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semischarmed · 4 years

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Chrysalis

People say that college is where you “find yourself” and I can’t help but agree. It’s just, well, how I truly found myself was through my roommate Kyle. Or rather, inside him.

How to describe Kyle? He’s basically the perfect roommate. He’s kind, quiet, studious, relatively clean. He goes to soccer practice for some kind of campus league every weekend. Kyle is also rushing one of the frats on campus- Sig something or the other, so I get quite a few long nights to myself. Long, hot nights where I can’t help but scramble over to his side and pleasure myself in a pile of dirty Kyle-scented undergarments. The biggest treats were the nights when he had to do his frat stuff after a match. The nights when I could slip on his unwashed sweaty gear and just lie in the bliss of being surrounded in him. Every few days, we go out to grab a bite to eat and shoot the shit- the guy’s been a great friend to me, despite his typical serious demeanor. Since he was rushing this semester, he’s been busier and busier but he still makes time for me, even inviting me to some of his soccer team or frat bro hangouts. What can I say? I lucked out with Kyle. Still, I’m a greedy son of a bitch, and I wanted more of him.

I decided fairly early on that I would possess him, make him wholly mine. I can’t even quite explain why Kyle specifically. He’s cute-sure, tone-definitely, but he isn’t super buff, he isn’t red-carpet-movie star hot, so it’s really hard to place why, out of anyone I could take in this entire school, I decided he would be my target. My forever home. Something about him was just enticing. Maybe it was the way his coffee brown eyes relayed a sense of mystery and serious matters, but lit up with the faintest twinkle of amusement when he recapped his games. Or maybe the way his body only gave me the briefest of glimpses at his musculature when he switched shirts. Maybe it was his kindness, unexpectedly bright for a frat-boy-soccer-star-roomate. Or maybe the way his scent lingered in the room after a workout. God, that scent. Pleasant, warm, humid, musky- like summer rain. Doesn’t matter. I wanted him. I wanted to spend my every moment with him. In him. I wanted to be wrapped up in Kyle’s flesh till the end of time, to wake up with Kyle’s eyes, to take every breath with his lungs, feel every beat of his heart pump as mine.

This possession was going to be special. I prepped for weeks- months even. Truthfully, it’s not all that difficult to possess someone for sometime and when you’re as good at it as I am, you can even maintain it indefinitely by putting the smallest pieces of yourself in them. Kyle would be different. Full, integrative possession- a one-way ticket. I wanted this shit to be permanent. I was going to stuff my entire physical form inside his. To take someone at their core, to violate every law of nature both physical and metaphysical- this, this needed setup, needed planning, needed Kyle to be present during the entire process. Therein lies the issue- how to get a lucid Kyle to sit still long enough for me to complete the slow process of integrating to him.

I came to the conclusion that a catalyst of sorts was necessary. Something that could lock us in together physically, could stop him from leaving or stopping process, could break open after let the new and improved me emerge. Guess who drafted plans for a one such catalyst? Guess who switched majors to Material Science, who befriended a professor just to figure out a good semi-permeable material to use? No one can say I didn’t love him- at least in my own special way. After weeks of trial, weeks of iteration, I decided on a tight-fitting, sleeping-bag-esque contraption. The material and shape were special- virtually impossible for a human being to break out of, kept fluids in but let some air flow through for ventilation, shaped such that we could only fit directly stacked on top of each other, leaving him unable to escape the process. I also set the release mechanism in the back, so only a completed Kyle could escape. Like any good invention, I gave it a name befitting its purpose: Chrysalis.

I settled on a day where he would be weakest- cardio day, a day where I could easily slip some compound into his post workout mix. I finished preparations with the chrysalis, secretly hidden in his bed.

“Hey dude, sup?” He asks nonchalantly with a slight head nod, as he enters our room, visibly tired from the workout. “Nothing, man” I reciprocate in amusement. I watch in secret anticipation as he downs his special post-workout mixture, scratches his cock through his boxers- unconcerned, comfortable, and gives off a loud yawn. “Hey man, I-I-don’t....feel..” I rush to help him, corralling the grimy, tired, post-workout Kyle into place. He asleep almost immediately. I strip us both naked, marveling at my new vessel. Damn. A light pelting of hair covers the deceptively muscular soccer star. A blanket of sweat surrounds him while a bit of the spiked post workout drink pools at the corners of his plump lips. Deliciously plump lips beckoning for a taste. I aim to lick it off and give him a kiss before I immediately realize what the repercussions would be. Shit. Close call. I stroke his hair, leaning in to tell him how much I wanted this. I take a quick sniff at his pits, at his groin and god they smell fantastic. I roll him to his side, as I take my naked form beside him and pull the Chrysalis around ourselves. I roll to have my back face the bed and the bottom of my cocoon, pulling Kyle on top of me and engaging the the contraption to wrap around us. I find the button to tighten it, effectively locking the position of our stacked bodies in place. I find the final button to lock the Chrysalis into its release valve. No going back.

When I seal us together in my little love cocoon, I begin to feel the gravity of his form above mine, slick with perspiration. My future body was dense, probably from years of building muscle, perfectly tempered, toned, streamlined by every game, every win. Inside our encasement, I rocked back and forth, getting into as comfortable of a position as I could and rubbing our sweaty bods together. I lock my legs around his, intertwine our fingers together and wait patiently for Kyle to come to.

The scent was indescribable, orgasmic even. I’ve never felt closer to him. I am in tune with his slightest movements as he lay on top. With every breath, every inhale our bodies rise and fall in sync. With every steamy inhale I draw in his breath. like we were breathing in each other. No one else deserved to experience Kyle this way, not even his girlfriend Steph. Kyle was mine and mine alone. With mine still intertwined with his, I drag Kyle’s limp hands around his belly, his light abs, give him a feel for himself.

An intrusive wave of uncertainty hits me. Oh god what am I doing? Am I really doing this? This, this is unnatural. I release my hands from his grasp and reach them around him, lightly dancing them across my future body and feeling the new vessel so close, feeling his damp, gently sculpted abs for myself, squeezing his supple ass. Stupid natural order shit. I tug on his hefty, limp dick, which begins to harden involuntarily at my provacation. This is mine. Fuck the natural order, not giving you up baby.

He wakes, disoriented in the Chrysalis. “Uh...I...What the fuck...” Panic sets in, as he feels my immobile flesh behind him and he tries to get his bearings to no avail. He keeps moving back and forth, trying to dislodge himself from the Chrysalis, from me, but it’s far too tight and too strong. I made sure of that. “Oh god, oh god...” he trails as he tries to rationalize the past events. I decide at that point to reveal my identity, faking the sounds of myself waking up before sleepily asking him “Kyle? Uh... w-what are you doing here? What are we doing? W-Where is this? Did you do this? Kyle? Kyle!” I’m a shitty actor but he seems to have bought it. I relish the moment when he sighs in relief at the realization that the naked form on his back was mine. I guess he trusts me. Cute, but you shouldn’t trust me, Kyle.

“Oh thank god, dude I don’t know, I just woke up. I- uh- sorry, I’m gonna try to get us out of this thing,” He states as he wiggles to try to release us from my cocoon. And fuck did that feel good.

“Mmmmm Kyle” I trail, as my dick starts to harden and poke at his ass. The wiggling does not helping him, as every movement gets me harder and pushes my dick further in him.

“Oh! EW! Fuck! What the fuck man!” He shouts, before he realizes all this was turning me on. “Fuck dude stop!” he exclaims.

“Why would I stop this, baby, we’re just getting started.” I give his back shoulder a quick lick. “I’m gonna make you feel like a new man”.

“Y-You! YOU! You did this! the Fuck! Get me out of here!!” He spat, only for it to rain back on to us through gravity.

He squirms, trying to escape once more only to be met with the Chrysalis’ tight hold on our forms and my engorged cock. “Only one person can come out of this thing” I moan, as I start gyrating myself into him. “Get the fuck off me, Fag!” He screams in vain as parts of me already start connecting into him. The parts of his body connected to mine light up, like sparks dancing across mine. Euphoria. “There’s that soccer rage” I state seductively as I wrap my arms around his torso and abs and push us impossibly closer. “Suits you... suits...me”.

By this point, My body was halfway submerged into his and he finally starts to feel my nerves, my cells as his. With our shared senses, he feels my arms pushing us together as if his own self was doing the deed. “AHHHH OH MY GOD. Oh! nonononono” He exclaims in terror. He is reduced to incoherent babbling as he smells the suffocating concoction of his post-workout filth. The air is thick and brimming with pheromones. He is reduced to disgust, when he tastes the droplets in the air of our putrid selves locked inside my Chrysalis. Of course, in our connected state, I taste them too, only I love this taste. His taste. Our taste. I can only moan as I continue merging into him and my limbs and his are one. I feel my new biceps as I trace them around the new me. Tone. Nimble. Champion. And I feel my new, experience-tempered legs. Vascular. Virile. Powerful. I’m a goddamn athlete.

Animalistic, guttural sounds escape his mouth as the last of my torso and neck coalesce into his, and all that remains is my head, firmly planted to the back of his. I take a deep whiff of his now-drenched hair with our new, shared, workhorse lungs. “We’re so close, baby.”

Inserting myself into his mind was equally orgasmic. He screams at contact. The first plunge of my forehead tp the back of his was some useless frat shit. Whatever. I dig my head deeper into him and felt his years of soccer practice leak into me. More goodstuff. Then deeper still- and fond memories with friends, fond memories of school bleed into me. I plunge further and further in, taking in every piece of him I could, while he pants and winces at my insertion. His first kiss, grandfather’s funeral, deepest urges all MINE. Fuck. I pull back slightly, as I feel his him gently sob, before I push more myself deeper into his psyche. He screams at the injection of more of my memories and at the realization that this was a one way trip for both of us. “FUCK! FUCK! Stop Please! Too much! Too much!” I mentally sneer as I thrust even deeper into his mind, grabbing some more of him, and leaving more of myself. Childhood memories and feelings flood into my mind and I experience everything that has led to Kyle becoming Kyle. The feeling of winning my first game. The feeling I felt the first time I masturbated. More. Kyle’s deep love for Steph.

Damn, this guy was ready to pop the question and start a family with her-Not Anymore baby. You’re with me now, Kyle. I corrode this particular aspect of him with my own innermost desires. My perversions, the pure lust I felt in finally taking him. He laughs, moans at the lust he now had, before catching himself.

“Oh god what... doing... me!” he whimpers as his body convulses and drools. Our shared pupils dilate at the process as his body thrashes in futility. And yet, I press into him deeper still. Deeper and deeper inside until all but the very last of my old self is left. His deepest secrets, his dreams, self worth belong to me. He cries, mouth mumbling incoherently into a crescendo as I worm in that last bit my head into his and my own life become his. My old body’s childhood memories, My old thoughts, feelings, knowledge, secrets flood his. I give all of it to my new self, ingraining me in him, and cementing us together.

“AHHHH DAMN IT! Fuck Fuck! get-get the fuck out!” he screams as his hands start pulling on his hair, as his head shakes left and right trying to get the intrusion of my mind out of his. He recoils as I briefly take control. “No way dude, this [moan] oh god this is fucking great.” We continue panting, continue convulsing as his body is forced to accept me. “M-My name is Kyle, and I feel fucking good!” He shakes a bit more. “STOP-“ I cut in to force him to tell me “God I fucking love you inside me. Take me! Use me!” He begins gently sobbing, but I make him do it with a smile. “My name is Kyle and I’m a sick fuck who’s gonna cum inside and possess his closest friends”. I make us moan.

Eventually, the seizing stops, and Kyle finds a moment of clarity. With my memories in him, He finds the release built into the Chrysalis and we emerge out of our slick cocoon as one. Sweat and cum trickle out as we come out a new man. A changed man. He walks to mirror in horror, checking himself to look for any wounds in his form. Instead he finds pulsing of my flesh-or what used to be my flesh-at various parts of his body beneath his skin. Abberant. Inhuman.

“Oh god oh god oh god this-this-this, this can’t be happening”. My new heart quickens as Kyle continues to panic. He tries to slap himself awake, but with each slap my control tightens and I make him moan in approval. He feels impossibly full with something-someone pulsing deep inside his skin, integrating. A natural violation of the highest order. He whimpers as he takes nervous, shaking hands all around him, feeling the intrusiveness of the eroticism I feel in being in him. The pulsing in him stops. “Keep going, baby [moan] fill me up. Make me you,” I force him to tell me with a tone that oozed sex. A tone that was alien to his voice. “My name is Kyle and I love dick. I love dick because the man inside me, the man controlling my every action loves dick. And he’s never leaving me. I love that too, because he’s inside me, making me love that.”

“Kyle I’m giving you one last morsel choice before I take it all the way- I decide everything for us from now on” I state to my reflection in the mirror, giving it a slobbery kiss. “We got a cute ass...I’m sure we can snag a few more bodies to play with... I wanna get a little party going. You know, our teammates are pretty cute, aren’t they? Maybe we can stick some me inside them”. I make him lick his lips. “Your frat bros are pretty cute too [moan] you wanna be frat president? I can arrange that, once I make you put me inside them...I’m getting ahead of myself... Let’s start with one. Pick someone...someone we can take, can use, can fuck” I force his face into an out of place, lustful, deranged smile before returning control to him. “Stay the fuck away from my bros! I..... uh...sorry. S-Sorry for shouting. Just please-please! Get out!” he whimpers in desperation, before descending into more hysteric sobbing. Hysteric sobbing which becomes cute, unsettling giggling, which becomes a roaring laughter as I wrestle back control of my new meat-suit. I wipe his tears off my new face, giving it a quick taste before taking a tour of the new me. “You and I both know there is no going back. The old me? Doesn’t exist. I am You, now. This is your body doing these actions, your brain thinking these thoughts”.

A tremor begins from our extremities, limbs become numb as our shared nerves light up in stimulation. More internal sparks fly through us. This was it. Like an earthquake in my new body, a wave of new feelings wash over me, rocking me to my core. The world around us shook, as the final pieces of my physical self interlocks with his and two become one.

I reach down to pleasure myself, before deciding instead to first push Kyle’s consciousness to the front so he can watch. This would be my first time in this body. Lets make it special. I do a quick reverse crunch, holding the position. Fucking easy in this body. And then pull the crunch close till the body starts to struggle “Arrgh Fuck! Stop!” he screams. I pull even further and he cries from the uncomfortable position I put us in. “This is mine now” I state with his voice, “I decide how far..[pant]..how far we go” And decide I do, as I pull us even further back, prompting another pained “FUCK” from Kyle. I line my growing hard on-our growing hard-on, up to our shared mouth. “Look.. look at what you can do” I moan as him, before letting his consciousness back in front, leaving only control of his face. He is in hysterics as I keep him locked in his position and continue breaking this new bod.

“Look at what we’re capable of when I’m driving” I state in our shared mind. His head thrashes back and forth before I freeze it in place. I take brief control of just his plump lips and mouth, and position his thick dick inside. Fuck we taste good. Salty, with the smallest hint of bitterness. I continue, pumping head faster and faster, forcing my occupant to feel every motion. We make little noise beyond the soft smacking sounds as we continue. The feeling was fucking euphoria. Im sure he feels it too, since he’s been uncharacteristically quiet. I’ve seen him do his warmup stretches before. I knew what he was capable of- with just a little push from me. When he shoots, when I let him shoot, I keep our shared mouth firmly wrapped around our engorged dick, guzzling our creation greedily. This mouth cannot contain it all and a bit spill below. Even more dribbles out of as I slowly release our position. Wet cum spills and pools on our shared chest and abs. I smear it around like a lotion.

I jump and stretch myself into straight standing abruptly, forcing a slight jolt of pain from previously contorting this new body in a way it never had to before. His blood rushes through me, through us, and I let out a sigh of relief and contentment in the afterglow of my possession. I lick my new self clean, exploring all of Kyle’s crevices, before I coat our mouth in my new seed for a taste and swallow the excess in one gulp. We taste Delicious. Kyle, you sexy, tasty fuck, I knew there was something different about you. That last stunt seemed to have satisfied him as he recedes into me. I am in a dreamy smile as I tap my head gently with my finger. “All me now”.

The alarm on Kyle’s phone-my phone rings suddenly. Oh Shit. Kyle-er I had a game in a few minutes. I head over to the field with a breeze behind me, to the sight of slight discomfort and subtle gagging from my teammates. Fuck that. Smell more of me motherfuckers. They smile with strained faces as we do some small warmups for the game. His teammates really were cute- I briefly consider possessing them right there in broad daylight. Fuck it, what can anyone fucking do? I’m Kyle. And when Kyle wants something, Kyle gets it. Still, I only came for a test drive, so I decide to postpone their fates.

The match was tense. My teammates were alright, sure. But Kyle? Me? I played his body like an expert- no movement wasted, every single action carefully considered and executed. It was my brain in here after all. Onlookers stared in awe as, almost inhumanly, I block everything that goes my way. Despite my brain’s expert calculation, his body also deserved to praise. His muscled legs gliding my form through the grass, effortlessly, the twisting his body at just the right spot for the most efficient block. This body following my every command, like I’ve owned it for years. The old me was not one for sports, but this? Working his musculature into these complex maneuvers? Straining his form to just the right amount to maximize performance? Bliss. I can see why some people like this shit. The more I move through him, the closer I felt. Despite my heavy panting at the end, I can’t help but feel energized. Being in him is invigorating. I could keep going at this for days and days- this was truly an athlete’s body.

I do a little dance as, in the end, we squeeze a 1-0 victory. All thanks to me, of course. My teammates brace themselves slightly-likely from the deep, concentrated musk and gallons of sweat I was emanating- before they surround me in a group huddle. New and improved Kyle is kinky little shit though, so I grab and pull their sweaty bodies uncomfortably close, and then squeeze them to me even closer so they can leave with the scent of my sweat on them. They recoil at my actions, at my words, as the normally stoic Kyle gently coos “Great job, team”. They laugh nervously and try to pull away, but I keep them in the embrace just an awkward second too long, sniffing each of them and remarking them. One day, you’ll all be mine.

After the game, I return to our room and look at my sweaty, dirty self in the mirror. I take a whiff of the freshly filthy soccer game and soccer team smells we impregnate our room with. I take a quick sniff of our shared armpits, deciding to forgo showering this bod. Exquisitely noxious. Not getting rid of this.

I called his girlfriend Steph to break up abruptly over phone, citing my “newfound” sudden onset homosexuality. She was upset, understandably, but supportive. Really, I had no issues with the girl, and in another life, we’d be best friends fawning over the same straight dude. But this was Kyle, new-Kyle, new-gay-Kyle-who-only-loves-possessed-dick. My Kyle. He was mine, and mine alone.

Having finished my short list of post-takeover errands, my new self was on the prowl for some new recruits, new bodies to take, to possess, to pleasure me. Since he never really gave me an answer to my question earlier, I search through the remnants of the Old Kyle in my mind, force them to give me the name of someone to to take. I smiled. In the echoes of my mind, one face, one name reverberated in my head.

Red.

I start giggling in a cute tone, out of place coming out of jock Kyle before I break out into a full cackle. “Kyle, you sick, sick, fuck...Red? Big Bro Red? After all he’s done to try to bond with you? Sick, incestuous son of a bitch.” I let out a soft moan as I drag my new vascular hands all over myself, stopping at my new nipples to give them a slight tickle, and my eyes flutter. I give them a hard twist, whining in elation when his body delivers the sensations to me. The smells we’ve been emitting has been pungent, concentrated, putrid from that sweaty group hug earlier. “Traitorous, depraved fucks like me don’t deserve a shower” I make him say in dirty whispers.

Red was Kyle’s big bro at the frat, and someone I had only met once previously. Once was enough to leave an impression. Unlike cute, naturally introspective, reserved athlete Kyle, Big Bro Red was extroverted, artsy, and fucking hot. Apparently, he’s been trying to connect to Kyle ever since the two were paired. Well, Kyle’s under new management, and I planned to use every bit of their tenuous relationship to get Big Bro Red under that same management. This was going to be fun.

I am stopped abruptly as my phone vibrates. “Hey, wanna grab a bite to eat?” I close my eyes in sweet satisfaction, lick my lips seductively and shift my mouth into a filthy smile when I catch the name of who it’s from:

Red.

—————End—————

Took a bit of inspiration from some past stories I’ve read in writing this one. The story implies a continuation but I’m still a bit on the fence. Hope you liked it/ Happy New Year’s!

#male possession #male body control

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charlieknighte · 3 years

Text

burned, about to burn, still on fire

Phoenix Wright/Miles Edgeworth

Epistolary Fic - Post AA1 - Character Study - Dream Sequence - Pre-Relationship Unnecessary Feelings™

9,965 words

content warnings: discussion of attempted suicide/suicidal thoughts, grieving

In a hastily rented cottage on the coast of France, Miles Edgeworth drafts letters from beyond the grave, trying to articulate the muddled thoughts that led to a rashly written note and a sudden disappearing act. On the other side of the sea, Phoenix Wright lapses into his old habit of writing letters to a childhood friend who isn’t listening, trying to piece together theories with minimal evidence, as is his specialty. Neither aware of each other’s struggle to understand the events that forced them apart—both entirely out of reach.

(This is a playthrough of a hack of a hack of dancynrew’s letter writing TTRPG, Beyond Reach. Play proceeds through letters written by each player, interrupted by a collaborative dream sequence halfway through the playthrough. Each player is unable to read the others’s letters until the end of the game. Edgeworth was played by Stars (starsshine77), and Phoenix was played by Charlie (fixationstn).)

DESCRIBE YOURSELVES ONLY BY THE DETAILS A LOVED ONE WOULD RECOGNIZE YOU BY.

You never really get past the badly tailored off-the-rack suit or the hastily slicked-back hair—you never did stop making snide comments, that’s for sure—but once you grow accustomed enough to start seeing past them, the first thing you can identify me by is the purpose I put into every movement, as if there’s some internal engine or sun-like force bringing fire to every step. After that come the details: cheek dimples that eagerly appear at any twist of my lips, the determined scrunch of my eyebrows, the way my badge is the only polished thing about me. From the moment I enter your life to the last moments we have together, there is the unwavering, ever-present impression that no matter how heavy of a burden I'm carrying, I will always be willing to help shoulder yours, for better or for worse.

~~~

I am a collection of angles and edges - sharp and cold things put together to form the facsimile of perfection. Every stitch of impeccable tailoring, every overly styled hair, the hardness of every leveling glare - this is my armor; you’re meant to roll off of it like water. An unforgiving landscape, an unclimbable slope, but that never stopped you, now did it? What did you see in these eyes, my father’s eyes? A moment of weakness - the point at which I faltered - or was it something more? Did you see that gnawing hunger underneath my skin for something I’ve never tasted, something more? Did you see the white-knuckle grip I had on an ugly lie, or when I had to let it go for an even uglier truth? All I see is a man on the run. Towards something, or away from something else - tell me if you find out which.

DESCRIBE WHAT HAPPENED THE LAST TIME YOU SAW EACH OTHER.

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the last time we saw each other, I was a wreck. I was cold, I was crumbling, I was hurt.

(He lied to me, they both did, everyone is lying to me, how can I possibly be trusted to know the truth?)

I didn’t hide it well; although, perhaps, you could see the wound but not the true depth of it. Perhaps I covered my tracks better than I thought. Or perhaps you looked across the courtroom and saw me crashing, burning, again, and decided that’s all I would ever be capable of. No, that’s not fair to you - No, you would have tried to pull me out of the wreckage, recklessly determined to the last. And I - couldn’t let that happen. I just couldn’t.

I wanted more than to be pulled out of the car crash of myself.

I can’t hope that you’ll understand, but when all is quiet I pray you can forgive me.

~~~

Hi, Miles.

Do you remember those letters I wrote you? You never did tell me if you read them. I don’t know if I even expected you to. I think at some point they stopped being about trying to get in touch with you and became more of… a place to tuck away my loneliness and grief so no one would have to see it. Nobody really got why I was so torn up after you left, and I didn’t want to share that feeling with them if they wouldn’t understand it. Thinking back on it, I don’t think I was really old enough to understand it either.

So, here I am again. Older and still not understanding.

It’s been a couple of weeks since Gumshoe let me into your office to look around. Officially, I was allowed in as a consultant to see if my familiarity with you would help me turn up anything the police had missed (it didn’t, of course, you wouldn’t make it that easy for me.) Maybe Gumshoe honestly was looking to me for answers, but really, I think he just wanted to give me a chance to be in a room that belonged to you one last time. As if one room would be enough to capture the entire string of tragedies that brought you to do this—if it was up to me, every place you’d ever stood in or walked through would be taped up. I already feel like all I’ll ever see in them is a crime scene.

I haven’t been able to go back to my own office either, not since seeing yours like that. There’s something nearly grotesque in the similarity between them, in the way I left things half-finished like I died along with you, left a spirit stuck walking the places where I once lived. Looking at dirty coffee cups left from a friend’s visit, happy clients’ past cases tucked away on the shelves, a pinned-up paper with the number for a dinky phone booth scribbled in pink gel pen. It makes me feel stuck between worlds, half-remembering how good life used to be but unable to pierce the veil to get back to it. Maybe a call to a spirit medium wouldn’t be such a bad idea, if I could find it in myself to go back for her number one day.

(I did take Charley home, though. I’m not a monster.)

You must have made some arrangement for all the things you left behind, maybe a will. I shouldn’t be so angry that I wasn’t a part of it. I know we’re not family per se, but I thought I meant something to you. I can’t help but be hurt that after everything, after how much you meant to me—after everything I did to claw my way back to you, after all we’ve gone through together—that a single document strikes it from the record, makes it all add up to nothing. Maybe it’s fitting, in some horrible way, that the last way you could hurt me was through the letter of the law.

I just wish I could’ve known if you kept my letters.

Your friend,

Phoenix

Phoenix Wright has stopped taking clients. If one were frustrated enough by his closed door and dogged enough to peek through the window of his law office, they would find its contents abandoned mid-use, left strewn about as if he had stepped out only for a moment—but he hasn’t been back in weeks.

~~~

[Unsent] (no subject)

Message body:

Wright-

There are a million and one apologies and explanations I owe you, I know- things I could say and should be saying- but as I draft this letter I find myself bereft, almost, of the very words.

Which is quite a long-winded way of saying that I don’t know what to say.

Things have been- difficult, to put it mildly. Sometimes the simplest tasks seem far beyond my capability; sometimes I look back at things I know I’ve done, countless times, in the past, and can’t fathom how I managed them. Whoever it was who did those things was a stranger, and yet, whoever I am now is a stranger, too.

I’m sure, by now, you’ve inferred what I meant to do. What my intentions were in leaving. I was- straight-forward, to the point, in my note. I wanted there to be no doubt. I didn’t want to leave a mess of half-formed thoughts or apologies. In fact, and I hope this doesn‘t upset you to hear, but it is the truth- I had no intention of leaving a body. I wanted no investigation, no loose ends- no funeral and no gravestone. I wanted a clean break. At the time it seemed like the kindest option for everyone, myself included. I wanted to step gently out of this plane and leave no trace behind, no evidence to substantiate that the twisted creature I had become had ever existed. The end, and the means to that end, were so clear to me.

Now, nothing seems clear to me at all.

Obviously, my plans have- changed, somewhat. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say I have no plans. I’ve left, albeit not in the way I intended, so don’t rush out to look for me when you receive this- I’m overseas and I have no intentions of returning. Not as I am now. Not as someone who can barely summon the energy or motivation to get out of bed, to bathe myself, to- well, I’ll spare you the messy details.

I will admit I feel- better, here. I’ve found a place to stay for the interim (the interim of what, for what length of time, I can’t say, nor can I tell you even what country I’m in - I fear you’ll do something rash, as you’re prone to). It’s quite the change from my apartment in Los Angeles, which I think is a good thing- towards my final days there it felt like the walls were closing in on me, as if a stranger lived there, as if for all the time I had spent there I had left no lasting impression on it at all. Just a passing ghost in the world of the living. I realized I had felt that way for quite awhile. I’m not sure for how long.

I don’t feel that way here, not quite. As it is a rental, the sense of impermanence lingers, but it doesn’t bother me as much. It’s comforting, in a way, to know that should the air start feeling as stale here as it did back home, I could pick up and go elsewhere and leave nothing at all behind. I fear I can’t say the same for Los Angeles. But the air isn’t as stale here- I feel safe telling you that I can see the sea from my window, that I can hear the powerful rush of it as I lay in bed at night, feigning sleep that sometimes comes and sometimes doesn’t. Aside from the sea it is quiet, here. Lonely, one might say, but being alone here is less isolating, less personal. On days that I can feel, it’s comforting. Peaceful.

I didn’t start this letter with the intention of telling you this. I didn’t want to speak about myself. The uncharitable side of me (you’ll joke that you didn’t know I had a charitable side, I’m sure) argues that you know far too much about me as it is. If that’s true, you probably know more about me than I do, currently. And yet I know so very little about you, as you are now. Memories of you as a child, I can summon when the mood strikes me, but now- the only memories I have of you are in court, and I can hardly bear to think of the place at the moment. Still, I can’t help but picture you- shining despite that horrid suit, brave and true, striking to the heart of everything and prying out the truth. You certainly pried it out of me. I will never be able to thank you enough, for that. I wasn’t strong enough to be saved, that much is true, but it isn’t your fault that without the buttress of my false convictions I collapsed into rubble. That’s no one’s fault but mine.

I’m not making any sense. I’ll delete some of this before I send it. You shouldn’t have to bear knowing yet more ugly truths about me. It’s unfair to you.

To the point of this correspondence, I heard- and it doesn’t matter how- that you’ve stopped taking clients, and that concerns me, Wright. I’m not arrogant enough to assume that it’s because of my- absence, although I fear that might be the case. You weren’t meant to take this personally. No, I shouldn’t say that. I’ll strike that out before I send this. Wright- Phoenix, part of the reason I felt confident enough to leave is knowing that you’d still be there, shining a light into the darkness, digging up the misdeeds of our court system. Saving the innocent. You were born to do it, I see that now. I can only hope you’ll meet prosecutors who are true and noble, who will aid you in your mission rather than attempt to bring you to your knees, to humiliate you and cut you down, in a meaningless play for worthless pride and glory.

I’m sorry, Wright. I’m just sorry.

I’m

you’re , this is, I;m really sorry, I couldnt do it anymore I dont know what to do it at all and you just deserve

[Draft auto-saved at 04:38am]

The High Prosecutor’s office is completely untouched. If one - motivated by whatever internal force, be it grief, or reverence, or morbid curiosity - took the time to slip up the stairs in the Prosecutor’s Building, if one knew a detective who had the key, they would find everything exactly the way Miles Edgeworth left it, down to the unfinished tea slowly staining the inside of cup on the desk, the surface collecting dust and putting off an odor. Everything untouched - except for the note that was once placed in the center of the desk, now bagged and locked away in an evidence locker to be slowly forgotten. And yet the relic of his existence remains.

~~~

Hi again, Miles.

So. I did call Maya after all. I put it off for a long time, because I didn’t want to bother her with my sadsack shit when she’s finally in what I think is a good place, but—I started to get this horrible feeling about how two people in my life had left behind notes and vanished, and I knew it was unreasonable but I couldn’t shake it, and—anyway.

If I started to describe how happy we were to hear from each other, I’d fill the whole page and have no room left to write to you. She sounds good. Happy, even. I don’t know how much of that was her putting on a brave face for me, but at least she’s home and being taken care of, and no one’s trying to kill her or accuse her of murder That’s all we can really ask for, right?

We talked a lot about Mia. About how horrible and abrupt and final her death was, and how many things it changed, and how death stings even for someone who deals so much with the afterlife. Even knowing you might still be able speak with those who have passed on, a moment of connection isn’t enough to replace the richness of an entire existence. It still hurts to see the ones you love die.

I started asking Maya about her mom without meaning to. She’s been gone for more than fifteen years now, and at twenty she’ll be declared lost for good. Her aunt has banned anyone from trying to channel her until then (god, what a witch.) Maya’s good mood finally faltered when she told me that she doesn’t know what to believe about her disappearance. That it would almost be easier to deal with the knowledge of her death than the thought of her up and running away, leaving her children behind to an uncertain future. I… couldn’t help agreeing.

I desperately, desperately wish that Maya didn’t need to be so wise on this particular subject, but it was comforting to hear that even for someone who can touch death directly, there is no magic cure-all to grief. There’s no perfect moment of catharsis or straightforward path to processing loss. Sometimes there’s no way to even process it at all. It just happens, and we have to learn to live with it.

It still doesn’t feel like you’re gone, Miles. I thought that at some point it would. Instead I feel like the horrible truth of what happened is hanging right in front of me, and I’m craning my head over it to see where you went and when you’ll come back. We already spent so much time apart from each other, and through all that time I never stopped thinking of you with fondness and love. I don’t think I’ll be able to stop now, either, no matter how shaken up and upset I might be. To fully comprehend the idea of having lost you—if I’ll ever be able to—it might take me twenty years, too

I guess I wasn’t holding it together as well as I thought I was, because Maya started asking if I was alright, if I needed to talk about Mia again. Oh my god, Miles… I couldn’t tell her. Maya has lost so many people. She’s eighteen, and she already has so much grief to deal with that she’ll never be finished sorting through it all in her lifetime. I physically couldn’t bring myself to give her one more person to mourn for.

I can sit here beating the shit out of myself for it all I want, but that doesn’t change what I did in the moment. I lied to her. I lied that talking about Mia had brought up some old shit, but that everything was fine. That I would be okay. And then we said goodbye and I hung up. Just like that.

It was—a really nice call. I’m glad I talked to her.

(Man, I’m the biggest piece of shit alive.)

Your friend,

Phoenix

Phoenix only leaves the house on a handful of occasions during the month that passes. On one occasion, he takes advantage of Detective Gumshoe’s offer to help him with anything he needs and asks to be driven out to the only phonebooth in town that makes long-distance calls. He is quiet and unfocused on the drive out, but for a few moments during the lengthy call that he takes, his laugh is loud enough to be softly heard outside of the booth. Once he’s back in the car, though, his smile disappears. He stares through the windshield like he’s seeking something, eyebrows scrunched together and mouth set grimly. He remembers to thank Gumshoe for the ride before he shuts himself back in his apartment, but just barely.

~~~

[Unsent] (no subject)

Message body:

Wright-

This isn’t how things were supposed to go.

Do you understand that? It’s laughably obvious and yet I fear that you aren’t wrapping your mind around it. Let me spell it out for you- I’ll use small words that even you can’t misunderstand- You. Ruined. Everything.

Doesn’t that sound horrible? Hideously ungrateful? Cruel and selfish? Good. Those are all the qualities I have left to my name. I may as well hold onto them.

I thought, before, that you had ‘changed’ everything, or rather you had brought to light all the ugly truth that was already there. Truth and justice! Everything we’re supposed to stand for! Isn’t it swell, even if it comes at the cost of everything about me? My entire life, as paltry and empty and pathetic as it was? Sure I was - I am - cruel and dishonest and ruthless, a dirty cheat and a liar, a soulless prideful monster- but I could have lived like that. I could have. I could have lived with that, Phoenix Wright, and maybe that will disgust you to hear but you love the fucking truth so much, you may as well hear it. I could have lived with what I was, vicious and hollow as I was- but that just wouldn’t do for you, would it? Doesn’t quite fit nicely into your burgeoning hero complex, does it?

No, you had to come along and- muck everything up. Expose me. Confuse me. Hand me my life back. And for what? What life? The last bit of family I had will never speak to me again, not after you put von Karma behind bars. I have no friends, regardless of what Detective Gumshoe believes, hapless fucking fool that he is. No pets - not even a houseplant. No hobbies, no interests. And now I don’t even have my reputation, my career, my dignity. You’ve taken it all from me. Ripped back all the layers trying to find whatever imaginary person you thought was hiding underneath. How does it feel, to know that underneath all that, there’s absolutely fucking no one? Nothing to save. Congratulations on your victory, Mr. Wright. You’ve beaten me, completely and soundly.

And in the midst of all that, you have the audacity to behave like you’re mourning me? After I gave you the courtesy of being rid of me completely? I’m no longer your concern, Wright. I’m not your - your fucking project, your little bird with a broken wing you can nurse back to health. I’m gone. I’m dead. I’ve cut myself neatly out of the story of your life- the least you could do for me, now, is let me go quietly.

Why can’t I just go quietly? Goddamnit, Wright, what am I still holding on for?

I guess, when it comes down to it, I’m a coward. I’m just too afraid of learning what comes next. Where does a soul like mine pass into, after all this?

Not to the same place as my father’s. That I know for sure.

This is what you worked so hard to save, Phoenix. I hope you come to understand that- that I was beyond saving from the moment you laid eyes on me again. I’ve been dead for fifteen years. It’s funny, almost- all this talk of spirit mediums and you never knew that you yourself were conversing with a ghost.

I’m angry with you, Wright. I am. I was. I was when I started writing this and now I’m just tired. I’m just fucking tired.

[Draft auto-saved at 05:14pm]

[Are you sure you want to delete this draft?]

[Yes] [No]

There’s a basket of lilies rotting on the doorstep of a penthouse apartment in Los Angeles. Whatever card, whatever impersonal, perfunctory message that accompanied them upon delivery, is long gone. It’s a miracle that the landlord hasn’t thrown them out yet, or maybe he’s just afraid to draw the ire of an unfriendly ghost. Little does he know that Miles Edgeworth’s spirit isn’t here - it’s haunting the whole damn city. The apartment door is locked, the rent paid out for the next sixteen months. There might be a spare key, and there might not be - in any case, Detective Gumshoe, despite his offers of help and support, has grown suddenly and inexplicably distant. The door stays shut. The flowers remain.

~~~

INTERMISSION

~~~

Phoenix Wright stands in the High Prosecutor’s Office, or maybe his own office—the crime scene was always more of a workplace than the agency, anyway. He hasn’t been in this room enough times to recall a faithful recreation, although the features that he was jarred by are rendered in sharp detail: the full teacup resting on the desk as if still waiting for its owner to come back, the uncharacteristic lineup of plastic toys on the windowsill, the wilted floral arrangement letting off the sweet stench of death throughout the office. The rest of the room is a blurry pastiche of Edgeworth-isms and Wright-esque clutter, elegant desk decor lost among mountains of loose paperwork and discarded wrappers.

Phoenix doesn’t remember which defendant hired him, and it doesn’t really matter. How many cases has he fumbled through successfully without even the barest of identifying information? He paces the room, scratching at his stubble wearily, trying to surmise the best point to start his investigation.

The body—the only problem is that he can’t figure out where to place the body.

Yellow caution tape stretches from corner to corner of his open office door, tangled and tied in peculiar shapes and patterns. When Miles Edgeworth reaches to press forward, heedless of the visual warning, the tape clings to his outstretched arm like cobwebs, sticky and cloying. The air, too, clings, milky darkness at his back and the corners of his vision, and on his fingers, white powder that flakes into the tangible darkness and onto his clothes like bits of dry snow.

Not snow - chalk, in two large pieces in both of his hands, the oversized, chunky kind intended for children and sidewalks and hopscotch. He curls his fingers right around them, nails leaving crescent moon indents in their surfaces, as he presses through the curtain of tape and into his office.

Phoenix instantly knows that Miles shouldn’t be here, and yet he can’t bring himself to be startled or begin barraging him with questions. It wouldn’t change anything, anyway. He raises a hand in greeting, smiling tiredly. In fact, he had a funny feeling that he’d be seeing him somewhere like this. “Are you on the case too?” He shifts to stand on the side of the room, hands on his hips, giving Miles space to step into the crime scene. They’ve never collaborated like this before, but somehow it feels appropriate today. Miles should know this crime from the inside out, after all.

He rolls the question over in his mind as he stands next to Wright; it’s odd and ill-fitting, yet familiar, like a sweater put away for the summer and brought back out now that the weather has turned. Seeing Wright feels that way too, turns his stomach over and lodges it somewhere near the bottom of his rib cage. Are you on the case too?

“Naturally,” is his eventual answer, and for all that he struggled to grasp it it sounds natural coming out, with just the right amount of loftiness to keep Wright from turning his body in towards Miles’. A quelling of the familiarity before it begins. “And you should be grateful I am - you look lost, Wright.”

Phoenix scratches the back of his head. “Yeah, well…” He grins reflexively, half sheepish, half out of genuine glee at getting to feel Miles’s ribbing again. Oh, he’s missed that, no matter how much Miles intends it to push him away. “I got thrown into the deep end. I can’t make heads or tails of it all. You know, I didn’t even get to see the note before it went to the police, and that’s the... the most vital...” His smile gets stuck in a grimace for a moment, like a stuttering television freezing on a single frame. He lets it go, back to being sober and grim.

He clasps his hands behind his back to stop them from continuing to fidget and looks at Miles, studying his face far more carefully than he ever studied the crime scene. “Where do you think we should start?”

He tilts his chin down to let a curtain of gray draw itself over his visage before he looks at Wright sidelong, a careful degree of separation placed between himself and honeyed brown eyes that are cutting him like knives where he stands; megawatt smiles full of white incisors that are gnawing at him inside, gnawing gnawing gnawing.

“Forget the note,” Miles says dismissively. “You’re coming at this all wrong.” As usual, doesn’t leave his lips but he swears Wright hears it all the same, as if the brief pause in his sentence is just as cruel as the words he didn’t speak into that silence. “The note is…forget the note, for a moment. What you should be thinking about is the body.”

It’s a weight off Phoenix’s shoulders to be able to see Miles again, but their reunion doesn’t seem to be mutually beneficial. Edgeworth is as moody and withdrawn and impassable as he was at his lowest points, and though Phoenix has never been one to shy away from throwing himself against a brick wall, he doubts that it would get him what he wanted right now. He lets himself have one quiet moment of disappointment, and then he tears his eyes away from Miles and put his attention back to the office. He has to take a step back, to look at what this collaboration is really about—function, not feeling.

“Right.” Phoenix sighs, rubbing a knuckle against his eye. He’s tired. It’s late, isn’t it? He takes a moment to notice the pale blue beams of moonlight breaking the office’s velvety darkness. Had they been there before? He doesn’t remember. “The body.” Phoenix spreads his hands around the office sardonically. “Well, I’m not sure if you noticed, but it’s not here.” He drops his arms in emphasis. “No one seems to have a clue where it is.”

Something about that, it… hmm.

Wright is...well, right. His office - is this really his office, this dull and lifeless room, drained of color, shadowed at the edges? - is noticeably lacking a body. Moved, then, but when, and by whom? Miles paws at the recesses of his memory, fumbling for a police report, an interview, a check in from Detective Gumshoe, and comes up empty.

Lord, he can’t even bring to mind the name of the victim. Wright really is a bad influence, isn’t he?

He casts his eyes about the room, seeking...something. An impression. A sign of a struggle. An intrusion in the furniture, in the stacks of papers and debris scattered about the office in a semblance of organized chaos. No body, no, but somewhere there is an empty space, a vacuum, where the body should be.

“We don’t need the body,” he says after a long moment’s internal deliberation. “A body would do, any body, for hypothetical’s sake.” He rolls the chalk in between his thumbs and forefingers. “To fill in the gap, to get a sense of the scene, yes?”

Phoenix looks down at Miles’s hands and takes a moment to identify the white stub in his fingers as chalk, its powder flecking off onto Edgeworth’s otherwise impeccable coat. “Sure,” he says, stepping back to lean against the wall and cross his arms. “Be my guest.”

In the meantime, his eyes trace over the room much like Edgeworth’s had, picking up suspicion like dust off of every surface. Something seems wrong here. There’s no evidence of a crime where there quite clearly was one. But then again, where did he get such a clear impression of a crime having occurred? He gropes around for an answer, but every time he surfaces with something relevant, it seems to slip from his grasp. It’s beginning to worry him that something bigger is going on, and more than that, it’s starting to frustrate him. He should know this. Why doesn’t he?

“It’s funny,” he says quietly. It’s not actually funny at all. “It’s as if they just disappeared.”

Cold, sticky dread trickles down his spine like Wright has just cracked an egg against the base of his neck.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Wright,” he snaps to hide his reaction. His words are barely audible over the quickening of his pulse inside his own ears. “People don’t just vanish into thin air.”

Somewhere, here, there is a trace. His fingers trace velvet upholstery, leaving chalk prints behind as he searches for wetness, blood that would be invisible against the red fabric in this dim lighting. There’s something they’ve missed, here. This is a crime scene; therefore, there was a crime. A murder investigation, so there was a murder.

His dress shoes pause in their passage from the rug to the wood flooring, his head tilting towards the wall of windows, out into the night. He can see the dingy silhouette of his reflection in the shining glass. The glass is immaculate; he’s blurry.

A murder investigation? Where did he get that impression?

Seeing Edgeworth pause, Phoenix slowly pushes himself off of the wall and takes two steps towards him. He had expected them to sound tentative, but instead they land with a certain conviction. “Miles,” he says, still quiet, beginning to take on a grim tone. “There’s something more going on here. Isn’t there?”

Despite Edgeworth’s urging not to think about it, Phoenix’s mind drifts back to the letter. All he’d seen of it was a written-up copy in a police report, printed in a neat typewriter-like font. He remembers the sight of the page and the horrible cold dread that came with holding it, but its words swim on the paper, frustratingly difficult to pin down. It was something about death and decisions. What’s he missing here?

“The victim,” he concludes, speaking it aloud unconsciously even before he comes back to himself. He clenches his fists at his sides, determined, and stares into the back of Miles’s head as if willing him to turn about. “What was their name?”

The glass in the windows is splintering, a web of thousands and thousands of shimmering fractals. A silent breakage, an implosion of force.

Finally, Miles Edgeworth understands where he is and what he’s doing there.

He half-expects the scene to shift upon the realization, for the walls of his office to melt away into smothering, sweltering darkness cut only by muzzle flash once then twice. When the floor stays solid beneath his quaking legs he forces himself to turn, to look, to see if Phoenix is still Phoenix, or his face has given way to another’s.

But no - no, he’s still there, putting off impossible light in the darkness, in this longest of nights. Surely he doesn’t glow like that, not really - this is Miles’ romanticization, a parting gift from his subconscious mind.

Phoenix is waiting for an answer, hanging on his yet-unspoken words.

“You know the name of the victim, Phoenix,” Miles says slowly, thickly. “It was in the police report. It was in the transcription of the letter. Clear as day. No further questions.” The chalk is flaking against his hands. White prints scatter the sleeves of his suit jacket. “It was a perfect piece of evidence.”

As soon as Miles says it, Phoenix finds that he does know the name of the victim. There it is, clear at the front of his mind. He’s disappointed himself for a moment for not seeing it sooner, and then he’s furious, and he doesn’t quite understand why. Maybe it’s the fact that Miles has bested him with twisted evidence once again, his contrary and competitive streak showing through at the worst of times. Maybe it’s anger at Miles himself, at the stubborn nature that makes him at turns a worthy opponent and a miserable pain in the ass, and at the foolish pride he insisted on taking down to his grave

Maybe it’s just helpless rage at something he knows he can’t change.

“Miles,” he says, both as an answer and a shaky question. He takes another step towards him, reaching out urgently as if—despite the misery of it all, despite how futile he knows it is—holding on to him will undo what’s already been done.

Phoenix’s approach makes him shudder, his whole body thrown in every direction as if it might fall apart into individual atoms and scatter him to the wind. Entropy to entropy. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

This Phoenix is not even real, cannot touch him, and yet Miles knows with a conviction beyond conviction that should they meet in this space he will burn away into nothing, or else Phoenix will, and this is the one thing that he still has the ability to spare the foolish, incorrigible, brilliant man before him.

“Don’t do this to yourself, Phoenix,” he says, ragged. “Don’t do this, don’t - wonder. Don’t look for the evidence that isn’t there. Just - fill in the gaps. Make the pieces fit. Whatever pieces you need. Turn this around into something that makes sense to you, please.”

He holds out the chalk with shaking hands. He can’t stand to hold onto it anymore. He has no right. He couldn’t decide where to put the body.

Where Phoenix wanted his hands to meet warm shoulders that he could pull close, he instead finds dusty chalk as Miles thrusts it in front of himself like a defense. Despite Miles once again refusing him what he’d wanted, Phoenix fumbles to hold onto it, desperate to keep one last gift from him. Even then, it crumbles in his hands, embedding dust into the creases of his palms as if it were Miles's own ashes.

“No,” Phoenix growls, out of some bullheaded, foolhardy determination to prove Miles wrong. He can fix this, somehow. He can turn this all around.

He reaches out again with hands that are powder-white as if bloodstained, but the room seems to lengthen with every step. He watches helplessly as Miles turns around and curls into himself, clutching his arms like a child, growing further and further out of Phoenix's reach. The light in the room is no longer cool blue as it seeps through the cracks in the window—it’s a bright blood red, growing blinding as the window continues to splinter. There’s a horrible, sharp sound as the glass finally buckles and breaks, failing to hold back some terrible force. Shards of glass whiz through the atmosphere, fine dust glimmering around shards as big as kitchen knives.

Despite the danger Phoenix ploughs on, breaking into a sprint even as the distance between them stretches as if caught past an event horizon. When he’d told Miles to mark out the body, he hadn’t meant for him to create one.

“Miles!” he screams as the shards finally find their home, and—

—he lands on the floor with an emphatic whumph. A dizzying burst of pain jolts through his shoulder as it bears his full weight for an instant. He groans and rolls onto his stomach. He’d thrashed his way off the bed and brought his blankets down with him, and woken himself in the process. Fuck. He softly thunks his head against the floor a few times.

If only he could have had a few more minutes, he thinks, maybe he could’ve saved him.

~~~

Miles,

Something’s changed. I feel like the last bit of endurance I had has snapped. The shock’s finally worn off and I can feel everything, everything that I haven’t been feeling about you.

I’ve been trying to keep you off my mind, because every time I remember you I feel fucking sick with anger. Every time I hear your name, I feel like I'm burning from the inside out. I can't talk about you anymore—I can barely think about you when anyone else is around. I hate it when they try to give me condolences, and I hate it when they try to talk shit about you, too. It feels like all they can see is one side or another of you, the villain or the victim. You were so much more than the sum of your parts, and if no one can understand that then—then I’m just going to stick to work. It’s easier that way.

But god, when I’m alone, I can’t stop thinking about you. At twelve in the morning when I can’t get to sleep, and at the office when I’m forcing myself through paperwork, and when I’m eating dinner in my apartment alone and can’t stand having the TV on anymore. Miles, the other day I sat on a stakeout in a twenty-four hour diner and I thought about you for four hours straight. I thought I’d nearly shatter my coffee cup from how tightly I was holding it. I think about you so much that sometimes I almost feel like you’re right behind me, waiting to make your entrance with your usual dry quip and haughty attitude and pull a seat up beside me uninvited.

I love you. You know that? I love you, and somehow that doesn’t make it difficult to hate you, too. You mean everything to me, and when I say that I mean everything, all the good and the bad rolled into one. In my mind, you deserve both the highest of honors and the lowest of insults.

Why would you do this? That’s a question I’ve been skirting around for months, stubbornly pretending that I haven’t been pondering it. I mean, I can think of a few contributing reasons off the top of my head, but what I can’t understand is… why would you think this was the only solution? After I worked for so long to get to a position where I could help you, after everything I did to get you acquitted, after everything I did for you, just for you—how could you think you were alone in all this? I could have helped you. I could have done something, anything to prevent you ending up like this. Why didn’t you let me?

Did you care about me at all, Miles? Maybe I was overconfident to think that you’d started to.

I’m realizing now that I structured so much of my life around you, and I don’t know what to do with myself with my keystone taken away. Maybe I don’t have the right to think I understand you, either. I know I’m supposed to move on and find peace or some wishy-washy greeting card crap like that, but I just—I don't even know where to begin. You know that I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that you’re gone? It feels like just another extended leave of absence from my life that I get angrier and angrier at you for, whether that's fair or not. You still feel real to me, Miles. I keep thinking that maybe—maybe one day I'll find you in a news clipping again, and I'll get to go hunt you down and punch you in your stupid smug face.

You always thought you knew better than everybody, and look where it got you. I hope you're happy, wherever you are.

Phoenix

Phoenix has started taking cases again. He's just as forceful in court as he used to be, but he wears a new bitter, lifeless smile. His office is open for business now, the windows open to let out the sickly smell of disuse, the empty mugs and loose paperwork that usually clutter every surface cleared away for once. Still, don’t expect to be offered a seat or a cup of coffee if you drop by. He’s always on his way out.

~~~

Wright-

I know as well as you do that I won’t be sending this letter, so I may as well be honest. I’m the one who keeps calling your office.

I have been since I heard - from Detective Gumshoe, as you may have guessed - that you were taking clients again. I’ve never seen your office but for the crime scene photos from Miss Fey’s trial, but I can’t stop picturing you there. Can’t stop wondering what you’re doing, what you’re thinking. I fear it’s become somewhat of an obsession, but in the absence of anyone to rebuke me, I find myself unable to stop. So I call you, and I wait for you to answer, just so I can hear your voice for a few fleeting moments. It must be getting obnoxious- harassment from an unknown source. Perhaps it’s even affecting your business and your client relationships. Yet another apology I owe you. But I can’t stop.

I’ve been speaking for some time with Detective Gumshoe, and more frequently as of late. It’s cyclical, you see. I wish to talk to my sister, but I can’t, so I call you, and I can’t speak to you, so I call Gumshoe and finally feel as though I have a handle on the outside world, some semblance of control. I didn’t intend for him to be the first to know that I was still alive, but he’s the most valuable source of information that I have, and the most easily convinced to show discretion. Even now, he admires me. Respects me. Fears my rebuke. It’s comical, in a way- if only he could see me when I speak to him, pacing listlessly around a borrowed home, living a borrowed life on borrowed time, unkempt and unshowered and out of touch with everything right down to myself, my own body, my own mind. I’m not even half the man he is and part of me wishes he would realize it and the other part craves his continued attention, his reverence. Two ugly parts, one ugly whole. But I need him, even if it isn’t fair to him. So I call him. He’s the only one who knows how you’re doing.

Today, when I hung up on you, I called him. We spoke of nothing for a time, nothing important. Developments in my life have been rather lean, as you can imagine, so I let him drone on about this and that and the price of gas and the length of police reports and pretended it meant anything to me at all. And then when he was done, he asked me how I was doing. And I said, not very well. (I’m trying the truth out for a change, Wright, aren’t you proud?) And he said, after a moment, that he was sorry to hear that. Neither of us spoke for a moment. And then I said- and still, I’m not sure why, I don’t even believe that it’s true- that I wanted to come back.

He was supportive of the idea, of course. Bloviating about how “they’ve” missed me, how the prosecutor’s office needs me, and so on and so forth. I made my excuses, and he was disappointed. “We’d sure be glad to have you back, Mr. Edgeworth.”

Aren’t those things a person should want to hear? Instead I felt sick. He’s blinded by nostalgic affection for me, blinded to who and what I am, just as you were. Here’s the truth, Wright- I have no business standing in a courtroom. Just the thought of it makes me terrified. I can’t be trusted to do the only thing I’ve ever been trained to do, because the people who trained me to do it were corrupt, and they corrupted me. They twisted me into someone that my father wouldn’t recognize, someone he would have hated, and I’m terrified that I’ll never become something better. I don’t know how to extract a poison that’s sunk all the way down to my bones. How do you undo something that’s woven so tightly into the fabric of who you are?

I can’t come back, not as I am. And yet it seems like the window of opportunity to get rid of myself has come and gone. I am- inactive. Frozen by indecision, paralyzed by fear of figuring out what comes next. I’m afraid if I start looking inside myself I’ll find that my first instinct was correct, that there’s not enough left to salvage. That no matter how much I force myself to change, I will never be able to change enough to be worthy of standing across from you in a courtroom again, of facing you man to man, person to person. If there’s a road ahead of me, it is one of hard work and painful lessons. A demolition and a slow rebuild.

When I had finished speaking with Gumshoe, I thought about calling you back. Wondered how deep it would cut me to hear your voice again. But I didn’t. It had begun to rain and I stepped outside, and I stood there for a long time, battered by it, until I was soaked to the skin. I thought of a dream I had had about you, where you were still trying to save me.

You can’t save me, Wright, anymore than you already have. If I’m to be saved, it’s time for me to put in my lion’s share of the work. And yet it seems daunting, to the point of impossibility, to take the first step.

If I could let you swoop in and save me again, I would. I’m selfish and I’m scared. I don’t want to do this alone. And yet the only recourse I have is that you will never read these words I’ve written down; that you might never know the worst parts of me.

I hope you’re well.

- M.E.

[Saved to drafts at 06:52pm]

The recently back-in-business Wright & Co Law Office has been getting a lot of prank phone calls. Some people just can’t believe they’re speaking to a man who put a parrot on the witness stand, but most of the calls are nothing but bland, uncreative silence; a waste of time that stretches on for a few moments before the click and the dial tone. One could argue that they’re interfering with the office conducting business, but one could also argue that Wright doesn’t really want the business in the first place.

~~~

What is there to say, Miles? Here I am again, taking a night off for the first time in months and using it to write to someone who’s never going to respond. What’s wrong with me? Don’t answer that.

I have a miserable cold. My immune system just loves those. I was too dizzy to make it home and I can’t take pills without my throat closing up, so all I can do is wait it out at the offices. I still have trouble going into Mia’s office, too, so I’m holed up on the couch in the reception. What a piece of work I am, huh? So caught up in neuroses I can barely move.

Maybe that’s why I still can’t comprehend the fact that you’re gone. I saw her. I never saw you. When I see a mole at the corner of someone’s mouth my heart sinks, but when I pick out gray hair and a trenchcoat in a crowd it starts racing. I’m always disappointed when it turns out to be another old man on his way home from the office. Why do I still think you could be out there? Why can’t I shake it? You haunt me beyond rational thinking, Miles. Beyond reason.

Being back at work is good for me, I think. At least, it’s a hell of a lot better than sitting at home, staring at the ceiling and flashing through a million thoughts a minute. It’s good to have someone else’s problems taking up my attention for a change. Sometimes, when I have just enough cases to keep me busy, I can reach this—this perfect whirlwind of chaos, this all-consuming balancing act that lets me forget you for a little while. It makes me realize just how hard it is to remember you.

I just don't know what to do with you. You're not alive to me, and you're not quite dead. I'm angry at you beyond belief, but I love you. I miss you. Every time you come to my mind, it's like touching a raw wound. I don’t know how to balance the raw fury and the heavy misery all at once. The fact that I can’t move on from you is tearing me apart.

So I’m… I’m going to try to stop thinking of you for a while. I hope you’ll understand.

There’s so much I want to say to you in these letters—so much I’d rather say to your face as I shake you by the shoulders—but I know it’s not going to get me anywhere to keep stewing in these feelings. To keep writing to a dead man. Because you are dead—even if I can’t bring myself to believe it, I think I have to start saying it. I can’t live in denial like this forever. Maybe eventually, the idea will start to stick.

I need to focus on my work. On the people who are still here. I need to help as many of them as I can, no matter how much it takes out of me. Maybe I can save a few from going the same way you did, or maybe I can’t. I still have to try.

(So maybe it’ll take some running away, but call yourself a hypocrite if you’d look down on me for that.)

I love you, Miles. I always will, no matter how much distance is between us.

Phoenix

Phoenix’s office… Phoenix’s office is the city now. He does all his work in the streets, tracing the unseen threads of his cases as if he alone can see them shine clearly in the daylight. He takes all his calls on the run and wolfs down his lunches standing on street corners, eyes flicking between faces passing by, never not working. When he absolutely must, he collapses on a couch in his office or catnaps on a bench in a courthouse. Sometimes his smile loses its sheen as he raises his sickly, tired eyes to the skyline, but just as quickly he looks back down to the street and slips back into the crowd. There are people to see, places to go. Weights on his shoulders, eyes on his back.

~~~

[Unsent] (Subject: Phoenix)

Message body:

I woke up full of energy today, motivated and buzzing in ways that frightened me.

I wondered if today would finally be the day- if every day between now and the day I left was just a bit of borrowed time, and with this final burst of adrenaline I would finally put my initial plans into action. It was peculiar to realize that although that step no longer seemed exhausting, daunting in its difficulty, I simply found it- unappealing. I couldn’t stop thinking that there were so many other things I could do, instead.

So I did other things.

I fried an egg and ate it. I washed my clothes. And then I began to gather every bit of paper I had at my disposal; napkins and newspapers, magazine pages and receipts.

I don’t know if you’ll remember this- although you may, your memory seems sharper than mine when it comes to the days of our youth- but in school we were taught to fold paper cranes. As I recall, you took to it immediately, whereas I struggled immensely with the task. It seemed to me that my fingers were out of sync with my mind, that I couldn’t maneuver them the way I wanted to to replicate the intricate folds that came so easily to you. You showed me over and over again, patient in spite of my growing frustration, but I wouldn’t master the process until several years later. I practiced in private until I could fold one the size of a quarter with complete accuracy. Perfectly, just the way von Karma demanded everything to be, although I never would have allowed him to see me engaging in such childish and unproductive activities. And once I had mastered the ability, I was satisfied, and I ceased folding them out of any bit of paper I could lay my hands on. I haven’t folded one in years.

Until today.

The sense-memory, the ghost of all those cranes still left inside my fingers, came back to me nearly immediately, and so all of those napkins and newspapers, magazine pages and old receipts, have now become cranes of various sizes, scattered across every surface of my temporary home. I must have a papercut on every finger. And yet the energy inside me remains.

Tomorrow could be different, or the day after, or the day after. This may be the last reprieve I’m granted from what, until now, has seemed like endless emptiness, endless grief, endless fatigue. Or perhaps it won’t be. Perhaps it doesn’t have to be.

There are things I have to do, while I still have the drive to do them. I need help, and I don’t know where to find it. I need help in finding where to find help. I need to reconcile what it means to be a person in need of help. I need to decide if I can treat myself as a person deserving of that help.

And I need- case files, police reports, something, anything, from Gumshoe. I need your cases. I need to see your fingerprints on the future of our legal system, so I can believe that there is something for me to go back to. I need your tenacity and your faith, even if I’ve forfeited my rights to them. I need to earn them. I will earn them. I’ll earn you, a place in your landscape, the right to stand across from you in court.

I write this not as a letter to you, but as a reminder to myself, my tomorrow self, of the path ahead. When inspiration sparks, we must go on ahead. We can’t go back. We are no longer going back.

Phoenix- I will see you soon.

- Miles

[Saved to drafts at 4:51pm]

There is a sudden, peculiar uptick in the depth and accuracy of evidence and witness statements in the cases that Phoenix Wright defends in court. Though only barely noticeable, to an extremely meticulous observer, it would feel almost as though his cases are guided by a careful hand; one that never pushes, never plays its cards too plainly, but sifts through everything, separating grit from pearl before it ever reaches Wright’s hands. Only one confusing, careless incident slips through the cracks; inexplicably, tucked into a stack of crime scene photos, is an item not listed on any evidence sheet, unrelated to the case at hand: a technically perfect paper crane, folded out of the glossy cover of a foreign language magazine.

~~~

CONCLUSION

~~~

Seeing Phoenix Wright again is a blow that he expects. And a blow that he doesn’t.

There is Wright, in the police precinct, overhead fluorescents washing out the rich tones of his skin, flattening him, deepening the circles under his eyes. And yet it’s more than the lights; Wright is leaner, gaunter in the face. Wary and weary in ways that make Miles’ stomach turn. And his eyes, when he looks at Miles, are flinty and hard until the moment of recognition.

Then they flare. They blaze. And Miles is engulfed in the fire of Phoenix’s furious agony.

It would’ve been better for everyone if you never came back from the dead, Edgeworth!

And yet the show must go on. Time moves, rushes like a river. And they claim to trust one another but they don’t talk. And they don’t talk. And they don’t talk.

Those moments will come, later, wrapped in blankets of snow and strung between the hearts on playing cards. Stuck in the pages of passports and woven through the buttonholes of a waistcoat.

Wounds heal. Scars become memories. And some bodies stay buried.

~~~

There's a box of letters in Phoenix Wright's office. He kicks them into a corner of his closet and tries to forget about them.

Edgeworth looks... better. His sharp angles worn down somewhat, his bitter glare replaced with a steely firmness. Not quite healed enough to be reborn a different man, but far from the vengeful wraith he used to be. A fresh in-between, a step towards something new. It makes Phoenix irrationally angry with him for reasons he can't articulate.

Except to snap at Phoenix when he once implies that the words in his final note were less than truthful, Edgeworth doesn't talk about what happened after he left. Phoenix, stubborn as ever, doesn't ask him. They play a long, silent waiting game, trying to see whose will is going to crumble first, who will finally bring up the elephant in the room and start the cascade of arguments to follow. A game of poker with all their cards on the table, but their eyes resolutely pointed anywhere else.

Despite refusing to say a word, Phoenix loses anyway. Edgeworth leaves for Europe again. This time, he at least stops to says goodbye. Phoenix repeats it hollowly, watches him leave with a numbness in his fingers. No more letters this time. He promised himself.

There's a box of letters sitting in the Wright & Co. law offices. The paper has begun to wrinkle.

#ace attorney #narumitsu #wrightworth #miles edgeworth #phoenix wright

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btsmosphere · 3 years

Text

Crossing Paths - drabble from the Crossfire universe

request from @excusemyuwus -

I remember Tae said he had a crush on her while working on that project so now I kinda want to see his pov of that time and how he was holding being around his crush lol, not gonna lie gangster Tae all nervous bc he like someone is something want to see (also imagine how much the guys would tease him uwu)

tumblr ate your ask when I tried to answer it, sorry! this is the only part I had copied, but if it ever resurfaces, I shall answer there. for now it is still refusing to cooperate so I am posting like this! (update: the ask just returned, it is here)

~pairing: taehyung x reader ~word count: 1.4k ~pre-relationship, fluff, angst, slice of life, mafia au, college au ~rating: g ~warnings: vague mention of gang activity, this is a gang au after all, but it’s not particularly prominent

~a/n: thank you for your great request! this was so nice to come back to, I am so sentimental about this series as my first bts fic🥰takes me back to when I was just getting into bts… it felt hard to do it justice! because of this, sorry it took me a while to write, but I wanted to do it well, and again I kept the theme of making my ‘drabbles’ wayyy longer😅final big thanks to the site being frustrating and eating drafts and such🙃🙃but here it is, finally seeing the light of day! I hope you enjoy it x

“I can tell something’s on your mind, Tae.”

Jimin stared coolly at his friend. Looking over his shoulder guiltily as he unlocked the door, Tae found the other boy with his hands in his pockets, looking expectant.

All Tae could do was shrug as he elbowed the door open, heading to ditch his bag.

“Hey, Jimin’s right.”

A light flick on Tae’s forehead made him startle, looking up to find Hobi grinning, though his head was tilted to one side in question.

“What is it?”

Jimin’s shoulder nudged his own as they sunk into the sofa.

Tae checked his phone.

“It’s just a project for class, don’t worry about it,” he pocketed his phone, ignoring their gazes, “I gotta meet with my partner in an hour.”

“It’s okay, I wasn’t staying that long anyway,” Hobi slumped down too, having helped himself to a drink from the fridge, “I’m on watch with Yoongi across town.”

As the discussion turned to this week’s jobs and deals, Taehyung rested his head back against the sofa. The sounds of his friends’ conversation was like static. Instead, he was picturing the scene in class earlier, as the slideshow was flipped to show the project partners on the screen.

Tae hadn’t been too fussed, idly playing with his pen lid as he searched for his name. But when his eyes fell on it, he sat up straight.

Having only bumped into you a few times in class, he had never expected his heart to be hammering quite so hard as he quickly scanned the room for you. Sliding his things away, he had walked towards you as everyone began to file out, meeting you halfway as you did the same.

Leaning against a desk to keep his jittery hands occupied, he grinned at you.

Your returning smile, he noticed, was much more nervous, only flickering into existence for a wavering second. The two of you had only a brief conversation to sort out when you would meet, before you had practically scurried away.

His eyes had lingered on you as his smile slowly sank.

Unconsciously poking his tongue against his cheek, Tae wondered if you were afraid of him.

“Hey!”

A finger clicked sharply in front of his face. He blinked back at Hobi’s grin, Jimin bursting into laughter at his side.

“Just a project, my ass,” Hobi shook his head, dumping an empty bottle on the coffee table, “don’t wanna be late, do you?”

A radiant smile was tossed over his shoulder as Hobi left the room, front door clicking soon after.

Sending his best friend a knowing look, Jimin also gathered himself to stand.

“Have fun tonight, yeah?”

He winked. Tae protested, shooting up from the sofa with an affronted look.

“So it is a special someone?” Jimin giggled.

“You’re impossible,” Tae grumbled, trailing after him to the door, “it’s just a project, I told you.”

Jimin hummed in a way which made it very clear he didn’t believe him.

“Don’t scare them off, tiger,” he remarked, stepping outside.

Tae’s shoulders slumped. He was certain that was just what he had already done.

“I’m busy tonight. And my house isn’t free, so I can’t have anyone showing up here.”

Namjoon chuckled across the line.

“All this for a college project?” Clearly he had heard about this from the others. “If you could lend Kook some of your commitment to school, that would be great,” he teased.

Sighing, Tae spun around to survey the road outside his window, ruffling his own hair.

“You’re very funny, but I need to go. See you tomorrow.”

Tae was certain he would never hear the end of this from the others. It was true that he had firmly set aside time for your meeting today, even if it was only for a minor college presentation. But it was important to him.

He knew that this was the only time he would get together with you, and though it would end as soon as the presentation was given, he couldn’t help but want to make the most of it. At your last meeting, he had been largely distracted by the dizzying height of your apartment, leaving him shying back from any windows.

So this left you with his house today instead.

Arriving soon after Tae’s phone call, you were both soon seated on his floor. Though you mostly worked in quiet with occasional, quick conversation, it was not awkward. Your legs lay close together under the coffee table as you scribbled away diligently on its surface.

Glancing over the lid of his laptop as his fingers hung idly, Tae sighed. Watching as your pen swirled across your notebook, he let his eyes drift across your focussed features.

He swallowed as he did so, teeth tugging his lip. A light frown came over your features. He couldn’t take his eyes away from your lips as your pen lifted to your mouth, resting between your teeth as you mulled the work over, eyes flitting about the page.

Eventually, the lack of tapping at his keyboard must have got through to you. You raised your head.

Too late to divert his gaze, Taehyung cleared his throat and muttered a proposal for a break. Eager as well to put your work aside, you clambered from the floor to join him at his offer of a drink.

Moving through to the kitchen, he made casual conversation, asking after your dad. Last time there had only been a brief meeting, as he met Tae at the door before you hurried him away.

Picking up on his offer to chat, you teased Tae for his fear of heights, giggling over how he had screwed his eyes shut whenever he had come within sight of the view from your windows.

Of course, Tae tried his best to roll his eyes at you, but the smile dragging the corners of his mouth refused to be suppressed.

He poured your drinks. When he turned away to put the cartons back in the fridge, he took a breath, trying to settle himself. Why did he feel so flustered?

Squaring his shoulders a little more, he turned back, only for his hand to catch one of the glasses. It clattered against the surface, barely leaving time for him to jump back and avoid being splattered with its contents.

You hopped from your seat, ready to help.

Swallowing down his shock, Tae scratched at the back of his neck to hide his slightly trembling hand.

“Don’t worry,” he quickly muttered, flashing a nervous smile as he gathered towels and set to cleaning up.

Soft laughter followed from you. Still, you reached across to help.

Righting the glass and taking one of the cloths to clear up, your hand came concerningly close to Tae’s own. He kept his eyes firmly fixed on the countertop, his cheeks warm even as you finished and he was rooting in the fridge again for a refill.

You seemed miraculously unfazed by his flailing, though, he noticed as you finally settled beside each other sipping your drinks.

“So it went well?”

Jimin nudged a reluctant Tae, eyebrows wiggling all the time.

“Yes, fine,” Tae groaned, trying to shrug him off.

Jimin did stop, but only in favour of staring at his friend with doleful eyes.

“Don’t be like that. You’ll see her again. You literally share a class!”

“It’s nothing like that,” Tae refuted.

He even halfway believed it.

You had got on well together, but surely not more than could be expected of most classmates? He sighed a little as he thought of it. It had been fun, but there was no excuse to spend any more time with you.

Besides, sparing one night to work on a project was a little different to becoming friends, or even more…

There was a reason the bangtan boys stuck to themselves.

But as he reminisced, he knew he had a soft spot for you, even if it should come to nothing. The project was over, the presentation given, but he still remembered the way you bounced with excited relief after you had finished talking to the class. Your face was glowing as you high-fived him with a grin, the work having paid off.

There was still a hint of nervousness though, and you had only given a timid smile and a small ‘see you later’ before heading out of class.

And that was the end of it.

But Tae smiled to himself. It had been fun, and he knew he wouldn’t be sorry if you ever crossed paths again.

Thank you for reading! Reblogs and comments super appreciated always!!

Taglist: @aianloveseven @preciouschimine @un2-verse @ddaechwita @taegularities

#thebtswritersclub #taehyung x reader #taehyung mafia au #bts mafia au #taehyung imagine #kim taehyung imagine #taehyung scenario #btscreatorscorner #bangtanarmynet #purplearmynet #vantaenet #taehyung fluff #taehyung college au #bts college au #mafia bts #bad boy bts #bad boy taehyung

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yellowsuitcase · 4 years

Text

Bliss // Draco Malfoy

Request: i was thinking it would be really cute if the plot is like it’s draco and y/n 1 year anniversary and they’ve never ya know and so they both decide they’re ready before their anniversary rolls around so on their 1 year he makes the day special and all romantic and the room with rose petals and everything and is super loving and careful and sweet with her since it’s their first time

A/N: This sat in my drafts half-finished for so long and I fINALLY got around to finishing it, thank god. Hope you enjoy!

Summary: It’s Y/N and Draco’s one year anniversary and they have big plans.

Warning(s): SMUT!!! Loss of virginity (male & female), swearing, (pretty) soft sex.

Word Count: 2.9k

{Not my gif}

Y/N’s leg was jumping up and down as she sat in her last lesson. She’d been anxious the entire day. It was early March, the second to be exact. This happened to be her and Draco’s one-year anniversary, and the pair had big plans for that night. A few days ago, Draco had asked Y/N if she was ready. It wasn’t hard to figure out what he was implying. They had agreed early into their relationship that sex wasn’t a must-have for them. But after a year of being absolutely infatuated with one another, they decided their anniversary would be the perfect day.

Now that the day had come, though, Y/N realized she was terrified. She feared it wouldn’t be good that she wouldn’t be good. However, she also knew she loved Draco and that if he truly loved her too, she had nothing to worry about. Her anxious thoughts were interrupted by the bell. Without hesitating, Y/N dashed from Flitwick’s classroom and started making her way towards the library. Draco had explicitly instructed her not to come to the common room until after dinner, so she had quite some time to kill. What better to do to distract her than burying herself in her schoolwork?

Y/N took a seat at a desk in front of the far-end bookshelves. Snape had assigned yet another essay. With a sigh, she pulled out parchment from her school bag as well as her quill and got to work.

-------

Y/N woke with a start. She found herself lying on top of her essay, a bit of drool had dribbled onto it. Hastily, she wiped her mouth and took in her surroundings. She was still in the library. “Fuck,” she muttered. The sun wasn’t in the sky anymore; the only light in the library was from the sparsely placed candlesticks. Y/N sighed and began packing up her things, ready to take a nice shower before bed. However, as she was stuffing her quill back into her bag, she remembered Draco. A steady stream of cuss words flew from her mouth as she jumped up from her seat and ran out of the library. Fuck, I’m gonna be late. Will Draco be upset with me? Fucking hell, how did I even fall asleep? She asked herself as she dashed down the dungeon steps.

Soon enough, however, she arrived at the door to the Slytherin common room. She uttered the password and practically threw herself through the entryway, causing some Slytherins to look at her. Y/N paid them no mind; she made a beeline for the boys' dormitory, not stopping until she reached Draco’s room. It was only then that she was able to take a deep breath and prepare herself for what was to come. She was feeling so many different emotions all at once; excitement, anxiety, eagerness, fear. Yet, despite all that, she placed her hand on the door handle and turned it open.

She was expecting to see Draco sat at his desk, but what she saw instead brought tears to her eyes. The room was dark, only lit by candles. Soft music was playing from a record player, and upon looking at the floor, Y/N saw scattered rose petals that led all the way to Draco. He was standing across from her dressed in a casual yet charming green sweater, his hands behind his back. “Hi,” he said. Y/N, whose hand was over her mouth, shook her head.

“Draco, this is...you didn’t have to do this,” she replied as she began walking towards him. He, too, started walking until both of them met halfway. Y/N looked up at him and saw him smiling at her fondly. Then, he drew his hands from behind his back and presented her with a red rose. She gasped and gently took it from his hand. “Draco, I don’t know what to say. I didn’t have time to grab your present, I fell asleep in the library, and I thought I was gonna be late, so I—”

Draco placed a finger over her rambling mouth, silencing her. “You are all I need. And I don’t care that you’re late, you’re here, and that’s what matters,” he whispered, pulling her close to his chest. Y/N released the tension in her shoulders as Draco began stroking her head, his arms wrapped around her, making her warm. She felt so unbelievably lucky to have a boyfriend like the one cuddled against her. Of course, she’d heard about romantic gestures such as this, and she’d definitely seen them in movies, but never ever did she think someone would do it for her.

Slowly, Y/N felt Draco pull away. She looked at him expectantly and watched as he gulped. He looked nervous. “Are you ready, love?” he asked, his voice barely audible. Y/N could see that he was afraid. She nodded and took his hand into hers.

“Okay,” he breathed. “I must admit I am a bit...afraid, I guess.” Y/N was shocked that he had just confessed this to her. Typically, it would take hours of poking and prodding to get Draco to admit he was fearful of anything. Yet, he’d just willingly declared it to her. She planted a soft kiss onto his knuckle.

“I am too. But I trust you,” Y/N assured him. He couldn’t fight the toothy smile that appeared on his face.

“I trust you too,” he replied. Y/N held her breath as Draco leaned in close. She closed her eyes and felt herself melt as he pressed his lips against hers. Her arousal had been growing all day, and despite her nerves, she couldn’t help but moan when he slipped his tongue into her mouth. She felt him smile as his hands found her waist. A shiver ran down her spine as his cold hands slid upwards beneath her school shirt. Y/N kissed him eagerly, but Draco retained his slow pace. His hands caressed her body as they searched for her bra. She gasped into his mouth as his nimble fingers found it and shakily unhooked the clasp. He dragged her bra off her shoulders and down her front, pulling away to toss it elsewhere.

Y/N found herself growing confident; she reached for Draco’s sweater and yanked it upwards, successfully untucking it from his pants. He laughed as she pulled it up and off his body, leaving his chest bare. Giving in to her temptations, she put her hands on his chest, feeling his heated skin.

Draco pulled her against his body and dove his head forward, connecting his lips with Y/N’s neck where he began sucking. She closed her eyes and started rubbing her thighs together, desperate to hurry things up, but Draco wasn’t having it.

“Slow down, darling. We have all the time in the world,” he told her, his voice sweet and comforting. Y/N groaned as he reached behind her and grabbed her ass, squeezing it playfully. He ignored her pleas for him to touch her and instead began undressing her further. Her shirt went first, and Draco immediately felt her breasts, kneading gently.

"For a virgin, you are quite eager, aren't you?" he teased, making Y/N blush.

Y/N loved the feeling of his hands on her, and she found it pretty funny how his eyes gleamed at the sight of her tits. But then his hands traveled downwards, fondling the hem of her skirt. Y/N looked down, waiting for him to pull the fabric off her, except he didn’t. Instead, his finger guided her face upwards. He laughed at her confused expression.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked as he tapped her clothed hip, a smirk on his lips. Y/N nodded, she knew what was coming, and even though she was afraid, she knew Draco was gonna make her feel good. With her permission, her boyfriend slipped his fingers into the waistband of her skirt and her panties. He kissed her gently as he slowly pulled the fabric down her hips, her thighs, and all the way to the floor. Y/N blushed; she was now acutely aware of her nakedness and couldn't help but feel self-conscious.

It seemed as though Draco noticed this since he hastily reached for his belt, undoing the buckle and shoving his pants down, letting his cock spring free. Y/N bit her lip when she saw how hard he was, how hard she made him. Now that he was naked, Draco reached for her hand. He gripped it firmly as he led her towards the bed. Y/N crawled onto it and laid on her back, immediately crossing her legs. Draco tutted as he, too, got on the bed.

“Don’t hide from me, love. You’re beautiful, and I want to see all of you, please." Y/N could tell his words were genuine, so she slowly spread her legs, exposing her bare pussy to him. “Bloody hell, Y/N. I’m so glad I get to be your first.” Y/N felt the urge to close her legs again, his words sending butterflies to her stomach. But instead, she reached up and pulled his face close to hers. They kissed sweetly, softly. Draco was nearly dizzy from the anxiety running through his veins, but her kiss helped calm his nerves. When she pulled away, he inhaled deeply.

“What?” Y/N asked worriedly. Draco shook his head, dismissing her concern.

“Can I...can I touch you?” he asked, his voice cracking. He had been confident when Y/N first came to his room, but now that they were actually about to do the deed, he felt ten times more afraid.

Y/N felt her heart speed up, but she gave him a nod and watched as he positioned himself between her legs. What she wasn’t prepared for was the shock of pleasure when his fingers stroked her labia. “Holy shit,” she breathed shakily. Draco glanced up at her in panic, ceasing his movements. However, when Y/N bucked her hips against him, he continued stroking. He kept his steady motion until he felt his finger brush up against something. Hesitantly, he placed his fingertip on top of it and gently circled it.

“Oh!” Y/N gasped. She closed her eyes and grabbed Draco’s forearm, holding him still. He stopped his finger and, with his other hand, began stroking Y/N’s thigh.

“What’s wrong? Did it hurt?” he asked, feeling panic return. But then Y/N shook her head.

“No, that’s my clit. Do it again, please,” she begged, her muscles tense. Draco did as she asked and began rubbing his finger against and around her clit. He watched in amazement as she bucked her hips and began squirming, soft breaths falling from her lips. Draco switched his finger out for his thumb. While still stimulating Y/N, he slowly slipped his pinkie finger inside her.

“Oh my god,” she whimpered.

“You’re so tight,” Draco told her as he began sliding his pinkie in and out, slowly but steadily prepping her. After a few minutes, he gradually added another. A sharp hiss from Y/N, however, stopped him in his tracks. “Are you alright? What’s wrong?” he asked frantically.

“It hurts-”

“We can stop; it’s okay,” Draco quickly cut in. But Y/N shook her head adamantly.

“No, I want to do this. The pain has already started to fade just...just go slow, okay?” Draco leaned forward and pressed quick kisses all over her face, not stopping until a smile appeared on her lips.

“I’ll go as slow as you want me to darling, I’ve got you,” he assured her as he started rubbing her again. Y/N nodded and bit her lip as the tingly feeling returned. She couldn’t help but roll her hips, wanting more friction. Draco took this as a hint to add another finger, so he slipped his middle digit inside. He had to take a moment to close his eyes when he saw Y/N’s pussy clench around his fingers. “That feels good, love?” he asked.

“It’s starting to. Keep going,” Y/N replied. He heeded her words and slowly began expanding his fingers within her, stretching her out. Y/N continued rolling her hips and breathing heavily. In and out, in and out. When Draco deemed her properly prepared, he withdrew his fingers, causing Y/N to whine. He laughed lightly as he reached towards his nightstand and reached into the drawer. Y/N’s eyes watched as he pulled out a condom and ripped the paper, but just as he was about to roll it on, she grabbed his wrist.

“Let me,” she whispered. Draco had to hold back a moan as she slipped the condom from his hands and placed it on the head of his dick. He gripped the bed sheets and watched his girlfriend gently slide her hand down his cock, bringing the condom with it. Draco thought he might lose himself just from that, but he quickly closed his eyes and steadied his breathing. When he opened them again, he found Y/N laying on the bed again, legs spread. He raised an eyebrow, silently asking if she was ready. She replied by making grabby hands towards him.

Excitedly, Draco grabbed her thighs and pulled her body towards him until her pussy touched his dick. Y/N gasped and, before she could control herself, bucked her hips. “Shit, if you keep doing that, I won’t be able to hold back,” Draco warned. Y/N completely ignored him and proceeded to grind on him, letting her body give in to her urges. Her boyfriend groaned and savored the feeling before pulling away. He then rubbed his fingers against her. “You’re so wet,” he remarked as he used her arousal to lube up his cock. Once he finished, he looked up at Y/N.

“You ready?” he asked, checking in once more just to make sure.

“Yes, please. I want to feel you,” Y/N whined. That was all Draco needed to hear. He aligned the tip of his cock with her entrance and, while taking a deep breath, pushed himself inside, not stopping until all of it was swallowed by her cunt.

“Motherfucker, you’re so big, oh my god,” Y/N cursed, her eyebrows scrunched together as she waited for her body to adjust to his size. Draco gripped her thighs, trying to hold himself back from pulling out and slamming back into her. She felt so good around him. He could feel her walls pulsing against his cock; it was beginning to drive him wild. But then Y/N started wriggling and moaning.

“Move,” she demanded. Draco wasted no time; he pulled his hips back until only his tip was left inside her, then he slowly pushed forwards, groaning as his dick was once again enveloped in her hot pussy. “You feel fucking amazing, Y/N, shit,” he cussed, continuing to fuck into her steadily. Y/N didn’t reply; she felt breathless as he slid in and out of her. And when his hand returned to her clit, she nearly screamed. The room filled with sweet sounds of moans and pants as the couple made love.

“Faster Draco, please,” she begged, reaching for his hand. Draco quickly intertwined his fingers with hers and gripped her tight. He began to pick up his pace, watching as Y/N arched her back and moaned. “I think I’m getting close,” she whimpered. This made Draco go even faster, her words egging him on.

“So tight around me, baby. So fucking good,” Draco babbled, his teeth gritted as he slammed inside her. Y/N lifted her legs and wrapped them around his waist, allowing him to get a deeper angle into her pussy. She let out little yelps each time his cock hit that spot inside her. She knew her orgasm was approaching. With the way Draco was rubbing her clit and pounding her cunt, there was no way she’d last long.

Draco took notice of Y/N’s desperate moans and clenched fists. “Let go, darling. Cum for me, cum on my cock, baby,” he husked, encouraging her. Y/N shut her eyes and squeezed Draco’s hand as her body jolted, and her orgasm washed over her. The pure blissed-out look on her face sent Draco into a frenzy. He clenched her hand tight and sent a few more sloppy hard thrusts into her before he too reached his high, moaning loudly as he did.

Each of them halted their movements, desperately trying to catch their breaths. Eventually, Draco pulled out and disposed of the condom. Then he flopped down onto the bed beside Y/N, gently pulling her into his arms where he hugged her tight and pressed soft kisses to her nape.

“I love you so much, that was...fucking insane,” he whispered, smiling when he heard her giggle.

“It was way better than I ever could’ve expected. I love you too, Dray. Thank you.”

Y/N turned around in Draco’s embrace and faced him. She reached up and stroked his face, completely enamored by him. Never had she felt so safe, so blissful. There was nobody else she would’ve wanted to lose her virginity to, and she was so glad he had lost his tonight as well. Sure, it was sweaty, awkward, teenage sex. But it was loving and gentle, and most importantly, it was with the love of her life. Sleep soon started to overtake her, and her thumb stopped rubbing Draco’s cheek. But Draco was drifting away too. The couple entered dreamland peacefully, their still sweaty limbs entangled with one another's.

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nugnthopkns · 3 years

Text

dance me to the end of love (i)

word count: 4.3k

warnings: fem!oc, cursing, potential spoilers for the west wing if you've never seen the show

series masterpost: here

a/n: hi!! i am so incredibly happy to finally be putting this fic out into the world. it means an awful lot to me and i can't wait to share the little world i've created :)) x

Magdalene is content with where she’s ended up.

Denver is wonderful. Her friends are there, her cat is there, and it’s the perfect place for a fresh start. She arrived in the city nearly six years ago – a wide-eyed University of Denver freshman and has stayed put ever since. Her hometown of Aspen holds a few too many bad memories, but is close enough that she can return if an emergency calls for it. So far she hasn’t left, too engrossed in finishing her degree and moving on. There’s a job offer lined up with the university’s library upon graduation that Magdalene is ecstatic about. It means she gets to stay right where she is – where she’s comfortable.

☼☼☼☼

The sun might be shining as she exits her apartment building, but it’s cold for March. Magdalene pulls the thick scarf her best friend Bette got her for Christmas higher up her face and walks as quickly as possible to campus. There’s a brief meeting to attend with her advisor before grabbing lunch with Bette, and then her plan is to spend the rest of the day holed up in the library working on her thesis. It’s due in two weeks, with the defence in just over a month, and Magdalene is incredibly nervous. Though she’d gone through submitting her undergraduate thesis two years ago, presenting her master’s research was going to be a lot harder. She’s heard through the grapevine that the committees are being tough this year and she doesn’t want to fail.

Dr. Williams is waiting for her in his office with a smile on his face. He’s a tall man, with thin facial features and wire glasses that box him perfectly into the intimidating professor stereotype. “Miss Stevenson, please sit,” he gestures to the chair across from him.

“Gerald,” she sighs, “You can call me Magdalene, I don’t mind. Besides, it makes you quite the hypocrite if you insist I call you by your first name but you won’t use mine.” There’s no malice in her voice, just a decent amount of teasing.

The older man scoffs but concedes. “I suppose you’re right. Well then Magdalene, tell me, how are your final edits coming along?”

Magdalene spends nearly twenty minutes detailing all the elements she has tweaked since their last meeting, from the title to the citation style. She’s out of breath by the time she’s done, rambling at an impressive speed, and takes a big gasp of air while the professor mulls over her words. Dr. Williams doesn’t say anything, causing Magdalene to shift anxiously in her seat. “Sir, is there something wrong?”

He shakes his head. “Absolutely nothing,” he beams, “Everything is perfect. It’s a shame you don’t want to continue researching. You’d make a fabulous academic.”

The compliment makes Magdalene’s heart soar. It means a lot, especially coming from the person who has seen her cry over the oxford comma. “Thank you sir, but I belong in the practical realm. Someone has to file all the documents you obsessively scan.”

She leaves the building soon after, promising to stop by after she drops off the final draft in a few weeks. It’s a bit later than she expected and hopes Bette won’t be mad. There’s nothing the blonde hates more than poor time management, but Magdalene prays she’ll understand. It wasn’t that long ago and Bette was scheduling her own appointments with advisors on how to graduate. Barn Owl Book Company is located halfway between the school and her apartment, making it the perfect spot to meet. In addition to being a used book store, Barn Owl sports one of the best cafés in downtown Denver. Bette is perched delicately at her friend’s favourite seat, a bay window converted into a small nook, and typing furiously on her phone.

“Sorry I’m late,” Magdalene apologizes, “Williams talked a lot more than I expected him to.”

Bette looks up and smiles, shoving a cup in the other girl’s direction. “As always. How is he?”

Sliding into the booth, Magdalene fills her friend in on what’s been going on in their former professor’s life. Bette graduated with a minor in Classics, and it was Magdalene's major, but the former decided not to further her education and is instead doing full time charity work for the Colorado Avalanche. Her boyfriend Tyson is one of their star players, and the two of them are so smitten it makes Magdalene sick. Conversation quickly turns from school to life, which she’s grateful for.

“So,” Bette says, “Are you in for the trip this summer? I’ve got to confirm the reservation in a week or something.”

“I don’t know Bee, I'm going to be the new girl. Asking for time off like two months into the job would be rude.”

“Linny,” the blonde whines, “Please? I want you to come.”

Magdalene scowls. Bette knows just how much the nickname sours her mood but she chose to use it anyway. “Don’t call me that,” she snaps with quite a bite. “Can someone else take my spot if I decide not to go a little closer to the date?”

“Of course! Gravy said he’d fill an extra spot if one comes up so we don’t lose the deposit,” Bette blabs before trying to switch gears entirely. Magdalene cuts her off.

“Who’s Gravy?”

If her friend is exasperated by Magdalene’s lack of knowledge surrounding hockey, she doesn’t show it. Bette calmly explains that Gravy, who’s real name is Ryan, is a defenceman with the Avalanche and a good friend of Tyson’s. She also makes a point of mentioning that he’s single, to which Magdalene rolls her eyes. Bette has a masterplan for her life – which includes her best friend becoming romantically involved with an Avalanche player so the two of them can live the better half life together. As the best friend, Magdalene is constantly barraged with potential players who are looking to date. Once she went on a few dates with Mikko, but that ended fairly quickly when the two realized they were better as friends. Every time since she’s turned Bette down as gently as possible, not wanting to get involved with anyone. Her life is just starting, and Magdalene wants to be secure before settling down.

The conversation eventually shifts to what Magdalene plans to wear for both her thesis defence and graduation. Bette is fashion savvy, while Magdalene is decidedly not. Her everyday wardrobe consists of collared button-downs and sweater vests, which is supposedly never going to back a comeback, according to Bette at least. The blonde eventually wears Magdalene down, and secures a position as stylist for the graduation ceremony. There was an attempt at the thesis defence, but the other girl insists she needs to be as comfortable as possible on such a stressful occasion.

A glance to the clock on the opposite wall has Magdalene stretching her arms and giving an apologetic glance to her friend on the other side of the table. “I should go,” she says. “I’ve got to put in some serious work on my citations today, and you know Caligula doesn’t like it when I’m gone all day.”

Bette rolls her eyes, but there isn’t any frustration behind the gesture. “I swear to god Mags, your cat has more separation anxiety than I do. Speaking of, I’m supposed to pick Tyson up at the airport and I’m running behind.”

“Tell him I say hi,” Magdalene says as she wraps her arms around Bette for a quick hug.

The two girls part ways on the sidewalk, with Magdalene heading back to campus and Bette sliding into the sleek Audi she shares with her boyfriend. Headphones find their way into her ears, and Magdalene listens to a random comedy podcast. Once tucked safely inside the library she’ll put on her favourite lo-fi playlist and concentrate, but for now she just enjoys the funny anecdotes of stories past.

It’s quiet in the library for a Tuesday, though Magdalene isn’t complaining. Her favourite table, the one she swears up and down is the only reason she ever gets anything done, is open, and she all but sprints to place her bag on the worn leather chair. While setting up her work station a few of the librarians come over to offer their congratulations for her upcoming job. News certainly travels fast around here, Magdalene thinks, but accepts their generosity with a smile on her face. They leave her alone soon enough and the tedious work of double checking the formatting of every single citation in the sixty-five page paper begins.

Hours pass, and Magdalene stays working in the library until as late as she possibly can. Caligula is going to start to worry about the length of her absence soon and his anxiety response of knocking over plants is not a mess she feels like cleaning up. She packs up her laptop and walks the short distance home as fast as possible.

“Little boots, I’m home,” Magdalene parrots in a sing-song voice as she slips her jacket off her shoulders and onto the hanger. At the sound of his nickname, the small cat bounds into the entryway. “Hi darling, did you miss me?” Magdalene gets an obnoxiously loud purr in response that she takes it as a yes. She reaches down to pick up the tiny animal before continuing further into the apartment, scratching behind his ears as she does so. The two of them settle into the respectably sized couch, where they stay for the rest of the night watching reruns of The West Wing before Magdalene falls asleep.

☼☼☼☼

“You fucking did it!” Bette shrieks as she bounds towards her best friend. Magdalene braces herself for the oncoming assault, and manages to keep them both upright after Bette jumps into her arms.

Her thesis defence had just finished, and the committee found Magdalene a worthy candidate for the Master of Information Science qualification. The presentation itself was open to the public, so Bette and Tyson sat in the front row to support Magdalene, but were escorted out for the conversation that followed. The two girls had developed a code so the news could be shared in a subtle way, though Bette threw the original plan out the window as soon as she saw her friend give a sneaky thumbs up when the conference room door opened.

“Congrats Mags,” Tyson says sincerely, doing his best not to add to the growing spectacle, but Magdalene can tell he wants to give her a bone crushing hug.

“Thank you,” she smiles softly, “And thank you guys for coming. It means a lot.” As two of her closest friends, both Bette and Tyson know that her family situation is rocky at best, and having them act as her support system means more than she’ll ever be able to articulate.

The couple shares a knowing look before engulfing their friend in a hug. “We’re always going to be here for you,” Bette whispers, “No matter what.”

Magdalene’s smile is so genuine it crinkles her eyes as she wraps her arms around Bette and Tyson’s shoulders and leads them out the door and into the sunshine. The group continues to the parking lot, where they climb into Tyson’s car and drive off campus in the direction of Magdalene’s favourite restaurant. Though she had tried to convince her friends they didn’t need to celebrate, she failed, and Magdalene soon finds herself laughing hysterically over a plate of carbonara as Tyson tells a story about the shenanigans the team got up to on their last road trip.

There’s a game tonight, and Bette has somehow convinced her into attending. Magdalene knows she should go, expand her social horizons a little, but all she wants to do is curl up in bed and sleep for three weeks. Her one condition is that she can go home straight after the game without being guilted into following the group to whatever nightclub they’ll celebrate the win or drink away the loss in. Tyson has to get ready so he drops the two girls off at Magdalene's apartment complex. She’s in charge of getting Bette to the rink, and she’ll leave with her boyfriend after the game.

Once inside the confines of her home, Magdalene promptly lies on the floor. “Holy shit,” she sighs, “I did it. I fucking did it.”

“You did!” Bette says as she lies down beside her best friend. “I’m so fucking proud of you, and Tyson is too. Even if he won’t tackle you in public to prove it.”

The comment garners a laugh from Magdalene, which alerts Caligula to the presence of others in the apartment. He pads over the rug currently being occupied by two adults, and snuggles into the small space between them. Bette and Magdalene continue to lay there, petting the cat and looking back fondly on all the times Magdalene called her friend in tears because she didn’t think she could push herself any farther. Bette was always there to pick up the slack, editing whatever section Magdalene was working on or to bring over a hot meal. Her support earned her the top spot in the acknowledgements section of the thesis.

Ball Arena is already crawling with people when Magdalene pulls into the small lot for player’s and their families. Normally she parks with the general public, but Bette insists they watch this game from the better halves box, and these spaces are closer to that entrance.

“Stop dragging your feet,” the blonde chastises as Magdalene takes her time cutting the engine. “I want to get a glass of rosé before they sell out.”

Sighing, Magdalene follows her orders. “Don’t you have a special bar in the box?” she asks while locking the car.

“Yeah, but the other girls are absolute fiends. They’ll drink it all before we get there with no remorse.”

The girls climb the stairs to the better halves box, Bette chatting excitedly about the game, but Magdalene stops just before the entrance. She’s met most of the others on multiple occasions and has nothing to worry about, but she can’t help but feel anxious. Her life is so different than everyone else’s in the space, and it feels like cheating when she’s there because she isn’t romantically involved with anyone on the roster. Bette likes to joke that she’s her better half, but Magdalene knows it’s said just to calm her nerves.

“It’ll be fine,” Bette whispers while squeezing her hand, “And if you get too uncomfortable we can find some seats in the nosebleeds.”

Once inside Magdalene’s nerves dissipate. Most of the other wives and girlfriends pay her no mind, but the ones that are especially close to Bette congratulate her on passing her defence. It warms her heart a little, and the small group Magdalene finds herself in settles down to watch the game unfold.

It’s a fairly intense one between Colorado’s division rival St. Louis. Both teams are fighting for first place in the conference, and a win for the Avalanche would put them three points ahead of the Blues instead of one. Players from both sides are amped up, and more than once a scrum at the net has turned into a dog-pile. Colorado is outplaying the other team, but have still managed to find themselves a goal short heading into the final period. At the buzzer Tyson takes the face-off and is immediately shoved by a member of the opposite team. He goes down hard, and Bette squeezes Magdalene’s hand so tightly she fears it will lose blood flow. Silence falls over the arena as Tyson doesn’t immediately get up. The inside of lip finds its way between her teeth and Magdalene bites down hard, worried about her friend. She’s so focussed on Tyson that she doesn’t notice a fight breaking out.

“Holy shit, Gravy is going to town!”

The remark is made by someone Magdalene recognizes as Gabe Landeskog’s wife, and it makes her peel her eyes off of Bette’s worried features and scan the ice for some action. Sure enough, a very tall man is laying right hooks to someone who looks significantly smaller than him on the Avalanche blue line. The referees let the fight continue until Tyson drags himself off the ice and onto the bench before separating the men and throwing them in the penalty box. Magdalene can tell words are still being exchanged from both sides of the glass, but she’s more focussed on the fact Tyson doesn’t make his way to the dressing room – a good sign that allows Bette to drop her hand and let out a shaky breath.

Nothing of great importance happens until MacKinnon ties the game with seven minutes left. It happens while the Avalanche are short handed, and the goal seems to light a fire beneath the team. Magdalene may not know much about hockey, but she’s smart enough to notice the insane amount of energy all the players suddenly have. Time ticks by slowly and before she realizes it, the final face-off is taking place. Luckily it’s in the St. Louis zone and won by Colorado. The puck is tipped back to the same player who got in the fight for Tyson, Gravy, and he one times it right into the back of the net. The buzzer goes off not a second later, and the entire team piles on top of the player who just won them the game.

Bette and Magdalene join in the shrieks of the other partners, jumping from their seats in excitement. Eventually they make their way down to the hallway outside the locker room and lean against the brick while they wait for Tyson.

“You don’t have to stay,” Bette insists, “I can wait by myself.”

Magdalene shakes her head. “No way. I want to make sure he’s okay too. What good is a friend with a black eye?”

The other girl laughs at her friend’s stubbornness but doesn’t shoo her away. Once Magdalene has made a decision it’s hard to get her to sway from it, and Bette knows better than to push. Besides, who is she to deny her friend a bit more social interaction? Magdalene has spent the past six years practically holed up in the library and deserves to stand in a crowded hallway.

The friends chat idly while they wait, with Magdalene sharing some of the most ridiculous questions she got asked in her defence interview that morning. She’s mid story when Tyson exits the dressing flanked by a man dressed sharply in all black.

“Hey guys,” Tyson greets, dipping his head to place a kiss to Bette’s cheek before doing an elaborately goofy handshake with Magdalene.

“Good game baby,” Bette compliments sweetly. She then turns her attention to the boy standing awkwardly on the fringes. “You too Graves.”

He smiles shyly, muttering out a small thanks. It’s then he seems to notice the final member of the group, and offers his hand in greeting. “Hi, I’m Ryan.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Magdalene.”

She puts two and two together on the walk to her car. The Ryan Magdalene just met is the same who will take her spot on the trip, fought someone in Tyson’s defence, and scored the game winning goal. Though they’ve only said a few words, she likes him. He seems genuine, and those people are the rarest to find.

☼☼☼☼

Magdalene is walking across a graduation stage for the final time in two days. However, she can’t find anyone to take the third ticket. The University of Denver has a stupid rule where all graduates must have three guests attend the ceremony. Bette and Tyson are obviously occupying two of Magdalene’s seats, but she’s having trouble filling the third.

“I can ask Tys if one of the guys is free,” Bette shrugs. The two girls are sitting in the window of Barn Owl drinking iced lattes and discussing what Magdalene should wear to the ceremony.

“It’s okay,” Magdalene says, “I don’t want to bother anyone. Maybe I’ll just ask June.”

Her friend’s eye roll so far back into her head Magdalene isn’t sure they won’t stay there. “You can’t ask your boss to watch you graduate Mags! Besides, Gravy owes Tyson a favour and was already looking for something to do. I’m sure he won’t mind wasting a few hours as long as he gets drinks out of it.”

There isn’t a better option, so even though she barely knows the guy, Magdalene agrees. “Make sure he gets this?" she sighs, handing her friend an envelope with a single ticket in it. "I have to go. Caligula should be done at the vet soon.”

“Say hello to little boots for me,” Bette giggles as she waves goodbye.

Hours later, tucked into her couch with a glass of wine in one hand and Caligula playing with the fingers on the other, Magdalene realizes she invited a complete stranger to her graduation and how that could be a terrible idea. Sure, Ryan sounds like a great guy from the way Bette and Tyson talk about him, but he’s only ever spoken three words to her. Since that game she’s gone out with the team a few times, but the man with the piercing stare is yet to make an appearance. Magdalene considers that perhaps he’s more like her than his profession gives him credit for, and she feels a twinge of guilt about being worried he’d cause a scene at the ceremony.

There isn’t any more time for her to fret over the third and final guest on the list. At the last minute Bette decides there’s nothing in Magdalene’s closet that’s suitable for her to wear, so a trip to a local second-hand store ensues. While it’s nice that her friend has taken their carbon footprints into consideration, Magdalene wishes it didn’t have to happen an hour and a half before the ceremony is supposed to start.

“We have to be there in twenty minutes Bette,” she frets, tapping her foot nervously against the tile flooring.

If they can’t find whatever it is Bette’s looking for, Magdalene will have to walk across the stage in denim cutoffs and a faded t-shirt with Neil Young’s face on it, which is something she’s hoping to avoid at all costs.

“Have no fear, Mags,” she says with a knowing glint in her eye, “For I have found it.” Bette holds up a hanger that is holding a beautiful long sleeve dress adorned with a whimsical floral print.

Magdalene can’t help the gasp that escapes from her. “It’s beautiful,” she breathes, “But let’s hope it fits.”

The dress does in fact fit, and the workers are kind enough to let her wear it out of the store. Bette drives at a speed that might not be the safest to travel at in downtown Denver, but she gets to the school with minutes to spare. She shoos her friends out of the car so she can go pick up Tyson and Ryan, and Magdalene checks in with little hassle. The pool of graduates is fairly small, so she chats with a few classmates while they wait for the call to put their gowns on. Time passes quicker than expected, and soon Magdalene is being directed to her seat. She zones out while the dean gives a congratulatory speech and they go through the first few names. At one point she looks backwards into the crowd to find Bette, Tyson, and Ryan all giving her a thumbs up. The nerves she didn’t even know she had settle.

A faculty member signals for Magdalene’s row to stand up, and she smoothes her dress before dutifully following the person in front of her. Giddiness bubbles in her stomach at the thought of being done school forever. A hand from the stage crew give a cue, and Magdalene appears on the stage as her accomplishment is broadcast through the microphone.

“Magdalene Stevenson is being awarded a Masters in Information Science in Archival Studies and Records Management.” It feels so good to finally be finished that she lets a tear slip as she shakes the hand of the staff member handing her the package with her diploma in it.

The rest of the ceremony passes in a blur, and before Magdalene knows it her friends are approaching to congratulate her. Bette and Tyson wrap her in a tight hug, murmuring praise in her ears. Ryan stands awkwardly to the side before Bette drags him into the celebration. The four of them stand in the courtyard where the ceremony was for much longer than needed. Bette is crying enough to refill Sloan Lake if there is ever a drought and is yet to let go of Magdalene’s figure.

It’s only when the event staff ask them to leave so they can tear down the stage does Magdalene turn to leave campus for the last time as a student. She’ll be back in a few weeks as an employee, but deep down she knows this is the last time she’ll ever feel such a deep connection to the place.

“Victory is mine, victory is mine! Great day in the morning people, victory is mine!” Magdalene yells, quoting Josh Lyman as she skips down the path towards Bette’s car.

Both Bette and Tyson are confused at the sudden outburst, not knowing what she’s talking about, but Ryan responds without missing a beat. “Should I bring you all the muffins and bagels in the land?” His response doesn’t clear anything up, but it elicits a giant smile from Magdalene, who laughs and nods in confirmation.

Sitting in the back of Bette’s Audi, on the way to a graduation party she’s supposed to know nothing about, Magdalene decides that she wants to get to know Ryan Graves better. From what she’s garnered from Bette and Tyson he’s a class act, standing up for friends and giving good advice. He likes The West Wing and showed up to a stranger’s graduation, so how bad can he be?

☼☼☼☼

additional notes: see what magdalene's graduation dress looks like here // the quote from the west wing is from 1.02 if you were curious!

☼☼☼☼

taglist: @scrunchmakar @marcoscandellas @toplinetommy (add yourself to the taglist!)

#ryan graves imagine #ryan graves x oc #ryan graves fic #colorado avalanche imagine #nhl imagine #nhl fic #hockey imagine #hockey fic #cwrites #dmtteol

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theydontknowaboutusimagines · 4 years

Text

This Christmas - A Harry Styles Christmas Series (Part 11)

Two life long friends. Secretly in love. Home for the holidays. Will they risk everything by telling the other how they feel? Or will they spend another year loving from afar?

Read these first Prologue Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10

** Harry poured you another cup of hot chocolate as you two searched around for places to go.

“I guess first we should decide if we want warm and tropical or cold and cozy,” he said.

“Hm… cold and cozy sounds nice,” you smiled. “But so does warm and tropical.”

“Okay… how about this… would you rather see me all bundled up or shirtless,” he joked.

“Let’s be honest, you’d end up shirtless either way. You have trouble keeping your clothes on,” you joked.

“You know you like that about me,” he smirked, knocking your shoulder with his.

You rolled your eyes, “How about we find a cabin in the mountains? We’ll be bringing in the New Year and I want us to be surrounded by snow and a fireplace. We wouldn’t get that somewhere warm.”

“Cold and cozy it is,” he smiled, kissing your cheek.

“We could go to the Alps?” You suggested.

“I’ll look into it,” he smiled.

You smiled, laying your head on his shoulder.

“So, you said you sent your book to your editor?” He asked. “What’s the next step now?”

“Well, my editor reads over it and suggests any changes I need to make it better. Or if I made any mistakes and what not, she calls me out on it,” you laughed. “And then I go back to writing and the process repeats itself until it’s finished. It’s supposed to come out in October of this next year, so we’ll see.”

“That sounds like a lot of work,” he said.

“Yep, that’s why I had to finish this draft so soon because the longer it takes me to write the first draft, the less time I have to do everything else… or I would have to postpone the release date,” you told him.

“And you do this with every book?” He asked.

“Pretty much,” you laughed.

“And you enjoy it?” He laughed.

“I mean don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of times where I get frustrated or annoyed, but at the end… seeing my book on the shelves of bookstores I went to as a kid or seeing a reader holding my book and telling me how much they love it. It’s worth everything in the end,” you whispered.

He smiled holding you closer to him, “I’m really proud of you.”

“Thank you,” you smiled. “And I’m really proud of you, too. I always have been and I’m sorry I wasn’t always there to tell you.”

“Hey, we said we weren’t going to focus on the past anymore, remember?” He said.

“Last time, I promise,” you giggled.

“Good,” he smiled, pressing his lips against yours.

You smiled against his lips, wrapping your arm around his neck, your fingers going straight into his hair. He pulled you over onto his lap causing you to wrap your legs around his waist. You deepened the kiss while he ran his hands along your back. After a few minutes, you reluctantly pulled away, pressing your forehead against his, both of you gasping for breath obviously kissing way longer than your lungs could handle.

“How about one more Christmas present?” You whispered.

“What? No, you’ve given me enough,” he laughed.

You rolled your eyes, “This one is for the both of us.”

He looked at you completely confused.

“Am I really going to have to say it out loud because you don’t know where I’m going with this?” You laughed.

“Um… yeah,” he laughed.

You rolled your eyes before reaching down, grabbing the bottom of your shirt, and pulling it above your head, leaving you in nothing but a bra and jeans. “Get it now?” You smirked.

His eyes widened at first, but he quickly composed himself, “Um… wow… uh are you sure?” He asked.

You sighed, taking his hands in yours and lacing your fingers together, “I know you’re trying to be a gentleman and you’re making sure I’m not feeling pressured or anything. But I want you. I’ve wanted you for so fucking love and I’m tired of waiting. I want you to touch-”

You don’t even get to finish your speech before he pressed his lips against yours with so much force you almost fell backward. He tightened his grip on your hips, pressing your closer to him. You tugged on his sweater, begging to feel his skin against yours. He removed his lips from yours long enough to pull the sweater over his head, discarding it on the floor with yours.

Your hands quickly found their way to his chest and shoulders while his lips attached themselves to your neck. You tilted your head to the side as he pressed gentle kisses down your neck and shoulder, pushing the strap of your bra out of the way. He placed his fingers at the clasp of your bra fumbling around trying to get it off.

“For fuck’s sake what is wrong with this thing,” he mumbled.

You giggled turning your back to him so he could unclip it that way. As soon as it was, you felt the fabric fall from your body, which you happily discarded to the floor. Chills were sent down your body when you felt his lips against your back. His hands were around your stomach as you leaned against him. You reached your arm up around his neck, bringing his lips down to meet yours. He smiled into the kiss running his thumb across your belly.

The next few moments were all a blur as the two of you took off the clothes that remained before falling onto the bed.

“I love you,” he whispered, gazing into your eyes.

“I love you, too,” you smiled.

The morning after you woke up feeling a little disoriented. You felt itchy and you realized it was because you were wearing Harry’s sweater from last night and literally nothing else. The rest of your and Harry’s clothing covered the floor along with the ripped wrapping paper. The room was still lit up by the glow of the Christmas lights. You smiled remembering everything from the night before and it was everything you could have ever hoped for.

You looked over a Harry, who was staring over at you, “Hi,” you smiled.

“Hi,” he smiled, kissing your hand.

“Sleep okay?” You asked.

“Wonderful,” he smirked, wrapping his arms around your waist and bringing you closer to him.

“And… everything else… was okay?” You blushed.

“I believe one might describe it as mind blowing, Happy Christmas, I love you sex,” he smirked.

You giggled, rolling over on top of him, “Care for a repeat? Before I have to leave?”

“You gonna keep the sweater on?” he smirked, his hands at your hips.

“Why? Does it turn you on?” you joked.

“Only because it’s mine,” he smirked. “And you’re mine… and I’m yours.”

“If you’re going to keep quoting my own books, I’m not going to let you read them anymore,” you laughed.

“Hey, I’m just making the fantasy a reality, baby,” he smirked.

“Well, the real thing is better than the fantasy,” you smiled.

After a shorter repeat of last night, you two finally got out of bed, while you started packing up your things and Harry cleaned up the mess from last night.

“I don’t want you to go,” he pouted, wrapping his arms around you.

“I’m just going a few blocks over and I’ll see you tomorrow,” you giggled.

“I know, but I got used to seeing you here,” he said.

“Me too,” you smiled. “But you’re going to be with your family and I’ll be with mine.”

He sighed dramatically, “Fine I guess I’ll let you go.”

You giggled giving him a quick peck before unwrapping yourself from his arms.

“I’m going to go say bye to your Mum and Gem,” you said.

He nodded, “I’m gonna finish cleaning up out here.”

“Thank you again for this,” you smiled. “I loved it.”

“I’m glad,” he smiled.

“Call you later?” You asked.

“You better,” he said.

Harry sighed as you left. He knew why you were leaving, but it still didn’t make it feel like a part of him was gone too. He was definitely being over dramatic and needy, but in that moment he didn’t care. Once he was finished cleaning everything up in the guest house, he saw an unopened box on the floor.

It was the gift Gemma had given him to give to Y/N.

“Shit,” he mumbled. “Guess I’ll just have to give it to her tomorrow.”

He put the box in the bag with his gifts you had given him and held it in on hand while he carried the bag of trash with the other and headed inside.

You were now at your parent’s house and it felt just like when you were little. You helped your mother in the kitchen making desserts, listening to Christmas music, while sipping on homemade boozy hot chocolate. When you were finished with that, you would change into your new Christmas pj’s and watch Love Actually together.

“I’m really happy you were able to come home,” she smiled.

“Me too,” you smiled. “I’m sorry I didn’t spend as much time…”

“It’s okay. You were working,” she smiled. “Besides, I’m happy you and Harry finally came to your senses.”

“Yeah, me too,” you giggled. “You know we’re both stubborn.”

“Don’t I know that,”she laughed.

“Oh, before I forget… he’s taking us on a holiday next week,” you smiled.

“Ooohh, romantic,” she smiled. “You seem really happy, honey.”

“Because I am,” you smiled. “It’s been a really long time since I’ve felt like this and if I’m being honest, the last time I felt truly happy was when Harry and I were still friends. During our years apart or whatever, I always felt like I was missing a part of me.”

“And now it’s back,” your mother smiled.

“Yeah, it is,” you nodded.

It was later that night and your parents were headed to bed. You weren’t ready for bed just yet, so you went up to your room and opened a Christmas romance book you’ve been wanting to read. Wrapped up in your favorite blanket, you read under the glow of the Christmas lights strung up inside of your room.

You were about halfway through the book when you heard a tapping at your window. At first, you thought nothing of it, but it kept happening. There wasn’t a tree near your window, so you knew it wasn’t the wind. You closed your book, placing your bookmark down to keep your page, before heading over to the window. You moved the curtain aside, seeing Harry’s smiling face staring back at you.

You unlocked the window, opening it up, “What in the bloody hell are you doing? It’s almost midnight,” you laughed.

“I wanted to be the first person to spend Christmas with you,” he smiled. “Sooo… are you going to let me in.”

You laughed moving out of the way so he could climb inside.

“I swear that used to be a lot easier,” he joked, pushing his hair out of his face.

“Well, you are old now, soooo,” you smirked.

“We’re only a few months apart, so if I’m old you’re old too, darling,” he smirked back at you.

“Touche,” you giggled. “Can I just say I’m a little disappointed you didn’t dress up as Santa. I mean with the whole sneaking into people’s houses on Christmas Eve.”

“My suit’s still at the cleaners,” he joked.

You giggled before putting your hand over your mouth, “We should probably be quieter. That’s all we need is my parent’s to wake up and find a boy in my room.”

“I think I can help with that,” he said before pressing his lips against yours.

Your arms went around his neck while his hands stayed at your hips.

“I’m really loving these pajamas,” he said.

“Hm, should I pack them for our trip?” You raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, about that… I’m highly considering making our cabin a no clothes zone,” he smirked.

“Oh really?” You asked.

“What do you say?” He asked, pulling you closer to him.

“How about… why don’t we get started with that right now?” you smirked, unbuttoning your pajama top.

“Don’t mind if we do,” he said, picking you up and carrying you over to your bed.

About an hour later, you both laid in your bed with his arms around you as you laid on his chest.

“It’s after midnight,” you smiled, glancing over at your clock. “That means it’s officially Christmas.”

“And what a hell of a way to celebrate,” he joked. “I think we should make this tradition.”

You giggled, looking up at him, “Merry Christmas,” you whispered.

“Merry Christmas,” he smiled.

You gave him a quick peck on his lips before you two laid there for a little bit longer until Harry had to head back to his mom’s house.

AH! Only one more Part! I’m going to try my best to get it posted early tomorrow… but it may be later… or maybe Saturday. Depends on my time management and I don’t want to rush through the final part!

Also, don’t forget to let me know if you want a shorter companion fic of their holiday together!

#Harry Styles Imagines #Harry Styles Fics #Harry Styles Fan fics #Harry Styles Fanfics #Harry Styles Fanfictions #Harry Styles Fanfiction #Harry Styles Christmas Series

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ejzah · 4 years

Text

A/N: This idea was originally suggested by @mashmaiden and is the next in a series about Deeks at FLETC, but deviates from canon. I put took me a very long time to figure out and I’m still not sure if I am fully happy with it.

In a previous fic, an instructor had asked Deeks to speak on his experience when he was tortured by Sidorov. Since this deals with some events from Descent/Ascension, there is mention of violence, trauma, and PTSD symptoms.

***

A Matter of Experience

Deeks let out a very long breath as he waited for other students to arrive. After a lot of consideration, he had decided to grant Flores’ “offer”. He still absolutely hated the idea, but he knew he was technically doing Flores a favor. Plus, Flores wasn’t wrong. Most of the current candidates had never experienced anything as traumatic as he had.

He hoped they never would.

The night before he’d spent a couple hours going over a rough draft of his presentation. Deeks had also covered some ground rules with Flores. Although he had no control over what questions his classmates would ask, he reserved the right to refuse to answer.

Pulling in another long breath, he closed his eye and rolled his neck a couple of times.

“You ok, Deeks?” Flores asked, actually looking concerned. He had an odd mixture of ruthlessness and deep understanding which didn’t necessarily work well together.

“Yeah, fine. I’m good.” He felt vaguely queasy and restless, but he wasn’t about to tell Flores that. “We never discussed what I should do if no one has questions,” he added. “Do you have a back up lecture?”

“Oh believe me, there’s always questions with this case. We’ll be lucky if we get out on time.” He seemed to realize that he sounded a little insensitive. “Based on what I’ve heard about you, you can handle this Deeks. But if you changed your mind, I won’t judge you.”

That strange feeling of embarrassment returned, but he didn’t have time to evaluate it or respond to Flores as other students started trickling in.

Deeks had purposely chosen a chair to the side and a few rows in where he wouldn’t be too obvious, but could get up without too much trouble. Flores gave them a couple minutes to settle and then walked to the front of the room.

“Good Morning, everyone. I hope you’re all managing your classes alright,” he said. “For today’s class we will be focusing on case study 9.”

He paused as the majority of the class flipped to the appropriate page. Deeks’ pulse pounded faintly in his ears and he swallowed twice, closing his eyes briefly. Even if the details weren’t burned into his memory, he’d reviewed the case, just to be sure he wasn’t caught off guard.

It was surprisingly straightforward, not overly gratuitous and Flores reviewed the details with surprising speed. There was no getting past the pictures though. They were graphic, nauseating. He knew the exact moment everyone saw them and heard someone behind him whisper his name.

When Flores ended the lecture, which was over much faster than Deeks would have liked, he nodded to Deeks and added,

“Now some of you may know that one of your colleagues was involved in this case and he was kind enough to agree to share his experiences with us.” Deeks stood up, joining Flores at the front of the room. “Please welcome Marty Deeks, former LAPD Detective.” Flores gave him what he guessed was supposed to be a supportive pat on the arm and then sat down a few feet away.

It was clear that many of the candidates hadn’t made the connection between him and the battered guy in their text book, but as he glanced around, realized that maybe half the class were watching him with the same strange reverence Omar, Jake, and Charlie had when they first met.

Clearing his throat, he pulled in yet another shallow breath and glanced down at the small stack of notecards in his hand, then stuffed them in his pocket.

“As, uh, Instructor Flores said, I’m Marty Deeks,” he started, pausing to clear his throat again. “But most people just call me Deeks. If any of you have spent more than a few minutes around me, you’ve probably figured out that I have a terrible habit of talking too much.”

A couple people chuckled, but most stayed silent, some looking curious, others intrigued, and a few, mainly Alan, outright suspicious. He’d expected some skepticism since, as usual, he didn’t fit into the mold they expected.

“Like it says in that case study, Agent Hanna and I were captured and held by a Russian arms dealer. They took turns torturing us-“ He swallowed harshly, holding back the shiver that crept up his spine and continued. “to gain information about a colleague who was undercover.

“They had us in separate rooms, but I could still see what they were doing to Agent Hanna. I couldn’t do anything though because I was bound to a chair. I could only watch as they electrocuted him and wait to see what else they had planned for me.”

Before he could continued, Alan raised his hand, his gaze almost defiant and angry as he waited for him to respond.

“Did you have a question?” Deeks asked mildly.

“What was it like?” he said, watching Deeks eagerly, and maybe with a touch of disbelief in his voice as he eyed him. “The case study mentioned that you experienced dental trauma, but it didn’t really go into detail.”

Flores started to intercede from behind him, but Deeks held up a hand, holding him back. If Alan wanted details, he could give him details. He’d avoided the guy as much as possible and put his arrogance and aggressiveness down to immaturity, but now Deeks was truly annoyed.

“No it’s ok.” He smiled tightly at Alan. “One guy shoved this metal device in my mouth so I couldn’t close it. Then Sidorov got out a drill and demanded to know the truth. The whole time I was lying my ass off, trying to keep it together even though I knew he was going to stick that thing in my mouth.”

His breath hitched a little as he felt the phantom pain of the drill bit obliterating his teeth. Someone swore under their breath and Deeks felt perverse satisfaction when Alan squirmed uncomfortably.

Forcing the memories back, he took a couple of slow breaths and then added,

“I ended up with multiple broken teeth, damage to my mandible, and shredded gums-so yeah, dental trauma as they so nicely put it.” Maybe that was going a step too far, but it seemed pointless and Flores had wanted them to know what it was really like. “It took years for me to stop flinching when I heard a drill or to make it through getting my teeth cleaned without almost knocking the hygienist’s lights out. To this day, it’s probably the single most horrific thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Everyone’s eyes were on him, the anticipation and tension almost tangible. A woman-he thought her name was possibly Maria-raised her hand and Deeks nodded for her to speak. Unlike some of her peers, she wasn’t staring at him like he was a particularly interesting soap opera.

“You said it took you years to get over the trauma,” she started a little hesitantly. “Exactly how long did it take?”

“I wish I could tell you that there’s a point when it no longer affects you, but it never really happens,” Deeks said with a gentle smile, sorry he couldn’t give her the answer she so clearly wanted. He saw her face fall and he realized just how young she was and probably pretty horrified at this point. “The memories and dreams and all the other symptoms can lessen over time. They never go away though. That trauma, those scars, they are with you forever.”

“So you’re saying there’s nothing we can do about it?” Another student asked, sounding annoyed and maybe a little scared. “If something like this happens to us, we just live with the trauma for the rest of our lives.”

Deeks shook his head.

“No, there’s a lot you can do. Go to therapy, let the people you love help you, and whatever you do, don’t isolate yourself.” A memory of eating bad takeout with Kensi when he was at his lowest point and added, “Whatever you do, don’t try to face if alone. Believe me, your friends and family will be everything.”

The questions continued for the remainder of the class and as Flores predicted, they went over by 15 minutes. Deeks was completely exhausted and a little shaky, but overall not as much as he had expected. He would probably pay the price for being so explicit about his injuries with a resurgence of nightmares.

“Nice work,” Instructor Flores complimented him as he was packing up his notes and untouched book. “I didn’t expect you to be that...open.”

Deeks grimaced, realizing that he’d basically taken over the class and gone completely off script from what they discussed.

“Sorry, I guess I got a little carried away.”

“No, you got the point across. And that’s what they needed.” Flores patted his arm and nodded his appreciation. “Thank you.”

Deeks left the room, intending to skip lunch and go straight to bed until his next class. Maybe he’d get in a quick call to Kensi. The sound of her voice sounded very appealing and comforting right now. He was about halfway down the hall when someone called out,

“Deeks!” He groaned, recognizing Alan’s distinctive voice and turned as he approached, not up for dealing with him at the moment. He stopped a couple feet from Deeks, eyeing him warily.

“Was Everything you said in there true?” he asked and Deeks rolled his eyes, huffing out an exasperated sigh.

“No, Alan. I just made it up so I could get free implants,” Deeks answered derisively. “Now are you done trying to intimidate me? Talking about the guys who drilled holes in my mouth is a little bit exhausted.”

Alan flinched, but didn’t back down.

“I wasn’t trying to insult you.” He glared at Deeks as though he’d done something wrong.

“So implying that I embellished a case to make myself sound better isn’t an insult?” Alan muttered a fairly creative curse under his breath and then said,

“I’m sorry for what I said the first time we met. I was wrong about you, ok?” He shook his head, jaw clenched like the words were almost painful for him to say. Looking at the ground, he admitted, “Look, I’m struggling with a lot of the courses.”

“And you’re telling this to the guy you hate because...?” Deeks asked, not overly surprised to hear that Alan wasn’t doing well. He’d heard quite a few stories about him clashing with instructors among other things.

“Because I need help and you seem to actually know what you’re doing,” Alan said bluntly, apparently past his embarrassment. “So what do I need to do?”

Deeks blinked at him for a second, resisting the urge to laugh. Even in a moment of crisis, the guy was still making demands.

“Well one thing that I always have to remind myself about is to not let yourself get cocky.“

Alan gave him an incredulous look and shook his head.

“What? That’s your expert advice? Don’t be cocky.”

“A piece of it. It’s easy to get full of yourself. I do it all the time, but there’s always room to grow. New things to learn,” Deeks told him with a shrug.

“What could you possibly have to learn?” Alan asked acerbically. “I’ve seen you in most of these classes and you don’t even break a sweat. It’s freaking annoying.”

Deeks actually did laugh then and nodded.

“I do have a lot of experience. Like you pointed out, I’m the old guy.” Alan didn’t look amused so he sighed, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Look, if you want you can join the study sessions I have with some of other guys. But if you do, you need to lose the attitude because there’s not time for that.”

Alan clenched his jaw, but nodded in apparent agreement.

“I’ll think about it.” With that he turned abruptly, adding a terse, “Thanks.” As he walked away.

Deeks just watched him go, shaking his head, and glanced down at his watch. If he hurried he could maybe just squeeze in a half hour nap and the call to Kensi.

***

A/N: I know this one ends a little abruptly, but I figure I’ll be writing more in this series.

#ncis la fanfiction #marty deeks #Deeks at FLETC #trauma #tw: ptsd #angst?#ejzah fanfiction

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alias-levi · 3 years

Text

flash fic friday #7

for @liz-pooh . in celebration of the exams you passed. i got you and i love you 💙

i also want to say that I'm not 100% happy with what I'm written but I'm quite happy with how my initial draft of this turned out in the end.

i appreciate very much every interaction with this post! 💙

fandom: twilight word count: abt. 1,500 words pairing: Felix/fem!oc topics (and warnings): teasing, fluff, domestic!Felix, i gotta admit Demetri is only mentioned like twice, dancing salsa

summary: Liza, Felix and Demetri have been sent to Galicia, Spain to find out more about an old vampire. But it’s late summer and the days are sheer endless - and so is the time that has to pass before they can leave the house. Time to learn some salsa.

[ID: They learned how to salsa on a Friday night in the dim light of the kitchen.]

source: this prompt is from @poison-prompts (it's also #66 if anyone wanted to know) and the only thing that is different, is that it's not dim haha

thank you and the text is below the cut :) enjoy!

Spain is a beautiful country - especially in late summer. The mostly dry air makes it rather easy to breathe in the heat. The seemingly endless masses of tourists are finally travelling home and there are a few quieter weeks before the first winter tourists arrive, looking for a place to stay warm and cozy while their home countries drown in rain and snow. They come to Spain to escape the depressing grey sky, the short days and long nights. In late summer, the nights are still warm enough to even go swimming in the ocean - not that the temperature would have been a big concern for three vampires anyways.

Liza, Felix and Demitri have been sent to Galicia by Aro. Their order is to find out more about a male vampire that’s supposed to be in the area. He is rumored to be several hundred years old and to have explicit information on the Spanish royals. Aro has also heard that this vampire is not too friendly towards strangers and - that’s where Liza’s power comes into picture - is said to be one of the last dozen people who still speak an old Galician dialect.

Aro is not taking any chances.

So, he sent Liza.

Because that’s what she does: Whenever Liza talks, the recipient will, without a doubt, hear her words in their mother tongue. No matter how ancient, how rare, how complicated or hard to pronounce the language is. While Liza always speaks her own first language, German, the received sound will differ. This has caused quite some surprised reactions so far and Liza loves seeing people get excited and emotional about hearing the language their mother once spoke. Especially older vampires.

Aro had provided the trio with a nice small finca near Oia, on Spain’s north-west coast. It’s not exactly a tourist hotspot like other Spanish cities, so their area is rather quiet. Just like the long days in the finca.

With a sigh Liza turns yet another page in the book she is reading. Demetri had retreated to his room just after noon, leaving Liza and Felix alone in the living area. The dining table somewhere behind Liza is cluttered with files and documents that Felix needs to examine to make sure they did not overlook anything.

Another dramatic sigh leaves the female vampire’s lips. Liza throws her book next to her onto the cushions and dramatically turns her head to look out of the window front. From the terrace, through the garden and beyond the fence a narrow path winds down just to the coast. Their own private beach.

Still, there’s hours to pass for the sun to set eventually.

Liza listens to Felix drop his file onto the table. His chair gets pushed back. Only a bit, though. She can hear it scratching over the wooden floor. He doesn’t stand up.

“Querida, have you ever danced salsa before?”

Liza snorts. “No, I can’t dance anyways.”

“You could learn it. You've got a lot of time now.”

“And who’s going to show me? You?”

There’s a challenge in her voice and Liza turns just enough to be able to look over the back of the sofa. Felix is staring at her, his elbows resting on his knees, hands together, head slightly tilted. He looks intimidating. Like a predator preparing to attack his prey.

“Querida you forget where I’m from. I’ve been dancing salsa before I could even walk.”

“How come I’ve never seen you dance before then?”

“Well, I’ve been lacking the right... partner for that. Come here, let me show you.”

“No, thank you. As I said, I can’t dance.” Liza laughs and turns back around.

“Oh come on! This is going to be fun!”

“Make me!”

Liza’s book gets ripped out of her hands and hits the wall with a thud before falling to the floor. Still sitting on the sofa, Felix is towering above her. He leans down, one hand on either side of her. Felix’ face is so close, Liza can see her reflection in his dark red eyes and ever so often she can’t help but look down onto his lips. But she doesn’t get to do anything about it.

Felix winks at Liza.

Taking her hands he pulls her up and away from the sofa. Felix doesn’t let go of her hands when he takes another step back and turns serious again.

“Basic steps, querida. It’s not as hard as it looks.”

Liza rolls her eyes. “Fine.”

“Good. Now mirror me. Left, right, left. Right, left, right. Do it again.”

“Easy. That’s it?”

Felix smiles at her, “oh no. These are the basic steps that will stay the same all the time. Oh and you need to move your hips more.”

Liza’s eyes shoot up to look at Felix. A smug grin on his face.

“If you wanna see me shake my booty, you just had to ask, boy.”

Felix moves to stand behind his girlfriend and his sudden closure makes it surprisingly hard to concentrate. His lips are at her ear, softly touching it as he speaks quietly.

“Again, querida. Left, right, left. Right, left, right. Left-”

The vampire’s hands have been sitting loosely on Liza’s hips. Guiding them, his body as close as possible but still leaving her enough space. When she missteps, Liza rests her head on her boyfriend, groaning. Felix chuckles softly into her ear.

“Am I making you nervous, querida?”

“Nervous is not what I would call it,” she turns around in his arms. There’s an expression flickering through her eyes that causes Felix to swallow hard. “Let’s just say you distract me... Anyways, what’s next?”

Felix watches Liza bat her eyelashes innocently at him and it takes clearing his throat for him to find his words again.

“Right, right. So next we do this together. Come here.”

Felix doesn’t wait for Liza. He pulls her back in, probably a bit too far, but that is not the point. Liza laughs briefly and takes Felix’ hand. After making sure she’s good with the basic steps, Felix starts rotating them. Slowly but surely they make one round, and it is really coming together.

It’s cute how concentrated Liza stares at their feet, Felix finds, so he decides to spice things up by telling her to do a double step. Though neither vampire stops in their movements, Liza looks at Felix in disbelief.

“A double step?”

“Yes,” he smiles at her encouragingly, “I’ll count you in twice then we actually do it, okay?”

“Okay.”

Her answer is breathless but her eyes never leave Felix’. After a couple more minutes Liza gets the hang of it and feels safe enough to look at Felix again. He looks utterly happy and relaxed. She smiles.

Felix looks at his girlfriend with a proud face. “Close your eyes,” he tells her. “Keep the steps the same, that’s the only thing you need to concentrate on. I’ll do the rest. Trust me.”

And Liza does. Closing her eyes, she rolls her shoulders one last time and relaxes her hands. She can feel Felix move them around again, slow circles but not on the spot anymore. Felix leads them in bigger circles through the area. Once he feels sure enough that Liza will keep the steps, he starts moving faster. He watches her frown.

“You’re getting faster.”

“Correcto, querida. You’re doing great so far.”

Liza smiles and suddenly Felix’ hand leaves her hip. His other keeps holding hers and her free hand just hovers in the air. For three steps they stay like this, then Liza feels Felix’ chest under her fingertips again. She opens her eyes and takes the look in.

Smiling brightly Felix’ eyes never leave her face. His dark, usually very neat hair, looks a bit disheveled and his black silky dress shirt is halfway unbuttoned.

Quite a look, Liza thinks to herself.

But the female vampire doesn’t look less alluring. Tight black control leggings are hugging her curves and her white sheer cotton blouse has been unbuttoned a while ago. Underneath, a white crop top holds everything in place and covers about as much as it reveals.

Felix can’t take his eyes off her as they dance. Dancing salsa again after all this time brings back some memories he usually keeps locked away. But the woman in his hands keeps his brain routed in the present. By now, she is taking some initiative. Liza is putting more power into her steps and swings her hips just a bit more. When Felix’ eyes return to Liza’s face he watches her tip her head back and laugh. Freely. Happily.

In a swift motion, he brings their bodies together. He doesn’t need to tell her that they are no longer doing double steps. By now hours must have passed and their bodies are synced oh so well.

Reflexively Liza gasps for air. She raises her arms to lock her hands in his neck. Her eyes wide open as Felix’ hands cup her side firmly. She knows what’s about to come.

Then Felix kisses her.

#twilight #prompt #writeblr #felix x oc #felix volturi #oc: liza #ps i love queue #flash fic friday #levi wrote stuff #teasing #fluff #domestic!felix #demetri is only mentioned i'm sorry

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talldecafcappuccino · 3 years

Text

Title: Between Close Friends

Rating: General Audience

Chapters: 1/1

Relationship: Ted Lasso/Rebecca Welton

Summary: Ted is bad at social media, but is that a bad thing?

Ted, what the fuck are you doing????

Ted peers at his phone, rubbing sleep from his eyes and reads the message again.

He scrolls down and sees he has twelve more texts and three missed calls all from Keeley Jones. He turns off his nighttime notifications with a few exceptions for emergency contacts, so it’s not surprising he slept through the messages.

He scratches at the stubble along his cheek and checks his clock. It’s seven o’clock here in Kansas, so it must be . . . early afternoon in London. He thinks through the last day, but he can’t remember anything interesting enough to have Keeley on the case.

Henry came over to his extended-stay hotel, they went to an American football game, got a late dinner in downtown Wichita, and watched a movie before bed.

They did make it on the Jumbotron for the Lasso-off, the team’s half-time dance contest, but his moves weren’t especially embarrassing. At least not in his opinion. Unless one of the moves was actually an insult to the English in which case, oh jeeze, he needs to get on this quick.

The call barely connects before Keeley’s voice echoes in his ear.

“Oy! Ted!”

“Keeley, I am so sorry for whatever I did to offend the great people of the United Kingdom. I am ready to make a statement and an apology tour as soon as you tell me which dance move I need to retire immediately.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I need you to log out of the AFC Richmond Instagram account. Like, now.”

That stops Ted in his tracks.

Does he even have access to that? He remembers a post-it note of accounts and passwords from Beard on their first day with Richmond.

There was an account run by the previous manager, but Keeley had taken it over long ago, converting it to the official team account. She had also made Ted a personal Instagram for his own use and brand development, but he never posted publicly.

He puts her on speaker phone and opens the Instagram app. She’s right. He’s logged into the team account with all 25 million followers. Well, shoot.

There are about a dozen stories posted from last night. All of Ted and Henry’s day together. There’s puns (“having a cow” at dinner with an image of Henry holding up a beef rib and screaming his head off), Ted and Henry singing at a dueling piano bar, the two brushing their teeth together in the bathroom mirror.

“No offense, but I think this may delay the Tom Ford deal you asked me about.”

“Yeah. I get that.”

“It’s just, you know, dads aren’t quite their brand. Or our brand. I mean we’re not anti-dorky dad, but you know with the whole comeback narrative during the season hiatus . . .”

“No I get it. You’ve put a lot of work into rebranding this team and I just undermined that.”

She sighs, but it’s fond.

“Sorry, Ted. It’s not like what you posted was bad, it’s rather sweet actually. It’s just a little different from the posts I had scheduled.”

Ted nodded. It wasn’t the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to him, but he felt bad for making Keeley’s job harder than it needed to be.

“No, I’m sorry Keeley. I swear, it won’t happen again.”

****

“Can you believe what Ted did last night? I’ve never seen someone so bad at social media.”

Rebecca has no idea what Keeley is talking about when she walks into her office. She flops onto the couch, feet splayed on the coffee table, clearly exhausted by whatever Ted has done from 4,438 miles away.

“So many puns. Which, don't get me wrong, I love word play more than most people. But I don’t think it’s right for the team right now.”

Rebecca shuts her laptop.

“You’re right about puns not being part of the team plan, but what’s this about Ted? What did he do, exactly?”

Ted hasn’t posted anything in at least 24 hours. Not that Rebecca is keeping track.

“Oh he managed to switch to the team account on Instagram and posted about his entire evening out with Henry. It was quite sweet, actually. The ones that made sense,” but then she pulled a face.”He’s like, really, really bad at social media.”

Oof. Well that isn’t great, but Rebecca doesn’t think there’s anything particularly terrible about Ted’s social media use normally.

“But everything seems under control? No big PR actions needed.”

“It’s fine. I had him log out and wrote a post about Coach Lasso’s surprise social media takeover from America.”

Rebecca nods. Okay, so it was all sorted. Keeley has things totally under control.

But she reaches for her phone anyway. She opens Instagram, taps through the AFC Richmond stories, and snorts at the image of Henry with the rib as big as his head.

“Are people at least being kind?” Rebecca hopes Ted logged out without seeing any messages about Henry. Not that she could see any reason for it, but people were shitheads on the internet.

“Well, wanker is still the most common response. But many of them are wanker with a little heart at the end, so I think it’s fine. We actually got a lot of responses, proper engagement and all that,” she looks up at the ceiling, considering it for a moment before rolling her head to look back at Rebecca.

“If we weren’t trying to present the team as a badass phoenix rising from the ashes, I’d say a Ted takeover isn’t a bad idea. He just needs some supervision. Maybe a phone with a better camera.”

Rebecca is only half listening as she taps to the next story.

“Aw, they went to dueling piano night. That must have been fun for Henry.”

She’s smiling at her phone when Keeley asks, “Dueling piano night?”

“Yeah, you know at Jim Bob’s Bar.”

Keeley is looking at her blankly.

“Fine. I know it’s not really Jim Bob’s bar. It’s probably not even a bar if Henry’s there. But I can’t remember the real name off the top of my head.”

She’d looked it up once, after Ted first posted about the dueling pianos. For some reason she started calling it Jim Bob’s. Ted didn’t seem bothered and had even started calling it that himself.

When she looks up again, Keeley is staring at her, eyes narrowed.

“What are you talking about?”

“What do you mean?”

“How do you know so much about some bar in Kansas?”

That gives Rebecca pause. She isn’t sure what Keeley means by the line of questioning.

“It’s not some totally random bar. Ted posts about it whenever he goes for dueling pianos.”

If he gets to the bar early or she has a particularly late evening, Rebecca catches the story before going to bed. When she does, she always asks him to put in $5 for Wannabee by the Spice Girls. She owes him a small fortune by now, but it’s worth it to see the bar explode with cheers and jeers.

Some nights she misses the story, but he puts money in anyways and she wakes up to a shaky video of, Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want.

Rebecca thinks this is a good enough explanation, but Keeley is still staring at her.

“I’ve literally no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Keeley, you know social media is not my thing. All I know is that sometimes Ted posts about this bar on his tiny friends list thing,” she waves her hand around, trying her best to describe it. “The one with the green ring around it.”

Keeley leaps to her feet, eyes wide.

“Am I not on Ted’s Close Friends list??”

Before Rebecca can say a word, Keeley is halfway out the door, texting furiously.

“Roy, better not be on there, if I’m not on there. Ted knows how I feel about being left out!” she shouts over her shoulder. “Sorry Rebecca, I need to do some investigating, asap.”

Oof. She may have just created a problem. It’s probably best to give Ted a heads up before Keeley gets through interrogating Roy.

She drafts a text once, twice, then deletes it and presses call instead.

“Hey Boss, let me guess. Keeley got a hold of you?”

It’s been a while since they’ve chatted, what with the time difference. It’s bizarre how familiar his American accent has become.

“She just left my office, yes.”

There’s a loud crack in the background and a metal clang.

“Where are you?”

“Oh, just the batting cages with Henry,” he says, cheering loudly. “Hey, do you guys have a sport called baseball that has nothing to do with American baseball? You know, like football and football?”

She chuckles, “I don’t believe we do. However there is always cricket.”

He hums, considering it.

“Now Ted, I think there’s something you should know.”

“Lay it on me Boss. I know I caused a headache this morning, what’s the damage? What do you need me to do? I am at your disposal or I’ll lay really, really low as long as you need me to.”

“It’s not that Ted. It’s Keeley.”

“Keeley?”

“Yes, she’s on a bit of a mission at the moment. It seems you left her off your Close Friends list? I think that’s right. On Instagram?”

“Huh. How did that come up?”

“I was telling her about Jim Bob’s. Apparently she had never heard of it and realized you had a whole social media life she was unaware of.”

“Right . . .”

“So do what you will with that.”

“You haven’t talked to anyone else about this yet, have you?”

Rebecca is confused by this new direction.

“No. Why? Ted, is something wrong?”

It takes a long moment for Ted to respond.

“What can I say, I’m just really bad at this social media stuff.”

It's a non-response and an overly folksy one at that. But Rebecca can’t be fooled by the aw shucks routine—not anymore. She tries again.

“Ted. Who is on your close friends list?”

“Uh. Not a lot of people.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“What can I say?” He huffs, a little frustrated. She would feel bad for prying, but she can't help herself. “The list of people I want to share silly life things with is small.”

“How small?” she wonders.

“Very small.”

The line goes silent and Rebecca swears she lost him. But then she hears him take a deep breath.

“It’s you. You’re the list.”

Rebecca feels flush. That’s not where she was expecting this conversation to go.

“I know that might be a lot. You don’t have to say anything. I just, that’s the honest truth and I’d like to get ahead of it before Keeley harangues the entire team.”

It’s a lot to take in, but it makes sense. Sometimes when she’s watching his posts, she wonders about his audience. Who else cares about his biscuit recipe improvements or Broadway Sundays (a recent development that’s turned into a shared movie night.)

“Rebecca?”

She realizes she’s been quiet for a while. The moment feels tenuous and she worries about saying the wrong thing, sending him running faster than Keeley during a social media snafu.

Finally she settles on, “You know, you’re welcome to text me silly life things. It wouldn’t be a bother.”

She brushes invisible crumbs from her desk, listening carefully to his breathing on the other end of the line.

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Maybe I can send some, too?”

Rebecca can hear his smile from across the Atlantic.

“Well, alright then.”

****

That night, Ted’s phone pings and he rolls over to see a text message from Rebecca. It’s a picture of the sun rising over her garden wall.

Something silly to start the day.

But it doesn’t feel silly. Not at all.

#ted lasso #ted lasso fic #some fluff #because a plot bunny got in the way of what I planned to write this weekend #I blame the Easter bunny #ted x rebecca

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taco-taco-belle · 4 years

Text

, A crack in the ice Chapter 1

Authors notes

This is my first ever writing piece, I hope you guys enjoy it! As some of you know I am visually impaired, which means I do not read print like a lot of you do, Because of this there will probably be a lot of punctuation errors and I am really sorry about it. I tried my best to remember everything about how print works, and hope you can still enjoy the story! My messages and ask box are always open if any of you want to pop in, and notify me about punctuation mistakes and words that were spelled wrong in my writing, or just to say hi!💜

Summary

Ever since the battle of Hogwarts, and the defeat of you know who along with his death eaters, The Wizarding World has been at peace. Wizards and witches feel secure, and don’t expect any nasty surprises or uprisings in the near future. So what happens when alliances against them form in the most unlikely places, And a new struggle for power begins? Well, the newest generation at Hogwarts is about to find out!

Lucie gave a cat like stretch, and tossed her quill onto the table in front of her. She squinted down at her watch, it was a quarter to midnight, and they had to meet the others in 15 minutes. Lucie Felt the nervous excitement, that always came when she was about to do something she knew she wasn’t supposed to be doing, mixed with exhaustion. It had taken much longer than previously anticipated, to finish her potions essay on the draft of a ternal sleep. Matthew seated beside her wasn’t even halfway through his own essay he kept sneaking glances at Lucie’s when he thought she wasn’t paying attention. Christopher was seated in his favorite arm chair by the fire, immersed in one of his well thumbed notebooks.

Christopher usually did not join Lucie, And Matthew when they did school work together, In the Ravenclaw common room. This wasn’t because he didn’t enjoy spending time with his friends, Christopher was very intelligent, and had an amazing memory. this meant that he excelled in all of their classes, and finished assignments incredibly quickly. instead of using his ample amount of free time to socialize with his friends, he spent it on his research. He was fascinated in the ways that everything magical, and non-magical function. None of his friends ever got annoyed at Christopher for this, they knew it was what he enjoyed doing. If it made her cousin happy then Lucie was satisfied.

Lucie scanned the common room. Ravenclaws despite their reputation of put togetherness, And Great organizers were a very untidy bunch. Scraps of parchment, with half thought out calculations, and ideas scribbled on them, Lay strewn across tables, and chairs. Broken quills lay beside chocolate frog wrappers, and empty ink bottles. The mess looked even worse contrasted against the common rooms elegantly arched ceiling covered in constellations, And spotless white bookshelves. She wasn’t judging her fellow comrades housekeeping however, Lucie was making sure everyone else had gone up to bed.

Matthew gave her a teasing grinn, which Lucie ignored. They both knew that the last Ravenclaws, A group of giggling fifth year girls had made their way upstairs, A half an hour ago. Despite this, Lucie had been nervously glancing over her shoulder, every five minutes. The sick feeling at the pit of her stomach had been increasing, as the night wore on. Lucie suffered from terrible nerves, every time they snuck out of Ravenclaw Tower, ever since she was 12 years old. In fact, she suspected they had only intensified throughout the years. Matthew treated the situation as he treated everything else, not very seriously.

He always tried to reassure her, By pointing out the fact, that if they hadn’t gotten caught by now, they probably never would. In response to this, Lucie would always remind him that she was the head girl of Ravenclaw, And Matthew was both there Quidditch team captain, and the Minister of Magic‘s youngest son! So they couldn’t afford, to rely on probably. She would suffer through her nerves, however to be able to spend a few hours spending time with her beloved friends, each week.

“Luce shouldn’t we get going?” Matthew inquired, looking over at her. She nodded, neatly rolling up her essay, and stuffing it inside her school bag along with her quill, And ink bottle. Matthew looked down at his essay, and side dramatically. “I guess I shall have to bring this accursed piece of paper along!” Lucy gave Matthew a questioning look. Shall?, but all she said was “I am sure you can get Daisy to help you.” He made a face at her, and she grinned. They both knew, that he would prefer to work with James, or Thomas. Cordelia was one of Lucie’s favorite people in the world, but even she could admit that Daisy could be a little intimidating at times.

Though Cordelia could be withdrawn at times, she always gave off a quiet aura of confidence and authority. Lucie doubted that her best friend, was even aware of this aspect of her personality. She knew with certainty though, that they played a big role in Cordelia being Quidditch captain, And head girl of Gryffindor house. Whenever Daisy helped Math with his homework, she watched him intently the entire time to make sure he was focused, and didn’t put up with his dramatics. Jamie on the other hand, usually ended up getting into trouble with Matthew, or just doing most of the assignment for him. They were best friends as close as Lucie and Cordelia, and had been best friends before even coming to Hogwarts.

Matthew gave her one of his best winning smiles “ come on Luce help someone in need.” She Scoffed “ oh don’t try that on me Math. I have been immune to your charms since you tried to eat Christopher’s pet ladybug Mr. spots on a dare from my brother when we were eight.” He frowned “ not One of my finest moments. It’s a good thing father stopped me, I’ve heard ladybugs are positively ghastly for one’s complexion!” Lucie wasn’t even going to bother asking, where Matthew had gotten said information. “ Matthew no matter how many times you refer to my father as yours it will not make it true.“ and I still haven’t gotten over Mr. spots you know.” Christopher said quietly from the fire. Lucie laughed, You never knew when Christopher was listening and when he wasn’t. Sometimes she would recount a long story to him, or an explanation of something, before realizing that he wasn’t paying attention in the slightest. Christopher wasn’t rude he was just, as his older sister Anna put it off in his own world.

Matthew gave them both Hurt looks “ no respect even from my closest friends!” “ you’ll get respect from me when you finish your essay.” She said, Pointing to the piece of paper on the table in front of him. “ you’ll never get it from me.” Christopher said matter-of-factly, Turning a page of his notebook. Matthew waved his wand, and sent all of his possessions including the much hated essay flying into his bag, in an unorderly jumble.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t smart, Matthew was as intelligent as all of his fellow Ravenclaw’s. He would just rather do the spells, and potions they were assigned. Then in his words “ wasting hours of my life shut up in Ravenclaw Tower, up to my ears in books, and essays depriving the world of my many talents!” His friends also knew, though he would never admit it that Matthew struggled sometimes under the expectations set for him. His mother Charlotte was the minister of magic, and his older brother Charles had been head boy of Ravenclaw house. Everyone was always watching him, waiting to see if he would be another success of the family, Or a screwup that they were secretly ashamed about. The professors, even treated him differently than the rest of the class sometimes. This caused Matthew to say rude things in class, and act out sometimes. Lucie, And her brother never stayed mad at him for long because of it though, they knew he was just constantly under a lot of stress. Matthew was at his best when he was with his friends.

He looked over at her his dark green eyes reflecting the fire light, as if he knew she had been thinking about him. “ ready to go?“ yep.” She replied, standing up and crossing the dark blue carpeted floor to Christopher, as Matthew bent to retrieve their brooms from their hiding place beneath the table. Beside Matthews chair Oscar wined. Oscar Wilde, was Matthews much adored golden retriever. He had been a present from James, back in their fourth year, for Matthews birthday. Oscar hated it every time they left him at night, he was incredibly loyal to Matthew and his friends. Whenever they were in the common room he would follow Matthew wherever he went. Matthew spoiled Oscar to no end, and loved his dog as much as Oscar loved him. They even bared a resemblance to each other, With the same shaggy golden hair, and green eyes, though Oscars were much lighter than Matthews.

She gave Christopher a gentle tap on his shoulder “ Time to go Kit.” In the space of about a minute, her cousin had slipped back into his own world. He blinked his dark blue eyes up at her, from behind his gold rimmed spectacles. They were the same as Lucie’s father, and aunt Cecily’s. Though their other cousins, Thomas, Barbara, and Eugenia did not share them. he blinked “ is it? Odd how quickly time passes, we were just talking about my poor ladybug Mr. spots.” He glared over at Matthew, who was stroking Oscar’s floppy ears. His own, and Lucie’s brooms on the floor beside them. She didn’t bother telling Christopher that it had only been a minute or so, instead she went to the window, and slid it open. Freezing night air streamed into the room, causing the fire to sputter wildly in it’s grate. Lucie was glad for the cold air, she leaned out the window taking in big lung fulls of it. Enjoying how it helped clear her nerves, and wake her up.

Matthew tide their bags to the back of her broom, with a practiced hand. As Oscar Wilde sat looking up at him with a disgruntled expression. Christopher gave Matthews broom a look that matched Oscars, he despised flying he was the only member of their group that was not on there house quidditch team. He didn’t even own a broom, Christopher said he would prefer to keep his feet on the ground at all times. He usually rode on the back of Matthews broom, and Lucie carried her own, and Matthews school bags on the back of hers. There was usually no need to bring Christophers, since he almost always had all his work complete. Sometimes Lucie would leave some of her work to the last minute on purpose. So she could work on it with Cordelia. Even though they had had this routine in place since their second year at Hogwarts, Christopher still hadn’t adjusted to it.

Matthew and Christopher joined her at the window, as Oscar slunk over dejectedly, to a spot by the fire, no doubt to wait for their return a few hours later. Matthew handed Lucie her broom, it was a bit awkward with the two bags tied to the end of it but, they managed to get it out the window, where it floated there like an odd bird. Matthew performed in over the top bow, and held his hand out for her to take “ my lady your chariot awaits. Lucie rolled her eyes at him, but took his outstretched hand. Usually in the winter months they needed to help each other clamber out of the window, since the sill was usually slick with ice. She climbed up onto the cold slippery stones. The sharp edges of them bit into her knees through her robes. Wincing Lucie began to slide off the ledge, and Matthews warm fingers still clutched tightly in hers, into the still dark Night below.

I really hope you guys liked this! if you could please like, And reblog, And don’t be shy you can leave a note telling me what you liked, and didn’t like about this first chapter. I will try to post the next one as soon as I possibly can, although I don’t know when that will be. I promise the next one will be a lot more interesting, I just needed to put a lot of set up in this first one. I hope you guys are all staying safe and healthy!❤️

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pseudofaux · 5 years

Note

Congratulations on 1000 followers darling ❤❤❤ Requesting Señorita by Shawn Mendes and Camilla Cabello with Shakespeare (Ikemen Vampire)

(Rose kindly did not mention here that she had to resubmit this request because my DUMBASS THUMB deleted her first ask instead of opening my draft. 🤦🏻‍♀️)

THANK YOU BB! You are always so supportive! I have now listened to Señorita approximately 5 million times and have 0 regrets. Thank you for requesting as part of my follower celebration!

Cut for length.

That afternoon, as she dressed, she had thought to herself that she had earned this. She had settled in to her life in the mansion and worked diligently alongside Sebastian. All her time in Paris had been instructive, but her… housemates were protective, and she had not yet had any time out in the city alone, to learn the way she liked. She had, apparently, spent enough time in the city to make an impression on some of their neighbors, enough that when invitations to a ball honoring a Spanish Ambassador arrived, one of the envelopes bore her name in lovely script. Her would-be escorts mysteriously all had something to do that night (aside from Napoleon, who had been hired as a sword for the evening long before she knew anything about it). Le Comte had fretted, but when she pleaded with him he smiled, presented her with a set of star sapphires, and sent her off with his blessing. She knew as she stepped into the warmth of not-yet-sunset that the evening and the party were hers, chances for her to be a part of Paris the way she dreamed.

It turned out to be her chance to get caught in a sudden summer rainshower, halfway through her walk to her coach at the end of the drive. Her skirts were immediately soaked, and the shock of the storm’s crescendo disoriented her so severely that she couldn’t think to turn back or run forward. The rain around her was so dense and constant she couldn’t see the mansion or the coach, anyway.

Her brain was eager for something to locate in the confusion. So when a breathy voice cooed right beside her ear, she didn’t even scream.

“Well met, poor maid begowned by firmament! Clouds should repent their sunset sins ‘gainst you.”

As she parsed out the speech, a hand slipped over hers. She allowed herself to be pulled to one side. The torrential downpour alarmed her more than a stranger she couldn’t see. She did not object when another hand found the small of her back and gently pressed her forward.

“Your form delights,” the voice murmured, both close and loud enough to be heard over the roar of the rain. “Witness its fit to one/humble admirer who offers aid.”

These frenchmen! “Please get us out of this!” she shouted. Her hair and dress were already heavy.

“My ev’ry step so devoted, sweet star,” her rescuer assured. When he moved around her body, the fluidity of it established he was a vampire. For less than a second his form blocked some of the rain, then he had her up in his arms and seemed to be running. She could not imagine how much her skirts weighed, besoddened– oh, dear, his speech was catching– as they were, but he showed no tension as he carried her. So smooth were his steps that she missed entirely when he took them out from under the pelting rain.

He set her down gently but immodestly: she did not think her body needed to be dragged quite so far along his before her feet touched the floor, and she took a step back once she could. She recognized that they were in one of le Comte’s pavilions in the gardens. Her fleet-footed rescuer had run around the mansion to take her there. The realization put her on guard.

He shrugged off his brocade jacket and squeezed it. Water splashed on the floor of the pavilion, loud enough to hear over the downpour. He offered it to her. “My coat is yours, to dry your personage.”

She took it, curious deep rose color that it was, and wiped the water from her face as best she could before she attempted to get some more out of her hair and dress. The pavilion was safe but humid. Her dress was plastered to her body; the air was hot from summer rain.

She stilled when a loose and still very wet lock of hair was pried off her neck. She had not realized he was close enough to do that.

“Sapphire moonlight,” he murmured, his voice sounding charmed as he did. “Magic stone aglow.”

She moved another step back. “These stones are a gift,” she warned, “from le Comte de Saint Germain.” They were a loan only for the evening, but she didn’t think this stranger needed to know that.

Her rescuer froze and smiled. His hands came up, palms golden in the light that moved through the slowed rainfall.

“From me, sky’s darling, fear nothing at all,” he said. “What vows need you? I will give all, gladly.”

“Stay back, then,” she answered immediately. “At least while I am drying my hair.” He smiled without apparent reservation and took his own step back.

“Who are you?” she asked as she pulled down her hair and squeezed it in his coat. The sound of the rain remained constant, but significantly softened.

“I am a figure known to our dear Comte. ‘Guillaume,’ I sign my bills, and am so called.”

She thought that over as she wrung more water out of her hair. He had not said le Comte liked or trusted him. “I am supposed to be at a ball for the Spanish ambassador at one of the nearby mansions,” she half-warned, half-admitted.

“A poorer party, surely, without you,” he said. She shot him a look, but despite the humor she thought she had heard in his tone, his smile was wan. It warmed her to him somewhat. He reminded her of her housemates; there was something lost about Guillaume.

“Were you going, as well? Before the rain?” It wouldn’t explain why he had been on le Comte’s property, but had he been a fellow invitee in the general area of the party, that would have provided her some reassurance that he wasn’t a wayward (and therefore dangerous) vampire.

He looked stricken. Slowly, he said “I had no business with partygoers. But, Spanish princess, have no fear of me.”

That had not been the answer she was looking for, but his tone was anguished enough she decided to distrust less. “I’m not a princess,” she said. “Just a guest.” He did not look surprised, but she still didn’t feel that he was making fun of her.

“A fine guest to celebrate properly,” he offered with another earnest smile. She contemplated the sad edge of it as he stepped toward her again and leaned close. The last she saw of his eyes looked more predatory than lonely, but not entirely assured. His breath at her jaw was not innocent, and his words were honeyed– honeyed bait, to her ears. “Finest, moon-radiant señorita.”

She gasped as the sensuality of the word found purchase in the flesh of her throat and spread outward. His jacket slipped against her skirt as it fell from her hands.

She tried, unsuccessfully, to speak. Guillaume laughed quietly and hushed her without moving away. He slid a hand around her body to the same place on her back he had used to usher her away from the rain. His other hand found her neck, and cushioned her as a kiss found her ear and made her sway.

Oh, love, your kiss is deadly, don’t stop–

Yes. This. The promise of what came after a dance, that was what she had dreamed of.

“Favor, señorita, a poor poet/ with a single dance,”–indeed, he had already started their movements, his warm hands still at her neck and her back as she blinked at the underside of the pavilion’s dome– “a sevillana,/ or whichever steps should please you the most.”

“I don’t know that dance,” she whispered. Her mouth felt very dry and she could not keep her tongue off her lips.

“Teach me another, then, of your making,” he murmured. He smelled like wet fabric, somehow unmusty– like scented linens used as a tent. She wanted to spend a night with him under the sky and know the way he tasted. “I beg you this: one dance, together here.”

She wasn’t sure how her brain had so completely relaxed all suspicion, a person like Guillaume meant she should be running. But she was relaxed. She wanted to stay, and to dance with this sad stranger in the dying light and the dying rain. She wanted even more than that. So she nodded, and the happiness in his sigh only made her smile.

“Señorita,” he whispered again, and she closed her eyes to let the way his tongue caressed the r instead of rolling it stroke all her senses.“Guillaume,” she whispered back. They moved together, until one dance became more. It made no sense to half love him already, but his closeness and the distant torture in his smile pulled her in. He sang scraps of sweetness and la la las that the magic of last light and last raindrops made her believe were just for her.

When night was full around them, she murmured “I love it when you call me señorita.”

Shakespeare’s lines are (my) attempt at iambic pentameter because WHY NOT. They’re all definitely decasyllabic verse until his single words at the end. /confetti Songfics are hard! Lesson learned!

Song is here (US YouTube). Lyrics are in bold italics. Señorita was written by Shawn Mendes, Camila Cabello, Watt, Benny Blanco, Ali Tamposi, Charli XCX, Jack Patterson, and Cashmere Cat.

#rose-of-yonezawa #pseu slings #ikevamp shakespeare #señorita #iambic pentameter #(very very loosely)#(either way a tag I would have SWORN I would never use)#decasyllabic verse #decasyllable #songfic

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letterboxd · 5 years

Photo

The Last Artists.

“From the outside it seems like this dream scenario… but the truth is it took years working on drafts and wondering if anyone would ever read them.” —Joe Talbot on The Last Black Man in San Francisco.

A love story to San Francisco, to one grand Victorian house in particular, and to a life-long friendship, The Last Black Man in San Francisco was many years in the making. And it paid off: Joe Talbot picked up the Best Director prize at Sundance 2019 for his debut feature, a story drawn from the life of his best friend (and the film’s leading man), Jimmie Fails. A close-knit family of creatives grew around the project, and became a vital support system for Talbot when his father had a stroke just weeks before the shoot. Since January, critical accolades for the film have snowballed. Most recently, it appeared in our ten highest-rated features for the first half of 2019.

Letterboxd reporter Jack Moulton took the opportunity for a lengthy chat with Talbot about his remarkable debut feature. The interview contains a virtual masterclass in first-time feature film development (and the persistence required to see it through), along with some never-before-seen images shared exclusively with us by Joe. Also: some plot spoilers, which we’ve left until the very end.

Joe Talbot and Jimmie Fails in 2014, photographed by Talbot’s brother, Nat Talbot.

Thanks for agreeing to a good chat with us. Are you on Letterboxd? We have our suspicions that you might be. Joe Talbot: Yeah. I love it. I found Letterboxd before we shot the movie. I use it to save movies to watch for later and look up movies people recommend. Occasionally I read the reviews of films I’ve just watched, they’re often really thoughtful.

Can we share your username? You could be the next Sean Baker. The one I have right now is more of a lurking profile so it’s not very formal. I made one that’s a little more presentable for you under my name.

Are you in San Francisco right now? I am. If you can hear my heavy breathing, I’m actually walking up one of the steeper hills that Jimmie and Montgomery crest in the movie and see the skyline. That’s what I do for every interview, I like to walk up the hill to put me in the film. Just kidding, this is the first time I’ve done it. I’m just walking with a friend and we’re about two thirds of the way up. Woo!

We’ve just published our halfway top 10 of the year. The Last Black Man in San Francisco is in second place, between Avengers: Endgame and Booksmart. How does this make you feel, and how do you cope with reviews (whether they’re full of praise or criticism)? Wow, that means a lot. I find the reviews informative, though have to admit I don’t read too many of them. In general, it’s great to know that there are people that love movies enough to get into debates and write passionately, either about how much they loved them or didn’t like them at all. Having platforms like Letterboxd and finding those communities online can be really great, even if they’re not made up of people in your city.

Given that the film has relatively low stakes—it’s not life or death, it’s house or no-house—what gave you confidence that audiences would connect to Jimmie’s story? I don’t know if we were ever confident. You never fully know. You hope that if you share something that has meaning to you then it will have meaning to others. That was our guiding light.

We finished the movie four days before the Sundance screening, so that was the first time watching it with any audience. I looked over at [Plan B producer] Jeremy Kleiner when the movie ended; he said “the tweets are good”. I looked around and realized the whole audience were on their phone as soon as the credits rolled.

I only had a short film play at Sundance before [American Paradise in 2017, also starring Jimmie Fails] so I didn’t realize part of our culture now is the need to immediately respond to something—but luckily they were nice. It will be much more anxiety-inducing going into my next feature now that I know how all this works.

We wanted to make something that captured the San Francisco that we grew up in and feel very strongly about. We’ve travelled to Chicago, DC, New York, LA, and Atlanta with the film and I was surprised to see how much people were connecting to it. In a way, Jimmie and I say it is unfortunately universal because it means the same things are happening everywhere.

This idea has lived with you and Jimmie for a long time. Can you talk us through the journey of the film? We’ve been informally talking about it for at least seven years and it’s gone through so many incarnations. We always envisioned it as the first feature that Jimmie and I would make after many years of making short films together. This story felt big enough in scope and there was a lot that we wanted to cover.

We wanted to tell a story about Jimmie and this Victorian home he once lived in and make it a valentine to the San Francisco we grew up in, that we see as being lost. We also wanted to celebrate all the wonderful people who are here that make this city what it is. That’s a big part of what we are afraid of losing: the very people that make San Francisco ‘San Francisco’.

An alternative poster for the film, illustrated by Akiko Stehrenberger.

We both lived with my parents for five years—we ran our operation out of the living room there. The first thing we did was shoot a concept trailer for Vimeo. It was a five-minute piece of Jimmie skating through the city telling his grandfather’s story, much like the [feature’s] opening sequence, though I filmed it hanging out of the side of my brother’s car.

Afterwards we got emails from people saying they wanted to help; they would become our core collaborators on the film. Khaliah Neal, Rob Richert, Luis Alfonso de la Parra, Natalie Teter, Sydney Lowe, Prentice Sanders, Fritzi Adelman, Laila Bahman and Ryan Doubiago. They spent years with us, hashing out the script over my parents’ kitchen table and working with us to create a look-book, run an ambitious Kickstarter campaign, write grant proposals and so on.

We felt like these oddballs—the last artists in San Francisco. You get a lot of noes along the way, having never made a movie before, so it was the emotional support that helped us persist through the difficult times. We were excited to be learning together, as a group of mostly first-timers, and were constantly making things.

Our look-book was very elaborate, thanks to our stills photographer Laila Bahman. We built it as a website and staged the scenes as if we were filming the movie, with costumes and heavy art direction. We knew people we pitched were probably seeing materials from other filmmakers who were further in their careers and probably better writers than us. We knew we needed to show the world of the movie so that executives’ imaginations wouldn’t be running off with thoughts of Michael B. Jordan or Donald Glover; that this is Jimmie and this is the plaid shirt we want him in and this is his Victorian. It’s his story.

That helped us get into the Screenwriter’s Lab at Sundance, but I didn’t get into the Director’s Lab, which I was initially bummed about because I really needed that experience. Our Kickstarter was very successful and those backers created a grassroots ground-swelling around the movie that pushed it forward, even though it was difficult in pitch meetings as we weren’t the most bankable pair in such a risk-averse industry.

In a last-ditch effort, my crew and I decided to do our own Director’s Lab instead. We felt if it doesn’t work now then that might be it for Last Black Man. I’d never made a proper short with a budget before but a producer named Tamir Muhammad, who had a short-lived venture within Time Warner called OneFifty, gave us the money to make what would become American Paradise. It gave the crew a chance to get in the trenches together before moving on to a feature, and show the potential of what we could do.

The team who’d assembled from our concept trailer years before all worked on American Paradise, from Khaliah Neal, Rob Richert and Luis Alfonso down the line. We worked with production designer Jona Tochet and even the sound team of Sage and Corinne (who would all go on to work on Last Black Man). In a city increasingly devoid of artists, we felt we’d found our people.

The short was different from Last Black Man, but features Jimmie playing the same character. After it played in Sundance it got the attention of Plan B’s Christina Oh. They took a big leap of faith on us, only having ever made that short. There’s not a lot of people willing to do that.

Khaliah, Christina and Jeremy approached A24 and we were in production two months later. From the outside it seems like this dream scenario of having the incredible indie studios Plan B and A24 behind us, but the truth is it took years working on drafts and wondering if anyone would ever read them. I think the extra time we had helped, because if we had the chance to make it two or three years ago, I don’t think we would have been ready.

Jimmie Fails and the creative team behind ‘The Last Black Man in San Francisco’ at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. / Photo: Sue Peri

What was the first movie you made with Jimmie when you were teenagers? The first half-decent thing we made was a movie that my brother and I co-directed called Last Stop Livermore. I am actually in it alongside Jimmie and that was my first and only time in front of the camera. I learned my place pretty early on.

Didn’t you have a cameo in Last Black Man? I swear I saw you. I did have a cameo. As long as I’m not speaking, I’m okay. But even then when I just had to look at Jimmie once it was very difficult for me to do. I needed four takes for that shot, ha ha. I’m much more comfortable on the other side.

Jimmie, however, was really good in [Last Stop Livermore]. We made it while I was in high school before I dropped out, and it got into the San Francisco International Film Festival. Like everything we do, it’s based on something that happened in real life when a friend and I felt like we were fish out of water, going off to meet some girls in the suburbs.

That attention the film got, however minor, encouraged us because until that point only our family, friends and my high school teacher had seen our movies. Oh and Jimmie still had a flat-top—just thought I should add.

The film features the most important house of the year [Editor’s note: at least until the rest of the world sees the Parasite house, designed by the great Namgoong]. How did you find Jimmie’s house and what made it the house? It took us over a year and a half to find the house. We combed the streets with my co-producer Luis Alfonso de la Parra and production designer Jona Tochet and knocked on doors. In hindsight, a more efficient way would have been to use Google Maps but this way we could see inside the houses.

Unfortunately, the interiors would usually be gutted and have IKEA furniture and granite table tops. As a filmmaker, it was depressing, but as a native San Franciscan it was heartbreaking because the details inside all these beautiful houses were destroyed. It’s a thing that a lot of real estate agents do when they flip houses.

We ended up going back to a house that I had driven past as a kid on my way to elementary school. My mom, my brother and I would pick out our dream Victorian houses on our family car ride since we couldn't afford a proper one. I went back to one of the houses that had always stuck with me. After we found that house, it felt like we had cast a major character in the movie.

When we first knocked on the door of the house that would become Jimmie's home in the film, an older gentlemen greeted us and within seconds beckoned us inside. As we entered, we found a home that had not been gutted, but instead had been lovingly restored. Jim, the homeowner, much like Jimmie, the actor, had spent more than half of his life working on the house.

He carved the witch hat you see in the movie shingle by shingle and did the honor of putting it on the roof himself. He fixed the organs you see in the film and built Pope's hole in the library. In many ways, he felt like the spirit of San Francisco.

As a now elderly man, we would have understood him declining our wants to film there -- or charging a buttload to help him in his retirement. Instead he welcomed our big crew into his house and charged us next to nothing. I still don't fully know why, but I can imagine he saw shades of himself in Jimmie's love for this Victorian.

In the years we spent location scouting, we would also meet people on the street that we put in the movie. Dakecia Chappell was working at a Whole Foods in the confectionery section, near a ‘potential Jimmie’s house’ around the corner and she was just really charming, so I offered her the ‘Candy Lady’ part in the film. We met the mover who tells Jimmie the homeowners are moving out late one night at a taqueria on Mission Street. This extra time allowed us to capture the little details of what our San Francisco is like.

Even after your major backing from Plan B and A24, was there a point on set where it felt like everything was falling apart? I’m sure there are directors that aren’t plagued by the self-doubt I had. I didn’t go to film school and I felt isolated in San Francisco since a lot of the filmmakers have left for Los Angeles or New York. I was feeling this imposter syndrome. You’re both really joyous and grateful that you finally have a chance to make a movie, but also feel the weight of the city and wanting to honor what’s happening to people there. In every stage you have big and little freak-outs. The only thing that got me through it were the people around me. They bring perspective when you might not have it.

A couple of months before we shot the film my dad had a stroke. He survived, thankfully, and he would say half-jokingly “I survived to see the movie”. My parents struggled as artists themselves in their lives and yet they created this loving home that allowed us to make the movie. I look up to my Dad a lot, so when that happened that was really scary, and it happened during the height of the pandemonium of prep.

By that point our creative collaborators felt like family and they did everything for us. They came over to my house, brought us food, did as much as they could to take work off my plate so I could be with my own family. That always sticks with me when I remember tough times. You could say it’s just a job, but they treated it like so much more. So while it sounds corny, I think the spirit which comes with people being so loving and kind becomes imbued in the film.

Very glad to hear your dad is okay. The scenes with Jimmie’s parents are so powerful; you really get a greater sense of his isolation. It’s amazing his mom agreed to be in the film as a fictionalized version of herself. How did you and Jimmie sketch those scenes? The scene with his mom is loosely based on something that happened. Jimmie was raised mostly by his dad and he’s very close to his parents now in a way that’s very different from the relationship that he had with them growing up. He and his dad have worked through a lot.

Jimmie Fails as Jimmie. This and the header photo are by Laila Bahman.

It’s hard to pack in all the complex details that makes someone who they are because you don’t have enough screen time to do that sometimes. These elements were pulled from the walks we’d take during the earliest developments when the idea was more informal and we’d talk about Jimmie’s family.

One story that Jimmie always recalled both humorously but also quite painfully was about the guy who had driven off in the car that he and his dad were living in at the time. We thought it would be funny if there was a character who never acknowledged that he’d stolen the car but claimed that he was still borrowing it. We knew Mike Epps would be the perfect person for that. It was a story that came from a kernel of truth but took on a life of its own.

Why was Jimmie’s dad pirating The Patriot, of all movies? The tonal juxtaposition made us laugh. Ha ha, it was in the public domain.

We loved the score. What are some of the soundtracks that inspired you while making the film? The Last of the Mohicans, The Day of the Dolphin, The Claim, Batman (and also the animated TV show’s score actually rivals Elfman’s), and Far From the Madding Crowd.

You’ve spoken in another interview about how you and Jimmie fear friendships like yours aren’t possible with the type of gentrification that’s going on. However, nowadays you can meet some of the important people in your life over the internet. Could the bonds we make online compensate for what’s being lost on the streets? I think the internet is a double-edged sword. It both brings people together that you could never have met, such as how many of our closest collaborators first found our concept trailer online. But I do fear it also plays a part in people developing shallower, less intimate connections. I have friends who I love who will go to events seemingly just to get a good Instagram photo out of it. I’m sure I’ve suffered from similar instincts. That scares me.

Montgomery adds so much tenderness and insight to the film. Given he’s Jimmie’s best friend and he’s also an artist, is he your avatar in the movie? How did the casting of Jonathan Majors inform the development of his character? Montgomery is actually not based on me. Jimmie and I have a friend from the Bay named Prentice Sanders who is one of the more original people we’ve ever met. His spirit influenced the first shades of the character. When Jon came on he took those early sketchings to a whole new level, creating his own backstory, mannerisms, and interests.

On the vanity in his room, Jon decided to put up Tennessee Williams, August Wilson, Barbara Stanwyck, Canada Lee, Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison as inspiration. He had a hand in every little detail. In fact, Jon and Jimmie became very close in real life. They still talk nearly every day.

Warning: the last section of the interview contains spoilers, including for the endings of both ‘Last Black Man’ and ‘Ghost World’. This is your last chance to back out…

How do you direct Jimmie? I imagine you can read each other’s minds at this point. Yeah, there is a weird unspoken connection between us, as we grew up together. Knowing each other for so long allowed us to be vulnerable around each other. As a director, inevitably there are days on set that are stressful, scary, and tense, so being able to go for a walk around the block together to recalibrate and feel present was helpful.

This film asked something much different than anything we had done before. We’d never written a feature script and most of our shorts were ad-libbed. Honestly, everyone broke their backs to make this. Cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra was a hero. Nobody phoned it in.

But more than anybody, we asked the most of Jimmie. There’s a scene where he’s across from his real mother and the bravery from both of them to do that set a tone that everyone on set sought to honor.

Joe Talbot and Jimmie Fails on the set of ‘The Last Black Man in San Francisco’. Photo by the film’s cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra.

Your collaboration with Jimmie has been so strong for such a long time. Is it a relief for you or maybe a sadness that this phase with him is nearly over? It doesn’t feel like it’s over yet, but I’m sure when it does there will be a little bit of sadness. The movie continues to sell out theaters on a Wednesday afternoon in San Francisco and opened in the little neighborhood theaters that indies barely make it into and it's playing alongside Toy Story. There’s a feeling in the city now that’s hopeful.

It’s been wonderful to witness because I feel like we’ve been working through our feelings about San Francisco in making the movie, and in some ways Jimmie leaving at the end feels a bit like us, how perhaps we can’t be here anymore. I’ve only ever lived in San Francisco my entire life but maybe it is time to go somewhere else.

However, in putting the movie out there I’ve seen so many more natives that feel like people I grew up with 15-20 years ago. People who I thought had been lost but are still out there, fighting to exist somehow through all the changes. I feel like part of me is falling back in love with San Francisco again and I think that feeling is going to go on for a long time.

A lot of people are contacting us saying that they left the theater and they just started writing their own scripts, or writing poetry, or sending us paintings that were inspired by the movie. In a city that is increasingly difficult to exist in as an artist and not always inspiring, this always means something to us.

On the film’s ending: to you, where is Jimmie going? Jimmie is going to start his legacy somewhere else—to fully be himself and start anew, following the footsteps of his grandfather. And it’s more fun to shoot it that way than have him ride away on a BART train.

One interpretation of the ending we’ve heard is that it was all in Mont’s head, and in “reality” it ended on a more tragic note. So some viewers felt it as hopeless, but you in fact intended it to be more hopeful? I think we wanted to leave it open to interpretation. I talked to Thora Birch [who has a small role in Last Black Man] about the ending of Ghost World, because that always left an impression on me. I interpreted it as a suicide when I saw it as a teenager and she had told me that she felt that way about it too, but there are also people who thought she was going off to art school. I feel our ending works in the same way.

I don’t see any interpretation of it as invalid, but what your relationship is to your city affects what you bring to it. Either way it’s a bittersweet ending, because it is a loss for Jimmie and Mont’s friendship, and for the city. Like, San Francisco doesn’t deserve him anymore.

Discover the films that inspired the look and feel of ‘The Last Black Man in San Francisco’.

#the last black man in san francisco #joe talbot #jimmie fails #danny glover #san franciso bay #gentrification #sundance #sundance2019 #letterboxd

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riley1cannon · 5 years

Text

Superbat Fic, part one

RileyC

:ahem: Yes, so, I was looking for inspiration for one of my @dcbingo prompts, the Soulmate AU to be exact, and found myself over at Fanlore, where I discovered a prompt originally posted by @boxstorm. I know nothing of this person, but I thank them from the bottom of my heart because left to my own devices the following would have never crossed my mind.

I leave it to others to determine if that’s a good thing or not.

(It will be posted in its entirety on AO3, but only exists as a draft there at present.)

We’re in the DCEU, post-Justice League, and Bruce is about to encounter a figure from urban myth, of ancient lore, that he has refused to believe in all his life. At least, that’s what he claims...

Duck, Duck, Goose

��Oh my.” It wasn’t that Alfred Pennyworth had not anticipated this day. In fact, he had spent the better part of twenty years in expectation that it would arrive at some appointed date. He had begun to despair of living long enough to see it, however There had been many promising candidates, but when even Miss Selina Kyle failed to elicit so much as a honk of portent, even the most optimistic nature would have conceded the odds weren’t looking good.

But now there it was, just coming up from the lake and waddling toward the house. It stopped on the patio and trained its baleful gaze on him for an instant before sliding past, in search of its true target. Finding it, the goose flapped its wings and honked with fowl abandon.

“What the hell is that?” Bruce asked, coffee cup paused halfway to his mouth.

“It is a goose, sir. Canadian, I believe.”

Bruce gave him a look which conveyed that even at just past eleven, it was far too early in the day for this sort of thing. “I can see it’s a goose. What’s it doing there?”

“Unless I am very much mistaken, Master Bruce, it’s here for you.”

Bruce stared at him again, disbelief and denial blended in his expression, accompanied by an impulse to ask if Alfred had been nipping at the cooking sherry. Wisely keeping that thought to himself, he regarded the goose once more, still there, just beyond the glass, and shook his head. “No.”

“No?”

As though it too heard and understood, the goose cocked its head.

“Alfred, I’ve told you before: there is no such thing as a soulmate goose of enforcement. It’s a legend, a myth. A fairy tale someone dreamed up so anyone disappointed in love could tell themselves it wasn’t their fault. It was because some magical goose had never come along.” And although Bruce spoke these words with conviction, Alfred sensed there was something rehearsed about them. One was rather inclined to think someone protested a bit too much, in fact.

That knowledge ran through his mind as Alfred weighed and rejected arguments. In the end, there was little a bystander could do, no matter how invested in the outcome. One accepted the goose, or one did not. Citing precedent could do no harm, however.

“I’m given to understand your mother held much the same opinion, before the goose came for her,” Alfred said as they stood and watched the goose, now hunkered down with every appearance of staying put for the long haul.

While Alfred had not witnessed the start of the affair, he had been present for its conclusion. There had been a garden party at the manor that finished up with a croquet match. Dr. Wayne had been poised to score the winning point, when a great angry goose had burst from the shrubbery and gone right for him. As guests scattered and Dr. Wayne used his mallet to keep the honking beast at bay, Miss Martha Kane had appeared, winded from chasing the goose in question, and trying to distract it from its intent to eviscerate Thomas Wayne. Alfred had been attempting to edge around and offer his assistance, wondering if he could successfully bean it with a croquet ball, when the beast had broken off its attack and, with the air of mission accomplished hovering about it, waddled off down to the pond. When Alfred turned back, Dr. Wayne and Miss Kane were holding onto each other, laughing, and then suddenly going still as they looked at each other, as though properly seeing each other for the first time, and it was then everyone knew the Soulmate Goose of Enforcement had been at work.

Bruce knew the story well enough. Alfred could tell he was remembering it now, assorted tells betraying his thoughts. A brief smile as he pictured his father brandishing a croquet mallet in self-defense, a wistful glance outside as he imagined his mother chasing down the goose and finding his father. Alfred could also tell when Bruce chose to push the idea away, his jaw firming up with resolve and his shoulders going back as he stood straighter.

“It’s a good story, Alfred,” he said turning away from the glass and the goose, “but that’s all it is.”

“Sir--”

Bruce put up a hand to forestall him. “All right, maybe there was a goose. Maybe it did pester my mother. That’s all there is to it. They already knew each other. It didn’t need some magical goose for them to get together.”

“The goose helped.”

Bruce rolled his eyes and put down his coffee cup. Both hands raised as though to ward off destiny, he said, “Enough about the goose. I don’t want to hear about the goose. I don’t want to see the goose unless it’s roasted and ready to eat. Are we clear?”

“Quite clear.”

“Thank you. Now if you’ll excuse me…” And with one menacing glance back at the goose, Bruce made his exit.

The goose watched him go, its own gaze loaded with venom.

Alfred sighed and told it, “You have your work cut out for you, my feathered friend.”

It replied with a honk of agreement.

...

The Soulmate Goose of Enforcement… Why not the Hedgehog Portent of Doom? The Unhelpful Giraffe of Algebra? The...the Ungulate of Awkward Conversation?

About out of steam, Bruce yanked off his third necktie, displeased with all of them, and left his collar open. This was no day to be concerned with four-in-hands or half-windsors. The goose was here. The goose was here, and it was too goddamn late...

:to be continued/concluded tomorrow:

#superbat #superbat fic #clark kent/bruce wayne #dcbingo2019 #soulmates #w/goose #the soulmate goose of enforcement

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darveyfics · 6 years

Note

COuld you please write a 7.12 fic related please plaease im sorry for bothering you

So this is the scene of the two of them drinking together and listening to his father’s records. The one piece of context somebody might not know is that during a flashback to Harvey’s childhood in this episode Gordon’s band is playing a song called “Boppin’ with Donna”.

Sometimes I like to write a fic that starts on nothing and goes nowhere, you know, like the show. I hope it’s not too bad - Maria

Reticent

“Rememberwhen-”

“Ido.”

“Youdidn’t let me finish.”

Shechuckles, looks over at him with an eyebrow raised cockily “Really?”

Hersmugness stirs something beneath his chest, a warmth, a momentum only she canprovoke. It makes him feel guilty, the intimacy and precision in the way sheaffects him, dangerous. He swallows it down, dry and thick. Feigns indifferencehe figures she sees right through.

He rollshis eyes, “Sure, what was I saying?”

“Youwere going to ask if I remember another time we heard this song,” there’s notease in it but perhaps a little nostalgia, she understands his resistance tospar, she always understands.

Henods unspoken gratitude even though their agreements are supposed to beentirely elusive. A tired sighs pours out of him feeling the weight of theirrecent misunderstandings then, like fifty pounds sitting on his chest, stealinghis breath. He forces himself to shake it off “With my dad,” he meant todistract from the choking way he thinks about her now, in these increasinglyrare moments, like the two of them, as a unit, are fading, but it outs in awhisper like it is holy. In some ways, he figures it is.

“Withyour dad,” She agrees quietly, lovingly, a reflection of the sanctity in hisvoice refracted and divided like light into purer, more colorful sentiment.

Shehas always been better at this than he, better at feeling his feelings.

Therecord gasps and stops, saddling them with imperfect silence, the hum of thecity, ghosts and blurred edges. Harvey reaches over and lifts the needle beforeit can sing again.

Heleans back into the cushions, rolls his wrist until the amber in his tumblerspirals like a drain. His mind swirls and sinks with it, struck by a memory.

“Firsttime you heard it, right?” He asks almost sweetly; halting the swirl by rollingthe glass the other way he turns to her slowly.

Pastblends into present, he blames the scotch for seeing two of her overlapped. Oneexists minus ten years with longer hair and brighter clothes, bangs and a lotless complication; the other has been wearing black for the last week andhasn’t made him coffee in a year.

Hewonders who he would pick, fleetingly; knows without a doubt he would chooseher now, whenever now is. The most important thing has always been that she stays.

Donnasmiles, “Yeah, and he had the brass to say it was for me,” She reminisces,leaning forward. She pours herself another dose. The crystalline sound of thebottle touching the edge of glass ricochets across empty space prettily; theirtheme song.

“Itis your name in the title,” Harvey argues with faux gravity, still seeingdouble. In his mind’s eye, her dress is purple and his father’s voice ischarming, he never missed a beat with her.

“Itjust happens to precede my arrival by a couple of decades,” She counters.

Harveyscoffs, “Your arrival?”

Shenods “Yes, the amazing, life changing day, you met me,” she declares grandly.

He agreesbut cannot agree, “Seriously?”

Sheputs one hand on her chest, mouth agape, the picture of over-dramatic outrage“Oh, I’m sorry, we just established I was prophesied.”

“Inever said that.”

“Ithink you did.”

“No,I didn’t.”

Donnastraightens herself, crossing her legs and resting her hands on top of eachother on her knee, she stares him down seriously “Your honor, I think thedefendant is aiming for a perjury indictment.”

Harveysnorts a laugh, surprised as she sparks to life the old routine, there’sdelight but also an ache to it as they flex muscles they haven’t used forlonger than he had realized, “I believe the prosecution is distorting theevents,” he rebuttals setting down his glass to focus.

Donna narrows hereyes, pretends to look down at imaginary papers and push up glasses she doesn’tneed, “Mr. Specter, do you deny the day you met me was life changing?”

Harvey rolls hiseyes, “Really?” He whines.

“Plead the fifth?”She offers defiantly.

“Coward’s move andyou know it,” he chastises.

“If the shoe fits,”she says, reaching for her glass and taking a sip that does not break eyecontact. He watches the glimmer of humor in her hazel eyes and only marginallyremembers this is exactly what he was supposed to be avoiding.

“Whether you did ordidn’t is not the point, the point is I never said it,” he argues smugly.

“Well, well,” Donnastarts, leaning back with poise and pride, resting her forearms on the arms ofthe chair and drumming her fingers on the edges reflexively, “I see we havelowered ourselves to technicalities. Cheap.”

Harvey smiles, “Aslong as it gets results.”

“No honor,” she nods disapprovingly,though a laugh is edging behind her lips.

It is something elsehe has not seen in a while, this specific expression, he wonders if they reallyhave been fading or if he just hasn’t been paying attention. Which reminds him.

“My father did writea song for you,” he blurts out.

Donna lets the laughfly, he has heard it plenty but it is still welcoming warm familiarity, “No, hedidn’t,” She tells him like it is sure and obvious, like he has had too much todrink.

“He did,” Harveyinsists, wondering how he could forget, though maybe he is stretching thetruth, “He kinda did,” He corrects himself.

Donna raises aneyebrow, sustaining her suspicion “Kinda?”

“He never recorded it.It was a draft,” he reveals, “He said he got inspired out of the blue one day,”Harvey sinks into the memory, he himself only heard it once.

It was at his father’sapartment during a damp New York summer afternoon and they had run out of otherthings to talk about. Gordon hesitated to play him the song, kept explaining himself.Harvey mostly thought it was funny, “He asked me not to tell you,” He hadn’tand then it had never come up again, “I’m sorry, I forgot,” he apologizes and turnsto find her eyes, they’re glossed over with unshed tears. He blinks andrealizes so were his when wet warmth rolls down his cheeks.

“Did he write itdown?” It moves the very ground he stands on that that is the first thing sheasks, that she misses his father too.

It hurts all the moreto have to answer, “If he did, I never found it.”

She sighs, “If you do,it’s mine,” assertive but kind.

He sees the purple dressagain and bright red hair cascading over it as she throws her head back tolaugh at Gordon’s blunt flirting, “Of course,” he whispers so gravely it feelsmore binding than any contract. He could not deny her most things, much lessthis.

Donna nods, takes adeep breath and lets it out slowly, “You really killed the casual mood,” shejabs.

Harvey smiles, shakeshis head, “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, I wantedto know, I just wish you hadn’t done the job halfway,” she says it between asmile, it is a joke, an absolution, but he can see the edge of disappointmentin her eyes. He cannot read them as perfectly but that is a look he has alwaysbeen afraid of and paradoxically only grown more familiar with. He needs to dissolveher ache.

“Hey,” he whispers,reaching for one of her hands and stopping short of touching, they have kissedand hugged but he doesn’t know where they draw this new line, if meaning it toomuch violates its borders, “I am sorry,” he tells it from his core and watchesher drink it into hers.

“It’s okay,” sheanswers, her fingers tremble, itching to bridge the gap between them, insteadshe recoils not wanting the blame for breaking them again just for trying toinch closer, “It’s okay.”

They are too tangled,metaphorically, sometimes he wonders if he can even shake her off withouthollowing himself out, wonders if she feels the same. He is selfish enough towish she does, it would mean some kind of barrier from the searing pain ofbeing left. He is selfless enough to also wish she doesn’t for a chance tonever hurt her again with his careless needs.

He should not be thinkingabout any of that, “We finished the bottle,” he points out flatly, stealing aglance at the half inch of scotch left inside the glass.

She follows his gaze,“We almost did,” Donna says andreaches for the neck, downs the rest in one gulp, “There, now it’s done,” Hewatches with bemused surprise as she sets the empty Macallan back on his centretable, turns it between her fingers to ponder the label, “At least it was justa 12 year.”

“You say that like itmakes us less drunk,” he remarks, covering her hand on the bottle with hiswithout thinking, without pretense, just to turn it to him so he can also read.Hers falls away a second later, he wonders if it means she is afraid to touchhim now, hopes not.

“It doesn’t,” sheagrees, “I think I’m tired,” she says and points it with a yawn.

“You think?” Harveysmiles affectionately, “Are you brewing a hangover?” He asks, mildly worried.He knows scotch can upset her stomach and that she hates to vomit, he alsoknows she has some secret hangover cure she never told him about because itwould ‘encourage his bad habits’. How the tables have turned; he is barelydizzy.

“Are you asking thatas my boss or my friend?” She interrogates, side eyeing him suspiciously.

“Both,” because he isboth, needs her there tomorrow morning but also cares if she will be miserablethe entire night.

“I’ll be late, butI’ll be fine,” she bargains.

His eyebrows knighttogether, “You don’t have to come in,” the complacency is immediate, so muchfor thinking he can accept her misery.

One corner of herlips pulls up, she wants to say that is not the business-wise decision “I’ll behere,” she reassures him instead. She is a little disappointed in herself forbeing so averse to letting him down even in small ways.

Donna smoothes outthe skirt of her dress and stands on surer legs than the half bottle she drank wouldhave anyone guess.

“Already?Lightweight,” He teases, sneaking a glance at his watch, a quarter to midnight.

“I thought you had tobe home an hour ago,” She bites back, the implication is a double-edged sword,reminds him he has someone waiting; reminds her that she does not.

Harvey presses hislips together and watches his hands intently. She sighs, taking pity on him,like always.

“Sorry, I need Advil,”she breathes out tiredly.

He nods, “You’reright,” he says without meeting her eyes, “Good night.”

Donna considers him,them. She is tired and dizzy and has a headache brewing behind her eyes; it isnot her job to heal him, it never really was, “You know, I was wondering,” Shestarts and waits until he looks at her again, “Would I make a good lawyer?” ahand outstretched, it isn’t her job,she volunteers to save him.

Harvey allows himselfa small smile, “Thinking about going to law school?”

She scoffs, “God no.”

His eyebrows shootup,”Excuse me?”

She rolls her eyes,“You know what I mean.”

He does. He takes apause to think on it “You wouldn’t,” he answers earnestly.

She is mildlysurprised; Donna narrows her eyes at him, “Not smart enough?” As if, she isfishing and he knows it, she wants him to know it.

Harvey snorts alaugh, “You’d overachieve I’m sure,” it is what she wanted to hear, theexpected, but he isn’t done “Too good,” He adds, “You’re… too good,” headmits softly, with candid admiration.

Her breath hitches,he can do that sometimes, when it’s almost midnight and he knows she will dohim the courtesy of not bringing it up in the morning.

“You’re a goodperson, Harvey,” their lives might be easier if she could not read him sofluently.

He presses his lipstogether and shifts his eyes to the floor, index anxiously thrumming the glassstill in his hand, “Not always,” he made a lot of mistakes, can’t tell whichone is knocking on his conscience the loudest right now, “Not like you.”

“Well,” she startsgood-naturedly, “Nobody is like me,” Donna brags jokingly.

Harvey smiles andshakes his head “I’ll drink to that,” he announces and empties his tumbler.

She watches and sighs,feeling the prickle of the headache intensify, “Now it’s good night.”

He nods, “It is,” heagrees without looking.

She can feel histhoughts, his regrets, makes it hard to detach, “Are you okay enough toremember your address?” She teases, hanging back, a subtle way to ask if he isokay.

He snorts, “Sharp asa razor, I just…” he lingers, deciding if he wants to keep her “I think I’lllisten to a few more,” He admits, “Since nobody else will from now on.”

He hardly ever makesit easy on her.

Donna sighs, crossinghis office to pour herself a glass of water. She takes a pill from her bag nextto it and swallows it down with one sip, then moves to the window where therecords are stacked and lifts two of her favorites, “Which one?”

Harvey almost offersher an out, but there is no point in pretending he does not still need herthere, that he didn’t choose the words to make her stay “Left,” he picks andshifts on his seat, reaching for it.

She pulls the vinyloff the sleeve and hands it to him, waits until he gently trades the one on therecord player for it before going back to her seat. Once she’s settled Harveylets the needle drop and his office fills with his father’s music.

“I miss him,” hewhispers like he is trying to hide the confession in between the notes.

Donna closes hereyes, leans her head back until she’s facing the ceiling and breathes it in, “Iknow,” she answers.

They don’t speakagain except to mumble simple goodbyes an hour later, giving life permission togo on unhinged at dawn.

Being understood isenough.

#darvey #suits usa #dailydarvey #donna x harvey #darvey fic #author: Maria #can ya'll believe im not dead #reply would ya #i need fuel to finish a fic about their dance and one about his mom

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