemond was yelling at me to shut up so he could focus. He was trying to remember how to get home. It was dark, there were streetlights passing by overhead. There was moonlight on the waves in the channel. I finally broke the armrest off the car door and I…” He shakes his head, like no matter how true it is he still can’t believe it. He looks down at his open palms. “I grabbed the wheel.”

“You what?”

He flinches at the memory. “I grabbed the wheel and yanked it. Aemond was trying to push me away, but it was too late. We swerved into oncoming traffic and hit a minivan. Our car rolled over once, twice, I think four times total. The windshield shattered, glass went everywhere. That’s what happened to Aemond’s eye. He wasn’t even aware of it. I kept wondering why he wasn’t screaming like I was. He got knocked out on impact. He was in a coma for ten days. The doctors said he should have died.”

But he didn’t. And yet the guilt Aegon carries is so goddamn heavy. “What about the van?”

“It went off the road and into the channel. Everyone inside drowned. A mother and two kids.”

“You’re a killer,” you breathe, remembering the tattoo under his left collarbone.

Aegon agrees: “I’m a killer.”

You stare at him, paralyzed by wordless, icy horror.

“Everyone knows,” Aegon says, eyes wet, voice hoarse. “Everyone back in Miami knows. I couldn’t stay there. I couldn’t see Aemond’s scar, I couldn’t see the resentment on my parents’ faces every day for the rest of my life. I wasn’t just the fuckup eldest son anymore. There was nothing darkly, chaotically amusing about me. There was just plain darkness.”

“They didn’t…you weren’t…you never got arrested or anything?”

“No.”

“…Why?”

He shrugs, like it’s just the way the world works, gravity or nitrogen. “Aemond never told anyone how it happened. People knew, but he wouldn’t say it. And when the cops opened an investigation my dad made it go away.”

“How could he make something like that just…just…disappear?”

“The Microsoft office in Miami generates hundreds of millions in tax revenue each year. He threatened to get it moved to California or Texas. And maybe he threw in a holiday bonus for the police department, more money for pepper spray and flashbang grenades or whatever. All I know is that the lawyers descended and I never had to answer a single question about that night, and toxicology reports showed up claiming that mother driving the minivan had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.35.” He smiles, weakly and miserably. “People like me don’t face consequences, Appletini. They roll off our backs like rain and flood into the gutters to drown the rats.”

You can’t find your words. There’s nothing to say, or perhaps there’s too much to say; your thoughts are churning sickly like waves in a storm. From several tables away, Aemond glances over at you, his sapphire eye glinting under the unforgiving artificial light.

“And now you’ll hate me,” Aegon says with grave acceptance. He can’t blame you. He won’t even try to talk you out of it. “Just like everybody else.”

He’s been punishing himself for six years. And he’ll never stop. “I don’t hate you.”

His blood-stained brows knit together. “You don’t?”

“No.” I should, that’s true, and I would if it was anyone besides him. But I just don’t. And I have a few secrets of my own these days.

“I can’t believe that.”

“Read for yourself.” You offer your palms to him, sliding your hands across the table. At first, Aegon doesn’t understand, he doesn’t remember. And then he smiles, genuinely this time. Aemond is now watching intently and with palpable confusion.

Aegon traces the lines of your left palm with one weightless fingerprint. “It says you’re too good for this place. Maybe you’re too good for anyplace.”

“Do I finally know everything?”

“No,” Aegon says simply. “There’s over a decade of impassioned self-destruction in my rearview mirror. I could never explain all of it, and even if I could I wouldn’t want to. You have to accept that, or you have to move on. But now you know the worst of it. I hope that’s enough.”

You’re still thinking it over when Aemond forces down the last of his uninspiring Taco Bell dinner and approaches, toting his suitcase behind him. “Alright. Let’s go.”

“How did you find me?” Aegon asks.

“You gave the hospital a fake phone number and address, and then never paid your bill. They sent it to collections. I got a call asking if I happened to know where you were currently staying in Juneau.”

Aegon sighs deeply and rubs his eyes with both hands. “Goddammit.”

“What about the other cities?” you say. “Aegon mentioned that he saw you in Phoenix and San Francisco.”

Aemond looks at his brother as he answers. “The journals.”

Your stomach drops. Jesse. He’s just like Jesse. “The…?”

“He left all these journals in his room. There were lists of cities in them. Cities crossed off, cities circled. Potential places to hide out, I figured.”

“But…but…” Aegon sputters. “There must have been a hundred different names on those pages—!”

“Yes,” Aemond replies coldly. “One-hundred and twelve, actually. And every weekend, every break from school, every chance I got I picked one city and went there hoping to find you.”

Aegon sinks down into his chair, dismayed and guilty and small like a child. He says in a whisper: “I can’t work for Dad.”

Aemond is disgusted. “I don’t need you to help run the company. I need you to show Mom that you’re okay.”

“Oh, right, because Dad already found a new heir.” He studies Aemond. “MIT?”

“I graduated last year.” And you weren’t there, his tone implies.

“Fantastic. And I bet Dad didn’t even have to buy your way in with a brand new shiny gym, complete with an Olympic-sized pool and a rock wall.”

“He did not, that’s correct.”

“You went to MIT?” you ask Aegon, mystified. You can’t imagine that going well.

Apparently, it didn’t. “Briefly.”

“Three weeks, I think?” Aemond says.

Aegon frowns, slurping his rum and Mountain Dew. “Five.”

“You can have tonight,” Aemond tells him. “We can stay in your apartment. You can say goodbye to your girlfriend, or…whatever she is. And then we’re flying out in the morning.”

Aegon perks up, a lawyer seizing upon an exonerating technicality. “I can’t leave until they’ve captured the Ice Fisher.”

“The who?”

“He’s a serial killer. He’s been murdering people in Juneau for months. Right?” Aegon turns to you for confirmation.

“Right,” you say.

“I can’t leave her alone. It’s not safe. What if she gets killed as soon as I jet off to Miami? That would be a completely avoidable tragedy. I have to make sure she’s okay. I’m trying to turn over a new leaf here.”

Aemond’s remaining eye blinks slowly. “This is a bizarre stalling tactic. Ineffectual, yes, and yet I have to applaud your frenetic ingenuity.”

“Ask them,” Aegon pleads, gesturing to the Taco Bell employees behind the cash register. “The Ice Fisher is real. They’ll tell you.”

Warily, Aemond goes to the counter. He exchanges a few words with the employees—who gape impolitely at his gnarled scar and glittering sapphire eye—and then returns, eyebrows raised. “Well, that was unexpected. How long has this Ice Fisher been terrorizing Juneau?”

“Since October,” you tell him.

“Hm.” Aemond toys with his BlackBerry, gazing out the windows at the dark windswept night. He says to his brother: “How did you manage to end up in the one town in Alaska with an active serial killer?”

“Luck, I guess.”

“Bad luck,” Aemond clarifies.

“No,” Aegon says, looking at you. “Just luck.”

“And once the murderer is arrested, you’ll leave without any complaints?”

Aegon’s face is a mask, consciously expressionless. “Yes.”

“Alright. Then here’s how this will work,” Aemond begins. “You can stay for now. And I’ll stay here with you. You’ll turn over everything to me: id, keys, cash. You won’t go anywhere without me knowing about it. And in return, I’ll make a few calls and see what I can do about this Ice Fisher situation.”

“You don’t need to worry about me disappearing,” Aegon insists. “I told you. I can’t leave until the Ice Fisher is caught. I’m not going anywhere. I’m stuck.”

“Nonetheless.” Aemond’s eye is a primordial, savage blue. “You will do as I say. Or I will drag you home to Miami, serial killer be damned. This isn’t my city. These aren’t my people. Juneau could sink into the Pacific Ocean and my life wouldn’t change one iota.”

They’re that determined? They’re that capable?

One of them, yes.

Aegon is compliant, almost tame. It is a strange skin for him to wear. He shows Aemond his palms in surrender. “I understand completely.”

“Good,” Aemond says, and you bag up your leftover Cinnamon Twists to take home before following him and Aegon to the door.

The three of you walk together back to Ursa Minor. Heather’s Chevy Suburban is still in the parking lot, so you know you can get a ride home with her. This is convenient; your Jeep is at home in your parents’ driveway, and Aegon is drunk. Before you can step inside the bar, Aemond stops you, pulling you aside as Aegon waits several yards away on the snow-covered sidewalk.

He asks, low enough that Aegon can’t hear: “What has he used since he’s been in Juneau?”

“Rum. And whipped-cream flavored vodka.”

Aemond nods. “What else?”

You hesitate.

“I can’t protect him if I don’t know what to look for.”

“Heroin,” you confess. “But only once that I know of.” And in those words is a truth that you hate: you’ll never know for sure what poisons Aegon is dulling the immutable, needlelike pain of his existence with. You will only know what he chooses to show you…and what he is too far-gone to hide.

Aemond closes his eye for a moment. “Yes, that sounds about right.”

Aegon stands in an isle of streetlight luminescence, his hands in the pockets of his parka. He watches you: wanting to speak to you, wanting to do much more. And he doesn’t move until Aemond grabs the back of his coat like the scruff of a kitten and hauls him off towards the apartment building.

~~~~~~~~~~

When you’re done at the vet clinic the next day, you bring Sunfyre to Aegon’s apartment. You figure he could benefit from some cheering up. When you arrive, Aegon is just getting out of the shower and changing into his street clothes, his hair messy and wet, the scars on his pale chest eclipsed by his black and white striped long-sleeve shirt. After much debate—which primarily consisted of Aegon keeping his brother awake with an acapella rendition of Cotton-Eyed Joe until 4 a.m.—Aemond had agreed to allow Aegon to go to work. It wasn’t for the money, Aegon said, which Aemond would confiscate from him anyway. It was so he wouldn’t let his crew down by quitting with no notice. Still, Aemond accompanied him to and from the docks like a parent taking their kindergartener to the bus stop. The golden retriever bounds into Aegon’s outstretched arms, tail wagging manically.

“Hey, buddy!” Aegon gushes, flopping down onto the scuffed hardwood floor to roll around with him. “I missed you so much! Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?!”

“What is that?” Aemond asks, glowering as he reaches for the refrigerator handle.

“This is Sunfyre. He’s my dog. And he’s the best boy in the whole wide world, aren’t you, buddy? Aren’t you?! Yes you are!” Sunfyre barks in concurrence.

“You can keep a dog alive?” Aemond opens the refrigerator. “All you have in here are Lunchables and Coca-Cola. And...coffee creamer, for some reason.”

Aegon, still sprawled on the floor and scratching Sunfyre’s ears, shrugs. “Then go to the Foodland. You have credit cards.”

“Foodland…?”

“Ohhhh.” Aegon cranes his neck to grin up at you. “He’s never been to a grocery store.”

“Really?” you ask Aemond, who is grimacing, annoyed but also…uneasy. Embarrassed, even. It’s the first time you’ve ever seen him rattled. “How is that possible?”

“I’ll tell you how,” Aegon says, squishing Sunfyre’s cheeks together. “Private chefs, personal assistants, five-star restaurants…”

“This town is a graveyard where culture goes to die,” Aemond mutters. He slides his BlackBerry out of his pocket—he’s wearing another black suit today—and begins typing.

“We can go to Foodland,” you offer. Aemond narrows his gaze at you suspiciously. He doesn’t understand why you would want to be accommodating. It’s really not that complicated; the more comfortable Aemond is in Juneau, the longer he’ll be willing to stay. And he seems like a useful friend to have.

Aegon stands, giving Sunfyre one last pat on the head. “Sure. As long as we’re back by 7.”

Aemond puts his BlackBerry away. “What happens at 7?”

Aegon smiles. “My band is performing.”

“Your what?”

“You’ll see,” Aegon says, and grabs his parka from where he had tossed it haphazardly on the couch earlier. Trent, you think, helpless and dismayed. If the band is at Ursa Minor, that means Trent will be there too.

The Foodland is fairly bustling; there is a blizzard forecasted to hit Juneau tomorrow, and locals are stocking up on essentials to last them through the storm. As Aegon fills a basket with Doritos and Dunkaroos, you follow Aemond to the fresh produce section. He picks up a single bunch of broccoli and sets it in the cart.

You laugh, ripping off a translucent plastic bag from the dispenser. “It goes in here.”

“Oh. That makes sense.” He secures the broccoli in the bag, then begins filling another bag with Braeburn apples.

“Wait, wait…you can’t just throw them in like that…you’ll bruise them. Here.” You take the bag and show him. “You pick up each apple, check it to make sure it’s good, no brown squishy spots, and then place it—gently—in the bag. Now you try.”

Aemond successfully procures a dozen satisfactory apples. He’s wearing an eyepatch made of black leather, which is unusual. It’s the first time you’ve seen his wounded eye obscured since you met him.

“Awesome. Be warned though, fruit is super expensive here. Those apples are probably going to be like twenty bucks.”

Aemond smirks. “I think I’ll manage.” He checks his BlackBerry and clicks out a quick reply.

“What are you emailing people about?” It feels odd to even say the word email. It sounds like something you’d hear on Star Trek or the X-Files.

“Napster.”

“What’s Napster?”

“A peer-to-peer file sharing application.”

“Oh, yeah, totally.” You have no idea what that means. “Is Targaryen Enterprises going to invest in it?”

“Probably. But that’s still confidential at this stage in the negotiations.”

“So you’re going to be in huge trouble when they find out you let me in on the secret.”

Aemond smiles, not in a friendly way but not entirely mocking either. “Who could you possibly tell? You’ve never met anyone who matters, and you never will. No one except me and Aegon. And we’ll be gone before you know it.”

You consider him, hushed and regal and stoic and yet…somehow, undeniably…dangerous. “Why did you put on your eyepatch before we left the apartment?”

“I try to wear it if I might be around children. The eye frightens them. And if I take the sapphire out, it’s just a gaping hole. That’s even worse.”

“But you don’t wear the eyepatch all the time.”

“No.”

“Why? Too…piratey?”

“No. Nerve damage.” He signals vaguely to the ruined half of his face. “The eyepatch rubs. It can set it off. And once it gets rolling, there’s no stopping it.”

And because you’re a vet, you know exactly what nerve damage is: numbness, or burning, or blinding electrifying pain, or all three in a rotation like a wheel. “I’m sorry,” you say softly. “Aegon, he…he’s never forgiven himself for it. I don’t know if he’s ever said that to you, but it’s true. I think he would take the pain for you if he could.”

“He wouldn’t,” Aemond says bitterly. “He wouldn’t even come home.”

And I don’t think he ever will. I think he’d skydive out of the plane without a parachute first. “Can you tell me what it’s like? Miami? I’ve never been.” I’ve never really been anywhere.

“I can do better than that. I can show you.” He opens his wallet—black leather, just like his eyepatch, gleaming and heavy—and slips out several small photographs. There’s the beach, and palm trees, and the city skyline, and several luxury cars, and a building with a glass spiral staircase and tall white walls speckled with bewilderingly abstract pieces of modern art.

“Oh, is that a museum?”

“That’s my parents’ house.”

“Right,” you reply, wide-eyed.

Aegon appears with a basket so full he has to lug it around with both hands. “Guess who I saw in the snack aisle,” he says to you, heaving his basket into the cart.

“Watch the apples!” Aemond hisses.

“Who?” you ask Aegon.

“Our favorite former-football star.” Icy, stunning fear seeps from your skin all the way down to the bones. Trent. “Congratulations on getting rid of him, by the way.”

You try to keep your voice level. “I got rid of him?”

“Seems that way.” Aegon plucks a banana off the display shelf, unpeels it, and takes a bite.

“You’re paying for that,” Aemond says.

Aegon continues: “Trent’s been super happy recently. Creepily happy, actually. I keep asking him what’s up but he won’t tell me, he just flashes that big stupid grin. Well just now he finally dropped a hint. He’s having luck with some girl he’s really into. Says things are finally looking up for him in the love department. And if he’s not talking about you, Appletini, it’s got to be someone else.”

“That’s wonderful news,” you say, barely hearing yourself. It's me, you think, petrified. It’s me that Trent thinks he’s going to end up with, and how the hell am I going to tell Aegon that?

“Who’s Trent?” Aemond inquires.

“Just a guy,” you reply. “A big, Hulk-like, not terribly intelligent guy.”

“You should probably check him out,” Aegon informs his brother. “I find it hard to believe that he could be a killer—he’s violent sometimes, but not, like, murderously violent—but he’s the only real suspect we’ve got.”

Aemond’s jaw is rigid, contemplative. “Hm.”

Aegon finishes his banana, tosses the peel under a table stacked high with boxes of donuts, and pushes the cart towards the checkout counter. Aemond takes off after him. “Hey, what did I say about the banana—?!”

Trent, you think despondently, staring blankly at rows of glossy apples: red like blood, green like life. I have to tell him about Trent.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Bitch!” Heather proclaims when she spies you, arms thrown wide open. She embraces you, the golden sequins of her shirt snagging on the loops of your turquois sweater. “Whoops, sorry Grandma.” She untangles herself. Joyce, Kimmie, and Brad wave from the usual booth. Rob and Trent are warming up on their instruments. Aegon meanders unsteadily over to join them, downing a rum and Coke assembled by a yawning Dale. You wonder how much Aegon owes on his tab now. It has to be a thousand or more. Maybe Aemond will pay it before he leaves. Before he drags Aegon back home to Miami screaming like stormwinds.

From behind his drumkit, Trent beams at you, showing all his teeth. You shudder when you remember the bruise they left on your neck. Nonetheless, you smile back noncommittally; the last thing you need is to prompt him to make a scene.

Heather gestures to Aegon. “British Kurt Cobain.” Now she points at Aemond. “Albino Fabio.”

You burst out laughing. “Yeah, basically.”

“What’s up with the…?” She taps her own left cheekbone. The scar, she means, The eye.

“It’s a long story. Aemond is Aegon’s brother, he’s here to convince him to go home.”

“I’d like to think I’m a pretty non-judgmental person, but their parents really should have invested in a baby names book. Where’s home?”

“Miami.”

“Well fuck, I wouldn’t mind jetting off to Miami. Think Aemond would take me instead?” But she’s joking, of course. Heather loves Juneau. She would never put it so sentimentally, but she does. Kimmie adores being a big fish in a small pond; she wouldn’t make such a splash anywhere else. Joyce needs the quiet. Only you were cursed with this greedy restlessness that is inked to you like an invisible tattoo; only you inherited this nameless craving for more.

“You should ask,” you tease Heather. “Ask Aemond really, really nicely. And make sure you nuzzle up against him so he can feel that you’re not wearing a bra.”

She gasps. “You can tell?”

“Heather, everyone can tell.”

She grins mischievously. “Good. That’s the point.”

You order drinks together—a Sex On The Beach for Heather, a blackberry Bacardi Breezer for you—and then part ways. Heather joins the growing crowd that is gathering to watch Boat #27’s imminent performance. You sit next to Aemond at the bar. He’s sipping a Caipirinha, taking slow, shallow, meditative tastes. He’s staring at the band, but you’re not sure if he’s really seeing them. Aegon gulps down another rum and Coke—his second in about five minutes—and staggers as he tests the microphone. His white-blond hair falls untidily over his eyes. No one seems surprised to see the mottled bruises or split lip on his face. It’s the sort of thing to be expected from someone like him; drunks wear ill-gotten injuries like diamonds and pearls.

“It’s not good for him,” you tell Aemond. “You being here.”

“Nothing’s ever been good for him,” Aemond says. “I remember being twelve years old and my whole life was trying to stop him from jumping out of a window or in front of a car. When we locked up all the pain pills he found bottles of Vitamin A tablets and swallowed about five hundred of them before we kicked the door down. We got his stomach pumped, brought him home, and the next day he tried the same thing all over again with my mother’s EpiPens.”

“Oh my god,” you whisper, agonized.

“I’m not here to torture him. I’m here to help. I want to help my mother move on with her life. I want to help Helaena and Daeron get their brother back. And I want to help Aegon become a better man. It’s possible, I think, if he’ll work for it. But it’s not going to happen as long as he’s running between cities and from one addiction to the next. He’s got to come home. He’s got to face what he’s done and learn how to cope with it.”

The band has begun their song. It’s Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls, a peculiarly subdued choice. Aegon sings with his eyes on you and his calloused fingertips scaling the fretboard of his battered green electric guitar.

“And I’d give up forever to touch you, ‘cause I know that you feel me somehow.

You’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be, and I don’t want to go home right now…”

“Hm.” Aemond’s face—half-immaculate, half-mutilated—holds a quiet, intense curiosity that might even be a dash of awe. “I’ve never seen him play before.”

“Really?”

“Really. He’s not bad.”

“He’s perfect,” you murmur.

“So you’re in love with him too.” Aemond nips at his Caipirinha. “I feel so sorry for you.”

You glare at him, flushing and furious, the kind of flame-red rage you can only conjure for someone when you know they’re right. Aemond is aware of this, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. He is as cool as his Caipirinha: frosty and still and sharp like glass. His sapphire glints, his scar grows darker in the twilight dimness of Ursa Minor. You miss the Christmas lights; you miss what could have been if Aemond had never walked with his light and yet decisive steps into Juneau. You swallow your Bacardi Breezer like reckless, venomous words.

When the song is over, Trent begins making his way through the crowd towards you. You hop off the barstool and evade him, weaving from one end of the packed room to the other. He gets drawn into a conversation with Matt and Gary, but he’s still scanning the sea of faces for yours.

If he finds me, it’s going to all come out into the open. He’ll say something, or I’ll say something, or Aegon will say something, and then it will be out of my hands. I have to tell Aegon first. He has to hear it from me.

Aegon finds you, smiling in that warm, dreamy, tipsy sort of way. “Hey, Appletini—”

“I have to talk to you.”

Immediately, it startles him: your voice, your face. “What’s wrong?”

“I just have to talk to you about something. Right now. Where can we go?”

“Uh, uh…” He glances around, and then he points to the staircase. His disobedient lock of hair is a white stripe across his cheek. “The roof?”

“Okay. Yes, good.”

“Great.”

You go to the coatrack together to fetch your parkas, then make for the steps. Aemond is there to meet you, towering and lithe and silver like lightning.

“Please, Aemond,” Aegon says. “We need ten minutes.”

“You can’t have it.”

“Ten fucking minutes,” Aegon snaps. “It’s a rooftop patio, it’s not in use during the winter. For Christ’s sake, we’re not going to jump off of it or anything. There’s nowhere for us to run. She’s not leaving Juneau. I have no money, no license, no nothing. You have all of that. Don’t you get it? There’s nowhere for us to run.”

Aemond’s BlackBerry starts beeping. He whips it out and reads the message. “Fine,” he snarls, like a verbal shove hard enough to bruise. “Just go. Ten minutes.” And as you and Aegon ascend the staircase, you catch a glimpse of Trent watching from across the crowded bar, knocking back a Heineken and simmering with some pattern of layered emotions that you can’t read.

Outside, the night sky is muted with cloud cover: thick, dark, starless. The moon is a vague blur of eerie ethereal light, a reflection of a reflection. And sometimes, you think you might be something just like that.

“What is it?” Aegon asks. And his face destroys you: seeking but not suspicious, concerned but not fearful. He would never see this coming. Not now. He trusts me too much. He thinks too highly of me. Much, much too highly. And isn’t that what love always does to people? Cold Arctic wind spirals around you both, tearing at your hair, wrenching tears from your eyes like doomed fish from a lake.

“I hooked up with Trent.”

Aegon’s face doesn’t change. He’s heard it, but he hasn’t felt it yet. “Like…a long time ago?”

“No. After the New Year’s Eve party.” After I found you in your apartment.

The first wave of it hits him: in his shoulders, in his eyes, in his tremulous voice. “And when you say hooked up, you mean…what? Second base?”

“No. I mean everything.”

“Everything,” he repeats numbly.

“Yes.”

He takes a step back from you, covering his mouth with one hand. He stares down at the snow around his Doc Martens combat boots, shaking his head and saying nothing. That’s worse than shouting. You had been prepared for shouting.

“Aegon—”

He puts his hands up like he’s barring a door. “I need a minute, I need a minute.” He inhales, exhales, rubs his furrowed forehead with his thumb and index finger. “Why—?” His voice breaks off. He tries again. “Why would you do that?”

“I was angry, I was so goddamn angry at you. And I’m not trying to make excuses, I’m just…I’m just trying to explain. I was so desperate to feel something other than what I was feeling that I made a mistake. A horrible, humiliating mistake. Now Trent thinks I really like him and that’s bad but what’s worse is the fact that now, right now, I have to tell you the truth. I’m so fucking sorry. And I would change it if I could but I can’t.”

Aegon looks at you. “You weren’t…you know…” He flinches like somebody’s struck him. “Afraid of Trent?”

“It was at my house, my parents were around—”

Again, he stops you, holding up his hands. “I can’t hear the details, I just can’t.”

“I’m sorry,” you repeat in a whimper. It’s almost inaudible in the roar of the wind.

It seems like forever before Aegon speaks. When he does, there’s no fury. It is a controlled, calm surrender. “Okay.”

“Okay? That’s all? Okay?”

“It’s my fault, right?” he says. “It would be pretty fucked up of me to blame you for something that only happened because of what I did. So okay. Don’t worry about it. We’ll deal with Trent together. We’ll figure something out. We—”

You rush to him and Aegon catches you, shocked but welcoming, harboring. You burrow into him as he strokes your hair and shields you from the frigid wind, soothing you with soft, sighing words, his damaged lips warm against your ear.

“Shh, shh, you’re okay, Appletini. I’m not mad. You’re okay. You’re okay.”

“Yeah,” you agree, biting back sobs. “Right now I am.”

But what about when you leave, Aegon? What about then?

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re lying in bed—showered, somber, oversized T-shirt and blue flannel pajama pants—and staring at the celebrity posters on your wall when the phone rings. You frown at it as it sits on your nightstand, a beacon of both hope and despair. Trent. It’s probably Trent.

Downstairs, your mom is engrossed in a riveting book club meeting. You can hear the attendees debating the merits of A Walk To Remember through the floorboards. You snatch up the phone before one of your parents can answer and invite Trent over for tea and Tongass Forest Cookies.

“Hello?” you say, with great annoyance.

“Hey, Appletini.”

“Heyyy!” You bolt upright in bed. “What’s up? Why are you whispering?”

“Aemond’s asleep on my couch. I think if I keep him awake again, he might disembowel me.”

You smile. “So why risk it?”

“I had a weird feeling. I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“My mom’s book club is getting extremely heated downstairs. I’m currently in bed and staring at my numerous Ricky Martin posters. I’m fine.”

“Just fine? Not better than fine?”

You twirl the phone cord between your fingers. You remember what his bare skin felt like against yours, what he tasted like, the way your fingers twisted in his hair. It’s all you can think about; you can’t stop. Maybe it’s better not to. After all, time is running out. “I want you,” you say simply.

There’s no question of whether Aegon will agree. He goes straight to the logistics. “I think that would definitely wake up Aemond. And even if he didn’t have my keys I’m not…uh…in driving condition.” Not sober, he means.

“I have a Jeep.”

“I’ll look for you in ten minutes.” He hangs up. You wave a bashful hello to the book club attendees as you race by them and out into the driveway, clutching the bear mace that hangs from your purse just in case the Ice Fisher happens to be lurking nearby. You don’t even remember your parka.

As you idle under the streetlight in front of Aegon’s apartment, he comes running out of the building in his black Nirvana T-shirt, green flannel pajamas, open parka, and hastily thrown-on boots, the laces untied and flapping. You get out to meet him in the backseat, locking the doors with a distracted press of a button. Both of you kick off your boots and toss them onto the floor. Neither of you speak; there’s no need for it.

You yank off Aegon’s parka and T-shirt as he drags you into his lap, one hand pressed into the small of your back and the other cradling your face, kissing you with vicious desperation. His split lip, still healing, is rough against yours; the bruises on his face are shadows under the murky streetlight glow. You knot your fingers in his hair, drawing him in closer, closer, never close enough. He tugs your shirt over your head and finds nothing underneath but bare, needy flesh that aches for him like lungs burn in the cold.

As his hands wander, he murmurs against your throat, breathless and urgent: “I missed this. I missed you.”

“Show me,” you beg him. You can tell how hard he is; you can recall exactly what it will feel like once he’s inside you, filling and safe and deeply, immensely good. You grab his hands and put them on the waistband of your pajamas. “Aegon, please, I need you so fucking badly. Show me how much you missed me.”

He throws you down across the backseat, cushioning your head with one hand so it doesn’t hit against the door. Then he positions himself between your thighs, panting as he hooks his thumbs under the elastic of your pajamas. They’re gone in an instant, your legs bare and shaking with the rush of adrenaline. Aegon is pushing your thighs apart so he can kiss his way up the inside, his rough wounded lips pressed to your vulnerable skin. You can feel the heel of his palm kneading you through your panties, simple blue silk that is soaked for him; he’s about to take them off.

“Yes,” you moan, almost unable to stand it. The Jeep windows are clouded with sweltering fog. “Yes, yes, oh god, Aegon, yes—”

There is a deafening sound, a breaking, a crashing; someone is screaming, and it takes a moment for you to realize that it’s you. The Jeep door rips open, startlingly cold night air flooding in and ravaging your bare skin, slick with the sweat of now-vanished lust. Something grabs your hair and—with horrifying, relentless force—drags you out into the snow. There are shards of glass littering the ground from the broken window. One of them cuts into the side of your right thigh, spilling blood that is more black than red under the dim beam of the streetlight. Aegon is shouting, and someone else is too, a rumbling voice that at first you can’t place. Then you look up and see him. Trent stands above you, one hand still gripping your hair, the other holding a rock as big as a human skull. He’s calling you a slut, a whore, a bitch. His hand is bleeding from when he used the rock to break the Jeep’s window so he could unlock the door. He doesn’t seem to notice.

“Trent, Trent!” Aegon is screaming, standing in the snow with bare feet and wearing only his green flannel pajama pants. His hands are outstretched, but there’s nothing he can do. “Trent, let her go. Let her go—!”

“You?!” Trent roars. “She’s been cheating on me with you?!”

He yanks you by your hair again and you shriek, punching at his knuckles and trying to curl your legs beneath you so you can stand and then—

And then what?! your mind howls like the wind. You can’t run away from him. You can’t fight him off. You probably can’t even put a mark on him. So then what? So then WHAT?!

“You’re not mad at her,” Aegon says, trying to stay calm, trying to reason with him. “You’re mad at me, Trent, you’re mad at me, it was my idea, I talked her into it, I’m the one you’re mad at, so let her go and then we can—”

“You bitch!” Trent thunders down at you. You try to bolt away and he jerks you back again by your hair, a scream tearing from your throat. You’re trembling all over; you’re drenched in snow and blood. “You fucking bitch—!”

“Let her go!” Aegon is out of ideas. He charges Trent, having no chance at all and knowing it. And just as he reaches him—

For the second time, there is a sound that seems to split the world in two. You cover your ears; you pinch your eyes shut. Trent’s hand releases your hair, and when you fall into the snow—your arms buried up to your elbows in it—you scramble for Aegon, sobbing and shivering uncontrollably. He pulls you against his bare chest, his eyes huge. You turn to see what he’s gaping at. Under the streetlight is Aemond with a revolver in his right hand. At first, it’s aiming into the sky. Then he brings it down to point at Trent.

“You want to get out of here,” he says in a low, blade-sharp voice.

Trent—not out of defiance, you think, but rather out of sheer, witless disbelief—doesn’t move.

Aemond pulls down the revolver’s hammer with his thumb. “Or, if you prefer, we can all find out what your brains look like.”

Trent, sufficiently mobilized, stumbles through the snow to his truck, climbs inside, and speeds off into the night. Aemond dumps the rest of the bullets out of the revolver and into his palm, then stows them in the pocket of his black sweatpants.

Aegon reaches into your Jeep to get his parka, throws it over you, and zips it closed. Then he yells to Aemond, waving at the revolver: “What the fuck, they let you on a plane with that?!”

“Private jet.”

“Oh, right. Obviously.” Aegon cradles your face with both hands. “You okay, baby? You okay?” You nod forcefully, too cold and shell-shocked to speak. He doesn’t believe you. “Come on, let’s get you inside, let’s get you warmed up, let’s take a look at that leg—”

“That’s the guy, right?” Aemond says. “The one you think might be the killer.”

“Yeah,” Aegon replies distractedly, still focused on you.

“What’s his name?”

“Trent,” you say, finding your voice. “Trenton Desormeaux.”

Aemond stares out into the night, his pale eye fixed on the place where Trent had stood just seconds ago. He betrays nothing, his face lined with enigmatic concentration. “Hm,” he says. And then again: “Hm.”

[bomberqueen17]

kitchen colors

so ok it's the weekend and we were snowed in for a week and i've done a ton of unpacking but it's all invisible yay

but dude was making low-key plans for the weekend and i was like NO WE MUST GO TO THE HARDWARE STORE AND GET PAINT SAMPLES

i had to like. drag him to look at the paint chips idk why it was so difficult.

So we haggled and hemmed and hawed and held chips up in various spots and eliminated almost everything I'd brought home. Nothing would do as the accent color. But the wall color... we narrowed it down to Behr's Thai Teal, Celtic Queen, or Bella Vista. Celtic Queen was their pthalo-est green; Thai Teal and Bella Vista are almost the same except Thai Teal is dustier and Bella Vista clearer. Dude felt the cabinets having a dusty cast meant the wall should do, and I strongly felt the opposite. He yielded to my intensity of feeling on this.

But none of the colors I'd picked out were suitable as a trim color to pair with either of the teals or the green, so we'd have to go look. A lime green, perhaps, or a bright orange?

I also felt that painting the bay windowsill a strong color was the wrong choice, so we decided it should be a high-gloss white, but of course a shade of white that didn't clash with the white countertop. Not having a sample of countertop, I instead brought a spare backsplash tile with me to the hardware store, so I could tell what color of white I needed (ugh).

Thus ensued Hell: Trying to pick which of the hundred colors of white would match the tile without being too obviously not-white (which would clash with the white-white plastic of the electrical outlets and the plastic window frames, which I am not painting. The outlet and switch plates are getting painted or replaced with something decorative, sure, but the actual bit you put the plugs into is staying as it is, I'm not painting that shit). But, fortunately, Dude comes of graphic designer types, and came through for me.

[image: a man's hands, holding a white subway tile and several basically-white paint chips, in front of a hardware store display of paint chips in every shade imaginable of white, beige, black, or gray. This is my idea of hell.]

We tried lime green with the teal. It looked banger as fuck, but the only problem was, it also looked exactly like a really classic IKEA duvet cover pattern from about 2000. I could not paint my kitchen to look like the duvet cover Dude had when we met. That is not going to work out, psychically.

I picked a brilliant orange, and also hated it. It looked like... the 1970s. it looked. Too much. It popped but like, in a slightly upsetting way. it was giving Miami vibes, in an early-90s kind of way.

I dithered, and finally Dude went and picked a less red orange, in fact called Joyful Orange. That looked much better, and I got sample pots of Joyful Orange and Bella Vista to take home. (They are SEVEN DOLLARS each can you believe. Ah well.)

[image description: In the center of the photo, a section of wall trim is painted bright yellow-orange, next to a section of wall painted deep teal. To the right, a blue-washed cabinet corner, the white tile backsplash, and a section of counter with the tea kettle on it; to the left is the paler yellow in the distance of the living room, with a bunch of blurry stuff piled in the middle of the room.]

It's. Sort of parrot colors? But it's bright and it's bold. I like it in every lighting situation. So I think this is what I'm going with.

And then for the outlet covers, I got one lighter shade of turquoise, and then dug out my craft paints. I bought a couple of spare outlet covers at the hardware store-- forty-eight cents apiece? I'd be crazy not to-- lightly buffed them with some fine sandpaper, and went to town. This is just the first layer, once it dries I'm going to go back over and try to add realistic veining and like metallic glitter and such to make them look like turquoise gemstone material.

[image: lying on a crinkled paper towel, a US-style outlet cover is mottled in shades of turquoise paint, in an irregularly-textured pattern.]

Ah maybe I should do a layer of clear coat and then do the veining? We'll see. I'm not sure.

[slippinmickeys]

Three Part Harmony (23/25)

“What makes you so sure they’ll be able to find us, Mulder?” Scully asked him.

Mulder sighed. “Unless he knew you could Jedi Mind-Trick half the troopers in the state, I think the minute we drove away, Bryson cast a net over a fifty mile radius and started tightening the noose. Mathematically, I think it’s only a matter of time. That and I think he’s probably pretty motivated. Now more so than ever.”

At that Scully looked away for a moment. “I can’t Jedi Mind-Trick anybody,” she said quietly. 

“Have you tried?” Mulder asked, which earned him A Look. 

“So what are you thinking?” Rhonda interrupted, turning everyone’s focus to where it needed to be. “Booby traps all over the camp with Scully and William in the middle?”

“Something like that, I guess,” Mulder said. 

Rhonda wandered back to the table where Mulder and Scully still sat and lowered herself down across from them. “What do we have at our disposal?” she asked. 

“Three guns, a fair amount of ammunition for only one of them, several syringes of ketamine, and our wits,” Scully said plainly. “And also…” she pointed to William, who chose that moment to blow an impressively wet raspberry. 

“Not the most confidence-inspiring display I’ve seen from a secret weapon,” Mulder said, smiling.

“Ketamine?” Rhonda asked. 

“Long story,” Mulder answered.

“Do you think this place is defensible? Is there somewhere that might be better?” Scully asked.

Mulder looked out the big bay windows at the front of the lodge to the lake that was turning gray in the last rays of the day’s light. The sun had already set over the mountains behind them. 

“It’s as good a place as any, I would think,” Mulder said. “Are there any houses or anything across the lake, Rhonda? Any people that might report seeing activity here?”

Rhonda shook her head. “The camp owns the whole thing. Nothing out there but ducks.”

“Then I say first thing tomorrow we take a little tour of the camp and start sharpening Punji sticks,” he said. 

XxX

The next morning came in slowly, the light dull and flat. Mulder had William on his hip, standing in front of the lake looking out at the rippling water. The dome of the sky above them was oppressive and low, and the forest was restless, the tops of the trees waving in an uneasy sway.

He had been trying to connect with his son since he’d woken that morning with the small boy’s hands resting on his chest, eyes intently watching him, but it was difficult with Scully asleep, unable to facilitate their mental link. It felt like trying to tune a radio that was mostly static. He’d swept up the boy, changed his diaper, and had eased soundlessly out of the cabin, endeavoring to let Scully sleep as long as possible. 

“Good morning!” he heard from behind him, and he turned to find Rhonda coming up the path toward them, looking rested and refreshed.

“Good morning,” he smiled at her, and set William down on the ground when he tipped himself excitedly toward the older woman with a happy babble. 

Rhonda scooped him up with a joyful smile which she turned on Mulder. 

“Sleep well?” she asked. 

Mulder nodded. “Had to get up in the middle of the night to add wood to the fire, but otherwise…You?”

“Same,” she said, and inhaled deeply, turning to look at the lake with the mountains beyond it, low clouds cloaking the peaks. 

“I was up early thinking,” she said, “about ways we might defend this place.”

Mulder was surprised by this. The woman was short and round, and even now had her blonde hair teased high, mascara applied thickly to her lashes. She did not look like the kind of woman who might spend her free time strategizing like Sun Tzu. 

“Last night you mentioned Punji sticks,” she said. “And it got me thinking.” She gave a small sniff in the cold mountain air. “My uncle served in Vietnam,” she went on. “He was an older soldier, and wasn’t over there long. A National Guardsman. I remember the day he left.” She was quiet for a moment, shifting William on her hip. “He told me stories of things he’d seen in the jungle. The traps the VietCong set… He was never quite the same when he came back. But he taught me the things he’d learned over there, and he taught me to hunt.”

“So you’re saying you might be more of a secret weapon than William is?” Mulder nodded at his son. 

Rhonda laughed. “I think we both know that’s impossible,” she said. “But I’m happy to share my ideas with you.”

“And I’d be more than happy to hear them.”

“After breakfast?” Rhonda said, turning to him. 

“After breakfast,” Mulder said. Without another word, they started making their way up to the lodge, heading for the back door that led into the commercial-sized kitchen. Rhonda’s car was still parked nearby, frost thick on the windows. Though tucked partly under the low hanging branches of a pine tree, it was still somewhat conspicuous. If someone flew over, they might spot it. 

Mulder paused as they approached the doorway. 

“Hey,” he said, looking around and noticing a group of picnic tables not too far away that were covered in dark brown tarps secured with bungee cords. “I think we should probably cover your car so no one can spot it from the air. Want to help me take off one or two of these tarps so we can cover it up?”

Rhonda nodded and set William down, where he immediately pulled himself up onto the bench of one of the tables, scooting himself along it happily. They made quick work of removing one of the larger tarps, spreading it over the top of the Datsun. Rhonda was able to easily hook the cords to the front of the vehicle, but Mulder had a harder time finding something to secure his end to, and had to get down on the ground to look under the back. He had one of the Glocks tucked into the back of his pants and had to take it out, setting it on the ground near his feet. 

“One sec,” he grunted, shimmying under the car on his back to get a better look at the undercarriage. He managed to get one eyehook around the tailpipe, and had found a spot for the second when he noticed something odd near the passenger side wheel well. A small red light shone dully through a buildup of dust and salt, and when he reached up to touch it, found that the light was connected to a device about the size of a fifty-cent piece. Alarmed, he gave the small gadget a tug and it came off in his hand, attached to the wheel well with a magnet. 

He pushed out from under the car in a rush, knocking his shoulder into the fender roughly as he did so.

“Rhonda!”

She turned quickly to him, an anxious look on her face. “What is it?” she said.

“Do you recognize this?” he said, and held up the device as she approached. “This was attached to the back of your car,” he said, sweat breaking out on his forehead despite the cold temperatures. 

“I-” she started, “I’ve never seen it before in my life. What is it?”

“It’s a bumper beeper,” he said, and then dropped the small device to the ground, stomping it into pieces under the heel of his boot. 

“What does that mean?” she asked, her voice taking on a higher pitch.

“It means they know we’re here,” he said, and watched as her eyes went wide. 

“How long do you think it’s been there?” 

“Hard to say,” he said. “You were right to stay away.”

Small comfort , he thought. They were coming. Might even now be on their way.

Mulder swiped up the pistol from the ground, tucking it into his jeans, and marched over to scoop his son up into his arms. He walked him over to Rhonda, passing the boy to the older woman. 

“Take him inside,” he said, all business. “Get him something to eat. I’m going to go wake Scully.”

Rhonda’s eyes were wide and frightened. 

“Here,” Mulder said, pulling out the gun. “You hunted, right? You know how to use this?”

The woman gulped and nodded, and Mulder was glad to see that her first instinct was to turn it to check that the safety was on. She then pushed it into the back of her pants, out of reach of the baby she held in her other arm. 

He reached out to put a comforting hand on her arm. 

“We’ve gotten out of worse,” he assured her, and turned on his heel, sprinting over the rise toward the cabins.

[arlerts-angel]

–you'll dance to anything . ִ ་ ˖ ʿ ִֶָ ׄ

description: you are the daughter of some of the city's most wealthy and influential people. one day, you and your family are invited to a masquerade. the envelope doesn't have a return address, so anyone could be hosting.

cw: rich!armin x rich!fem reader. mention of alcohol. otherwise SFW!

you sit at the bay window in your bedroom– one of eight in the manor your parents own. a black limousine enters through the gates; which is not usual seeing as though your parents are highly influential to the city. they are important members of the city council. you run down the stairs in a hurry, eager to know who or what awaits at the door. at the foot of the stairs, you hear the doorbell ring. your mother calls to you from a few feet away in the kitchen.

"y/n, darling, do you mind answering the door for me? your father has left for a meeting and i can't leave this food for long."

"sure thing, mum." you reply, walking slowly to the door. you peek out the window, noticing the limousine is gone. you hum and open the door anyway. at your feet is a massive bouquet of flowers and an invitation addressed to the entire household. you bring the bouquet and invitation to the kitchen. you gently open the envelope. inside is a stunning invitation to a masquerade ball.

you hand the invitation to your mother. "look mum, we've been invited to a masquerade!" your mother looks pleasantly surprised. she makes arrangements for you and herself to go dress shopping and be fitted.

the evening of the ball arrives, you're feeling excited. the idea of going to such an event where no one recognizes another is exhilarating. your dress is stunning and fits perfectly, and your mask is the perfect match. you've never felt so beautiful in your life. of course, your parents must arrive both in style and fashionably late. you arrive at the banquet hall just a few minutes past 7:00 pm in a black limousine. at the door, there are big, burly guards dressed as plague doctors and glass bowls filled with little slits of paper. one of them speaks up.

"good evening, as you know this is an invitation only event. before we let you inside, there are a couple of rules for the night. you must keep your mask on at all times, and you will draw an alias for the evening from one of these bowls. you are to only refer to yourself and answer as your alias. this adds an extra element of excitement to the evening. thank you for listening. you may now draw a name."

you approach one of the bowls and gently dig around the sea of paper. eventually, you grab one. the paper says "sapphire". you nod in approval, loving the name you get to be for the evening. the second guard at the door lets you in. your parents trickle in behind you.

"alright darling, go and enjoy yourself. these events are always so mysterious and fun!" your parents politely shoo you away into an ocean of masked people. dresses and tuxedos line the floor; people are coupled up already, dancing to the music. you surprise yourself by actually dancing with a couple of different people. you make your way to the table of hors d'oeuvres and glasses of wine. you gently take a glass and sip, when someone approaches the table next to you.

"are you having a good time this evening?" a man with blonde hair asks, a slight smirk on his face as he also grabs a glass. his voice didn't match his attire, which threw you off guard momentarily. awkwardly enough, his tuxedo is the exact match of your dress, a possibility you hadn't comsidered when buying the dress. you smile softly. "i am, this is my first time."

he swirls the wine around before taking a sip. "i see..." he nods. "well, you certainly have good taste in black tie attire." he chuckles softly, making small talk about unintentionally matching. you laugh and thank him. "may i ask for your name? my name is renegade. pleasure to meet you." he extends his hand out to shake yours. "sapphire, and the pleasure's all mine." you reply, gently shaking his hand.

"sapphire? you managed to draw a name almost as beautiful as yourself." he smirks and takes another sip of wine before placing the glass on a nearby table. "may i have this dance?" he asks, offering his arm to you. you nod and gently take his arm in your hands, walking together to the dance floor. he's surprisingly well-mannered when it comes to ballroom dancing. he leads, gently holding on to your waist and hand so as to not wrinkle your glove.

"you're quite the dance partner, renegade." you say, smiling softly. he chuckles. "thank you. you learn a thing or two after attending a few times." he spins you, pulling you back in, much closer to his body than before. you take in the scent of his cologne briefly before he dips you, looking into your eyes. you look back at him, feeling your face flush. "how does he have this effect on me? i can't even see the top half of his face." you think to yourself. "yeah, i imagine. how many times have you attended, if you don't mind me asking?" he pulls you back up from the dip, returning to the same dance you two have been doing.

"twice before this, so three times total." he chuckles. something about this renegade is intoxicating to you. you don't quite know what it is about him, but he's different than the others you've danced with this evening. you nod in response, trying to look like you're able to concentrate. "don't tell anyone, but my family actually host this event." he whispers. your eyes widen. why does everything feel so secretive? you can't help but wonder if the ball is some kind of facade for something much more scummy. after all, only the city's richest are invited to such an event. but what do you know? you usually stay out of the affairs of your family. some things are better left unknown. you nod and smile once more in response.

"so, how did you get an invite?" he asks with a curious tone. you laugh nervously. "well, my parents are part of the city council." you reply. he hums, nodding his head. he spins you once more elegantly, watching the way your dress twirls around your body. he pulls you back in, close enough that your masks touch just barely. he looks you deeply in the eyes. you meet his gaze, the intensity growing quickly between the two of you.

"you are unlike any other woman in this room and i couldn't even begin to tell you why i feel that way, sapphire." he whispers, searching your eyes and face, though mostly hidden behind your mask. his eyes dart to your lips then back to your eyes. your breath hitches in your chest as he licks his lips. one of his hands grips your waist a little tighter. the other rests gently beneath your chin, tilting your head perfectly in position to kiss you. you're entranced by his assertiveness. you part your lips gently. "do i have your permission to kiss you?" he asks, his voice low and breathier than before. all you can do is nod. your arms rest on his shoulders, your fingertips intertwine behind his neck.

he leans in, gently pressing his lips against yours. as you return the kiss, your heart begins to race and suddenly the sound of the music is drowned out by the rushing of your blood. you feel the intensity growing between the two of you, and you know he feels it too by the way he pulls away from the kiss, only to return almost instantly with more passion.

and suddenly, even though there's hundreds of people around, it feels like the two of you are the only people left in the room. and it didn't matter who was watching, because no one knows who you are. you feel him smirk against your lips before whispering.

"sapphire... i must see you again."