#and his ghost form has changed to accommodate his growing power

[moss-on-trees]

dp x dc prompt: splintered core au

a year after the events of canon (minus phantom planet), vlad tries to absorb pariah dark's core in a bid to get more power, turning him into a monster worse than anything danny has ever faced. he fights him for weeks until he finally manages to End him, exhausted beyond belief. when he takes a look at his surroundings, he finds himself surrounded by stars, with the earth underneath him. but he doesn't recognise any of the constellations.

clockwork shows up as he's panicking - putting them in time out - and calls him the king of the infinite realms. he tells him that he punched a hole in the fabric of reality during the fight and that he is now in a new dimension. he explains that his home couldn't sustain the damage done by pariah!plasmius and that nothing is left but rubble.

danny's core splinters and he wails. when he comes back to himself, clockwork is gone, only leaving a green sticky note behind saying, "heal, my king. the throne can wait until your decond death."

the justice league is wondering how to approach the wounded eldritch god they just saw pulverise an enemy with enough force to propel himself into a new dimension.

[unicronian]

a bunch of powers/hybrid smp character design hcs based around their powers in the mod:

(small warning for slight body horror in tubbo and wilbur’s sections, and horror themes in wilbur’s section)

this got long so here’s a snapshot of my fav bits above the read more:

tubbo can open his stomach up like a shulker, and just reach in there and put stuff in and get it out again

wilbur’s physical appearance is dependent on how well rested the person looking at him is

tommy glides by t-posing because his arms are his wings

ranboo can open unhinge his jaw and open his mouth like an enderman, and he has like an extra layer of mouth skin like a snake that you can only see when his mouth is unhinged

Phil hates places with low ceilings cause his wings are super long and he can’t stretch them out

Niki’s got gills on her neck to help filter water, so when she wants to talk to people above water she has to stick just her head out of the water and leave her neck beneath it

You know su!peridot’s augments she had at her intro, jack can like do that with his clawed fingers. Just like detach them at will and control them but they can’t go very far from him so it isnt very useful

Shulk!Tubbo:

tubbo has pretty thick skin with a slightly sickly pallor even though he’s perfectly healthy

he also has a carapace that’s similar in color and texture to a shulker’s shell covering the parts of his body that don’t bend(arms, legs, top of his head, upper chest) he can use these to block sword blows but if the sword is sharp enough it’ll stick cut into his skin

the carapace itself doesnt bleed, but it does heal and tubbo feels pain if it gets cut

like a lobster or turtle the carapace is a part of tubbo’s skin and can’t be removed(without extreme pain)

his hands are also reinforced by his carapace, giving him sharp claws at the tips of his fingers, and this is why he can punch through stone easily and without breaking his hand

he’s also pretty heavy underneath this extra armor and as a result he’s got a lot of intense muscle mass

tubbo can open his stomach up like a shulker, and just reach in there and put stuff in and get it out again, but it has limited storage

it kind of makes his stomach look like a shulker, with interlocking squares

the stuff inside his stomach exists in a type of hammerspace(we’ll just call it shulkerspace) so if you were to cut him open the stuff wouldnt be there

you do NOT want to stick your hand into tubbo’s shulkerspace, he can do it with no ill effects but if someone else did they might as well wave goodbye to that hand even if tubbo doesnt close his shulker mouth on your hand

Phantom!Wilbur:

wilbur can do like... ghost things like turning invisible and walking through walls in phantom state

particularly astute(or anxious) people can sense when wilbur’s nearby in phantom state, but not accurately guess where he is

wilbur oftentimes goes in and out of phantom state without even realizing it, sometimes just vanishing in the middle of the conversation because he let his mind wander

he also burns in the daylight which is sadge but not when in phantom state so he sometimes goes into the phantom state on reflex when entering a very bright room

wilbur can sense how tired people are, and if they are tired enough to summon phantoms wilbur can sense whose insomnia the phantoms are targeting on sight

wilbur looks like how you’d expect a ghost to look: see through, human, or at least... that’s what he looks like when you wake up in the morning

his physical appearance is dependent on how well rested the person looking at him is, but he is always corporeal when out of the phantom state

by nighttime, when you’re getting ready for bed wilbur’s eyes are green and if you look closely they glow in the dark, and if you look closer a skeleton makes itself clear beneath wilbur’s skin. it is not a human skeleton

by morning the next day without sleep transparent membrane stretches between wilbur’s claws and you can clearly see the skeleton. fangs protrude from its mouth and its rib cage stretches grotesquely outwards with every breath wilbur takes

by the second night wilbur’s transparent skin is blue and phantom membrane has escaped the confines of his hand and run down the length of his arm, extra bones begin to grow from the skeleton to accommodate the growing wing. it is harder to see through him.

by dawn of the third morning you can see a tail, more bone than blue, leathery skin, lashing behind wilbur, it seems to always whip itself in your direction. it stings when it touches you, but not for long. his frayed wings are fully formed.

night falls and wilbur’s glowing green eyes are sunken in, practically floating in black eye sockets. his skin looks vacuum sealed, giving you a perfect map of the meatless bones inside. he is entirely opaque, you cannot see through him but his stark white skeleton, expanding, stretching, and clawing at you, is clearly visible

you sleep, and wilbur looks human once again

this version of wilbur doesn’t only exist in the minds of the sleep deprived. if you let him stay in the edges of your vision too long, no matter how rested you are, you can see this form

by the time you focus your vision on him wilbur will be back to his normal state. you can’t see what your brain desperately tries to refuse. it is only when your mental walls have been broken down that you can witness wilbur’s form. for better or for worse.

Avian!Tommy:

instead of having an extra set of limbs like phil tommy’s wings and arms are the same limbs, like a harpy(and like wilbur)

where the wing’s wrist is(essentially where it bends, if you’re unfamiliar with bird anatomy) Tommy has some extra human-like clawed fingers that he uses as hands

tommy isnt strong enough to fly with them, even if he is very light thanks to hollow bones. he can glide, though

yes, this does mean that tommy glides by t-posing

tommy also has talons for feet, which sort of assist him in being slightly faster than everyone

his feathers are the same colors as a red parrot’s, and he keeps them very well maintained so they keep their lustrous color

he’s also got a lot of feathers dotting his body, like around his ears and stomach and they protect him from the cold in the high up areas he likes sleeping in

ok i dont really have anything to say abt his veganism he’s just Like That because parrot(cause god knows chickens are omnivores)

he has a beak that he uses for nuts and seeds and he can make bird noises!

And he’s got a small feathery tail that isnt useful for much but does look cool

Even though he can’t fly Tommy does have a third eyelid like a bird, it goes side to side and is transparent, he mostly just uses it while gliding or swimming

Enderian!Ranboo

Very tall boy with very long arms

Honestly very similar to dsmp!ranboo

Water burns him like acid and leaves behind very distinctive burn scars but he heals pretty easily from water burns

He is Constantly bamboozled by people wearing pumpkins and he’s Not a fan

Ranboo can open unhinge his jaw and open his mouth like an enderman, and he has like an extra layer of mouth skin like a snake that you can only see when his mouth is unhinged

He’ll avoid eye contact at all cost because it agitates him and gets him unreasonably angry at whoever he’s talking to, the others have gotten very good at avoiding eye contact with him, though

Teleporting is a lot of fun to him and he’ll sometimes just teleport around just for the sake of it, because he can sense the change in location when teleporting in a way humans with ender pearls cant

Enderians are the results of people trying to fuse together with end-based magic and so all of them have the half and half texture of their skin, but most of them all have the same powers

Speaking of skin, Ranboo’s ender skin is strangely smooth and he doesn’t have a protruding nose, just slits in his face he smells through

He also doesn’t have any body hair at all, but his long ears generally distract from that

Elytrian!Phil

Phil is an incredibly light person, compared to a human he’d be dangerously underweight

He’s essentially skin, hollow bones, and elytra because if he was anything else he wouldn’t be able to fly especially with armor on

However this and his hollow bones means he’s pretty weak in all areas, especially underground

Thanks to his Brain he gets slow and weak under low ceilings and also sadge

Aside from the kind of unearthly tint to his skin Phil looks pretty human, aside from the elytra of course

He’s got insect wings protected by an elytra. So, elytra on beetles and things are kind of like a half circle protecting the wings and pressing them to the body of the beetle, and this works because beetles are wing shaped- phil is not

So, phil has very unique elytra that completely encase his wings, and the top part moves out of the way to let his wings fold out so they’re like twice his height- and that partially adds to his dislike of low ceilings, he can barely stretch his wings

Phil’s got fragile beetle wings so they look pretty fragile but they can withstand a beating and carry Phil a ways(though it’s partially phil’s innate magic that lets him shoot into the sky)

Phil has a transparent third eyelid just like Tommy

And, he has antennae that he uses to feel the wind while flying

Merling!Niki

Niki essentially has two types of skin: a human-looking thick layer of skin that covers the upper portion of her body and an even thicker scale-like layer that covers the lower half

Her human-like skin is very rough and it doesn’t absorb water like human skin does, the scales are smooth but also don’t absorb water

She has two legs and a long, thick tail she uses to propel herself through the water, the tail is entirely covered in her blue scales

Her hands and feet are webbed so when she swims she spreads her hands out to help push herself through the water

Niki also has decorative fins on various places on her body like her ears, legs, arms and stomach, they’re all blue and can’t be controlled in anyway

She’s got gills on her neck to help filter water, so when she wants to talk to people above water she has to stick just her head out of the water and leave her neck beneath it

Breathing in air and rain at the same time is extremely uncomfortable and leaves her constantly feeling short of breath but she considers it well worth it to walk on land for a period of time

She also has sharp teeth because: yes

She doesn’t have eyelids, though, her eyes are built like a fish’s

Blazeborn!Jack

Jack constantly gives off heat, he wont burn anyone but you’ll get very hot if you stand too close to him for too long

He has metallic blaze skin that glows like molten metal if he was recently on fire or in lava

You know su!peridot’s augments she had at her intro, jack can like do that with his clawed fingers. Just like detach them at will and control them but they can’t go very far from him so it isnt very useful

And, of course, he’s immune to poison and hunger because he’s basically an android, he’s like a gold material and metal cant get poisoned or hungry

Jack will, however, become fatigued if he’s away from intense heat like fire or lava for too long, like a week

He gets hurt in water because the water basically sucks the heat away from him and that actually hurts him

Staying in a cold biome too long would do the same thing if jack didnt go prepared with warm clothing and probably a flint and steel but tbf to jack humans also die in cold biomes if they’re unprepared

I’ve got nothing for fragranceman right now as i’m not sure if schlatt’s going to be on the server a lot

But i might make skins for these!

[twstdreams]

A Bouquet to Share: Flower Foraging

CYOA: Chronic Hanahaki AU

Length: 2K | ao3 link

Warnings: fluff, mentions of flu/cold

next

You’re waiting in front of the mirror for your turn to pass, behind the infamous first years. No one in NRC isn’t aware of the prefect and their friends, mostly how they perpetually get themselves in all sorts of trouble. 

“Hey, wasn’t the prefect going to be in our group?” Jack asks

“Oh, they couldn’t make it because they got sick,” Deuce answers. There’s a pause as the unasked question lingers in the air. If they’re just suffering from a passing virus or if it’s that illness.

“With a normal cold,” Ace clarifies, “Grim’s been complaining about having to take care of them.”

You think you’ve heard ten different iterations of this conversation before. Some with Octa A-kun, another with a Pomefiore duo, the same rumours and inquiries always start flying when winter is broken by spring’s warm touch. Everyone wants to know who has hanahaki and chronic sufferers are always the first suspect. People attempt to deduce who’s sick because of pollen or because of the flowers blooming in their lungs. It’s not a lethal disease with modern magic and technology, but you swear enough drama follows it to make up for the lack of imminent doom.

“Hand!” the ghost before you demands once you’re at the front of the line. You offer the back of your hand and immediately a rose is stamped on it, proof that you’re a student who has access to the Great Seven botanical gardens. Then you step through the mirror and are greeted by the site of a massive glass structure. You’re excited to explore the grounds. Each area is its own biome with unique flora and fauna which flourish in that environment. Personally, you’re hoping to see the aquatics section for fun, but you need to ensure that you complete your assignment first.

“Meet each other in the tropical region in two hours!” you text to Jamil and he responds with an affirmation. You two had already agreed to this prior to the project. Most people are wandering the gardens with their partner, but you know Jamil has his hands full with Kalim. You just hope Jamil will actually get to appreciate a couple flowers too.

Officially, the headmaster says this is a field trip for all grades because botany is useful in several fields of magic. You think it’s because a massive amount of students visiting from a prestigious school gets him some sort of discount, but those aren’t thoughts you voice out loud. Not that you care, the Great Seven Botanical gardens hosts some unique and deadly plants, even more so than the poisonous flowers allowed to bloom on campus. You can't choose a lot of them for your assignment but nothing is stopping you from visiting them if you have extra time. Plus, activities amongst different classes aren’t that common, let alone those in various years. If you’re lucky, you might see Malleus amongst the flowers.

You’ve only met Malleus at night, on late walks while perhaps avoiding a guard or two. The daffodils at the entrance remind you of your first meeting with Malleus. But you can’t recall clearly, was there only one daffodil at the spot where you met or several?

-

Staying up late the night before to cram for a test, only to crash and take a nap afterwards completely messed up your sleep schedule. No amount of staring at your ceiling was going to make you drowsy. Besides, you want to explore the campus and check out some night-blooming flowers. You spotted several during the day but hadn’t gotten the chance to see them underneath the moonlight. 

You slip out of your dorm to enjoy the slight breeze and fresh air entering your lungs. Exploring the campus at night feels a little liminal. Not to say that it was silent, some nocturnal familiars scurry around, a ghost or two floating, and more than a couple of students here and there creating background noise. But it's interesting to see a campus normally overflowing with life morph into something restful and quiet. The closer you get to the Ramshackle dorm, the more this effect becomes more pronounced.

You spot plenty of random vegetation growing on the lawns of the dorm. You’d be willing to bet a week’s worth of lunches that dorm hasn’t had real maintenance for at least a decade. Horrid for the prefect living there, you really do feel bad for them, but lots of fun for your midnight flower foraging trip. Your phone battery is dying fast with the flashlight so you test out a new spell you’ve recently learned. You murmur the incantation and a ball of light forms in the palm of your hand. You try to extend it so it acts as a familiar but the light begins to flicker so you’re stuck with having it illuminate the area around your hand. A little testing, a failure or two, and you’re able to create a soft light to guide you. Your hand is nothing but a glorified flashlight, but you can see your surroundings so it’s not a total fail. Unfortunately, what you thought was some pretty evening primrose is actually daffodils.

“How odd. You’re not one of the Ramshackle inhabitants,” a voice notes. You’re certain a ghost has come to lecture you, but you let out a gasp when you realize a living being is behind you.

“I’m, uh, yeah I don’t live here,” you admit, “Just wanted some fresh air. I couldn’t sleep.” You were honestly hoping to avoid all dorm leaders, you know some don’t take kindly to students leaving their dorm after hours, and you think some greater force must be laughing at you because somehow you’ve stumbled upon the most mysterious and powerful one.

“And you came to this abandoned building to do that?” His voice is even. You’re not sure if there’s an accusation laced in his statement or if his regal airs just make him always seem confident and a bit unfriendly.

“I thought it’d be cool to see the night-blooming flowers too,” you add, “There’s supposed to be some evening primrose and moonflowers beneath a gargoyle but I can’t figure out which one it is.” 

“I can introduce you to the correct gargoyle,” Malleus comments. Your head, which is frantically processing information and doing its best to be logical, tells you that’s probably a social cue to ask him to show you where the gargoyle is. Your mind, however, is still trying to comprehend how the heck you ended up meeting the Malleus Draconia on a weedy lawn.

“I am part of the gargoyle appreciation society,” he continues but the way his lips were pressed into a thin line indicates that you’ve spent a little too long coming up with a response.

“Oh! That’s impressive,”—now isn’t a good time to admit you didn’t know that club existed—“if you don’t mind, then I’d really appreciate it!” He nods once in acknowledgement and you begin trailing after the dragon fae. 

“Do you know about each of the gargoyles?” you ask; you ought to express interest in his passions when he’s doing you a favour. You’re not sure what to expect, but it was most definitely not an encyclopedic infodump about Ramshackle’s gargoyles.

“This is the first gargoyle, located on the entrance to the east building. Are you able to see it?” Before you had a chance to answer, Malleus casts a spell of light that creates fake fireflies which illuminate your surroundings. 

“Now I can. It kind of looks like a crow,” you answer. The gargoyle is easy to see but you think Malleus’ elegant magic is more beautiful. Your lightbulb of a hand is almost embarrassing and you quickly stop the spell.

“It is a crow, which is extremely rare for a gargoyle. This is the only one I’ve ever seen. Its quality means it must have been made by a famous craftsman. It looks like it could take flight at any moment.” He goes on about the history of the gargoyles here; you’ve never really been interested in them but the way Malleus talks about them with such excitement makes you engaged. It’s the way that extensive knowledge is intertwined with informed hypotheses while the excitement in his tone never leaves. Hearing Malleus talk about something he loves feels enchanting and endearing. His bubbling enthusiasm is cute.

“This is the gargoyle with the evening primrose and moonflowers,” Malleus announces. Once he finishes his little spiel about its history, you begin to take pictures of the flowers. You want to ask if you can take a picture of him; there’s something so odd about this experience that you want a picture to prove it is real. However, the fresh air has awaken your brain cells and they let you know that perhaps asking someone you just met for a photo in the dead of night is not the best idea. But well, Malleus has been pretty accommodating so you decide to ask for another favour.

“If you don’t mind, could you teach me that light spell?” you inquire. The surprise is evident in his expression and you wonder if you’re being too selfish.

“Is that so? You want me to help you with your spell? Interesting,” he comments and honestly, the pause makes you so nervous you regret ever opening your mouth, “Very well. Show me what you can do.” Even though you're the one who asked, you're a little surprised that the Malleus Draconia has agreed to some impromptu tutoring.

“I can summon a light but I’m having trouble making it steady after it stops making contact with my body,” you explain while taking out your wand. You murmur the incantation and a soft light envelopes your hand while illuminating your surroundings. As the light starts to float away, its shape begins to morph and looks like a blob of light which never stays a consistent shape, akin to a lava lamp. 

“You have enough magic to power the spell. The changing shape suggests that you’re having trouble imagining the outcome,” Malleus sumrises, “Why don’t you try mimicking the shape of mine?” Malleus adjusts the shape of his firefly lights into simple spheres. Unfortunately, it does not go so smoothly for you. First the light looks like a balloon, then it shrinks to the size of a marble, but when you have it at a reasonable size then the edges of the ball begin to quiver.

“I’m sorry it’s taking me so long,” you mutter. Sure, you don’t expect to be on the same level as someone as infamous as the Diasomnia dorm leader, but this feels embarrassing.

“You aren’t expected to master everything at the beginning. Don’t be shy,” he reassures. His comforting words encourage you to calm down. You take in a deep breath and start again. The light transforms into a uniform sphere—your own little sun for this corner of the world the two of you are tucked away in.

“I did it!” you exclaim, “It’s all thanks to your advice!” You toss the light between your hands before extending it to float beside Malleus’.

“You already completed the basics. I only offered some advice,” he gently protests but a smile remains on his face all the same.

“What’s the incantation to change its colour again?” you ask, and Malleus says it aloud for you to repeat. You alter your spell, dying it in your favourite colour, then allow it to dance in the sky. His luminescent green light merges with yours, and the spells twine with each other.

-

Since then you’ve taken to late-night walks for exercise and hopes of meeting Malleus. You haven’t exactly been charming—

“Are you here to admire gargoyles?” Malleus inquires when the two of you meet in the dead of night yet again.

“No, but I can,” you offer. Admitting to the ruler of the valley of thorns that you have been wandering around at night to see him again because you’re very intrigued and a little enamoured is not ideal. Luckily Malleus never questions your intent.

— but the two of you are on friendly terms now. So far no flowers were blooming in your lungs, but you’d be lying if you said a crush wasn’t taking root in your heart. But before you could linger on any hypothetical flowers, you have to pick an actual flower for your assignment! As a second year, you will have to grow whichever flower you pick back at school. 

Which flower will you choose? Vote here

White and pink carnations

Crimson astilbe (feather flowers)

Purple snapdragons

Orange tiger lilies

[lailoken]

“Stones of Power:

The Flints which find their way to the surface of the land are beautiful and varied but nevertheless quite small. The few larger stones which are found around Norfolk are mostly glacial erratics. Due to their relative rarity, such stones are considered remarkable and are rich in history, often having been meeting places where significant decisions were taken. Unsurprisingly, they have much magical lore associated with them and retain considerable power, which can be drawn upon for magical purposes. This sometimes involves spells but is more often a means of developing our understanding of unwritten history. After all, the memory of stones is deeper and denser than the Mercurial gifts of pen and ink of of the whispered word. The sonorous voices of these stones have a language of their own, unfettered by grammar and vocabulary. They "speak’ to one another across the landscape, maintaining, not only their ancient kinship, but also an intricate pattern of silent power lines. The following examples represent just a small selection. There are more which can be sought out.

The Cowell Stone

This stone is to be found on Swaffham Heath, about 150 yards from the B1122 road to Downham Market. It stands at a truly liminal spot, marking a hundred boundary, as well as those of the parishes of Swaffham, Marham and Narborough. Part of the Icknield Way, marked as Peddersty or Saltersty, and the East-West Fincham Drove, which is a Roman road, pass very close to it (Clarke and Clarke, 1937). Its magic draws together the footsteps of the many who have trodden these paths and lived and died in the surrounding parishes.

The origin of the stone's name has a number of possibilities. Ben Ripper (1979) suggests it is named after Cow Hill, or a corruption of coal, since the stone once guided pilgrims to a beacon hill near Colkirk (Coalchurch). The stone used to be situated in a field nearby, where workers sat on it to eat their dinner. However, in the 1980s, it was moved by two local historians, Ben Ripper and Peter Howling, as it was considered to be at risk of damage from ploughing. The move seems not to have disrupted its energy in any way, perhaps because it was conducted with respect and honourable intentions. It has a warm, welcoming lenergy, one which encourages the seeker to both broaden and deepen their quest for knowledge, not just of stones, but of all aspect of the magic of the land.

The Merton Stone

The Merton Stone, nestled in a shallow marl pit, just off the Peddars Way near the boundary of the parishes of Merton and Threxton, is thought to weigh between twenty and thirty tons and to be the largest glacial erratic in the United Kingdom.

Some people say that to stand on it is a chilling experience, where the presence of malevolent spirits can be felt. However, on a warm, sunny day it is more likely to be a very pleasant, and indeed healing experience. It is well known that, continuing a centuries-old tradition, young ladies wishing to fall pregnant still sit on the stone and find its magic effective. The plants around it, especially the Mugwort, seem to derive extra energy from their proximity to such a powerful character.

There is a long-held local belief that, if the stone is removed, the waters will rise and cover the entire Earth (Clarke and Clarke, 1937). Moving the stone was apparently attempted by the 5th Lord of Walsingham, one of the ancient de Grey family. He assembled all the local men and women, together with much beer and many ropes, but the failed attempt ended in an "erotic debauch". Another attempt to move it, in the 1930s or 40s, this time using a large rotary plough, was equally unsuccessful (Burgess, 2005b), although I have been unable to find out whether this ended the same way as the previous escapade.

The Stockton Stone

The Stockton Stone currently stands on the raised grass verge of a lay-by on the A146, between Beccles and Norwich, just outside the village of Stockton itself. This lichen-covered, sandstone glacial erratic weighs several tons and is said by some to have been an ancient track marker. According to Michael Clarke, it marks the old meeting place of the Clavering hundred, possibly the place where the 10th century Danegeld was paid, although Geldeston, near Beccles, might be a more likely candidate, given its name.

Like the Merton Stone, the Stockton Stone has a curse upon it that anyone who moves it will fall victim to terrible misfortune or death. Much to the consternation of many local people, it was indeed moved, in the 1930s, to accommodate the widening of the road. Not surprisingly. one of the workmen involved collapsed and died.

In spite of its unfortunate location, so close to a very busy road, this stone retains an amazingly powerful energy and people still leave small offerings there. While paying our respects recently, a group of us found a rather attractive blue stone egg, which looked as if it had not been there for very long. Moved by the moment and by the atmosphere, one of our party suggested that we should hold hands and dance around the stone three times, which we duly did, much to the amusement of passing motorists!

The Great Stone of Lyng

This is another erratic brought to us by the glaciers of the Ice Age. There are many local tales surrounding this mysterious Stone, which is said to bleed if pricked with a pin. Some claim the blood is that of victims from a time when the stone was used as a sacrificial altar, while others are of the opinion that it is the blood of those who fell during a ferocious battle between King Edmund and the Danes. Others tell of treasure hidden beneath it and how the landowner has never been able to move the stone to unearth the spoils (Burgess, 2005a).

The grove in which the stone stands, almost hidden beside the path, does have a rather unnerving feel to it. One can "see" all too easily soldiers struggling up the steep escarpment and the bodies of the slain sprawled on the bank to the other side of the path. Rod Chapman informs me that, not so very many years ago, some of the children of the village had to walk through the grove, past the stone, in order to get to school and, in the winter, these children were allowed to leave school early so that they could walk through before it was dark. This is completely understandable. On climbing out of the hollow to the fields above, the atmosphere suddenly changes completely. There is almost a sense of relief and a feeling that one no longer needs to speak in hushed whispers.

There is a recent tale of a brave, tough, yet inexperienced witch who was determined to camp out for a night by the stone, in order to become better acquainted with the ghosts and spirits of the place. He pitched his tent right near the stone and was confident that he would have an interesting and informative night's vigil. However, he became so frightened by the eerie sounds and the terrifying atmosphere that he was forced to run from the place and ring a fellow practitioner to come with their car and rescue him! The stone does look something like a Dragon and has a hole in it just where the eye would be, which is deep enough for an adult to insert their entire arm. Quite a few people I know have done this and come to no harm, although it is not a pleasant experience.

Not far from the grove, in the middle of a field, are the ruins of a nunnery known as St. Edmund's Chapel, which was said to have been built to honour those who died in the battle.

It has been suggested that Blood's Dale, between Drayton and Hellesdon, on the slopes leading down to the River Wensum, where the Danes are also said to have fought the Anglo-Saxons, may have been the site of King Edmund's death in 896 CE. Abbo of Fleury (870 CE) tells us that King Edmund died at Hellesdon, and Joe Mason (2018) argues convincingly, that the unusual number of churches dedicated to St. Edmund along this stretch of the River Wensum is significant. The survivors, having found the King's severed head with the help of the Wolf, could have taken his body upstream to Lyng, to the aforementioned chapel. Although not fully excavated, some pottery dating from the time of King Edmund, has been found there. Furthermore, an old tithe map refers to the Grove as King's Grove and a map published in the Eastern Daily Press in 1939, names the Great Stone as King Edmund's Stone. Perhaps this would have been a suitable burial place for the miracle-working king? (Mason, 2018) Some of us would like to think so. Certainly, the Ash keys collected from a tree growing on the ruins of the nunnery are particularly effective in assisting those who wish to speak with spirits of the dead.

The Aldeby Rune Stones

Not all our standing stones are ancient, and just as exciting are those being erected now for the benefit of ourselves and of future generations. Aldeby, in South East Norfolk, is a wonderful such example. Here, seven standing stones have been carved with runes and with Christian symbols, and placed around the parish boundary as part of a Millennium project, known as "Pathways in Stone". The runes spell out the name of the village but are also related to the powers of the stones themselves. The Stone of Dawn, for example, features the Day Rune (dagaz) and a Medieval symbol of the World and the four Elements, while the Stone of Wisdom has the God Rune (ansuz) and the square and circle symbol for the material and spiritual worlds. One stone, the Stone of Destiny, combines all the symbols found on the outlying stones, with the addition of the othel rune, symbolizing ancestral land and heritage. The stones are carboniferous limestone, so had to be brought in especially for the project, but in spite of having been in place for a relatively short time, some of them are already giving off some very interesting energy.

These stones form a pilgrimage walk around the village and are best seen in the Winter when they are not obscured by vegetation.

The Druid Stone of St. Andrew's

When Ray Loveday pointed out to me his "Druid Stone", at the North-east corner of St. Andrew's Church, in the centre of Norwich, I was astounded that I had walked down St. Andrew's Hill so many times, admiring the cleverly-knapped Flint of the church wall, without noticing this stone. It is another of those magical items which are hiding in plain sight, but once the attention is drawn to it, the remarkable ancient power it holds becomes apparent. This stone, at least what can be seen of it above ground, is not large, and has a fairly flat top with a number of circular indentations which are often filled with' water, and work well as scrying pools. Ray is unsure whether they are a natural feature, were deliberately carved out or have developed over centuries as a result of water dripping from the church roof. There are several smaller, less well-rounded dips too, which tend to get rather muddy. The stone, which has a very feminine feel to it, welcomes small, discrete offerings, such as a ring of twisted Periwinkle stems or a little Daisy chain; nothing too elaborate or containing any artificial materials. It certainly deserves respect and attention, as it appears to form part of the magical foundation of the city.”

—

Chapter 2: ‘Sacred Places: Stories Within the Landscape’,

Of Chalk & Flint:

A Way of Norfolk Magic

by Val Thomas

[all-things-fic]

Divorce Harry II

A/N In all honesty I couldn’t think of a better title. This has been a long time coming so thank you for baring with me. I need to shout out every single person who has listened to me rant and rave, as well as those who have expressed that they’re looking forward to reading it.

@waitingfortwilight, @theasstour, @harryfeatgaga who have essentially been my main stay girls, reading over it and sending me their thoughts.

@talesofstyles, @always-jackedup and @majorharry for telling me that divorce harry is going to be the shit and I shouldn’t worry.

Word count is 27k. Enjoy! x

***

19 months prior

Your eyelids felt heavy as you scrunched your nose up at the incessant sound of the alarm cutting through the early morning.

You knew it was still dark outside, simply remembering the night before and the hushed conversation you’d lovingly shared across from your husband. The two you sleepily mumbling as you fought tiredness, discussing spending time together in the simplest of ways as you stripped away the scatter cushions to get ready for bed the night before. 

When Harry had suggested setting your alarm thirty minutes earlier, allowing you time to cuddle, you remembered the way your heart had fluttered because while it was so simple it also held a lot of thought, of making time for just you and him. Something that you weren’t afraid to admit had fallen to the wayside with children and work. Something that you both knew you needed to work on more. 

Now however, knowing that the clock read 5.30am, you weren’t so taken. Harry’s sleepy groan behind you made you realise that he also wasn’t as captivated by his idea as he had been at 10.30pm, the evening previous. 

As he rolled back over towards you from turning off the alarm, you enjoyed the way his forearm, heavy against your stomach, pulled you across the bed and closer to him. His chest enveloped your back in a sleep-filled warmth that made your feel incredibly cosy and comfortable.  The kind that could easily get you to doze off again, no bother. 

“Morning darlin’,” he groused underneath your earlobe as he pressed his lips faintly against your skin. “Remind me who’s idea this was again, eh?” He chuckled, his chest vibrating as he tried to make a laugh at the expense of you both, tucking his chin into the dip of your shoulder. 

A sleepy whine left your lips at his voice, enjoying the way his hand spread out across the skin of your tummy, tucking underneath the oversized sleep shirt and smoothing the tiniest back and forth motion with his thumb.

“Not so clever after all, are ya?” You replied, right hand reaching behind you and weaving your fingers into his hair at the back of his neck. “Coming up with all these bright ideas-“ you trailed off as you felt him slip his hand around the underside of your body and roll you over to him compactly, not wanting to lose any warmth the two of you had created throughout the night. 

You felt Harry tilt your head up slightly, his hair tickling against the skin on your forehead as he pressed himself closer to you. His lips met the corner of your lips, chuckling deeply at how he had completed missed them.

“Fancy a shag?” He asked, hand rubbing soothing motions to your shoulder blades and dropping lower towards the centre of your back.

“And here I was thinking that you did this so we could just spend time together, when really it was a dirty ploy just to get in my knickers,” you felt his lips twitch into a smile at your response, as Harry playfully nipped at the underside of your jaw.

“Caught me,” he joked, twining his legs with yours, lips returning to suckling gently against your skin. Rubbing his lips tenderly against the slightly wetter skin of your neck, thanks to his attention, he murmured, “Or we could talk about how we need to get new school uniforms before the start of term, or how bin day has changed again.”

You stifled your giggle, dipping your head slightly into the pillow underneath you. “God, bin day changing has really gotten to you hasn’t it?”

Feeling his head lift up and away from you, you rolled your lips into your mouth. You knew that would get a rise out of him. Slowly opening your eyes, you peered up at your husband in the now dim morning light and took in his puffy, sleep-filled, features.

His haphazard hair amused you to no end but rather than comment you reached up and smoothed it down. From your affection, Harry turned his mouth to meet your hand as it trailed down and pressed a sponging kiss to the inside of your palm.

“‘M such a Dad now,” he mumbled against your hand, feeling the way your stroked along his jaw. “But them changing the day really has fucked up my routine.”

He turned his eyes back to you before you had a chance to remove the teasing smirk. “Stop laughing at me, you’re the one who gave me the bloody job to begin with.”

“You offered-“

He shushed you, knowing himself that he’d lost this one and that he indeed had set himself up for the fall. “Did you just shush me?”

Leaning down he rolled the two of you so that his body was mostly on top of yours, enjoying the way that you accommodated him without any resistant or need for direction.  He brazenly shushed against your lips again, his mouth ghosting enticingly over yours. “What yer gonna do if I did?”

Humming you felt your eyes begin to dip as the warmth of Harry’s body enveloping yours lulled you into a light doze. “Apparently nothing cause yer falling asleep on me.”

Feeling your face scrunch up at how he’d caught you rather than thinking you were being lulled into some form of unyielding want that forced you to close your eyes, you moaned. 

“I’m just resting my eyes.”

Harry laughed through his nose at your deadpan voice. “Yeah, yeah,” he goaded. “Your age is showing again, such a Mum now innit.”

You dug your nails into his back in retaliation to his comment, pinching the warm and soft skin causing Harry to scrunch his nose up at the slight discomfort you had caused him. 

“An aggressive Mum,” he corrected.

“You act like you don’t like it.”

“Yeah, jus’ love it when you abuse me, darling. Really gets me going tha’—“

Thing was with him proudly sporting a semi that you could prominently feel growing more by the seconds against your leg, you didn’t quite know if he was entirely joking. 

“Is that something for you-“ 

“Is what something for me?” He hummed, keeping himself close and enjoying the hushed conversation.  

“Me being a bit forward—“

“I just love having sex with you.” He admitted, watching the way you closed your eyes at his words, feeling his lips spread into a smile that he knew was the kind he used when at school to get himself out of trouble. 

“Wha’,” he drawled. “I do. Love shagging, love making love, love playing about and seeing what ‘appens.” 

You remained silent knowing that he wasn’t finished. Part of you wanting him to continue to see what he had to say next. 

“Love it when you’re a bit forward, Iove it when you go coy on me,” he acknowledged, mouth falling open slightly as his breathing changed along with the direction of the conversation. “Love it when you let me take you from behind and you push back cause you want me to slap your arse, but even though we’ve been together for years you still won’t ask me outright, cause you still like to think that you’re all proper like that.” 

You dug your nails into his back once more for his cheek, causing him to breathily chuckle again. 

“What do you mean ‘still like to think’?”

The dirty chuckle that accompanied his deep voice caused a fluttering in your nether region that was entirely undeniable. “You seem to forget that I’ve seen the way you get when you’re gagging for it.”

“How’d I get?”

With glittering eyes he responded, “D’ya want me to talk dirty to you?”

“D’ya want to?”

“Why don’t y’jus’ ask me?” He nudged your nose. “Gonna let me slip in?”

You hummed, sliding your fingers into the back of his messy bedhead. “Gonna put me in, gonna ‘elp—“ 

He deeply hummed when he felt your hand slide under the covers and found his leaking cock before placing him against your soaked knickers. “Rub it against ‘em.” 

You watched his jaw fall at just how wet he could feel you through your underwear, slightly slacker than before, and felt his hands slide the pantyline to the side. “Not even takin’ off your knickers, wan’ it that bad eh-“

He saw the way you clenched your jaw, not liking how in the slightest you were proving him right about how desperate and urgent you sometimes got for him. 

“You letting me fuck you without a rubber, are you?” 

Your chest heaved slightly from his words and how brazen he was being. The two of you had taken to using condoms again lately, following a stint with changing your pill and the thought of fucking to be close, or maybe so much more, without the need for him to wear protection, was proving more exhilarating than it should be.

“S’working now or we trying?”

“Harry-“ you hushed his name.

“Eh,” he coaxed. “Are you letting me make you a Mommy again?” 

With eyes closed, you cupped his face in your hands, enjoying the way his voice - that little bit lower than usual - continued to talk to you, melding into your skin as he pressed and rubbed his lips against your face. 

“Gonna get our girl this time, complete our family aren’t we?” 

You found yourself subconsciously nodding because having a girl would mean a third baby, which you were always adamant against. There was no denying it that the two boys that you and Harry had were more than a handful, having that little girl for you both to fawn over was desirable enough to push your two child rule out of the window. 

“How long you known its started working again, how long you been keeping this from me, doll? Knowing just how much I love to fuck you bare.” 

You were sure it had been four weeks since you had changed up your contraceptive. So sure. And besides even if you weren’t, would it be such a bad thing?  

“Love having the power, don’t you? Truth is,” he leant in, nose now slightly squashed as he rest tightly against you, nuzzled between your legs just right. “Love giving it to you.”

Your eyes rolled back into your head as he slid all the way in, and you didn’t miss the double meaning of him giving you both the power and his cock. 

Mouth falling open you let out a silent sound of approval when he found himself deep inside of you. The choked groan that left Harry, whose teeth were bared as he clenched at the feeling of taking you this way again, filled you with a desired warmth from head to toe.

Feeling him pull out slowly, you found yourself faintly whispering a mantra of “no’s”, knowing that he was going to try and have you as slow as he could possibly get away with.

“We don’t have time,” you gasped, against the skin of his cheek when he turned his head slightly to the side and thrust into you with slightly more force than before.

“Make time don’t we,” he hummed, hand sliding underneath you and gripping to the skin where your bum cheek and thigh met, creating that nice tilt to your body that he knew you loved.

Falling away from him and deeper into the mattress, you felt the way he picked up the grind of his hips, each  thrust hitting deeper and faster than its predecessor. 

Bed creaking, Harry who was now kneeling above you as he fucked into you, leaned his body back to grab at the corner of duvet that had fallen off the two of you in the process of him changing his position. 

His thrusts became slower and deeper, pulling you under as he tugged at the blankets and brought them over the two of you like you were teenagers.

Cocooned underneath the thick plush sheets that screamed adults with an affluent income, you felt the stifling heat creep up on you quickly as you choked a gasp when he thrust just the way you liked it, the way you needed it. 

“Remember the last time we woke up early like this to get a shag in at m’mums.” His words were thick, mouthed into your cheek as he pressed his body down to yours and nuzzled his head to rest against you. 

“Harry-“ 

“Said my name like tha’ back then too-“ he paused. 

You were overwhelmed, legs falling open as you asked for more. His hand gripping at your plush thigh and welcoming you accommodating him in such a way. 

“You like me fucking you when we shouldn’t. Turns you on, doll? The idea of getting caught. Or is it me making time for you, going out of my way in admitting I can’t keep m’fucking hands to m’self.”

***

Now Sitting opposite Harry in what could only be described as the most corporate boardroom you had ever seen wasn’t getting any easier.

This was your fifth meeting since the two of you had filed your divorce, and the process itself was starting to become quite tedious now. You were pretty sure that Harry’s lawyer was dragging out the formalities to get a heftier pay out at the end of it, which struck you worse than it should’ve considering you were no longer together.

It was quite clear that the emotion you felt about anyone taking advantage of his position, especially in a vulnerable situation such as divorce, didn’t sit well with you.

The fact that it was actually him who was dragging out proceedings never really entered your mind. 

Assets were today’s topic of conversation, and you had made it quite clear along with your solicitor, Gavin that you weren’t interested in taking anything that belonged to Harry. If anything, you were just more adamant that everything went to all three of your children. As long as they were taken care of - now and in the future - then you were happy.

You fiddled with your watch and tennis bracelet that sat delicately against your ever thinning wrist, a sign that stress had taken a hold of you in a different way than it usually did. You felt confident albeit still slightly anxious about these official meetings, surrounded by people who shouldn’t know about the ins and outs of your life, but here they were watching you air your dirty laundry.

“My client is quite keen to stress that she doesn’t require the marital home in Hampstead and has insisted that Mr Styles allow her and their children to vacate the property,“ Gavin was confidently repeating the words you had told him the evening prior, over a glass of wine in the wine bar around the corner from his offices. His eloquence of delivery filled you with enough belief that you found yourself sitting up a little bit straighter. 

Gavin has been yours and Harry’s lawyer through the majority of your official dealings. Sorting out housing concerns, anything relating to the press or privacy matters for Harry throughout the years that you had been courting and beyond. He knew it all. Somewhere inside you that gave you comfort, that he would be able to fight for you in a fair manner that wouldn’t harm Harry.

You didn’t want to harm Harry. To have or make unnecessary digs during a time that was already incredibly strained, uncomfortable and quite frankly heartbreaking.

Harry had been the one to suggest it to you. For you to take the family solicitor, and for him to get someone else. And someone else he did get. Eloise was part of the same company but a different branch, based closer to Manchester and in turn closer to Anne. That was something that you’d noted quite easily. The significance of it a topic that had yet to be discussed.

Since the news broke of you two filing for a divorce things had been different with the wider family. It was a shock but you weren’t surprised. Gemma cut you off immediately, much to the severe annoyance of Harry. While he understood that she was merely being the protective older sister, she had once doted on you so much so that you soon became thick as thieves. He once claimed that he had no chance when the two of you got your heads together, that’s how much of a unit you were.

He knew it had hurt you too. Gemma was a life source in an otherwise harsh reality of London. She was a rock. Someone who broke up the mundane routine of parenting life and would always try (even if turned down and batted off several times) to remind you that there was more outside of your three little ones and the four walls of your wonderful family home.

Anne was a little more understanding. It had been strained at first, but she had been there before herself. She understood the weight of stress that divorce had upon people, and where she found it appropriate she supported not only her baby boy but you. 

Eloise was friendly, a warm smile one her face whenever she walked into the room and greeted both you and Gavin. But the minute the door was closed, she became the ultimate professional, stepping in where required for her client, your soon-to-be former husband.

She cleared her throat having heard Gavin’s words and shuffled around with the papers in front of her. “Mr Styles has time and time again told that this is not what he would like. The family home and the stability it provides his children is something he would like to remain the same for peace of mind when he is out of the country. For safety and security.”

You bowed your head hearing the words that he would’ve no doubt stressed to his representative. You knew how much he prided himself on keeping his family safe and the levels he went to in ensuring that the current home you were still living within was secure.

A sigh left you lips as you reached forward for a glass of water knowing that you really weren’t going to get anywhere. You made the fatal error of lifting your eyes as you sipped, eyes falling onto him properly for the first time since the two of you shared the room on that grey Wednesday morning. He was broken in front of you. A bit more disheveled than you knew he would like to be with his presentation in a professional setting. 

His eyes were on you immediately, letting you know that while yours had been elsewhere he was absolutely taking the time to gaze at you. Green stare was filled with an emotion that screamed out at you to give him a second chance, so powerful you were forced to look at the wall above his head in fear of welling up.

Harry dropped his head at your emotional wave, right hand coming up to his left where he quickly started twirling his wedding band around his finger. See he hadn’t taken his off. 

Shame he couldn’t say the same about you.

Before you could stop yourself, you turned to look at Gavin and mumbled under your breath, “See, I told you last night he wasn’t going to listen, didn’t I?”

Mumbled or not, Harry heard you loud and clear. His head snapped up to look at you. His eyes running over the way you had slightly leaned closer to a man that he had known for almost as long as Harry had known you. Green gaze frantically moved back and forth between you both, his eyes taking in how Gavin was mumbling something back to you. Something that he couldn’t quite make out, which frustrated him to no end. 

Were you fucking? Were you fucking Gavin? The question swarmed his brain, him almost succumbing to the sea of that thought which was so willing to pull him under. Instead he cleared his throat, he couldn’t let that happen. There could be no sign of any unwillingness to compromise in this situation; you and he had yet to have the conversation (in an official capacity or otherwise) about custody. He wasn’t willing to risk that. 

“Have the house,” he croaked, silently wishing that it hadn’t given away the way he was really feeling. 

He noticed how you turned to look at him. Your mouth falling slightly as you watched him clear his throat and sit up straighter. “I want you to have that house.” 

“It’s your house, you bought it.” 

Your voice was soft as you spoke back to him, watching the way his eyes sharply cut over to Gavin who was busy writing something down into the edge of his paper next to the notes he had made a mere twelve hours ago when sat across the table from you in the atmospheric wine bar. 

“It’s our house,” he corrected, moving his eyes back to you. “As little disruption as possible for our kids.” 

You were suspicious, he knew it. The use of ‘our’ wasn’t lost on you, the way that he had chosen to stress the word both times as he addressed you. Just like it hadn’t previously been lost on you when Eloise referred to your children as just his. Just Harry’s. 

Licking at your lips, you felt him and everyone else in the room waiting for your answer. He had backed you into a corner with this one and you found yourself quickly starting to resent him for the way he had turned it around, whether he had done so intentionally or not. 

“Why’d you think I moved out?” his question was fired at you quicker than you wanted it to, almost too fast. You couldn’t process how to respond before he was basically responding for you. “Because,” he started, breathing deeply. So deeply you saw the way his shoulders heaved.  “Because we said that we wanted their life to remain, as much as it possibly can, the same as before this entire mess started.” 

He spat the words at you. His hand running roughly through his hair before he glared over at Gavin again. “Write it down, Gav. She’s having the home in Hampstead, so change your notes.” 

Mouth slightly fallen, you turned to watch Gavin raise his eyebrows as he looked down at his paper and scribbled out his notes. You reached up to press your left hand to Gavin’s right, stilling his pen and all movement. Eyes back on Harry, you took great care in reading his facial expression. For the first time - since you had started these divorce proceedings - he looked the most bitter and angry you had ever seen him. 

“Don’t write that down,” you told your representative. “We need to discuss this one further.” 

Harry’s eyes flashed over at you, as he turned quickly to look at Eloise before he looked back at you. “Don’t you think you should respect my wishes on this one?” 

“What, like you did by not even considering mine before you actually filed for divorce?” 

“Harry-”

His name was heavy as it left your lips. Laced in a tired sigh but feeling every ounce of his pain and yours combined. 

“What?” 

“This isn’t the right time or setting for that conversation.” 

His jaw was clenched; he hated when you took the mile high ground. “This isn’t a control thing,” he kept your eyes, a sincerity behind his words. “We made a lot of good memories there, the kids love it. School is so close, so are all their friends.” He sighed heavily, “All I’m saying is please think about it. Don’t take the idea off the table completely. I’m happy for you to have it.” 

Nodding, you looked at Gavin under your eyelashes and sheepishly nodded for him to continue with his writing. You were getting the house. The house that Harry had bought so many years earlier. Years before you had come onto the scene. The house he had coaxed you into moving into. The house where you had made love several times and conceived all three of your babies, and not always in the master bedroom either. 

The rest of the meeting had gone quite smoothly. Well as smoothly as it can when you’re divvying up your life assets and valuables between two people who never thought that it would come to this. A sadness had laced both yours and Harry’s words as you easily listed off which things would go to you and which things would go to him. 

You weren’t interested in the cars. His vintage sports cars were gorgeous but they would be useless to you and your trio of children, who needed a suitable car to get them from A to B. With this, you kept the Range. He had the rest.

That was how the rest of the morning went. By the time you were done, your head felt like it was about to explode and your rayon crepe dress was almost sticking to your body from the way you had perspired under pressure. 

Harry was waiting for you when you exited the room, having lingered back for a while longer to speak to Gavin about when the two of you could next put some time in to discuss the next steps before the next meeting with Harry and Eloise. 

His head was down as he furiously typed on his phone. You could only imagine that it would be a business email of sorts from the way he concentrated, pausing every so often to re-read what he had written. 

The sound of your heels clipping against the floor pulled his attention away as he shot his head up to look at you. He looked worn down now that he was out of the setting, the two of you in that awkward jig in the hallway of the magistrates building. The knot in his tie looser around his neck, very top button of his shirt now undone to help him breathe that little bit easier. 

Scratching at the back of his neck, Harry eyed you with caution. You looked every inch the put together business lady that he knew you were. Stylish dress that he knew you had once longed to fit back into after having your youngest now fit you just as well, if not better than before. 

“Did you need me for something?” you asked, question light. He soared at how you hadn’t ignored him and he felt silly - embarrassed even - for grasping at anything. 

Jutting out his lips, he shook his head. Hand in left pocket, hiding the ring he continued to wear. He felt desperate, he was desperate. He didn’t want you to know that, however he knew that you did. “Are you happy with how everything just went?” he asked, holding the door open for you as you started to walk closer to the lifts. 

He hoped you would opt for stairs, not wanting to have to cull any conversation the two of you were sharing short. When you spun towards them, he slightly thanked the gods above at how they were still - even just a little bit - on his side. 

“I think it went okay,” you hummed in response. Recognising the small talk for what it was. There was a lull in the conversation as you walked down the two flights of stairs, nothing but the sound of Harry’s breathing and your heels. “Were you happy?”

He wanted to blow at your question, but he knew that you were just trying to fill the empty air. It wasn’t your fault. This was just the state of affairs at the moment. The two of you trying to navigate it as best as you possibly could. 

“I don’t want us to go through with this,” he started, voice thick. 

“Harry-” you sighed. 

“I’m not happy, of course I’m not happy,” he exclaimed in a whisper, eyes on your profile. He was silent as he followed you, your walk strong as you headed towards your car. Manicured nails pressing down on the key fob to get the doors to open for you. “I don’t want this, I’ve never wanted this.” 

Spinning around after setting you handbag down on the passenger seat, you shut the car door. He looked at you, really stared at you, noticing the way your eyes fell to look at something behind his shoulder as you stood in front of each other in nothing but awkward silence. 

There he was. Gavin. Sinking down into his silver Porsche. Harry’s eyes scrunched into slits and before he could stop himself, he turned back to face you. “Are you shagging, Gavin?” 

“I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer,” you responded in deadpan. 

Harry scoffed, shaking his head and feeling his nostrils flare. He let you walk around him, quick on your tail as you walked around the bonnet of the car and jumped into the drivers side of the car. He stopped the door as you tried to close it, his reflexes too quick for you. 

“You are then,” he spat, watching as you shoved the key into the ignition and harshly glared at him. 

“I am the mother of your children. I am your wife,” you reminded him. The way in which he was so easy to think about you in a negative fashion.  

“Not for much longer, eh?” he shot back. “And who’s doing is that!”

You stilled as you looked at him. Stuck between anger and a fresh batch of tears. “He’s known us for years, and you’re shagging him. I told you last night,” he mimicked the words you had spoken in the room two floors up a couple of hours earlier. 

“We went for a drink,” you started. 

His mouth fell, “This gets better and better. I think you’ll find that that is a conflict of interest.” 

“Of my doing then,” you screamed. Your outburst caused his eyes to widen as he looked at you. So put together but so easy to break. “I asked him to meet me at the wine bar around from his office for a change of setting, because I am sick to death of being holed up in stuffy little meeting rooms talking about the way my life, and the life of my children, is slipping through my fingers.” 

“You asked him out for a drink?” 

You closed your eyes, breathing deeply before pinching at the bridge of your nose. He was picking and choosing what he wanted to hear at this point. Opening your eyes, you looked at Harry, “I have not slept with Gavin, nor do I want to sleep with Gavin.” 

“Darling-” his voice wavered as he tried to start his apology.

“Please let go of the door,” you asked, voice hollow as your reached for the inside door handle. “I’ve got somewhere else I need to be.” 

“I’m sorry,” he choked, car door slowly closing. “Please, just-” 

“Just what?” You asked, sad eyes meeting Harry’s upset gaze. 

His lips were down-turned as he fought against the burning in his throat. Licking his lips, wanting to tell you how much he loved you. Instead he opted to keep it to himself. “Tell my babies how much I love them.” 

“Always do,” you choked. 

***

The flat was empty, the way he liked it. That way he didn’t get attached. He didn’t plan on being long anyway.

The harsh light from the windows caused him to groan as he dropped his head and leaned his forearms on the tops of his thighs.

His life had changed drastically in the last eight weeks. Silence consumed him the minute he closed the door behind him and day and night began to blur into one. It felt strange, foreign and entirely not what he wanted.

He missed being climbed on the minute the door shut. The sound of feet stomping as they ran along wooden floors to him with squeals of “daddy” following not long after. He missed dropping his heavy bag, filled with clothes but even more so with gifts, for his best boys and best girls. He missed over exaggerating groans at the weight of his kids on top of him as he would collapse against the front door and tickle them into a fit of crying laughter. He missed sighing happily once they’d had enough and ran off leaving him spent against the door. More importantly, he missed looking up and seeing you watching him, leaning against the kitchen door opposite the front door, wearing a sleepy smile that showed how glad you were to see him not only for him to help pick up his end of the slack but just because he had come back to you. Like always would.

Well, like he always would have. 

Head like cotton wool, Harry palmed down his face and ran his hand along the five days worth of stubble that lined his jawline. Closing his eyes, he slid his tongue along the front of his teeth as he fought the oncoming emotion and swallowed harshly. 

Before he could think, he swiped his phone off the coffee table and scrolled through his camera roll looking at the FaceTime call he’d undertaken with his babies four nights prior.

That’s what it had become. Contact through a phone. Not all the time, but mostly. It was his own doing and he knew it, and he didn’t try and twist it as something that was more your choice.

He had found himself pulling away after your last meeting. Guilt ridden by his accusations of you sleeping with your solicitor. He knew you were pissed off with him because you didn’t start the FaceTime calls now, even though they were done through your phone. So many times he’d call and expect to see you but he was always greeted by his eldest son smiling and his younger baby boy shoving another new toy in front his elder brothers face to try and get some attention too. 

“Wow mate, looks cool.” He would always say, wanting to acknowledge both boys as equally as possible. “Where’s you little sister? Let Daddy say hi.”

That’s where he would melt. Every single time she would pop up on the screen she would be that little bit different. Steadier on her feet as each day pressed. 

He only had to look around his flat, which was nicely decorated with the odd leftover bottle of beer on any surface that could hold something to know why his head felt stuffy, to know he needed to sort himself out. 

An outsider looking in would say that he was firmly on the first stage of a grieving process. Harry was in denial. He knew it. Sometimes he found himself processing scenarios in his head at how his current abode was only temporary, found himself answering questions on autopilot at the studio with nothing but complete and utter lies.

Lies about you, about your kids. About your situation. He’d talk about how his sons were thriving at school, and how his daughter was practically ready to join her two big brothers and climb into her own little uniform. And it was all utter bollocks, he didn’t have a clue. 

And that was because he hadn’t done the school run in the longest time. His time with the kiddies assigned to the weekend, a decision that had been come to simply because disrupting their routine was not what he wanted. Probably one that was more so posed upon him but one he almost didn’t have the energy to fight.

You always seemed so sure of yourself when you met at your solicitor meetings. Sitting opposite him put together, this confidence radiating from you as you presented yourself with your best foot forward, as every inch the impressive woman that had caught his eye all those years ago. 

And he always felt a bit of a mess. Regardless of how expensive his suit and shoes were. His tie didn’t sit right against his collar, not like it used to when you helped him do it.   

You’d survived arguments before. Long periods of time of FaceTime conversations and nights in the studio that turned into early mornings so him being in his current surroundings didn’t feel so strange when he really thought about it. 

As his fingers ran over the screenshot of his smiling son, Harry felt his denial was as strong as ever. This was a phase, it wasn’t reality. 

This wasn’t forever. He had to make sure of it.

***

Vision blurred, you squinted at the scrunched up piece of paper that housed Harry’s scrawl. 

The four digit number should probably have been embedded into your brain by now, given the couple of times that you had dropped your children at the location when Harry couldn’t always get to you. However, your slightly inebriated state meant that you weren’t entirely of sound mind as you punched the code into the grey buttons. 

Meeting up with the Mum’s from school had appeared all nice on the surface, until the four of you had to come to realise that the mixing of cocktail beverages wasn’t going to work out the best in the end. Especially considering the last time that any of you had had a night out (a proper night out) was probably before you’d had children. And well, that was a long time ago. 

The electronic whirling sound signalled to your that the code you had managed to squint at was successful. Pushing at the door you meandered over to the lift, pressing at the call button, a little irritated at how long it was taking to get down to you.

Harry’s apartment was on the eighteenth floor at the very top of the eighteen story apartments block that boasted postcard panoramic views towards Westminster, River Thames, City, Chelsea, Battersea and beyond. 

You remembered so vividly Googling the block of apartments the first time you had dropped off your three babies. Looking online to find his exact flat that he has purchased and flicking through the pictures that were available to you.

The open plan reception, the modern kitchen with breakfast bar. The three double bedrooms - one for Harry, one for the boys to share and one for his baby girl. Each room had its own en-suite, his room complemented by the wrap around balcony that was accessible by the living room too.

Standing, waiting for the lift, you remembered so vividly the stern conversation the two of you had shared about the balcony and the sliding door to access it. How you’d read him your own version of the riot act about how you thought he was such an idiot for buying some sort of bachelor pad, when he had children who would want to explore outside the balcony, and could get out so easily and harm themselves if left for only the smallest amount of time.

Harry hadn’t taken too kindly to that one. His expression hard, as he walked over and showed you how he had child proofed everything. The doors, the windows, the plugs. He also took the opportunity to remind you that it wasn’t forever, that he would win you back. A stance that he often took whenever he had the chance to talk to you and slip it into conversation; he most definitely took it.

Lift pinging, you ignored the shiver that left your body at the thought of his fervour whenever he tried to fight for you both in the current day, and all those years ago when you were a solid couple. 

You jammed your red fingernail into the silver circle that housed the number eighteen, watching the orange digital number slowly rise as the lift did. It pinged once more to tell you that you had arrived, and you took the opportunity to slowly stumble down the corridor. 

The balls of your feet ached as you wandered to his front door, wondering if he would still be awake. Stopping at one of two doors on this floor, you let you hand hover for a short time before you knocked and ignored the way you slightly tripped over your aching feet from your off kilter balance, thanks to one too many strawberry daiquiris. 

There was silence in the corridor other than the shuffling of your bag, and you thought he was further into a deep sleep than usual, but the sound of a chain jangling over the other side of the door cause you to snap your eyes up from where they had been, looking at your freshly pedicured feet. 

The ivory door of Harry’s apartment, nicely glossed wood, slowly pulled open to reveal his squinting eyes. He looked like he’d been asleep, maybe not for long but he’d definitely been dozing on the couch. His bleary eyes stared at you, face holding at least four days worth of stubble and body covered in a jumper that you knew had been stored at the very back of the wardrobe at the Hampstead house. He must’ve been having a clear out at his apartment, downsizing was never easy. 

He pulled open the door when he saw you fidgeting in front of him and held it open with his arm. You nodded, ducking underneath his arm to walk into the apartment, letting your feet take you the way you knew to his open plan living room.

As you waited on him to lock up behind you, you let your eyes scour the living room. There weren’t any lights on in the room, baring the glow of the television screen. You noted the way the couch was particularly worn in from where he must’ve fallen asleep, with his feet resting upon the table. 

You could almost picture him, head tilted back against the back of the couch; mouth slightly ajar and arms folded across his chest with hands resting under his armpits to keep them warm. He’d probably had his legs crossed at the ankles too on the table, just like you’d often found him in the small hours after he’d crashed on the sofa following a particularly late night session.

And just like all those times before, when he came into your vision you spoke the words that you knew well, “‘s gonna do nothing for your back.”

Harry looked over at you, hands now pushed into the pockets of his navy blue sports shorts. He stood in silence, smallish frown between his brows. You dared to glance over at him from the corner of your eye, knowing he needed more to figure out what you meant. 

“Falling asleep on the couch, is gonna do nothing for your back. You’re pushing thirty-eight-“

“Cheers for tha’ one, could do without the reminder!”

You fought the smile hitting your lips as you looked at him again from the corner of your eye, and saw he was pleased with himself for getting your lips to twitch up, even if for the shortest time. 

“Anyway, what have I done to owe this pleasure,” he asked, walking around the back of the couch to the table to pick up the half finished bottle of red wine and the wine stained glass. 

“Went out with some of the Mums,” you caught his eye as you spoke, his expression amused as you crossed your left leg over your right. “Bursting for a wee and you were the closest.”

“Can see tha’,” he raised his eyebrows. You didn’t know what he meant by that comment. Were you that pissed he could tell by barely looking at you, or was it the comment about needing the loo? You knew that was obvious from the way you swayed as you stood. 

“Know where it is, knock yourself out,” he nudged his head up to the door behind yours that led you back out into the hallway, and didn’t fight the smile that split his face as he watched you reacted the quickest you had done since you arrived.

Your bag was off your shoulder, dropped over the sofa to fall against the cushions and your jacket - the one he remembered buying you when you turned thirty-five, when you’d spotted it in the Paris Chanel store - was pulled off and draped over the back of the couch too.

Harry stilled in the silent lounge, looking on as you tottered away, so unsteady on your feet, but in too much of great need to use the toilet before even thinking about taking your shoes off.

He busied himself with setting the bottle of wine and lone wine glass to the breakfast bar. Resting his hands to the black marble worktop, he dropped his head between his shoulder blades and closed his eyes alongside his deep breath.

Pushing away from the kitchen area before he could wind himself too much about the possibility of how you and a few of the other school Mums - he knew the odd one was newly single - had possibly gone out on the pull. He turned to fluffing up the cushions on the couch and quickly took to tidying the coffee table, which housed some of the song lyrics he’d been writing, mostly about you, into a small pile before folding them and shoving them into his leather bound journal to hide. 

Sitting down on the couch behind him, Harry turned his head to the left and let his eyes linger on the jacket and bag next to him. So many times this was how a night would end, when the two of you did have a chance to go out just as a couple. He’d be fiddling with his shoes while you scampered off to the downstairs toilet, never being able to time your toilet breaks correctly for the journey home. 

It always had the two of you friendly bickering - well before it started becoming proper bickering - and even had Harry softly apologising each time he had to drive over a speed bump, because he knew how much it would jolt your bladder. 

You used to laugh that it was his doing anyway. Your bladder changed after becoming a Mum and that was totally his doing. He always reminded you that it took two to tango, often with a kiss left to the back of your hand in the process, which always caused you to soften out of your irritated mood. 

But neither of you had tangoed in a while. 

With the light of the television harsh against his eyes, Harry - now feeling slightly riled at the thought of your separation so bold in his mind - snatched at the remote control, and turned the television off. 

Now, in some state of matching his mood, he sat in darkness. Resting back into the seat of the couch and silently groaning to himself. He knocked his head back against the cushions and reached for the lamp next to him, turning it on and filling the room with a warm light. 

You’d been gone longer than you usually would have been. His eyes glancing over at the large ticking clock sitting on the wall of his kitchen. Just after 1:15am was what it read, time matching the burning sensation behind his eyes. 

Pushing himself up with a groan, he was reminded of your comment earlier about his age and tried to ignore the way you were always right. He felt every inch his thirty-seven, and soon-to-be thirty-eight years.

Circling around the back of the couch, Harry ran his hand along the back coming to a halt at your jacket, before the backs of his fingers smoothed over the tweed material. It felt soft to his touch, and he wondered if his hand would smell of your preferred perfume, the one that he always found incredibly intoxicating. Then he remembered how creepy he would look smelling his hand, regardless of there being no one around to know; he would know. 

The sound of the toilet flushing broke his reverie and caused him to shake his head. Expecting you to return any minute now, he waited. His bum resting against the top of the couch, he kept his eyes on the door wanting to catch you expression the minute you reappeared. 

When you didn’t show yourself, he exited his lounge and walked along the hallway. His meandering came to a halt when he saw you walking around the corner that led to the bedrooms. 

Slowly his feet pattered behind you, crushing into the soft carpet underneath them with a muffled noise. He was silent as he watched you, slowly pushing open the door of your boys shared bedroom. 

The only light that lit up the room was that from the hallway, casting enough of a glow to allow you to see what it was like. Harry didn’t say anything at first, watching the way your tense shoulders relaxed as you swayed slightly on your feet, and turned your head a small amount to the right to get a look at the pictures that were hung on the walls. 

“‘M trying to make it feel more like a home for them.” His voice was calm behind you as he broke the silence, not loud enough to make you jump. In fact, you found it incredibly soothing. “The boys fought it out on whose curtains to replicate here from Mommy’s home, and rather than fighting I just tried to make it fun and told them to pick the ones that I knew you would dislike the most.”

You grimaced when they came into view, Harry reaching around you to turn on the light for their room. Part of you was slightly embarrassed at how he had caught you snooping after leaving the bathroom, but he knew you meant well. The Mother Hen in you coming out to protect her babies and see that their second home was fit enough for them.

“They’re horrendous,” you slurred your deadpan, the horrible brash colours of abstract print sitting among bright yellows, oranges and greens of dinosaurs staring straight back at you. 

“They’re exactly what boys of six and almost four like though,” he half smiled, leaning against the door frame. He scanned your figure taking in your outfit as you continued to look around the room and noticed the extra effort you had put in that evening, enough to make him feel the kind of way he used to feel when you did date nights.

“Walls are still stark and white,” you commented, eyeing them before turning to look at him over your shoulder. You tried not to focus on the sadness that laced his features.

“‘S tha’ you telling me that this definitely needs to become more of a permanent thing?”

You dropped his gaze, shrugging and swallowing the lump in your throat. “Maybe that’s a conversation topic for another day?”

Humming, you nodded your bowed head and moved to walk around him. “D’you wanna see the bab’s room?”

He didn’t wait for your reply, instead he walked around you this time and took you to the room closest to his. Harry flipped on the light without a second thought, walking in and quickly moving some of the clothes off the changing unit into the designated chest of draws.

“‘M trying out the big girl bed in here,” he said feeling your presence as he shuffled the clothing around and folded things quickly before placing them neatly inside the draws.

You barely heard a word he said after that, eyes transfixed by the bed that was the replica of yours at home, just the cot element of it had been taken away. Harry had come to recognise that you baby girl was no longer a baby and more so becoming her own person. Something you were so so desperate to avoid.

The thought of her growing filled you with a panic that you hadn’t wanted to face just yet. An emotion that caused your chest to close and a choked sob to catch his attention.

Harry was panicked when he abruptly turned to face you, taking in your crumpled expression as you remained consumed on the children’s bed. “Hey, hey,” he soothed, wrapping his arm around your shoulders and scooping you towards him. “Everything’s alright, they’re okay here. Promise I’ll never let anything ‘appen to ‘em when they’re here. The sides can go back on to the bed, they’re stored in my room at the minu-“

“No,” your voice trembled, “they should stay off. She is a big girl now.”  

You looked up at him, lips downturned as you found it hard to fight your vulnerable state; something you knew wouldn’t be the case if you hadn’t been so inebriated. 

“What happens when I no longer have a baby,” you spoke the question aloud, watching Harry’s eyes try and decipher the question and the many meanings it held. 

“She’s always gonna be your baby. They’re always gonna be your babies. You’re always gonna be Mummy.”

“You’ve done what I’ve been putting off,” you breathed heavily, sniffling. “I like to find her laying down looking for me through the wood after one of her naps, or bopping as she holds the sides and bounces her little legs cause she wants Mommy to lift her out.”

He reached for your face, listening and letting you speak. His fingers joined yours to swipe away some of the fallen tears that hadn’t dried and he knew in so many ways that you were admitting that you babied your youngest to keep her exactly that; a baby. 

“I’ve tried to keep her tiny for as long as possible,” you confessed. “Cause when she doesn’t depend on me anymore, I’m back to being me and-“ 

Harry noticed the heavy pause. He softly stroked underneath your chin, trying to non-verbally encourage you to continue.

“I don’t know who I am. I don’t know if I’m going to like who I find.” 

You saw the way Harry blinked heavily, the smallest frown finding the middle of his brows as his mouth fell ever so slightly at your honesty. 

“How can you not like who you’ll find?” He breathed, eyes taking your entire face in. Your words were hard for him to process, considering he’d seen the way you had vehemently held onto your career through pregnancy and after. 

“Cause I don’t know who she is anymore. Outside of being a Mum, who am I?”

He spoke you full name, including your married surname. “That’s who you are.”

“Not for much longer,” you rolled your eyes, annoyed at yourself for showing yourself to him this way. He felt cold when you stepped away from him, watching you sniff and abruptly wipe at your face with harsh fingers to remove any makeup marks from your skin, thanks to running eyeliner and mascara. 

His lips twitched, saddened by the tough reality that those four words from you had delivered to him. You weren’t far from the truth, regardless of how much he had tried to halt proceedings, it was getting a bit silly now. 

“I’m gonna have to use the bathroom again to clean up,” you straightened yourself out. So easy to put on a mask even in front of the man you were supposed to be able to be your most raw; your most vulnerable with. 

“Know where it is, knock yourself out,” he repeated the words from earlier, this time a bitter edge to them, looking on as your turned to walk back through his hallway and into the bathroom. 

Harry groaned under his breath as he let his head fall back on his neck, eyes facing the ceiling. Scrubbing his hands down this face and round to find the back of his neck, he clenched his fingers at the tightening of his shoulder and neck muscles, before he sighed and exited his daughters bedroom.

Flicking the light off, he let his feet lead him back to his dimly lit living room. His eyes watched the London skyline, alight and beautiful, before they focused in on his own reflection in the glass.

His expression was downtrodden, not entirely, but you could tell he was exhausted. Some of it his own doing from late night studio sessions, other from the physical and emotional toll his family life (and lack of it) was having upon his heart. 

He turned his attention to filling up two glasses of water, wanting to give you one upon your return. A small smile laced his lips at that thought, he wanted to give you one in more ways than one. 

Heel clipping against the floors, they came to a dull shuffle as you entered his living room. You came to a stop, not too far from where he had previously been stood admiring the skyline for all that it was. 

Harry looked on silently as you took in the London skyline, the way it was dreamily lit up. On any other evening it would’ve been romantic, the kind of setting that you would’ve liked to admire along with him. Maybe sat in the balcony with a glass of wine each. Creeping from your chair and into his lap as you both got further down the bottle and maybe into a second. You wrinkled your nose as you took in the view and the scene you had created, reaching down and tugging at your shoes, quite the topple to your balance. 

He didn’t help though, knowing you would most likely chew his head off. Instead he pressed his hands harder against the marble counter of his kitchen as a lopsided smile fell onto his lips.

“Well done,” he spoke in sarcastic deadpan behind you when he saw that you had successfully removed your shoes without falling, the sling back heel straps curled around your fingers. 

“Shut it, you wanker.” 

He laughed, harder than he should’ve. For the first time in a long time in your presence. The delivery was perfectly timed, back still facing him as you twisted your body slightly to drop the shoes over the back of the couch to join your bag and jacket. 

The interaction felt nice. Such a boring word to describe a situation but spot on in the current happenings. It was just nice. Nice to be in a room, not arguing but bickering. Bickering like a married couple, which technically is what you still were. 

“Felt really good going out with the Mums tonight,” you broke the bubbling silence, left arm coming up to fold across your chest. Your eyes remained fixed on the view as you heard Harry shuffling behind you, his movements were sluggish though, you could tell by the huge gaps of silence between each knock of something else that he was tidying away. 

“You should do it more often,” he replied, voice wistful. “Got you a glass of water ‘ere, if y’want it.”

You hummed but didn’t provide him with a solid reply, a sign that he took as you being deep within your thoughts. He decided to leave the water to sit untouched next to his. 

Chin resting on his hand, Harry really admired you in the dimly lit open plan lounge and kitchen. 

“Was nice to feel my age,” your voice was far away as you spoke. “Felt nice to let my hair down. Someone sent drinks over to the table tonight.”

He slowly pushed himself up from where he had been leaning on his forearms on the counter at your last sentence. “Did they? No’ surprised, looking like tha’” 

You turned your head to look over your shoulder at him, the bounce of your hair felt skimming the skin of your shoulder in a flutter that matched Harry’s nerves. You didn’t know what response you were expecting but it wasn’t that, maybe more of a blow up towards the idea of someone else chatting you up. 

The face that met your eyes was one of pure lust. Even across the other side of a room, kitchen counter in between you both, it was easy for you to decipher. Dim light and all, he was mesmerised. While he felt himself getting hot under the collar at the idea of some random bloke trying to cop a chance with his wife - even if only still in name -, there was something exhilarating at how you’d ended up winding back at his place regardless of the advances of another.

“Sorry for being a shit husband and not noticing sooner.”

“Noticing what?” 

“Noticing that was I neglecting you. Neglecting letting you know how proud of you I am. How much I fancied you. How much I still fancy you.” 

You blinked silently over at him, your breathing picking up as you watched the way he wiped his hand down the front of his mouth and chuckled. His head shaking lightly from side to side, try as you might you weren’t forgetting those words. 

“This place is tragic,” you watched him slowly pull his hand down from his mouth at your words, arms folding against his chest. He was about to lay into you, you could tell by the way his mouth fell and the softest frown lay in the middle of his brows but deep within himself, he agreed. “You’re a Dad of three and you’re buying a place that’s fit for a bachelor who has just hit his mid-twenties. Floor to ceiling window that is just begging to have some younger model pressed up against it, gagging for it.”

“Who said anythin’ ‘bout havin’ a younger model?” You stilled at his question, it’s delivery slow as he waited for your response. 

When the response didn’t come, he gave up eyeing you from afar. You heard his socked feet against the floor, the rustle of his sports shorts as he padded across the floor and they rubbed between his muscular thighs. 

You jumped when his arms snaked around your front, and you knew you should be stepping out of his familiar embrace, but the warmth of his body in your emotional state was propping you up, even if you didn’t want to admit it. 

“‘S just’ me,” his voice vibrated into your temple, feeling you squeeze at his arm as his hand lay flat against your sternum. After the smallest amount of silence Harry confidently murmured, “Why’d I need a younger model, when I’ve got what I need righ’ ‘ere? No trading in necessary.” 

He felt your body still in front of his, wondering if he had pushed himself too far. His concerns were warranted but he was insistent on continuing. “D’ya wan’ me to shag you against the window? ‘S tha’ wha’ all this pussyfooting ‘s about?” 

You sighed heavily when you felt him drop his lips against you ear, his breath ragged as he allowed his lips to trace your skin. “Only hav’ta say darlin’, ‘s yours.”

“Please-”

The beg within your voice caused Harry to groan so animalistically it sounded like a growl. His fingers dug into the plush skin of your hips, his groin nudging into your arse cheek as he urged you to walk that couple of steps closer to the window. 

The lights of London became a blur as you focused on the frantic sucking and licking of his mouth to your exposed dip of skin where your neck and shoulder met. “‘S all this not being able to tell me,” his voice moulded into your skin. “‘F my wife wants me t’shag her against the window, then that’s what she’ll get.”

“Yes,” you hissed, hands scratching at the fabric of your blouse, pulling it out of the waistband of your skirt as Harry unbuttoned it from the top down. Once opened his hand slid into the cup of your bra and gently squeezed your breast.

He leaned his upper body back reaching for the neck of you blouse and harshly tugged the fabric away from your body. Your limbs pulled back with the item of clothing as it was torn from your body. 

Left hand contorted behind you, you let your fingers make light work of your bra. It fell slack and away from your chest, giving Harry more movement to his fingers and allowing him the chance to soothe his thumb over your raised nipple. 

You stumbled together until you roughly came into contact with the cool glass, tits squashed against the window. An involuntary gasp left your lips from the harsh intrusion of the cold, hard surface. “Gonna leave some questionable marks against this glass for me, give ‘em something to really talk about eh?”

“Want your window cleaners to know you managed to get a shag?”

“I do when it’s wi’ my fit wife,” he breathed around an open mouthed kiss to your neck. He faltered when you pressed back against him, a breathy chuckle leaving him at how you had grown impatient. 

You were stuck within this cloudy decision of whether to push your chest further into his greedy squeezing hands, or push back enticingly into his groin. 

The haze that had come over you had long gone passed being alcohol induced, as you felt him move the two of your more closely to the window. The shuffle of your feet against the plush carpet rushing around your ears as you panted.

Harry’s free hand busied itself with rucking up your skirt, the item bunching up as he grunted when you slid your fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, and pulled him closer to you. 

His hand slid down your bare side, cupping underneath your breast and smirking against your skin at how you were quick to rid yourself of your bra, letting the straps slip down your arms.

His hand slowly trailed down, sliding soothingly over your abdomen; the soft pouch of skin that you referred to as your Mummy Tummy, delicately caressed by him in a manner that told you that while you disliked this part of you, it was one of the many things he warmly thought highly of. 

He tugged your lower half away from the window, encouraging you to move- “pop up your arse for me, love. Tha’s it.”

Breathing that bit heavier now, feeling him heavy behind you, you moaned frustratedly at how he had slowed his movements. Chuckling, against you shoulder, Harry placed his warm hand against your intimate area for the first time in a couple of months. 

“You’re hairy,” he acknowledged, voice gruff and breathy with wonder as he cupped at you underneath your knickers. His mouth fell against your shoulder blade, teeth gently grazing your soft skin as he closed his eyes to visual you. He secretly loved you like this, loved pulling out and wanking himself to his end when you were hairy, just to see the way his released sat against your pubic hair when he tapped and rubbed himself against it. 

Turning your head to the side, your nose brushed against his as he waited for you when he pushed himself closer. Both with heavy breathing, mouths agape and wet with want, you whispered, “Who’ve I got to shave for? Got a husband who doesn’t want it anymore.”

“He wants it,” he lustfully put you in your place. “He’s gonna take it.”

“Then take it, make it yours.” Your words died on a dry throat as the tips of his fingers pressed to your clit. He roughly rubbed, feeling your face contort into a soft frown from his ministrations, and closely watched through blurring vision from the sheer closeness of your faces.

There was no messing about as he dipped his fingers down lower and felt your arousal, begging to be sunk into. With curled fingers he dragged the wetness to your clit, and applied pressure as he swiped upwards with heavy pads of his fingertips.

Choking for breath, the unflattering moan that left your mouth may have - once upon a time - caused you to blush. This time however, it made you want Harry that little bit closer. 

His desperation to get you to come simply by rubbing your clit like some inexperienced teenage boy, was somewhat exactly what you needed. 

Heavy behind you, you pressed your lips closer together, heavy lids matching his. He caved in and suckled gently at your bottom lip, feeling your mouth pop off when he swiped up on your clit in the right way that created a sensation that tickled through you. 

“‘M gonna come like this-“

“Yea’ you are,” he breathed back instantly, fingers slipping and starting to cramp. The speed of his fingers crept up, noticing the change of your breathing as he started to chat into your cheek, incoherent mumbles while your mouth hung open as you panted.

No noise is how he knew how much you needed this. Needed to be completely lost in the touch of another; of him and his touch. “This how you want it, doll? Yes, this is how you want. Just like this-“ his comments were only confirmed by the way your hand scratched over his knuckles, as you felt them and his fingers shaking from the vigour of his rubbing. 

He was so sure of himself and there was nothing you could do to disagree when your body was so pliant and receptive to his actions. He frowned along with you when he felt you begin to go taught and when you breathily gasped his name, he scooped you into him and held you against him as you shook.

Shaking from an orgasm delivered by clit stimulation hadn’t happened since you first started exploring your own body as a teen. You folded into yourself, humming your whine at your sensitivity as you wrapped your left leg over your right and trapped his hand between your legs. 

You were sharing a kiss with him languidly before you could comprehend it. A non-verbal thank you at the orgasm he had just given to you. 

“Gonna need m’hand back at some point,” he mumbled, nose resting next to yours. 

“Don’t like it between my legs?” 

“Not as much as you do,” he quipped, hearing the sexiest snigger from you at his quick witted remark, confirming everything he already knew. “Can think of summat else y’like more?” 

You ground back against him, the move causing a gap to form between your squashed together thighs that had Harry able to drag his damp fingers against your soft skin, leaving a trail of you behind as he did. 

Left hand gripping at your hip, he saw the way you nestled against the glass. Left cheek pressed to the window so that the right side of your profile was visible.  

With your arms elevated above your head as you pressed your entire upper body weight to the window, he found himself thinking of your squashed tits against the usually impeccably, shining surface. 

Speaking of shiny, he was throbbing behind you. Aching. And the need to change that had him whipping himself out of his shorts and leaving them nestled underneath his bum cheeks.

You hazily smirked at him when he looked up at you from his glistening cock, tapping himself against the skin of your bum cheek, and hearing the tacky stick of his arousal and skin upon skin. 

He pulled at your body, stretching your back into a delicious curve as he bobbed behind you and nestled himself against the middle of your cheeks. 

Head down, hair hanging over his forehead as he studied the visual. He spat, this long dollop of saliva, onto his cock and watched as you went to reach behind you. At your movement he released a sound of disapproval.

“Hands,” he said firmly, seeing the way you complied and pressed your arms back up straight to keep your body pressed securely against the glass. “Ain’t this a sight for sore eyes,” his voice hummed deeply. “All stretched out, well,” he paused, humour to his tone. “Nearly all stretched out.” 

“Harry-“

He pushed his dick down from the top with the tips of his fingers, letting his sensitive head bump against the hole you had yet to explore. “Could be a nice change,” he mused. “Want tha’?”

Your whine was the thing that had him moving on, as his lips twitched into a chuckle that let you know that he knew that now was not the time, nor the place, to not just succumb to what it was you both knew so well. 

“Alright,” he exhaled the word lengthily. “Don’t want me in your arse. Cunt will do just nicely.”

“Do it nicely,” your mouth breathed heavily against the glass, a pool of steam imprinting onto the window as you spoke. 

“Don’t I always, eh?” 

When his head slipped in, your rolled your cheek to rest onto your forehead and you whined - whined - and he wasn’t even in yet. 

“Relax,” his hand soothed up from your lower back to sit in between your shoulder blades. 

“How can I do that when you’re shagging me with your socks on,” you retorted.

He spluttered his laugh through a closed lip smile, that had him clenching at your hips to hold you still. “I can see ‘em,” you continued, as he frowned and pressed forward some more, causing your mouth to fall with a delighted moan.

“Darlin’ gotta relax,” he gritted, struggling with the way you were taking him. “Be fair. Gave you yours.”

With pouting lips you pressed back, taking more of him on your own accord. “Tha’s right, push back. Christ.”

He bottomed out against you not long after, hands curving up to your waist and clenching as he pulled back, and thrusted with a dip to his knees that had you exhaling a shaky moan.

Your arse jiggled, cellulite and all, as he drove forward and usually you would’ve passed comment about it by now, but instead you were hanging your head between your shoulders as he grunted with the quickening pace.

“Let me shag you first,” he mouthed against your shoulder blade. “I can’t,” his jaw jutted. “I can’t stop this, ‘m desperate. Darlin’.”

You understood, he knew. Your wanton moans did nothing to tell him otherwise and instead only confirmed that you wanted him - needed him - just as rough as he was giving it. “I’ll have you after slowly, eh? So slowly.”

But he was listening to his own words now, slowing and teasing at the ebbing burn that was so deliciously consuming and had you whining your “no’s” that were really yeses. Because he hadn’t missed a beat and he was drawing your orgasm out of you quicker than you would have liked but - god - it was good. He was good. So good. And he knew it surely-

“‘S tha’ good?”

Maybe he didn’t. “Still like this?”

You looked back at him, just as he removed his concentrated gaze from where the two of you were going at it, to catch your open mouthed nod. His nostrils flared as he panted, snapping forward thanks to the pleasure-filled expression you had awarded him.

“Still know me.”

“Still fuckin’ know you,” he confirmed, jaw ticking as he gritted his teeth. 

“You’re gonna make me come so much.”

He pushed forward with more force, as your one hand reached behind you to feel the tense muscles of his abs as he digged and pulled. And you knew he was going to come before you but the strong emotion inside made you not care, you needed to see it.

He continued to fuck you, alternating between shallow strokes that drove you wild, to deep strokes that penetrated you meaningfully. As his rhythm started to waver he breathlessly spoke, “You haven’t-“ 

You shush him, urging him to press upon your back as much as he could. Before he did, he reached at the collar of his t-shirt and swiftly pulled it over his head, scrunching it up and using it to wipe away the sweat that has collated against his skin. Hair pushed back off his face and legs spread slightly wider, feet planted into the carpet of his living room, he leant upon you and rocked harshly, moving only his hips. 

They were stronger now, held more meaning. 

“Give it to me.”

This determination in his eyes appeared. “Fuck your wife,” you breathed. His eyes tried to read where you were and how much you were holding off. “‘M coming again,” you whispered in the lightest whine, knowing he wouldn’t leave you with just the one that night, but surprised at how quick you could feel it.

And it was your admission that started him. He growled when you begged him to “push it in”, and released a drawn out moan that resembled a curse word as he relaxed and gave into his own desires. 

“Shit, shitshitshit,” he hissed, pressing the two of you harshly against the glass as he came to his end. You were both trying desperately to regulate your breathing, which proved more difficult for you as Harry was resting heavily against you. 

As the two of you stood rested there, hot and sweaty bodies mixing with the condensation, you felt him nuzzling into you, pressing the faintest and most gentle kisses to your temple. 

As you regained your bearings, your chest struggled to catch up but you found yourself welcoming the cold of the window now. The room was quiet except for the moving of limbs and the sound of Harry’s now even breathing in your ear. 

You could sense the room around you shifting when he allowed his shorts to pool around his ankles, kicking them along the floor out of the way. He turned his attention back to you, scooping your back to his front as you felt his very naked form against you. 

“Missed you,” he admitted, his voice worn. His lips peppered kisses to your exposed shoulder and the top of you back before he mumbled against your skin. “Gonna get some things to clean up, stay right here.”

With a strong kiss to your shoulder, he left. And as you turned slightly to the right, you caught the visual of his bare arse as he tip-toed out to his bathroom to grab at one of the many flannels that you and he always kept next to the bath, for the kids to use when bathtime commenced. 

You knew he had told you not to move, but you could feel the panic hit you as fast as your comedown. You peeled your body away from the window and turned with legs pressed closely together, spotting the box tissues sitting on top of the table that housed the lampshade.

If there was ever a sign of a parent, it was the box of tissues on the side, or the half opened pack of baby wipes left wedged by the arm of a sofa, within reaching distance for those sticky hands before they pressed into the couch.

Skirt slipping down, now no longer held up by Harry’s grip, you reached for the tissues and grimaced as you cleaned yourself. The reality after the heat of the moment always so much grimmer than it was ever told to you.

Bra scooped up in your hand, you fiddled with it due to your trembling fingers; the clasp playing hard ball. It snapped against your skin before you bent down for your blouse and made light work of the buttons, roughly pushing it into your waistband. 

You were reaching for your shoes when you heard him returning, a whistle of an unknown tune leaving his lips but abruptly dying as he stopped in the doorway. 

His eyes were piercing as they didn’t blink. His face, void of any emotion quickly ran over your body, now redressed like nothing had happened. However the lack of underwear covering your modesty underneath your skirt told you otherwise. 

His scoff at the scene before you snapped him out of your stillness as you started to pull on your shoes. The added height made you wobbly, and you wished you could still blame the alcohol, but you were not inebriated in the slightest now. 

Harry felt in a weird place as he stood still, wet flannel in his hand, getting colder as he held it. He felt embarrassed that he’d even been considerate enough to wet the item using lukewarm water, so it was welcomed so much more by your sensitivity. An embarrassment that he knew would quickly become a burning rage.

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” your voice permeated through the silence. 

His face fell from your words, swallowing heavily. “The wrong idea?” He was incredulous. “You’ve just let me fuck you in the middle of my living room and you’re telling me I’m getting the wrong idea.” 

Voice going straight through you, you pulled your gaze away from him and his naked figure. An answer was nowhere to be found, one didn’t even sit on your lips. He had you over a barrel with that one. 

“I thought-“

“You thought what?” You snapped, eyes straight onto his. “You thought that we could play happy families.”

Your words knocked the wind right out of him. The stoop to his body visible even in the dimly lit room. And it was heartbreaking. You were doing that to him. Sniffing, you ignored the closing of your throat, part of you willing him to have a go at you. To allow the bubbling verbal slanging to commence, but his heavy body was tired. 

Clearing your throat, you scooped up your jacket and bag declaring, “I’m leaving. Pick the kids up in the morning.”

Breezing passed his figure, the corner of your vision allowed you to see the clench to his jaw and tautness of his shoulders. You made it out into the hallway, halfway to the door before you heard him speak. 

“Might wanna take these wi’you an’all.”

His ambiguity caused you to turn, to walk the short distance back into the room before you were looking at him from the doorway. Knickers, scrunched up in his hand met your eyes, the harsh contrast of the black against his white skin hard not to notice. 

He sarcastically held them looser in his hand, the fabric dangling from his fingers, bitterly scoffing when you snatched them out of his grip and roughly shoved them into your bag, mortified. 

His laugh, a harsh single syllable “ha”, filled you with a sense of shame as you felt your face start to scrunch. He saw, because he started to apologise. A dying, “darling” on his lips as feeble as his touch that reached for you and narrowly missed.

“Don’t be late tomorrow.” 

The sound of the door banging shut caused him to growl, the flannel held in his hand was flung across the room, the item slapping against the painted white wall directly opposite him encapsulating his frustration.

Hands pressed into the back of the couch, Harry hung his head in between his shoulders as he tried to regulate his breathing. And for the first time since the divorce was filed, he let the sob he had been keeping within his body rack through him and fill the empty shell of an apartment. 

Naked and alone. That was when it really hit him.

He couldn’t save this. 

***

The incessant buzzing in his pocket was off-putting. It was so unlike him to leave his phone in his pocket when he was recording vocals, but he had simply forgotten and he was waiting for an important phone call from his solicitor that afternoon.

He sighed into the mic, raising his hands up to the producers in the booth. “Sorry, hang on,” he spoke, reaching for his phone and moving the headphones to loop around his neck. 

A deep frown etched upon his brow as he fished the phone out of his pocket and saw your name on his screen. He found himself slightly breathless as he took in the photograph he still had as your contact photo, one he’d taken that was always slightly risqué for you overlooking the Positano coastline.

“I need to take this.”

Clearing his throat he turned his back to the window and slid his finger across the phone. “Hello-“

“H-“

Harry felt his chest tighten at the use of his nickname. He hadn’t heard it from you in so long, he wasn’t surprised it hit him with the amount of force it had. The way you spoke, fast and breathless, as he zoned out was what had him on high alert instantly. Even more so when you’re eldest sons names was mentioned.

“Woah, woah, woah,” he licked his dry lips. “Calm down, what’s happened to him?”

“We’re in an ambulance, they think he’s broken his arm but they don’t know if it’s worse than that. The school-“

“Wait, this ‘appened at school?”

“We’re going to Royal Free-“ you didn’t respond to his question. “Will you be able to get there?”

“‘M comin’ now,” he spoke quickly, pulling his headphones from around his neck and pulling open the door of the recording booth. “I’ll be there in about twenty minutes, ‘m in Central.”

“Please don’t speed-“

“I don’t gi’a fuck ‘bout gettin’ a ticket-“ he harshly spoke, hands snatching for his keys and wallet that he had dropped carelessly onto the couch when he first got the studio earlier than morning. 

“No, but ideally we want you there in one piece.”

He felt a tightness rage through his body as he walked with purpose out of the studio. Harry held his tongue as he heard your words, wanting to bite back spiteful words of how you didn’t seem so caring since he had last been in your presence. Regardless of how long or short it had been.

Instead he swallowed harshly, slamming his car door shut and throwing his wallet onto the passenger seat. He sighed, rubbing a hand down his face before he announced, “‘m in the car, so I better go.” 

Clearing his throat, he continued, “Text me or summat if you get moved from A&E by the time I get there.”

He let your reassurance go into one ear and out the other as he hung up without even speaking his goodbyes. His head, filled with all kinds of emotions, dropped back against the headset before he covered his face with his hand and growled. 

Slowly sliding his palms down and away from his face, he fiddled with his keys and let the engine of his newly bought Mercedes G-Wagon roar to life. 

Harry managed to make his way out of the city and get to Soho before the car had had to change to nothing more than a crawl. He tried to not let his eyes fall onto the inbuilt satnav in fear that it would only confirm what he already knew, that he was going to be stuck in traffic for far longer than the normal twenty-minute drive would usually take. 

“Come on, come on, come on,” he muttered under his breath, watching as the car in front of him let another car into the traffic, as it pulled out from a side street. “Yeah, that’s right mate. Let everyone into the fucking traffic, ‘s not like m’sons in ‘ospital or ‘owt, you fuckin’ wanker.” 

Hands clenched around the wheel, Harry fought against his urge to beep his horn and avoided letting himself creep too close to the rear end of the car in front just to piss that driver off. 

Instead he tried to relax, to sit back against his seat and ignore the bounce of his left leg as he sat idling in traffic. He knew his body wouldn’t have any of it, hands fiddling with the different knobs on the dashboard as the car windows started to steam up.

He turned his heaters on feeling the warm blast of air hit him square in the face. Agitated he slapped the air vents to close them and fiddled with the knobs. “Get a fuckin grip, Harry,” he spoke to himself, watching as the warm air blasted onto his window and removed the condensation.  

As he glanced around the window, his eyes zoned in on the left hand side of the car, closer to the passenger seat. A sarcastic laugh left him, a small shake of his head as he said, “Fucking birds shit on me window now an’ all, couldn’t fuckin’ write it could ya eh?”

He closed his eyes knowing that the harsh muttering under his breath stemmed from a worry that he had never felt before, Harry tried to shake it off. Focus on the traffic again, he saw the car in front of him slowly start to roll forward. 

Snapping into action, he couldn’t help himself as he added one final quip of, “Hallelujah we ‘ave lift off!”

The last fifteen minutes of his ride seemed to be a breeze as he got to the end of the street and wondered what had been the hold up, considering there was no traffic to be seen. 

Once he turned onto Prince of Wales Road he knew he didn’t have far to go; just that he would have to deal with hospital car parking, which was always a delightful nightmare.

The multi-storey car park at Royal Free Hospital had been a god send on many an occasion when he’d brought you in those early stages for your second pregnancy, after you’d had your blood spotting scare, but now the car park was non-existent. Instead it was located upper south car park which was off the hospital grounds, and a whole nine minute walk from the hospital itself.

“Nine fucking minutes,” he grumbled, pulled on his coat as he pressed the button on the car keys and started the trek. “This hospital is a fucking shit show.”

His footsteps were quick, his feet catching against the pavement underneath him as he tried to get to both you and his son as quickly as possible. He apologised as he bumped into a man, stood outside and smoking next to a “no smoking sign”. 

Breath slightly heavier, his eyes ran over everybody that was sat in the A&E waiting room. Not one figure was you and his first born. Fishing out his phone he noted that you hadn’t texted him, turning and walking to the front desk and politely getting the attention of a nurse filling in some paperwork.

He knew she recognised him, but now wasn’t the time nor the place as he asked about your whereabouts. She smiled softly at him, clearly sending the worry from his frantic delivering of his questions. Three or four in quick succession asking what had happened, where he could find you both.

“Mr Styles,” the nurse started, “They haven’t long gone through; a doctor has been assigned to them so they’ll be in a cubicle. Just let me get you the number you’re looking for.” 

Harry nodded, clumsily fumbling with his car keys and watching as she turned to look at a board against the back of the nursing station, half hidden from his view.

“I’ll take you through, your wife will be glad to see you. She was a bit shaken when she came in.” 

He knew immediately it was down to the clingy nature that had no doubt taken over your eldest son’s demeanour. Something that you always found difficult to comprehend considering he - for the longest time - appeared to have outgrown his kisses and cuddles.

Harry found it difficult to respond to the nurse, humming from time to time, before he felt himself come to a standstill when his eyes were set on your figure. 

He was hesitant, eyeing you and watching as you conversed with a much younger nurse who handed you a clipboard with papers attached. 

His eyes were everywhere, something he would never admit to anyone but himself. You looked, dare he say it, mum-sy. Hair pulled back in a messy top knot, glasses perched on your face. 

You were in a world of your own, eyes dropping down to the forms that you had been asked to fill out, bombarded with information and absorbing none of it. 

Lifting your eyes you were met with Harry and the close lipped smile he flashed to the nurse who had brought him to you. He looked bedraggled, and every inch a worried father, but hopefully of a sounder mind that you to complete the forms you had just been handed. 

He glanced over as he half listened to the nurse, looking away only to quickly place his eyes back onto yours in a double glance. 

“Thank you,” you just about heard him say to the Sister on the nursing team within the Accident and Emergency. 

The minute he stepped closer to you, you felt your nerves heighten. How would he react to the situation you found yourself in? He sounded concerned when you called, but a touch irritated nonetheless.

Pulling the clipboard to your chest, your crossed your arms against the plastic as a way to hold it to your body. If anyone asked, it was just easier to hold that way and nothing to do with closing yourself off.

When his hand rested against the top of your arm, you shrank into yourself. 

“Where’s my lad?” He asked once he locked eyes with you, noticing how your right hand was gripping at the clipboard and the way your eyes watered at the emotion within his voice.

“In here?” Harry nudged his head to the curtain that he stood in front of, in the busy corridor. 

You hummed, unable to meet his eyes for long. “What you got ‘ere?”

“Some forms we need to fill in about allergies, I don’t know I wasn’t really listening-“

He heard the crack in your voice, ignoring the need to keep his distance and pulled you towards him with a strong arm around the tops of your shoulders. 

“Can fill ‘em in after,” he pushed them to the side. “What you doin’ stood out ‘ere, should be in there wi’him.”

“We shouldn’t be here at all,” your voice was thick as it caught in your throat, causing Harry to pull away to look at you. “I wasn’t even in work today and I still said he needed to stay at the after school rugby because ‘m too fucking busy-“

“Hey,” Harry stopped your start to the self-loathing. “He’s alright.”

“He’s in hospital,” your face crumpled as you spoke.

“And he needs his Mummy, so what are you doing out ‘ere?” His voice was hard as he questioned you, sighing through his clenched teeth and closing his eyes. 

Breathing deeply, he turned his attention to walking through the curtain and in on your eldest son. The almost seven years old didn’t notice his arrival with eyes fixed firmly on what Harry recognised to be your phone.

“What did I say about no games on the phone or iPad before homework?” 

You watched as your son's eyes shot up from the game he was playing, the phone dropping gently into his lap as he half-sat, half-lay on the hospital bed. His little face lighting up at Harry’s appearance. 

Harry’s eyes looked over his son, the grey rugby uniform with the schools emblem resting on his body. He looked really grown up, which caused an ache in Harry’s chest. All this shared visitation and weekend custody wasn’t enough for him. His little boy, the one that made him a Daddy, wasn’t little anymore.

“Dad, look at my cast.”

“I know, mate. I can see,” Harry walked further into the room. 

“Don’t be moving,” you started, watching as your son began to lift his arm to show the cast that he had chosen. “It won’t have set in place yet-“

“Darling, ‘s alright,” Harry looked at you, watching as your shoulders sagged. “What’ve you been doin’, frightening me and Mum like tha’.” 

“Sorry,” he mumbled, dropping his eyes when Harry turned his attention onto him and moved the phone from the bed and onto the side, brushing his son’s curling dark hair from across his forehead. 

Lips against his first borns forehead, he whispered, “Don’t make a habit out of this, worrying your old man t’death.”

“You’ll always worry-“ 

Harry ignored your comment, feeling your son laugh lightly at the bickering between you both but lean into his embrace. 

“What do you think of the colour?”

“Thinks it’s cool.”

“Don’t think it’s too girly?” 

“Thought you’d have gone with red for Iron Man-“

“He’s not into that anymore, wants me to buy him the Lord of the Rings boxset-“ you interjected, feeling slightly left out at the way the two of them conversed closely; almost feeling like you were intruding on their bonding. “Something about a movie marathon-“

Harry felt his lips twitch as he pushed forward and kissed the top of his son's head; recalling how they’d started watching the films together on their last weekend spent at Harry’s. He remembered the way his son had joined him having woken up and fallen asleep in his arms when the films got too much and the clock edged closer to midnight. 

“Love you, mate.”

“Love you, Dad.”

You decided to leave them to it not long after their exchange, turning to the other side of the room to fill in the four forms that had been handed to you. 

Harry joined you shortly after, having handed your phone back to your son after he requested another ten minutes on the item, to which Harry caved in. 

You eyed him after he’d stood next to you, shaking your head.

“What,” he stressed, as you looked up at him again from under your brow. “He’s allowed the pass, just this once.”

“Oh yeah, and what about the other times?” You joked, quickly turning the page over and ticking the boxes that applied. 

“What other times?” He feigned innocence, hearing you laugh under your breath. As you silently filled in the forms, you heard him ask who had managed to pick your middle boy and daughter from school and nursery respectively.

“Your Mum,” you replied with ease, feeling his body still against the surface. “Contrary to the belief of Eloise at the last meeting, me and your Mother do still talk.” 

Harry looked uneasy when you lifted your gaze to look at him, knowing he had been caught out with his game playing at trying to drag out divorce proceedings, and create unnecessary battles at each stage. 

He knew his Mum was in town but he hadn’t had a chance to spend time with her just yet, knowing that she was busy helping Gemma with her big move. 

“Don’t know where she got that from?” You wistfully questioned, watching his skin pinken in embarrassment. 

The two of you held each other’s stare for the longest time, chests heaving as you admired each other’s faces and tried to see who would be the first to break. 

His blush was enough. 

“Can we go home now?”

You snapped your eyes away from Harry as they fell onto your son. He sat, face so alike your own with Harry’s eyes staring back at you, that you found yourself unable to respond.

“Course we can,” Harry replied with ease. “Let me and Mum do some grown up things and then you can have a go in Dad’s new car.”

Again his eyes lit up and you found yourself looking away from a scene that you couldn’t compete with, harshly scribbling down a response to an allergy question which would allow the hospital to provide him with an alternative pain relief option without penicillin. 

Quickly excusing yourself, you walked to the nurses station and handed over the forms, slowly meandering back to the cubicle and watching the way Harry soothingly stroked the hair off your sons face.

You could tell he was tired, the way his eyes were heavy as he tried to keep his gaze on Harry. His blinks got slower and slower each time, eyes occasionally popping open as he fought sleeping.

“‘S okay to sleep, mate,” Harry chuckled on your son’s last attempt to keep his eyes open. “Daddy’s gonna be ‘ere when you wake up-“

“Promise-“

The single word leaving your sons lips made your heart ache. 

“Promise you,” Harry mumbled, kissing his forehead again. “‘M right here.”

***

Harry held your limp son in his arms, head resting against his shoulder and legs long. 

He was too big for this kind of treatment, the kind that had you stroking softly at his hair and face with the backs of your fingers as you stood in the queue to pay for your hospital parking, but you didn’t care. 

Harry was grumbling beside you, his eyes running over the signs as you juggled with the information sheets for the Greenstick Fracture that had been identified.

“Bastard three quid an hour for parking,” he muttered, causing you to snap out of your daze. “Tha’s daylight robbery!”

“You’re a tight sod, Harry,” you tightly replied, turning to look at him as you saw him fishing out his wallet from his coat pocket, a small smile on his lips at how he’d gotten a rise from you.

Looking you square in the eye now, he responded, “Have’ta be if someones trying to fleece me in a divorce.”

His face was smarmy, eyes alight as you felt a burn in your throat at his words. You knew he was joking but given the upset of the situation you found yourself in, you didn’t quite know how to react. It wasn’t a laughing matter, yet it had become some sort of laughter source at the expense of everyone involved. 

“How much is some private landlord swindling me out of?”

You were meek as you replied, “Eighteen pound.”

“Call it a twenty,” he spoke, handing over his wallet, “‘ere. Shove the change in tha’ charity box.”

“Machine doesn’t give change.”

He scoffed, “Why am I not surprised?”

You didn’t respond, letting the machine snatch at the twenty pound note and spit out a ticket for you to scan at the barricade to allow you out of the multi-storey car park down the road.

“D’ya wanna go and get the car?” Harry asked as you stepped to the side of the hospital to collect yourselves. 

You eyed him. “You’re going to let me drive your new car.”

He smiled, “‘ve let you do worse in-“

“Shush-“ you were harsh, watching as he rolled his lips into his mouth, not wanting him to finish his sentence because unlike your son and the rest of your family, you had seen Harry’s car since he brought it just over a week ago. “What level did you park on?”

“Four.”

Not much more questioning was spoken after that, he told you to get the keys out of his coat pocket and away you went. The distance to the car in the dark wasn’t the nicest to make, the cold evening catching up with you and how you hadn’t grabbed for a coat in a panic after receiving a phone call about your baby from the school. 

The Black G-Wagon lit to life as you pulled open the car door thanks to the inside light and you quickly found yourself sat inside. You hated driving these kinds of cars, but having both moved to London to live and with your small army of kids, they were the sort of cars that had become a necessity. 

Resting against the seat, your body fell slack as you found yourself overwhelmed by the smell of Harry. You crumpled, hands covering your face as you silently cried to yourself; an enormous amount of guilt racking through you about an array of things. A feeling that was only strengthened by the scene of the three empty car seats in the back of the vehicle. 

Today’s accident, the interaction between Harry and your son, the way that you were a cause of both of those things happening or helping to enable the bond to wither.

Quickly you pulled yourself together, clearing your throat and sniffing harshly. Pulling down the visor above your hand you wiped at your face, pushing your glasses frames up into your hair as you tried to remove any smudging to your makeup, before returning them to the bridge of your nose. 

Turning the car on you carefully pulled out of the parking space that Harry had seemed to just abandon his car in (his parking not even within the two white lines for one space), and drove to exit barrier.

Ticket accepted, the barrier raised and you drove the short three minute drive to the front of the hospital; glad that it was so short that you didn’t have time to think too much. 

Your eyes took in Harry, who had somehow managed to get half of his coat wrapped across your sons body, his cheek resting against the side of his head as he swayed lightly in the London evening, waiting for you at the drop off and pick up point. 

Carefully manoeuvring into a space, you jumped out and heard him commenting on how you’d pulled into the spot. You glared at him, turning to busy yourself with opening the back door of the car and allowing him to walk closer to the vehicle to place your son into his car seat.

“‘S okay, baby,” you whispered as Harry gently strapped him in, and he grumbled from the discomfort.

“I know, I know. Daddy’s sorry-“ he muttered, watching the way his little boy’s face fell back to being peaceful. “You know the blankets in the boot? Will yer grab his?”

The mention en passant about the blankets didn’t go amiss, but you didn’t acknowledge it. Instead you walked to the back of the car and searched for the blanket. 

“Don’t want these little legs getting cold for the drive home, do we, mate?” Harry whispered, standing to full height as he pulled his body out of the car. 

His eyes roamed the few people outside the hospital, an elder gentleman watching the scene in front of him that was Harry and you. “You’re very lucky,” he commented in a thick London accent, a sad smile hitting his lips.

Harry nonverbally acknowledged him with a nod of the head, as you walked back around to him with a blanket in hand. He went to take it out of your grip but you whispered, “No, let me.”

Stepping around you, he heard the way you mentioned that the keys were still sat in the ignition, before he jumped into the drivers side, and fiddled with the seat that he knew you would’ve adjusted due to your difference in height and being unable to reach the car pedals. 

He heard you whispering quietly to your sleeping son as you gently tucked him in with the garish Iron Man blanket. “Mummy does it better, Daddy doesn’t know how to always tuck you in tight does he?”

“Hey, ‘m getting better,” Harry commented, hearing you softly laugh at how he was slightly offended. 

“That’s what he thinks, eh?” You responded to your little boy, who was still out for the count. 

Harry smiled in the drivers side, turning the engine on and messing with the heat settings to ensure that the chill was taken off the car to avoid waking up the sleeping boy. 

“Gotta get goin’, doll. Only supposed to be ‘ere for five minutes.”

Nose against your son's hair, you lightly breathed him in before pressing the softest kiss to his hair and pulled back out of the car to close the door on him. 

Joining Harry in the front of the car, you saw the way he stuck his thumb up at the security guard who had eased off and allowed you that little bit extra time in the set-down parking zone. 

The drive to the house was quiet, your body turned half in your seat, watching to make sure your son didn’t move too much in his sleep to cause any pain against the sling that his broken arm was now strapped up in for extra support.

Harry let his gaze fall to you a few times from the corner of his vision. He wondered if the thoughts he was having about the difference in how you had both found yourselves in his car this time, were as loud in your head as they were within his.

He slowed his car to crawl down the last streets, before coming to a halt outside the house that he once knew so well, which has since grown foreign to him.

“Haven’t changed the gate code, ‘av ya?” He asked, as he reached out of the car window to punch the digits into the keypad to open the black gate.

The electric buzzing revealed to him, before you could respond, that you had left the code the same as it had always been since he first moved in in 2012. 

The sound of his tyres on the gravel was a sound both he and you had missed. It was far and few between that Harry would pick the kids up since that fateful night when you’d drunkenly fumbled in the middle of his living room.

Yet, here you were, finding delight in the smallest of things like tyres against gravel. It sounded silly but you found yourself holding onto things like that more and more.

“Coming in for a cuppa?” You whispered, when he rested against his seat. He lolled his head to the side and looked at you wistfully. 

“Only ‘f I’m making’ ‘em,” he slurred, tiredness catching up with you. 

“Nothing wrong with my tea making skills, you cheeky sod. Was fine all them years we were living together and married-“ your sentence died on your tongue as you watched the way he smiled.

“Are we not still married?” He asked, voice light. 

You became flustered, suddenly reaching for everything around you and not knowing what to grab first. “Will you get him and I’ll unlock the doors-“

“Yeah, ‘s fine,” Harry whispered, willing you to slow down in your mad rush. You were out of the car like a shot after you’d heard his answer, lightly jogging to the front door and quickly unlocking it. 

“She never changes, does she, your Mum?” Harry started, regardless of knowing that his son was still asleep. He knew without looking at him, the sound of his soft snores filling the car. “Always wearing herself into the ground.”

Jumping out of the car, he quickly walked to the door behind his and set about unbuckling his almost seven year old son. With a heave, he was on Harry’s shoulder again, grumbling as Harry shushed him, gently encouraging him to go back to sleep.

“Since when did you become such a big lad,” he mumbled, walking into the house and pressing his lips into the side of his son’s head. “Stop growing, Dad can’t keep up.”

He found you in the living room, manoeuvring pillows to create a resting place for the two of you to lay your little boy, so he could continue his slumber comfortably. 

You watched as Harry sat down on the edge of the couch, turning his attention to removing the uncomfortable parts his son’s private school uniform. 

“Careful, Harry-“

“‘S fine,” Harry interjected, as his son softly whined in his sleep at the jostling. “He’ll go back down.”

“Watch his arm-“

Harry didn’t comment, knowing you meant well even if you were pointing out the obvious. He didn’t quite know how he’d managed to heave him onto the couch, but Harry gently placed his son down without fully waking him. A slight grumble here and there that were quickly and gently shushed. 

The shuffling behind him let him know that you had left the two of them in the room, Harry making light work of the school shoes on his son’s feet, and holding them in one hand and the jacket in the other. 

He discarded them in the hallway. Shoes on the shoe rack and coat on the assigned pegs. He followed you into the kitchen, seeing you silently turn on the kettle and feeling hopeful that your offer of having a drink was a genuine one rather than a polite gesture. More so when he saw that you had taken down two mugs from the cupboard and not just one. 

“Changed the colour of the hallway,” he commented, resting against the counter behind him and folding his arms across his chest. “How long’s it been grey?”

“Not long,” you hummed. “Dad came and did it for me. Your dad-“

“Me Dad?”

From his interjection, you looked at him. “They dropped in one afternoon after golfing. Mentioned it in passing, week later they both turned up and by the time I was home it had been given two fresh coats of paint.” 

“Should’ve said ‘f yeh needed anythin’ doing.”

Before he could stop himself he broke the sad silence as you both realised things were changing, “This wasn’t how it was supposed to go, this was supposed to be our forever home. You said that to me, all those years ago, stood in this very kitchen.”

Rather than insight sadness within you, his words created a bubble of anger, something you tried to nonchalantly hide. With a blase tone you replied, “Things change.”

That annoyed him.

“No they don’t,” his tone was clipped. “They don’t just change. Not like that.” There was a snapping sound behind you, one that you assumed had come from him clicking his thumb and finger to emphasise his words. His voice sounded again, “Not in a blink of an eye when we’re three kids deep, doesn’t happen.” 

And you knew it did, because so many parents were facing it at your children’s school, but you stayed quiet. Swallowing harshly, you heard the kettle click to signal that it had boiled. 

Tongue running along the front of your teeth, you poured the hot water into the mugs, feeling the aggravation radiating off Harry.

Walking to the fridge, still in silence, you pulled out the milk and poured a splash into your mug. “Are you still off the dairy?” You sarcastically asked, letting the milk hover over what would be his mug.

“Forget the fucking tea-“

You ignored him, pouring milk into his mug and making it the perfect colour that you knew he would drink. Part of you hated how you still knew him so well, right down to the shade of tea he preferred. 

His harsh words lingered in the quiet kitchen, the two of you not knowing how to break the icy atmosphere. He stood dejected at how you couldn’t look at him now, and he wondered whether it was down to how the environment you were standing in hadn’t changed regardless of the fresh layers of paint trying to mask the cracks. 

Everything was practically the way he remembered. Photos and drawings on the fridge. The breakfast stuff from that very morning stacked in the sink, waiting to be rinsed and loaded into the dishwasher.

And he didn’t know what came over him but he did exactly that. Pushing himself away from the counter that he was resting against, he turned on the tap and rinsed away crumbs on the breakfast plates before bending down and stacking them into the dishwasher.

And you let him do, standing there with two teas that were now too strong as you hadn’t been able to bring yourself to strain the teabags and drink them. 

He groaned as he stood to full height, shutting the dishwasher door. Head hanging down as he pressed his palms to the work surface, his begging voice permeated the silence. “Tell me how to make it better-“

“You can’t,” you were dejected. 

He was determined, however, regardless of how sad. “I can,” he looked across at you, standing and turning so his back was against the counter. “You want the legal separation, ‘s yours. I’ll give it to you if it’s what you want-“

His words caught in his throat as he kept your eyes with his as he continued. 

“Even if s’not wha’ I want. But you’ve gotta tell me cause ‘m in love wi’you and can’t keep shagging you when you come to me half-cut, and then have you claim you don’t remember a thing when I’m feeding you the next morning.” 

You snapped your eyes away from him, feeling him continue to stare at you regardless of how much you tried to block it out. 

“You know I’m in love with you, so you’ve gotta stop coming to my place because you know I can’t turn you away cause that’s not fair-“

Before you could stop yourself, you cut in, “Stop thinking with the wrong head.” 

And just as quick he shot back, “Or maybe just stop opening your fucking legs.”

The words were barely out of his mouth when you moved straight in front of him; delivering a slap across his face. 

You gasped your cry in shock at how you’d hit him. His jaw clenched and head turned to the side, as he moved it from side to side, feeling the burning sensation of your lashing out. 

“Harry,” his name died on your lips as you reached for him but felt him step away from your touch.

His head was hanging as he laughed, just the once, shaking his head. “Can’t believe I was suckered in to think that you’d changed your mind.”

“It’s just sex-“

“No,” he shot his head up to look you in the eyes, “It’s just sex when you do it once. Not every weekend and certainly not three fucking days ago in the back of my fuckin’ car.” 

You were stumped because he wasn’t wrong, which was why you were both stood just staring at each other. The juxtaposition of looking into the back seats of the car earlier at the hospital, housing your children’s car seats when 72 hours prior you’d had him sweaty against them as you rode him. 

Closing your eyes at the visual entering your mind, you forced yourself to look at him when you heard him starting to move. 

Suddenly, it was like a whirlwind when he swiped up his coat and the car keys he had discarded on the kitchen side. You almost felt planted watching him collect himself together with a tight expression. Somehow now he had got the upper hand and you were scrambling after him before you could stop yourself.

Desperate hushed whisper of his name left your lips as you followed behind him, Harry took long strides out of the house, leaving the front door open wide behind him because regardless of how much he would vehemently deny it, he wanted you to follow after him.

Gravel of your driveway was loud under your feet as you followed him to the car, and a sound that you were so happy to hear not even an hour ago was now mocking. Suddenly you were fighting with him to get to the lock of the driver side, somewhat thankful that his key fob to automatically open the car was temperamental regardless of how new his latest boy’s toy was.

You were fighting with him to cover up the lock of the door so he couldn’t open the car. Pushing his hands away, you tried to wrestle the keys from his grip and in some form of wanting defiance, you ultimately ended up turning your back to rest against the car door.

You were covering the drivers side, staring straight into his eyes that flashed more with hurt rather than anger in that moment as he jutted his jaw up slightly. “Move,” he was forceful with his words, jaw clenched.

You hated to admit to it, but he was way more masculine when he was angry. His shoulders and chest heaved as he tried to control his temper and his jaw was that much bigger as he fought against saying something he knew he was going to regret.

“Make me,” you challenged in return, watching the way his nostrils flared and eyes flashed with an anger that you hadn’t seen in the longest time.

“Don’t push it,” he responded but you knew he wouldn’t do a thing, cause he would’ve done it by now rather than staying stood angry and stoic in front of you. 

“You’re not driving ho- away like this,” you spoke reaching for his face, catching yourself. He was home, he wasn’t going to be driving home. He quickly pulled away from your touch, looking up to the dark sky. “Just come back inside. Please. Please, come back inside. Even if just to cool off-“ you dropped your face into his chest, feeling his arms limp by his sides as you clung to him. Slowly you felt the way his hand slid up into the hair at the back of your neck, fingers scratching lightly.

“Gonna ‘av to let me make another brew ‘f I come back in-“

Against your emotional state you found yourself laughing, and pressing your face against him tighter. 

“I’ll even sneak an extra sugar in yours,” he stroked his thumb against your jaw. 

“‘M meant to be dieting,” you mumbled incoherently into his chest. 

“Look alright to me,” he hummed. “Look more than alright.”

“You would say that,” you deadpanned, feeling him scoop you closer to him, anchoring your body to his. As he lightly began to sway you both, the ringing of his phone caused him to pull away.

Staring at the screen he saw his Mum’s caller ID and quickly swiped to answer her. “Hey Mum,” he softly spoke. “No we’re home now, can bring them back anytime-“

You knocked your head back looking up at him, he smiled down at you, brushing some of your hair back as you softly smiled. You nodded agreeing to how he had asked for your other two children to be returned to you both.

“I’m gonna go in,” you whispered, seeing him acknowledge you with a nod, watching the way his slipped away from him. 

“Yeah I’m still here, Mum,” you heard him continue his conversation, looking at him over your shoulder and seeing if he would follow behind you. “Hang on a sec-“

As you looked back at him, he turned to look at you. “Let me just finish this and I’m right behind you,” he raised the phone, admiring - even if only for the shortest time - your soft smile.

“No rush,” you dipped your head as you walked into the house and lingered in the doorway of your living room to check on your son.

Harry pulled the phone back to his ear outside, “Thanks for giving them their tea. We haven’t long got home so we’re starving this end.” 

“Do you need me to bring some leftovers and then you can just warm ‘em up when I get there?”

“You don’t have to-“

“Don’t be daft, it’s no problem. I’ll bring what we have left.”

Harry smiled but didn’t verbally respond, listening to his Mum tell him she’d get there as quick as she could. He knew he’d see her within the next thirty minutes. 

With that thought he braced himself, turning after taking a deep breath to walk back to the house.

You were treading on eggshells when you sat at the breakfast bar, kettle boiling when he lingered in the kitchen doorway. 

Peeling his coat off when he entered the room, he set about making the next round of drinks and empty out the cups that neither of you had previously drank. As he poured them down the drain, the dull thud of the tea bag hitting the sink filled your senses as you kept your eyes off his figure. 

You needed to apologise. Wanted to, even.

You were wrong. So wrong and so very sorry. Lashing out was never the answer, regardless of how low the words he had spoken. 

Cup of tea pressed to the island in front of you, his voice explained his tea making skills to your preference. “Two sugars, milky,” he warmly described.

You reached for his hand once lifted off the mug handle, you caught it and turned to look at him. “I’m sorry, Harry. I’m so-“

He shushed you, as the sound of a knock cut your apology short. “Later, okay? Let’s talk later. I’ll go and see who that is.”

You nodded, swallowed harshly as he walked around you and answered the door. As soon as it was open, his middle lad zoomed straight passed him, heading in your direction, always a Mummy’s boy.

From one Mummy’s boy to another, Harry’s eyes were set straight on Anne as she stood on the doorstep and silently tried to talk to him. He got the message pulling the door to as he stepped out on the doorstep as well to join her.

His soft gaze fell onto his sleeping daughter, mouth open, but somehow still managing to house her thumb that she had taken to sucking in order to self-soothe. 

Turning back to Anne he said, “Please don’t say anything. Don’t make this a big deal.” 

Anne didn’t say anything, turning her body slightly when Harry guestered to wanting to take his little girl off her hands. He lightly groaned as he took his daughter into his arms, mumbling lightly against her hair, “C’mere, best girl.”  

Once she was settled against him, he took up a small rocking motion from side to side as he held his mother’s concerned gaze. “Are you okay, my baby?”

He tried to duck the hand that she brought to his face but failed, feeling her nails scratch gently against his hair as she pushed it back off his face, like you had seen him doing earlier in the hospital to your baby. 

Harry below out a massive sigh, his bottom lip quivering from many emotions - mainly uncertainty. “‘M okay, he just gave us a scare and I don’t want to not be here tonight. Don’t want her on her own-“

Anne gave him this knowing look, staying silent for a while before responding with, “Change her mind.”

Harry’s voice was shaky as he replied, “‘m tryin’, Mum.”

She nodded, adding, “Cause it’s more than just you two. It’s this little one right here and those two beautiful little boys you should be thinking about so stop acting like you’re the kids here-“

His lips twitched as she started giving him a dressing down on his own doorstep. “Don’t fancy coming in for a drink?”

“I love you, Harry but I’ve got a bottle of wine and a boxset with my name on it. They’re exhausting-“

His smile deepened as he let his eyes look down at his youngest. “Worth it, though.”

“Won’t argue with you for a second there. Get inside and be with your family, call me in the morning.”

Harry nodded as he accepted the kiss to his cheek, and watched his Mum press a kiss to her grand baby’s forehead. “Night night, my darling. Don’t let the bed bugs bite,” she whispered against her only granddaughters hair before retreating to her car. 

Harry waved her off, watching her leave his property and ventured back into the house to the sound of hushed voices in the kitchen, with his youngest son animatedly interacting with his mother. 

Your middle baby was all you. Not only in his temperament, but in the way he looked and the way that he always clung to you. Often Harry felt like he was intruding when the two of you had your time together, and it was probably something that he should address at some point, but that point wasn't right now.

“I’m gonna gonna go and put her down,” he said, turning slightly so you could see the way that she was dead to the world. “Don’t know if you’re planning on winding down with him?”

You nodded, looking at your littlest. “Did your Mum not want to come and say hello?”

“It wasn’t like that‍,” he sighed. “I think they wore her out, couldn’t wait to see the back of ‘em. Grandparent privileges, getting to hand ‘em back, innit?”

You chuckled under your breath at how candid he was, and how correct his words were. “Gonna come and join Dad in winding down for bed, mate?”

Big eyes blinked up at you, slowly turning to look over at Harry. Resting against you, you felt him nod. “Come on then,” Harry softly smiled, addressing his son and moving his body, “room for you too.”

Trying to fight back your emotion, you watched as your younger boy climbed onto Harry’s back from where you had sat him on the kitchen counter.

“Careful H,” you choked, as his hand rested against the bum of your son while he continued to hold your daughter against his front.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got him. Hold on tight, don’t want Daddy to drop your sister-“ Harry felt his boy shake his head ‘no’, his little arms wrapping a bit tighter against Harry’s neck, before he exited out of the kitchen and towards the stairs. 

***

You left Harry to be in charge of bedtime, it all becoming a little too much for you when you overheard your eldest sleepily letting his “daddy” know that he was glad to have him home.

You wondered if Harry has struggled with that one, knowing his eldest didn’t refer to him as Daddy anymore, always opting for Dad. But you gathered that he had, as you sneaked a look behind the door and watched him press his nose into his son’s hair, before breathing out his response of, ”Me too.”

He walked in on you twenty or so minutes later with one hand full of dirty school washing and another housing microwavable Tupperware with the leftover lasagna that Anne has pushed into Harry’s spare hand earlier in the evening. 

Having discarded the lunchbox on the side, Harry - seeing a frown upon your face - got rid of the dirty school uniform placing it in the utility room for washing and walked back into the kitchen.

You heard him rummaging with the lunchbox, pushing it into your microwave and blasting the leftovers with heat. “You fancy some of this leftover lasagna Mum left me with?”

Humming, only half listening as you read, you thanked him softly when you saw that he’d rested two forks into the side of the Tupperware, which was now just right with heat, rather than piping hot.

Seeing that you were reading the accident report from today’s incident at the school, and still wearing a frown, he broke the stillness. “What’s wrong?” 

His front was to your back, hands on your shoulders as you kept your eyes trained on the accident report, reading it before raising it behind you for Harry to take. He kept his left hand on your shoulder, his right taking the paper and reading it.

There was a silence as he read exactly what you had, and you were sure that he was joining the dots just like you had done. From what you had read it was quite clear that the accident today had had malicious intent behind it. 

“We’re paying almost twenty grand a year for this shit-“ Harry’s voice pierced through the slow breathing as he finished reading. He threw the paper down to the kitchen surface, “s’not good enough!”

His outburst caused you to jump slightly, his voice - while not booming - something that you weren’t expecting. Harry felt your body jolt, causing him to  squeeze at your shoulders in a non-verbal apology as he moved to stand at your side rather than behind you.

While you stood in silence, staring directly ahead of you and quite clearly trying to compute and join the dots. He leaned against the worktop, reaching for the fork and realising that while now wasn’t exactly the best time to eat, for him to comprehend anything, he needed to have some substance within his stomach before it ate itself inside out. 

“Why hasn’t he said anything?” You questioned softly after a couple of minutes. 

The guilt rolled through you. The guilt on how both you and Harry had been so swamped by your own pathetic battles, sorting our solicitors fees and magistrate dates. Who should have what assets, and how you would spend your time co-parenting as much as you possibly could, that you’d missed this. 

The feeling that your little boy did not want to burden you with the troubles he was facing at school. Aspects of his life turned upside, and his safe haven of learning and playtime infiltrated and tarnished, by the aspect of another who possibly saw him as an easy target. 

You realised that you were on the verge of tears when you next spoke, “If he felt like he couldn’t come to me because he thought we were already going through enough and-“ you paused, thinking back to the times when Harry was originally gone, and your eldest would sleep beside you in Daddy’s place in bed because he didn’t want Mommy to be on her own. 

Harry, who stood feeling somewhat helpless regardless of the anger that racked through him, responded, “This is not your fault. I’ll go in tomorrow and have a word with the headmaster and we’ll get it sorted-“

If you hadn’t been so caught up in your own head you would’ve noticed the way he reached for you but halted his actions. It was almost like he knew you were going to be far too in your own head.

The blame and Mum-guilt that you were feeling was almost too much for you to hear what he was saying as you quickly interjected him. 

“I should’ve seen this. I should’ve noticed the signs. He’s been withdrawn, but I just thought it was cause you weren’t around and he’s been dealing with this on his own and he’s our baby-“ 

And kids were cruel and you knew that. Could be cruel to adults, but even crueler to people their own age.

“You’re right he’s our baby, so we sort this. Together.”

You swallowed audibly, trying to fight the lump in our throat as it began to close up. 

“Just like we have done before, together.”

The conviction of Harry’s delivery should’ve been enough, but considering the current landscape it was hard to not have doubts. 

“It’s not that easy,” you said around downturned lips, turning your eyes to look at him for the first time since this conversation started.

You looked at him in the dim light of your kitchen. His hair was fluffy and mussed, quite clearly one of your kids had taken to playing with it for comfort when Harry had been dealing with the bedtime routine. 

He looked tired. His face housed stubble and looked a little puffy and round, which made you wonder if the night before he’d partook in a drinking session. 

In the silence, he also admired you. The concern you felt and guilt you harboured dragged down your features, the smallest frown between your brows and stoop to your lips. Eyes sparkled from the welled up tears and the tightness of your jaw, made him realise that you were fighting to keep them at bay. 

“S’as easy as we want to make it,” he replied, knowing he needed to take some of the worry away from you. “Has he had more of these from school?” You looked at Harry, as he reached for the discarded accident report and nodded.

He caught your non-verbal response and continued. “Where’re they?”

“In the stack of papers on the dining table-“

He nodded, leaning forward to press his lips delicately to your forehead before he pushed himself away from where you stood. “Be right back.”

The rustling and rummaging happening in the other room would’ve once annoyed you, being particular about certain things, but in your almost numb-like state, you couldn’t even think about it to that amount of detail.

Not long after, Harry held two pieces of paper in his teeth as he walked back into the kitchen, making some sort of muffled noise for you take them off of him.

“S’been happening a lot hasn’t it?” He spoke, the minute the papers left his lips as you gently pulled them away. “There’s stuff here from when I was last in LA.”

“I know, I’ve been in to see them about it before but he always insisted that he was just being clumsy. And that’s not so far fetched to believe, we know what he’s like a home.”

“Yeah falls over his own two feet, don’t know where he gets it from,” he joked, eyes scanning the papers in front of him. He frowned, turning slightly to look at you, “You’ve been in to see the school without me? When?”

“Loads of times, don’t make it a big deal-“

“About this?”

You sighed, “Yes, I’ve gone in about accident reports before. S’that a problem?”

“It’s a problem you didn’t share it with me, yes.”

“You’re never here-“

He sighed agitatedly. He wasn’t going to go there again. Before he could speak, you cut in, “Sorry. Now is not the time nor the place.” 

Harry’s shrugged off your apology, knowing that it actually was the time and the place but you weren’t quite there yet in the conversation. 

Lifting another piece of paper, his eyes scanned how it detailed another incident where your son had been injured. It was quite clear that an element of bullying was taking place that needed to be resolved. 

Placing the paper to the side, Harry dropped his eyes down to the thick stack that rested upon the kitchen counter. 

His eyes scanned the page, reading so clearly the front cover of the separation agreement, seeing his name typed neatly under the descriptor of husband in block capitals. 

“‘Ave you got a pen anywhere?” He asked instantly after feeling his emotions change, he pressed his hands over his body as if he carried a pen on his person every day of the week. 

Frowning you slowly drew your eyes away from the report that you were reading and frowned. “Usually one in the miscellaneous draw next to the cutlery-“

“Thought you would’ve gotten rid of my shit draw the minute you kicked me out-“

His tone was easy and light, but the words stung both you and him as he spoke them. The ‘shit draw’ was exactly that, full to the brim of crap that you didn’t necessarily need to be kept, but you couldn’t bring yourself to throw away. You watched him walk to the draw with ease, opening it and finding a pen resting near the top after a short amount of rummaging.

“Why’d you need a pen-“

He clicked the lid so easily as he walked to you, a couple of times possibly highlighting his nerves, before he pressed it one final time.

“May as well sign this while I’m here, save on costs of you getting it posted to me.”

Your eyes widened as you saw the way he leaned down to sign next to his name. Before you could stop yourself you reached your hand forward and covered the piece of paper where he would be required to sign. 

Harry’s hand stilled, his breathing you were sure, coming to a halt. Slowly, he looked up at you from underneath his brow and somewhere within a second or two, this visual of him became blurry as your eyes filled with tears.

“Don’t-“

You watched him breath deeply feeling the way his hand cupped over the top of yours to lift it off the paper. You didn’t put up much fight, watching the way he placed your hand away from the paper and leaned down to go to sign again. Just as the pen was about to hit the paper, you reached for the top of the document and managed to snatch is out for underneath him.

He growled under his breath from your petulant but quick action, head hanging low as he pressed his hands onto the kitchen counter. “I don’t know what you want from me-“ he harshly whispered, head swiping up to look up at you, heart breaking as he saw your crumpled face.

“I don’t know what I want either. From you or from me.”

Staying rested against the kitchen counter, he let his eyes run over your small figure. The way you let your body stay facing forward, but you eyed him from the corner of your vision. Eyes weary and filled with tears as they peered at him,

“I feel so lost, H.” 

It hurt him to see the way you reached up to wipe your own tears as they fell. He was almost shocked when he saw the way you blew out a puff of air, cleaning off your face and shaking your head.

Within a split second, it was almost like you hadn’t been crying hot, messy tears a mere ten seconds before. He found himself vaguely intrigued by what he was seeing, but highly concerned at how abnormal it was that you were able to mask your emotions.

Had you always been this way? Had he missed so many signals himself when it came to you, just like you claimed you had with your son? 

He knew if he remained silent for long enough that you would fill in the silence between the two of you, and he couldn’t help but allow himself to softly smile when you took to reaching for a forkful of lasagne, to try and busy yourself from speaking.

Harry didn’t give in however, he wanted you to know that you were in control. Somehow he sensed that you needed it, even if you didn’t have any idea where to start in being given it. 

“I’m struggling-“

He slumped a little at the two words, an almighty confession from someone who was always so put together. 

“I recognise it.”

Harry breathed deeply at those next words. “That’s good,” he responded, watching you slowly look at him. “With what?” He rubbed under his nose, clearing his throat. “What are you struggling with?”

He didn’t need the clarity, he already knew but he needed to hear you say it. 

“With being a Mum. With this weird feeling that hangs over me sometimes.”

A small amount of silence, a nervous energy. 

“Right, you tell me. Talk to me.”

Fiddling with your hands, and then your shirt, he recognised how robotic you almost looked as you thought through your words. A coldness had come over you, like a thin sheet of ice waiting to crack. 

“It’s hard. I mean it wasn’t easy with the boys, was it?”

“No it was bloody ‘ard work. They were ‘ard work. Worth it, but ‘ard work.”

He saw the way you softly smiled at the ferocity of his words.

“Was it hard work?” You joked, watching him drop his face with the softest smile. Both you and he appreciated that there was humour, but knew deep down it was a deflection. 

Then it went silent. Again. 

“Gone quiet on me, doll,” he wistfully, acknowledged.

You sighed heavily, “She’s everything you ever wanted. But I can’t bond with her, I haven’t really bonded with her and-“ closed your eyes, trying to stop your trembling bottom lip. “And that makes me feel so shit as her Mum. Cause she’s number three and it should be easy. I should have this down now. I should know what her cries mean and I should be able to deal with it. Everything else comes so natural to me, even with the boys I was-“

“You were in your element.”

You nodded as you felt your face scrunch up with a fresh wave of tears, this time he was hopeful they were ones you wouldn’t fight and pretend they didn’t happen.

He let you cry, a silent cry where you buried your face into your hands and your shoulders shook lightly. 

“Promise you won’t bite my head off,” he whispered, standing closer to you and to his comforting height. 

“Depends what you’re gonna say,” you scoffed around your laugh, pulling your hands from your face that remained bowed. You saw Harry drop his head as he looked up at you with a coy smile, to try and catch your eye with his.

“I love you-“

“Harry-“

“Please darlin’,” he hummed “I love you. I do. It’s not a bad thing feeling low-“ he sighed, “But you’re so bloody stubborn. It’s okay to not always be on it, it okay to miss things or not know what someone wants or needs. Even if that someone is our baby. It’s okay to have negativity - not to harbour it but for it to be fleeting. It’s about what you do when you get to those hurdles-“

“I shouldn’t feel like that towards her. God, we wanted her so much. I even broke my two kids only rule for her,” he and you both chuckled around your tears. 

Watching the way he stared at you lovingly as your laughter died down, you dropped your eyes away from his. 

“You feel how you want to feel. Okay? Alright?” You closed your eyes, fresh tears rolling down your face. “‘M sorry for being such a shit husband, ‘m sorry darlin’, ‘m so sorry.”

“‘S not your fault I don’t talk.”

“Hard to talk to someone if they’re not around.”

You both were silent as you stood next to each other. “I think when we go for her next check up I’m going to talk to the doctor about my options.”

“That’s good,” he nodded in encouragement, “You should do that, if you feel up to it.”  

There was a small amount of silence as Harry half-smiles as you reached for another forkful of lasagna. As you chewed, you felt his eyes on you, placing the fork back into the Tupperware.

“I’ll be there too,” he paused, a slight stutter to his words. “Only if- if you need me to be.”

“Nice of you to offer,” you fidgeted with the fork, unable to look at him before mumbling. “Thank you.”

Harry, not knowing what to do with his hands, pressed his left hand gently to the back of your neck. He cupped your skin lightly feeling your body somewhat fight against his want to offer comfort. 

He didn’t force you, instead he waited for you to feel comfortable with his actions and step a bit closer to him, your body less rigid. Lips against your temple he mumbled, “You’re welcome.”

The kindness of his voice and warmth of his hand against your skin caused you to fall against him, allowing him to hold you properly for the first time in the longest time.

Harry enveloped you, sensing that you needed it, his hand rubbing up and down your clothed back with the confidence of a man who had been married to you for quite some time.

Pulling away, you looked up at him and met his gaze staring down at you. The two of you stayed silent, admiring the aging faces of each other that you both knew so well. Meeting in the middle both pairs of eyes slipped closed as you kissed, nothing provocative or sensual, the smallest pecks of comfort that felt familiar and necessary. 

You weren’t quite sure how long the two of you stayed in each other’s embrace, or how long you talked over a variety of different concerns that had been silently bubbling away for far longer than either of you would care to admit.

However, when you surfaced out of probably his fourth hold that evening, the skies outside had started to get lighter to signal the morning had broken for a new day. You felt strange, eyes puffy and tired as you pressed the heels of your palms against them. 

“Why don't you go and enjoy a nice, long shower, rather than rushing yourself?” 

“One of ‘em’ll probably come barrelling down the stairs in a bit, having woken up another one to come and tag team me with. Unfair advantage.”

“Doesn’t exist today. Dad’s home.”

Harry spoke so easily, his eyes soft and full of love. A love you found hard to stare right back at but couldn’t pull yourself away. He was gentle as he rested against the kitchen island, temple resting against the heel of his hand as he leant down. 

“Can even take a bit of a nap if you’d like? Let me do the breakfast, and the school run. Go an’ have a rest.”

He knew you were reluctant. He could see the worry forming across your brows as you continued to look at him in silence. 

“Got what? Three hours before they need to be at school? Ideal amount of time, tha’. It’ll give you a chance to nap and shower.” 

“Harry,” you sighed, in the same way you always did as you would start to unpick at how easy he was making everything seem.

He breathed deeply, standing to full height again. “I’m not asking, I’m telling,” he spoke with a jokey lilt, hands on your shoulders as he turned you to walk you out of the kitchen. 

“What happened to compromise in marriage?”

Harry chuckled, “Disappears when you’re in the middle of a divorce. Stop trying to be smart arse and go.”

You let your heavy feet drag you to the bottom of your stairs, Harry rolling his eyes behind you from your reluctance that resembled a teenager being forced into a family party. He stayed leaning against the doorframe of one of your downstairs rooms, watching as you stilled and looked up to the top of the staircase.

“What is it?”

With a smile, you turned your eyes to look at him. “Someone’s waiting for me.”

With a frown, he approached you. Hand resting against the bannister, he looked up in the same direction as you did just seconds earlier. His eyes were met with your middle son, sat at the top of the stairs almost appearing to be patiently waiting, with his chin resting against his two hands.

“Told ya,” you whispered, smile deepening.

Harry chose not to respond. “Can come down, mate,” he softly addressed your son, watching him carefully raise and descend down to you both. 

Standing three steps away from the end, your son raised his arms gently in the direction of Harry, silently asking to be picked up. Without question Harry reached for him, gently pulling him into his chest and feeling him rest against his shoulder.

He looked on at the way you watched the two of them, and when you eyes met his green ones he softly spoke. “Don’t even think about it. Go. We’ll be fine. Won’t we, eh?” He directed his question at your son, the little boy nodding.

Slowly blinking, you heard Harry once more, “He’ll drop off again, I know it.” 

Turning, you started to walk upstairs, and somehow found it in you not to turn back to check on your boys, however you weren’t far  enough to not make out Harry’s bribe to your youngest boy of chocolate Nutella pancakes for breakfast if he was insistent on being awake so early. That made you smile. 

Your bed felt blissful as you sank against it, not even bothering to remove your clothes to doze. Sleep took you quickly, and gave you the most restful slumber you’d had in the longest time. A restful slumber that wasn’t interrupted by the sound of laughter just shy of three hours long. 

Feeling fresh as you woke was rare, getting to lay in peaceful silence didn’t exist and you had come to forget what it was like to not wake up with the feel of a toddlers foot against your ribs (or even better the side of your face) having slept next to you. 

However, the panic that rolled through you was so familiar as you snapped your eyes over to the bedside clock to see that you intuition was indeed right and you were late. 

Duvet flung back you pushed yourself out of your bed and took large strides across the room. Mad dash down the stairs, you made quick  distance to the kitchen before coming to an abrupt halt at the threshold. 

A serene scene met your gaze of a father with it all under control. A baby girl against his hip, as he kept his back to your son who sat animatedly colouring one of the free drawings at the back of his favourite children’s magazine. 

Orange juice and glasses of water sat amongst the cereal boxes and bowls. A warm, buttery and sweet smell flowed through the air as you saw Harry move around the kitchen that the two you had done all and sundry in. 

“Remember what Daddy said, ‘s hot so no touching. Hands in,” Harry kept his voice calm as he began to turn. “Good girl. Mate, which toppings do you want?” 

“Chocolate drops,” he replied, eyes still concentrated on the page. You looked away from him just in time to catch Harry’s gaze. 

“What will Mommy say about chocolate on a school day?” The question clearly directed towards you. 

Staying silent, you shook your head and raised you hand slightly at him to let him know it was fine. 

Pancakes set in front of your growing boy, you smiled as you watched the way he quickly reached for his fork, the silver cutlery spearing though the golden goodness.

“Steady on mate, let me add the toppings. Uniforms after this,” Harry chuckled, looking at you again as you stayed fixed to the spot. “Fancy a cuppa?”

Part of you found this hard to process, as you stepped inside the kitchen to the perfect family life. He had it all in hand. No angry snapping at anyone to sit still at the table and eat, no constant reminders to get coats and shoes on (sometimes up to ten repetitions that ended up with a grizzly child sitting at the bottom of the stairs with shoes being forced abruptly onto feet). 

Yet for the first time in a while, there wasn’t envy. There was gratefulness. Lots of it. That had to be progress. 

You sank against the island counter as Harry placed your daughter between the two of you. She sat mesmerised by the toy kitchen tools of a wooden spoon and mixing bowl on her lap.

Harry said something about her helping him, as she slowly mixed nothing but thin air in her bowl but proceeded to lift whatever it was she was “making” on her spoon to Harry’s lips.

“Mommy try,” she turned the spoon to you, big blue eyes filled with innocence but intrigue to see your reaction. Of course you played along, never as animated as Harry but enough for her to giggle and snatch the spoon away into her little torso.

Harry yawned loudly next to you, your daughter falling against you chest to cuddle as you took to trying to smooth her unruly bed head. 

“Mum said she’d come around to take care of sleeping beauty upstairs while we take care of the school run,” Harry commented, rubbing at his eyes and pushing his hair from his face. 

“We?” You questioned, side-eyeing him. “Think I’m letting you behind the wheel in this state.”

“Nothing wrong wi’me, ‘m alrigh’,” he yawned, barely eligible. You stared at him silently, eyebrows slowly raising to emphasise your point. “Alright, fine.”

After a small amount of silence he added, meekly, “Any room for an extra passenger?”

“Yeah, think I have a spare booster seat in the boot.” 

You watched the wry smile pull onto Harry’s lips as he fiddled around with the pancake pan that sat waiting to be washed. The silence was broken when your middle boy declared he was “finished mummy!”, not so politely wiping a lot of his chocolate stained lips against the red sleeve of his pyjamas.

Then came the military operation of getting ready for school. Making up bookbags and remembering the water from the fridge to sit inside the lunch box. Trying to locate the matching grey sock that was part of the school uniform and in the end deciding to take the hit with a passive aggressive text you’d receive from the school later that afternoon about how you’d sent one of your children in wearing socks that weren’t part of the school regalia. 

As you ushered your daughter out, seeing her little legs still a bit unstable in her t-bar black patent school shoes, you paused on your doorstep.

Anne stood next to Harry, engaged in a conversation that had the two of them looking at you as you shut the front door behind you. 

Your brain was telling you to smile, but somehow you knew it looked like a grimace as you walked across your drive and busied yourself in buckling in you little girl as to not be stood uneasily next to your mother-in-law.

“Thank you for agreeing to babysit him while we go in to the school,” you said, looking between Harry and Anne. Her eyes were warm as she felt the way you overcompensated. 

“He won’t be an ounce of trouble,” she reassured you. “He never is. All three of them aren’t. Harry said you’ll probably be a bit longer than usual, something about needing to speak to the headmaster.”

“Mum,” Harry started.

“Harry, I’m not being nosy. I’m genuinely concerned for my first grand baby. It’s allowed.”

 “We’re going to be late,” he chuckled. “We’ll fill you in when we get back. Make sure you put t’kettle on.” 

“Know when I’m not wanted,” Anne joked, seeing the way Harry manoeuvred his son to walk around the other side of the car. 

He disappeared out of sight, leaving both you and Anne blinking at each other. Clearing your throat, you told your daughter to say hello, watching the way she silently waved at Nana Anne.

“Woman of very little words in the morning, at least she takes after me for something.”

You cringed at your attempt to joke, seeing the small smile on Anne’s lips. As you shut the door for the car, she reached for your arm. Hand resting carefully against the sleeve of your coat. 

“Everything will sort itself out,” she held your eyes. “It always finds its way.” 

A heavy weight left you as she squeezed your forearm. “If not there’ll be a hot toddy waiting here for you when you get back.”

Her eyes twinkled at you, cause the smallest laugh to bubble against your lips. 

“What are you two conspiring about over there with that laughter?”

“Never you mind, Harry Styles. Just like your father, getting involved when you feel left out-“

When you looked over at Harry the softness of his features from the display in front of him made warmth ooze its way through you, enough to take the edge off the October cold.

What were you doing divorcing this man? 

“Ready?” He hummed, as his mother walked the short distance to the front door and inside.

“Just give me five, will you? Start the car to take the chill off. I shouldn’t be too long.”

As the door shut behind you with a louder bang than you wanted, Anne popped her head around the door frame of your kitchen. Yellow marigolds on her hands, you softly smiled at how she’d taken to washing up the breakfast dishes the old fashioned way even before you’d left the driveway.

“Forgotten something?”

You shook your head, pushing away from the door and sliding around her in the doorway. “No, I’m just doing something I should’ve done a long time ago.”

She stayed silent behind you as she watched the way you reached across the kitchen island and grabbed at the stack of papers. Finding the brown envelope with ease, you pulled out the white papers title with your names and reason for filing typed across them. 

Pushing them back in the envelope, you turned on your heel back to the entrance of you house. Anne wore a light frown causing you to feel the need to help ease her confusion, “It’s bin day for the recycling,” you started, watching the way her face relaxed.

She smiled when you started to laugh under your breath, and took a step forward. Gently fingering at your necklace and the rings that sat against the chain, she spoke softly, “Might be needing these.”

Although you hadn’t been wearing them didn’t mean that you hadn’t kept them with you all this time.

“Let’s hope they still fit,” you quipped. “Would you mind getting the clasp?”

Turning, Anne quickly made light work of the jewellery, taking the delicate chain and collecting in the palm of her hand before handing over your rings. She silently looked on as you pushed both your engagement ring and wedding ring back onto your third finger.

You closed your palm and then stretched out your fingers a couple of times, fiddling with the diamond to set it in the middle of your wedding band.

“Feel good?”

You hummed, “Feels right.” 

She didn’t say anything else to you after. Instead she let you breeze passed her and out to the car. You headed to the recycling bin, slipping the brown envelope inside and letting the bin lid bash shut.

Harry wore a slight frown, looking so similar to his mother just moments earlier. He started to open his mouth as you jumped into the drivers side, questioning what you were doing, until his eyes dropped down to your hand against the steering wheel. 

His questions answered. 

Without a word, other than a shy smile on your lips, you put the car into reverse feeling ready to put on a united front and face whatever was next.

Together. As husband and wife. 

[loonylupin5]

Sorcerers of the Arcane

'Let it be known who we are...'

A devastating massacre occurs at the Ministry of Magic on the evening of August 23rd, 1889. The murder of 127 witches and wizards sends the wizarding world into a state of anguish and worry. Who are the group of dark sorcerers that could commit such a crime? Will they be locked up in Azkaban? When will they strike next?

Ex-Auror turned professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Viran Leveret, is called upon to help the Aurors track down the cult of dark wizards and put a stop to them. He faces his past traumas, disturbing challenges and strained relationships, and must not lose himself to the task he has been set.

This is an original story with original characters set in the wizarding world of Harry Potter! Please give this series a chance, as I have worked very hard on it, and I really hope you enjoy it.

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PROLOGUE (#1)

Faris Spavin was a man that loved to listen to himself talk. It was his favourite thing to do, in fact, and could simply go on forever about the story of how he narrowly survived an assassination attempt made by a centaur, who took offence to the punch line of his infamous 'a centaur, a ghost and a dwarf walk into a bar' joke; but changed the narrative each time to somehow make it longer than it really was.

Though he seemed like a complete garrulous fool, as his nickname of Faris ‘Spout-Hole’ Spavin would suggest, he was quite proud of his accomplishments in wizard legislation including the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, in 1875, thank you very much!

Sadly, little to his knowledge, a large portion of the wizarding world finally saw him for the long-winded annoyance that he was, when in 1883, the Muggle government made plans to flatten The Leaky Cauldron, with the creation of Charing Cross Road. Faris Spavin made a melancholy seven-hour speech before the Wizengamot explaining why the Leaky Cauldron could never be saved, which, to his word, “Will be the greatest loss of my entire lifetime. Countless hours I spent in that pub, drinking amongst friends, telling great tales, and cracking the best jokes. That reminds me, actually, of a joke I once told the Minister of Denmark may back in ’67, she absolutely adored it…”.

During the course of his tedious speech, however, the wizarding community rallied and performed a mass of memory charms (some say, although it has never been conclusively proven, that the Imperius curse was additionally used on several Muggle town planners), so that the Leaky Cauldron was now accommodated in the revised plans for the new road. After his speech, his secretary presented him with a note describing the developments that had just invalidated his words.

Miraculously, nevertheless, he still reigned as Minister for Magic for another year. In this time, Spavin made some particularly noticeable reforms to the game of Quidditch. One hot night on the 21stof June 1884, the Department of Magical Games and Sports decreed the institutionalisation of the Stooging penalty in Quidditch. This announcement caused widespread discontent among British Quidditch players and fans, who demonstrated profusely at the Ministry of Magic Headquarters: the assembled crowd bombarded a departmental representative with Quaffles, as well as threatened to stooge Minister Spavin himself. Wizards from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement were duly dispatched there and the crowd reluctantly dispersed. This was not without precedent: just over a year before, another riot had broken out at the Ministry when the Department of Magical Games and Sports had decided to get rid of "goal baskets" in favour of the modern goalposts.

Most disagreeable changes within the Ministry usually fell to blame on the gormless Minister. No sympathy was spared, however, since the country’s disdain for the man only seemed to fly over his head. Obliviously, he would hubbub endlessly to anyone who dared strike up a conversation with him. So, eventually, and almost naturally, people seemed to avoid him unless it was really necessary.

It was not a secret that people pitied the man’s most unfortunate wife.

Even in regard to his reputation, Faris Spavin was declared the longest standing Minister for Magic in history after his resignation in 1903. It was speculated that he was kept in office so long partly due to the obscure amusement of the wizarding world. Though, as Spavin sat in his office on a humid evening on the 23rd of August 1889, history, as we know it, had not yet run its course.

The Minister drew the fat cigar between his stubby fingers up to his mouth and sucked on it hard. He released the smoke from his lungs as rings in the air. Spavin smiled stupidly as he puffed again, continuing to entertain himself. Mounds of magical sweets littered his desk, with some of their wrappings discarded to the floor of the office. A rack of spirits stood against one wall, and grand, dusty, bookshelves lined another; but it was obvious which one was more frequently used.

Faris spun in his chair to gaze airily out the large window at the head of the room. It overlooked the atrium of the Ministry and the shining gold statues of the Fountain of Magical Brethren at the centre. A number of witches of wizards bustled around below, tending to their professions. He did this quite often, just to soak in the pride of the sheer fact that he was the Minister of Magic. In his eyes, he didn’t have many faults, and only rarely made mistakes when it came to how he ran the government.

It was a very quiet night at the Ministry. As quiet as it could get, anyway. No sign of a catastrophe, a mass breakout, a murder spree, or any damage whatsoever. Spavin sighed in contentment, drawing in another breath from his cigar. He had singlehandedly set the wizarding world on due course for peace and prosperity, he subtly agreed with himself. How could something go wrong at a time like this?

Then, as the clock struck 8:00 pm, the serenity of the wizarding world shattered.

Many miles away from the Ministry of Magic, a group of witches and wizards festered.

A chilling mist lingered in the dark cobblestone street, the moon hidden behind the clouds, with no other signs of life present, only the ordinary houses lining the street; the Muggles would be settled in to sleep at this time. There was no sound, except the noise of their shoes connecting with the stone beneath them. The cloaked figures brandished glistening silver masks, morphed into the shapes of moons or stars with strange, smiling faces delicately sculpted into them.

They silently formed a large circle; there were about thirty of them, or so. The air was tense, nervous, but full of excitement. None of the masked people could stand still as they glanced at one another and exchanged small touches. But then, as a significant-looking figure stepped forward, their restlessness quickly diminished. His golden mask, representing the sun, scanned them all briefly.

Two gloved hands were unveiled from under his black cloak, as the figure addressed them gracefully.

‘Welcome, friends. This day has been long awaited.’

The leader’s voice was deep, modulated, and mellifluous. His tone seemed happy, and the other figures fidgeted with heightening excitement. He stepped further into the middle of the circle, placing his arms under his hood. Everything fell quiet once more.

‘For too long have we lived in the shadows… cowering away in fear of what consequences we may face, if we are to be revealed,’ He began to say, slowly turning around to gaze upon each of the characters standing around him.

‘Our power should not be hidden!’ He pronounced, and his voice echoed down the street. ‘We hold a great gift. The darkest, most formidable, magic lays in the very tips of our wands, going to waste. But not anymore. That all changes, today.’

The cloaked figures nodded their heads rapidly, hanging on to every word, every syllable, uttered by the man. His quiet laugh protruded from under the mask, while watching the way his companions drew closer, their eagerness bouncing off one another.

The man held his hand up again, granting silence.

‘Now, you all know what to do. Let it be known who we are.’

Devilish laughter exploded into the air. The figures drew their wands, exchanged ready glances, then disappeared into the floor like shadows.

Witches and wizards dressed in neat, colourful robes were filing into the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic, preparing for a seemingly normal evening of work. Some chatted happily, while others had their noses buried in files and other important papers. Sorcerers of all different types appeared from the many green fireplaces lined on the high walls, making their way to their respected departments of work. Unbeknownst to everyone in the grand space; they were about to be greeted by many unexpected guests.

Screams and explosions erupted through the Atrium as the masked figures materialized from the ground. Their metallic masks shined brightly, and their wands were pointed at any person who dared move. They swept through the crowd with inhumane speed, knocking anyone who got in their way to the floor, cackling as they went. Flashes of red light flew through the air, causing the screams to grow louder. Duels broke out in the crowd as security arrived, but they were quickly ended by the masked figures with a single incantation.

The leader climbed onto the fountain underneath the towering golden statue of a wizard, watching the chaos that was occurring beneath him. Wizards and witches were being thrown through the air, suffocated by dark shadows summoned by the mysterious sorcerers, and stunned by the endless flashes of spells. Many tried to run and hide; but there was nowhere for them to go.

The sun-faced figure held his wand to his throat, and roared, “Sonorus!”

Silence filled the space instantly. All eyes landed on the man and time seemed to stand still. As he was about to speak, his eyes creeped up the furthest wall to the large window where Faris Spavin’s frightened silhouette could be observed.

‘Minister Spavin. What a pleasure it is to witness you, trembling away in your office which you so love to do,’ The leader drawled, his voice echoing loudly off the walls. The other masked magi screeched with laughter as if it was the funniest thing in the world, but he continued; ‘Your wife is doing well, I hope?’

The Minister did not move an inch. Obviously, he could hear every word the stranger was saying.

‘You thought, that by banishing dark magic, like your predecessors before you… it would simply disappear forever? You’re a fool, dear Minister.’

Limp bodies beside pools of blood littered the floor of the Atrium. Terrified faces of the wounded stared up at him. They did not bother to destroy their surroundings, but instead the people within, because that always portrayed a much more substantial message. The leader soaked in the glorious sight.

‘It is easier to walk with a friend in the dark than it is to walk with them in the light. I think you’ll all do well to remember this when our time comes…’ He uttered coolly, spreading his arms like a great dark eagle with a golden head. ‘Some can only dream of the powers we possess. Powers that had been kept hidden inside ancient texts that have been sealed away from the entire world. Fortunately, we learnt the secrets those texts depict, and now hold magic of the most prevailing. Magic so great, that is in incomparable to the nonsense you teach at your quaint schools of witchcraft and wizardry.

‘I advise you to succumb to us now, or sorely feel the consequence of what we will do to you, your family, your homes, and everything you love. It would not be hard to destroy you, I can promise that. This is a dark, cruel and twisted world we live in. Wouldn’t you agree, Minister? If my knowledge is correct, you are ignorant and unkind to those who belong to troubled backgrounds. And you do not accept those who are not pure of blood. You call us filthy and unworthy of magic. But look at what we have accomplished…’ His smile was almost audible. The man lowered his arms and gazed up at the golden statue behind him. He absorbed in its magnificence for many moments, before finally turning back to the crowd.

‘We are the Sorcerers of the Arcane. I’m certain you’ll be more aware of our presence from now on.’

With a swish of his wand, pure black vapour filled the air like a detonation. The attack had finished as suddenly as it had started. The darkness settled, minutes later, and there was no trace of the masked figures except the population of dead bodies strewn across the floor.

Mere hours later, in the Morning Prophet, it was revealed that one hundred and twenty-seven witches and wizards died at the hands of a group of mysterious and highly dangerous individuals that called themselves the Sorcerers of the Arcane.

Faris Spavin recounted the attack to journalists, Aurors, and anyone who could listen while his whole body trembled, and his face shone a ghostly white colour. He was later admitted to St. Mungo’s Hospital for the shock of what he had just witnessed and left the dilemma to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to control, and demanded, shaking his fists and screaming, that they left him far out of it. After his short stay in the hospital, the Minister promptly packed bags for himself and his wife and fled the country. This was most unfortunate for the witches and wizards at the Auror Headquarters, as they were stumped on a plan of how to handle the situation best.

Naturally, panic had engulfed the entirety of the wizarding world in the United Kingdom by the next day, August the 24th. The tale of what happened the night before at the Ministry and their Minister’s flee was the only topic for discussion across the country. Never before had they suffered a blow this deadly.

Approximately one hundred and two miles away from the scene of the disaster, in a charming cottage on Kemps Lane, Painswick, Gloucestershire, a spindly wizard by the name of Viran Leveret gasped loudly as he gaped at the front title of the Morning Prophet: ‘127 KILLED IN BRUTAL ATTACK AT THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC’.

[goodmythicalshipping]

Three Wishes (3/4) - “On a Dark Night”

Hiya, MBs! Happy October. 🎃 

I’m back with the third chapter of my Aladdin-themed fic, “On a Dark Night,” which is now available to read below as well as on my AO3 page. 😊

I hope you enjoy it and it gives you all the feels. The final chapter should be up later this week!

Summary: In Pre-Islamic Arabia, a poor street rat, Rhett, struggles to survive in an unforgiving and discriminatory world… that is, until he comes across a rather mythical-looking lamp. Having concealed a deep secret his whole life, his entire world is soon changed forever by a certain bespectacled genie.

<< Chapter Two / Chapter Four >>

After touring the entirety of the palace, Rhett and Princess Stevie had gotten to know each other a good deal and were able to savor each other’s company, albeit not in a romantic way like her restless father had hoped. Link, on the other hand, had trailed far behind them the whole time, watching their actions with leering eyes. He was too out of earshot to hear anything they were saying, but couldn’t help but feel a little envious whenever they would smile or laugh at what the other one said. He carried Barbara, now turned back into her canine form, as the three of them approached the banquet hall. Once again forced to remain hidden, Link watched the pair enter the hall from a high-up window.

“I take it you enjoyed your trip around the palace grounds,” the sultan greeted them once again. “Come, let us begin our feast!”

The three of them sat down to enjoy their four-course meal, with the two younger guests essentially listening to the elder man ramble on for the next three hours straight. Rhett found it troubling how enthusiastic the sultan was to discuss wedding plans, given he had only met him hours prior and it clearly wasn’t what Princess Stevie, nor he himself, wanted. Despite their chagrined expressions, Link grew more jealous with each passing minute as he peeped down on his master dining with the royals, which admittedly stemmed from his desire to just be near the mortal man over reveling in their luxuries.

“Way to go, Genie-us,” Link whispered angrily to himself. “You were supposed to grant his wishes, not devise yer own selfish ones!”

He couldn’t help it: Rhett looked striking in his silk ensemble, which complimented the colors of his handsome, angular face. Certainly, he believed, out of all of his masters up to this point, Rhett was the most beautiful. However, Link remembered Rhett’s statement from hours prior about setting him free, which now left a sour taste in his mouth as he watched him indulge in the array of expensive delicacies before him. The genie was sure a combination of temporal fate and his master’s own greed would keep them apart in the end…

As the trio finished their meal, the sultan guided them to the front of the mansion once more. Link floated down with Barbara to eavesdrop on them, once again hiding himself behind a nearby column.

“Stevie, please escort Prince Rhett to his living quarters,” he commanded. “In the morning, we shall begin preparing for the upcoming blessed wedding ceremony!”

Rhett kept a calm, unphased demeanor, despite his inner aversion, while Stevie made no effort in concealing her contorted face. She huffed as she took Rhett’s hand and led him to his bedroom, much to the dismay of Link, whose pools of cerulean beaded at the sight. It was late by the time the duo finally arrived at the doors of the living quarters.

“Well, I guess this is g’night?” Rhett asked meekly, knowing that they were both not looking forward to the following day.

“I suppose,” Stevie replied morosely, keeping her head down. Rhett felt incredibly guilty: the two of them had only known each other for a few short hours, but he felt such a strong connection to the young girl who was facing the same predicament. He would do anything in that moment to rid her of all her woes, as well as his own, but it was the lamentable law of the land that she marry a prince, although he was placated knowing it would be him and not some egotistical and abusive raja.

“Stevie, I’d like to think I’m pretty good at readin’ people's eyes,” Rhett suggested, causing the girl to lift her head. “Just know that no matter what happens, I promise ya that I will do everythin’ in my power to keep you safe and happy as possible in these adverse circumstances.”

She then gave him a soft smile and sympathetic embrace.

“Same to you, Prince Rhett,” she reciprocated. “Now I believe it’s best that you tend to other matters at this time.”

In the hours they had communed, he had nearly forgotten about his remaining two wishes. However, he was appetent to be in the company of his genie companion again and thus, bid her a good night as he stepped inside the room.

“Well, well, well,” a familiar voice began. “Looks like someone had a good time.”

Rhett snickered before answering. “I wouldn’t say good, I guess just more… satiated.”

“I can’t relate,” Link retorted, crossing his translucent arms. “Genies don’t eat much. Anyway, have ya thought about yer second wish, your majesty?”

The genie bowed to him in a dramatically condescending way, much to Rhett’s confusion. The mortal man chose to brush it off, too tired from the day’s events to ponder the odd gesture.

“Not exactly,” Rhett yawned, stretching his long arms upward. “I’ve been tourin’ the palace grounds all day, and haven’t had much time to think about it in all honesty.”

“Uh-huh,” Link replied disinterestedly, whipping out an imaginary fan out of thin air. “Too busy indulgin’ in extravagant wonders, I take it? I don’t blame you, s’not every day you’re served tabbouleh on a gold platter.”

What’s his problem?, Rhett thought to himself. “Um, actually, most of the feast was taken up by her father discussin’ wedding plan-”

“Well, isn’t that just MARVELOUS?,” Link barked, cutting him off. “We’ve got a royal wedding approachin’! How prodigious! I’ll have t’send a messenger to the local couturier to inquire about a suit in my size. I hope he can accommodate my ghost tail! Wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

Rhett just stood there, unsure of what to say. Was Link upset with him? It wasn’t like Rhett wanted to marry the princess, nor did she want to marry him. This was simply the easiest way to escape the tragedy he had been living for so many years, desperately clinging to some sort of importance in the world. Still, he felt an incredible ache of culpability each time he remembered the princess’ hidden prayers, and part of him considered that Link too did not wish for them to wed for unknown reasons. Although Rhett had his hopes…

“What, dog got yer tongue?” Link goaded, pointing to Barbara, who was currently rolling around on the floor. “Anyway, like I said: got a second wish? I don’t got all night.”

“What’s gotten into you?!” Rhett finally reacted, surprising Link. “Did I do somethin’ wrong? It’s not like I wished to marry the princess!”

“Oh, don’t be so modest, master! As if you weren’t aware that marriage might come with the package of becomin’ royalty!,” Link rebutted, growing angrier. “Am I wrong to assume that this was what ya wanted all along, and I was just along for the ride?”

“Yes! All I was lookin’ for was to achieve greatness for once in my meager life! I’m sick of bein’ a nobody!”

“You can be great in other ways than obtainin’ riches, master! Perhaps you may consider other outlets in which y’may exalt yer greatness, such as considerin’ the feelings of others around you!”

“Don’tcha think I’ve considered the princess’ feelings throughout this whole thing?!” Rhett shouted. “I’ve heard ‘er out, and for your information, it doesn’t sound like she’s excited about this arrangement either!”

“I’m not talking about the princess!,” Link yelled loudly, scaring both Rhett and Barbara. “You promised me one thing, Rhett! D’ya recall what that one thing was? I’ll give ya’a hint! It starts with ‘FREE’ and ends with ‘DOM’!”

The syllables lit up in fiery, neon lights before Rhett’s emerald eyes, causing him to stumble backwards. After taking a moment to process what Link had accused him of, he spoke up again softly.

“...y’really think I’d take back my promise?”

The grief-stricken look on his bearded face was almost enough to turn Link’s entire mood around, that is before he remembered why he was upset with him in the first place.

“Rhett, in the short amount of time I’ve been in yer possession, all I’ve seen ya do is ask for a big, shiny royal title,” Link berated him. “What am I supposed to think? M’surprised you haven’t blown yer last two wishes on five million dirham and for me to be yer lifelong slave yet!”

“M’not that selfish of a man, Link!” Rhett argued, standing himself back up. “In fact, the one thing I truly want is somethin’ so unattainable that I’m not even sure a wish could grant it!”

“Oh yeah, and what is that, yer highness?” Link scoffed.

Suddenly, Rhett turned his gaze toward the floor and sprouted a sullen expression, to which Link stiffened his guard.

“...acceptance,” the mortal said finally.

“Acceptance? From who, the citizens of Agrabah? I think you’ve already impressed ‘em by becomin’ a prin-”

“Not just them. Everyone,” Rhett stated bluntly, interrupting him. “S’been that way my whole life. I’ve had to keep one of the most important parts of me a secret to avoid serious consequences.”

Link at last ceased his hostility after hearing this, his anger transferring to worried interest.

“What I want and what everyone else wants in terms of my love and happiness don’t align,” the bearded man continued. “What I want is seen as disgraceful to my family, who banished me from their home in equal parts disgust and an attempt to save my life from authorities. Should they discover the truth about me, I could be executed. Thus, I’ve had no choice but to protect myself by hidin’ from the public eye, which has steered me to live a life of poverty.” He then surveyed Link carefully, reading him for any sign that what he was about to say next wouldn’t disgust him as well.

“I don’t wish to marry the princess, Link... nor any maiden, for that matter.”

Link floated there in shock as his ability to speak vanished. This whole time, Rhett was… Link wasn’t sure if he should be mortified at his own previous actions or thrilled by his confession. Most importantly, he felt like cradling the tall, somber man who remained on the ground in sympathy, which was exactly what he subconsciously found himself doing after a long moment of silence.

Upon noticing Link’s arms around him, Rhett was unable to contain his tears and wept softly into the genie’s neck, hugging him back. As Link brushed the man’s hair with his palm, his heart throbbed even more intensely, but he decided not to push his boundaries in light of Rhett potentially reacting in a negative way, given his current emotional state.

It felt like hours had passed before the pair separated, Rhett’s olive eyes glassy and bloodshot from crying.

“I’m, I just-” he began, his voice fluttering.

“I’m sorry,” Link interrupted. “I shouldn't have accused you of such awful things or questioned your sincerity. I’ve just had some real nasty masters in the past, and made the false assumption that y’might be the same. I know now that I was wrong.”

“No, I’m… happy,” Rhett countered, confusing Link until he spoke again after a beat. “I’m… happy there’s someone who finally accepts me.”

---------

Rhett lay awake for hours after his and Link’s exchange, staring at the marble wall. Fortunately, Link did not notice, as Rhett had his back turned to him and the genie had taken to counting stars in the night sky. Many thoughts wracked his brain: what was he supposed to do? Not only would he be forgoing his own happiness by marrying the princess, but he would be preventing her from attaining true happiness as well. As for Link… things were quickly becoming more “complicated” between them, meaning Rhett had to act fast if he were to fix any of this with his two remaining wishes.

It wasn’t fair. Why weren’t people just more accepting? It would certainly make this whole ordeal far less complex, but this was the world they lived in. Whatever he wished for next had to be followed by the promise of setting Link free… which for Rhett, to be frank, was another heartbreak on its own. He knew Link couldn’t simply grant a wish that involved someone falling in love with another person, so he had to be clever.

If he wished to go back to being a civilian, Princess Stevie would still have to marry a complete stranger. If he wished for her to marry who she wanted, he would still be forced to hide his true self from those around him and live a life of rich misery.

If only there was a way in which they could both be happy, or in which the universe would allow them both to live carefree and without-

…

That was it. Rhett knew then what he had to do.

(To be continued)

[flipperbrain]

Chapter Two: Growing Pains

Summary: Killian discovers a new world and spends his first day in Emma’s lair.

[Ao3]

for @cssns

Killian is astounded by his fleetness of foot as they race through the streets toward safe harbor, his senses assaulted by smells and sounds he veers away from Emma for a moment, only a small detour to chase the path of a firefly, but in a flash he is gone. Emma rolls her eyes and charges after him, she can feel his essence now and it takes some searching but she eventually finds him crouched near a decorative iron gate. The bug forgotten, he is in a trance, his eyes moving over the scrollwork scrutinizing its surface texture and every fleck of rust at a near molecular level.

Emma only vaguely remembers the days following her change, but she has known more than a few fledglings since, some of her own making. Their vampire sight and sense can be extremely captivating, so much so that one can easily become lost; lured by the novelty and the keenness of it, they can forget themselves whilst spellbound over the most common of objects.

“Killian!” Emma pleads, “We must hurry, come away from there! My lair is close by, there will be time for further contemplation tomorrow eve,” she says, exasperated but understanding. The simple beauty that surrounds them, unnoticed by the human eye, is an entirely new universe for Killian. He is awestruck by his acute vision and still not fully aware of the power he commands.

She had no one to aid her, her sire did not care and left her behind to fend for herself. She somehow survived on her wits and savagery alone and decided there and then, should she ever find herself in a similar circumstance she would teach those lessons she learned the hard way. Aside from her attraction to him and the passion they have already shared, she would not leave Killian even if she felt otherwise. And though she tells herself not to jump into the abyss so early in their relationship, in truth she does not know him yet, barely at all, but deeply rooted feelings persist and she is determined to pursue them.

He snaps from his reverie and turns his head to stare at her wide-eyed and innocent, like an errant youth being scolded for some infraction of the rules, but he looks her up and down, standing there with arms akimbo, and his grin rapidly turns wicked. He leaps to her side and pulls her against him, nuzzling her neck and nibbling her earlobe he murmurs, “Aye Swan, my apologies. This is a much more pleasurable distraction indeed.”

She laughs, pressing her forehead to his then pushes at his shoulder with her palm, ignoring the gooseflesh on her arms raised by touch of his lips, “Let us go!” She urges in a low voice, “I would have you safe before the sleep overtakes you and the sun turns you to ash! All of my efforts would be for naught,” she teases.

He nods solemnly and tilts his head with a boyish charm that turns her insides to liquid, and they dash off in a blur, traveling the last few blocks to her home in the blink of an eye. It is set apart from the rest of the houses at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac, its Spanish-style architecture shrouded in shadow by a stand of oak trees. Cicadas buzz in the tall grass that separates the structure from a small pond, its waters sparkle and gleam in the moonlight. Emma sees his eyes focus on its shimmering surface and firmly grasps Killian’s sleeve before he can wander to inspect it, nudging him toward the front door instead.

————————

Once inside she stops to scribble a message on a sheet of stationery, then lights an oil lantern on the table in the vestibule, picks it up and takes Killian’s hand gesturing absently, “It is this way.” He trails after her to the stairs leading down to the wine cellar. Emma has lived in this house for many years, its location is private and perfect for a creature like herself. She supposes the neighbors wonder at her strange habits, but the inhabitants of this city rife with legends of ghosts and goblins, are accustomed to such things. A superstitious lot, most of them, she has not been trifled with even if they suspect her true nature.

She does not bother them and they leave her alone, though it may be time to move on to another of her properties at some time in the future. She has several residences, carefully scouted and outfitted to accommodate her special needs. She has acquired wealth throughout her long life, finding ways to survive without harming another human can be difficult enough, the desire is ever-present, a safe place to lay her head in the face of that is a must.

The light is not actually needed in order to navigate, vampires can see quite well in the darkest of night, and the cellar is black as pitch; but the glow soothes her, it warms the area and helps her to feel human and less like what she actually is. As they enter the space Emma closes the steel door behind them and turns the wheel, locking them inside until the sun sets again. It would take an army to gain entrance to this place, they are quite secure here.

She sets the lantern next to the large bed and moves to light another across the room. With the space now illuminated Killian looks about him, first glancing at the bed and leering discreetly at her, his eyes flit from the plush rug at his feet to the mahogany furniture; a fireplace on the far wall was added here at some expense to be sure, it is flanked by two comfortable looking leather chairs with a low table between. There is a tub and wash basin in the corner, a small vanity and mirror with Emma’s hairbrush, a vial of perfume and a porcelain swan figurine set upon on its ivory painted surface.

Emma turns to study him, watching him take in his surroundings for a moment before speaking but finally begins, “Let us get you out of those clothes, they are drenched with blood. You are drenched with blood,” she says matter-of-factly. “I will find you something else to wear when we wake again, it cannot be helped, these are ruined.” She helps him out of his coat and tosses it into a large basket near the door and begins to work the buttons of his waistcoat and then his blouse; it is stuck to his skin with dried gore and she peels it away then up and off over his head.

She notices the growing bulge in his breeches and smiles to herself but there are other pressing matters to attend to, she yearns to be with him but it will have to wait, there is little time left before sunrise. He stands silently, aroused beyond belief at her treatment of him. He feels like an adolescent still discovering his own body, awkward and slightly embarrassed at being stripped naked by such a beautiful lass, it is not as though he has not found his way into the bed of a desirable woman, but Emma… Emma. She is different. She could be the one he has waited for, hoped for. That they should meet in such a way he could never have imagined, but they have met and he is suddenly shy under her gaze.

He searches her face as she unties the laces of his pants loosened earlier at her hand, he closes his eyes and remembers her cool fingers upon him; he is hard as a rock and throbbing in want of her but his eyelids are increasingly heavy, he cannot shake this feeling of tiredness weighing on him try as he might. He steps out of his breeches and they follow the rest into the basket. Emma is taken aback by him, he is a magnificent man; muscled and fit and certainly quite well endowed, with a face so handsome she could lose herself forever in his eyes.

She leads him to the small tub, “Step inside Killian, let me wash away these stains before you lie down,” she says softly, she can see how drowsy he is and must hurry before his legs buckle beneath him. She often pushes the limits of the sleep, and can even stay conscious with much effort if she must, greatly weakened but alert if necessary, but it will take time for Killian to develop this skill.

She pours some water into the basin, “I am sorry, this will be a bit cold,” she says with regret then begins to rinse away the blood from his ribs, the wounds have healed but the marks remain. Her fingers glide over them with sympathy, so many cuts. The muscles in his abdomen contract as she cleans him, the cold water running down his body dampens his erection but it still stands out from his body, he is aching for release but exhausted beyond reckoning. “Turn around now Killian,” she says and he obediently complies, blood coats his back from where he lay, his hair is sticky with it and she does her best to remove the lion share before his repose. She will draw him a bath tomorrow eve, and thinks perhaps she will join him in it, but for now however, this will have to do.

She dries him with a soft towel and steers him to the bed then turns down the coverlet. He sits at the edge and looks up at her dully, his brows knit together with worry and confusion, “Lie down, you will feel better when you wake,” she whispers, he is disoriented and most likely in shock; he has endured much this day. Emma presses him back onto the pillows, pulls up the covers and bends to gently kiss his mouth. “All is well, rest now,” she coaxes and in a moment he is sleeping deeply, the sleep of the undead.

His face is so still and peaceful, pale and more sharply sculpted than it was before he turned. It is a disappointment that she will not feel his mouth upon her and she must suffer the wait, but it will be sweeter she suspects, he will be energized and vigorous after replenishing rest. She removes her clothing, throwing her tunic and trousers over a chair then ties a ribbon around her hair before extinguishing the lanterns and crawling into bed. She throws back the blanket enough to view the side of his body, the urge to touch herself is strong but she does not; his skin is perfect and luminous in the darkness, he has a striking form she muses then curls against him and closes her eyes.

————————

Emma is up for an hour before Killian rises, she dons a white silk robe and opens the door, lights a small fire in the fireplace and sits reading a book but not really absorbing the words. Her anticipation of being with him is so great it is all she can do not to rouse him before he is ready. Finally, when the hair on her neck stands up on end, she knows Killian’s eyes are upon her and she grins, glancing sideways at him as he kicks the blanket to the foot of the bed; he is obviously hungry in more ways than one. She is relieved that he so clearly wants her at this moment in spite if his thirst, especially knowing how strong it can be at the start. He has a stubbornness that may work in his favor, unwilling to allow even his own body to order him about.

She stands and turns to face him then slowly unties the sash on her robe, letting it slip from her shoulders and pool at her feet but she does not move. “Take down your hair,” he murmurs and she pulls an end of the ribbon that holds it in place, loosing her long tresses to fall around her shoulders like a veil of gossamer. Killian holds out his arms, entreating her to come to him, “You are a vision Emma Swan,” he says quietly, his voice still raspy with sleep. She moves onto the bed and into his embrace.

And it feels like home.

“Drink from me Killian, it will sustain you until we hunt, I can see the need in your eyes,” she says softly.

Killian angles away at her words, “I cannot! I would not harm you Emma…”

“You will not harm me, I would not let you go so far… and I want you to.” She replies, brushing her hair from her neck and craning it slightly so he can easily access the large vein just below the surface of her skin. He licks his lips and looks at her again, his expression anxious but wanting “it is alright, do it,” she says firmly.

He pulls her closer, his lips drift along her collarbone, his tongue dips into the hollow of her throat then moves into position, baring his teeth he bites through her milky flesh until an arc of her blood pours into his mouth. Emma moans and wraps her fingers around his thickness and he nearly spills out on the spot at this erotic prologue to their joining. He is overcome with the sweetness of her and sucks eagerly until her fingers press against his chest to stop him; she shifts her weight rolling him onto his back, he is drunk and reeling with bliss.

Before he can recover she takes him in her mouth, her tongue swirling his silky flesh and dipping into the small slit at its tip. He groans and grabs handfuls of her hair as her lips work up and down his length, taking him completely he can feel himself bump against the back of her throat, his hips buck in sync with her rhythm he mewls and sighs gasping out her name. She stops and lifts her head, smiling at his wrecked expression and then he looks back at her with such raw vulnerability and openness, her eyes fill with tears.

“What is it my love?” He implores reaching for her and hugging her close, “We will stop! I am sorry for rushing into…”

“No Killian, I do not wish to stop! I am overwhelmed with happiness that you are here with me, that is all. Truly,” she answers sincerely, “I want you more than you know.”

He scans her face, his brows furrowed with concern but relents and leans to capture her lips, moving tenderly then parting, his tongue probes for entry and slips inside to meet hers. They explore each other tentatively, whilst gazing into the eyes of the other, as if this was their first kiss and filled with all of the wonder that comes with it. Connecting to another being in such an intimate way, the softness and the taste of their mouth eliciting the blush of love and affection; it is marvelous to share such a feeling with another. Their hands roam over each other as they continue, legs tangled together, their movements unhurried. Killian’s hand finds its way betwixt Emma’s legs, his fingers rubbing in languid circles then spreading her folds and dipping inside until she arches against him.

He breaks the kiss and moves to her neck, his lips skimming past the tiny puncture wounds that have already closed then gliding down to suckle her breast. He is in love with the sounds she makes, sighs and soft cries and throaty moans. His mouth works her nipple into a hard peak, his fingers slide in and out, slick with her wetness. She rolls onto her back and opens her thighs, longing to cradle him and he needs no further encouragement to maneuver between them; he guides himself to her entrance and eases inside, groaning at the exquisite pleasure of it, then begins to move in earnest.

Her fingertips trace the curve of his back and she wraps her legs around his waist as he thrusts into her, his ample size stretching and filling her up. There is urgency now, they are both desperate to finish; Killian’s hips swivel and grind, driving against her relentlessly while watching her face for signs of her release. When he feels her spasms ripple and clench around him, she pulls him down for a ravenous kiss, deep and delicious; then her lips drift to his shoulder and she sinks her teeth into the muscle, her tongue lapping the blood that spills from the wound.

He is startled by her bite, his body jolts in response but the sensation is an aphrodisiac; his hips jerk wildly, his stamina is seemingly limitless but his ability to stave off his orgasm is not. And when Emma dips her head to bite him again, this time into his breast, he can hold out no longer and comes shuddering and grunting, pouring himself into her in pulsing waves of ecstasy. He gradually slows, straining out the last drops until he is empty and collapses into her arms. He smiles at her, his fierce demon lover, and she grins broadly back at him, his blood still wet on her lips.

[flwrpotts]

writing advice

IRA GLASS: Advice for Beginners

“Bad writing does nothing, changes nothing, educates no emotions, rewires no inner circuitry - we close its covers with the same metaphysical confidence in the universality of our own interface as we did when we opened it. But great writing - great writing forces you to submit to its vision. You spend the morning reading Chekhov and in the afternoon, walking through your neighbourhood, the world has turned Chekhovian; the waitress in the cafe offers a non- sequitur, a dog dances in the street.”

- Zadie Smith, “Fail Better”

Beginning authors often get in their own way … They forget that they’ve been telling stories since they could talk. … The important thing to remember is, you know how to do this. You’ve been doing this your whole life.

- Cynthia Leitich Smith

“All writers feel struck by the limitations of language. All serious writers.”

- Margaret Atwood

“I think a lot about the women who created work that defined American literature and then had that work credited to the men they loved. Anais Nin wrote and rewrote whole sections of Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. Scott Fitzgerald cannibalized Zelda’s life and writing for his own books. We have an obligation to create and tell our stories to vindicate the women who were cast as the muse when they should have been the creator. We can’t just be the wife of the artist, we have to be the artist.”

- Clementine Von Radics

“A writer is like a pickpocket: they what belongs to others and make it their own. But in doing so they are inevitably caught, not by the police, but by their own story. You think you write about other people, cheating or deceiving or committing a crime, but it’s always you who’s committing the crime, as you merge with your protagonist. And the reader, sitting on his couch, identifying with the characters, is committing the same crime with you, in his own living room.”

- Ayelet Gundar-Goshen

“Writing: a way of leaving no space for death, of pushing back forgetfulness, of never letting oneself be surprised by the abyss. Of never becoming resigned, consoled; never turning over in bed to face the wall and drift asleep again as if nothing had happened; as if nothing could happen.”

- Helene Cixous

“I don’t love writing,” Manguso clarifies in another of her arguments. “I love having a problem I believe I might someday write my way out of.”

- Sarah Manguso

“Beautiful things grow out of shit. Nobody ever believes that. Everyone thinks that Beethoven had his string quartets completely in his head—they somehow appeared there and formed in his head—and all he had to do was write them down and they would be manifest to the world. But what I think is so interesting, and would really be a lesson that everybody should learn, is that things come out of nothing. Things evolve out of nothing. You know, the tiniest seed in the right situation turns into the most beautiful forest. And then the most promising seed in the wrong situation turns into nothing. I think this would be important for people to understand, because it gives people confidence in their own lives to know that’s how things work.

If you walk around with the idea that there are some people who are so gifted—they have these wonderful things in their head but and you’re not one of them, you’re just sort of a normal person, you could never do anything like that—then you live a different kind of life. You could have another kind of life where you could say, well, I know that things come from nothing very much, start from unpromising beginnings, and I’m an unpromising beginning, and I could start something.”

- Brian Eno, Here Is What Is

“My mother always said to me, “English will be your best weapon.”

She was right, she was right, she was right.”

- Sherman Alexie

Perhaps I wish to say: look behind you. You are not alone. Don’t permit yourself to be ambushed. Watch out for snakes. Watch out for the Zeitgeist—it is not always your friend. Keats was not killed by a bad review. Get back on the horse that threw you. Advice for the innocent pilgrim, worthy enough, no doubt, but no doubt useless: dangers multiply by the hour, you never step into the same river twice, the vast empty spaces of the blank page appall, and everyone walks into the maze blindfolded.

- Margaret Atwood

“Is that what writing amounts to? The voice your ghost would have, if it had a voice?”

- Margaret Atwood

“Don’t / Accommodate: write in blood or don’t bother.”

—Sina Queyras

“When we write witches into our stories, that is what we’re writing about: power. When we write witches, we are writing about our expectations of women, and what we hope—and fear—they would do if they had access to power. Fictional witches act as ciphers that help us understand something that seems at once mysterious and brilliant and sinister: a woman’s ultimate, unlimited potential… realized.”

- Sarah Gailey

feel free to add on with your favorite writing advice/quotes about writing!

[bibleteachingbyolga]

At the second coming of Christ, the people of God will see the risen King in his power and great glory. They will be changed instantly into sinless persons who will be like their glorious King forever. In that likeness to Christ, their capacities for love — for delighting in what is truly great and beautiful and worthy — will be raised to unimagined heights as they share in the very love of the Father and the Son. And in that supreme, pure, perfected delight in God, the glory of God will shine.

At this point, we might (mistakenly) conclude that the fullness of the purposes of providence has been reached. But to many people’s surprise, God does not intend for our sight of glory, or our likeness to glory, or our praises of glory, to be physically invisible or inaudible. So it would be a mistake to think that these works of providence exhaust the fullness of God’s purpose. There is more. Another work of providence that grows out of the second coming is the resurrection of the body and the renovation of the universe.

God did not create the material universe, including our physical bodies, to be thrown away at the end of this age. That is not what we see in the Bible.

Renovation of the Universe

The created universe, and everything in it, is now and always will be (to an infinitely greater degree) a theater of God’s glory. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). That is true for the entire material world, from the smallest subatomic particle to the most distant galaxy. The minuteness of the human race within the vastness of the universe is not an incongruity. For the vastness of the universe is not about the greatness of man, but about the greatness of God. Man has his greatness, but it lies in his capacity to know and worship the God who calls the universe “the work of [his] fingers” (Psalm 8:3).

In his work of creation, God has woven a fabric of reality out of the material and the immaterial. He did this in such a way that their interconnectedness is mysterious, yet essential for the maximum display and enjoyment of his glory. By raising the human body from the dead and by renovating the universe for the habitation of those bodies, God’s providence brings into being the final goal of all things — the complete glorification of his people and the fullness of the display of his own greatness and beauty and worth.

Dying Natural Body, Coming Spiritual Body

At the second coming,

The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. (1 Thessalonians 4:16)

Paul describes those resurrected bodies:

What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:42–44)

What is a spiritual body? We must be careful not to think of something ethereal or ghostlike. Paul said Christ would make our resurrection body like his own: “[He] will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Philippians 3:21). The risen Christ was not a ghost. He appeared to his disciples and said, “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39). Then he ate a piece of fish to put it beyond doubt: a spiritual body is not a spirit (Luke 24:42–43).

Rather, a spiritual body is a body recreated in a form beyond our comprehension and experience. It is spiritual at least in the sense that it is now — not partially, but wholly — fitted for the indwelling of the Spirit of God. It now has Spirit-given capacities that it never had. How else could we look upon one another without being blinded, when each of us is shining like the sun (Matthew 13:43)?

New Universe Made for the New Humanity

To show that the universe exists for man, not man for the universe, something absolutely astonishing then happens. God remakes the universe precisely to accommodate the new humanity with their spiritual bodies.

The prophet Isaiah foresaw this day and spoke the word of God: “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind” (Isaiah 65:17). The apostle John saw it as well: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” (Revelation 21:1). And the apostle Peter described the emergence of the new heavens and the new earth through a cataclysmic purification:

The heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. (2 Peter 3:12–13)

But what is astonishing beyond the unimaginable magnitude of this providence is the fact that the entire renovation is carried out so that the universe is adapted to the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Here are the breathtaking words from Paul:

The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Romans 8:19–21)

The picture is not of man standing on tiptoe looking for a new creation. It’s the reverse: the creation is standing on tiptoe, looking for the day when the children of God will be glorified. When God subjected the creation to its fallen condition of futility and corruption, he had a future day of liberation in mind. That liberation was planned as a response to the glorification of God’s people. It was conceived as a participation in the freedom and glory of God’s redeemed children. “The creation itself will . . . obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

Perfect Home for Perfect People

The children will receive new, free, glorious, spiritual bodies, and the whole creation will be transformed into a perfect habitation designed for this new humanity. This means that the original purpose of the creation — to declare the glory of God — will be elevated in proportion as the saints have elevated capacities to see and savor and show the glory of God.

Sin will be completely eliminated. Nothing unclean or immoral or spiritually half-hearted will be there. All thoughts will be true. All desires will be free of any self-exaltation. All feelings will be calm or intense in perfect proportion to the nature of the reality felt. All deeds will be done in the name of Jesus and for the glory of God. Every particle and movement and connection in the material world will communicate something of the wisdom and power and love of God.

And the capacity of the glorified minds and hearts and bodies of the saints will know and feel and act with no frustration, no confusion, no repression, no misgiving, no doubt, no regret, and no guilt. All our knowing — whatever we know — will include the knowledge of God. All our feeling — whatever we feel — will include the taste of the worth and beauty of God. All our acting — whatever we do — will comply in sweet satisfaction with the will of God.

Cost of Paradise

We will sing forever “the song of the Lamb” (Revelation 15:3) — the Lamb who was slain (Revelation 5:9) — which means we will never forget that every sight, every sound, every fragrance, every touch, and every taste in the new world was purchased by Christ for his undeserving people. This world — with all its joy — cost him his life (Romans 8:32; 2 Corinthians 1:20).

Every pleasure of every kind will intensify our thankfulness and love for Jesus. The new heavens and the new earth will never diminish but only increase our boast “in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14). We will never forget that the recreated theater of wonders — this incomprehensible interweaving of spiritual and material beauty — has come into being through Christ and for Christ (Colossians 1:16).

God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — will behold the finished work of his providence and rejoice over it with singing (Zephaniah 3:17). The Father will rejoice over the excellence of the Son and his triumphant achievements (Matthew 17:5; Philippians 2:9–11). The Son, the bridegroom, will rejoice over his immaculate bride — the glorified church (Isaiah 62:5). And the joy of the Holy Spirit will fill the saints as the very joy of God in God (1 Thessalonians 1:6).

John Piper’s book Providence releases in March. You can now preorder the title from our friends at Westminster Books for just $19.99. We’re thankful for their partnership and encourage you to order through them as you consider supporting faithful, independent Christian booksellers.

[dipulb3]

Opinion: This town powered America for decades. What do we owe them?

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/opinion-this-town-powered-america-for-decades-what-do-we-owe-them/

Opinion: This town powered America for decades. What do we owe them?

Moving away from coal is essential to fighting back against worsening droughts, storms and sea-level rise around the world. That fight will only get harder if America keeps burning coal.

I drove here in January after Steve Gray, a 56-year-old resident who’s been laid off from both the coal and oil industries in northeastern Wyoming, left Appradab a voicemail after the 2020 presidential election. I’ve been exploring your questions about the climate crisis as part of an ongoing series for Appradab Opinion, and Gray’s message seemed to bring up some of the toughest questions concerning what must be a rapid transition away from fossil fuels.

“Everybody in this town is afraid that it is going to become a ghost town,” he said.

Implicitly, Gray seemed to be asking: What will happen to Gillette — and other fossil fuel towns — as the coal industry recedes and clean-energy goals are realized? And what difference could the Biden administration or Congress make for a dying town built on coal?

Climate advocates tend to lump solutions to all of these issues under an umbrella term: “just transition.” Not like, “just get on with this transition already.” “Just” as in fair.

Gray, the man who called Appradab, doesn’t see anything fair about it.

“People are getting left behind,” he told me.

He and others I met in Gillette want the rest of the country to realize that they’ve worked hard, for decades, to supply the United States with electricity. They didn’t own the companies that got rich off the boom in coal and other fossil fuels — companies that hid research showing the disastrous effects of climate change, or that funded disinformation campaigns.

They were just working.

Working in an industry created by federal policies that failed to price carbon pollution — that encouraged the mining of coal on land owned by the US government.

And now they’re being asked to stop.

Both by markets, which value cheaper energy sources.

And, importantly, by climate advocates like myself, who understand, based on science that’s been amassing for decades, that global warming poses an existential threat to humanity.

What do we owe Gillette and its workers?

Boomtown

There’s an important irony hidden in the story of Gillette.

The US government willed much of this place into existence.

This nudge came in a few forms. One was federal support for domestic energy production in the early 1970s — a time when overseas markets were seen as volatile and problematic.

Another was environmental regulation.

The Clean Air Act of 1970 and its 1990 amendments targeted, among other pollutants, sulfur dioxide, which is a component of smog and acid rain. Powder River Basin coal just so happens to be naturally lower in sulfur than coal found in Appalachia and elsewhere.

Before 1970, there were a few coal mines and oil rigs in the Gillette area, Robert Henning, director of a local history museum, the Campbell County Rockpile Museum, told me. We were standing in front of a wall-sized image of 1920s Gillette, which had the look of a sepia-tone Western outpost — a dusty landscape with wooden fences and magnificent rolling hills on the horizon. Gillette was founded in the late 1800s as a railroad town — named for a surveyor. But after 1970 and the Clean Air Act, Henning told me, the then-localized mining industry exploded.

In 1960, the population of Campbell County, which includes Gillette, was about 5,800.

By 1970, it had more than doubled — to nearly 13,000.

During the boom, the town was so crowded and chaotic that some families lived in tents, said Jim Ford, a Gillette resident who advises local government agencies and non-profits on economic and energy issues. Ford told me that when he was a child, his elementary school adopted a two-shift schedule to accommodate all the students. One group started at 6:00 AM and went until noon. Then the other started, ending at 6:00 p.m.

Steve Gray told me that his family was one of the ones that came to the region to work in the fossil fuel industry in the early 1970s. His dad worked in the oil fields, and so did Gray, at least for a time.

That was when life was good. Work was free-flowing. Wages were high.

The coal in the Powder River Basin sits near the surface and is mined with giant trucks carrying shovels so big you can fit a large family inside. The scale of the operation is difficult to comprehend. “Our largest mine is roughly 90 square miles,” said Shannon Anderson, staff attorney at the Powder River Basin Resource Council, an environmental group.

These mines grew and grew.

But any boomtown worker knows that kind of growth can’t last forever.

‘The economy just collapsed’

The year 2016 — that was the worst of it, according to the mayor.

That was when the “economy just collapsed.”

“The energy industries always have been boom-and-bust, but this was a big one,” said Gillette Mayor Louise Carter-King, who keeps an image of her father, who also was mayor of Gillette, hanging behind her desk. Her roots in the community are deep, and her husband works in coal. From her office window, you can see one of two coal-fired power-plants puffing smoke into the sky. “It was like a perfect storm because oil went down, coal went down, natural gas — everything.” The bust was caused primarily by lower natural gas and renewable energy prices, less demand from coal-fired power plants, which continue to close, and concerns about climate-change regulations, according to economists.

Most of the coal mined near Gillette sits on public land, meaning that the state government collects royalty payments and other taxes on its production. Wyoming doesn’t have a state income tax and its property and sales taxes are notoriously low. Many years, well over half of the state’s tax revenue comes from the coal, oil and gas industries.

After the bust, Carter-King said she knew Gillette would have rethink everything.

Gray told me that his call to Appradab was influenced by how things fell apart with the oil and coal industries shortly before and after 2016, the year US voters elected President Donald Trump — who’d promised to bring back “beautiful, clean coal.” Nearly 90% of Campbell County residents voted for Trump again in 2020. But you won’t find too many people in Gillette who believe Trump kept his promises to coal workers — or that it was even possible to keep them.

Wyoming coal production peaked in 2008 at 468 million short tons, according to the US Energy Information Administration. By 2016, it was 297 million tons, creeping down to 277 million in 2019, nearing the end of Trump’s term. Last year’s figures are not yet available, but the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on demand for energy is known to have contributed to widespread collapse in the energy industry.

Gray says he was laid off from an oil field job in 2015, then subsequently from another job in oil and then one in coal last year. His wife left him shortly after the first layoff, he said.

These days, Gray is working again, driving railroad workers to and from job sites — part of a broader industry that supports the mines and fossil fuels. (Mayor Carter-King estimates most people’s jobs in Gillette are linked to coal and other fossil fuel industries — whether directly or indirectly). But Gray said that he’s eaten through his savings.

My “bank accounts were drained — lost my house, all the repossessions,” he said.

“It was tough.”

He’s living on the razor-thin margins of a bust economy.

‘The coal industry’s on its last leg’

Here’s an inconvenient truth: Towns like Gillette tend to fail.

I asked economists, environmentalists and policy experts. None could provide a sunny case study — the story of a town whose main industry didn’t take the initiative to remake itself.

“There’s not a sterling example,” said Jake Higdon, a senior US climate policy analyst at the Environmental Defense Fund who has contributed to several reports on fossil fuel communities.

Timber towns, auto towns, military town, mining towns — the logical progression is toward “ghost town” status if the town isn’t big enough, or industries aren’t diverse enough.

In even trying to rebuild, then, Gillette aims to do something unprecedented.

That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. “Maybe our chances of remaking our community in a generation — so my kids have something to come back to — are 10%,” said Ford, the county consultant. “But I know if we don’t try, the chances are zero.”

On a recent snowy morning, I dropped by Lula Belle’s Café — “non-smoking as of 4/1/2020” — near the railyard in Gillette. It’s a welcoming, chatty kind of place — fruit pies on display behind the diner counter. I wanted to learn whether people here were in denial about coal’s demise.

“Will the mines bounce back? No,” said Doug Wood, a retired coal miner with a mustache that’s twirls at the tips. “The coal industry’s kind of on its last leg.”

What’s next then?

“I don’t know if you’re familiar with a TV show called ‘The Jetsons?'”

I found that sentiment — the coal part, not the Jetsons — to be a common refrain in Gillette. Frankly, I was stunned by the degree to which the mayor, county development officials and people like Gray accept the unsettling facts of coal’s decline.

Phil Christopherson, CEO of Energy Capital Economic Development, a local non-profit that’s funded by industry as well as city and county government, told me that he hopes children who are growing up in Gillette 50 years from now won’t even know that this was a coal town.

“It’s going to be a tough transition for this community,” Christopherson said, “and we’re doing our best to prepare for that, so we still have a community here in five, 10 or 50 years.”

Carbon Valley

Yet, Gillette remains conflicted.

While claiming it wants something new, local and state leadership continues to push coal products and technologies — many of them expensive and unproven — as the future.

You’ll hear some people calling Gillette “Carbon Valley” — as in the Silicon Valley of coal. Coal research, they say, is what’s next. As are new and supposedly cleaner uses for coal.

One such project, called the Wyoming Integrated Test Center, or ITC, sits at the base of a coal-fired power plant — painted blue and white as if it might blend into the sky.

Jason Begger, the project’s managing director, told me to think of the site as an “RV park” for researchers interested in capturing carbon-dioxide pollution from the power plant and doing something else with it — potentially “sequestering” the gas deep in the rock underfoot.

The idea is that if most of that CO2 pollution is captured and stored away somewhere, coal can keep burning, because it wouldn’t contribute heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere. It’s reasonable to place some hope in the technology given the fact that carbon pollution needs to reach “net zero” by about 2050 in order to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. But carbon-capture and storage has proven to be costly and troublesome compared to alternatives.

Begger told me the world needs to recalibrate its expectations.

“I have a 2-year-old daughter, and it’s kind of like saying, ‘Well, in 20 years, she’ll be in the Olympics,” he said. “We [would] have to see if she can crawl and walk” before signing her up for the Olympics.

The state has been trying coal-spending technology for years, said Anderson, the environmentalist, with little to no results. She says she remains “very skeptical” of it — as do I.

Wyoming, meanwhile, also has some of the nation’s greatest potential for wind energy, according to the American Clean Power Association, an industry group. PacifiCorp, the massive power company that is retiring some of its coal power plants in Wyoming, recently opened a large wind farm — 520 megawatts, enough to power about 150,000 homes, according to Laine Anderson, the company’s director of wind operations — about an hour-and-a-half drive south of Gillette.

Yet, Wyoming is a rare state that also taxes wind power — rather than incentivizing its production as a much-needed clean energy source.

“Wyoming’s leaders have done little to pivot our state’s economy away from this volatile industry,” the Casper Star-Tribune’s editorial board wrote of coal in 2019.

Just transition

Perhaps Gillette is less a place of contradictions than one of surprises.

Steve Gray lives in a small apartment complex near the highway. He answered the door on a recent blizzardy morning wearing a denim, pearl-snap shirt and fuzzy red slippers.

After his layoffs from the oil and coal industries, he lost the house he shared with his ex-wife and son, who is now 25. For a while, he moved back in with his father. But now here’s here, and when he welcomes you in you can feel the pride he takes in the place.

On the living room walls are the portraits he’s taken with his son, an oil field worker in a community south of Gillette, and Steve’s grandchildren. In these photos, Steve wears his trademark cowboy hat, a broomstick mustache and a contented grandfather’s grin.

Nearby, you’ll find the military honors — a Purple Heart and Bronze Star — bestowed on his elder relatives. Gray says he, too, served in the Navy and he values service to country.

It’s hard to talk here about a “just transition” for fossil fuel workers — as if any transition for workers in dying US industries ever has been “just.” Jason Walsh, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, which aims to unite labor and environmental interests around the issue of a transition for dislocated fossil fuel workers, told me there’s no justice in what happened to auto workers or timber workers — or in what’s happening to fossil fuel workers now.

“We are insisting that policy makers pay attention,” Walsh said. “It is not acceptable to leave any workers or any communities behind. We have an obligation to fulfill to workers and communities that have powered this country for generations and have often paid a very stiff price in terms of the health of their environments and their people and their workers.”

I agree with that sentiment. In seeking a transition away from fossil fuels — which, again, is required by science if we want to continue living on a habitable planet — we must learn from the mistakes of the past. That’s the only way America can inch closer toward justice.

Among history’s lessons, according to Walsh: The investments must be bigger than before.

Walsh advised the Obama administration on a grants program — called the POWER+ Plan — that aimed to help diversify the economies of coal towns in the Appalachian Mountains.

That program and others failed to fully address the full needs of these communities, according to policy experts I interviewed. But there’s a consensus emerging on what’s needed now, including: job retraining, community college investments, wage replacement, healthcare extensions, pension extensions — and jobs that help repair land scarred from decades of intensive mining. Advocates are, smartly, in my view, pushing the White House to create an office focused on this economic transition — assisting fossil fuel communities and creating new jobs, according to advocates involved in these efforts.

Colorado recently took a step in this direction by creating an Office of Just Transition. Wyoming and other fossil-fuel states should do the same. And, importantly, it would be wise of the Biden administration to make good on its campaign promises to fight climate change aggressively — getting to “net zero” emissions as soon as possible — while also creating jobs.

Their focus should be on struggling towns like Gillette.

Listening to them — and helping — could be both a political and moral victory.

Wyoming is a state as red as they come.

President Joe Biden and the Democrats who now control Congress could earn respect, if not votes, for telling coal country the truth — that coal must be phased out of the national energy mix, but that workers will not be left behind. That means they should get job training, health care, wage replacement and, when possible, jobs in the new industries that are popping up to replace fossil fuels. This suite of policy solutions is complex, but they must be taken seriously, and the discussion must forward the voices of fossil-fuel workers. Workers need to know that climate advocates respect and support them before we can move forward.

This requires risk.

It requires trust.

That’s something Gray showed when he reached across cultural lines to call Appradab.

“I figured, well, yeah, I’m going to call. I’ll never get any return, but it’ll make me feel better, you know?” Gray said. “I just — I’m kind of glad that you guys did contact me.”

The Biden administration should answer the call, too.

[jonboudposts]

A Christmas Carol in a Time of Moral Bankruptcy

2018 marked the 175th year since the publication of A Christmas Carol. 2019 sees among other things a new BBC television adaptation and stage version at The Old Vic. Even if you have never read the book, chances are you are familiar with Charles Dickens’ story, or at least parts of it. The storytelling and the moral core are woven into the culture in Britain and America; the story of a man who lives to make money and dominate others finding out, during the course of one Christmas Eve, that his eternal soul will be damned if he does not changed his ways.

There are literally more versions than I can (be bothered) to count. From TV adaptations to classic films to stage productions to school plays; modern-day updates and cartoons; Alistair Sim, Albert Finney, Jim Carrey, Patrick Stewart and Scrooge McDuck have all played Ebenezer Scrooge.

But the reason I am writing this is to discuss the love and hate that this story brings out in me every year; there is nothing I am saying that as not been said before. Yet I feel compelled to say it still.

The story itself is easy to admire, built like so many stories by great writers on simple yet deep story-telling traits and character arcs. It is inventive, with the use of fantasy to push real life struggles into sharper contrast, promoting sympathy; empathy and sadness.

We have our favourite versions; I love the Muppets with Michael Cane giving genuinely I think one of his best performances (singing aside) and the TV version with Patrick Stewart; an underrated one that dials down the schmaltz and shows the hardness of poverty, with a tough performance by Stewart to match. His is a genuine transformation from vicious capitalist to caring human and a very physical one; as he goes from looking like a piece of flint to slowly softening his features as he grows into a better man.

Such performances are celebrated and cherished, making many of those lazy pointless lists every year of favourite past cultural thing you relive because we are incapable of making anything new.

But all of this is perhaps part of the problem I have with the story too. The way we can watch, cry even, at how someone can change their ways and then fail to do anything ourselves for the very people that Dickens wishes us to care about. The story was inspired when Dickens read an 1843 report describing terrible living and working conditions in the Industrial Revolution in Britain. He could read the same thing today and find a callous population sifting through piles of shit to find the pile that does not smell as bad, so they feel superior to each other.

In this world, we can clearly see real Scrooges, except unlike their fictional counterparts, they never learn nor change. They do not need to. Our society and the way culture is organised worships the rich and punish the poor for their perceived failure.

The rich are in fact totally cut off from humanity.

So why should these greedy bastards change? We are never going to make them. The real Scrooges utterly destroy our lives all year long; then expect every Christmas to put that aside and wish each other meaningless platitudes of good will.

The biggest enemy in the story is the carelessness fundamental to ignorance and the damaging power of want. It makes the most vulnerable what they are; victims.

While I do not think the original story of A Christmas Carol is meaningless sentimentality, I think too many experience it exactly that way; feeling elated at the goodwill at Christmastime vibe and stepping over the people in the street on your way out the theatre or cinema. In London for instance, you could attend a performance at a theatre like the King’s Head (formally in Islington) and step out to a modern London as lacking in human warmth as Dickens dreamt of. Up the road is the Union Chapel church, who run a winter shelter, providing food and shelter for those in need. Every year the church has a screening of that other hope-filled story for the season, It’s a Wonderful Life.

Modern Britain still likes to present A Christmas Carol every year despite it teaching us less and less and the years roll by. The world this story is now told in looks like this:

One and a half million people use foodbanks each year

More foodbanks across Britain than MacDonalds

1-in-3 children in poverty; that is 14 million Britons living in relative poverty

Growing benefit claimants in work

Reduction in life expectancy for the poorest

120,000 deaths of people thrown off benefits, including the disabled

The richest 1000 families resident in Britain, which includes bankers and financiers, have doubled their net worth during the austerity era.

Non-British children being charged for citizenship (since defeated in the court, no thanks to the British people).

To top it all, this information being widely known before the 2019 General Election and still the population gave the Conservatives a majority despite them causing all this misery.

Councils in some parts of the UK have embarked on clean up (or you might argue cleansing) campaigns targeting the homelessness in town centres with Public Space Protection Orders (PSPO); homeless people are routinely fined hundreds of pounds and in some cases sent to prison for the ‘repeat offence’ of asking for money. Local authorities in England and Wales have issued hundreds of fixed-penalty notices and pursued criminal convictions for “begging”, “persistent and aggressive begging” and “loitering” since gaining strengthened powers to combat antisocial behaviour in 2014, by Theresa May when she was Home Secretary. Rough sleepers are harassed and landlords (as Mr Scrooge was) have gained far greater powers to evict tenants sooner and with less reason.

Charities and solidarity organisations give the option to buy a coat or hat or gloves for a refugee or homeless person; they however are in no doubt this is a sticking plaster; the purchasers I am not so sure about. It reminds me of something Naomi Klein said about the present order insisting on finding some way to buy our way out of the problem; be it poverty or climate change or a bunch of other shit.

The party that our present Prime Minister leads contains MPs who openly admire the Victorian era and all the social wankery of top-hatted toffs passing the peasantry in the streets. Plus we have sociopathic self-haters like Priti Patel hovering over the Human Rights Act with a metaphorical knife.

Refugees are another group not afforded decency; we deny people their rights, violate those we pretend to give them; punish them for the crime of crossing a boarder and even threaten communities that protect them. The Conservative Party manifesto for 2019 targeted traveller communities with attacks on their rights, including increased powers to take their property.

A child will become homeless 'every eight minutes' in the UK (Shelter, Dec 2019) or suffer insecure accommodation; meanwhile schools have an average of five homeless children.

Ignorance for sure; want for the same people as ever; dire need for change not answered.

Our societies do not embrace those less fortunate than us; we blame them for their own predicament and indulge in poor hate. There seems no bracket of people we can rely on, as even children's writers like JH Rowling indulge in one of modern society's most vile vices, trans-hate.

The empathetic are a dying breed.

Around Christmas people will often give more to charity, commonly Crisis as they run their huge shelters over the festive period in various cities to feed and shelter the increasing numbers of homeless people across Britain. Keeping up with the state of poverty in general and homelessness in particular is no easy task. One reason is we forget about the needs of people the rest of the year and only the magic of Christmas makes them give a shit for a week. This is just liberal conscience-wash if you do not back it up with demands for change in the system, which the British public have just shown they are unwilling to do.

Yet the system – capitalism in the only form it really exists – is embodied by Ebenezer Scrooge. The end of the story is pretty clear; Scrooge stops being cold and heartless; he will no longer allow the market to run without interference. He rejects capitalism for something wholly more humane.

Much of the problem in A Christmas Carol, like It’s a Wonderful Life later on, is the dehumanising effects of capitalism. The individual change required in Ebenezer Scrooge is a rejection of his hardcore individualism and embracing the needs of others, to the point of saving the life of Tiny Tim; his banker counterpart Mr Potter must be defeated by George Bailey and his supporters (although like in the real world, Potter is never jailed). At the beginning of A Christmas Carol, Scrooge is a miserable man beset by loneliness and isolation. His nephew refuses to give up on him though, always inviting him from Christmas in his warm, happy home despite constant rejection by his uncle.

The rampant free market gave us Ebenezer Scrooge as an everyday occurrence, year round with no ghosts to haunt them into decency. In the real world, Ebenezer Scrooge does not change his character no matter what happens. He is Philip Green, who dodges taxes, sells off a business knowing it will collapse soon, tries to abandon paying staff their pensions and pours scorn on the elected officials trying to hold him to account for the way they look at him. Green in particular managed the near-impossible in 2018 of seeming even more repulsive, with revelations of abuse accusations from many former BHS staff; from bulling to sexual harassment along with homophobia and a general staggering lack of respect for his staff. He is scum and will never reform.

In the 1980s we had Scrooged, a non-traditional adaptation starring Bill Murray as Frank Cross, a ruthless TV executive whose every cruelty was rather too enjoyable, along with his abusive Ghost of Christmas Present giving him much-needed kicking.

At the end of the film, Cross invades the set of the live adaptation of A Christmas Carol that his over-worked staff are producing, proclaiming that the meaning or power of Christmas is how for one night a year ‘we become the people we always hoped we would be’; that is, we smile more and are nicer to each other. This sums up the 1980s very well and why progressive and socially just forces lost that particular war so badly. This piss-weak response to be a little nicer to each other is why people die in the street. The film is also an example of the age; doing all this good for one night a year (how 1980s).

In Michael Moore’s first film Roger and Me, we witness the General Motors chairman of the title Roger Smith at the GM Christmas party, giving a speech that includes extracts from A Christmas Carol. This is inter-cut with footage from Flint Michigan, the town devastated by GM when they outsourced their workforce to cheaper parts of the world. While this pompous twit quotes Dickens and the wonder of Christmas, a mother and her children are evicted. That scene says more about our culture than any other I can think of in any film.

It is well told but worth remembering that in 2008, when the perfect economic system crashed, the people were responsible were bailed out and did it all over again, with the consequences being completely directed toward the least responsible yet again. The horror this unleashed has never relented.

From a consumer perspective, Christmas never ends. As a postman, I deliver to people massive amounts every day and it is never enough. They answer the door, perfectly politely, take the packet(s) and discard them as they sign and/or shut the door. These wonderful items are given that much thought; just the latest play thing or dress up. Literally discarded before opening because this in one of many deliveries probably that day. I am nothing to them; just a cypher to bring their life a meaning it never gains; I used to like being part of a public service, keeping people connected and possibly educated; now I just feed an addiction. This hyper-consumption will bring the system down again and whose fault will it be this time?

A Christmas Carol’s message is one that every Christmas we seem to get further away from. It is used to stroke the egos of the guilty and make them think nothing else needs to be done. Just be a bit nicer to the people you ignore the rest of the year, maybe even slip them a fiver (although not your postman or other service provider anymore it seems). You do not challenge poverty and homelessness by simply not liking it or giving a bit of pocket change, just like you cannot challenge racism and sexism simply by existing in a certain position socially or economically. However you feel, someone is still sleeping on the concrete tonight.

A Christmas Carol is less a morality tale and more a fantasy; but for the consumer not the writer. In the Britain of 2019, we have no moral right to tell this story. No version should be staged; no adaptation on TV; no school play. It should not entertain, nor pander to the desires of selfish consumer-obsessed grown-babies to make them feel a little better. This country has just voted to make the poor suffer more; to keep the status of 1-in-3 children suffering poverty – which will grow – and destroy the National Health Service. Tiny Tim is just a failure and when he dies, we just move on.

You have no right to a Merry Christmas, nor to discuss god as anything other than a punchline. The fix is in and no one cares. Misery for all is the name of the game today and if you want better, you are a fantasist.

Britain is a horrible little shithole of a country. Mean and worthless, in love with a horrific dream of decrepit empire in a world becoming dangerously hot.

Merry Christmas? Fuck you and your family.

[everythingbychoice]

Manga are comics from Japan with their own unique aesthetic, such as large and expressive character eyes.[1] If you want to make your own manga and maybe be a professional mangaka, the start can be a bit daunting. But don't be discouraged—with a bit of planning you can create your own unique storyline with all of your own cool characters!

[Edit]Steps

[Edit]Creating Your Characters and Settings

Create your character profiles. Start by writing down some of the character's personality characteristics and physical attributes and then draw from there. Ask yourself questions like: does your character have powers? Friends, Relatives? Siblings? Are they a main character or side character.[2]

Use your favorite manga characters for inspiration.

If you have a visual character idea, start with that and then move on to writing the character's personality traits next to it.

Draw your characters. Create a basic face shape to start and then start drawing the ears, eyes, nose, and mouth. Remember that manga characters have very expressive eyes—experiment with their size and shape.[3]

Be sure to give eyes light reflections in the form of 2 ovals: a small one near the top of the eye covering primarily the iris and a bit of the pupil, and another smaller oval on the other side of the eye covering the spot where the iris touches the white part of the eye.[4]

Try giving males a smaller iris, which typically creates a more masculine look.[5]

Choose a setting for your story. If you're having trouble, start drawing a map of the world you want to create. For example, if you're creating a post-apocalyptic shonen, start writing down some town locations. Afterward, mark off some forests, mountains, and other locations where you can place some fight scenes.[6]

Always consider your genre before creating your setting. Look at other similar manga and see what kinds of settings are commonly used.

Consider your characters as you create your world. For example, ask yourself where each character currently resides and where they were born.

Flesh out a story outline. Create a storyline that accommodates your characters. Change your characters' goals, personalities, and motivations as you flesh out the story. Start with your setting and genre and then get specific. Decide who the important characters are, the main plot, and how it relates to your setting. Determine the main conflicts, mysteries, challenges, and twists.[7]

Don't be afraid the change story points and characters as the story develops.

Break your storyline into manga volumes. Each manga chapter is about 19 pages, although the introduction chapter is usually 15. A volume of manga is about 150 pages, which is around 5 chapters. Since there are about 4 pages per scene, that gives you about 5 scenes per chapter.[8]

Start writing down all of your main story events and points and group them into specific scenes. Afterward, group the scenes into chapters, and the chapters into volumes.

[Edit]Deciding on a Theme

Create an action manga if you want to focus on fight scenes. Also known as shonen or shounen—which refers to a boy at high school or elementary age—these comics are best known for brief dialogue, lots of character movement, and plenty of battles. If you prefer to draw more than create a story, start with an action manga.[9] Some of the most well-known action manga are Naruto, Dragonball Z, One Piece, and Sword Art Online.[10]

Narratives in action manga are often told through flashbacks.

Action manga speech is often characterized by intense, fast words such as character names and attack names.

If you're writing a Japanese manga and have a limited understanding of the language, make an action manga.

In recent years, shonen with female protagonists have become more common.

Make a magical girl manga if you want a good-versus-evil story. These are pretty self-explanatory and feature young girls that turn into superheroes—often by means of a magical object—to fight an evil force. Typically, these girls are prepubescent or just entering womanhood. Although they feature fight scenes and lots of action, they also focus strongly on themes of friendship, life lessons, falling in love, and growing up.[11]

Magical girl manga fall into the shojo category, which means they are aimed at a young female audience.

Common magical girl manga are Sailor Moon and Powerpuff Girls Z.

Craft a seinen manga if you prefer a focus on dark, mature stories. Seinen manga are counterparts to shonen and while some share similarities, they focus on darker stories and themes like politics, action, fantasy, science fiction, sports, relationships, and comedy. They are more violent and psychological than typical shonen action manga and sometimes have pornographic content.[12]

Try a seinen if you want your fight scenes mixed with dark storylines and characters.[13]

Common seinen manga are Ghost in the Shell, Tokyo Ghoul, Berserk, Gantz, and 20th Century Boys.

Draw a comedy manga if you want to focus on jokes and real-life settings. Comedy manga are the most verbose and thus require a firm grasp of the language you're writing in. The pacing of speech bubbles are faster, but much more relaxed than action anime due to the focus on conversation rather than short, emotional bursts.[14]

Select the jokes you want to focus on: clean jokes, parody jokes, romance/comedy jokes, and/or dirty jokes.[15]

Comedy manga can take place anywhere you like, but are most often in real-life settings, such as high school. If you'd rather a more magical setting, consider an action manga.

Make a monster battle manga if you like action and animals. The monster battle genre is best known for manga like Pokemon and Digimon. It focuses on training and battling monsters—which often uses everyday animals as the base of their design—within a quest or adventure. Often, the main characters are young boys and the story focuses on their journey to create a strong collection of monsters.[16]

Create a mecha anime if you like action and robots. The word mecha comes from the word mechanical, and these manga focus on pilotable robots. In some cases, they take human shape, but this isn't a given. Some of the most well-known mecha anime are Gundam, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Knights of Sidonia. At the end of the day, you can do lots with this kind of manga—comedy, horror, action—but if it has a setting or plot with pilotable robots at the center, it's considered a mecha.[17]

Consider drawing robots that are made from several smaller robots to make a "super robot."

[Edit]Crafting Your Layouts

Decide on a reading direction. Traditional Japanese manga reads from the top to the bottom, moving vertically from the right to the left. If you want to stick to the roots of manga, use this reading direction. If you don't care, you can do the common English reading direction, which is moving vertically from left to right.[18]

Ask yourself who your audience is. For example, if you're writing your manga in Japanese, consider making your comic read right-to-left.

Whichever reading direction you choose, make sure you stick with it—there's no changing your mind after!

Create 3 speech bubbles per panel and 5 panels per page. Manga is much more fast-paced than traditional Western comics. This means there are more pages with fewer panels and less text. In general, you should have no more than 3 speech bubbles in each panel and an average of 5 panels per page.[19]

In general, stick to about 4 pages per scene.

Always separate panel groups by a space of , which is called the panel gutter.

Be sure that the small panel gutters within each panel grouping don't align with the gutters in other panel groupings.

Use 4 long rectangular panels for short, comedic panels. This is the most simple type of panel layout and is best suited for a specific story or scene that is contained to one page. It works best when trying to create simple humor, although it can be used for any scene that requires a uniform and basic presentation.[20]

When using this layout, use the first panel to set the scene, the second to create the event that creates the climax, the third for the climax, and the fourth as the reaction or conclusion of the scene.

Increase the number and variety of panels for action scenes. Since action scenes have more character movement and changes in direction, you should use an increased number of panels and variation in shape to give them a dynamic feeling. For example, use 3 small panels for a punch: the first showing the character's angry eyes, the second showing his arm pulled back, and the third showing his fist hitting the opponent. You can even make the third panel a zig-zag border to add emphasis.[21]

Replace square and rectangular panels with triangles or unique zig-zagging borders to create a dynamic feeling.

Use smaller panels to focus on the action rather than the setting, which is typically unimportant for these scenes.

Use large, simple square or rectangles for conversation. When an important conversation is taking place, the dialogue boxes are usually more important than the pictures. Use simple, large panels to capture all the words while keeping the reader's focus on the characters.[22]

Make sure the panels are big enough to show character faces and reactions.

Change viewing angles to make the conversation dynamic and keep the reader interested.

Minimize the number of dramatic changes between panels to keep the focus on the words.

Don't use speech bubble tails to indicate the character speaking. Instead, place the bubbles close to the speaker and—if necessary—use slang to make it obvious who is speaking.[23]

Create spiky outlined bubbles for yelled words and hazy bubbles for a character's thoughts.

Draw large spreads for unique images and settings. Any image that spans 2 or more pages is usually used to show a detailed image or setting. Use these scenes to give the reader a broader sense of characters or settings. For example, an action manga that starts off with a fight between 2 characters can begin with a 2-page spread that shows that giant forest or mountain that the characters are battling in.[24]

Use large panels to start your manga or break up a fast-paced fight or small panels. For example, create a large, connected image to shock the reader or contrast a close-quarters fight.

Toy with dynamic panel layouts. Manga is cinematic and isn't limited to traditional panel rows. Try out unique panel layouts that cover the entire width or height of the page. You can also use diagonal lines, hazy outline patterns, or characters that break free from the panel.[25]

Fade your panels in and out for dramatic storytelling.

Read your favorite manga and emulate their dynamic panel layouts.

Use dynamic panels to showcase different viewpoints, bird's-eye viewpoints, and low-to-high panel angles.

Think of each panel as a camera angle.

Create motion in characters and backgrounds. Unlike standard superhero comics – which have fully inked characters—manga use blurring limbs with motion, backgrounds made of speed lines, and emphasis lines originating from the point of impact. All of these techniques can be used to create the feeling of motion.[26]

Use mood backgrounds and visual grammar. Try using abstract backgrounds and visual grammar to match and express the emotions of the characters. For example, if one of the characters in your magical girl manga is having thoughts of her crush, make the background flowers to express budding romance. In terms of visual grammar, you can use drops of sweat to express nervousness.[27]

If you're making a shonen, make the background flames during a powerup or scene where the character is angry.

Create swirling knots and black shadows if your character is in a psychologically dark place.

Use a hash mark on the forehead for someone angry or a group of spirit wisps when a character is sad.

Combine mood backgrounds and visual grammar or use them separately.

[Edit]Video

[Edit]Tips

Don't worry if you fail on the first sketches. Drawing is something that takes time and practice!

Try to publish something in your own country. If you haven't, you will almost certainly be turned down by a Japanese publisher.

Keep drawing and once in a while look back at it to check for mistakes.

You don't need to color your entire manga—only the first few pages. The rest can be black and white.

Go through several designs of your characters and compare them to see which style fits your liking and their personality.

When selecting a storyline, always think of the genres. Do not limit yourself to stereotypes of genres, but be careful when mixing them. Putting aliens pointlessly into a romance story will be a little odd, but as per Kashimashi, if they're necessary to the plot, there's nothing stopping you!

Definitely don't go with the first thing you think of. Put time and work into development. If your work isn't perfect by your standards, then keep working! The talent will eventually come, and you'll be better than ever!

Know the limits. Don't make storylines too long in every chapter, as they tend to be boring (unless you are adding fight scenes in the story). Also, don't put too much dialogue in the story.

Be creative and choose wisely before putting any main and additional characters. Intertwine the plot and characters, but only add extras if it would make no sense for them not to be present.

You will not be able to get a working visa in Japan just by saying you want to be a mangaka. However, if you are between the ages of 18 and 25, you can get a working holiday visa, which allows you to work in Japan for one year. If a publisher wants you, you might be able to organize a proper working visa. If you are too young or too old, you need to establish connections.

[Edit]Warnings

Avoid changing the story once you've started doing the proper images, especially if you are working with an artist.

Be prepared to make very little money. Unless you're publishing on a weekly basis or so, you may only be paid once or twice a year.

Story comes first! A manga that focuses on the art instead of the story is a guaranteed failure.

If your work gets rejected, it's not the end of the world. Ask where you've gone wrong, fix it, and try again.

[Edit]Things You'll Need

Manuscript paper

Eraser

Pencil

Ruler

Computer

Scanner

Picture editing software

[Edit]Related wikiHows

Become a Mangaka

Develop Your Own Manga Style

Draw Manga

Draw Manga Hair

Be a Pro Manga Ka

Panel Manga

[Edit]References

[Edit]Quick Summary

↑ https://www.mit.edu/~rei/Expl.html

↑ https://www.animeoutline.com/steps-to-make-your-own-manga/

↑ https://www.painterartist.com/en/pages/draw-manga/

↑ https://www.animeoutline.com/how-to-draw-anime-eyes/

↑ https://www.animeoutline.com/how-to-draw-male-anime-eyes/

↑ https://www.animeoutline.com/steps-to-make-your-own-manga/

↑ https://www.animeoutline.com/steps-to-make-your-own-manga/

↑ https://www.animeoutline.com/steps-to-make-your-own-manga/

↑ https://kotaku.com/how-to-identify-the-basic-types-of-anime-and-manga-1538285518

↑ https://kotaku.com/how-to-identify-anime-and-manga-genres-1591748882

↑ https://kotaku.com/how-to-identify-anime-and-manga-genres-1591748882

↑ https://kotaku.com/how-to-identify-anime-and-manga-genres-1591748882

↑ https://www.definitions.net/definition/seinen+manga

↑ https://kotaku.com/how-to-identify-anime-and-manga-genres-1591748882

↑ http://www.kyoto-seika.ac.jp/eng/edu/manga/gagmanga/

↑ https://kotaku.com/how-to-identify-anime-and-manga-genres-1591748882

↑ https://kotaku.com/how-to-identify-anime-and-manga-genres-1591748882

↑ https://www.creativebloq.com/how-to/how-to-create-a-manga-comic-strip

↑ https://www.creativebloq.com/how-to/how-to-create-a-manga-comic-strip

↑ https://honeysanime.com/types-of-manga-panels/

↑ https://honeysanime.com/types-of-manga-panels/

↑ https://honeysanime.com/types-of-manga-panels/

↑ https://mangahejp.weebly.com/manga-how-to-read.html

↑ https://honeysanime.com/types-of-manga-panels/

↑ https://www.creativebloq.com/how-to/how-to-create-a-manga-comic-strip

↑ https://www.creativebloq.com/how-to/how-to-create-a-manga-comic-strip

↑ https://www.creativebloq.com/how-to/how-to-create-a-manga-comic-strip/2

[ecotone99]

[SP] The Catalyst, Part 1

Chapter 1: In the Know

The airport is quiet and still in the early mornings. Even the various stores that line the halls and the regularly placed coffee depots are shuttered, not yet brought to life by the people who work in them. On the surface, Shawn Keene is your typical traveling businessman: crisply ironed suit, designer shoes, and a small wheeled suitcase rolling in his wake like a second shadow. There’s some curl in his dark brown hair that he sternly keeps in line with the hair products recommended to him by his stylist. His eyes are a little less ordinary. Not quite brown and not quite green, with the occasional highlight of blue that can be accentuated by wearing the right colors or standing in the right lighting.

Shawn prefers to hide his eyes behind a pair of designer sunglasses, always close to hand in his suit jacket’s breast pocket, but there’s not enough light in the airport to put them on. It’s easier to people watch when his targets can’t tell where his gaze is lingering.

His measured pace takes him swiftly through the yawningly empty O’Hare airport, passing only a small handful of other people on his way to his terminal. Early or late flights are the price he pays when he decides to fly out of the busy airport, but he’s used to burning the candle at both ends.

The terminal he arrives at is familiar in its smallness, sequestered at the end of an endlessly long hall almost as an afterthought. Private jets don’t need the space that commercial airlines do for their customers, and this morning his flight will only be taking him and a few other colleagues out of the Windy City.

Checking in is a breeze, and the flight attendant allows him to board his company’s jet immediately. The perks of being the son of the owner of a big corporation like Keene, Inc are endless. Shawn chooses his customary spot near the back of the jet, surrenders his rolling suitcase to the flight attendant’s expertise, and finally puts on his sunglasses. If his colleagues can’t meet his eyes, they’ll be less likely to approach him.

Once settled, it’s easier to focus on the background noises that too often go unnoticed by the masses. He doesn’t need to see the flight attendant’s lingering glances to know that she finds him attractive; he can Hear the murmuring of her surface thoughts and the harmless fantasies she paints around him. Shawn is careful not to encourage her, but he isn’t unfriendly when he orders his customary cappuccino.

Nevertheless, she gets the unspoken message, and she’s all business when she returns with the steaming cup of milk and coffee. After that, his colleagues begin to file into the jet, and that offers another distraction for both of them. John Norwood has never been a morning person, and the sleepy pattern of his thoughts threaten to dredge a yawn out of Shawn. He steels himself against the impulse by imagining a glass wall between them: allowing him to get a sense for what John is thinking on the surface without being touched by them.

The thoughts and feelings coming from a well-informed mind are always stronger than those coming from people who aren’t “in the know.”

Shawn takes a cursory glimpse into the surfaces of the pilot and co-pilot’s minds, ensconced in the cockpit, and finds what he’s expecting to see: sternly structured and well ordered thoughts, hyper focused on their charts and machinery while they’re reviewing the flight plan (yet again). His mouth quirks into a ghost of a smile. The co-pilot isn’t as disciplined as her superior, and he can tell that she’s exasperated by the repetition. Under the surface structure of her thoughts, stray impressions are lurking: (treating me like a child), (I’ve already done those calculations!), (would he be this condescending if I was a man?), etc.

Satisfied that he’s in capable hands, Shawn withdraws his attention. He’s well aware that the pilot knew he was Looking in, but there are nuances to their Craft that the co-pilot hasn’t been taught yet. If she wants to stay in the business – and he can tell that she does – she’ll learn to recognize the subtle mental pressure that signifies another sentient presence is Listening.

Some of his colleagues direct polite greetings to him mind-to-mind as they’re getting settled in their seats, but none of them dare approach without an invitation. Shawn values his privacy, and he only allows those who respect that to travel with him.

Finally, with the last passenger onboard and the final greetings exchanged mind-to-mind, Shawn is free to focus on other things. He relaxes in his seat, far more comfortable than anything offered even in the first class of commercial airlines, and draws up the familiar picture of his soul’s Home: a Craftsman style brick mansion, accentuated with warm wood and sharply pointed dark roofs.

Once he has his mental bearings, he reaches for the neighborhoods of minds anchored near his; moving away from the behemoth structures of his family and peers, toward the unique twists and turns of less aware minds that dwell under the shadow of his influence. The lives of countless people and their families are kept within these mental neighborhoods, mentally close regardless of their physical distance.

The predictable patterns of their lives – work, school, family – help add shape and power to the varied Workings of his Craft. They live unaware so he and people like him may Live. Shawn is a meticulous caretaker, yet the price of living at the top of society is the attention of his peers. A Rexes’ Builder has anchored a chaos storm over a portion of one of his farther neighborhoods, causing chaotic mental energies that might introduce Unacceptable Change. He calls up a stern mental wind to blow the storm out of range, chasing the darkly grumbling clouds away from his and his family’s neighborhoods; into the Rexes’ territory, where it belongs.

There’s a flicker of awareness in the mental currents when he anchors the storm over a neighborhood of trailer parks, grimy with despair, but he ignores it. They invited his interference by meddling in the first place. Shawn leaves his calling card inscribed over the storm – a straight line with two V’s on both sides, one set pointing up and the other set pointing down, to form a double sided K – so there will be no mistaking who has been there. He can sense some potential in this neighborhood, and if left to storm itself out perhaps the chaotic energies will bring positive change for some of the people living there.

Shawn is very good at identifying the minds that can balance the various flavors of chaos. Sometimes, lesser Builders like those in the Rexes leave storms in his neighborhoods to attract his attention; so he can place the storm where it will do the most amount of good in their neighborhoods. Not every mindbuilder is equal in that regard.

Having finished his Housekeeping, Shawn shifts his focus elsewhere. In the physical world, the private jet begins to move. He can feel it rolling over the tarmac, slowly at first as it taxis to the runway and then steadily increasing in speed. He uses the physical feeling to propel his mental body back Home, rushing through the front entrance and up the grand staircase with reflective haste.

In the physical world, the private jet takes to the sky; its climb for altitude mimicked by his flight up the stairs.

The interior of his Home doesn’t always match the exterior. The hallway connected to the grand staircase, for example, stretches on for eternity: an endless procession of doors, some more elaborate than others, individually highlighted by uniform wall lamps anchored over each of them. Behind each door is a soul, or a facet of a soul, waiting for something. There are various reasons for him to keep a soul in his Home; their place in his neighborhoods might not be finished yet, or they might be waiting for their physical body to be born. Others are allowed to stay because they need more protection than a place in his neighborhoods can provide. Many of them live anchored in the minds of multiple mindbuilders, the differences in mental accommodations adding depth to the life they lead in the physical world. Some of the lamps over the doors are dark, indicating vacancy, but enough are lit to give him an unimpeded view in either direction.

Only one of the doors is lit by a colored light. Noticing it causes a frown to crease over Shawn’s face in the physical world, his eyebrows drawn together and wrinkling his forehead. The lamp doesn’t only show one color, but a rainbow procession: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, interspersed by a gradient of shades in-between. He imagines himself standing before the door, which should be as plain and golden as daylight, and finds yet another surprise waiting for him.

The door has changed itself into boldly dark wood that’s been carved to look like the whorls of a black hole.

‘What have you been up to,’ he says only in the mental realm. Learning not to speak such thoughts out loud is an important facet of every mindbuilder’s education.

Others like him may have reinforced their imagery, but Shawn has tried that with this door before; every time he bleaches her influence out of his Home, he returns to find yet another aspect of it changed. Once, he discovered a carpet in that same gradient rainbow stretching endlessly down the hall in either direction. Another time, there were people shaped trees growing out of little pots left outside some of the doors with only their leaves shading their modesty. Uncanny, how the trees had resembled the physical bodies of the souls kept behind each door.

Perhaps if he indulges her with the black hole door and the rainbow light, she’ll leave the rest of his hallway alone.

His sigh is as physical as it is mental when he pushes her door open without so much as a knock, but it’s put upon. Shawn enjoys a challenge, and he’s looking forward to seeing what she has done to the room despite the myriad of impediments he and his peers have placed on her.

Inside the room is a garden. A circular fountain lay at its center, filling the room with an endless watery murmur. Wall climbers have taken over in every direction, spewing leaves and flowers that change color and shape on the same vine all over the walls. Weeping trees bow under the heavy burden of their boughs and leaves, lining a walkway that twists and turns with smooth, flat stones spaced at regular intervals to mark the path.

Shawn finds her standing on one of the stones, poised to jump from one to the next like a child’s game of Don’t Touch the Lava. She is talking to somebody who isn’t there, but he can feel his sullen influence everywhere: the shielding darkness to her ever shifting light.

You’re doing it wrong. She shouldn’t be able to speak. The padlock that’s become her mouth is supposed to scramble her mental projections, or at least keep them locked inside her own mental space, but she’s sprung an ever-present leak. Her lips on either side of the lock aren’t moving.

Shawn waits just inside the door, carefully pulling it shut behind him, but he doesn’t Hear the answer of whoever she’s been talking to. She turns in his direction once the door is closed. As always, he has to fight back a rush of dismay whenever he Sees her.

The impediments on her soul are numerous. Along with her padlocked mouth, there’s a shining blindfold covering her eyes and big, clumsy mittens on her hands. The shackles and chains binding her ankles seem a little much, yet there’s something about the expression on her face that implies good humor. He gets the sense that she’s laughing, but Shawn can’t tell whether it’s at him or at the mysterious Presence that never leaves her side.

‘Who is doing it wrong?’ He is careful to keep his mental Voice free of all feeling except curiosity. She will wilt when faced with criticism or accusation, and that always makes her Presence in his Home less: a retreat into another space he and his peers cannot reach her in.

Her answer is to lift her mittened hands, palm side up, that seems to him to be as much of a shrug as it is an invitation: Your guess is as good as mine, she Says without saying. With her focus on him, Shawn feels that mysterious Presence withdraw; ever present in the shadows, yet less definable now that he is there.

‘You changed the door,’ he observes.

Not I, she replies: the picture of suspect innocence.

‘Who, then?’

Again, she answers with that hand raising shrug. Trying to get her to speak about her mysterious friend is like trying to light a bonfire during a thunderstorm. Maddening and fruitless.

Are you here to Build some more? When he first invited her to stay in one of his rooms, she had asked that question with bright enthusiasm; with not quite a child’s excited curiosity. But she has been here – and simultaneously in rooms like his all over the mental sphere – for close to eight months, now, and she has already become world weary.

A soul like hers was not made to be confined like this. Sometimes, in working with her, Shawn wonders if any soul was made to be confined like this: planted and pruned like a bonsai tree instead of being allowed to reach magnificence on its own.

‘If I let you keep the door and the light as they are, will you leave the rest of my hall alone?’

She takes a small step back, careful not to let so much as a heel leave the circle of stone she’s standing on. I can’t promise that, she says after a moment spent Listening – though to whom, Shawn can never tell. Change is the only constant here.

The men and women who make up the Freethinkers’ Society love a good riddle, and even more than that they love a mean joke, but it’s harder to enjoy when it’s at his expense. Nevertheless, he dips his head with acknowledgment more than acceptance. Others like him probably would have wiped her version of a door and light simply for her refusal to strike a deal, but he decides to leave them alone. Letting her dictate her surroundings will tell him more about her and her mysterious companion, and Shawn has always been the curious type.

Did you come here to Build? She asks again.

Shawn sighs, this time purely in the mental realm. ‘I have the time,’ he admits.

May I watch? He’d like to invite her to help – he has no doubt watching her Work would be illuminating – but the mittens on her hands prevent her from grasping things.

He nods instead. The blindfold doesn’t seem to get in the way of her Seeing in the mental realm, another anomaly, but she will be as blind as an ordinary human once born to the physical world. ‘Where did you put my Workspace?’

Follow me. Her answer seems anticipatory, like a younger sibling about to make harmless mischief.

She leads the way down the tree lined path, leaping from stone to stone while he walks calmly behind, to a quiet alcove built within a bristling half-circle of untrimmed lilac bushes in full bloom. They’re growing higher than he is tall, thwarting his view of whatever is beyond them. A lamp shaped like the full moon stands guard over his goldens wood table and the carefully organized tools of his trade: a wooden measuring stick, a compass whose needle spins like a top until it’s aligned with a receptive mind, a gavel shaped hammer and an iron chisel, a plumb line and a plumb rule, a gauge and lever, and a trowel. Stacked carefully next to these tools are his materials: rough stone, cut stone, and stone shaped into a point.

‘What’s this?’ Shawn indicates the glass pitcher of water set off to one side, as if the person leaving it there had been unsure of its welcome.

Her expression becomes as still as a pond on a calm day. An invitation. She hesitates. Your tools do what water does naturally, and humans are bodies of water… We — I thought it might help.

‘Interesting…’ Shawn flashes his eyes across her face, but there’s something in what he can discern of her expression that warns him not to pursue who ‘we’ is. Thinking back to the sullen Presence that’d been playing with her before his arrival, he’s pretty sure he already knows. ‘Okay,’ he agrees. ‘Let’s get to work.’

The flight from Chicago to San Francisco is several hours long, but he barely notices the passing time. He’s too absorbed in his Craft and too off-balance by the illuminating questions she sometimes asks. It turns even the simplest Crafts into a journey built on Why can’t you do it like this and What if you did this instead?

---

Chapter 2: The Catalyst

They called people like her catalysts; capable of telling secrets that those who’d grown up ‘in the know’ would be strangled alive for giving voice or story to. Catalysts lived very different lives from those who used them, drifting in and out of other people’s stories without ever fully taking root anywhere. It took endearing stubbornness to hold onto a catalyst, and that kind of moral fiber was lacking in many of the cookie cutters that the Free Thinkers’ Society made into everything They meddled with. A kind of Midas Touch, except instead of turning everything to gold They made everything the same in some small mockery of what humans think Order is supposed to look like.

It was both her blessing and her curse to go out into the world unaware, a Blinded Fool who walked without knowing where she was going yet never seemed to trip on the obstacles left in her path by the Others. That was how she knew the Free Thinkers: an Other presence rooted in her mind, both familiar and alien, that sometimes Spoke quietly and other times Shouted with whatever tool happened to be at their disposal. She grew used to talking to storms, to walls, to the ever present cats who lived and died in good time under her meandering care. (The presence of cats often symbolize the presence of a catalyst – but then, the presence of cats can symbolize many things…)

She grew used to being alone, for that is another sign of a catalyst. They rarely take root anywhere, and when they go it is either with a bang that swallows the world to make it new again or with a whimper that leaves the world darker, more desolate… A deadly place in which to die.

The first thing most people noticed about her were her brown staring eyes. Nondescript in every way, yet always accompanied by a tilt in the corners of her mouth and subtle furrow of her brow that implied even the most vibrant of colors looked gray to her. She lived in a colorless world not because she was colorblind, but because that which she Saw when she closed her eyes eclipsed all of the tired old things she saw once they were opened. The world itself was a dreary disappointment to her, a dull let down of some high expectation she’d fostered as a child and never fully let go of.

When she walked into a room, she didn’t make it brighter, but darker still, as if all the colors had turned their faces for shame of what was being done with the boring life They led her through. They say you can only reach Heaven by walking through Hell. What They don’t tell you is that for all of its charlatan-esque mannerisms – its exaggerations and braggadocious approach to living – Hell is a very boring place to be. You become numb to everything, especially the unexpected, because nothing is what it claims to be when you see it for the first, second, or even the third time.

(Predictable chaos is the Order-loving Free Thinkers’ idea of hardship and Hell because they have forgotten what hardship and Hell is.)

It rained the day she walked into the bakery for the first time, a sad drizzle as if the world itself was mourning the waste being made of her life. Perhaps that was why the first thing she noticed was the trash can, as nondescript as she’s been made to be. This is trash, some crabby part of her muttered as if talking through only one side of its mouth.

This is life, she answered with the same serenity that she answered everything else with. The rages she sometimes went through were closer to the storms laid upon the land, no more hers than the Earth could claim a hurricane.

The second thing she noticed was the smell. A yawningly yeasty thing that bespoke of the morning baker’s early hours – or late nights, depending on how one looked at Time – and the doughy hustle and bustle that made up the clerks’ mornings, days, and nights. Filling orders, greeting customers, setting out frozen breads and coffee cakes on giant towers made up of panels on which laden pans were set to thaw and then rise. Neither a purely physical nor a purely spiritual smell, but both, that twitched not quite pleasantly in her nose and made her hands long for something to hold onto. She had to settle for clutching an already wrinkled, rain splattered piece of paper in her left hand, holding it a little more tightly as if there was some part of her that didn’t entirely want to let it go.

That’s how journeys always started for her: anxiously, as reluctantly as an old boulder is to move even with the proper force hoisted upon it. (Funny, how her journeying rarely took her far beyond her front door. She circled her comfortably familiar home like the planets circled the sun, and even when she went somewhere new it was rarely out of range of her doorstep’s gravitational pull. The farthest she’d ever been was back in her college days, when she’d dared enough to go out of state but could not stay long enough to earn even a two year degree. Such is the life of a catalyst, made up of dull predictability and gray surprises that never seemed to leave the confines of her wild imagination. She laughed at jokes nobody else seemed to hear the punchlines for and had the bad habit of smiling at people in a desperate sort of way; both asking to be seen and begging them to look away, and all the while her eyes stared as if she’d seen it all before and knew exactly what would happen next, if not always the order in which it was supposed to come.)

She smiled at the clerk behind the counter in her usual way and held up the fist she’d made around her sheet of paper. An application for employment. “Can I give this to you?” There was intelligence in her voice, but as tightly wound as a spring. Perhaps that was why conversations had the nasty habit of leaping away from her, as difficult to hold onto as the people she reluctantly engaged in conversation.

She had learned the hard way that people were rarely what she wanted them to be. It seemed safer to keep them safe in the shelter of her imagination, dictating their reactions and feelings and words because nothing hurt when she controlled what happened next. (She’d not yet gotten to the part where she learned that even her imagination had teeth, but it was coming. The bakery was just another signpost waiting to be Seen.)

The clerk took her in with a sweep of the eyes that made her think of a broom brushing dirt out of the long neglected corners of a room. She was, at best, an indifferent cleaner. “Huh?”

The clerk’s confusion made the catalyst nervous. She crinkled the paper in her hand, then released her grip to smooth it out on top of the counter that stood between them. “My application,” she explained. Her voice often became faster and higher pitched when she was explaining something, as rushed as that frantic feeling that coiled readily in her stomach. The impulse of fight or flight, perhaps, thwarted though it always is when caught inside a “civilized” world. “I’m looking for a job,” she went on. “I’ve gotten myself into a situation, and I need money to find my way out.”

There was something about the disdainful way that she said money that made the clerk look at her again, away from the crumpled up mess she had the audacity to call an application.

Mistaking the clerk’s – Lucy, she read on her name tag – eyes for interest, the catalyst hurried on to explain: “I didn’t know how expensive horses would be when I adopted them…” She left the sentence trailing in hopes of a reply, but Lucy’s only answer was to take charge of the application left on her counter. Without anything to hold onto, she resorted to storing her anxious hands inside her pockets. Her right hand found some coins inside its pocket and began to fiddle with them, and the irregular clinking of metal on metal made the busy silence in the bakery seem oppressive and loud.

It was, the catalyst thought while Lucy read her messy handwriting, an old building. The bakery wore its years with the dreary pride of a long and meaningless life, made up of baking breads and pastries for humans who lived as though they were asleep all the time. She felt a whisper of mutiny in its bones, and heard snippets of its murmured memories of regular customers and familiar employees; both past and present, but only those who stayed long enough to make a lasting impression on its architecture. Movement-that-was-not-movement lurked inside the corners of her eyes, prompting her to subtly angle her head to either side so she could get a look over both shoulders. Nothing-that-was-not-nothing was there, wispy impressions of people since past that most of the bakery’s employees and customers were too tired and busy to take notice of.

But the catalyst Saw them.

She was trying to get a feel for where she might fit into the whole when Lucy spoke suddenly enough to startle her into a prey animal’s jump and freeze, though even in her surprise the wide brown eyes she settled on the clerk still saw gray and nothing else.

“No experience?”

“I bake at home,” she supplied after a nervous and scrambling pause. “Cookies, muffins, sometimes bread when I’m in the mood… But not brownies,” she said darkly enough to earn Lucy’s doubtful gaze again, if only for a moment. “They never turn out right.”

“What’d you do before this,” was the patiently impatient reply.

“Odd jobs,” the catalyst answered, deliberately vague. Then, when Lucy’s only answer was expectant silence: “Whatever I can find to pass the time… Gardening, or running errands, sometimes cleaning…” the wryness in her tone gave her away. Only fools expected a Fool to clean and do it well. “Odd jobs,” she supplied at the end, with a quick shrug and another anxious smile.

Something inside of her laughed, mocking her for her apelike submissions. Apes smiled to avoid a fight, which was at its simplest the same thing humans used the expression for. They’re more alike than humans would like to believe, but the catalyst knew in the same tired and gray way that she knew lots of things about the Workings of the world. Her mind was a labyrinth, yet for all of her Blindness and Foolishness it was not her who was trapped inside.

A catalyst is never really lost, not even when they think they are.

“I guess we could give you a try,” Lucy said doubtfully. It was a slow afternoon, and something about the young woman inspired pity in her. Probably the anxious manner she wore about her, Lucy thought, though that wasn’t why she hired her.

The reason for that – the reason for most misfortunes in the catalyst’s life – was the Others. They lived like and not like people, having their own lives on the side of meddling in everyone else’s. Every Free Thinker is a conscious telepath, though not in the way you’ll define the word, and they like nothing more than to watch life unfold from someone else’s eyes. It started out as a learning exercise and turned into a strange kind of mistake, the same way all good tourist traps at first seem like a good idea and then dwindle into something that one simply does to pass the time.

So the catalyst was hired; walking into the bakery as a petitioner and walking out with the foreboding feeling that, though she’d gotten what she’d been asking for it wasn’t going to turn out the way she was imagining.

But then again, nothing ever does. That’s another sign of a catalyst. Expectations fostered were expectations dashed. She’d watched her life smashed like a dropped egg too many times before to be surprised by that.

---

© 2019 and beyond.

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[kansascityhappenings]

Death of 7-year-old on border raises questions

WASHINGTON — Just 7 years old, Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal Maquin was picked up by U.S. authorities with her father and other migrants this month in a remote stretch of New Mexico desert. Some seven hours later, she was put on a bus to the nearest Border Patrol station but soon began vomiting. By the end of the two-hour drive, she had stopped breathing.

Jakelin hadn’t had anything to eat or drink for days, her father later told U.S. officials.

The death of the Guatemalan girl is the latest demonstration of the desperation of a growing number of Central American families and children showing up at the U.S.-Mexico border, often hoping to claim asylum, and it raises new questions about how well authorities are prepared.

Customs and Border Protection said Friday that the girl initially appeared healthy and that an interview raised no signs of trouble. Authorities said her father spoke in Spanish to Border agents and signed a form indicating she was in good health, though a Guatemalan official said late Friday that the family’s native language was a Mayan dialect.

CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said agents “did everything in their power” to save her.

The episode drew immediate questions from members of Congress and others about whether more could have been done. There were only four agents working with a group of 163 migrants, including 50 unaccompanied children, and only one bus to take them to the nearest station 94 miles away. The protocols the agents followed failed to alert them to any signs of distress until it was too late.

“A 7-year-old girl should not be dying of dehydration and shock in Customs and Border Protection custody,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted.

The Rev. John L. McCullough, president of Church World Service, said her death was a result of “the administration’s immoral war on immigrants.” He declared, “People don’t walk thousands of miles unless they are desperate for freedom at the end of their journey.”

The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general opened an investigation, and congressional leaders promised one as well.

The girl and her father, 29-year-old Nery Gilberto Caal Cuz, were arrested with the large group near the Antelope Wells border crossing at about 9:15 p.m. Dec. 6. The rugged, mountainous area is home to ghost towns and abandoned buildings from Old West homesteader days. It’s an unforgiving terrain where Geronimo made his last stand and remains largely isolated with no cell service and few unpaved roads. The sparsely used official port of entry is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The group was held at one of 17 “forward operating bases” in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas — spartan facilities built in recent years to increase official U.S. presence in extremely remote areas. Agents live there on weeklong assignments because driving back and forth every day from their stations would consume enormous amounts of time.

Jakelin and her father were held in the facility with food and water but no medical aid.

CBP officials say the drive from Antelope Wells to the nearest Border Patrol station in Lordsburg can take hours.

With the migrants, the agents went over an intake form that reads: “Receiving screening will be performed by professional or paraprofessional personnel trained to recognize the state of conscious, quality of gross motor function, fever or other signs of illness upon arrival at the facility.”

According to the form, the girl showed no sign of illness. She was not sweating, had no tremors, jaundice or visible trauma and was mentally alert.

“Claims good health,” the form reads. Jakelin’s father appeared to have signed the form, which was obtained by The Associated Press.

The final question is whether she should be in a general population, referred for non-emergency medical care or referred for emergency medical care. The “general population” box is checked.

Arresting such large groups poses logistical problems for agents, who have to wait on transport vans that are equipped with baby seats to take the migrants to processing facilities, some which are far from the border.

There is a single bus that transports migrants to and from this area to the base in Lordsburg, and, following protocol, the other minors filled the first bus while the daughter and her father waited.

It’s not clear whether Jakelin ate or drank anything while in custody.

The father and daughter did not board the bus until 4:30 a.m. She began vomiting at 5. The bus continued — there was no way to receive medical care where they were, officials said — and radioed ahead to have emergency medical technicians available when they arrived in Lordsburg. By the time they arrived, at 6:30, she had stopped breathing.

Emergency crews revived her, and she was airlifted to an El Paso, Texas, hospital, while the father was driven there. The girl died at about 12:30 a.m. Dec. 8. Officials said she had swelling on her brain and liver failure. An autopsy was scheduled to determine the cause of death. The results could take weeks.

CBP said Friday it didn’t immediately publicize the death out of respect for the family but is reviewing its disclosure practices. Commissioner McAleenan didn’t mention the girl’s death when he was questioned by senators this week on border issues.

“The agents involved are deeply affected and empathize with the father over the loss of his daughter,” McAleenan said Friday. “We cannot stress enough the dangers posed by traveling long distances, in crowded transportation, or in the natural elements through remote desert areas without food, water and other supplies.”

White House spokesman Hogan Gidley described Jakelin’s death as “a horrific, tragic situation” and called for “commonsense laws to disincentivize people from coming up from the border,” crossing illegally.

Guatemalan consular officials said they had spoken with the father who was deeply upset. Tekandi Paniagua, the Guatemalan consul in Del Rio, Texas, told Univision said the family’s native language was Ki’che’, a Mayan dialect spoken in the country’s highlands.

The girl’s father is at Annunciation House, an immigrant shelter in El Paso, said director Ruben Garcia. Garcia said the dad isn’t speaking with reporters but now has an attorney. The group planned a press briefing for Saturday but Garcia said the father would not be present.

Arrests in the U.S. have surged since summer, with many prospective migrants coming from the highlands, where Mayan dialects flourish.

In many ways, the group of 163 migrants that included the girl offers a snapshot of how dramatically the border has changed in recent years. In November, there were 51,001 arrests of people entering the country illegally from Mexico — the highest of Donald Trump’s presidency — and more than half were traveling as families or unaccompanied children.

It was unclear if any in the group expressed fear of returning home, but families and children increasingly seek out agents to pursue asylum or other humanitarian protection, avoiding an often life-threatening effort to elude capture in remote areas.

The Trump administration has made curbing illegal immigration a signature issue — and some advocates say its policies are prompting more people to cross in perilous ways. Immigration officials say their system is strained and not equipped to handle such a high volume of families who can’t be easily returned, but there is resistance to suggestions to change facilities to better accommodate families. The government notes there are many other border missions, including trade, commerce and counterterror efforts.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2018/12/15/death-of-7-year-old-on-border-raises-questions/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2018/12/15/death-of-7-year-old-on-border-raises-questions/

[vitalmindandbody]

Blockbusters assemble: can the mega movie live the digital era?

From Star Wars sequels to superhero dealerships, blockbusters still rule the film industry. But with Amazon and Netflix tearing up the freeing planneds, are they on shaky sand?

Is the blockbuster in hassle? On the surface, to hint such a thing might seem as absurd as handing out the wrong envelope at the biggest phenomenon of the movie docket because you were busy tweeting pictures of Emma Stone. This is the blockbuster were talking about. Its Luke Skywalker, Jurassic World, Disney, The Avengers, Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Pixar. Its the Rock piercing his fist through a structure. Its the effects-driven culture juggernaut that powers the entire film industry. Does it look as if its in trouble?

A glance at the balance sheet for its first year to year would cement the view that the blockbuster is in insulting health. Total gross are higher at the present stage than any of the past five years. Logan, the Lego Batman Movie and Kong: Skull Island have all drew in big-hearted gatherings globally. And then theres Beauty and the Beast, a true-blue cultural phenomenon, currently racing its method up the all-time higher-rankings. All this and theres still a new Star Wars instalment, another Spider-Man reboot, Wonder Woman, Justice League, Alien: Covenant, Blade Runner 2049, plus sequels of (* deep breath *) Guardians of the Galaxy, Cars, World War Z, Kingsman, Transformers, Fast and the Furious, Planet of the Apes, Despicable Me, Thor and Pirates of the Caribbean still to come. Hardly the signs of a crisis, it would be fair to say.

Dig a bit deeper though and the foundations that blockbusters are built on start to look precariou. Last-place month, Variety produced a fib that painted a picture of an manufacture scared stiff by its own future, as customer flavors accommodate with changes in technology. Increased pres from Netflix and Amazon, those digital-disruption barbarians, has caused the big studios to consider changing the behavior they exhaust movies. The theatrical space, the 90 -day cushion between a cinemas introduction in cinema and its exhaust on DVD or streaming, is set to be reduced to as little as three weeks in an attempt to bolster dwindle dwelling amusement sales. Its a move that service industries sees as necessary, as younger onlookers develop more adaptable, portable viewing procedures, and certainly numerous smaller productions have begun to liberate their cinemas on-demand on the same day as in cinemas it was one of the reasons that Shia LaBeoufs Man Down grossed a much-mocked 7 in cinema.

Ana De Armas and Ryan Gosling in Blade Runner 2049. Photograph: Allstar/ WARNER BROS.

At the same time, investors from China long thought to be Hollywoods saviour have suddenly chilled the best interest, cancelling major studio slews as the Chinese box office abides growing hurtings( with domestic ticket auctions merely increasing 2.4% in 2016 against a 49% rise the year before)and the governmental forces crackdown on overseas investment starts to burn. Contribute to that a couple of high-profile recent busts Scarlett Johanssons Ghost in the Shell, Matt Damons The Great Wall, the unintentionally creepy Chris Pratt/ Jennifer Lawerence sci-fi Passengers, Jake Gyllenhaals Alien knock-off Life and you have an manufacture thats not as expanding as the blockbuster bluster might suggest.

Hollywoods response to this instability has been to double down, focusing on blockbusters to the exclusion of just about everything else. In the past decade the summer blockbuster season has mission-crept its lane well into spring, a phenomenon that has been period cultural global warming; this year, Logan was liberated a merely three days after the Oscars intent. The ensuing consequence is of a full calendar year of blockbusters, with a small drop-off for Oscars season in January and February and even in that span this year we still visualized the liberations of The Lego Batman Movie, The Great Wall, John Wick 2 and the regrettable Monster Trucks.

Meanwhile, the mid-budget film that hardy perennial that used to help prop up service industries by expenditure relatively little and often deserving plenties( belief Sophies Choice or LA Confidential) has largely been abandoned by the major studios, its potential profit margins seen as insufficiently high when the cost of things such as commerce is factored in. Which isnt to say that mid-budget movies dont prevail, its merely that theyre being make use of smaller, independent studios ensure Arrival and Get Out for recent successful specimen or most commonly as TV series.( Theres that Netflix, disrupting situations again .)

In essence, what this all means for service industries is the fact that it blockbuster or failure. Studios have looked at the altering scenery and decided to react by replenishing it with superheroes, war wizards and CGI mortals, acquiring more blockbusters than they used to, but fewer films in total. The old-fashioned tentpole formula, where a few large-scale films would shelter the mid-range and low-budget nonsense, has significantly been abandoned. The blockbusters are about reducing the films these studios produce down to a minimum, reply Steven Gaydos, vice-president and executive editor at Variety. They clear nothing but large-scale bets. You have to keep improving a bigger and more efficient spaceship.

Its a high-risk strategy and one that, in the form of Disney and their Marvel, Star Wars and Pixar dealerships, has brought big rewards. But this abrupt ratcheting up of the stakes means that the cost of default has already become far more pronounced. Last-place time Viacom was forced to take a $ 115 m( 92 m) writedown on Monster Trucks, while Sony took a writedown of roughly$ 1bn on their entire cinema disagreement after a faltering couple of years.

Hugh Jackman in Logan. Photo: Allstar/ 20 TH CENTURY FOX

While those losses might be explained away as the outcomes of bad stakes on bad films Monster Trucks was infamously based on an idea by an executives five-year-old son they hint at the holocaust who are able to ensue if a broader, industry-wide difficulty were to present itself. Namely, what if the public loses its appetite for the blockbuster?

Its not entirely without instance: in the late 1950 s, as television would be in danger of steal a march on cinema, studios responded by travelling large-scale. Spectacle was seen as the key: westerns, musicals and sword-and-sandal epics predominated. But gatherings soon thrived tired of these hackneyed genres and ticket auctions continued to shrink. That era the industry survived, thanks first to the infusion of vitality provided for under the jumpy, arty New Hollywood films, then later with the early blockbusters such as Jaws and Star Wars.

Could such a mass tuning-out happen again? Surely, theres an spooky resemble in the way that Hollywood has reacted to changing durations with width and spectacle, but also in their narrow focus. Once an sexual thriller such as Fatal Attraction or a musical drama such as Footloose might have reasonably been considered a blockbuster. Nowadays the blockbuster almost exclusively is still in the action, fantasize, boys cinema or superhero genres.

The superhero film including with regard to towers huge over the industry, as every studio tries to replicate the formula set by Marvel. Ever-more niche caped crusaders are being given their own cinemas Batgirl, Aquaman, the Gotham City Sirens in an attempt to unearth a new Deadpool. Spider-Man and Batman have once again been rebooted in an attempt to freshen up the respective franchises. And, of course, everyone wants their own cinematic macrocosm a immense galaxy of characters that together can generate a apparently infinite number of spin-offs, sequels and prequels. At this very minute, the creators of Call of Duty are actively seeking to turn their shocking shoot-em-ups into a series of interlocking films, while James Cameron a director whose preferred approach of cracking a seed is with a sledgehammer, you suspect is creating a universe around his smash-hit Avatar, replete with five sequels, graphic novels, actual fictions and, most bewilderingly, a Cirque du Soleil show.

These shared natures actively tribunal the sort of gatherings who will turn up to every movie, buy the action fleshes, don the cosplay outfits and ingest the branded breakfast cereal in other words, teenage sons. The dominant ideology is fanboy culture, says Gaydos. It is adolescent. It is the conflicts by violence. It is wish-fulfillment, spectacle and diversion phone and delirium, if we are seeking to get Shakespearean.

Truly, the geeks have inherited the earth. But what about the rest of us? How many people have the time, force or inclination to sit through, say, all the cinemas in the forthcoming Universal Monsters shared universe, which begins this year with a reboot of The Mummy and has resuscitations of Wolf Man, Van Helsing and the Invisible Human in pre-production? Greenlighting this serial of movies without be seen whether anyone is going to bother to watch even the first of them looks like a risky struggle, and the most recent plight of the Divergent YA movie franchise, whose recent movie is being exhausted as a Tv movie due to lack of interest, offers up a cautionary tale that studios should perhaps be paying attention to.

Cars 3. Photo: Allstar/ WALT DISNEY PICTURES

But whats impressing about all these blockbusters is how youth-skewed they find themselves, at a time when a one-third of cinemagoers in the US are over the age of 50. Older gatherings can experience The Avengers as much as everyone else, of course, but sloping your sell primarily towards young people is a risky strategy. Young parties tend to be the most fickle audience, one whose attention is split in thousands and thousands of regions, mentions Gaydos. Theyre too the gathering least able to splash out on cinema tickets. And of course theyre an audience who are becoming increasingly accustomed to watching material on their phones, laptops and smart TVs.

In other terms, theyre the ones likely to action through the seismic change service industries is currently fretting over. If they lose interest in the modern blockbuster in the way that younger audiences turned away from the westerns, musicals and historic epics in the 1960 s, the studios will have to find something glistening and brand-new to wave in their faces and this time they wont have something akin to the New Hollywood to court them with, as that kind of transgressive, edgy, groundbreaking fare is increasingly revolving up on the small screen.

Perhaps the best thing the studios can do in the face of this new world is to show some imagery in how they develop and present their blockbusters and there are signs that this is already happening. Producer Stephen Woolley, who has worked on cinemas such as The Crying Game and the forthcoming adjustment of On Chesil Beach, quotes Deadpool as a film that has subtly managed to shift the feeling of the superhero movie. Its taking a much more sophisticated viewpoint of that world-wide and ridiculing it, while at the same reinforcing it. It was a clever have-your-cake-and-eat-it from the people who made it.

Meanwhile, Disneys successful live-action reimaginings of their animated pieces most notably Beauty and the Beast and The Jungle Book suggests that its possible to play the sequels and remakings activity without it seeming like a retread over old floor. Most outstandingly of all, the musical think this is making a comeback with the success of La La Land, that rare mid-budget movie to have spanned over into blockbuster status, grossing more than $400 m at a budget of $37 m.

Woolley is aware of the risks twirling all over the blockbuster, but considered it important that mass extinguishing is still some road away, if it ever comes. The chance you have is that audiences are fickle, and they could abruptly turn off, he says. Something occurs for them to say: Actually, we dont such as those movies any more. And theres always this inkling that it might materialize. But every time it seems to happen on the blockbuster front, another movie comes out to prove you wrong.

Ultimately, though, what might keep the blockbuster safe for the time being is not the films themselves but all the stuff around them. The thing that the studios are doing is something akin to a hypermovie or a supermovie, mentions Gaydos. Its a whole other thing. Its a toy-delivery arrangement. A Cars movie will gross $500 m or $600 m but the Cars commodities will exchange$ 4bn. Ultimately the movie is designed to be a monster sell implement for merchandise and theme parks that produce billions and billions.

As Hollywood agonises over its own future, it might be that the best direction for the blockbuster to survive is to subsume itself into bigger, most secure revenue streams: playthings, recreations, merchandise, live attractions. So if you want to keep the blockbuster around for a while longer, you should get your Superman outfit on and run yourself a container of that branded cereal.

Read more: www.theguardian.com

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