#and so charles has just never contemplated the possibility at all

[oscarlovesthesea]

ok but he was fully flirting here. I think it's so funny that Charles was like "idk if I'm in love with you but we have all eternity to figure it out" and then literally an episode later he was like "welp time to start thinking about this!" and immediately started openly flirting with Edwin. you go bisexual king

[luviemax]

cedar- oneshot

a/n: ANGST!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!! song inspo here!!!!!!!

-> charles leclerc x female!reader, no physical descriptions of reader

warnings: none, probably.... just angst, yay!

word count: 803 words

masterlist

A four year long relationship isn't just something you 'forget'.

Especially not when you had told yourself that he was the love of your life. Your soulmate. Your other half.

However, all things have to come to an end eventually, right?

As of recent, the two of you hadn't been... talking.

Yes, maybe he called you on a daily basis when he was away, but it always felt like there wasn't enough to talk about. He felt distant, like his mind was somewhere else, but so was yours.

Half the time when he was away, you'd spent the time doubting the integrity of your relationship.

At times, it would take him hours to even respond to your texts. Hours which were spent contemplating if he even wanted you.

But you always brushed away those thoughts.

For these past few years, he was something of a lifeline to you.

Throughout everything, he always gave you his undivided support.

He lent you a hearing ear whenever you needed it.

He never failed to give you logical advice.

So why was it that you felt this blooming resentment towards your relationship which was one of the only consistent and good things in your life?

You figure that it'll pass.

You still greet him warmly as ever when he comes home after a long header.

He smiles, kisses you, embraces you, but you can tell something is off. It's apparent to you that something is weighing heavy in his mind.

It's almost as if this unmovable wedge has been placed front and centre in your 'perfect' relationship.

Of course, it's quite impossible to avoid the inevitable.

You know it's coming when he sits you down one afternoon.

"Mon coeur," he beckons you over, sitting on the sofa, "Can you come here? I've been meaning to talk to you." "Yeah?" You settle yourself next to him, making yourself comfortable. "I've been meaning to talk to you," He states, taking a moment to find the words. "I need some time." The both of you say at the same time, and momentarily, you look at each other with a hint of shock. "Okay," he breathes, "I have a double header after this so you can move your things out in the meantime." "Yeah." You agree. "Yeah." He sighs. A tense silence fills the room. "Thank you for everything." You tell him, placing your own hands on top of Charles', folded on his lap. "You too." The two of you embrace, possibly for the last time.

For the first time in three years, you're living alone again.

You decide to leave Monaco, and go to Nice instead, and although they aren't far apart, you just figure that Nice suits your lifestyle much better.

You find a new job doing something that you love.

You move into a beautiful beach house by the shores.

As a teenager, this is all that you could dream of, a life of self sufficiency, independence and solidarity, but as an adult, so much seems missing.

Or more appropriately, someone is missing.

Honestly, in these past few months of being single, you've chosen not to think about him.

He was all that was good in the world. He did you no wrong. He treated you right, and throughout those four years, he was a gentleman, and yet, you chose to leave him.

Yeah, maybe at the end it was mutual, but the thoughts had been simmering for a while.

In a way, you feel guilty, as if you've wronged him.

You miss his dimpled smiles.

His random piano sessions when he couldn't sleep at night.

His hugs.

His voice.

Well, whatever it is.

You just missed him.

But then again, the two of you were still young adults, who were maturing and finding their paths in life, and during those times, it's perfectly acceptable to want to do that in solidarity.

But he felt like a piece of you.

Nevertheless, you decide not to dwell on it. It would only make you feel worse.

It takes you by shock when he calls you, but you still pick up in an instant.

"Hello?" You answer tentatively, in case he had misdialed you, or something of the sort. "Hi." He replies, slightly breathless. "Charles? Are you ok?" You ask, slightly concerned. "Yeah," he replies, "I'm sorry. I just really wanted to hear your voice. "Charles." You sigh. "Yes?" "You know you can talk to me anytime, right?" You ask, a wistful smile on your face. "Yeah." He sighs. "You know that you're still my friend, right?" You question. "Yeah," He replies- was he choking up? "I have to go now. I'm sorry." And with that, he hung up, quite abruptly.

With that, you go home, and stare at the ceiling blankly for hours before being able to fall asleep.

[lxclerc]

𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 | 𝐜𝐥𝟏𝟔

SUMMARY: early morning cuddles with charles REQUESTED: from anon: “sweet morning cuddles with charles after a night celebrating a win 🥺🥺” WARNING: pure fluff PAIRING: charles leclerc x reader WORD COUNT: 601

NOTE: some fluff for charles' birthday!

MASTERLIST

You woke before your alarm clock this time, a miracle you were pleased with considering your tendency to sleep in. Oftentimes, it’s Charles to wake up first, always needing to be somewhere before you can even contemplate the idea of breakfast.

Your boyfriend is still peacefully asleep though, soft snores escaping his lips as his chest rises and falls evenly, his arm casually draped over you. You can’t help but smile, placing your palm against his cheek in order to feel the comfort of his heart, last night’s memories returning to you. 

He smells of champagne mixed with his cologne and you’re sure you smell of him, both of your hairs probably sticky along with your skin that’s still pressed against each other, your clothes thrown somewhere in the room along with the newest trophy added to his collection as the two of you crashed in the hotel room last night, giggly and drunk of each other and unable to keep your lips away from the other. 

You trace the freckles littering his cheeks before your hand slides to his neck, unable to help yourself as you plant a soft kiss against his jaw, watching the way a small lazy smile pulls at his lips, his arms around you tightening as he tries to pull you impossibly close towards him.

“You’re staring, mon amour,” he teases, voice still laced with sleep. 

You grin, hand once again reaching to push his hair back as he fixes the duvet so it’s covering your naked body from the cold air conditioned air. “I can’t help that the view is so beautiful.”

You laugh at the immediate reaction from your words as red spreads across his cheeks at your compliment, giggling as he hides his face against the crook of your neck like a school boy with a crush. You never shy away from calling him pretty or beautiful, always willing to give out a compliment and Charles, for someone who has the entire world wrapped around his finger, can never help the way his cheeks would flush red. 

For a moment, the two of you stay in that position, wrapped around each other’s arms and breathing in each other’s scent as sleepy bodies rise and fall in sync. You love mornings like this with Charles. You love the overwhelming affection in your chest and the way the sun makes his skin look so golden. You love the sound of his raspy voice and the way his hair messily sticks to his forehead. 

“What should we do today, my winner?” You asked against his skin and you immediately felt the way he smiled at the reminder of yesterday’s race. You spent the entire day in the ferrari motorhome at the edge of your seat as you watched Charles desperately defend P1, your heart beating so loudly against your chest as worry and anxiousness find its home in your stomach, but all was worth it when you got to see the smile on his face as he lifts up his trophy, eyes searching the crowd till it met yours. 

Watching the one you love do the thing he loves will never get old. 

“Nothing,” Charles mumbles, his arms tightening around you if that were possible. “Just wanna spend it like this with you. Everyday like this with you.”

You lift your head up a little bit, a smile on your face as you plant a kiss on his forehead. “Alright, baby.” 

Mornings like this makes the distance and everything else worth it. 

taglist: @ricsaigaslec @dragon-of-winterfell @coffeehurricanes @rdtbattinson @privcherry7 @miniminescapist @sebsdaniel @strelcka @writing-about-current-obsessions @amsofftrack @lostinketterdam @bisexual-desi @cialovessirlewis @multilovebot @lovelynikol16 @troybolton-14 @ohthemissery @dr3lover @myescapefromthislife

[ceresfromnationstates]

Character ref sheets: Henry H. Stickmin

A repost.

Henry Harison Stickmin

Nicknames: Hen, Hank, Sticks, Sticky, Sir Harison, HS_1214, Person of Interest #52763

Age: 28 (As of mid 2019.)

Birthplace: Carlsbad, NM

Current Location: Tucson, AZ

Nationality: Scottish-American

Physical description: Normal build, Blue eyes, (White, sunburnt skin), Shaven hair, Two scars on right forearm, Scar near upper abdomen.

Bio: It would seem that he's done with being a petty criminal. For now.

Just a normal dude like everybody else like him in his country.

No traumatic past, just a normal, carefree kid.

His parents divorced in late 2013, but they're still on good terms.

He's a bit Introverted, and as such is usually silent and doesn't feel all that comfortable out in public.

He considers himself an Agnostic.

Sometimes communicates using hand gestures or body language.

Doesn't like speaking in length, but can if he wants to.

Not a person to let bygones be bygones.

This particular Henry hails from a timeline where he hated toppats and other associated organized criminal groups.

Has substantial knowledge of other timelines, even remembers experiencing a temporal phenomenon well before the botched bank robbery attempt.

Frequently has vivid dreams (or nightmares) about bizarre things, and sometimes about things in the past or the other (less fortunate) timelines.

Has a diary to write down whatever happens in a day or what he's just experienced.

Has been keeping diaries well since mid 2016.

Knows about his extraordinary luck.

Doesn't know how many superntural abilities he possesses.

His knowledge about what happened in those timelines has made him pessimistic, a bit depressed, and hate himself for existing.

Has contemplated on the possibility that he might be living in a simulation, but has since dropped such "bogus crackpot conspiracy bullshit".

A light smoker. One pack is enough to last 2 weeks, and he rarely smokes.

His notoriety has died down since the beginning of 2019.

Sometimes asked if he is the real Henry Stickmin by passing pedestrians.

Has accounts on Reddit, Twitter and YouTube, all under the alias HS1214 and Twitter handle TheHenryHStickmin.

Has a close relationship with Ellie through their shared hardships.

He and Ellie bought a home together using both of their Gov't' monetary compensation.

Sold his old home too.

Both have lived normal daily lives, so far.

A novice home cook.

Has a large amount of friends/accomplices/confidants, ranging from high school and university classmates, members of the Goverment/Armed Forces, members of several police departments, and even an ex-CCC contractor, as well as from countries as far and obscure as Honduras, Australia, New Zealand, the Czech Republic, Turkiye, etc.

Knows a lot of languages, most notably Spanish, Scottish Gaelic, French, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, German, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Russian to name a few.

Keeps a roster of his notable confidants/accomplices on paper.

Knows Charles and Dave only to some degree, despite having met them on more than one occasion.

Never ashamed of being a former petty criminal.

Has an H&K USP Compact and an M16A2.

Likes wearing the same set of basic clothing every day (T-shirt, Trousers, Boots)

Recently started wearing boots more often.

Has a taste for clothing, loves thrifting and milsurp gear.

Sometimes, he will wear all black, balaclava included.

Other than his scooter, he also owns a Honda CR-V, which both he and Ellie drive.

Keeps all of his trinkets somwehere in his bedroom, even his Teleporter.

Puts some of his "spoils of war" (a number of various items from previous criminal acts) on display in his parts of house in a show of bravado. Including an empty money bag and the bumper of a police cruiser, license plate included.

Now just trying to live a more righteous life and stay away from crime.

Watched one too much news on TV and is probably plotting something daring against the remnants of what was once the Toppat Clan.

At the same time he only wishes to live a normal life and probably reverse his past mistakes temporally.

Doesn't know whether the CCC is onto him or not.

Backstory

Masterpost | Charles >

[klutzyroses]

Hi bby can i have a request about ike/vamp boys withe a s/o who has an ocean eyes like gojo satoru but her personality is opposite like she's calm/shy/respectful?

Anyway i really like your writing. have a good day/night💞

Gojo has beautiful eyes, doesn't he?👀

IkeVamp HCs: SO with Ocean Eyes

How would react to an s/o eyes like the ocean?

Suitors: Vincent, Theo, Vlad, Charles

Vincent

Vincent was an artist. And as such, he is used to seeing beautiful things, even finding beauty in the dreary.

But Y/n? She was a whole other level of beauty. He felt as though he could dive right into her luminous sparkling blue and sink into its depths. She was so stunning, he could spend hours staring into her eyes, contemplating their color, the different shades, how the sun and moon reflect off them.

He isn't when sure he even has the colors to replicate those marvelous irises in a painting, but he is going to try, trust and believe.

He couldn't get enough of her, especially her timid, soft-hearted nature, made her all the more wondrous. Like the calming sea of her eyes reflected the gentle soul behind them.

Y/N has his whole heart with her beautiful ocean eyes and her tender disposition.

Theo

Not alot of things can take his breath away, especially not women but...Y/N was a different specimen entirely.

From the first time they locked eyes, he fell into the rippling waves, sinking willingly into them, drowning without complaint.

How they sparkle and shimmer like the surface of clear water, just above the shy rosy blush on her cheeks as she diverts her gaze from his.

He often finds himself looking into the eyes of his hondje, uncaring of whether or not she was embarrassed, because she was much too gorgeous to look elsewhere.

He would tell her just how breathtaking she was, just to see those resplendent irises widen and those pretty cheeks gloss over with an embarrassed red.

Vlad

The man has been alive for a very long time. A very long time. And still he has beheld such beautiful eyes.

It's almost fated. He, with eyes so red, the blooming roses are put to shame, while she, his beloved, outshines the blue sky just by blinking alone.

Framed with her long lashes, her glimmering orbs peer up him shyly as she timidly asks him for his attention, making her even more endearing to him, if possible.

He could spend days just thinking about his fair flower with her soft, serene smile as her luminous eyes reflect the sun, sparkling as though stars have appeared in the morning sky.

He finds himself taking her face in his hands, making sure she was focused only on him, smiling tenderly as the shy beauty stared at him in adorable confusion. He just wants to gaze at her all day, letting her brilliant eyes capture him in their lucelence.

Charles

He could not believe how lucky he was. Not only was his lovely girl the cutest he ever seen, but her polite, reserved demeanor made her all the more desirable.

He could simply gush forever about her beauty, how her eyes capture him and he never wants to look away. It gets better when his belle covers her pretty face in embarrassment.

He could almost swear that she could belight an entire room with just a bat of her lashes, they practically glow in the dark really. To him, she is absolutely magical.

He could randomly ask her to look over at him, just so he can see that sparkling blue focus on him, causing him to fall all over again, into the sea of her eyes, and into his love for her, as though it was the first time.

He will press kisses to her cheeks over and over, just to see her flustered face and her soft voice raised a pitch from the embarrassment. He just loves her so, so much, his beautiful blue sky.

🌸

[the-technorats]

"good grief, ferb, i know what we're gonna do today,"

or my thoughts on how phineas and ferb is a timely adaptation of peanuts, and what it means that snoopy is trending again

so i had this thought a while ago and never had the time to elaborate upon it in my head, but Phineas and Ferb is modern day/21st century Peanuts, not only in media and character archetype, but in theme and message.

as for visually/technically, both are obviously 2D illustrations with very brief, episodic stories that are usually stand-alone but occasionally follow a broader arc, which is ofc true of many/most comics/cartoons. they both have pretty stylized character designs and super strong shape language (though in peanuts, the shape language is for the characters overall, while in p&f, the shape language is for the individual characters). anyway these are not very specific to the integrity of the media themselves, just common similarities. onto the real meat and potatoes:

both are media made for younger audiences but still funny for older ones, featuring a gang of kids who get up to shenanigans and are rarely/never in school or subject to their parents' or teachers' wills. the characters mostly function as adults though they are depicted as children, which is extremely important to the content overall. both feature a seemingly average kid (charlie brown/phineas) and another kid with whom he has a fraternal relationship (linus/ferb); they face the world together while their aggressive, violent older sister (lucy/candace) antagonizes them. that sister (lucy/candace) has a crush on a blonde dude who doesn't really give much of a fuck (schroeder/jeremy), so she spends her time talking about personal issues with other people (the psychiatrist is IN/talking to stacy on the phone). they have a dopey-looking, unassuming pet whom they think does nothing but lie around and eat all day but who actually gets up to crime-fighting shenanigans in a world the rest of the characters don't know they're living in (fighting the red baron//o.w.c.a./the agency/"agent p.").

there are obviously some p big differences; p&f has an overarching villain and the stakes are much higher for the kids (getting caught by parents, the law, etc) which ofc stems from the fact that the kids are simply doing larger scale things than playing baseball and chatting existentialism on a brick wall, but that has much to do with the time period; charles schultz drawing peanuts in the 50s and onwards reflects the nihilism of the post-war era, and p&f reflects the y2k end-of-the-world-via-technology sentiment as well as the changes in domestic life/security post-9/11. however, i think the similarity lies in the way that the artists chose to react to the time period and its sociopolitics - with abstract/whimsical absurdist themes told through the lens of children who express their childhood and adulthood in different ways but make similar arguments.

there is also, beyond the characters and logistics, the sweet overarching theme of growing up; charlie brown and the gang are very much adult-minded children who think and say a lot and seldom act like children or experience childhood. rerun, linus and lucy van pelt's little brother who makes more of an appearance in the later Peanuts comics, (and putting aside that utterly devastating name - being a product of the silent generation is a cruel joke) spends most of his time on the back of his mom's bicycle contemplating his own existence. him and the the rest of the peanuts characters being children, however, allows them to largely exist outside of societal norms: lucy does not face the drawbacks of being a woman in the 1950's and instead is a little girl who expresses her feminine rage as a big sister who threatens her brother and his friends, and more often than not, follows through. wonderfully, it is possible for her to be feared by peers, funny to audiences, and respected by both, all while maintaining her femininity. (she is expressly not a tomboy and instead to be considered a lady, ever the contrast to peppermint patty, the obvious tomboy, who is depicted as funny and boyish as a girl without any sexism or toxic masculinity.) moreover, and to return to the general point, none of the children face responsibility - from their parents or from school; even the act of taking of care of a dog, which charlie brown does, is offset by snoopy's own clear independence and autonomy - he could ostensibly live on his own, but it is his choice, because of the companionship, because of home, to stay with charlie brown and the kids.

p&f, though similar in theme, has a much more slapstick approach where, though the kids are subject to their parents' generous, unaware limitations as well as city laws and ordinances, they truly exercise - and push - the extent of their free rein by inexplicably building anything as small as a goofy contraption to anything as large-scale as a roller coaster, all while evading candace's attempts to sabotage their fun by getting the parents involved. candace's continued failure proves the importance of the kids' freedom to the message of the show - while phineas and ferb may be 'getting away with it,' they are supposed to, you are supposed to want them to. just like in peanuts, at no point is one of the themes or morals to abide by rules or even to do the right thing - the apparent time they have to spend and how they choose to spend it is always the priority. lucy will never get in trouble for pulling away the football or decking her brother; phineas and ferb will not face actionable consequences from the city or their parents, especially not because of candace. candace, who, in fact, could be having much more valuable experiences with her friends or her crush were she not so hellbent on "busting" her brothers (and who, also, must be suffering big-time from being the tragic eldest daughter, but that's a different essay).

-

peanuts experiences time in something of a limbo. the children are clearly children, yet are ageless, though some are clearly younger than others. (their vocabularies are far too extensive for being as young as one might assume, and therefore indicate nothing.) school exists in certain strips, but not in others, and the changing of the seasons is apparent though this only serves to change the atmosphere of the kids' given activity and not to depict the passage of time in any meaningful way. time is endless. the characters are jaded, melancholy, existential adults in kid bodies representing the desire for self-awareness within the innocence and freedom of childhood. (and this might be a different essay, but vince guaraldi's jazz being the theme and score of the peanuts animation adaptations of the comics matches the dichotomy of the characters' youth and improvisation with the pensive sophistication of maturity.)

phineas and ferb experiences time in much the opposite manner - unlike the quiet peanuts panels of autumn leaves blowing by, or gracefully gliding over a frozen pond, p&f episodes fly by in a frenzy of creation and destruction - the ambition to do, see, and become everything running rampant over the course of a hundred and four days. however, phineas and ferb may be juxtaposed with charlie brown and linus as they do engage in the world around them; instead of escaping from a cruel world with wars and injustice to a smaller bubble where, with childhood, comes freedom and escape from the adult world, phineas and ferb want to escape the monotony of the smaller bubble where, with childhood, comes the confines of parents and rules and instead bring their childhood to the freedom and autonomy of being an adult.

so what's the point? i'm not exactly sure. (my major is lit analysis and not culture/media analysis, for reasons becoming increasingly unclear.) but with the resurgence of snoopy's popularity and what i think i personally have been witnessing of the youth's disillusionment with the world around them, perhaps the pensive melancholy of a generation being overexposed to death, genocide - violence overall - would be creeping back up over the ambitious enthusiasm and desire that preceded it, since that generation has witnessed and continues to witness the aftermath of an appetite for technology and progression left unchecked and used for personal gain. we've seen people try to phineas-and-ferb a better future, and we've seen that fail so utterly and catastrophically - and fail upward, nonetheless. it makes sense to need to resort back to reminding ourselves of the quiet intimacies. to reconnect with ourselves and think about what it really means to be here, existing, if everything real, in the world around us that we're intentionally shutting out, is miserable and corrupt and lost (and far too fucking expensive to live in).

phineas and ferb gives me hope, though. (one, that disney can write shows that are creative and funny with appropriate and positive messaging for children (and adults!) that actively discourage being a nark.) and for, more importantly, the kids watching, who will hopefully learn that their creative and passion-driven endeavors are important to the world that they are helping to shape, like it or not, and that the empathy and whimsy and desire for goodness (moral goodness, but also creating a quality of life that is good, where creation for the sake of the community is valued over creation for the sake of profit generation, (fucking obviously)) they possess as children need to be a part of their adulthood - and that maybe, the delineation between the two need not exist at all. maybe, that generations prior to ours created adult problems for their own children - that those children as a result did not get to experience their own childhoods, and that in trying to grow up too fast, they couldn't grow up at all - that there should be less of a distinction between childhood and adulthood now than ever before - that we lose the complete honesty and bald-headed truth of being a child when we think we are lost to adulthood - that we need joy and self-awareness and creativity and autonomy and community and best friends and security blankets - and that none of those are exclusive to childhood or adulthood - maybe that is the point.

[tre1awny]

“ what are you doing?” from Charles hehe

he lifts his head.     spread out across the table are playbills. some new, some old, all of them equal in their worth to him. josiah smiles, almost roguish, and picks up a playbill — featuring a renowned singer coming to saint denis all the way from the state of new york by train — for charles to see. ❝ contemplating, my dear man. ❞ contemplating, of course, is a strong word. it’s more like he’s... shuffling thoughts together into a plan, the way one might try to take wet clay and form it into a vase, or perhaps a bowl.

he’s never tried his hand at pottery, although he’s always had some fondness for the arts. the playbill boasts all about how spectacular marie dupont is, how wonderful it is to hear her sing. unique, claims the advertisement, like no other! a must-see if you happen to be in town! josiah’s never seen her perform, before, so he’s inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt and believe it. everyone, after all, is like no other until they very much are. next to the stack of playbills sits a few train tickets that he’d wheedled alden into giving him. not an easy feat, but after the promise of a shared drink and an in-depth discussion on the unionization of train station employees, a topic which josiah knows only a little about but which alden is very knowledgeable on, he’d agreed.

it hadn’t been the worst evening, but it’d been up there. all that to say — josiah stands, and leans in near charles to tap twice on the playbill. ❝ this woman, mademoiselle marie dupont, is a reputable singer from the east coast, or possibly france, and, if the rumors are true, very rich. ❞ charles can probably already see where this is going, josiah assumes.  ❝ in a few days’ time she’ll be passing through the emerald ranch train station on her way to saint denis; when her train is stopped, i’d like to see what i can do to talk her out of some of that money. not all of it, of course. just enough. ❞ marie, as it turns out, is quite ( ! ) the philanthropist, as well as an art collector, and he’s been trying to conjure up some story about his integral role in saint denis’ art society for close to a week.

he believes he has the details worked out, but, unfortunately, the flaws don’t usually expose themselves across a work of art until you’ve pulled the hot clay from the fire. something like that, anyways. again, he’s never actually bothered to try. he doesn’t think he’d be very good at it, truth be told. he looks up at charles, brows raised in amusement :   ❝ you’re more than welcome to come along, if you’d like. you can see me talk my way into trouble and then promptly talk my way out of it. it’s not your traditional stagecoach robbery, but... ❞ he lifts one shoulder, in an attempt at a casual shrug. he’s grateful enough that charles and arthur went out of their way to rescue him, and, in his own way, he’s been aching to pay them back for the kindness. this life doesn’t suit well for bargains, but josiah personally likes to think that’s how he summons up such good luck when he really needs it the most. 

— @diamuerte   /     ask meme.  

[daedalmirage]

bacanno || ch3 trial || banri || re: inkyo, gawain, jesse, benkei

A modicum of relief, generous in a moment like this, is gained from the reassurance Charles gives that Manako is not alright, but alright. Primary concern out and done with, which means that Banri’s left with a contemplative exhale and the grit of the murder in his teeth, each fact uncomfortable and abrasive. No luxury of cowardice when their numbers begin to dwindle like this. The dance must continue no matter who has to be on their feet.

Easy questions are ones like Gawain’s. Banri’s head turns up from his notebook.

“Kei,” is the response to Ban, which apparently means he’s outside the door for a date. “No, not really anything in the search that could be used for transport like that. It’s not exactly easy to carry a dead body anywhere, but. Nina was a ballerina. Strong, definitely, yet, not in a particularly bulky way. Compared to some other people, she wouldn’t pose significantly more trouble to lift.”

“So, uh. If you’re hinting at somebody really strong, you might want to slide your frame of reference to the left, is what I’m saying. Especially since one of the missing clothes we found in the department store seemed to be a men’s medium shirt. Not saying that means it had to be a man, not necessarily, just someone with that figure, moderate muscle. Like, y’know. Putting one of those over a guy as ripped as Kaneto is like trying to fit a Barbie dress over a fire truck.”

That’s his piece about the relative muscularity of a corpse, but something about the rest of the conversation seems to leave him visibly confused with the unspoken assumption everyone else has shook hands on. He doesn’t immediately speak of it, but once there’s a lull, and perhaps because eloquent Jesse next to him is always punctual and never fails to be clear with his theories, there’s an opportunity.

“I agree that two different people moved Manako and moved Nina, but. I don’t agree on their respective roles at all. In fact, uh.”

Banri tugs on the bits of his hair which he’s allowed to grow a bit too long.

“Here, let me explain it this way. We can all agree that there was a thief at the bookstore, intent on stealing the contents of the magazine rack, based on all the prep work for that. We all also agree that the struggle incident at the bookstore was between Nina and the killer, right? Manako was definitely asleep, since no nose is better than Benkei’s, and her drink was definitely spiked. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the thief and the killer were the same person."

"The glass breaks at 7:56 AM, but Nina isn’t dead until 8:12 AM. If the purpose was getting to the magazines, why make the break in attempt at all? You could’ve killed Nina, and then the case would’ve opened to you automatically. Then, why dispose of the information like that? Why is that marker sitting pretty there? Why is the fight so messy? For such a planned break in, none of that makes much sense if you assume that the killer and the thief are the same person. Too much disconnect."

He clicks once with his tongue, his dry mouth thick on it.

“Franz, you said the backpack was bloody, right? Meaning it had to be splattered after the fight. Then there was women’s gloves— and since I know you’re punctual I take that means they weren’t damaged or bloody— and the missing contents from the cabin. From what it sounds like, if that belonged to the thief, at least, at first. That suggests the break-in artist was a woman, but the person who carried the body away wasn't necessarily one. That means either two people in the operation turned to kill Nina after breaking in, the thief executed their plan at the same time the killer did independent of each other, which can’t be true if they were both in the bookstore, or.”

A sudden sheepishness.

“So, uh. Here’s the nasty part, and I don’t exactly. Take pleasure in accusing the dead of something they’re not allowed to defend themselves from, but.”

“Is it not possible that Nina was the one who gave Manako the tea and attempted to get the magazines? I can’t imagine with the glimpse we got that she was. Particularly happy with sharing huge secrets. And, she's one of the only people here who consistently wears gloves like that. I know it's not watertight, but. It’d make a lot more sense with the chaos if someone heard the crash of the magazine case, went up to check, saw someone standing in front of it with a hammer in their hand and Manako missing, and got very, very afraid about what might’ve happened. Tried to contain the thief, perhaps, and then. . . everything spirals out of control.”

Surely imaginative, and with several assumptive leaps. But it’s the theory that makes Banri feel most comfortable with the odd gaps in time and style. 

“The witness then could’ve saw the body be taken away and simply. Not said anything up until now. For fear of their life, for fear of what’d happen to the person if they confessed. Of course, the big question there is: if not the vodka or the hammer, which the thief used, what was the murder weapon? To which I answer: maybe. . . Manako’s bokken?”

To be used to practice, normally. Today, it might've seen real blood.

“It’s blunt enough to cause the bruising you mentioned if you make a hit with the rounded side, which, also might’ve come from the flung erotica, but also sharp enough to cause puncture damage if thrust like a normal sword. After all, for being there while the fight happened, it was oddly clean, wasn’t it? While everything around it was scratched and bloody.”

A lot of sudden right turns from the assumed course, so to protect his own ego, he adds the ever important:

“But, uh. That’s just how I figured it to be. Who knows.”

[wuxiaphoenix]

Graphic Novel Review: Cimarronin

Cimarronin, by Neal Stephenson, Charles C. Mann, and others. 3.5 stars out of 5; I was hoping for a comic that’d draw on the breadth of historical information and pithy observations about historical characters I found in Mann’s 1493. Instead... well, it’s more of a Neal Stephenson story, and I’m just not a fan of his stuff. I spent most of the story along with Kitazume (our samurai protagonist) wondering what the rogue Jesuit Luis is up to, why did you drag me across an entire ocean after a Manchu princess, and just what the heck is going on? We never really get answers to most of that, and it’s highly frustrating.

This story could have really benefited from footnotes. And possibly an afterword summing up the specific state of the world in 1632. And especially from characters taking a moment away from the action to think about or discuss who they are and how they got here. For example, very late in the story an enemy samurai finally drops the clue that several prior events all took place on the Japanese island domain of Satsuma. Now to me, who’s read extensively on Early Modern Japan, and especially what led Satsuma to be a cranky domain to the point of helping kick-start the Meiji Revolution, this made a lot make sense. Of course Spain saw this as a potential weak spot in Japan. And had matters gone differently, they might well have tried for an invasion from Manila. (Japan certainly contemplated invading Manila about that point in time.) But you have to have read a fair amount of different history books to put that together. I wonder how many readers hit that point and only registered yet another foreign name without an explanation.

I may also be a bit cranky that characters identified in the text as Ming... are shown with the Manchu shaved forelock and queue. Guys. Guys. This was a freakin’ political statement of allegiance at this point in the Ming-Manchu conflict, and afterward through the whole Qing Dynasty. Ming warriors would not have cut their hair!

Now onto the comic’s good points. Kitazume is a relatable, and I think likeable character; banished from Japan, trying to find his footing, not even sure he wants to keep going in a world that offers nothing better than bloody mercenary work. Luis is a trickster with a habit of showing up in the nick of time, and has a stubborn comrade-in-arms devotion to Kitazume. And Irgen is an intriguing look at a Manchu princess who wanted more than tradition would give her. On top of that the situation with the cimarrones is a piece of history that deserves to be more widely known.

Some of the action scenes could be less confusing, but it is overall well-drawn and an interesting depiction of what the world might have looked like when people from around the globe traveled to and through Mexico. And I specifically wanted something that’d help me picture characters traveling across to the Pacific to Mexico about this time period (though earlier), so it’s going to be a helpful reference.

All in all, a good story, and worth checking out.

Cimarronin, by Neal Stephenson, Charles C. Mann, and others. 3.5 stars out of 5; I was hoping for a comic that’d draw on the breadth of historical information and pithy observations about historical characters I found in Mann’s 1493. Instead... well, it’s more of a Neal Stephenson story, and I’m just not a fan of his stuff. I spent most of the story along with Kitazume (our samurai protagonist) wondering what the rogue Jesuit Luis is up to, why did you drag me across an entire ocean after a Manchu princess, and just what the heck is going on? We never really get answers to most of that, and it’s highly frustrating.

This story could have really benefited from footnotes. And possibly an afterword summing up the specific state of the world in 1632. And especially from characters taking a moment away from the action to think about or discuss who they are and how they got here. For example, very late in the story an enemy samurai finally drops the clue that several prior events all took place on the Japanese island domain of Satsuma. Now to me, who’s read extensively on Early Modern Japan, and especially what led Satsuma to be a cranky domain to the point of helping kick-start the Meiji Revolution, this made a lot make sense. Of course Spain saw this as a potential weak spot in Japan. And had matters gone differently, they might well have tried for an invasion from Manila. (Japan certainly contemplated invading Manila about that point in time.) But you have to have read a fair amount of different history books to put that together. I wonder how many readers hit that point and only registered yet another foreign name without an explanation.

I may also be a bit cranky that characters identified in the text as Ming... are shown with the Manchu shaved forelock and queue. Guys. Guys. This was a freakin’ political statement of allegiance at this point in the Ming-Manchu conflict, and afterward through the whole Qing Dynasty. Ming warriors would not have cut their hair!

Now onto the comic’s good points. Kitazume is a relatable, and I think likeable character; banished from Japan, trying to find his footing, not even sure he wants to keep going in a world that offers nothing better than bloody mercenary work. Luis is a trickster with a habit of showing up in the nick of time, and has a stubborn comrade-in-arms devotion to Kitazume. And Irgen is an intriguing look at a Manchu princess who wanted more than tradition would give her. On top of that the situation with the cimarrones is a piece of history that deserves to be more widely known.

Some of the action scenes could be less confusing, but it is overall well-drawn and an interesting depiction of what the world might have looked like when people from around the globe traveled to and through Mexico. And I specifically wanted something that’d help me picture characters traveling across to the Pacific to Mexico about this time period (though earlier), so it’s going to be a helpful reference.

All in all, a good story, and worth checking out.

Cimarronin, by Neal Stephenson, Charles C. Mann, and others. 3.5 stars out of 5; I was hoping for a comic that’d draw on the breadth of historical information and pithy observations about historical characters I found in Mann’s 1493. Instead... well, it’s more of a Neal Stephenson story, and I’m just not a fan of his stuff. I spent most of the story along with Kitazume (our samurai protagonist) wondering what the rogue Jesuit Luis is up to, why did you drag me across an entire ocean after a Manchu princess, and just what the heck is going on? We never really get answers to most of that, and it’s highly frustrating.

This story could have really benefited from footnotes. And possibly an afterword summing up the specific state of the world in 1632. And especially from characters taking a moment away from the action to think about or discuss who they are and how they got here. For example, very late in the story an enemy samurai finally drops the clue that several prior events all took place on the Japanese island domain of Satsuma. Now to me, who’s read extensively on Early Modern Japan, and especially what led Satsuma to be a cranky domain to the point of helping kick-start the Meiji Revolution, this made a lot make sense. Of course Spain saw this as a potential weak spot in Japan. And had matters gone differently, they might well have tried for an invasion from Manila. (Japan certainly contemplated invading Manila about that point in time.) But you have to have read a fair amount of different history books to put that together. I wonder how many readers hit that point and only registered yet another foreign name without an explanation.

I may also be a bit cranky that characters identified in the text as Ming... are shown with the Manchu shaved forelock and queue. Guys. Guys. This was a freakin’ political statement of allegiance at this point in the Ming-Manchu conflict, and afterward through the whole Qing Dynasty. Ming warriors would not have cut their hair!

Now onto the comic’s good points. Kitazume is a relatable, and I think likeable character; banished from Japan, trying to find his footing, not even sure he wants to keep going in a world that offers nothing better than bloody mercenary work. Luis is a trickster with a habit of showing up in the nick of time, and has a stubborn comrade-in-arms devotion to Kitazume. And Irgen is an intriguing look at a Manchu princess who wanted more than tradition would give her. On top of that the situation with the cimarrones is a piece of history that deserves to be more widely known.

Some of the action scenes could be less confusing, but it is overall well-drawn and an interesting depiction of what the world might have looked like when people from around the globe traveled to and through Mexico. And I specifically wanted something that’d help me picture characters traveling across to the Pacific to Mexico about this time period (though earlier), so it’s going to be a helpful reference.

All in all, a good story, and worth checking out.

[cassandraclare]

The Whispering Room: James’ POV

Here it is finally — James’ POV of the Whispering Room scene from Chain of Gold. I wanted to wait until Chain of Iron was released to give more people a chance to read the book, and also because what we learn in COI does inform the scene. I hope you enjoy!

*art by Cassandra Jean

Cortana wove with her words, underlining each one with steel. She turned as her sword turned, and her body curved and moved like water or fire, like a river under an infinity of stars. It was beautiful—she was beautiful, but it was not a distant beauty. It was a beauty that lived and breathed and reached out with its hands to crush James’s chest and make him breathless. — Chain of Gold

James had felt a strange emotion when Daisy first took the stage at the Hell Ruelle. It was a mix of several feelings...

worry on her behalf, annoyance at Kellington, curiosity, and admiration for her bravery and poise. It was unfair of these Bohemians to force her to caper for them, and, he thought, a bit insulting to Shadowhunters in general. He supposed that Matthew had given them a rather unusual view of what the Nephilim were like in such circumstances.

And then she had begun to dance. And suddenly she was not Daisy, his old friend. She was Cordelia, whose name meant heart, whose every gesture was fire. Every earthly worry he’d had had been swept out of his mind. He was conscious only of Cordelia, whirling back and forth across the small stage. Cortana danced around her, shedding light like embers. The dull glow of the lamps illuminated her body, describing her every movement, her every curve as she danced. Her scarlet hair whipped around her in time to the music, and the golden light of the lamps in the Ruelle slipped across her skin, slow and hot, like beads of honey. The cadences of her voice, rising and falling, seemed to weave a cage of silken thread about her audience, and James was no exception.

Later, James would think it was odd that he had not compared her to Grace. Grace had never entered his mind at all. Cordelia danced, and by the end of her performance, James’s entire life had been disassembled and put back together in a new and different shape. He was conscious of Matthew, beside him, also staring as the crowd cheered, his sharp cheekbones flushed. He looked dazed; James couldn’t blame him.

Cordelia descended the stage and slipped through the crowd to come back to them, blushing at the looks and murmured comments she was drawing from the audience now. James could see the desire in the eyes that followed her. Everyone wanted her. He felt a dull fury. They had no right. They did not know Cordelia. She was more than just that dance.

When she reached them she let out a long breath of relief and smiled. She glowed with the exercise of dancing. Sweat beaded along her collarbones, shimmered between her breasts. Her eyes were bright as Cortana’s blade, strapped to her back.

“Bloody hell,” Matthew exclaimed.  “What was that?”

A look of uncertainty crossed Cordelia’s face. James said, “It was a fairy tale, Math,” and Matthew nodded. His dark green eyes searched Cordelia’s face, as if looking for the key to a locked room he had only just discovered.

Cordelia looked uncertain. James couldn’t bear that. She’d been magnificent; she should know it. But he couldn’t say that, of course. It would only make her self-conscious.

“Well done, Cordelia,” James said instead; when he unfolded his arms; his wrist hurt and he wondered if he’d been clenching his hands.

Cordelia. He hadn’t called her Daisy, and she looked a little surprised. It seemed inappropriate, somehow. Daisy was Lucie’s friend, the Merry Thieves’ compatriot; he found it a smaller name than she deserved. Cordelia, though—she had been a queen, hadn’t she? Queen Cordelia, daughter of Leir, ruler of Britain before the Romans had ever landed on those shores. Like Boadicea, a legendary warrior queen. A blazing white fire behind fathomless black eyes.

“Anna has disappeared with Hypatia,” James said, noting the empty settee, “so I would call your distraction a success.”

Cordelia’s lips twitched into a smile. “How long does a seduction usually last?”

“Depends if you do it properly,” Matthew said, with a wink. James felt it as a spark of relief, a bit of lightness amid the feeling that something heavy was sitting on his chest.

“Well, I hope for Hypatia’s sake Anna does it properly,” James said. He registered, with the reflexes of a parabatai, that Matthew had gone still next to him, and wondered what was wrong. “Yet for our sake, I hope she hurries it up.”

All hint of Matthew’s jocular tone from before was gone. “Both of you,” he said urgently. “Listen.”

Did he mean all the muttering about Shadowhunters? Was he only noticing it now? It had followed them since they came into the place. But when James followed Matthew’s gaze, he found Kellington staring with an expression of vexation, not at them but at the door. All questions were answered as through the door came Charles Fairchild, looking around him with a haughty expression. He looked like was about to raid the place; so much for whatever work Matthew and Anna had done for Downworlder-Shadowhunter relations here.

Matthew narrowed his eyes. “Charles,” he sighed. “By the Angel, what is he doing here?”

Charles was, James thought, probably looking for them. He was making his way through the crowd and gazing around him. Luckily for them, the crowd was not interested in letting him through, and he was moving very slowly.

“We should go,” James said. “But we can’t leave Anna.”

In one way, at least, Charles’s arrival was helpful; it threw a bucket of cold water on the roiling heat that had gripped James’s heart since Cordelia had begun her dance. Back to the matter at hand: a demon, a Pyxis, a plan.

“You two run and hide yourselves,” Matthew said, still keeping his eyes on his brother. “Charles will go off his head if he sees you here.”

“But what about you?” said Cordelia.

Matthew shrugged, but James could see the tension in his jaw and his shoulders. “He’s used to this kind of thing from me. I’ll deal with Charles.”

Not for the first time, James wished that his parabatai wasn’t in such a hurry to sacrifice his own reputation. He exchanged a long look with Matthew, but Matthew was sure, and determined, and his desire to rush into his own humiliation was an issue that would have to wait. Nodding, he turned and caught Cordelia’s hand with his own. “This way,” he said, and she nodded back in acknowledgement. As he pulled them into the crowd he heard Matthew’s voice calling, “Charles!” in a hearty tone of pleasant, if entirely false, welcome.

James didn’t know his way around the place, and the crowd made orientating himself even more difficult, but after some trial and error he and Cordelia managed to get behind Kellington and slip into a corridor leading away. This wasn’t safe in itself, since from the main chamber one would have a clear view down the entire corridor. In fact, they were temporarily more exposed than before, and James’s hope for the hallway to take a quick turn or to contain large statuary to hide behind was quickly dashed. He continued to hold onto Cordelia’s hand, not that he needed to; she seemed to know her way better than he did.

Partway down the corridor, James caught sight of an open door — its silver plaque labeling it the entrance to THE WHISPERING ROOM. Swiftly he drew Cordelia inside, out of sight. He slammed the door behind them, causing a loud noise, but he thought it couldn’t possibly be heard over the crowd in the main chamber. Only then did he release Cordelia’s hand and take stock of their surroundings.

The room was dimly lit, but not cold: a scented fire burned in the grate, filling the space with the smell of sandalwood and roses. It was a study, he guessed, based on the gigantic walnut desk against the wall and the bookshelves opposite, but it was too richly decorated to be solely a place for studious contemplation. Phoenix feathers and dragon scales danced across the gilded wallpaper; there were no windows, but the walls were hung with patterned tapestries, the floor covered with a rug so thick James felt his boots sink into it as he moved further into the room.

Cordelia had leaned her back against the wall next to the door. Her eyes were closed and she was taking deep, full breaths, calming herself down. Cortana gleamed gold over her shoulder; the firelight gleamed a deeper gold on her skin, which seemed to take and hold its warmth. James curled his fingers in against his palm.

He wanted to touch her. He half-turned away, pretending to study the books on the wall. Any other time, he would have been fascinated by the titles. Now they seemed distant, neither immediate nor imporant. He could have sworn he heard his own heart hammering. He said, “Where did you learn to dance like that?” surprising himself with the roughness of his own voice.

His gaze snapped back to Cordelia as she opened her eyes and gave a little shrug. There was something magical about the dress she wore: it followed the shape of her own body rather than the shape of corsetry or whalebone petticoats. It slid softly against her skin as she moved, just as her dark red hair tickled the bare skin of her throat, her shoulders. “I had a dance instructor in Paris. My mother believed that learning to dance aided in learning grace in battle.”

The word grace pierced James like an icicle. He could not quite picture Grace at the moment, it was true; could not quite envision her face. He had given Grace his heart — that was an immutable fact, something he knew as he knew that two plus two equaled four. But he had to admit that at the moment his heart did not feel given. It felt like a thrumming machine inside his chest, pumping blood and heat.

“That dance,” Cordelia added with a quirk of her soft mouth that struck James like a blow to the stomach, “was forbidden to be taught to unmarried ladies. But my dance instructor did not care.”

“Well,” James said, keeping his voice steady with practiced control, “thank the Angel you were there. Matthew and I could certainly not have pulled off that dance on our own.”

Cordelia turned away from him, the smile still on her face, as though she were keeping it secret from him. She trailed her hand along the top of Hypatia’s desk. At one end was a stack of papers held down by a large copper bowl of fruit, and she brought her hand up to trace its rim.

James may have been distracted beyond the capacity for distraction he’d known before, but he was still a Shadowhunter. “Be careful,” he said warningly. “I suspect that is faerie fruit. It has no effect on warlocks—no magical effect, at least. But on humans…”

Cordelia pulled her hand back as though stung. “Surely it does not harm you if you do not eat it.”

“Oh, it does not. But I have met those who have tasted it. The say the more you have of it, the more you want, and the more you ache when you can…have no more.”

Cordelia was looking at him now, and though it took a great summoning of courage, he returned her gaze. In her dark eyes the silver and blue flames of the fireplace danced. James could not catch his breath. He had never felt this before, this breathlessness. It was like pain, but with a sweet, sharp edge. Like licking honey from a knife. He said, in a low voice, “And yet. I have always thought…is not knowing what it tastes like just another form of torture? The torture of wondering?”

The door shook on his hinges suddenly, making a clatter that made both he and Cordelia jerk their heads around to look at it. The knob was starting to turn.

Cordelia paled. “We’re not meant to be in here —“

James’s world closed down to just this: Cordelia was here, she was with him, and she looked frightened. He would do anything to stop that look on her face. He caught her in his arms, and the relief was incredible — he had not realized how much he wanted to be touching her until he was. Until he was holding her, and her strength and warmth and softness were all pressed against him, and her face was so beautiful it hurt, and her lips were parted in surprise and without another thought he kissed them.

He could feel her sharp intake of breath with his hands, clasped together at her lower back. She gasped, but did not draw back, or away — he thought he would have died if she had — she leaned into him, her full lips opening under his. She was kissing him back. He tasted honey, smelled jasmine and smoke. His hand slid up her warm cheek and into the soft fall of her hair.

Time stopped.

Cordelia’s arms were around his neck. Her lush mouth opened a little against his, and the kiss deepened. He moved his hand to the back of her neck to bring her closer. Her teeth grazed his lower lip, and he couldn’t help it; he moaned, and felt her tremble against him.

Very far away, a voice chuckled and the door closed with a soft click. This whole thing had been intended as a ruse, he knew, for the benefit of whomever was trying to get into the Whispering Room. Probably some Ruelle attendees, Downworlders most likely, who had snuck off for a rendez-vous.

Ruse accomplished, then. With intense regret, James drew back from Cordelia. Her hand, warm and soft and wonderful, was against his neck; her fingers stroked his pale white scar. Her eyes were fixed at the level of his shoulder. He could hear himself say her name — Daisy, my Daisy — instead of responding, she whispered, “I think more people are coming.”

He knew it wasn’t true. He didn’t care. He knew what she was saying: that she was asking and giving permission at once. All James’ life, he had struggled for control: control over his sudden falls into shadow, control over the dark world he could see, that was invisible to everyone else. He had worked and fought and trained for control every day, and for the first time in as long as he could remember it deserted him.

The walls he had put up burned to the ground in an instant as he caught Cordelia to him. He groaned against her mouth, his hands slipping over the silk of her dress, the hot satin of her skin. He undid the strap that held Cortana, got rid of it somehow — carefully, he hoped — and let himself fall back into delirium.

He did not ask himself why he had never felt desire like this before. He could not. He was lost in the feel of her, the incline of her waist, the flare of her hips, the rise and fall of her chest as she gasped. They were kissing wildly, uncontrolled; they fetched up against the desk, Cordelia’s back to it.

Her body bent backward in an impossible arch, her hands going behind her to brace herself. Her eyes half-closed, her head fell back, revealing the bare column of her throat. He pressed his lips there, eliciting a gasp of surprised pleasure.

His hands trailed up the sleek material of her dress — he could feel the heat of her skin through it — from her waist to the neckline of her gown. His palms followed her curves until the tips of his fingers were pressing into the bare bronze skin just above the neckline of her dress. She was sleek and soft and hot all at the same time, like nothing else he’d ever touched. He heard her whimper; she was saying his name, and his heart beat in time with her words: James, James, Jamie please.

The please undid him; shrugging off his frock coat, he caught hold of her around the waist, lifting her until she was perched on the edge of the desk. The material of her dress bunched around her knees, her thighs, as she took hold of his shirt by the starched front and kissed him. His mouth drove against hers, hot and demanding, even as he clambered onto the desk after her. She reached up her arms for him and he sank down on top of her, bracing his weight with a hand above her head.

He paused, just for a moment, looking down at her. Her scarlet hair fanned out across the desk, her eyes glazed, her full lips red from kissing. He was cradled by her body, her legs on either side of his hips, her skirt rucked up nearly to her waist. She wrapped her long, bare legs around him and he shuddered. What was in him, what he wanted, was inchoate but insistant, a force he’d never known. A yearning like hot wires in his blood, the pain-pleasurable ache of unbearable wanting that drove him to kiss her again, kiss her harder. She tangled her hands in his hair, pulling at it as he kissed her breasts, flicking his tongue over the sensitive skin until she gave a low scream and clutched at him with desperate hands.

He sank down against her and kissed her, hot and deep and hard. She arched into the kiss, her breath coming in gasps. He felt her through the thinner material of his shirt: the heat of her, the swell of her breasts against his chest, her hands smoothing over his chest, his sides.

His hands aching to touch her in kind, to find out what she liked, what made her gasp, and do it again and again . . . Nothing had ever felt like this, nothing. He’d known desire before; so he remembered, so he had believed. It turned out he had stepped into a puddle and thought it was the sea. As Cordelia moved in his arms, as her lips, he realized there was a depth to desire he hadn’t even guessed at: that it was more than just desperation, but joy and need and wanting and being wanted back. It was a fever dream, his hands sliding up under the heavy satin of her skirts, the salt-sweet taste of her skin, the soft sounds of her pleasure as she urged him closer, urged him onward, the desk seeming to spin beneath them.

He heard, as if at a great distance, the sound of the door opening. He lifted his head, saw the slim fair-hared figure in the doorway. Ice washed through his veins. Cordelia stiffened, began to scramble to sit up. No, he thought, but he couldn’t stop her, couldn’t blame her. It — whatever it had been — was over.

He slid off the desk. Already the fever was vanishing, that feeling —the glorious freedom from the burden of his own will — receding. Grasping at his control, he drew it around himself,  reaching for his coat, turning to calmly meet the gaze of his parabatai.

“James?” Matthew said.

[reidscanehand]

Where The Love Light Gleams

A Merry RCH Christmas

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x BAUfem! Reader

Category: Christmas Fluff

TW: cursing, mentions of typical CM cases, drinking by adults, mentions of Haley’s death and Jack missing her

This is pure Christmas fluff, as are all of my Christmas fics and I hope you like it! xx 

~  “Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.” - Charles M. Schulz ~

“You know,” you say, as you sit in Aaron’s office, eating lunch together as you do nearly every day, “if we spent less time together, the team wouldn’t tease us about getting together.”

“But then we’d spend less time together,” Aaron states as though it’s obvious.

“That’s true,” you reply, not looking up from your salad. 

Aaron studies you for a moment, “Does it really bother you that much?”

You sigh deeply, clearly embarrassed by your answer, “Usually? No, not at all. But this time of year? Yes. A lot, actually.”

Aaron nods in agreement, slowly. It’s not the first time the two of you have discussed this particular issue, but this is by far the most serious tone the conversation has taken. Since you’d joined the team almost two years ago the team has been confounded by the closeness of you two. He supposes it’s because, aside from his friendship with Dave, he isn’t exceptionally close to anyone on the team. Or, he wasn’t, until you. And he knows - and hates that he knows - that, to you, this is a friendship. But to him it’s so much more. To him, his closeness with you is something he’d tried to avoid, something he’d worried and contemplated over for ages, terrified to let anyone - especially someone like you - in. Because from the moment he saw you, the moment you’d spoken in your interview, he’d known. 

“Yeah,” he agrees quietly. “Christmas does sort of...spotlight singleness, doesn’t it?”

You’re quiet for a minute, still poking your fork around in your salad. 

“What?”

“What if we weren’t?” you ask, suddenly looking up at him. 

“What do you mean?” he asks, trying not to let his natural frown settle over his features before he fully hears what you have to say. 

“What if we weren’t single for the holidays?” you ask, as though this clarifies every point of confusion he could possibly have. 

“I’m still not sure what you mean,” Aaron says after a moment. 

“What if,” you say, fully abandoning your salad now, “we pretend we’re dating?”

“Y/N, I’m not-”

“Look,” you continue, as though determined to get it all out before he disagrees, “I know you don’t want to date me.”

Untrue, he thinks, so untrue. Thankfully, he doesn’t say it. 

“But,” you swallow, your mind clearly working double time, “we just pretend to be together for the BAU holiday party? It’ll get everyone off our backs and then we’ll ‘break up’ over the week off and come back, ask everyone not to talk about it so we can get over it. Say we realized we’re better off as friends, and then everything will go back to normal.” 

It’s clear to Aaron that you’ve thought this through. But, what’s unfortunate for him is that he doesn’t think it through. He doesn’t at all. Because from the moment he met you, he knew he’d fall in love with you. And he absolutely has. And that’s why, with almost no thought and almost no hesitation he replies with, “That actually sounds like a great idea.” 

And just as he’d known he’d fall in love with you, he knows this is going to be an emotional disaster for his poor heart. 

~~~

“I just can’t believe it,” Penelope says for what has to be the billionth time that evening. 

“It is pretty wild,” Emily agrees, “that the two of you were able to keep this under wraps for so long.”

Aaron looks over at you, pleased to find you already smirking at him. It had seemed simple, and, truly, it is. Well, to you it is. But pretending the two of you are together to get the team off of your backs (at least for the holiday season) is far easier for you than it is for Aaron. Because he’s pretty sure he’s never going to recover from...whatever this is. Or, rather, from the feeling of having you actually be his. Because knowing how it feels is far harder than he’d ever imagined.

“We have our ways,” you giggle, leaning into Aaron. He tries not to smell your perfume. He tries not to enjoy the warmth of you tucked into his side. He tries not to enjoy the thrill that runs up and down the arm that’s wrapped around your waist. He tries and fails rather quickly. It seems that all he can do tonight is fail, even at pretending with you, as he’d fucking agreed to do. You stare up at him, eyebrows slightly raised, obviously expecting him to respond.

“Oh, yeah,” he nods, thinking far too hard for there to be absolutely zero ideas in his head. “You know us profilers...always...always knowing how to hide...stuff.” 

It’s like he can feel a mental face palm as everyone stares at him blankly. 

“Well,” Spencer cuts the tension, “I’m just relieved the two of you finally realized how great you are together.”

“Yeah,” Aaron smiles, quite literally grinning and bearing it, “we’re really...really something.” As though the universe finally decides to take pity on him, his phone rings. “Oh, excuse me, it’s Jess.”

He steps away from the group, finding a hallway far enough from the Christmas music to hear not Jess’s voice, but Jack’s.

“Jack, hey buddy, what’s going on?” he asks gently. It’s the second Christmas without Haley, and yet, somehow, it almost feels harder. As though trying to keep her memory strong is making it more painful than it was when it was still so fresh and new. 

“Nothin’,” the boy answers quietly over the line. “Is your party fun?”

“Yes,” Aaron responds, concerned about the reason behind this call. “Is Aunt Jess there? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Jack says, “she’s right here...I just...I just wanted to talk to you.” He’s quiet for a second before adding, “Is that okay?”

“Of course it’s okay, buddy,” Aaron replies. “I just wanna make sure you’re okay.”

“Okay,” Jack says vaguely. “Aunt Jess wants to talk. I’m sleepy.”

“Goodnight, kiddo,” Aaron says gently. “Get some rest.”

“Goodnight, daddy,” the boy says. “Love you.”

“Love you, too, Jackers,” he whispers. The phone is passed to Jess and he hears her saying another goodnight to Jack before leaving his room and closing the door. 

“He had a nightmare about Haley,” she whispers into the phone, clearly trying not to cry herself. 

“Oh my God,” Aaron mutters, “listen, I’ll be there in, like, 20 minutes, okay?” 

“Aaron, you don’t-”

“Being with my son is more important than any party,” he cuts her off tersely. 

“Absolutely it is,” your voice agrees. He turns around to see you standing at the edge of the hallway. You nod in encouragement and he says a quick goodbye to Jess before turning back to you. He tries to speak, he really does. He tries to come up with something to say, but he’s so overcome with emotion - even more than he’d anticipated - that he can’t really manage to say much of anything at all. 

“Aaron,” you whisper, much closer than before. You’ve stepped closer to him, not quite touching him. “What’s wrong?”

“J-jack,” he manages to rasp out, a tear falling down his cheek. “He had a-a nightmare.”

“About Haley?” you ask quietly. 

“Yeah,” Aaron nods aggressively, more tears falling. “A-and I just think I should be h-home with him. I’m sorry to leave you-”

“Don’t worry about me, darling,” you coo, wrapping your arms around him gingerly. He pulls you closer to him, thrilled for the comfort of your arms. “Shhh, hey now, don’t you worry about a thing, lovey. Jack needs you and you need to go to him, okay? That’s the most important thing. I’ll make your excuses for you; go right on ahead.”

He pulls away, rubbing away his tears and smiling down at you, “You can make it home? I know I gave you a ride, but-”

“I’ll make Prentiss take me,” you assure him. “Go, go, go, before you make yourself more worried.”

“Thank you, Y/N,” he whispers sincerely, pulling you back into his arms briefly. He starts to leave, walking through a different exit than normal to bypass the party in the bullpen. It’s then that your words play back in his head. It stops him dead in his tracks. He spins around suddenly, running back at an almost embarrassingly fast pace. 

You’re still there, standing in the hallway, leaning against the wall, your face turned to the ceiling, eyes shut. 

“You called me ‘darling’,” Aaron states plainly, unsure of how else to address it. 

Your eyes snap open and you push away from the wall, staring at him, wide-eyed, “I did.”

“And ‘lovey’,” he adds. You nod affirmatively and he continues, “Did you...did you mean to do that?”

“Yes,” you whisper. “Well, yes and no.”

“Yes and no?” Aaron asks, taking a timid step closer to you. 

You take a deep breath before answering, “No, I didn’t mean to because I’m usually in more control of my feelings than that, but also, yes, I meant to say it because I...I mean it.”

“You mean it?” Aaron asks, taking another step closer.

“Yes,” you reply nervously, not stepping back at all, allowing him to get closer. 

“And you have...feelings?” Aaron asks again, stepping closer still. 

“Y-yes,” you stammer. “I’m sorry.”

For the first time all evening a genuine smile bedecks Aaron’s face, “Oh, Y/N, there’s no reason to be sorry.”

“But-”

“In fact,” he cuts you off, stepping directly in front of you and tenderly cupping your face in his hands, “darling, there’s never been anything to be less sorry about.” 

Your eyes widen in understanding and then you smile, “You-you have feelings, too, then?”

“So many,” Aaron nods, merely a breath away from your lips now. You smile again and then tip on your toes to press your lips to his. And suddenly he realizes that, though he’d known he’d fall in love with you, nothing could compare to how wonderful it was actually going to be.

You pull away and stare up at him, a huge smile on your face, “You need to go to Jack.”

“I do,” Aaron agrees, not letting go of you yet. “But, I...I don’t want you to think I’m - this means a lot to me, Y/N; you mean a lot to me.” 

“You mean a lot to me, too,” you breathe. You peck a quick kiss to his kips again before saying, “And so does Jack. So you need to go.”

“But-”

“Call me tomorrow or later tonight,” you cut him off sweetly. “Get home to your sweet boy; this is not going anywhere.”

“I’m going to fall in love with you, you know that, right?” Aaron asks suddenly, overwhelmed by your ability to keep him grounded and on cloud 9 all at once. 

“Good,” you giggle, “because I’m falling in love with you already.”

Aaron leans forward once more, incapable of resisting the urge to kiss you again after a statement like that. 

“Merry Christmas,” you whisper when he finally pulls away. 

“Best Christmas ever,” he smiles, the smile deepening as you laugh in agreement. 

~ “Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. ” - Norman Vincent Peale ~

~~~

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[fictionadventurer]

So Strong as Gentleness; Or, Powers and Prejudice

Episode One: Unstoppable Force

No one who had seen Jane Bennet in civilian guise would have supposed her to be a superheroine. Her features were marked by their delicate regularity and her expressions were notably docile and sweet. Her physique tended toward the slender and fragile. Her voice, when heard, was soft, and her movements were gentle to the extreme. If asked, the average bystander would have assumed her a particularly sheltered university student, designed to be a distressed damsel rather than a rescuing hero.

Yet she was, both by nature and heritage, perfectly suited for superheroism. Her mother had spent several years as one of Netherfield City’s most prominent superheroes, and her energy blasts had saved countless innocent bystanders from the machinations of superpowered troublemakers. Her father was a telekinetic, who, it is true, had only a short career in superheroism when he was pursuing the woman he would later wed, after which he had hung up his cape and retreated to his library, but he was a tolerant parent who had no objections to his daughters making use of the extraordinary abilities nature had given them. Jane herself was perhaps the most extraordinary of the five sisters. She had broken concrete with her infant fist, lifted an automobile by the age of three, and had matured into a young woman who could stop a train merely by standing in front of it. With such an upbringing and such abilities as these, how could any young woman avoid becoming a superhero of great renown?

Their mother had high hopes for such. Having retired at an early age when her health made the strain of hero work impossible to endure, her greatest hope now was for her daughters to take up their mother’s heroic crusade. Their quiet life in the country town of Meryton had allowed Jane and her sisters to develop their abilities without drawing attention to  themselves or endangering the populace, but such places offer few opportunities for true heroism. A heroine in hiding is no heroine at all. Something must and will occur to help her bring her abilities to the service of the public.

Thus Mrs. Bennet, after years of cajoling her husband, moved the family to the city of Netherfield, the bounds of which had long been a haven for those with extraordinary abilities. People with superhuman talents were allowed to live without interference so long as they did not interfere with the lives of their neighbors. Those who used their powers for the purposes of crime and villainy were stopped by those who used similar powers for heroic pursuits, and it was these masked heroes who received the greatest dispensation to use their abilities in a public setting without censure. There was, to Mrs. Bennet, no better place for her daughters to become what nature had made them to be.

“My dear Mr. Bennet,” Mrs. Bennet told her husband over breakfast one morning. “It seems that Charles Bingley has returned to Netherfield. What a fine thing for our girls!”

Mr. Bennet looked at her over the top of his newspaper before returning his attention to the stock prices. “How can it affect them?”

“You must know that Charles Bingley has connections to the superhero community. His family has funded several superhero teams and that he has personally befriended several of the Defenders. He could help our daughters launch their careers.”

“Was that his design in returning?”

“Design! What nonsense! But he may be persuaded to offer his assistance, if he became aware of what our daughters can do.”

“Do you hear that, Jane?” Mr. Bennet said, as the daughter in question joined her parents at breakfast. “Your mother wishes you to throw an automobile at Mr. Bingley’s head.”

“Mr. Bennet!” his wife replied in vexation. “Jane, I desire you to do no such thing. Your father will make the necessary arrangements.”

"Me? Why should I interfere? Jane is capable of demonstrating astounding feats of strength without my help.”

“She cannot be sent into the city for an open display of power; she’d be like as not to be branded a villain. It is safest to reveal herself to the public only after she has established connections to the superhero community.”

"Then you may go on patrol with her,” Mr. Bennet said. “Your outfit may be snug, but I’ve no doubt the city will welcome the return of one of its finest crime fighters and whichever protégés she brings as assistants.”

“My dear, you flatter me. I may have had my share of successes, but I don’t pretend to be anything extraordinary now. When a woman is my age, she must give over thinking of her own career and allow her daughters to establish themselves on their own merits. My influence and connections are twenty years out of date, while your old university contacts must contain a dozen people who can arrange an interview with Bingley Enterprises.”

“If an interview is all you want,” Mr. Bennet said, “There are more direct ways to arrange it.” He spread his newspaper atop his empty breakfast plate and pointed to a column in the classified ads. “Bingley Enterprises is hosting a hiring event and Mr. Bingley will be in attendance.”

Mrs. Bennet examined the newspaper before her--perhaps the first time in twenty-three years of marriage that she had shared in her husband’s habit. “My dear Mr. Bennet!” she cried in delight. “Jane, how clever your father is!”

Since Mr. Bennet had put forward this solution half in jest and chiefly from a desire to deflect as much possible effort from himself, he was more than a little alarmed to see his wife so sincerely delighted with the suggestion. “It is unlikely that Mr. Bingley will complete any of the interviews personally.”

But Mrs. Bennet had already spun half a dozen delighted theories as to how Jane could turn a chance encounter with Mr. Bingley into an immediate position on Netherfield City’s team of Defenders.

When Mrs. Bennet’s raptures had calmed, Mr. Bennet said more seriously, “Jane, you have not told us what you think of this. Does it please you to become Mr. Bingley’s superpowered secretary?”

Jane was not accustomed to being addressed so directly by her father. Her two most obvious features were that she was beautiful and strong, two traits that were coupled in most people’s minds with a lack of intelligence, and her father's interactions with her were often colored by such assumptions. She had not thought to wonder if she had a choice in the matter; her mother’s hopes for her superhero career had been the primary driving force of her life from her earliest memories. She could see that such an event offered little practical hope of meeting with Mr. Bingley, and in the event that such a meeting was arranged, she did not see how she could turn the conversation to the establishment of her superhero career. But she was also in need of mundane, paycheck-providing work, and Bingley Enterprises was as good a place as any to draw a salary, especially since a position in the company could also perhaps, in future, provide opportunities to bring oneself to the attention of Mr. Bingley’s heroic friends.

“I will go,” Jane said, after a moment of contemplation, “if Lizzie will go with me.”

“Lizzie?” Mrs. Bennet said in surprise. “What can Mr. Bingley want with her? She has nothing like your power, my dear, and scarcely any control. What if the jaguar should appear in the middle of the crowd?”

Jane had experienced several job interviews where her sister’s jaguar form would have provided a much-needed boost of confidence, but it was her sister’s confident human presence that she needed for moral support at such an event.

Lizzie entered the room on the tail-end of her mother’s speech, her eyes bright with laughter. “If the jaguar appears,” she said, “there will be need of her. I never transform anymore unless there’s someone deserving of a few bite marks.”

“Your definitions of deserving,” their mother said, “are looser than most people’s.”

“Then I shall give Jane the handling of my leash,” Lizzie said. “I won’t transform unless she thinks it necessary, and you know she prefers to assume everyone is a fount of human kindness. Is that civilized enough to satisfy you?”

Mr. Bennet replied, “It satisfies me. You have more sense than the rest of your sisters put together, Lizzie, no matter which form you’re in.”

“How can you abuse your own children in such a way?” Mrs. Bennet cried. “They all have excellent control over their abilities, not like Lizzie’s rampaging beast.”

Jane said, “Lizzie hasn’t rampaged in years, Mother.”

Lizzie nodded and said with mock solemnity. “And I have had ample temptation.”

Mrs. Bennet did not find this comforting. She had always been baffled by her second daughter’s quick wit and laughing ways, just as she had always been baffled by her husband, whose personality Lizzie’s most resembled, and the animal form was even worse than the human one. She had never been comfortable with her daughter’s gift of taking on a jaguar form; such unpredictable animalistic displays were far removed from the sleek, Lycra-suited grace that formed her image of a proper Netherfield superhero. Given her choice, she would have kept Lizzie far from the notice of anyone faintly connected with the city’s superhero community, and let them think their family’s next generation of crime fighters consisted only of four sisters. But Jane had the most impressive talents in the family and the potential to become one of the greatest superheroes in Netherfield’s history, and she rarely went anywhere without Lizzie. If Jane was to become Netherfield’s next superhero, Lizzie would have to be by her side.

“Oh, go!” Mrs. Bennet said at last. “But don’t blame me if you’re branded as villains before the day is through.”

[jetaime-jespere]

Old Times All Over (Part 1 of 2)

A very special thank you to @sequinsmile-x for the beta!

Exactly six months pass before he can’t stand it anymore.

Aaron takes a risk and goes to Emily while she's undercover in Paris.

Rating: M

Exactly six months pass before he can’t stand it anymore. The weight of her absence is unbearable; it follows him around as if lingering in hidden shadows and settling deep in his soul, an indelible stain that doesn’t fade as the days pass by. He bears the team’s grief, shoulders it and doesn’t let himself handle his own. It feels wrong to mourn her as if she were actually dead when in reality she lingers somewhere very different, another kind of hellish existence. He often finds himself wondering what she’d say about all of it. Emily would have scoffed at the ornate casket, rolled her eyes at the formality of the Catholic service the Ambassador insisted upon. He’d been the one to make the call on the flight back to DC. Elizabeth knew right away why he was calling, and the detached coldness in her tone was merely a coping mechanism, for the older woman’s grief seeped through the phone as he relayed the news. Aaron could scarcely reach her eyes as he offered condolences in person, the words heavy and thick on his tongue. Elizabeth’s questions were answered with the vague formalities that were constructed as part of a grand lie, held together with threads that ran the risk of being unraveled with the slightest misstep.

Read the rest below the cut or on Ao3

Emily’s life depended on the sanctity of those lies, as did his own.

No one can ever find out about this, JJ had whispered to Aaron and Clyde behind a firmly closed door in the depths of that hospital in Boston. It was eerily dark, their heads bent together in near silence as initial plans were laid. For her safety, and all of ours. It felt oddly conspiratorial to plan her disappearance as she laid just feet away, oblivious to it all and very much alive. But Doyle escaped into the night like a ghost, and that meant Emily had to go too whether they liked it or not. It didn’t matter that they hunted monsters like him every day. They knew the moment her heart started again, that she would pull through, that she’d never be free. He’ll never stop looking for her. Clyde’s voice was like rubbing salt in a wound that burned through his skin.The tension between them was thick, laden with the unspoken tension of a tentative truce and a keen awareness of the pain that coursed within each of them. He will go to the ends of the earth to find her.

Aaron disliked Clyde Easter from the moment he laid eyes on the man. Perhaps it was his closeness to Emily - she trusted him, more so than she did Aaron, as was being made abundantly clear. It still stung - that she’d gone to him in her moment of need without even once considering just maybe the team could have helped. Maybe it was the way Clyde knew her so intimately, almost as well as a lover would - a delicate balance of adoration and indignance, a fierce desire to protect the oaths they’d sworn years ago, loyalty and trust woven from years of brushes with peril only to do it all over again. But it was more than that; he knew from the moment Clyde sat before him in an interrogation room in Boston his loathing ran deep. Only later would Aaron realize they both paid a similar price for loving the same woman.

The idea to go to her comes to him once Dave has finally disappeared for the night and the bottle of scotch is empty once again. It’s a ritual they share now, unspoken yet expected, an attempt at burying the worst of their grief. It never quite hits the mark, because Dave doesn’t know the truth. His words are wise and well intended, but he speaks of loss in terms of death, and it’s one thing Aaron can’t think about for too long. But it’s some of the only company he has once the building quiets down, so whenever he shows up at the door, he doesn’t object. Most nights they leave together after a round. The echo of their shoes striking the marble floors is the only noise between them when they pass the framed photos of agents long gone on the walls, now with Emily among them. He wants to shake someone, tell them she doesn’t belong there. “Don’t look,” Dave tells him every time. “It won’t bring her back.”

He always looks.

Tonight Aaron lingers, the idea now an intrusive thought reverberating through his weary mind. It’s dangerous - violates every rule of her disappearance - and puts anyone who knows at risk. He shuffles the files on his desk only to do it once more, rearranges the pens in the cup and flips through a few reports that still require his signature. His phone rings; he doesn’t have to turn it over to know it’s Jessica asking where he is, that Jack is asking for him. He was supposed to have been home a few hours ago. Instead of answering that phone, he digs for a different one. This one has stayed hidden in his desk since the night they returned from Boston. Clyde had pushed it into his hand at the last possible moment before he boarded a flight, his face stony and solemn. “If you ever need to reach me, use this.” It might be the closest thing to a friendship they’ll ever have, a twisted kind of bond that comes along with a shared secret they very well might take to the grave.

“I was wondering when you would call,” comes the lilting British accent on the other end when the line connects. “I thought for sure it would be sooner.” Clyde’s voice is haunting; it takes Aaron right back to Boston when it was just the two of them in that interrogation room, piercing blue eyes up against his darker ones as the pieces fell into place. If you want to stop that man, you have to put a bullet between his eyes yourself. He barely recognizes his own voice; it strains when he explains exactly why he’s calling, once the doors of his office are firmly shut. Even then, it’s a near whisper.

“You do realize what you’re asking of me?” Clyde demands. He’s not exactly surprised by the request, though. After all, he and Aaron had a few things in common. “The risks of all of this?” He’s whispering, the hiss of his voice biting even from thousands of miles away, wherever the hell he might be. “I thought you did things by the book at the BAU.”

“Can you make it work or not?” Aaron’s terseness matches Clyde’s hostility, a thinly veiled shield for his grief that consumes him.

There’s a pause on the other end, followed by a contemplative inhale as if he’s considering his answer, like he holds the power in his hands himself. “You should have more faith in me, Agent Hotchner.”

...

It’s all a little too easy to coordinate once the initial call is made, much to his surprise. For two weeks, things continue as normal, or as close to normal as possible, a period of limbo-like freefall. A case takes them to Portland, another to Providence. While the team is across the country, Clyde takes care of the multiple identities and aliases Aaron will use in Europe, along with a reservation at a nondescript hotel and God only knows what else. He’s barely back in Virginia for an hour when a text message on the burner phone reveals a series of coordinates, a meeting location.

“A direct flight to Charles de Gaulle might seem suspect,” Clyde whispers, nestled amongst the shadows along the Potomac River three nights before Aaron slated to leave. “There’s a flight from Regan to Heathrow, then to Paris. You’ll have a different identity for each, so best not to get confused.”

Aaron bristles at the snarkiness in his tone. “And my cover story?”

Clyde scoffs, as if disgusted by the question. “You’ll tell your team you’re being called to London to consult with Scotland Yard as a favor to a friend. I’ve already taken care of those details as well - a fake case report. Familiarize yourself with them so they don’t suspect anything.” He passes over the thick envelope, holding onto it for just a moment too long.

“How will I find her? Once I’m there?”

“Leave that up to me, Aaron. She’ll be waiting for you.”

“Thank you,” is all Aaron can say once he holds the weight of it in his hands. “I know you took a huge risk to do this.”

Clyde stuffs his hands in his jacket pockets and shuffles his feet awkwardly. “I love her too, you know.” It’s certainly the most honest he’s ever been, something that looks like hurt flooding his features. But he stiffens a few seconds later with an authoritative clearing of his throat. “Bloody hell, Aaron, for all of our sakes, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

...

Aaron drops Jack off at Jessica’s. He relays the same details he told the team a few hours before with the same feigned degree of calm assurance and mock annoyance - just a few days away, work related. No one suspects a thing. In fact, the rest of them seem almost happy for him to go. “A change of scenery might be nice,” Dave says as they walk out of the BAU.

It’s risky, inherently a bad idea and yet, it isn’t enough to deter him. There’s an element of betrayal he feels for lying to the team, for they’re still reeling from their collective loss. They miss her just as much as he does; none of this is fair. He drowns it out with a pair of headphones and a stiff drink as the plane roars to life and lifts into the sky as the sun sets.

He wakes up hours later in London with a headache and an all too familiar ache in his chest.

…

It’s another few hours of travel before he actually lands in Paris. He’s completely focused, determined as he collects his luggage and leaves the airport. He destroys the first passport moments after the plane touches solid ground and tucks the next one in his jacket pocket for easy access, the others will stay safely in his travel bag. Aaron calls Clyde on a new burner phone, one of several included in the envelope of documents that was passed over in a shadowy spot by the Potomac. He answers on the first ring, doesn’t even bother with a greeting. Instead he rattles off an address Aaron commits to memory and adds, “she’ll be waiting for you,” before the line goes dead. The address, he soon finds, is a small cafe in the fifth Arrondissement, the Latin Quarter. At first it seems risky, to meet in public, but it’s probably safer than somehow having a record of her address.

The woman at the small table in the back of the cafe is inconspicuous, but he spots her immediately upon opening the door. She could be anyone; she fits right in. One slender leg crossed over the other, a chic knee-length boot peeking out under the table. A simple raincoat, hair cut just below her chin. It’s lighter than it was the last time he saw her but still a rich shade of brown.The only giveaway is the state of the nails on her right hand - not manicured, bit down and ragged. It’s her, exactly where Clyde said she would be. He doesn’t make a big show, just simply sits in the empty seat across from her, his heart pounding in his chest when he sees her face for the first time in months. Emily’s hand is unsteady as her fingers wrap around the espresso on the table. “I’ve been waiting.” It sounds formal; she makes no move to shake his hand or hug him, or display any bit of emotion, but her lips tremble and her eyes well up a little.

“I got a little lost along the way,” Aaron shrugs a little, keeping his tone light for any ears privy to their conversation. She smiles, probably picturing him lost on the maze-like streets of Paris, the streets that still don’t feel like home to her either. “I’m here now.” It carries more weight than it ever would; all he wants to do is touch her to prove to himself this isn’t just part of the fucking nightmare he’s lived since March, one he’ll wake from wrapped in sheets damp with sweat and a pounding heart. She’s very much real, very much alive in front of him, but what the Emily he sees isn’t the Emily he remembers. Paris might be beautiful but it hasn’t been kind to her. She’s thinner and paler, shades of exhaustion on her face. Over the years Aaron has seen her sleep deprived more times than he could count - the toll of back to back cases added up - but this is something else entirely. It’s the culmination of fear from constantly looking over her shoulder, the toll of the unknown. Would Doyle ever stop looking for her, or would the rest of her days be spent on the run, alone, days that blend into weeks into months and years? Would she ever come home, to the only family she’s really ever had?

Emily studies him too, undoubtedly shocked at what she sees. Time hasn’t been kind to him, either. He’s a shell of what he used to be. A subtle shadow on his face that’s new, he’s weary eyed and tense. She knows it’s not because of the better part of a day he’s spent traveling - it’s much more than that. It’s a haunting look, with the memory of how quickly things spiraled out of control. He’d been helpless to stop any of it; Emily knows the blame he places on himself. If their hurried goodbye in the hospital was any indicator of the torment of what he’s been through the last six months, then she knows it’s been hell for him. Just like it’s been for her. She pushes another espresso, this one untouched, in his direction. “How much time do you have?” English feels foreign on her tongue. It’s been weeks, months maybe, since she’s had a real conversation not in French. It’s an act. This is all an act, but one her life depends on. Every minute she spends walking the arrondissements is a risk. The fear curls around her spine a little too tightly. She glances around the coffee shop, eyes scanning through without spending too long on any one thing. It can’t look obvious, only effortless.

“Not nearly enough.” Aaron wonders how much she knows about this, just what Clyde told her about the logistics of his visit. “We have about forty eight hours.”

He doesn’t miss the longing, wistful look in her eyes when she nods, the slightest tip of her head. It’s not enough time, it never will be. But it’s all they have, all they might ever have. They speak in short sentences, vague and cryptic, as they sip the espresso. It’s stronger than he expected, she seems immune to its effects. She doesn’t call him Aaron, and he’s careful not to call her Emily. He doesn’t know her new name, either. Not even Clyde could give him that information - it was probably better that way. They make superficial conversation - the rain here and the heat there, the bakery on the corner with chocolate croissants and the headlines on the newspaper that sits on the table. He plays along as she explains, as if he fits into this world she’s had no other choice but to assimilate into. To anyone in the cafe, they could be old friends, lovers even, with years of history between them, a casual intimacy spun like a web. The ease of lulls in conversation, a subtle glance every so often, the comfort of the proximity of someone else.

And hidden somewhere in their conversation, behind a facade of lies, is something else. What no one knows, what they haven’t quite managed to forget themselves, is something happened between them once before.

...

It was spring, after the dust had settled from Foyet and the world started to turn again, albeit slowly. Only when things settled into a new kind of normal - the humble experience of single parenting, relying on Jessica like he never had before - did Aaron realize something had changed between them. Perhaps it was the unwavering way Emily stood by him even when he wouldn’t admit to needing it, or how she picked up his loose ends without making him feel like his life was unraveling before his eyes. It was the way she mourned Haley’s death, a steadfast presence at her funeral, and her attentiveness to Jack in the months after.

He’d been divorced for more than a year, separated for at least two. Aaron no longer mourned his marriage, but the loss of his son’s mother, the woman he’d shared more than half of his life with. But someone else started to preoccupy his mind - dark hair, a blinding grin, a wicked sense of humor. It was becoming harder to ignore; she was everywhere. So a few months later in the spring, when he found Emily, nursing a drink at the hotel bar that had clearly seen better days, after a particularly brutal case in Scranton, he knew exactly how the night would end. It would cross a line - railroad through any professional boundary they still maintained. But an unsub had walked free earlier that night, a child was dead, and while it wasn’t her fault, he watched any trace of composure vanish from her face when they got back to the hotel as she retreated into herself.

It shouldn’t have happened that way - definitely not how he imagined it would. But Emily was desperate in her need to forget, he was desperate to help her do so. It was frantic, the clash of her teeth against his an ironic reminder that this was the first time he ever kissed her. Aaron pressed her back against the wall, sucked a bruise into her neck, and buried himself inside of her with one smooth push. He swallowed her moans with his mouth, the snap of his hips brutal and sharp. She reveled in it, her need for him and this, legs hitched over his hips as she clenched around him.

“Wanted you for so long,” he growled as she came around him. Her fingers were like vices around his shoulders, clinging to him as he fucked her through it, unrelenting. “Thought about you, about this.”

“Me too,” Emily gasped, the simple admission triggering his own release until he came apart and took her with him one more time.

Aaron had to carry her to the bed in the middle of his hotel room. It was the most gentle he’d been all evening, gingerly placing her in the center of it, following her down and pulling her into his arms. She was bruised and sore, he wore the scratches of her nails on his back and shoulders. Emily curled into him like she’d been doing it forever, snuggling into his chest. “I still can’t feel my legs.”

“We should have done that a long time ago,” he mused into the darkness, dragging his fingertips down her spine, listening to her slow, even breaths. It’s an admission more than an observation, and the low laugh that comes from her is all the confirmation he needs to know she thinks the same thing.

It happened again hours later, in the middle of the night, this time softer, slow and unhurried. He made her come twice with his mouth, coaxing her through each one. Aaron took his time, marveling at her and whispering praises into her skin. She beamed under his touch, besotted under his gaze. He studied the sharpness of her ribs, the curve of her waist, the length of her legs. And then he held her hands in his own above her head, rocking into her, metronomic and even. He kissed her like a lover should, his lips still wet with her slick, her legs pressed tightly wrapped around his waist as she crested against him. He collapsed against her shortly after, grappling for her hands, leaving kisses along her collarbones - anything to be as close to her as he possibly could.

But it was over after that.

Timing once again failed them. Not because they didn’t have the chance, but because they were both afraid something would change, whatever friendship they built over time, and they wouldn’t be able to take it back. They never talked about it, never even acknowledged anything had happened in that hotel room in Scranton once it was over. It lingered between them, the awareness of it sometimes all-consuming if she got too close or they somehow ended up sitting beside one another on the jet. But things happened - JJ’s untimely departure, coupled with Seaver’s arrival, the grueling toll of case after case. It was buried, hidden behind the burden of their jobs and the baggage they carried, both too stubborn to admit what was right in front of them.

And then she slipped away, shortly after a case in Montana. Emily’s typical professionalism, her unmatched level of skill was marred by uncharacteristic lateness and a short fuse, as if something had settled into her mind that she couldn’t shake. She was secretive and jumpy, slowly withdrawing from them all before his own eyes. And he’d been too caught up in what they weren’t saying, what they were hiding from, to even ask what was wrong.

Aaron never saw it coming. Until it was too late.

…

The cafe suddenly feels suffocating, the four walls trapping them in. What started as an alluring scent of coffee beans and freshly baked pastries now feels cloying, overwhelming. It’s just a little too loud as their conversation fades into silence. After all, there’s only so much small talk that can be made when he only has one question. Why? Across from him Emily shifts in her chair yet still wears her pleasant smile, still playing the act she’s perfected over the last several months. But she’s tearing at her fingernails, a sure sign that she’s nervous. He knows her tells by now, all of them. “What do we do now?” She asks, her voice barely audible. Whether it’s intentional or not he isn’t sure,

He leans in, takes her hand in his own. “Let’s get out of here.”

[lightsovermonaco]

His Good Sweater: Chapter 4

Masterlist

Thank you as always to my best friend and Beta reader @acollectionofficsandshit​ for putting up with me and my ramblings ♥

Word Count: 3.8k

Recommended song: "ily (I love you baby)" by Surf Mesa and Emilee

You'd never been more thankful that you kept a change of clothes in your car than you were after the race at Silverstone. You'd showered again, changing back into the sweaty tee and leggings. The clean emergency hoodie and jeans were a blessing, and casual enough for a night on the town.

Most of the crew had left, only a few poor souls pouring over race data or packing up essentials. James let you into the trailer yard this time without hesitation. "We really should just get you a key," He teases, "Sure would make my life easier."

Rolling your eyes, you give the tower of muscle a pitiful shove. He doesn't move an inch. "Thanks James. I'll ask Pierre to look into it."

A sudden wave of tiredness washes over you when you make it back to the trailer. You flip through the channels on the tiny television, settling on an analysis of the day’s race.

“And a brilliant drive from young Pierre Gasly, wasn’t it John?”

“I completely agree Martin. Gasly took advantage of every slip up by Mercedes and Red Bull and he has to be commended for that. Max made some rare mistakes and…”

You smile to yourself, their praise washing over you. Yawning, you curl up on Pierre's bed, the familiar smell of cedar lulling you into a light sleep in minutes.

**********

A gentle touch to your cheek wakes you some hours later. You crack your eyes open, greeted by a smile brighter than the stars in the night sky. You taste eternal sunshine on his lips when you kiss him, your soul sparking in response to his light.

"Good morning," He murmurs, thumb rubbing along your jaw. "Sleep well?"

You snuggle closer to him, eyes closing once more as you soak up the warmth. "Is it time to go out already?"

"It is. But we can stay here if you want to." He brushes a stray hair off your face. The gesture is so tender, if you didn’t know any better you’d never guess he could turn into the seasoned, take-no-shit racer you’d seen hours before. 

You shake your head. You couldn't let him miss out on celebrating his victory with his closest friends. Besides, you hadn't seen any of them for a span of time longer than a few minutes in months, and truth be told, you missed them all. 

Those boys had a knack for turning the simplest of outings into unforgettable adventures. You had been sworn to secrecy on numerous occasions after Pierre recounted drunken escapades that usually ended with Max sleeping somewhere preposterous, like a claw-footed bathtub in a fancy suite.

“Where are we going?” You ask sleepily. “Somewhere nearby?”

Pierre tugs you up until you’re sitting. He pulls you back against his chest, arms wrapping around you as he sets his chin on your shoulder. “Yeah. Maybe ten minutes away.”

You lean your full weight against him, admiring how perfectly your bodies slot together. “Can I leave my car here?”

“As long as you’re okay with it staying here until tomorrow, that’s fine.” He coaxes you to stand and presses a kiss to your temple as a reward. Your limbs are still heavy and uncooperative. Pierre winds an arm around your waist, supporting you and assuming the position of your rock as he always did.

"You don't sleep here," You state simply, looking at him for confirmation. He shakes his head.

"Wouldn't be enough room for two anyway." He gestures to the tiny twin sized bed and shrugs.

Your brow furrows. “Am I staying with you tonight?” You honestly had not considered it. The jet usually left early and you had assumed he would want to get as much rest as possible. But now that you had experienced waking up next to him, you realize how much you want his face to be the first thing you see when you open your eyes each morning.

“Of course you’re staying with me. I’m taking every second of your time that I can get.”

You bite your lip and lay your head on his shoulder. The idea of falling asleep in his arms was enough to shake any lingering sleepiness. “Okay.” Confident that you could hold yourself up, you step out of his grasp. “Ready.”

The few mechanics roaming about the grounds are enough to keep you cautious. You walk through the paddock a hair's breadth apart, although every nerve screams for you to touch him. Every time your arm grazes his, electricity ripples across your skin. All you want to do is hold his hand, but there’s enough prying eyes that you restrain the impulse.

You can tell he feels it too by the way his fingers curl and uncurl at his sides. And he's biting his cheek, you notice. A nervous habit of his and a clear indicator that he'd retreated inside his own head, likely contemplating if he'd truly deserved to win today or not.

Every few months his doubts crept in, the devil on his shoulder reminding him that Horner hadn't deemed him good enough to keep his seat at Red Bull after only a handful of races.

You'll never be as talented as them, is what you'd imagined it whispered. They're only here because they pity you. What makes you think you deserve a seat?

It couldn't be farther from the truth. Deep down, Pierre knew that. Driving in Formula 1 meant being under constant scrutiny from the public and sportscasters. Making an error meant debates about whether you were good enough and rumors about seat security.

There were no such errors today. You'd heard the commentary after the race; everyone was raving about his performance. Not one person had dared say he didn't deserve it.

Not wanting him to suffer alone, you subtly wrap your pinky finger around his. "You're okay," You say softly, his head whipping to you. "You deserved that trophy today. It was some of the best driving I've ever seen, everyone agrees. You deserve a trophy every time you get in that car. You'll always be my champion, even if the world tells you otherwise."

It takes a moment for it to sink in, but he nods and releases your pinkie. "You're my grounding rod," He says, lips curling in a knowing smile, and you can't hold back your laugh.

"Leave it to you to turn a romantic moment into a cheesy one." Instead of saying you're my rock like any normal person, he had to bring up the time you'd embarrassed yourself at the bar a year or so ago. He'd let you prattle on to poor Dan about building grounding rods of all things, and how you'd thought your professor's way of designing such a system was flawed. Pierre would never let you live that down, it seemed.

Max spots the two of you first, waving from where the boys had gathered outside Red Bull. “About time you showed up! We’ve been waiting for ten minutes!”

“She fell asleep,” Pierre says simply, his confidence back. “Takes her awhile to wake up.”

“Whatever, I’m just glad you’re here,” Daniel says, throwing an arm around your shoulders and tucking you tight to his side. You couldn’t help the broad smile creeping onto your face, twin to the aussie’s as you hug him back. 

“We missed you,” Charles says, falling into step beside you. “I never hear from you anymore!”

You grimace. It was true, while the three boys had texted you quite frequently the past few months, you had barely responded to them. You felt guilty about it, knowing they were taking time out of their packed schedules to catch up. But uni had been kicking your ass and the only one you’d found time for was Pierre. Looking back, you were glad he had been the exception.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” You say. “Lots of projects.”

“And that new internship,” Max points out. Your eyebrows flick up, gaze flicking to Pierre. You had been awarded an internship a month or so ago at a local engineering firm in London. It was only part time work, a few hours a week, but it was enough. The only one you had told was Pierre.

Pierre grins, the gesture a silent apology. “I may have spilled the beans.” 

You cut him a glare, the others laughing at your attempt at being intimidating. But you couldn’t turn away from him, not when he was looking at you with the same pride you had felt when he’d won earlier that day. 

“Uber’s here,” Charles announces, checking his phone.

“Where?” Daniel asks, and Charles indicates a black SUV parked at the curb. Daniel and Max exchange a look, shouting “Shotgun!” at the same time. Both boys break into a full sprint, feet pounding on the pavement. Daniel wins - barely, leaving Max and Charles to squeeze into the back seat.

Pierre follows you into the third row of seats, his hand immediately engulfing yours. Your stomach flips, glancing up to find a reassuring smile on his face. You could barely focus on what was said for the first half of the ride, hyperaware of the callouses rubbing your skin. The world around you erupts into color at the touch, completing the part of you that you’d never realized was missing. 

The remainder of the drive is filled with laughter, jokes, and plenty of selfies with the driver. It wasn’t every day one could brag about having four world class drivers in your car; you couldn’t blame the man for being excited.

By the time you arrive at the bar, your sides are already splitting with laughter. “First round is on you, Ricciardo,” Charles says, wagging a finger at him. “Punishment for bringing up the Abu Dhabi incident again!”

“Jokes on you, I was already planning on it!” He glances at you and winks. “Gotta congratulate the winner somehow, right?” Little did the Australian know, you had already congratulated Pierre a few hours ago, and you doubted that a few shots would outshine that performance. You hope the pink tinge that rises to your cheeks with the memory isn't obvious and you duck your head just in case.

A blast of air conditioning hits you as you all stumble into the bar. All eyes fell to you and the ragtag group of drivers when you entered, silence blanketing the patrons. The bartender slams a fist on the wooden bartop, rattling glasses and making you flinch.

“Been wonderin’ when you lot were gonna show your ugly mugs!”

Daniel, Max and Charles erupt into friendly laughter, shaking the man’s hand and making small talk. You look to Pierre for an explanation.

“Tradition,” He murmurs. The noise returned to a normal level around you, though you could feel the glances thrown your way. “We come here every year, but only if one of us wins at Silverstone. Been awhile since that happened.”

"Ah," You say, nodding dramatically. "Yes, very long time." Pierre grins, shaking his head.

"Who won this year?" The man - William, Pierre informs you- asks. He towered over you when you sat on the sticky bar stool, tall and lanky but well muscled and certainly not someone you would expect patrons to try disrespecting. He was already pouring five shots of a fine Irish Whiskey, waving Daniel off when he tried to start a tab. “My treat.”

Max claps a hand on Pierre's shoulder. "This one claimed the crown, for once!"

"Wey hey!" William says, passing out the shots. "Everyone else crash out or what?"

"You should watch the replay," You say, knocking Pierre's shoulder with your own. "It was amazing. The move he used to get past Max-" you bring your pinched fingers to your lips in a chef's kiss. "Gorgeous."

"Much to Max's despair," Charles adds, raising his shot. "To the underdog!"

You all echo the sentiment, the boys knocking back the strong alcohol with practiced ease. It didn't go down as smooth for you, burning your throat and making you wince.

Daniel laughs. "Not used to drinking with us anymore, huh?"

"Must have lost my edge," You say, the woody taste lingering in your mouth. "I'm sure it'll hit me hard in a half hour or so, too."

**********

Well, you weren't wrong about the alcohol hitting you like a punch to the gut. Two shots later and you were swaying like a sailor on his first excursion out to sea, Pierre's shoulder the only thing keeping you from toppling off the bar stool. 

Pierre's eyes were bright as the others poked fun at him, William joining in with a witty remark now and then. His laugh wrapped around you like a warm blanket, keeping you content and grounded.

"Hey Pierre," Daniel says at one point, "Don't look now but that table of girls has been obsessed with you all night."

Pierre, blitzed as he was, pays no attention to Dan's warning and turns around. A loopy grin was plastered on his face, turning back and shaking his head.

You may not have been able to think straight, but your stomach lurches. Instantly sobering slightly, you follow Dan's gaze to the indicated table to your left. Three beautiful women sat there, whispering behind their hands and clearly speaking about Pierre. One bit her lip and caught your eye, giggling. Her looks were universally attractive enough that she would be anyone’s type, Pierre included. The possessiveness in the gaze she raked over his body set your blood boiling. 

This… was not a scenario you wanted to play out. You didn't know if Pierre was ready to tell his friends about your relationship yet. You knew he wouldn't let any of those girls have the light of day, but he might let them fawn over him a little, just to protect your secret. And it would kill you, but you would have no choice but to let it happen.

"I'm good," Pierre says, sipping the beer he had been nursing all night.

"Come on mate," Max pushes, a wicked grin on his flushed face, "That blonde is so your type."

No she isn't.

You’re already staring up at Pierre when he turns to you. You have always worn your emotions on your sleeve for anyone to see, and it only got worse when mixed with alcohol. Pierre smiles softly, taking mercy on you. Slowly, he takes your hand and threads your fingers together before turning back to the boys.

"One of you can tell them I’m not interested. I already have my girl." 

Heart beating wildly, you scan your friends faces. They were all wide eyed and slack jawed, staring at your joined hands. Pierre gives your hand a gentle squeeze, reminding you to breathe. He read you like an open book, offering reassurance when you needed it most.

"It's about fucking time!" Daniel roars, breaking the tense silence. Your shoulders relax, grinning along with the others. Pierre beams at you, knocking your shoulder to say I told you so. 

"Does this mean I get a break from listening to you obsess over her every weekend?" Max asks, giving you a meaningful look. 

"Likely not," Pierre answers. "I'm still just as obsessed as before. Maybe more." Max pretends to gag, earning him a playful punch from Charles. God, it was so freeing for your relationship to be more open, even if it was just between your closest friends. 

"I'd just like to point out that I told you two this would happen years ago," Charles says matter of factly, pointing at Max and Dan. "Should've taken you up on that bet."

Your mouth hung open. "You were going to bet on us being a couple?"

"Oh come on," Max says, rolling his eyes. "We all knew it was coming eventually. We just didn't know when!"

Pink stains your cheeks, but Pierre laughs and leans in to kiss you. Remembering the girls behind you, you press a little closer to him. Under the guise of placing a kiss to his cheek, you meet the blonde's eyes and smile sweetly.

The woman preens, mouth twisting. Good. Pierre was yours, and now that he'd admitted it, you could let those girls know it. His hand slips to your thigh, squeezing hard. A clear warning that you were venturing into dangerous territory. You didn't care.

The alcohol in your veins makes you bold, and you want to drive your point home. They could look all they wanted, but he was coming home with you. You push the boundary farther and bite the soft skin of his neck just hard enough to leave a mark. Pierre's hiss finally makes you pull back and look up at him innocently.

"Get a room," Daniel teases with a wink. You smile at him, mumbling an insincere apology. Your point had been made. The arrogant smirk had been wiped from the woman’s face, replaced with a grimace. 

"I think it is time for us to get going," Pierre says, annoyance flashing across his face. Oh, you had stoked the fire and now you would have to face the consequences. 

"We're just getting started," Charles complains. Pierre slaps a few bills on the counter and gets up without responding. 

"Bye guys!" You call over your shoulder as Pierre drags you towards the door. They all wave back, Max's lower lip jutting out in a pout. Your eyes slid one more time to the blonde, who had her arms crossed over her chest. You give her a wicked, taunting grin and return her earlier wink.

Pierre halts so quickly that you run into him. “Why are we leaving?”

“You know why,” He growls, flagging down a cab. “You didn't like how she was looking at me, so you did something about it. You might not have noticed, but every man in that bar had their eyes on you. So I’m following your example and doing something about it.”

Your brow furrows. Pierre won’t meet your gaze, and your eyes fall to the purple mark on his neck. You didn’t like his tone; it bordered dangerously on anger. “Are you… Are you mad that I did that?”

Tears threaten to spill when he finally looks at you. God, you were a blubbering drunk.  When your lip wobbles, his anger fades and he sighs. “I’m not mad. I just… I didn’t think you’d want me flaunting our relationship yet. When you did this-” He gestures to his neck- “I could barely keep my hands off you. Not when I saw the guy walking up to you.”

You sniff, trying to conjure the image of the bar. “I didn’t notice anyone.”

“Yeah, cause I dragged you out here before he could say anything.” Pierre pulls his hood up and sighs. “Trying to catch a cab here is harder than overtaking Hamilton.”

You laugh harder than you should at the off-hand remark, following after him as he trudges down the sidewalk. “Why are you not drunk? I feel like you should be drunk. You won a race. They were feeding you shots one after another.”

“One of us had to be responsible and make sure we got home okay.” He smiles over his shoulder at you. “And I knew as soon as you had that first shot it would have to be me. Didn’t you notice me handing the shots to the other guys?”

“No,” You say, rubbing your eyes. “What about the boys? How are they gonna get home?” Pierre stops, forcing you to do the same. He tugs your hood up, makes sure his is secure enough to hide his face, and grabs your hand.

“I already told Seb to come round them up in an hour or so. They’ll be fine.”

You don’t respond, too busy trying to put one foot in front of the other and not fall on your face. It doesn’t help that your vision is a tad blurry. Finally you give up and whine, “How much further?”

“It’s right there,” He says, pointing at a towering glass building just across the street. “In five minutes, you can be tucked into a cozy, fluffy suite and you can rest all you want, my love.”

You hum at the words, warmth flooding your veins from more than the liquor. “I like that.”

“What, the building?” He asks, amused. He helps you cross the empty street, making sure you’re paying attention to where you’re going.

“Noooo, what you said,” You clarify, leaning on him as you try to navigate the handful of steps leading to the hotel.

He’s quiet until you reach the elevator. “My love,” He murmurs, and you grin up at him.

“Mon… mon coeur,” You manage to say, somehow pulling the French phrase out of the dregs of your memory. The words are slurred and you know that you absolutely botch the pronunciation, but the intent is clear. You may have lived in France since you were 18, but learning the language wasn’t a requirement when almost everyone knew english as well. But the two of you had spent many hours watching Pierre’s favorite french films over the years; some of it must have unintentionally rubbed off on you.

A disbelieving smile tugs at his lips. “How do you even know what that means?”

You shrug. “Just do.” The elevator doors open and you step out, Pierre following. You halt, not knowing which hall to take. You glance up at your companion for help, only to find him staring back at you. “What?”

He shakes his head and leads you down the corridor to his room. It's a spacious corner suite, with huge windows facing Silverstone that give him a perfect view of the track. You make for the window but Pierre’s hand on your wrist stops you.

“I don’t think so, it’s time for you to sleep.”

“But I just wanna see,” You protest weakly.

“Nice try. I know you. You’ll sit in front of that window for hours if I let you.”

You give in only because he was right. Cityscapes of any kind drew your attention like a moth to a flame. You pouted anyway, but let him take you to the bedroom. Gentle pressure on your shoulders had you sinking into the plush mattress, groaning at the luxurious softness. Pierre laughs as he helps you out of your shoes and jeans, leaving the hoodie.

Eyelids drooping, you climb under the covers Pierre had pulled back for you. He tucks you in and kisses your temple. You grab for him, tugging on his shirt until he stoops down and gives you a proper kiss. When he steps out of your grasp, you panic.

“Stay,” You mumble, fear bubbling in your chest. He had to stay, he couldn’t leave, not when you only had this one night left-

“I’m just taking off my shoes,” He assures you, his weight sliding in behind you to settle against your back. You sigh, moulding yourself to him as best you could. Being in his arms was somehow familiar, even if he’d never held you like this. It felt like home.

“Pierre?”

“Hmm?”

“I love you.”

Pillowy soft lips press to the nape of your neck. “I love you too, mon coeur.”

Tagging: @flashcal

[reddeaddufus]

All In An Afternoon’s Fun

Summary: Arthur has a realization and has some fun fucking with John (SFW)

Author's notes: This is a gift for the amazing @farcrying for the @rdrevents winter exchange event! This ficlet features Scout, Farcrying's OC. She's an awesome character with a great backstory. I loved reading about her, and you can find more about her (and some gorgeous art!) over on Farcrying's Tumblr. I'm honoured to write her and hope I captured her essence well!

It was a quiet early afternoon that found Arthur Morgan with a rumbling stomach in the Rhodes General Store. He thumbed through various tin cans before pausing on a glass jar full of dried and salted venison. Glancing up revealed that the store clerk was totally absent, evidently still working to load up their wagon with their extensive order of camp provisions. The only other inhabitant in the room besides himself was one John Marston. With a soft clink of the jar’s lid, Arthur deftly slipped several pieces of jerky into his pocket. He was ready to wait away the remainder of the time until the clerk returned by perusing the store’s catalog when, somewhere behind him, John spoke.

“Hey, what do you think of Scout?” 

“She’s fine,” Arthur responded offhand.

“Mhm.” Where the answering noise might have sounded noncommittal, it instead sounded strained. That got Arthur’s attention. He put down the can of strawberries he’d been contemplating and looked at his companion. John studiously ignored Arthur’s attention, instead studying a woven display of garlic very intently. 

“Why you askin’?” Arthur asked, keeping his voice casual.

“No reason.” John still wasn’t looking at him. 

Arthur’s eyes narrowed. There was clearly a reason. Eventually, Arthur huffed a low breath. “She’s a good kid. Works hard, harder than she needs to.” His words were wary, and he didn’t bother to hide the warning note in his tone. Arthur was expecting the worst. Just two days ago Sean, of all people, had also asked him the same question. It had taken him aback, to say the least.

Of anyone likely to be distrustful, Arthur would not have even considered Sean. The man was an idiot, through and through. That the man was suspicious of Scout was even more concerning. Arthur had spent more time with her than possibly either John or Sean had since she’d arrived, and he would be more than happy to physically beat down anyone who doubted her worth and place in the gang. 

Scout Reiser had joined them several months back. Charles had found her lost and wandering in the Bluewater marsh. She’d nursed him through an untimely snake bite, and he’d taken pity and brought her back to camp. At first the girl had seemed like a bit of a lost puppy. She was shy, but had taken to quietly following both Charles and Arthur around like a second shadow. Scout was a hard worker, often taking over tasks before even being offered the chance to do so. Eventually she’d begun to speak up; first faltering and quiet, then more assertive and relaxed when the gang responded in kind. She was a crack shot with a rolling block rifle and wielded a light and friendly wit. A bit impulsive, sure, but that was nothing Arthur wasn’t already used to. 

He’d once caught her over his shoulder while he wrote in his journal, and he’d nearly tanned her hide before he’d realized she was intent on his drawings rather than his script. He’d still scolded her, but had felt so guilty at her obvious remorse that later he gifted her with her own journal some few weeks later. Together, he’d guided her through a couple of drawings, and she proved to be a bright, eager pupil. She’d never tried to look in his journal again after that, but Arthur didn’t think he would have minded so terribly if she had. He’d willingly take a bullet for her – a lot more willingly than he would for some of the other gang members, even – and he knew she’d do the same for him without hesitation. 

“Did you see something?” A asked gruffly. 

John’s brows furrowed momentarily. “See something..?”

When he looked up, Arthur was waiting for him, jaw set in warning. His expression seemed to clear up John’s apparent confusion, and he shook his head and attempted to clarify. 

“No, I didn’t see anything. Was just, wondering, ah..” His voice faltered and cracked awkwardly. To Arthur’s surprise, a blotchy blush began to rise in John’s face. The younger man turned his cheek and tugged the brim of his hat lower, but it was too late. 

“Oh,” Arthur said dumbly. “Oh.”

His mind whirred for a moment, clicking John’s sheepishness concerning the young woman into place. If John had it bad for the kid - well. Well. Arthur would have to think on that one. He was having a hard time wrapping his brain around the concept, but the concept of the two of them together didn’t necessarily strike him as a poor match. And if John was asking about Scout because he liked her, as bashful as a kid in a schoolyard, it was all too possible that Arthur had misconstrued Sean as well. If he’d missed that, he might have to reevaluate his judge of character. Either that, or concede to a stiff drink. 

John at least had some small iota of subtlety to his character. Even after years of enduring the younger man’s moods, John still managed to surprise him. But if he’d misread Sean… well, he really was a fool after all. There was nothing more to that man than a thin veneer of pretense, and that was on a good day. As far as Arthur was concerned, the soppy Irishman wore his heart on his sleeve as well as his liver, brain, and vocal chords. 

    John was staring at him nervously. Still wracking his mind, Arthur lifted his hand in what was supposed to be a placating gesture. If it came out stiffly, it was really John’s own fault for dumping this on him. 

But, an insidious voice inside Arthur whispered, it really shouldn’t have been a surprise, should it?

Arthur was saved from having to say something by the sound of the bell above the door pealing. The grocery clerk motioned to where their now-full cart waited outside, and Arthur nodded dumbly in thanks. John was close at his heels as Arthur made for the door. 

“Do you think she’s–” 

John’s question cut off abruptly with the swinging of the door behind them and the following flare of bright sunlight. Arthur blinked in the shade of his hat until the bright white shock faded, revealing their wagon and the woman in question. 

    “We ready?” the young woman called cheerily. Scout stood with the cart horses and was quick to wipe onto her pants the froth of horse spittle from her hands. The two horses were chewing, clearly preoccupied with whatever she’d managed to smuggle them. 

    Arthur granted his affirmation and she smiled. With the creak of new leather, she tossed the bridle she’d had slung over her shoulder into the backboard. Bits of hay were stuck to the front of her shirt, a dead giveaway to her visit to the stables while he and John had been in the general store. Scout turned and, in one fluid motion, pulled herself up and into the backboard. John was there just a breath later, uselessly and awkwardly reaching to guide her up. He dropped his arms before she could fully turn and shot Arthur a warning look when the snicker bubbling out of the older man nearly was voiced. 

    To hide his amusement, Arthur took to the spring seat. By the time he’d gathered the reins and clucked the horse team forward, John was sitting beside him on the narrow seat with rifle in hand. They were unlikely to need the firepower on the short trip back to camp, but the extra caution never hurt. Scout struck up a light chatter from the back and Arthur was happy for the moment to reflect, only half-listening to the ongoing conversation between the young woman and John.  

The air, while stale within the musty interior of the store, had been blessedly cool. It was a rarity in Lemoyne, and the sweaty collar of his shirt now resumed sticking uncomfortably to his skin. He scratched at it idly. 

It wasn’t so shocking, now that Arthur thought about it. She was a lovely woman, really. Small, yet necessarily dainty, and with a sweet and deceivingly naive-looking heart shaped face. She had a sharp tongue and a strong sense of justice, something Arthur had only fallen prey to once or twice before. But there was a softness in her eyes. A sort of gentleness wholly uncommon to their lifestyle. 

It was something Arthur had responded to with a certain protectiveness rather than with attraction. He’d never really viewed her that way, as a woman. He’d die for her, and happily smear anyone who hurt her into the mud, but it was impossible for him to view her as a prospective paramour. So impossible, in fact, that he apparently hadn’t noticed that two of his regular companions were likely head over heels for her. 

While Scout and John talked, Arthur watched. 

John’s hand gently steadied her elbow while she climbed into the wagon, and her returning touch lingered a bit too long to be anything but receptive. John’s voice was softer when he talked to her, softer than in any tone he’d used talking to anyone Arthur had ever seen, that’s for sure. Their interactions were markedly soft. Scout, while seemingly oblivious to John’s affections, responded subtly in kind. They leaned close as they talked as well. While Arthur might have otherwise pinned that on the motions of the wagons, now he picked up the unconscious movements the two made to touch each other. 

It was just fleeting, quick little gestures. If he’d blinked, Arthur would have missed each of them in turn. A hand unnecessarily braced on the seat backing, brushing her shoulder. A flirtatious push to John’s back following a vaguely suggestive joke. She was awkward with him, but really, they both were. Awkward in an endearing sort of way, like watching a newborn colt find it’s legs. Her faltering inexperience was obvious, but not nearly as obvious as John’s stumbling infatuation. Arthur felt something inside him soften and he smiled. He could have kicked himself for not noticing it earlier. 

He did kick himself when Scout struck up a quirley and the fragrant spin of tobacco smoke in the air reminded him that he’d meant to buy more rolling papers from the general store. That faltered his smile, but not for long. As they approached the hidden camp path, Arthur felt a sort of rude, viciously delighted satisfaction upon realizing that the guard on duty wore a kelly green bowler’s cap. In an uncharastically proactive action, Sean was quick to approach the wagon as they approached. 

“Who is it?” He called mockingly, grinning broadly. He had no eyes for John or Arthur, instead looking directly to Scout. Well, damn, Arthur smiled. Guess he owed himself a stiff drink after all. 

John opened his mouth, ready with a bitter retort, no doubt, but was cut off by Scout’s barked laughter.

“It’s me, dumbass!” she called with an exaggerated growling drawl. 

Arthur snorted at the imitation of his own voice, and Scout snickered. 

“Ah, it’s just English! Never mind me then, I’ll go’en leave yeh alone,” Sean scoffed glibly. In direct contrast to his words, he came close and propped his forearms over the side of the top box board. He leant there, as lean and as relaxed as a very satisfied cat. He grinned at Scout and pointedly ignored John’s growing scowl. Scout’s lit smoke was almost forgotten between her lips, more prop than anything, as she laughed at Sean’s eager attentions.

As delightful as it was to watch John’s foul mood bloom in front of his eyes, the scent of tobacco mixed with Arthur’s own neglected hunger made his mouth water. He didn’t want to miss this for anything. As the driver of the wagon, he fortunately didn’t have to, so long as John didn’t forcibly wrestle the reins from Arthur’s grip. He wouldn’t put it past him. As an added bonus, Sean seemed content to not move a muscle as Arthur blindly reached for the tobacco pouch buried somewhere deep in his satchel. Not finding it, Arthur turned away to dig. Upon finally extracting the leather pouch, he didn’t hesitate to pluck a pre-rolled smoke from the bag and to tuck it beneath his teeth. He looked up only to unexpectedly meet John’s dark, level gaze. 

“What?” Arthur asked. 

“I need one,” John growled. 

Arthur regarded John with a smirk. 

“C’mon now, ain’t we in good company?” he drawled.

John didn’t reply, instead snatching the bag from Arthur’s hands and pulling free a cigarette of his own. The action made Arthur bark out a loud laugh.  

    “What’s so funny?” Scout asked. Looking up, Arthur realized that his laughter had attracted the attention of both Scout and a mildly perturbed-looking Sean, clearly unhappy he’d lost her attention to Arthur. That only made Arthur grin wider. He just shook his head at Scout, dropping a forearm over the backseat of the springboard and leaning closer to the young woman. With a chuckle, he motioned to his own unlit smoke. 

“Scout, you gonna share that light?”

Scout eyed him with a smile, a little confused but ever good company.

“Sure, you out?” she asked. She shifted closer. 

“Somethin’ like that.” 

Casually, Arthur reached out and snatched the tobacco pouch back from John’s now slack grip. He stuffed it back into his satchel with an easy grin. Both Arthur and John knew that, within said pouch, there were easily a small handful of strike-anywhere matches. But John was silent and, to Arthur’s great amusement, slack-jawed as Scout leaned close and touched the red hot cherry of her smoke to Arthur’s. 

He could feel her breath as she inhaled sharply, flaring the tip of her cigarette into a bright, active spark. A curl of her honey-colored hair graced along the back of his hand as he cupped the light protectively. Arthur drew the burn in deep, savoring the feeling of the heat blooming down into his chest. A long exhale sent an appreciative plume of smoke spiralling away and above from their faces. When he finally pulled away, it was with a smirk. 

Scout smiled at him, still unwitting and oblivious to the source of Arthur’s ever growing delight. She’s even more confused when her eyes flick to Arthur’s right and she notes the outright scowl on John’s face. Sean’s dumbstruck look is barely any better. 

At that, Arthur merrily snapped the reins, driving the cart team into jolting down the path to camp. Sean nearly stumbled as the box board he was leaning on jerked away, but Arthur was pretty sure he was the only one who saw.

If anything, his grin only widened when John, clearly bitter, used one of Arthur’s matches to light his own quirly. Scout didn’t notice, but Arthur sure did. He was whistling by the time they rolled into camp, and continued as they unloaded the wagon. Scout was amiable enough with his mood change, but John continued with his glowering scowl for an impressive duration. It was only Scout’s light chatter and joking with John that eventually melted his annoyance. Arthur watched them, content to study the two together. He was looking forward to watching this play out. For all his faults, Arthur wanted John to be happy. But that didn’t mean Arthur wasn’t going to have some fun with him first. 

[lacrimaomnis]

BRF Reading, 3/7/2021

I feel like asking my cards that one million dollar question today. People have speculated and seen in the readings that Harry will divorce Meghan -- I personally doubt he will divorce her because she had him completely under her control, but hey, there's nothing wrong with asking the cards right? Just think of this as a way to indulge our fantasy that he will be back, even though I personally wish he would never return and that the family will not take him back. He's done too much extensive damage.

As written, this is merely a speculation and therefore must be taken with a grain of salt. This speculation is not true until proven otherwise.

My question is, who or what will make Harry file for divorce/separate from Meghan?

Cards drawn: Queen of Wands, Four of Cups, Nine of Swords, Knight of Wands, The Emperor, The Lovers, Five of Pentacles.

Remarks/Comments: Alright. This is one interesting reading.

Summary: Frustration, paranoia, fear, depression, and maybe Meghan's own behaviour would probably cause the divorce. For the who part of the question, there might be an individual befitting the Queen of Wands or Charles or an authority that will make Harry and Meghan divorce.

First card: Queen of Wands. This is my court card for Meghan, a Leo. Wands are elementally affiliated with fire, and as the first and the most important card, this tells me that Harry will separate from Meghan because of her behaviour or something that she had done that drives him over the edge and snapped him out of it.

An alternative interpretation would be that Harry separates from Meghan because of the influence of an individual befitting the Queen of Wands. This is less likely, but I feel like this is not an impossibility -- even though realistically this would be a 0.1/10 chance, especially if Meghan is abusing Harry. I personally believe that it would be more probable that Harry separates from Meghan because of her behaviour.

Another alternative interpretation is that Harry might separate from Meghan because Harry wanted to re-establish his sense of self. This sounds too farfetched, considering it's Harry we're talking about, but again, this is not an impossibility. Perhaps somewhere down the road, Harry would realise that he had lost his sense of self if he ever had one -- since again, this is Harry we are talking about. He perhaps wanted to re-establish his independence, something that he had lost. For this to happen, however, he had to go on a long journey of soul-searching. And since this is Harry, I really doubt he'd be able to do that. I am not saying it is not possible, but it would take a lot from Harry to be able to do this.

Second card: Four of Cups. This card speaks about apathy, withdrawal, retreat, contemplation. This could mean that before Harry decided to file for a divorce, Harry had done some contemplation and decided that it was the best move to secure his future. He perhaps wanted his way into the family again, missing the comfort his family provided. Perhaps he realised there was no future with her. Or perhaps, taking the more extreme side of interpretation, divorce is a way for him to retreat and save his literal life. We are no strangers to stories where a couple separates, and one part of the couple stalked the other, intent on claiming their life, operating under the "if I can't have you, then no one can either" mindset. This, again, is the more extreme side of the interpretation, but with Meghan, anything is possible, though I really do hope this does not happen.

Third card: Nine of Swords. Coming after the Four of Cups, this really drives in that Harry would maybe separating from Meghan because of fear and depression. He feared her. He is worried about something that is caused by her behaviour. He was depressed. And the only way out is to run away. He is having dark thoughts and excessively worried, perhaps to the point of being paranoid. This card advised Harry to reach out and seek help, and maybe he did. Maybe the help he needed was a way out. Someone saying something or an event might be that needed lightbulb moment for him.

Fourth card: Knight of Wands. Funny that this card comes up in the reading because I thought that Harry is always looking for someone or something he can pin his problems to, or someone or something to come and save him from the mess he made himself. Though to be fair, the energy that comes across from this card is frustration, as it is pretty hard to imagine that someone will be his knight in shining armour and come save him.

In all seriousness, I think frustration would play a huge part in their divorce. Both Harry and Meghan would probably be very frustrated with each other to the point Harry decided enough is enough, and he would rather divorce her than living with that pent-up frustration for the rest of his life.

Fifth card: The Emperor. This card is also interesting because typically, The Emperor represents a father figure or an authority with masculine energy. This makes me think that Charles might have something to do with their divorce, and seeing its pair, the Knight of Wands...I can't believe I'm typing this, but Charles might be the knight in shining armour Harry needed to get out of the hot mess that is his marriage. As one of the two major arcana in this reading, this is one of the major energy, and therefore, Charles might have something big to do with his divorce.

Another interpretation that there would be an intervention from the authorities. I am personally more inclined towards this interpretation, but I can't imagine what kind of situation and even if it is possible for nation-sanctioned authorities to sanction divorce. Then again, as I am not a citizen of the Western hemisphere, there might be a piece of information I am missing. The only authority I know to be able to legally sanction a divorce would be a church, but I do not recall if the Church of England to which Harry belongs have had sanctioned divorces.

Or, another interpretation is that Harry filed for a divorce because Meghan has been too controlling of his life. This, along with Charles interpretation, made more sense than the authority intervention interpretation, but as this is masculine energy, I doubt it. If it had been Meghan, I believe the card that would come up should be The Empress, the card of a female ruler.

Sixth card: The Lovers. Another major arcana in this reading. While this card typically represents lovers in the literal sense, it also speaks about choices. At one point in his marriage before the divorce, Harry was presented with a choice. The choice whether to divorce or not or if we see its pair; the Nine of Swords, the choice to get away from the hot mess he was in. In this question, we assume that Harry and Meghan will divorce, so in the case of that question, Harry chose divorce. Seeing that this comes after The Emperor, it might be that someone presented that choice to him.

Seventh card: Five of Pentacles. Now, this is another interesting card. Five of Pentacles speaks of financial loss or recovery, but also speaks about being poor spiritually, so to speak. This might tell us that once Harry is divorced, he will get that financial freedom back -- so maybe this implied that if Harry is divorced, the family will take him back and give him his moneybags back. Which is something I personally do not want, but something I can totally see happening.

Or to tie into the question, Harry would divorce Meghan because internally, he felt like he had nothing. As if his soul is barren, there was this empty hole inside his heart. Again, this is Harry we are talking about, and I personally feel it's easier for him to be smacked in the face with those moneybags rather than if he looks into himself and feels as if the hole where his family used to take place was gaping and hurting.

Conclusion: If the time ever comes where Harry and Meghan divorce, there would be a lot of factors on Harry's part. If he divorces, the family will probably take him back and he would take that chance, along with the chance to secure those coveted moneybags. I apologise for my low appraisal of Harry's characters, but all this time, he has not proved that he is worth more of my low appraisal.