#ameliahcrowley

[marzipanandminutiae]

Happy Birthday!

Thank you! Please to enjoy this fashion plate of two adult women in the 1860s admiring a doll- perhaps early collectors?

[cutebotcalendar]

Today's reader-submitted message by @ameliahcrowley!

[mariana-oconnor]

The Cardboard Box pt 3

OK, so this was mostly solved last part, with a few hanging threads, mainly being the motive and who the second ear belongs to. Our working theory is a man that Mary's husband thought she was having an affair with. But how that all relates to Sarah Cushing and why he sent the ears to her specifically. My best guess is she was encouraging Mary to leave him and 'befriend' this other guy in some way?

“Lestrade has got him all right,” said Holmes, glancing up at me.

Welp, that was quick. I guess no one is dying in a mysterious shipwreck this week, even though there are actual sailors involved this time.

“In accordance with the scheme which we had formed in order to test our theories” [“the ‘we’ is rather fine, Watson, is it not?”]"

Are we going to get Holmes' commentary throughout? That would be fun. Throwing shade at Lestrade here for taking partial credit for everything. Fair.

@ameliahcrowley did the research about May Day and apparently it wasn't in use as a distress signal yet at this time, which surprised me. So this ship name is just retroactively ironic, which is one of the best flavours of irony.

"I found that there was a steward on board of the name of James Browner and that he had acted during the voyage in such an extraordinary manner that the captain had been compelled to relieve him of his duties."

This guy has zero chill, which we already knew because he was going around murdering his wife and sending ears to her relatives, but he fails so completely at getting away with it, it's kind of farcical.

I guess it makes sense that he'd be a bit weird after killing his wife. But at the same time, the kind of effort it takes to cut off ears, pack them in salt and send them off to women in Croydon indicates a level of thought and planning that is clearly not evident anywhere else in his crime. So weird.

"He jumped up when he heard my business, and I had my whistle to my lips to call a couple of river police, who were round the corner, but he seemed to have no heart in him, and he held out his hands quietly enough for the darbies."

This reads as though the guy is feeling guilty or remorseful, but please see prior notes about taking the time to pack ears in salt. The remorse was a really delayed reaction, huh?

Mr Browner's understanding of what he did dawning:

"...bar a big sharp knife such as most sailors have..."

If he has a big sharp knife, why did he use a blunt one to cut the ears off? Unless the blunt just meant 'not as sharp as a scalpel', which seems an unfair benchmark of sharpness to put on a knife. Not everyone can be a scalpel.

"The affair proves, as I always thought it would, to be an extremely simple one, but I am obliged to you for assisting me in my investigation."

This isn't exactly a lie. Except it kind of is. Lestrade at least claimed to think it was just the medical students the whole time, but at the same time he called Holmes in, which seems like a weird thing to do if he was convinced it was a prank?

"I tell you I've not shut an eye in sleep since I did it, and I don't believe I ever will again until I get past all waking."

Again, this is strange to me. Like did he get through the whole posting of the ears and did the guilt set in immediately after that, or did he do that while feeling guilty? which makes no sense. I do not understand this man.

"Ay, the white lamb, she might well be surprised when she read death on a face that had seldom looked anything but love upon her before."

And this does not read like the words of someone who feels remorse. I feel like Jim Browner is a very disturbed individual. This is very creepy. Anyone who compares another person to a 'white lamb' is instantly ten times creepier than they were before. I'm already getting 'my wife drove me to it' delusional self-justification from his language.

"For Sarah Cushing loved me—that's the root of the business—she loved me until all her love turned to poisonous hate when she knew that I thought more of my wife's footmark in the mud than I did of her whole body and soul."

Oh, I did not see that coming. Although thinking back, the way her interactions with him were referred to were a bit weird. I thought it was just a Victorian flare for language coming through, but no.

I said last time that Mary needed better sisters. She really needed better sisters.

"The old one was just a good woman, the second was a devil, and the third was an angel. Sarah was thirty-three, and Mary was twenty-nine when I married."

A devil and an angel? Right, this guy has unrealistic expectations of the women in his life, I can tell you that right away. The Madonna-Whore complex called, Jim, it thinks you might have a problem.

For someone who is so guilty he can't sleep, Jim Browner is trying very hard to seem like the victim here. Dude murdered two people and cut off their ears and he's determined that it's Sarah's fault. I'm not saying she had nothing to do with it, but seems like he's having a little trouble with accountability here.

Also, her seduction of him is very... like she took hold of his hand and looked at him? That's all she did? I was expecting something more overt. Although this is the Victorian era, I guess maybe that's pretty overt by their standards? Or he misread the entire situation.

"Things went on much as before, but after a time I began to find that there was a bit of a change in Mary herself. She had always been so trusting and so innocent, but now she became queer and suspicious, wanting to know where I had been and what I had been doing, and whom my letters were from, and what I had in my pockets, and a thousand such follies."

This whole thing reads very strangely. 'so trusting and so innocent', and the pedestal he seems determined to put his wife on. It's all a little icky. He seems like a remarkably unreliable narrator.

OK, maybe it happened like he says. We have no evidence in the text contradicting him as of yet. But at the same time we only have his word for any of this and it's possible that he hit on Sarah rather than the other way around, she told Mary. OR that neither of them was hitting on each other, but they both thought the other one was hitting on them and things... spiralled.

"I can see now how she was plotting and scheming and poisoning my wife's mind against me."

If this story hadn't ended with him murdering people and mutilating their corpses, I'd be more inclined to believe him at face value, but knowing the extremes he went to, I feel like this is just massive paranoia.

"And then this Alec Fairbairn chipped in, and things became a thousand times blacker."

Ah, we finally get to the owner of the second ear. Alas, poor Alec. You were doomed by the narrative.

“‘It was only a little thing, too. I had come into the parlour unexpected, and as I walked in at the door I saw a light of welcome on my wife's face. But as she saw who it was it faded again, and she turned away with a look of disappointment."

His entire motive is based on two moments when he saw a look in a woman's eyes? Are you kidding me, Mr Browner? Are you a telepath? Can you read their minds? You have no evidence of literally anything and you just murdered people?

Maybe we're getting to the evidence. Maybe you're going to walk in on them in a compromising position, or find a love letter, or overhear a incriminating conversation. But so far all we have is 'my sister-in-law was upset I didn't enjoy her company and held my hand and made eye contact with me' (which I agree was a bit weird, but not conspiracy worthy) and 'my wife looked like she was looking forward to talking to someone who wasn't me'.

“You can do what you like,” says I, “but if Fairbairn shows his face here again I'll send you one of his ears for a keepsake.”

OK, no. You're just going straight to threats of violence. No further proof needed.

“‘Well, I don't know now whether it was pure devilry on the part of this woman, or whether she thought that she could turn me against my wife by encouraging her to misbehave.'"

The paranoia and entitlement is so strong in this one. He's completely irrational. We're all agreed on that, right? Maybe he was right about everything, but he's based all of his conclusions on...

heh...

He's based all his conclusions on vibes.

I played myself.

At least I didn't kill anyone over it.

"'How often she went I don't know, but I followed her one day, and as I broke in at the door Fairbairn got away over the back garden wall, like the cowardly skunk that he was. I swore to my wife that I would kill her if I found her in his company again, and I led her back with me, sobbing and trembling, and as white as a piece of paper.'"

This is slightly more incriminating, but given that there was a threat made to cut off the man's ears, that seems enough reason for him to run away. And death threats are never cool.

"'The thought was in my head as I turned into my own street, and at that moment a cab passed me, and there she was, sitting by the side of Fairbairn, the two chatting and laughing, with never a thought for me as I stood watching them from the footpath.'"

Honestly, at this point if she was having an affair with him I'm kind of okay with that. Mr Browner is clearly paranoid, violent and unstable. Divorce wasn't really an option for her because Victorian divorce laws were sexist and terrible, and from Browner's earlier description Fairbairn seems like a pretty cool guy. I hope she at least had fun before her husband brutally murdered her.

OK, point of Victorian etiquette, was it considered scandalous to be alone in a cab together? To me that's far less intimate than being found alone in a house together. But chatting in a cab? I suppose there isn't a chaperone, so maybe.

“‘Well, I took to my heels, and I ran after the cab. I had a heavy oak stick in my hand, and I tell you I saw red from the first; but as I ran I got cunning, too, and hung back a little to see them without being seen.'"

Either you couldn't think straight OR you could think straight enough to be cunning. You can't have it both ways. That's not how it works. EITHER you're blinded by jealousy and commit a crime of passion, OR you're thinking through your plan. My dude, you're undermining your own argument (although, as mentioned, the ear thing already did that).

They do seem to be having a very nice date. Good for them. Pity about the murderer lurking in the shadows.

And he's spending an entire day stalking them. Yeah, no, Mr Browner, we're way outside of 'blind jealous rage' murder. You hired a boat specifically to hunt them down and kill them without witnesses. This is now officially premeditated.

"'I cleaned myself up, got back to land, and joined my ship without a soul having a suspicion of what had passed. That night I made up the packet for Sarah Cushing, and next day I sent it from Belfast'."

Yeeeaaah, those are not the actions of a remorseful person.

You're just a dick.

If only she'd had good sense and just run the fuck away with Mr Fairbairn and changed her name. Genuinely, usually I'm super against infidelity in all forms, but you seem like a real piece of work. Your story is so full of inconsistencies and irrational jealousy and paranoia that I can't believe half of it.

"'I cannot shut my eyes but I see those two faces staring at me—staring at me as they stared when my boat broke through the haze. I killed them quick, but they are killing me slow; and if I have another night of it I shall be either mad or dead before morning.'"

Can confirm: you are already 'mad'. Your actions were not those of a mentally stable person. Not that that's why you did it. You clearly have problems, but loads of people deal with problems without killing people. You just suck, my dude. And honestly, zero sympathy.

'I feel super guilty about the crime I threatened to commit, then deliberately set up so as not to get caught, then followed up with acts of bodily mutilation, cover-up, and terrorising of the victim's relatives. But now I feel super guilty.'

Yeah, this whole account is just one long rant about how he's not really responsible. It was the women who drove him to it. By... talking to men and... looking at him funny.

“What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.”

Super philosophical at the end there Holmes. Seems like Holmes at least is taking Browner at his word about Sarah, or else the cycle doesn't really make any sense here. Even if Sarah did put events in motion, it's not really a cycle. It's just... a couple of rather horrible people being horrible to each other.

Or maybe he's referring to the death penalty?

Well, this one was weird. Given ACD's predilection for spiritualism and the afterlife, it's possible he intended the guilt plaguing Browner here to be the spirits of the people he murdered, which - given his lack of accountability throughout his own narrative - actually makes more sense. But there's no evidence of that in the text, so that's just me. But mark it down as another score on the 'supernatural Holmes universe' tally.

[writingamongther0ses]

Last Line Tag

Thanks for the tag, @arigalefantasynovels and @asher-orion-writes! Used the latest piece of my microfiction writing for this.

Let them come. Let them all come.

I'll tag, with no pressure, @writing-is-a-martial-art, @pluttskutt, @kjscottwrites, @chayscribbles, @wildswrites, @dustylovelyrun, and @ameliahcrowley.

[sparrow-orion-writes]

Last Line Tag

Because I felt like it

From Cardinal Sins:

“Tulip made his way to the Island, that place is guarded by the water sprites…I need a guide.”

‘Water sprites…they sound cute,’ Roman thinks to himself.

‘They’re not,’ the voice in his head is not his own, startling him out of his frozen state to stumble backwards a little. He looks to Fairweather, who grins at him with the obvious smile of someone enjoying startling him.

“I’ll take you,” she nods “…but in return I want him.”

“Why do people keep wanting me?” Roman's expression turns sour as he speaks.

“Sit down,” her voice radiates with power. Dea stumbles backwards, her hand just about catching her fall against the wall. She slides down it to sit down on the floor with a look of wild bewilderment. Aspen shakes a little, hand coming out to grip the wall so hard that the wood begins to splinter, but there’s pain in its eyes at its own resistance.

Roman, however, does not even flinch.

“That’s why,” she raises an eyebrow. “We have much to discuss, little tadpole.”

Or: Roman gets adopted by a 300-year-old pirate siren who hasn't paid taxes her entire life and is wanted in several countries for a variety of crimes.

Tagging:

@grimbeak

@multi-lefaiye

@bloom-writes

@ameliahcrowley

@rose-bookblood

@blind-the-winds

@ashen-crest

@lunarmoment

@dandelion-tea

@loopyhoopyfrood

And anyone else who would like to do it!

Cardinal Sins Taglist:

@author-a-holmes

@gabe-killed-me-with-ace-cream

[jupitermelichios]

share the last line of the last WIP you worked on

I was tagged by the incredibly talented @irolltwenties

I'm always working on at least 5 WIPs at any given time, but the last one I made any progress on was my teen wolf creature!stiles season 2 rewrite

“I’m a girl,” Stiles says, and puts the freak-out he wants to have about saying that out loud to one side to deal with later. “Not all the time, but sometimes.”

Because really, what's even the point of shape-shifting powers if you're not going to use them to queer everyone's gender?

I'm terrible at matching up AO3 handles with tumblr usernames, so I'm tagging:

@starcityrebels @gealach-in-a-misty-world @kittyaugust @kiseiakhun @ameliahcrowley

[pumpkinmetaphor]

@ameliahcrowley i WIN the pumpkin booping war

[copperbadge]

niennanir

I always tell people that taking on a pet like sourdough starter is a lifetime commitment

I mean, I have no problem feeding and caring for a starter, and even waking one up to get it into the dough isn’t a huge deal, but three days to make a loaf of bread just seems excessive, especially when it’s such a deeply inferior method of leavening. 

jmathieson-fic

Sam if you haven't read it, I highly recommend "Big Magic" by Elizabeth Gilbert, on where ideas come from (spoiler: Magic).

Oh, see, I feel like that thesis would probably enrage me, because a central reason I get so mad with authors being flip about it is that there is a quantifiable idea-having process and people don’t like to acknowledge that. Ideas don’t come from magic, they come from you, from your interactions with the world and the way you feel and think about it, and the real kicker is that that’s better than magic. An idea isn’t a gift the universe deigned to give you, it’s something you made. Which is amazing! And yet there is a huge subset of writers who absolutely refuse to acknowledge that their creativity is their own. 

I feel like this is probably a personal failing of mine and an intolerance I really should work on, but when I say “they’re afraid the magic will go away” I’m being intensely derisive of some creators’ weird belief that they have no control over their creative process. 

Sorry, I’m not yelling at you, and I’m sure it’s a perfectly fine book and maybe even this isn’t relevant to the book’s thesis at all. I’m just yelling near you and it, about other stuff :D 

ameliahcrowley

Would it help if people told you random nonsense from their lives? As sort of virtual static.

Oh, thank you! I mean, I have enough socialization on the internet, it’s just I’m really starting to need the reality check of going outside in the morning and catching a bus to work. :D 

[festiveferret]

ameliahcrowley replied to your post “Do you think you will write a second part or a follow up for Two Point...”

I *didn't* have feelings, but now I have horrible, no-birth-control-is-100-percent-reliable-in-all-circumstances, accidental pregnancy and (obviously) they're both pro-choice, but Steve secretly *wants* the baby and knows the risk is too great feelings. (And then maybe they end up adopting later on).

Ooo I like this though. Maybe Steve even loses the baby like Tony does in CN (his unwell body makes the decision for him) and then is surprised by how devastated he is since having kids wasn’t something they’d at all planned. And Tony’s trying to figure out if it’s understandably upsetting because it was a real life they were growing, even if it was scary and unintentional, or if this goes beyond that, and Steve is realizing that he actually really wants kids. But he’s also so terrified of what could happen to Steve if he carried to term that he isn’t sure if he’d agree even if Steve wanted it more than anything else.

annechen-melo replied to your post “Do you think you will write a second part or a follow up for Two Point...” Tony being reluctant to have kids (both because it could hurt Steve and he's afraid of being a poor father) might be enough to keep them childless until they find the orphaned (or kicked out) kid living in the library?

Aaaand then they find a kid in the library. Lmao. Or something... I do love writing babies soooo much, though, so an older kid means I don’t get to write my fav bits 🤔

All good stuff tho!

[nonasuch]

ameliahcrowley replied to your post “thanks for offering craft advice :) I don't keep most of my stuff at...”

Wirrn! Isn't that from the same series (season, in American) where the "dinosaur" was a hand in a carrier bag making "rarr" movements?

You mean these guys?

[brainsforbabyjesus]

ameliahcrowley replied to your post “none of these people have apparently thought, gee, sure is weird that...”

I didn't even know the weather could *get* too hot for tomatoes as long as they had plenty of water! (Meanwhile, in the UK, it occurs to me that people just seem to grow them in pots or vegetable patches these days, while I'm sure we used to need greenhouses).

Yeah, 30C and they can’t pollinate, open flowers, ripen, etc. They basically just give up on life once you hit 35C and up.

I’m probably going to have to plant tomatoes in pots this year so that I can haul them indoors in the afternoons because it is too damn hot.

[mariana-oconnor]

@ameliahcrowley: How about a reverse "Woke up together with amnesia" fic. Instead of waking up with no idea how they got there, they know (or believe) that their memories are about to be wiped and are frantically trying to leave hidden messages for their future selves (to help them solve whatever's going on). Of course, if you're going to forget it all anyway, you don't have to watch what you're saying…

I started this about three times, but the first two versions were just - I could not fit the amount of slow burn I needed, so this is version 3, which turned out okay, I think. Not sure it's my best Bucky characterisation ever, but this one wanted to be from his POV.

Also, I assumed you wanted Winterhawk...

*

Bucky closes the door to his hotel room behind them and just… stands there. The mission is over, this is supposed to be the part where he feels relief. Where he finally gets to relax.

In front of him, Clint is pacing across the room, long legs eating up the carpet as he moves faster and faster.

“What the fuck!” Clint exclaims, throwing his arms out, almost hitting Bucky in the chest. “What the actual fuck?”

“We should be packing,” Bucky says. That’s why they’re here, to clear up their things ready for extraction. Medical had tried to keep them in, but neither of them wanted to be cooped up in one of those clinical rooms filled with the smell of antiseptic and pain just… waiting.

Clint had put forward a very effective argument about how that might prove a difficult environment for the Winter Soldier if he wakes up without knowing how he got there and the medics hadn’t been happy about it, but they hadn’t been ready to die either. So they are free to…

“How can you pack at a time like this?” Clint demands, spinning towards him and stalking over. He looks almost frantic and Bucky wants to calm him somehow, but he’s barely holding onto his own calm as it is and he… he’s not good at that anymore.

He remembers, roughly, slinging an arm around Steve’s neck and talking him down. He doesn’t remember how.

“What else am I going to do?” Bucky says. “Shouting about it isn’t exactly going to help.”

“It makes me feel better,” Clint tells him.

“Does it?”

“Yes! No? I don’t fucking know, Buck. But this situation sucks and I can’t just… Do you even care?”

Bucky steps very deliberately into Clint’s space and leans up, holding Clint’s gaze.

“Of course I care,” he says. “I don’t want to lose a week of my life anymore than you do.” Especially not this week. It feels like the universe is taking particular relish in this. Of all the weeks to lose, of all the missions to fade from his memory, it has to be this one. He doesn’t want to forget any of them, but…

“Then get angry,” Clint says. “Why are you always so controlled. I thought - I thought this week that I understood you, maybe. We were getting to know each other, but now this is happening and you’re just... “ Clint sighs and flops down onto the huge king-sized bed that takes up most of the room, all the long lines of him stretched out and his t-shirt riding up to expose a strip of pale skin, decorated with scars and golden hair. Bucky does not stare at it.

Clint’s right, this week he has gotten to know Clint better. He’d been dreading this whole thing - pretending to be a couple. Pretending to be normal. Pretending to be in love. But it hadn’t been what he thought.

“There’s nothing SHIELD can do,” Bucky says. “You heard them. By the time the drugs they gave us flush the parasite out of our system, the memories will already be gone.” It’s like he can feel it inside him already - eating at his brain. He hates it. He hates knowing that there’s nothing he can do. He hates that someone else is taking something from him and he can’t do anything to stop it. He’s already got the people who did this to him - who did it to so many people to stop them from remembering what happened at this quaint little couple’s retreat in the middle of nowhere. But knowing that they are going to rot in jail isn’t helping.

“Tomorrow we won’t even know what we’re missing,” Bucky says. He tries to make it sound like a blessing. It just sounds like more of a curse. Because they’re going to be right back where they were. He’s going to think Clint is just the annoying, immature guy who can’t sit still and messes around. Clint is going to think he’s the emotionless killing machine with greasy hair. He’s not going to remember the flood of fond exasperation he felt that morning when Clint almost tripped over his own feet shuffling towards the coffee maker in the corner of the room and Bucky had to catch him. He’s not going to remember how Clint’s skin felt soft and sleep-warm under his hand. He’s not going to remember the stupid bets they made while playing darts in the resort rec centre. He’s not going to remember Clint pressing dumb sloppy kisses to his cheek or linking their fingers together ‘for realism’. He’s not going to remember how he-

There is a dent in the wall, cracks radiating outwards, and Bucky can feel the swell of pain in his knuckles.

“Holy shit,” Clint says from somewhere behind him. “I said get angry, not demolish the building. Holy shit, dude.”

Clint’s hand lands, heavy on his shoulder and Bucky shakes it off. It’s too much - feeling that strange fizz in his belly at the contact and knowing that tomorrow he’s not even going to care.

“Sorry,” Clint holds up his hands. “Hey. Look at it this way - at least you won’t have to remember my snoring.”

Clint doesn’t snore - he talks in his sleep. Nonsense about vampire rabbits and spirals of light. Bucky has woken up to it every night this week, and fallen back to sleep to it, too.

“We should write stuff down,” Clint says. “Or make, like, recordings for ourselves. Of the things we don’t want to forget.”

“Like when I beat you at darts,” Bucky says.

“What? No. Don’t you dare.” Clint says, waving a finger in Bucky’s direction. Bucky wouldn’t. He’s not going to lie about any of this. He knows the value of memory and trusting that memory better than anyone.

“I won’t,” he says, and it’s as solemn a vow as he’s ever made. “You’re right, we should…” He reaches for the pad of hotel notepaper.

“You’re going old school, huh?” Clint says. Bucky nods once, and then sits down at the desk. “Cool. I’ll go… in the bathroom?” Clint looks around. Bucky doesn’t dare to look at him, just stares at the blank page. He doesn’t start writing until he hears the door to the bathroom lock, and even then he hesitates.

He’s written down memories before, but always as he remembers them, never the other way around. He doesn’t know where to start with this.

‘I think I’m in love with Clint Barton,’ he writes. But that’s… it’s not wrong, but it doesn’t mean anything, like that. They’re just words. He tears out the sheet and tosses it into the wastepaper basket by the desk. And he starts again, just describing things, the way Clint had looked at him across the room when they were trying to interview suspects at the party two nights ago. The way they had fought alongside each other. The way he’d felt last night when Clint turned over in bed and his arm flopped over Bucky’s chest. The time Clint had stepped out of the shower on their second day in this room, and had walked out with just a hand towel clutched around his waist, looking for his underwear.

He can hear the mutter of Clint talking in the background, and he knows he’s making a recording in the other room, but he doesn’t listen too hard. He doesn’t want to hear what Clint is saying. He knows what this week has meant to him and it’s not going to stop meaning that, no matter what Clint is saying.

He fills up seven pages with all the insignificant moments that he can remember, that were only significant inside his head. The mission details, he’ll get from the report. They’ll tell him the whos, the whats, the hows. He doesn’t need to write down any of that. He needs to write down all the rest of it. The things he’s come to realise about himself, about Clint, about what he wants.

He’ll have forgotten all of this tomorrow, and the words he’s writing will be as flat as the paper they are written on. But he’s got to try. He doesn’t want to forget the good stuff when there’s so much bad already in there. It doesn’t matter that Clint doesn’t see things the same, at this point it’s enough that he knows he can feel like this.

He turns onto the eighth page and pauses, then nods to himself as he writes, not a memory, but a note, for his future self to trust or not. He can’t tell. Tomorrow morning he’ll be a different person again.

‘I don’t know whether you’ll understand any of this, or whether you’ll believe me. I don’t think I would, and I will be you - or I was you. But even if you don’t, try to do one thing. Just… Clint’s a good guy, when you get to know him. So get to know him.’ He signs it and tears the pages out to stuff them in his pocket.

Clint must be recording Gone With the Wind, because by the time he comes out, looking strangely serious for someone who spent at least one night of the last week doing one-handed handstands while balancing progressively dumber things on his feet, Bucky has finished checking his weapons and packing everything away.

Clint just shoves his clothes into a bag and shoulders it.

“Guess we should get going,” he says. “After you honeybunch.”

Bucky winces at the pet name. Clint’s been calling him progressively worse nicknames all week, always claiming it’s to sell their cover story when they both know it’s been an attempt to get a rise out of Bucky. Bucky has hated every one of them. But he ‘s going to miss it.

Except he won’t.

He’s going to wake up tomorrow without even remembering that happened. And he didn’t even think to note it down, so… that’s going to be erased from history.

At the beginning of this week, he wouldn’t have stepped through that door first, leaving Clint at his back. He would have felt too vulnerable exposing his back to someone like that. But now he does it without even pausing, which is more than he can say to Clint, because when he turns back, the man’s ducked out of sight, hurrying back out of the door a second later. He looks a bit too innocent for Bucky’s peace of mind - but he was probably just taking a picture of the dent in the wall to post online or something like that.

He must be really far gone, because he doesn’t even mind that much.

Clint talks as they head for the cars, but Bucky knows it’s more to make himself feel better than to be heard. He fills the silence to avoid it, and Bucky can’t be mad at that. Luckily, he isn’t expected to reply, so he just lets the words spill over him. It’s almost comforting in a way. Even as he knows tomorrow Clint’s going to go back to leaving him at a safe distance. They won’t walk side-by-side, arms brushing against each other. Clint will nod and make jokes at Bucky’s expense. He won’t just talk like this.

*

Back at the tower, Bucky heads straight for his room, avoiding the well meaning gazes of Steve and Natasha. He doesn’t want them to tell him it will be alright. He knows that nothing is going to physically happen to him. He’s lost memories before.

He puts his things away, one by one, and he sticks his scribbled notes on the bedside table where he’ll be sure to see them tomorrow morning.

The evening seems to stretch out ahead of him. It’s not even dark outside, yet. It feels like there is nothing left but empty time to fill before the inevitable happens. He wants to just get it over with, but at the same time he wants to stay awake as long as he can, just to see if he can stop it from happening.

He pulls out his phone, intending to go on the dumb mobile game Clint had downloaded onto it the other day, with the bright colours and the inanely addictive music, but instead he opens the Gallery app and stares at the pictures he’d taken - ostensibly of Clint, but really as part of their surveillance.

The background is the focus of most of them, cataloguing suspects and suspicious behaviour, but Clint is in every one. There are a couple where someone had offered to take a picture of the two of them and Clint had accepted immediately. Bucky looks at them. It’s a little awkward. He never knows how to stand in these things, or what to do with his hands. One of them ends up resting around Clint’s waist, hand just over the curve of his hip. Clint had put it there, he remembers.

“You’ve got to at least look like you like me,” Clint had whispered in his ear. And Bucky had let Clint guide his hand to his waist as he leant in. They are smiling for the camera and Bucky looks - young again, almost. He looks like a normal man, having his photo taken with his boyfriend.

“Sergeant Barnes,” Jarvis says and Bucky closes the app guiltily, looking up. “Agent Barton is pacing outside the door to your apartment. I believe he is uncertain whether he should enter.”

Bucky is uncertain whether he should open the door. But he does.

Clint is caught mid turn and freezes, a guilty look on his face.

“Uh.”

“You wear a hole in the floor, Stark’s never going to let you hear the end of it,” Bucky comments, crossing his arms over his chest. Clint takes a deep breath and he looks - scared almost. “You coming in?”

“Uh,” Clint repeats.

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” Bucky comments and steps aside. Clint walks in, clearly nervous, like he’s entering a lion’s den. Bucky watches him for a second, then closes the door.

“I’m a spy,” Clint says. Bucky blinks at him.

“I… know?” he says. “Did you… Did you lose your memory already?”

“No,” Clint says. “No, still… I’ve still got all of it. For the moment. I just. I’m a spy, and sometimes that means I look at things I’m not supposed to look at because - that’s my job.”

“Right,” Bucky says slowly.

Clint pulls his hand out of his pocket and opens it to reveal a crumpled piece of paper. Bucky stares at it for a moment before realising it has the hotel’s logo stamped on it, just visible in little triangular shards.

“You-”

“I pulled it out of the bin,” Clint says, holding it out in front of him, palm flat, like he wants Bucky to take it. “I shouldn’t have read it, but it says-”

“I know what it says,” Bucky growls. He remembers writing it - that first attempt at summing up what he wanted to remember, only for it to be too little and too much all at once. I think I’m in love with Clint Barton.

“And you threw it away,” Clint says. “So I guess… I mean. I wanted to know if it was true, but you clearly don’t want to remember it even if it is. So-”

Bucky breaks. His hand flashes out and he grabs Clint by the wrist. He can see the moment Clint decides not to fight back or try to slip away and his shoulders relax just slightly.

“That’s not why I threw it away,” Bucky says. He reminds himself that nothing he says now is even going to matter tomorrow. He hates that, but right now, it feels almost freeing. He can say anything and Clint won’t remember. He won’t remember. The only person who will know is Jarvis, and he won’t tell them if Bucky asks him not to.

“Are you going to kill me?” Clint asks. “Because I should remind you that neither of us is even going to remember this tomorrow, so there’s no point.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Bucky tells him. “I’m… I…” He grits his teeth and sighs looking off to one side for a second, to get a grasp on himself. “I threw it away because I knew it wouldn’t work. You can’t just read something like that and understand it.”

“What?”

“That’s a consequence,” he says. “That’s the ending. I didn’t need to remember that. I needed to remember why.”

Clint blinks at him.

“So… you do?” he asks. Bucky nods once. Then Clint’s grabbing his wrist where they are already joined together and yanking him forwards. He doesn’t have to go, he knows that if he refused, Clint couldn’t move him, but Bucky lets himself fall forwards and Clint’s right there.

It feels different from the kisses Clint’s been giving him all week. It’s more than just a quick press of lips, less flagrant than the smacking kisses to his cheek. This isn’t fake. This is determined and unrepentant and just a little bit desperate. And when Clint pulls back, Bucky chases him down for another. Tonight, they can have this. He won’t remember in the morning. He’ll look at Clint and see nothing more than Barton - annoying, immature and barely tolerable. But for now.

“Me too,” Clint says as they pull back again. “Just… I mean, I always thought you were hot, but then we were together and you were… I’m really mad I’m going to forget how sweet you are.”

“Is that what you were talking about in the bathroom all that time?” Bucky asks, his hands finding the hem of Clint’s t-shirt and slipping underneath it to stroke over warm skin covering hard muscle.

“Hell no, I was listing all the dogs I saw last week.”

“Liar,” Bucky tells him, biting lightly at Clint’s bottom lip. Clint grins at him and laughs. He looks brighter than Bucky’s ever seen him.

“Are we going to do this?” Clint asks. “No consequences. No regrets.”

“Yeah.” Bucky says. “Yeah…”

“Kind of wish there were consequences, though,” Clint tells him, hands sliding down Bucky’s back to squeeze his ass through his jeans. “Can’t believe I’m going to forget the best sex of my life.”

Bucky shuts him up pretty fast. He doesn’t want to think about what happens next. It’s got to be enough that it’s happening now. And he’s got to hope that the him that wakes up tomorrow morning reads what he wrote and pays attention.

“We’ll be here again,” he says.

“Yeah, maybe,” Clint tells him. “I mean, honestly, I don’t know how I managed to get here this time - getting you to fall for my sheer animal magnetism a second time is-”

Bucky crashes their lips together again and Clint’s words are lost as he kisses back, hands teasing at the skin of Bucky’s back, long leg curling around Bucky’s, pulling them closer together.

“One night only,” Clint manages to gasp out as Bucky moves his attention from Clint’s lips to the side of his neck, hoping to leave a mark that will last longer than their memories. “No repeats, no encores.”

“Shut up,” Bucky tells him in pants across Clint’s neck.

“Make me.”

*

Bucky wakes in his room at the tower. His body feels heavy, like his workout yesterday was maybe a bit heavier than usual, although he doesn’t know why. All he did yesterday was go to the mission briefing.

He pulls himself up and turns. There’s a stack of papers on the bedside table with… with the header of the hotel he’s supposed to be staying at during the mission. That’s… odd.

He reaches for them, and starts to read.

[memecaptainsteverogers]

ameliahcrowley replied to your post “Oh the weather outside is frightful / because it’s February and...”

It's March, Cap.

It’s a sign of how february it was that I wrote this IN FEBRUARY

phantoms-lair replied to your post “Oh the weather outside is frightful / because it’s February and...”

Oh the weather outside is frightful. But setting Nazis on fire is delightful. Since they are trying to stay. Light Away Light Away Light Away

LYRICS APPROVED. 

[sparrow-orion-writes]

#FridayKissGame

Tagged by: @bloodlessheirbyjacques

Rules: Post a smooch between your OCs for Friday. It can be as light as a peck, or intense as a makeout. It can be romantic, platonic, or familial. As long as a smooch takes places, it's free reign!

Sorry I'm late! I've got an abundance of kisses, and I was determined to do this one, but having a hell of a time – or rather, i've got none of it – these days.

Aspen feels the entire ground rumble with the fury of the creature. “I know…” Aspen mutters, sighing, “…you’re starving, I would be too, so feast, my love.” There is a flicker in the creature’s eyes, feet landing on the floor. “My king, I'm yours to claim” its voice barely catches above the suddenly stilling breeze. For a moment, there is nothingness, recognition dawning as its voice lingers in the King's mind. Then, he lunges. Aspen sighs with the relief that consumes it as their lips meet hard, teeth clacking uncomfortably in the sudden eagerness to feed. The recognition in the movement is one it has long since craved, and as it exhales with absent relief, it feels a little piece of itself slip from its grasp and into the King's. Then more, its energy offered up to its starving lover like a sacrifice to a god.

A crackle of purple light brims from its fingertips as it cups his jaw, feeling the desperation begin to melt. The thorns begin to rescind as his hand gently comes to touch Aspen’s cold skin. It feels the warm blush of flower petals as he does.

@tc-doherty @carefulpyro @ameliahcrowley @writing-is-a-martial-art @the-orangeauthor

[jupitermelichios]

ameliahcrowley replied to your post “Jupiter’s top 10 horror games for Quarantine (or any other time)”

(Asylum done right: you are a patient, your condition is presented correctly as are those of other patients, you have to uncover and deal with the secret horror while handling your own symptoms and without anyone deciding you are showing new symptoms and need to be monitored/medicated more. Some of the staff are reasonable, some are part of the Evil Thing, a couple just suck.)

That sounds horrifying, and I would definitely play it.

Have you ever come across a game called Edna and Harvey: the breakout? It’s pretty much this scenario but as a dark comedy point and click in the vein of Sam and Max. It suffers from a heavy dose of early 2000s lol random internet humour, but overall I enjoyed it a lot.

[clockwaysarts]

splinteredstar reblogged your photo and added:

I can’t piiiick

Don’t worry! They’ll all happily share being your favorite then! Unicorgi are a friendly heard! Well except for Wilbert. He’s a bit of a sour one.

copperbadge reblogged your photo and added:

Oooh I like that dusty rose one on the left.

That’s a pretty one~ It’s got a nice warmth to it!

ameliahcrowley replied to your photo  “*sings The Rainbow Connection* All of the candy pop goth unicorgi are...”

The green second from the right looks hopeful in the face of tragedy.           

I- that makes me feel sad for them! Don’t worry, it’s a good line up in this case! They’re showing off!

belladonnaprice replied to your photo “*sings The Rainbow Connection* All of the candy pop goth unicorgi are...”

WHY IS THE BLUE ONE DINKY :D I ❤ THAT ONE.                 

The blue one is actually the same size! It’s sitting on all four hooves since it doesn’t have a post-it note and some casting left overs propping it up becauuuuse-

shinyrock6498 reblogged your photo and added:

man, that one unicorn in the middle doesn’t get a stylish post it note and rubber band cape too?  so sad                    

-that one is ready for it’s close up! It’s been sanded and cleaned and had it’s lovely eyeliner painted on!