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gardenschedule · 1 year ago

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just insane mclennon things

Link to masterpost of quote compilations

John playing his and Yoko's sex tape in a band meeting

As the meeting was drawing to a weary close, John, not this day with Yoko, who hadn’t seemed particularly connected with what was going on, said he wanted to play us a tape he and Yoko had made. He got up and put the cassette into the tape machine and stood beside it as we listened. The soft murmuring voices did not at first signal their purpose. It was a man and a woman but hard to hear, the microphone having been at a distance. I wondered if the lack of clarity was the point. Were we even meant to understand what was going on, was it a kind of artwork where we would not be able to put the voices into a context, and was context important? I felt perhaps this was something John and Yoko were examining. But then, after a few minutes, it became clear. John and Yoko were making love, with endearments, giggles, heavy breathing, both real and satirical, and the occasional more direct sounds of pleasure reaching for climax, all recorded by the faraway microphone. But there was something innocent about it too, as though they were engaged in a sweet serious game. John clicked the off button and turned again to look toward the table, his eyebrows quizzical above his round glasses, seemingly genuinely curious about what reaction his little tape would elicit. However often they’d shared small rooms in Hamburg, whatever they knew of each other’s love and sex lives, this tape seemed to have stopped the other three cold. Perhaps it touched a reserve of residual Northern reticence. After a palpable silence, Paul said, “Well, that’s an interesting one.” The others muttered something and the meeting was over. It occured to me as I was walking down the stairs that what we’d heard could have been an expression of 1960s freedom and openness but was it more likely that it was as if a gauntlet had been thrown down? “You need to understand that this is where she and I are now. I don’t want to hold your hand anymore.”

Paul putting beetles fucking on his album artwork

John hiring a pig and posing with it solely to mock Ram even though he was scared of it

At the end of the day a farmer delivered a huge hog to the mansion [Tittenhurst Park]. It was John’s notion to parody the album jacket photograph of Paul McCartney’s Ram, which showed Paul wrestling with a ram; John would wrestle with a pig. We all went outside and stared at the large surly animal. It was much bigger than any of us had expected. John circled the animal warily. He liked the idea, but he didn’t like the hog. Dan stood poised to snap the picture. “Climb on its back, John, and grab its ears,” he said. John looked doubtful. He stepped closer to the animal. It let out a shrill, strange, sound. John stepped back, but we all urged him on. “You can do it, John,” I said. John approached the animal once again. “I can’t hold the friggin’ pig for too long. You get one shot and one shot alone,” he told Dan.

Loving John: The Untold Story, May Pang

John & Yoko attempting to get revenge married in Paris 2 days after Paul & Linda

“On March 12, Paul married Linda Eastman at Marylebone Register Office in London, amid scenes of hysterical grief from his female fans. None of the other Beatles was present. The news reached John as he and Yoko were driving down to visit Aunt Mimi in Poole. Yoko’s divorce decree had become final a few weeks earlier, and, in a resurgence of Beatle copycat, John told her they, too, must get married as soon as possible”

Philip Norman, John Lennon: The life

We chose Gibraltar because it is quiet, British and friendly. We tried everywhere else first. I set out to get married on the car ferry and we would have arrived in France married, but they wouldn’t do it. We were no more successful with cruise ships. We tried embassies, but three weeks’ residence in Germany or two weeks’ in France were required.

John Lennon

SALEWICZ: Well, I always found it interesting the fact that he got – I mean, it seemed too much like coincidence to me, the fact that he got married a week or month after you. You know what I mean? PAUL: Yeah. I think we spurred each other into marriage. I mean, you know. They were very strong together, which left me out of the picture. So I got together with Linda and then we got strong with our own kind of thing. And I used to listen to a lot of what they said. I remember him saying to me, “You’ve got to work at marriage,” which is something I still remember as a bit of advice. I still remember that. Um… And then yeah, I think they were a little bit peeved that we got married first. Probably. In a little way, you know, just minor jealousies. And so they got married. I don’t know if that’s – I mean, who knows… [inaudible] making it up, anyway.

September, 1986 (MPL Communications, London): journalist Chris Salewicz

Their belief in telepathy & shared dreams

NEIL: I’d just rather not say anything. It’s one of those situations. PAUL: Yeah. [pause] Well, that’s – that’s the trouble you see, there, ‘cause that’s it. It’s like, with our – heightened awareness, the answer is not to say anything, you know. But it isn’t. ‘Cause I mean, we screw each other up totally if we don’t do that. ‘Cause we’re not ready for your heightened… vows of silence. [laughs; hapless] We’re really not! Like, we don’t know what the fuck each other’s talking about, when that – we all just sort of get— NEIL: I think it’s just between the four of you, that get it. That’s what I’d pretend. PAUL: Oh yeah, right, yeah. But you see, that’s it, that’s why John doesn’t say anything. ‘Cause he, you know, he just… There was something the other day, when I said, “Well, what do you think?” And he just stood there and didn’t say anything. And then – and I know exactly why, you know. I mean, I wouldn’t, if… [long pause] Somehow. You know, there’s nothing really much to be said about it. You just – we all just have to do it, and all that, instead of like talking about it. But – but if one of us is talking about it, it’s a drag if the other three aren’t. Because then it sort of throws you off. [inaudible; voice marking tape slate] I mean, we’ve just been talking about it now for a few years, you know. Like this…

From the Get Back sessions (13 January 1969).

HINDLE: What do you think about language? JOHN: I think it’s a bit crummy, you know? It is a drag form of communication, really. We’ll get – we’ll get telepathy. I believe that. HINDLE: You believe that? JOHN: Yeah, sure. Sure. Sure as anything I believe. It’s too… Because now we need it so much. [...] There are – there’s people everywhere of the same mind and it’s just… even amongst ourselves we can’t communicate. Which is the hard bit, you know. HINDLE: Yeah. JOHN: Amongst the people that sort of really agree. HINDLE: Just ’cause of words? JOHN: Just ’cause of words, and upbringing, and attitude, and how you express your… Well, it’s just some – you’ve got to find a mutual sort of language to express yourself, you know? And my language is that— HINDLE: Unless you fall in love it’s impossible to communicate like that. JOHN: I mean, I wasn’t in love last year, but I was communicating quite well with people. Not as well, or maybe not as powerfully. ’Cause now there’s two of us, doing that, brrmmm, whatever it is. Sending out a vibration or whatever. But before it was me and… or me and George, alright, or whatever it was; we weren’t in love, but. You know. There’s enough in you to shove it out. It is just that bit. If you – if somebody comes in a room and he’s uptight and that, he can make the whole room uptight.

John Lennon, interviewed by Maurice Hindle (December 1968).

PAUL: I remember when John and I were first hanging out together, I had a dream about digging in the garden with my hands. I’d dreamt that before but I’d never found anything other than an old tin can. But in this dream I found a gold coin. I kept digging and I found another. And another. The next day I told John about this amazing dream I’d had and he said, ‘That’s funny, I had the same dream’. So both of us had this dream of finding this treasure. And I suppose you could say it came true. I remember years later talking about it – ‘Remember that dream we had?’; ‘Yeah, that was far out’. So the message of that dream was: keep digging lads.

PAUL MCCARTNEY TO THE BIG ISSUE. FEBRUARY 2012.

John climbing the wall to Paul's house because Paul skipped a session for his & Linda's anniversary

(Not confirmed but supposedly)

Paul being utterly convinced that John can't be gay because he didn't try it on when they slept in the same bed

I mean, if John was–the trouble is, see, is he’s not here to fend for himself, and we can’t ask him, “‘Scuse me, John, are you–have you ever been gay?” I mean, he’s the kind— I remember people used to ask that. There were lots of people asking cheeky questions, and they were always saying, “Well, why–have you ever tried homosexuality, John?” You know, they always used to ask all that kind of stuff. I remember John saying to them, “No, I’ve never met a fella I fancy enough.” And that was his kind of opinion. You know, “I may go–I may be gay one day, if some fella really turns me on.” He was–he was that open about it. But as far as I was concerned, I slept in a million hotel rooms–as we all did–slept in a million places with John, and there was never any hint of it.

December 24th, 1983: interview with DJ Roger Scott

“And I say, if he’s homosexual, I thought he’d have made a pass at me in 20 years, darling.”

Paul McCartney talking about John Lennon.

“Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager, was a known homosexual. Epstein was always polite and charming. It has been insinuated that John was drawn to Epstein. I believe there was no such relationship between them. John was macho. But if John was a homosexual, it would have made no difference to me. I’ve asked Paul McCartney, who laughed and said: ‘Why not me? I’m handsome.’ Then he said: ‘I was holed up with John in hotel rooms everywhere. There was never a suggestion of anything like that.’ I believe him.”

Julia Baird, in Boston Globe: Lennon’s half-sister remembers… (2 October 1988).

“All I can ever say about it is that I slept with John a lot because you had to, you didn’t have more than one bed - and to my knowledge John was never gay.”

Paul McCartney, The Brian Epstein Story

And maybe he's right to be offended?

Did Lennon have sex with other men? “I think he had a desire to, but I think he was too inhibited,” says Ono. “No, not inhibited. He said, ‘I don’t mind if there’s an incredibly attractive guy.’ It’s very difficult: They would have to be not just physically attractive, but mentally very advanced too. And you can’t find people like that.” So did Lennon ever have sex with men? “No, I don’t think so,” says Ono. “The beginning of the year he was killed, he said to me, ‘I could have done it, but I can’t because I just never found somebody that was that attractive.’ Both John and I were into attractiveness—you know—beauty.”

Yoko Ono: I Still Fear John’s Killer by Tim Teeman for the Daily Beast (13 October 2015).

There was even some discussion, albeit not very serious, of whether he should stick to his own gender. “John said ‘It would hurt you like crazy if I made it with a girl. With a guy, maybe you wouldn’t be hurt, because that’s not competition. But I can’t make it with a guy because I love women too much, and I’d have to fall in love with the guy and I don’t think I can.’”

Yoko on her and John discussing the terms of an open marriage in 1973 (John Lennon: The Life)

On that note, Paul's obsession with sleeping in the same bed as John

Paul McCartney answers questions for Q magazine, 1998

John and I used to hitch-hike places together, it was something that we did together quite a lot; cementing our friendship, getting to know our feelings, our dreams, our ambitions together. It was a very wonderful period. I look back on it with great fondness. I particularly remember John and I would be squeezed in our little single bed, and Mike Robbins, who was a real nice guy, would come in late at night to say good night to us, switching off the lights as we were all going to bed.

Many Years From Now

John and I always liked wordplay. So, the phrase ‘She’s got a ticket to ride’ of course referred to riding on a bus or train, but – if you really want to know – it also referred to Ryde on the Isle of Wight, where my cousin Betty and her husband Mike were running a pub. That’s what they did; they ran pubs. He ended up as an entertainment manager at a Butlin’s holiday resort. Betty and Mike were very showbiz. It was great fun to visit them, so John and I hitchhiked down to Ryde, and when we wrote the song we were referring to the memory of this trip. It’s very cute now to think of me and John in a little single bed, top and tail, and Betty and Mike coming to tuck us in.

Paul McCartney, on ‘Ticket To Ride’. In The Lyrics (2021).

“John and I grew up like twins although he was a year and a half older than me. We grew up literally in the same bed because when we were on holiday, hitchhiking or whatever, we would share a bed. Or when we were writing songs as kids he’d be in my bedroom or I’d be in his. Or he’d be in my front parlour or I’d be in his, although his Aunt Mimi sometimes kicked us out into the vestibule!”

New Statesman, “Paul McCartney - Meet The Beatle,” September 26, 1997

“I wrote all those songs with him so…. what can I say to people?? We were kids! I mean… we slept together, topped and tailed in beds and hitch-hiking and stuff, so,…. I mean, we were just totally you know,….. mates.”

Paul McCartney

John taking matters into his own hand to start rumours about him and Paul

The consensus among John, Paul and Yoko that if J&P could have been together, they would have

“. . . I mean, I think really what it was, really all that happened was that John fell in love. With Yoko. And so, with such a powerful alliance like that, it was difficult for him to still be seeing me. It was as if I was another girlfriend, almost. Our relationship was a strong relationship. And if he was to start a new relationship, he had to put this other one away. And I understood that. I mean, I couldn’t stand in the way of someone who’d fallen in love. You can’t say, “Who’s this?” You can’t really do that. If I was a girl, maybe I could go out and… But you know I mean in this case I just sort of said, right – I mean, I didn’t say anything, but I could see that was the way it was going to go, and that Yoko would be very sort of powerful for him. So um, we all had to get out the way.”

Paul McCartney, interview with German tv program Exclusiv, April 1985.

JOHN: It’s a plus, it’s not a minus. The plus is that your best friend, also, can hold you without… I mean, I’m not a homosexual, or we could have had a homosexual relationship and maybe that would have satisfied it, with working with other male artists. [faltering] An artist – it’s more – it’s much better to be working with another artist of the same energy, and that’s why there’s always been Beatles or Marx Brothers or men, together. Because it’s alright for them to work together or whatever it is. It’s the same except that we sleep together, you know? I mean, not counting love and all the things on the side, just as a working relationship with her, it has all the benefits of working with another male artist and all the joint inspiration, and then we can hold hands too, right?

John Lennon, interview w/ Sandra Shevey. (Mid-June?, 1972)

Y: After the initial embarrassment, that how Paul is being very nice to me, he’s nice and a very, str- on the level, straight, sense, like wherever there’s something like happening at the Apple, he explains to me, as if I should know. And also whenever there’s something like they need a light man, or something like that he asks me if I know of anybody, things like that. And like I can see that he’s just now suddenly changing his attitude, like his being, he’s treating me with respect, not because it’s me, but because I belong to John. I hope that’s what it is because that would be nice. And I feel like he’s my younger brother or something like that. I’m sure that if he had been a woman or something, he would have been a great threat, because there’s something definitely very strong with me, John, and Paul.

Yoko Ono, Revolution Tape, June 4th 1968

"We thought we'd do a number of an old estranged fiancé of mine called Paul.""

youtube

As a second choice from the Lennon- McCartney songbook, Elton suggested 'I Saw Her Standing There'. This appealed to John for its antiquity, and because its lead vocal always was sung by Paul. (...) There was a whisper of Royal Variety Show mischief when he announced "a number by an old estranged fiancé of mine called Paul" - no one yet knowing the estranged fiancés were long reconciled.

John Lennon: The Life, Philip Norman

You know, John loved Paul. No doubt about it. I remember once he said to me, “I’m the only person who’s allowed to say things like that about Paul. I don’t like it when other people do.” He didn’t like if other people said nasty things about Paul. And he always referred to Paul as his estranged fiancé and things like that, like he did on that [live] record ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ with Elton in Madison Square Garden.

1990: Former Beatles publicist Tony King

Married couple signatures

(and the reverse of that postcard...)

John publicly predicting Paul & Linda's divorce

You were right about New York! I do love it; it's the ONLY PLACE TO BE. (Apart from anything else, they leave you alone too!) I see you prefer Scotland! (MM) -- I'll bet you your piece of Apple you'll be living in New York by 1974 (two years is the usual time it takes you right?)

John's letter to Paul in Melody Maker, 1971 Finally, about not telling anyone that I left the Beatles—PAUL and Klein both spent the day persuading me it was better not to say anything—asking me not to say anything because it would 'hurt the Beatles'—and 'let's just let it petre out'—remember? So get that into your petty little perversion of a mind, Mrs. McCartney—the cunts asked me to keep quiet about it. Of course, the money angle is important—to all of us—especially after all the petty shit that came from your insane family/in laws—and GOD HELP YOU OUT, PAUL—see you in two years—I reckon you'll be out then—inspite of it all, love to you both, from us two.

John's personal letter to Linda & Paul, 1971

JOHN: Oh, [Klein]’d love it if Paul would come back. I think he was hoping he would for years and years. He thought that if he did something, to show Paul that he could do it, Paul would come around. But no chance. I mean, I want him to come out of it, too, you know. He will one day. I give him five years, I’ve said that. In five years he’ll wake up. YOKO: And people don’t understand, you know. There’s so many groups that constantly announce they’re going to split, they’re going to split, and they can announce it every year, and it doesn’t mean they’re going to split. But people don’t understand what an extraordinary position the Beatles are in, you know. In every way. They’re in such an extraordinary position that they’re more insecure than other people. And so Klein thinks he’ll give Paul two years Linda-wise, you know. And John said, “No, Paul treasures things like children, things like that. It will be longer.” And of course, John was right.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono, interview w/ Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld. (September, 1971)

#the beatles #paul mccartney #john lennon #mclennon #only a tiny fraction of insane things #they have such chaotic lore

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maincharactermuse · 30 days ago

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The one where she’s… spiralling. (10)

(Find my masterlist here)

Marylebone always felt like a film set on Sunday. But not the glossy Hollywood kind - the charming, well-dressed, everyone-drinks-out-of-a-ceramic-mug kind. Everything here was curated but casual: ivy-covered cafés, sleepy bookstores, expensive antique stores that pretended to be quirky.

Y/N liked it here. Normally. Today, though, she couldn’t tell if the buzzing in her chest was excitement or unease.

They strolled past Daunt Books and turned onto a quieter street, one where trees lined the road and small dogs tugged at their owners like tiny engines. Harry walked beside her, close but never quite touching. That was always the case. They were careful in public - no handholding, no wandering arms around shoulders, no stolen kisses between aisles. She wasn’t mad about it. Not really. It made sense, with who he was.

But sometimes she forgot. Like when they turned a corner too tightly and their arms brushed. Or when he reached over without thinking and tucked a curl behind her ear, and then immediately looked around like he’d done something scandalous.

They didn’t talk about it. They didn’t talk about a lot of things.

“You’d make a terrible detective,” she said suddenly.

He looked over, amused. “Alright. Bold opening. Elaborate.”

“You don’t notice anyone. You walk like someone who’s too famous to be worried.”

“I am worried. All the time.”

“Could’ve fooled me. That man nearly tripped over your shoes back there and you didn’t even flinch.”

He grinned. “Maybe I’m just desensitised.”

“Maybe you’re just emotionally reckless.”

“Oh, that’s rich coming from you.”

She smiled. “I’m extremely emotionally cautious, I’ll have you know.”

“Sure. Which is why you tried to adopt a stray cat on a second date.”

“Okay, he followed me!”

Harry laughed, adjusting the tote bag on his shoulder - hers, really, but he was carrying it like it was second nature. Inside: a new book, two lavender croissants, and an absurdly large punnet of blackberries she swore she didn’t mean to buy.

It was easy. Being with him. Until it wasn’t. Until her brain reminded her, again, that none of this had a name.

They were halfway through a slow loop around Paddington Street Gardens when it happened. A voice behind them, low and clear.

“Harry?”

They both turned.

Y/N saw her before she fully registered what was happening and immediately felt something tighten in her chest. She was beautiful, of course. Not in the try-hard way, but in that French pharmacy skin, breezy hair, perfect cuff on her trousers kind of way. Like she’d just floated into Marylebone from a soft-focus magazine ad.

Her gaze flicked between them quickly, pausing on Y/N with the kind of polite assessment that came with confidence - not territorial, just… aware.

“Margot,” Harry said, a little breathless, surprised. “Hi.”

Margot smiled, warm and restrained, with just the faintest touch of something unreadable behind her eyes. “It’s been a while,” she said.

Harry scratched the back of his neck, a nervous tell, Y/N had learned. “Yeah. It has.”

Margot looked between them again. Then, delicately, “And this is…?”

There was a beat. One half-second too long. Y/N felt it.

Harry glanced at her. “This is… Y/N,” he said simply, with a small smile. “Y/N, this is Margot.”

She offered a quiet hello.

Margot smiled. “Lovely to meet you.” Her accent curled around the words, delicate and faintly French - enough to make Y/N immediately regret every time she’d butchered the pronunciation of du jour.

They all stood there for a beat too long. The way you do when something unsaid hovers between people. Harry rocked back on his heels, then forward again.

Margot broke the silence with a polite, “I should let you both go. Just wanted to say hi. And it’s good to see you,” she added to Harry. “You look well.”

“You too,” he said, quiet but kind.

Another smile. Then Margot gave a graceful nod toward Y/N - not cold, but not exactly warm either - and turned, slipping back into the London crowd like someone who’d been summoned just to disrupt the weather.

For a few moments, neither of them said anything. Then Harry exhaled, running a hand through his hair. “Well. That was unexpected.”

Y/N didn’t look at him right away. “She’s pretty.”

“She is,” he admitted.

They kept walking. Slowly now. The city around them moved as usual - impatient drivers, street musicians, the waft of something buttery from a nearby café - but she felt oddly still.

After a few beats, she asked, “Was she… is she the one the album was about?”

He hesitated. “Some of the songs. Yeah.”

That was all he said. Y/N nodded like that was fine. Like her lungs hadn’t suddenly decided to hold their breath.

“She seemed very composed,” she said lightly.

“She always is.”

“She smelled like bergamot and backstory.”

He laughed, surprised. “She used to wear some kind of fancy rose oil. She’d make her own perfume.”

“Of course she did.”

He looked over at her, sensing something shift. ��You alright?”

“Yeah,” she said too quickly. “Totally.”

But as they crossed the next street, her mind started unraveling a little. Not in a dramatic way - just a slow, creeping doubt that settled behind her ribs like fog.

Margot was the kind of woman people wrote poetry about - literally, in Harry’s case. Y/N was the kind of woman who cried at old Bake Off reruns and got flour in her hair at work and sometimes said things too loudly in restaurants.

And for the first time, she wasn’t sure if that was charming… or just ordinary.

———————————————————————————

The night was quiet in Harry’s house, lit by the warm flicker of a single lamp and the muted glow from the street outside. They were curled on the sofa, a half-eaten container of Thai food balanced between them, the TV playing some old film neither of them were really watching.

She’d barely spoken all evening. Harry paused the screen and turned toward her. “Alright. What’s going on?”

Y/N blinked, looking at him. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been quiet. All day. I know you and this isn’t just tired quiet. It’s something else.”

She hesitated, trying to shape the chaos of her thoughts into something that wouldn’t sound petty or insecure. She picked up a spring roll, set it back down again.

“Is this because you met Margot?”

There it was. Clean, simple, no judgment in his voice - just the question hanging there.

Y/N sighed. “I mean… maybe?” She didn’t meet his eyes. “It’s not about her. It’s just… meeting someone who used to know you like that, it makes you think about all the things you don’t know. About each other.”

Harry was quiet for a beat, watching her.

“I’m not asking for your full dating resume,” she added quickly. “I just… I don’t know, I guess I want to know what I’m walking into. What I’m… next to.”

He ran a hand through his hair, then set his drink down. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. That sort of thing… how many people, who they were, why - it just invites comparison. And spiraling.”

She gave a small, sad smile. “Well, newsflash, I’m already spiraling.”

“Y/N-”

“I’m not trying to ruin the mood. I just… I want to understand you. And the stuff that’s shaped you. Even if I won’t love all of it.”

There was a silence between them. Not tense, just weighty. He exhaled. “Alright. I’ve dated around a lot. Especially when I was younger. Some serious, some not. Some were mistakes. Some taught me a lot.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“I’m not proud of all of it, but I’m not ashamed either. It’s just… history.”

Y/N looked down at her hands. “I’ve only been in two relationships.”

He didn’t say anything for a second. Then, gently, “You didn’t need to share that.”

“I know. I just… wanted to.”

He watched her, something unreadable in his expression. Not judgment. Something softer. Understanding.

She hesitated. “Were you serious with Margot?”

He leaned back slightly, the question settling in the air.

“Yeah,” he said. “For a time.”

“What happened?”

Harry was quiet. Then: “We stopped hearing each other. I think we started off wanting the same thing. But the version of me she loved… I outgrew him. Or maybe he was never real. And she couldn’t adjust.”

Y/N nodded slowly. “And now?”

“Now… I think we’re both grateful it ended when it did.”

She swallowed. “I’m not trying to be this crazy person. I’m just-”

“You’re not crazy,” he interrupted, voice low. “You’re allowed to want to understand the person you’re… with. Or trying to be with.”

She smiled faintly. “Trying to be with. That’s the weird bit, isn’t it?”

He didn’t flinch. “What’s going on here, Y/N?”

The question wasn’t an accusation. It wasn’t even pressure. It was a genuine reach - a hand held out in the dark.

She blinked. “I don’t know. I- I’m falling for you. Which is terrifying.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “I’m not planning to ruin this.”

They were quiet for a while after that. The film still paused. The food gone cold. They ended up in bed later, backs turned, not out of distance but because it was easier to think that way. But their legs were still tangled — like their bodies hadn’t gotten the memo about space.

———————————————————————————

She stirred at the faint click of the front door. The sheets were tangled around her legs, warm in the spot where he’d been. His scent still clung to the pillow next to hers, sharp and sleep-heavy and familiar.

He was gone.

She sat up slowly, pushing her hair out of her face. It was quiet, too quiet. No kettle boiling. No music playing from the Bluetooth speaker. Just the hush of a London morning and the echo of last night still caught in the corners of the room.

It wasn’t a fight, she reminded herself. But it also wasn’t nothing.

She pulled on his hoodie, sleeves too long, the fabric soft with wear, and padded barefoot into the kitchen. Her phone was still on the charger. No new messages. The indecision twisted in her stomach like a knot.

Should she leave?

Make herself coffee?

Say something, or say nothing at all?

There was too much unsaid and it wasn’t about Margot or numbers or past lives. It was about now. About how easy it was to fall into him and still feel like she wasn’t on solid ground.

The front door opened.

She turned sharply and there he was. Sweaty. Breathless. Hair damp at the edges, a flush across his cheeks from the run. His t-shirt clung to him, his chest rising and falling fast.

He looked at her like he hadn’t been sure she’d still be there. She looked at him like she didn’t know what they were anymore.

“Morning,” he said softly, walking in. “Didn’t want to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” she replied. “I… didn’t know if I should stay.”

Harry’s face twitched - just slightly. A little crease near his brow. “I want you to.”

She nodded, unsure how to reply. She watched him unlace his trainers, watched the flicker of tension still in his shoulders. Her throat felt dry.

“I didn’t sleep much,” she admitted.

He glanced up. “Me neither.”

A pause stretched between them.

She shifted her weight. “Last night, I wasn’t trying to-”

“You were just trying to understand,” he finished. “I get it.”

“You don’t have to tell me everything, I just…” She sighed. “I don’t want to guess what you feel. I don’t want to pretend we’re strangers when we’re not.”

His expression softened, tired and open. “We’re not strangers. You’re in all my quiet thoughts.”

She blinked, not expecting that.

“I just don’t know how to do this slowly with you,” he added, stepping closer. “And I’m trying. I am. But you’re in my head all the time.”

She felt her chest hitch, breath catching behind her ribs.

And then, gently, she reached for the hem of his t-shirt. “Shower. You stink.”

A faint smile tugged at his lips. “Fair.”

She led him by the wrist this time. Not dramatic. Not performative. Just hers.

The water hit them like heat and clarity. His hands on her waist. Her back against the tile. They didn’t talk much, mouths too busy learning skin again, relearning what closeness meant when emotions had been raw the night before.

“God, you…” he breathed into her neck. “You make me greedy.”

She exhaled, shaky. “For what?”

“For all of it.” He looked at her, wet lashes, rain in his voice. “For mornings and fights and every version of you.”

Her throat burned. She kissed him hard, no space between them.

Later, they didn’t towel off right away. Just stood there, water dripping off them, foreheads pressed together.

———————————————————————————

The coffee had gone lukewarm beside them. They hadn’t moved much - just quiet, slow touches under the covers, the kind that weren’t about anything but being near. His thumb traced a lazy line up her spine; her fingers rested just beneath his collarbone, counting the soft rhythm of his breathing.

It wasn’t awkward now. It wasn’t heavy. But it wasn’t feather-light either.

Harry cleared his throat. “So… I’ve been meaning to ask.”

She tilted her head to look up at him. “Hmm?”

“My birthday’s in a couple weeks. I’m doing something small at mine. Nothing dramatic - just friends, some work people. My mum and Gemma’ll be there. My dad might pop in. That sort of thing.”

Her body stiffened slightly. Not obviously. Just a fractional pause. He caught it.

“You don’t have to come,” he said gently. “It’s not pressure. I just… want you there.”

She looked at him for a long second. “All of them will be there?”

“Not all at once,” he smiled, soft. “But yeah. A good few.”

“And they’ll know who I am?”

“I hope so,” he said, more honest than cheeky. “Or at least, I want them to.”

Her brows lifted slightly, but she said nothing at first. Instead, she shifted, pulling the duvet tighter around her. He nudged her knee with his. “You’re allowed to think about it.”

“I’m not saying no,” she said quickly. “It’s just-”

“A lot,” he finished.

She nodded. “A bit, yeah.”

They sat in it. The space between casual dating and real introductions. The invisible line that marks the point of this means something.

“Okay,” she said quietly after a beat. “But only if I can make the desserts.”

Harry’s face lit up, like it hadn’t occurred to him she’d offer. “You want to?”

“I’m not turning up empty-handed, Styles. And if I’m meeting your mum, I might as well win her over with sugar.”

He grinned. “She’ll love you. Even without the sugar.”

“Don’t be so sure. My caramel tart has sealed many deals.”

He leaned in, brushing his lips against her temple. “I’m really glad you’ll be there.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. Just curled closer into his chest, her voice muffled by his t-shirt.

“Me too,” she murmured. “Even if I’m absolutely going to overthink what to wear.”

He smiled against her hair. “It won’t matter.”

They stayed like that for a while - still a little tangled, still figuring it out -but there was a shift in the air. Not a label. Not a big declaration. Just the quiet promise of showing up.

And for now, that was enough.

———————————————————————————

group chat: the coven 🔮

Y/N

Morning

So I did that thing where I spiral

Wondering what Harry and I were but now

I think I agreed to meet his entire family in two weeks???

Noor

Wait. HOLD ON

Grace

Back up.

Noor

You mean THE family?

Grace

Like… family FAMILY

Y/N

Well his friends too

But yes 😬

Noor

Oh my god oh my god

Grace

Okay but also like

This is big

Y/N

He’s doing a birthday thing at his

Friends. Work people. Gemma. His mum

Grace

Breathe babe

You own a lemon tart recipe that makes grown men cry

Noor

You’re gonna be fine

You’ll wear something unreasonably hot and make small talk with people who already love you

Grace

You’re gonna bake something right?

Y/N

Yes

Obviously

I panicked and offered

Noor

That’s your love language

Grace

Honestly if a man invited me to a family thing and I wasn’t allowed to bring baked goods I’d feel deeply unsafe

Y/N

I’m excited

Just also

Mildly unwell

Noor

Yeah that tracks

Grace

We’re proud of you

Noor

And also watching closely 👁️

Grace

And you’ll have to report back immediately post-party

Noor

And send outfit pics. Moodboard. Full Pinterest board.

Y/N

You lot are gremlins

Grace

We love you too ❤️

#harry styles #harry styles blurb #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fic #harry styles fluff #harry styles x reader #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x you #harry styles imagine

55 notes · View notes

joezworld · 2 months ago

Text

Express Engines

This one is very long, and has Formatting.™ Be aware of that.

The next week

“Oh, that reminds me,” Gordon said one night. “Samarkand, I have been meaning to commend you on your performance with the Northern Belle last week. Three minutes ahead of schedule, with a full train of Pullman coaches? Well done.”

Sam blushed, while James’s brows furrowed. “Three minutes? Her? She’s got wheels the size of pie tins!”

“And look at how well she does with them!” Caerphilly exclaimed from the other side of the shed. “If we had ten more of her the rest of us could sleep until noon.”

Sam’s blush deepend. “Guys…”

“James,” Gordon said in a faux-whisper. “You are aware that you and Samarkand have identically-sized wheels, correct?”

Aghast spluttering met this, and was ignored with some bemusement.

“I say,” Caerphilly raised an eyebrow. “How fast did you get, Sam?”

Sam now resembled a tomato, but a pleased expression worked its way across her smokebox. “Faster than I’ve ever been before, is all I’ll say.”

“Oh that’s hardly scientific, don’t you think?” Caerphilly was all smiles, but there was a flicker of something behind her eyes that Gordon and Sam both caught. (James remained clueless) “Don’t you want to know?”

“Know what?” The conversation was interrupted by Delta rumbling into the shed. “And what’s with him?” She asked as the turntable swung past James.

“... My wheels are not small!” James squeaked, red in the face and thoroughly humiliated.

“Well they’re bigger than mine, so you’ve got that going for you. Who said they were small?”

“... I-I did.”

“What? Jamie… how?”

----

The discussion waned for a while, as the other engines returned to the shed, but eventually it started back up again.

For the engines on one side of the shed, it was a perfectly normal conversation about the high-speed capabilities of themselves and the other engines.

For the engines on the other side of the shed, it was a terrifying and mind-bending experience as Gordon and Caerphilly continued to claim that the other was the better express engine.

“And you’re sure?” Delta whispered to Bear as the clock swung past 11.

“I’m not sure of anything. Am I even here? Am I real? Is this actually happening? Maybe I’m dead and this is all a test to decide if I go to heaven or not.”

“Oh don’t be dramatic.” Henry rolled his eyes, having been trying (and failing) to sleep for some time.

“Samarkand, I think you’re underselling yourself.” Gordon lectured across the room, voice echoing through the rafters. “With a minimal amount of instruction, you could substitute for Caerphilly and I with no issues.”

“Oh, without question.” Caerphilly chimed in. “And before you try and downplay that idea - just remember that this is not a two-way system. I doubt that either of us could do your work as well as you can. It’s a rare gift you have, being a jack of all trades.”

“You know Caerphilly,” Gordon pondered. “If you are that dead-set on evidence and data, we may have to take a goods turn or two, in order to see how our performance differs.”

Sam laughed out loud at that, and when the two protested, she started explaining exactly what they’d be in for.

“Maybe we’re all dead.” Henry whispered. “Have we considered that? Maybe we all were killed in a tragic accident, and none of this is actually happening.”

---

The clock ticked past Midnight.

“Didn’t Pendennis melt his firebars once? I seem to recall that anecdote floating around.”

“Oh yes, Scotsman told me all about it, once he returned from Australia. You weren’t there of course, but in those last years everyone’s state of repair was poor at best. I’m sure that with modern metallurgy there would be no issues.”

-------

1 in the morning came and went. Delta stopped being able to understand them, words blurring together into a mush of syllables.

“Well, I had thought that it was King’s Cross, but then they sent me to St. Pancras! And goodness me there’s more of them still! Euston, Waterloo, Marylebone, Fenchurch Street…”

“And here I thought Paddington was enough. How many are there now?”

“Oh my, they’ve added so many commuter lines now - or so Pip and Emma tell me. I think there’s 17 or 20!”

----

At half past one, Henry’s eye started twitching again. Bear was asleep, but muttering something about Cannon Street station in between snores.

“Speaking of Pip and Emma, I feel like they could shave a few minutes off their current timings, but at the cost of running afoul of the Limited, among other trains. Heh. As loath as I am to admit it, the express doesn’t run in a vacuum, and extra space in the pathings can work wonders for unnecessary delays.”

“You don’t think that it would be a better point to simply improve the on-time percentages of the other trains on the network?”

“Hah, wait until you take an all-stops service during the summer bank holidays. I swear the passengers will coordinate ways to delay you.”

“It was never that bad on the Great Western…”

“The Great Western was a service. We are an attraction, and the passengers act accordingly.”

---------

The two distant rings of a church bell bounced around James’s smokebox.

“You don’t think the old loco tests matter?”

“I think it’s a matter of mechanical fitness. I’ve been built and rebuilt by Crewe and Crovan’s Gate so many times that I may as well be an entirely different engine. We all are, except you - the one thing that museum did do is preserve you exactly as you had been after your last rebuild. It wouldn’t be so much a test of North Eastern versus Great Western as it would be of Crovan's Gate versus Swindon.”

“When did Crewe rebuild you?”

“Oh, Samarkand, did we wake you? I’m sorry.”

“Nah, I was only dozing, it’s fine.”

“Ah, well, I was rebuilt just before the second world war - what a boon that was for us. Sir Topham was close friends with Mr. Stanier from the LMS, and after he saw the work they did to Henry, he sent me over as well. Of course, I didn’t enjoy the process, being younger and even more prideful, but in hindsight it has served me well.”

“So hang on, wasn’t Stanier at the Great Western before?”

“He was. He was in charge of Swindon works when they built me. As a matter of fact, he was one of the first faces I ever saw.”

“So, he built you, then he re-built you, and then he taught Mr. Riddles everything he knew, and that led to… me.”

“It seems that greatness has a very distinct path through the railway system.”

“That’s a strong word for it.”

“Well, what would you call it?”

“I couldn’t say. Good engineering? Longevity?”

“Immortality?”

“Now that is a strong word for it indeed…”

----------

Two Thirty. Henry was losing his mind.

“I feel like it may come down to train composition. Any engine can make a speed record attempt with three coaches. It takes a real powerhouse to do so with six.”

“Route knowledge may also be required - after all, going fast on a downhill straight is something that anyone can do.”

“Well isn’t that sort of the-”

“OH FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE!” Henry finally snapped. “You’ve been going on about this for almost five hours! I want to go to sleep! If you don’t know which one of you is faster then organize a time trial or something, but do it in the morning so I can go to bed!”

There was a period of shocked silence that lasted for a few minutes, just long enough for Henry’s eyes to slam shut. The rest of the engines followed suit soon after, and the sound of snoring filled the air.

Gordon looked contemplative. “You know, a time trial might just work.”

“It could, but on what? The express and the limited change in length on a daily basis.”

“Have either of you taken the Boat Train recently..?”

---------------------

Part two: The Boat Train

The Island of Sodor was not only connected to the outside world by rail; befitting its status as an Island, Sodor was served by a plethora of ferry services, with sailings to locales as near as Barrow-In-Furness, and as far as France and Spain. The three largest ferry companies serving the island were P&O Stena Line, Irish Ferries, and the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company. The 1990s had been a very turbulent time for the ferry industry in Britain and Ireland as a whole, and ferry lines of varying sizes had been purchased and incorporated into the bigger companies. Many of these, like Sealink, B&I Line, European Ferries, and several smaller operators, had served Sodor through ferry terminals at Tidmouth, and their new owners soon found themselves having double or triple the amount of facilities they needed - even worse, not any one terminal was big enough to handle all of the consolidated traffic. As the 1990s wore on, and the new millennium dawned, competition from both the North Western Railway and the airport at Dryaw meant that the ferry companies had to move quickly.

For some, this wasn’t an issue. Irish Ferries had bought B&I, and their terminals were next door, meaning that it took very little construction to combine the two facilities. Similarly, the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company hadn’t bought anyone, and their cozy but still usable terminal on Tidmouth’s waterfront remained unchanged.

However, P&O Stena was not as lucky. Created as a joint venture of the two largest ferry companies on the Dover-Calais route, both of whom had fallen on hard times after the opening of the Channel Tunnel, it was a massive tangle of international and domestic ferry services operating under five different brand names. Formed just three years ago in 1998, the union was troubled from the start, and there were already rumblings of yet another name change; supposedly P&O wanted to buy out Stena Lines and then rename everything so as to simplify its corporate structure.

On Sodor, simplifying things was rather complicated. To start, Stena Line had previously bought most of SeaLink - the ferry division of British Rail - and so served four ex-BR routes from Wales and Ireland to the island, none of which terminated in Tidmouth:

Knapford-Dublin (Ireland)

Knapford-Belfast (N. Ireland)

Knapford-Fishguard (Wales)

Kirk Ronan-Holyhead (Wales)

Additionally, Stena Line had its own services from before it bought Sealink, which all left from Tidmouth:

Tidmouth-Cairnryan (Scotland)

Tidmouth-Cherbourg (France)

Tidmouth-Santander (Spain)

Then, on top of all of this, P&O had its own set of pre-merger services, which left mostly from Tidmouth:

Tidmouth-Troon (Scotland)

Tidmouth-Holyhead (Wales)

Tidmouth-Belfast (N. Ireland)

Tidmouth-Dublin (Ireland)

Kirk Ronan-Larne (N. Ireland)

Kirk Ronan-Fishguard (Wales)

As one might be able to tell, this web of ferry services was complex and resource intensive. Unlike Irish Ferries/B&I, the P&O and Stena terminals were nowhere near each other in Tidmouth, and even if they had been, Stena’s ex-Sealink facilities had been built cheaply in the 1970s, and were falling apart at the seams. Furthermore, having half the Stena routes in Knapford was undesirable, as P&O wanted to issue connecting tickets, allowing Scottish and Irish travelers a more direct route to France and Spain. If a new terminal was to be built, it would have to involve either the construction of an entire new ferry port, or the total closure and reconstruction of one of the existing ones. Surprisingly, P&O Stena was more than willing to spend money on an entirely new terminal if it meant everything going smoothly, but with the expansion of Tidmouth Docks well underway, no such space was available. They would have to build a new “super terminal” on the spot of one of the existing terminals, big enough to hold all the passengers for all the Tidmouth/Knapford routes under one roof.

More problems followed. The Stena Terminal was huge, but falling to bits, while the P&O terminal was scarcely big enough for the routes it already had, and was hemmed in on all sides by new industrial developments surrounding the harbour. Worse still, the extra space in Stena’s Knapford terminal was being rented by cruise ship companies, and the local council had made it very clear that this lucrative source of local income was not to be meddled with. It was therefore decided that the Stena terminal at Tidmouth would be demolished, and the new Super Terminal built in its place.

The complication then became how they would fit all of the Stena traffic into the waterfront shoebox that was the P&O terminal.

The short answer was that they didn’t.

The long answer was that the North Western Railway made a lot of money off of P&O Stena between 2000 and 2002.

The even longer answer was that while there were significant space constraints at Tidmouth, no such thing existed at the ex-Sealink Terminal in Kirk Ronan. Sealink had purposely overbuilt the place in the late 1970s, assuming that the aborted M590 motorway project would bring a six-lane superhighway right to Sodor’s eastern coast, and allow for a much smoother connection to the Irish ferry services. Of course, that never happened, and the only ferries that serve the massive facility are small ones that primarily benefit Sodor’s eastern communities.

But, in 2000, P&O Stena had an idea. They would re-route most of the Stena sailings to Kirk Ronan, and offer connection tickets to Ireland and Scotland from that point. However, due to ticketing agreements between Stena and The Isle of Man Steam Packet Company, along with some passenger’s rather fervent desire to go to the biggest city on Sodor instead of a sleepy fishing town where seagulls outnumbered people 4 to 1, there would be a connection service between the two ports using the North Western Railway.

Each morning, a seven-car train would leave Tidmouth Docks after the inbound Irish and Scottish ferries had docked, and run as an express to Kirk Ronan station, before continuing to the coach yards in Barrow as an empty stock working. Later in the day a different engine would then collect the empty coaches from Barrow, and return the train under a similar express working, now carrying passengers from the Spanish, French, and Welsh ferries.

Known on timetables as “The Kirk Ronan Boat Train”, and on advertising material as “THE P&O STENA EXPLORER”, it was technically a charter train, and stayed at the same fixed length and timing every day for the duration of the service, as P&O Stena’s internal research showed that this would be well-suited for “all but the worst-case scenarios.”

What this fixed-length, identically timed, charter train was also well suited for… was a time trial.

----

It took surprisingly little effort to convince the Fat Controller to allow this - since nobody was attempting to break a record (or act unsafely while attempting to break a record), he felt it would be little different from the normal runs, except for the inclusion of very precise timing and speed measurement equipment in the baggage compartment of the lead coach. In order for everything to be done exactly the same, the down-bound service from Kirk Ronan to Tidmouth Docks would be the only one used for the trial.

The engines were fairly excited for this - Sam was chomping at the bit for her turn, James was trying very hard (and failing) to pretend like he wasn’t interested, Delta outright said that she wanted a go, and Caerphilly was ecstatic that this was proceeding without any major fuss.

Gordon and Henry were the sole outliers - Henry thought this was idiotic, and wanted no part of it, while Gordon was mercurial about his actual feelings on the subject, saying little but being supportive of everyone.

James attempted to needle Gordon about being “worried that he’d lose his title,” and the subsequent dressing-down could have stripped the paint off a wall. Those with more than a single brain cell bouncing around their smokebox like an errant bumblebee took it to mean that Gordon was, if nothing else, willing to be a gracious loser no matter how unlikely the chances may be.

----

A few days later

The timing equipment was placed inside the baggage coach and calibrated just in time for the Thursday run of the Boat Train.

First to be rostered on the “time trial” trains was Henry, and once he remembered that this was technically his idea, he went from “annoyed” to “incensed.” “I don’t want to do this!” he complained to Caerphilly, as he collected the empty coaches from the yard in Barrow. “This is entirely for your benefit, not mine!”

“Oh, but that’s the thing!” The science museum had really rubbed off on Caerphilly. “You’re the control subject!”

“Control subject? What does that even mean?”

“It means you’re the marker that we measure against. An unmotivated subject, acting without any-”

“UNMOTIVATED?!”

“Not like that!”

But it was too late.

“Unmotivated! Is that what this is about? I’m not some layabout! Is that what you think of me?! Just you wait and see, Castle! I’ll put you and Gordon into the dirt!”

And Henry stormed away, “I’ll show them! I’ll show them!” trailing in his wake.

“... that is not at all what I meant.” Caerphilly said lamely as the coaches vanished over the bridge. “Well, there goes our control sample.”

-------

Maron Station

🎼 Raucous guitar solo 🎼

Gordon was not enjoying the stopping train duties today. The passengers seemed to be conspiring with each other today, and there was a massive group of foolish tourists standing on the platform, attempting to make sure that nobody was left on the train.

🎼 Like the last of the good ol' puffer trains 🎼

“I swear, if they do not know how to disembark from a train at the correct station, they deserve to be sent to Barrow.” The big engine grumbled, but didn’t urge the guard to hurry the process up - he knew from experience this would do the opposite.

🎼I'm the last of the soot and scum brigade🎼

The only positive to this situation was that the station’s tannoy system was playing Radio 2. Fortunately it wasn’t any of that modern nonsense with the young men singing in harmony, and while Gordon wasn’t entirely fond of groups like the Kinks, this song was perhaps best viewed as a guilty pleasure.

🎼And all this peaceful living is drivin' me insane 🎼

As the song entered the last few lines, a whistle sounded in the distance, and Henry came into view. His face was red, his cloud of steam was laid flat against his boiler, and he rocked from side to side under force of his own connecting rods.

With seven coaches behind him, he roared through the station at what seemed to be just under the speed of sound, whistling like a banshee as he went.

🎼 I'm the last of the good old fashioned steam-powered trains 🎼

And then, as quickly as he’d appeared, he’d gone. The song hadn’t even ended, and the marker lamps were already disappearing into the distance. All that was left of its passage was a few windblown newspapers flying off the platform.

“What was that?” Yelped Gordon’s driver.

“That,” Gordon remarked. “Is Caerphilly not getting her control sample for the time trial.”

🎼 I'm the last of the good old fashioned steam-powered trains… 🎼

---

The timetable put the boat train’s run at 1 hour and 2 minutes. Due to traffic on the Kirk Ronan branch line, Kellsthorpe Road station, and the junction leading to the harbour, the time trials only covered the section of the route on the main line - that is, from the junction at Kellsthorpe Road station to the tunnel between Tidmouth and Knapford. This portion of the journey was timetabled at 41 minutes, and Gordon and Caerphilly thought that it would be possible to shave up to five minutes off that time while still obeying the speed limits.

Henry’s run was actually over the timetable, at 1 hour and 5 minutes. However, this was due to meeting another train on the Kirk Ronan branch, and his time between Kellsthorpe and Knapford was a much more impressive 38 minutes. The train recorded an average speed of 83 miles an hour down the main line, and the top speed was recorded near Cronk station - a whopping 101.34 miles per hour.

“And you thought this was idiotic…” Gordon teased that night in the sheds, as the other engines raised a fuss.

“I still think it’s idiotic.” Henry said with a hidden smile. “I just happen to be an idiot.”

------------------

Henry’s run sent shockwaves up and down the main line. Aside from scientific-minded passengers with stopwatches (and the odd railway inspector who needed a specific result), nobody had ever bothered to collect detailed data on train speeds before. Gordon had always been “the fastest and the best” based purely off of his ability to, well, be faster, even if nobody knew what faster was. Learning that Henry, who was slightly smaller and ever-so less powerful than Gordon, cracked 100 miles an hour in a fit of pique suddenly made everyone else on the Island wonder exactly what they were capable of.

The Barrow stationmaster was the official “keeper” of the sign-up sheet for the time trials, and over the next few days he watched in amazement as the list of engines got longer and longer…

----

The next day

Up next was… well, it was supposed to be Gordon, but James had kicked up such a fuss that the big engine eventually relented - it was far easier to let James have this small victory than deal with a week’s worth of whinging, pleading, and wheedling.

Of course, karma was not willing to let James off easy. Leaving the yard in Barrow with the coaches, he was delayed - ironically enough - by a different ferry boat sailing into Barrow harbour. The bridge had some difficulty locking into place afterwards, and Henry saw (and heard) James impatiently yelling at the fitters as they banged on the locking mechanism with sledgehammers.

“It only took twenty minutes to fix it,” he said to Gordon when they met at Knapford some time later. “But you’d think they’d held him three hours!”

“Yes, well, I suppose better him than me.” Gordon’s amusement was confined to a slight upturn of his lips. “I do hope that his tardiness doesn’t interfere with the results, though. I would hate for him to have to do this again.”

“I didn’t think he’d be that late?” Henry said. “The train sits there for an hour before leaving.”

“Yes, I am aware,” Gordon said. “But I must note that there are more than a few ferries at the harbour waiting somewhat impatiently for their guaranteed connection.”

“So he hasn’t come through then?” Henry was aghast and on the verge of laughter at the same time. “How?”

“I’ll tell you how!” Bear rolled into the station with a container train, a smile stretching across his face. “Simon’s train came off in the Rolf’s Castle passing loop. James was there for an hour! I could hear him yelling from the junction!”

Henry and Gordon were big engines, but not big enough that they were above laughing at James’ misfortune. “Oh heavens,” Gordon chuckled. “Perhaps next time he should take the schedule as intended!”

“Oh, I feel bad for Delta, she’s going to have to calm him down all night!” Henry chortled, sending misshapen smoke rings into the sky.

Just then, the signal for the down fast line dropped to clear. “Oh goodness, I bet this is him. Should we be supportive?”

The three engines looked at each other for a second, and then burst out laughing again. The guffaws continued as James rattled through the station, face as red as his boiler.

That night, James refused to talk about it with anyone, and as predicted, Delta was up half the night soothing his ego. Gordon and Henry (and to a lesser extent, Bear) were predictably unhelpful.

The next morning, Delta was entirely too tired to do anything, and proved this by accidentally backing through a set of buffers and ending up in the station car park. She wasn’t badly damaged, but she still needed to be looked over by the mechanical staff (and spoken to by the Fat Controller), and so didn’t take the Boat Train that day.

Nobody was quite sure who would end up taking the train, and so it was quite a surprise when a triumphant Wendell rolled into the coach yards a few hours later. “I think I’ve done it!” he crowed. “Certainly the fastest I’ve ever gone, but I think I may have beaten the class record!”

And he had.

That night the shed foreman put up a corkboard, and pinned up all the times so far.

ENGINE | TOTAL TIME | TIMED PORTION | AVG. SPEED | MAX SPEED ▼ WENDELL | 1:01 | 36:42 | 86.11 MPH | 102.04 MPH HENRY | 1:05 | 38:00 | 83.01 MPH | 101.34 MPH JAMES | 2:17 | 40:09 | 78.60 MPH | 97.29 MPH

--------

The next day, Delta was up for the train. (The Fat Controller had been surprisingly understanding about the whole situation - after all, her driver could have stopped her well before the buffers.)

“Doesn’t your class have a speed limiter?” the lead coach asked as the train pulled out of the yard.

“I did!” Delta said brightly as the train clattered across the bridge.

“Whatever does that mean?” the coach said quietly, before she was bumped by one of her fellows.

“You nit!” The coach behind her sniffed. “You think the works is going to care about a speed limiter?”

There was a work crew on the lineside by Killdane, clearing weeds and vegetation, and they took a number of steps back to be clear of passing trains.

Even at that distance, the wind from Delta’s passage was so great that two men fell over and tumbled down the embankment. The foreman turned to look, and felt a thock! against his hard hat as a rock kicked up by the train’s passage bounced off his head!

The train flew down the line towards Maron. A swarm of insects was hovering over the warm rails, and the train plowed through them at speed.

“It sounds like we’re being shot at!” the second man yelped, as pings and clacks echoed through the cab.

“It’s only bees!” the driver said, activating the windscreen wipers to clear the gunk.

“If those are bees then I need to tell my exterminator to get an anti-aircraft gun!”

---

At Wellsworth Station, the train was so early that the signalman had assumed he’d have a few minutes to use the loo. He had to run back to his box and set the signals with his trousers undone and his belt flying in the breeze!

----

Marina recoiled as the train pulled into the docks. “Do I even want to know what happened to you?”

Delta, who was covered from buffers to roof with bug splats, dust, and dirt, didn’t say anything. The fact that she was smiling like an idiot was more than enough.

ENGINE | TOTAL TIME | TIMED PORTION | AVG. SPEED | MAX SPEED ▼ DELTA | 1:03 | 34:01 | 90.22 MPH | 107.85 MPH WENDELL | 1:01 | 36:42 | 86.11 MPH | 102.04 MPH HENRY | 1:05 | 38:00 | 83.01 MPH | 101.34 MPH JAMES | 2:17 | 40:09 | 78.60 MPH | 97.29 MPH

------------

The next day

“Shall I wish you the best of Western Luck?” Caerphilly ventured hesitantly. She really hadn’t spent any time with Bear alone, and the ramifications of what Truro had done to him loomed large even still.

“I think you’re about sixteen years too late for that,” the Hymek chuckled. “But I’ll take it in spirit.”

“Ah, yes, well… it’s only-”

He continued to laugh, cutting her off. “I understand completely. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and all. You should talk to Duck about that sometime… he’d understand.”

“Ah, yes, well… he and I have-” Caerphilly continued to trip over her own words.

“Oh please don’t be awkward around me.” Unlike Caerphilly, Bear was relaxing more and more as the conversation went. “You’re a co-worker now, we have to work together, so consider everything that’s done as done.”

His gaze became conspiratorial. “And, any engine that threatens to feed City of Truro his own boiler tubes is a friend of mine.”

“You heard about that?!” Caerphilly let out a shocked bark of laughter.

“I hear many things about him. For example, did you know that he was deported from the Netherlands for being a miserable toerag?”

“No!”

“Oh yes! He’ll never talk about it, but that’s why he came back so quickly from that continental excursion tour…”

They kept talking until it was time for the two engines to collect their coaches. Despite Bear’s… complicated history with the Great Western, the two engines’ shared upbringing soon led to an impenetrable string of “Western-isms” that was capable of repelling even Bloomer, who eyed them with suspicion from the other side of the shed.

“So, any thoughts on this before you head off? Any crucial information I should know about?” Now that she was thinking about the speed trials, Caerphilly really, really, really could not turn off Science Museum Docent Voice even if she wanted to. (She didn’t)

“Yes, actually,” Bear smiled as something occurred to him. “You went into the museum before I was built, didn’t you?”

“Yes?” This was worrying from a data-collection standpoint. Don’t let the books on diesels be wrong again… Just let him be mechanically normal!

“The works tried a lot of things to get my engine to work the way they wanted it to. Eventually they just replaced it with one that was better. One from a Western.” He looked simultaneously smug and predatory at that. It was a good look on him.

“A Western… like Fusilier at the museum?”

The predatory smile was incredibly good-natured, but it was still distressing to watch it grow even larger. “Exactly like Fuse. He’s certainly not using them.”

Whatever Caerphilly was going to say next was stopped in its tracks by Bear’s signal raising to a clear aspect. With a loud mechanical rumble, Bear’s engine revved to the redline, and the empty train powered out of the station and over the bridge faster than Caerphilly ever would have expected.

“I don’t know why I’m even bothering with this anymore,” Caerphilly said to nobody in particular. “The data will be so corrupted that I’m going to be the control sample.”

There was a distant horn blast, as Bear cleared the crossings near Vicarstown station. For him to have gone that far that quickly… I hope Henry knows how lucky he is.

--------

ENGINE | TOTAL TIME | TIMED PORTION | AVG. SPEED | MAX SPEED ▼ DELTA | 1:03 | 34:01 | 90.22 MPH | 107.85 MPH BEAR | 1:01 | 36:12 | 86.74 MPH | 104.36 MPH WENDELL | 1:01 | 36:42 | 86.11 MPH | 102.04 MPH HENRY | 1:05 | 38:00 | 83.01 MPH | 101.34 MPH JAMES | 2:17 | 40:09 | 78.60 MPH | 97.29 MPH

------------

The next day was Sunday, and the express didn’t run to the mainland. Usually, Pip and Emma spent the downtime getting essential work done, but a power outage in Crovan’s Gate town meant that the facility was running mostly off of backup generators. This left Pip and Emma at somewhat of a loose end.

About three hours later, the staff in the diesel shed had decided that a pair of diesels looking at them like lost puppies had gone on for long enough, and went to find them something to do.

An hour after that, and they were being coupled up to the coaches for the Boat Train. Caerphilly saw them go by as she stopped at Crovan’s Gate station. “I’m getting so much data that I don’t need,” she said to no-one in particular. “What on earth am I going to do with it?”

---------

ENGINE | TOTAL TIME | TIMED PORTION | AVG. SPEED | MAX SPEED ▼ PIP/EMMA | 0:56 | 29:31 | 107.17 MPH | 127.23 MPH DELTA | 1:03 | 34:01 | 90.22 MPH | 107.85 MPH BEAR | 1:01 | 36:12 | 86.74 MPH | 104.36 MPH WENDELL | 1:01 | 36:42 | 86.11 MPH | 102.04 MPH HENRY | 1:05 | 38:00 | 83.01 MPH | 101.34 MPH JAMES | 2:17 | 40:09 | 78.60 MPH | 97.29 MPH

-------

Monday morning rolled around, and no-one was more surprised than Gordon to find BoCo heading a stopper train into Barrow station around noon. “BoCo? Has someone failed?”

“Not at all,” BoCo replied. “I’m just doing someone a favour.”

“And who might that be?” The only one lazy enough to suggest such a thing was James, and considering that going to Barrow meant an opportunity to wheedle his way onto another Boat Train turn, it seemed highly unlikely that he’d pass on the chance.

“Me,” BoCo said firmly. “I’m doing this for me.” He said it with such firm resolution that Gordon found that he had no response to give.

BoCo spent the next half hour in the shed, deep in thought, or perhaps meditation. Gordon had an inkling of what was going on, and did his best to shoo Bloomer away.

Sure enough, when the time came, BoCo was on the point of the Boat Train, and was staring at the signal with deep intensity.

“Are you sure that this is… a favour?” Gordon asked hesitantly, backing down onto the Limited.

“It’s something like that.” BoCo never took his eyes off the signal.

“Do you think that you’re… ready for this?”

“I don’t care if I’m not.”

“BoCo… what is this about?”

The diesel finally looked away from the signal bridge, and Gordon was struck by the expression on his face. It was both one of youthful determination, and aged resignation. Vitality and fragility. Contentment and loss. Fear and calm. It was like looking back into the late 1960s, as the world fell apart.

“I’m the last Condor, and I need to know if I can still fly.”

The signal rose, and BoCo was bathed in the green light as he departed. Gordon sounded his whistle as the coaches rolled out of sight. “Good luck, my friend…”

-------------

---------

The next morning, Gordon took the up-bound Boat Train to Kirk Ronan. While the passengers boarded at the docks in Tidmouth, he noticed a strange sight and sound - James was cursing and yelling like an engine twice his size as he bashed and bumped lines of container cars and fish vans around. “You don’t get Marina today! You get me! You know what that means? ORDER!”

Gordon wisely decided not to get involved, but wondered where Marina was all the way to Kirk Ronan, and then wondered some more as he took the empty coaches to Barrow.

When he got to the yard, everything became clear. Marina was asleep in the middle of the yard, still connected to the now-empty fish vans from the Flying Kipper. She slowly woke up as he shunted the coaches next to her. “G’morning.”

“Afternoon, more like it.” Gordon raised an eyebrow.

“Has it been that long?” She yawned. “Don’t think I’ve slept in like that in years.”

“James seems set on waging war with the trucks down at the harbor.” Gordon held the eyebrow where it was.

“It’s fine, he and Delta both owe me favors.”

“Whatever for?”

“... I don’t think you want to know. I barely want to know.”

“...” Gordon didn’t know how to respond to that, and elected to change the subject. “I don’t recall you showing any interest in these trials.”

“Well,” she said, engine kicking over as she began to wake up fully. “I remember when BoCo’s class was new, and while I never met any of them at the time, I remember hearing all the reasons why I was better than them, not least of which was that they were type 2s, and I was a type 3.”

She paused for a moment, remembering something. “Then, thirty years later, I came here and I met him, and that odd-looking type 2 proceeded to best me in every conceivable way there was. And I asked him how, and all he did was laugh and say that the works here were just that good. At first I thought that maybe they had fixed him, made him whole, but later, I began to realize that they made him… more.”

Her eyes sparkled in the midday sun. Gordon began to wonder if he needed to have longer and more regular conversations with the diesels.

She continued. “And then, a few years later, the works called for me, and they called for him at the same time. They told me that they were going to “improve me.” And while I was being taken apart, I saw them take him apart.” Her eyes flashed, and Gordon began to wonder if maybe this trial was having effects on engines in ways he didn’t know about.

“He’s not a type 2, not anymore,” She said with reverence. “Just like I’m not a type 3. Now I’m more, and I need to know how much more I am.”

With a fine-tuned roar of exhaust, she powered away to the diesel pumps, leaving Gordon feeling overwhelmed, yet contemplative.

-------------------

ENGINE | TOTAL TIME | TIMED PORTION | AVG. SPEED | MAX SPEED ▼ PIP/EMMA | 0:56 | 29:31 | 107.17 MPH | 127.23 MPH DELTA | 1:03 | 34:01 | 90.22 MPH | 107.85 MPH BEAR | 1:01 | 36:12 | 86.74 MPH | 104.36 MPH WENDELL | 1:01 | 36:42 | 86.11 MPH | 102.04 MPH MARINA | 1:06 | 37:11 | 85.00 MPH | 101.73 MPH HENRY | 1:05 | 38:00 | 83.01 MPH | 101.34 MPH BOCO | 1:02 | 36:22 | 86.64 MPH | 100.81 MPH JAMES | 2:17 | 40:09 | 78.60 MPH | 97.29 MPH

-----------

The next day, everything was quiet. Gordon and Caerphilly had both assumed that Sam would be taking her turn at the boat train today, and had strategically placed themselves on the line to offer encouragement. For Caerphilly, this meant moving a line of empty china clay trucks from the works to the clay pits at Brendam, a job that would involve spending lots of time in sidings letting more important trains go by. For Gordon…

“Have you ever done this before?” In a complete reversal of his demeanour just a few days ago, BoCo was chipper and all smiles, although this may have had something to do with watching Gordon shunt the pick-up goods.

“Yes, rarely, and I would like to keep it that way,” Gordon huffed. The trucks had known exactly how uncommon of an occurrence this was, and were reveling in the opportunity to cause trouble for “the big cheese,” as they’d taken to calling him. Even worse, there had been some sort of dispute between the usual express crews and the crews from Cargo Operations, and the end result meant that he had three men far more used to express passenger trains making an absolute hash of things on his footplate. They were twenty minutes late and they hadn’t even reached the hill yet.

“Well, think of it as a way to broaden your horizons!”

“Yes, Caerphilly said something very similar.”

“Oh good! Great minds think alike!”

“Let me tell you the same thing I told her.” Gordon’s eyes narrowed. “It would be in your best interest to broaden the number of ways you can keep your mouth shut.”

“Uh huh.”

Gordon’s eyes narrowed further, and he grumbled something about bilgewater drinking Westerners and their diesel-swilling compatriots…

Later

Caerphilly was in yet another passing loop near Killdane station, and was waiting patiently for the boat train to come by.

Presently, she heard Sam’s whistle in the distance, and perked up. She looked towards the signals, and found them all at Danger. “What?” she said to no-one. “Where is she?”

A moment later, she found out when Sam came steaming into the station from the other direction with a container train. Confusion writ large across Caerphilly’s face, and it was quickly mirrored by the big decapod. “Why do you and Gordon look so surprised to see me?”

“Weren’t you taking the boat train today?”

“No? I’m taking it over the weekend. I’ve been out on the Little Western, shifting ballast all morning.” She took notice of the line of clay “hoods” behind Caerphilly. “And Gordon had to take the pick-up goods because of that… were you two waiting for me?”

“Merely to offer support-”

“Oh my god!” Sam’s whistle was shrill, and she blushed deeply. “That’s so kind of both of you. You didn’t need to do that!”

“Yes, I did,” Caerphilly started, and then caught herself. “But apparently I didn’t. If you didn’t take the express, then who did?”

As if by divine provenance, a whistle sounded in the distance, just as the signal above - one of the newest color-light models that the P-Way gang were very excited to have - changed to green.

Both engines turned all of their attention to the east. “He can’t be.” Sam said, voice full of disbelief.

“He’s an antique.” Caerphilly wished she was facing the other direction. She needed to see what sort of mania was gripping this fool.

“The works here are good, but they can’t be that good, can they?”

“We’ll see when they have to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”

The whistle sounded again, and a great cacophony of chuffing and puffing made further conversation impossible. The train appeared over the horizon trailing a huge plume of smoke and steam, engine whistling fit to burst. It stormed over the high-speed turnouts connecting the down slow and the down fast lines, and vanished into the distance as quickly as it had come.

“I stand corrected.” Caerphilly said as the smoke wafted away. “He’s suicidal.”

----------

“Don’t you have to be inside the box?” Gordon sniffed at the Wellsworth signalman.

“Eh, the points are set,” the man said, taking a long slow drag on a cigarette. “Won’t take a second to bell them through once they’ve gone.”

“I hope to one day live my life with the lackadaisical grace that you live yours,” Gordon said pointedly.

The signalman took no notice. “Besides, this train, I have to see up close.”

“It’s only Samarkand,” Gordon harrumphed. “Wait until I go in for overhaul and you’ll be seeing her on the express somewhat frequently.”

The signalman turned and raised an eyebrow in Gordon’s direction. He said nothing, but Gordon felt like he was missing something deeply important. “What? What is it?”

There was a distant whistle, and his confusion turned to annoyance. “That’s not the boat train, you buffoon! That’s Edward! What kind of a signalman are you?”

The signalman didn’t say anything, and pulled a small camera out of his pocket.

Edward’s whistle sounded again less than two minutes later, presumably for the distant signal, and it took Gordon several all-too-short seconds to realize that any train stopping at Wellsworth wouldn’t have been able to go from Maron to the Wellsworth distant in that short of a time.

“No…”

From behind him, deep in the yard, there was a tidal wave of swearing as BoCo did the same math and came to the same conclusion.

Edward’s whistle sounded a third time, for the foot crossing near the station, and then the train was hurtling past. Edward was red in the face and working hard enough to turn his smoke sooty black, but his wheels were turning so fast that his con-rods were a blur. The coaches stretched behind him, seeming impossibly large against his small tender. The train streaked through the station at lightning speed, and roared away towards Crosby with all the noise and circumstance of a proper express.

Dead silence fell over the station as the lamps of the train receded around the corner. Gordon and BoCo were in shock. The passengers waiting for the next train (most of whom knew Edward personally) were clutching their pearls, their chests, their heads, each other, or the nearest lamp post. The stationmaster had been in the middle of a phone call, and the handset fell from his limp grasp, dangling on the cord. In the signal box, the signalman had clearly not been expecting Edward to be going that fast, and was a little rattled by it; he tried to throw open the door to the box, and the handle came off in his hand as he did. In the deafening silence, Gordon had a thought. I think that Caerphilly should really be studying what the time trials are doing to us, rather than what we are actually accomplishing.

-----------------------

ENGINE | TOTAL TIME | TIMED PORTION | AVG. SPEED | MAX SPEED ▼ PIP/EMMA | 0:56 | 29:31 | 107.17 MPH | 127.23 MPH DELTA | 1:03 | 34:01 | 90.22 MPH | 107.85 MPH BEAR | 1:01 | 36:12 | 86.74 MPH | 104.36 MPH WENDELL | 1:01 | 36:42 | 86.11 MPH | 102.04 MPH MARINA | 1:06 | 37:11 | 85.00 MPH | 101.73 MPH HENRY | 1:05 | 38:00 | 83.01 MPH | 101.34 MPH BOCO | 1:02 | 36:22 | 86.64 MPH | 100.81 MPH EDWARD | 1:05 | 38:55 | 80.52 MPH | 100.00 MPH JAMES | 2:17 | 40:09 | 78.60 MPH | 97.29 MPH

-----------

The Next Day

The noise that had started when Edward backed into the shed that evening didn’t stop until the morning, and everyone was slightly bleary come sunrise. As such, nobody really paid attention to the engines rostered on Barrow-bound trains until almost noon, when Henry (who had taken the morning boat train to Kirk Ronan) returned with empty fish vans from the Flying Kipper.

“Well if it’s not you,” he said to a perplexed Gordon. “And if Caerphilly just left, who is it?”

----

“Lassie, I don’t know who you are, but I know that you definitely don’t belong here,” Bloomer said slowly, trying and failing to comprehend what was going on.

The crowd of men in “CROVAN’S GATE TMD” jumpsuits on the platform glared at him. “Would you shush?” the foreman asked, before turning back to the thick bundle of cables connecting the engine to the first coach. “This is a perfectly legitimate maintenance procedure! We have to have a shakedown run.”

“On a train with passengers? While she’s hooked up to a load of AA batteries like a child’s toy?”

“It’s not batteries!” The men snapped as one.

“Well then what is it then? Magic? Because that’s an electric locomotive, and you’ve got no wires!” Bloomer scoffed.

“Actually, it’s a diesel generator,” the electric engine said. Her name was Abbey, and she was looking around the mainland terminal like she’d never been there before. It was entirely possible she hadn’t been. “They’re very excited to see if this could work long term.”

“Lassie,” Bloomer said slowly. “No disrespect, but I think an electric motor hooked up to a diesel generator has already been invented. They call it the diesel locomotive.”

Abbey laughed. “I know, but wouldn’t you agree to something daft if it meant getting the chance to do something incredible?”

“To be honest with ya, the last time I agreed to anything daft I got locked in a shed for what felt like a hundred years, so no.”

She laughed again, and kept lightly needling Bloomer over his lack of an “adventurer’s spirit” until the men declared her fit to move. The generator, which had been mounted inside an old baggage car, clattered to life, and Bloomer watched with no small amount of amazement as an electric train moved (not at all) silently out of the yard.

At Kirk Ronan, a few passengers boarding the train seemed to understand what was missing from their train, and the departure was delayed a few minutes as they got photos of Abbey with no wires above her, the diesel engine shoehorned into the baggage coach, or the thick bundles of wires that were attached to Abbey’s pantograph.

Simon, one of the engines who worked the Kirk Ronan branch, looked on with bemusement. “I can’t blame them. That is the strangest looking diesel I have ever seen.”

----

At Killdane, James was stopped at the platforms with a passenger train, and tried to figure out why all the electric engines were lined up on electrified platforms.

“You’ll see,” Dane, one of the electrics, said in a suspiciously calm tone. “Just wait until Abbey gets here.”

That had been several minutes ago, and James was now thoroughly worried about what was going to happen when Abbey got there.

A horn sounded in the distance, and James was promptly deafened by all the engines honking theirs loudly in response. Worse yet, they didn’t stop honking, so he couldn’t ask them what in blazes they were doing.

Then, a train appeared in the distance. It got bigger very quickly, and James suddenly had an out-of-body experience as he watched an electric engine zip past on the wrong side of the station from the electric line!

------

Caerphilly was at Maron when the lights of the boat train appeared over the curve of the next hill. The engine honked gaily at her as it passed with a woosh and a roar, and then the train vanished over the crest of Gordon’s hill.

“... Did I just get passed by an electric train??!”

-------

At Crosby station, Gordon was waiting for parcels to be unloaded from the mail train. He was distracted by the stationmaster asking him a question, and so only paid partial attention to the boat train passing by with a cheerful “Hi Gordon!”

“Yes, hello Ab-bb-ab-Abbey…?” Gordon trailed to a stop mid-word as his mind caught up with what he’d just seen.

-------

Sam and Marina were chatting idly at the docks as the boat train rolled in. Both engines trailed off to a stop and looked at Abbey as she pulled up next to the P&O terminal.

“So, what you were saying about us being made… more?” Sam said slowly. “I get it now.”

“And this island does grant immortality.” Marina blinked quickly. “We’ve all drunk from the fountain of youth…”

--------

Later that evening, Abbey was at the big station being connected to a short goods train bound for the works. The trucks had no idea what was going on, and were too scared to cause trouble. Across the station, the Fat Controller exited his office. He made it about halfway down the platform before doing first a double, then a triple-take at the sight of an electric engine under the station canopy. He turned, as if to walk over and investigate the matter, made it about ten steps in that direction, and then seemingly thought better of it, and turned back the way he’d come.

----------

ENGINE | TOTAL TIME | TIMED PORTION | AVG. SPEED | MAX SPEED ▼ PIP/EMMA | 0:56 | 29:31 | 107.17 MPH | 127.23 MPH ABBEY?? | 0:59 | 30:59 | 102.98 MPH | 111.68 MPH DELTA | 1:03 | 34:01 | 90.22 MPH | 107.85 MPH BEAR | 1:01 | 36:12 | 86.74 MPH | 104.36 MPH WENDELL | 1:01 | 36:42 | 86.11 MPH | 102.04 MPH MARINA | 1:06 | 37:11 | 85.00 MPH | 101.73 MPH HENRY | 1:05 | 38:00 | 83.01 MPH | 101.34 MPH BOCO | 1:02 | 36:22 | 86.64 MPH | 100.81 MPH EDWARD | 1:05 | 38:55 | 80.52 MPH | 100.00 MPH JAMES | 2:17 | 40:09 | 78.60 MPH | 97.29 MPH

----------------

The next day… again

Finally the weekend came, and it was Sam’s turn on the boat train. Gordon and Caerphilly were optimistic, and spent most of the night before giving her pointers on various parts of the route. Sam started out as somewhat “normal” about the whole affair, but as the time got closer, she started to feel a tickle of anxiety down in the bottom of her boiler.

Henry, of all engines, was the one to offer reassurances, and the two engines spent quite a while in Barrow yard talking amongst themselves. At the end of it, Sam was feeling rather upbeat and optimistic.

On the flip side of this, Siobhan and Wilma were experiencing the dual sensations of “looming dread” and “deep regret.” They had assumed that, as Cargo Ops crew, they wouldn’t be anywhere near the speed trial runs; however, after several main line crew members called in sick (For once it was legitimate - there was a rather virulent strain of Norovirus running through Barrow at the moment) the crew assigned for Sam’s time trial were Rupert and Clancy. Once Sam found that out, she refused to go anywhere, and Will and Siobhan were rousted from the crew rest area with minimal explanation and less preparation.

“How fast does she wanna go?” Will asked hesitantly, as the train rolled out of Barrow.

“Well,” Siobhan muttered, looking down Sam’s long boiler towards the tracks ahead. “Passenger trains are allowed up to 110 on most of the line, sooooo…”

Will took a moment to be absolutely stunned, before she quickly crossed herself and resumed shoveling. “Father, son, holy spirit, what the fuck am I doing?!”

---------

The train got off to a good start out of Kirk Ronan, and made excellent time to the junction at Kellsthorpe Road. A lot of the time trial trains had to wait here for cross traffic to clear, but fortunately for Sam (and unfortunately for Will and Siobhan) there was a green signal all the way to the down fast line, and Sam sprinted up the line with a 50 mile an hour running start.

Will was stoking the fire constantly, pouring every last ounce of skill into feeding Sam’s fiery heart as the floor of the cab rocked underneath her. It was much smoother than she’d expected, the floor acting more like a ship rocking in the swells than the bucking bronco she’d been dreading.

“This is a lot more normal,” she shouted across the cab to Siobhan as she took a break to check the water glasses. The cab may have been steady, but the wind was at near hurricane strength, and both women were wearing protective earplugs. “I was expecting worse. How fast’re we going?”

Siobhan didn’t bother responding, and instead pointed towards something on her side of the cab. Will made her way across, and found Siobhan’s gloved hand pointing at the digital speedometer tucked into a nest of pipes and wiring.

What Will said next was lost in the roar of the wind as the train neared Killdane station, but the speedometer was clear: The train was doing 109 miles an hour on an uphill grade.

-------

Once again, James was at the Killdane platforms as the boat train drew near. This time, he was with the Limited on the up fast line, and the engine on the boat train was mercifully a steam engine, not some bizarre electric.

He blew his whistle in support as Samarkand drew closer, and was rewarded for this with a gale-force wind that buffeted him from seemingly all directions. Rocks and dirt thrown up by the train’s passage bounced off of him, scoring and marking his shiny red paint. On the platform, several passengers dove to the ground as Sam’s passage caused the concrete platforms to vibrate like a distant earthquake. Loose paper and rubbish swirled around the platforms like a tornado.

Then, as suddenly as she’d arrived, Sam was gone, whistling into the distance. James and his passengers tried to adjust to the sudden quiet.

They did not succeed.

-----

Gordon and Caerphilly had felt quite clever in timing their stopping services to meet at Cronk.

“It is her turn today, isn’t it?” Gordon murmured. “And we won’t be witnessing Ivor the engine, or Skarloey, or something else equally improbable?”

“Oh hush!” Caerphilly grinned. “I can hear her coming.”

They could hear her whistle sound, a long, delirious shout of joy as the train cleared Killdane. Gordon raised an eyebrow - he knew what an engine needed to be going through in order to produce that sound.

“You’ll need to be quick if you wish to inspect her technique,” he said sagely. “She’s moving quickly.”

Caerphilly was facing the other direction, towards Killdane, and whistled softly. “You’re right. Bloody Nora, she’s coming on quick!”

Before either of them could say anything else, the helicopter-like sound of a steam engine at full chat drowned out all other sound. Sam and the boat train screamed around the corner from Killdane in a flurry of noise, dust, and steam. Her whistle sounded again, shrill and barely coherent, as she saw the two of them.

As the train passed, Gordon had the experience of being buzzed by a low-flying airliner; Caerphilly felt like she’d been hit by a bomb, complete with the dust and debris.

The train was gone into the distance before either of them could speak again, and they stared slightly agog at the cloud it left in its wake.

“Now,” Caerphilly said slowly, spitting dust and rocks as she spoke. “I know that this isn’t a competition, or at least we didn’t mean it as one, but… we are going to have to step up our game if we want to beat that.”

Gordon had to agree.

-----

This time, the Wellsworth signalman was in his box when the train thundered through, but Will peered out of the cab window just long enough to see the man staring slack-jawed at the train as it whipped through the station at triple-digit speeds, a half-eaten sandwich falling from his mouth.

-----

The train slowed slightly as it passed Crosby station. Knapford wasn’t far off, and after that was the restricting signals to let them into the dock. Its speed was now merely fast instead of the relativistic velocities it had been achieving earlier in the run.

“Oi!” Will called across the cab. Now that the speed was firmly in the high double digits, speech was intelligible again. “We need water! I’m dropping the scoop!”

“Now?” Siobhan called back. “We’re almost there!”

“We won’t get there unless we fill the tender! I don’t wanna get caught short!” Will was insistent, and dropped the scoop regardless of what Siobhan really wanted.

---

On the slow line, Percy was making his way up the line towards Crosby with a short train of vans for the goods platform. He saw Samarkand - that new goods engine, who was absolutely gargantuan - racing towards him. Oh great, just what we need. Another big engine who wants to be some big important passenger engine because of course she fuc- wait what’s that.

That was a plume of water appearing from underneath the big engine’s tender.

Percy had just enough time to realize that he was puffing over the Crosby water troughs before:

SPLASH “Acksbughifhsithtjighngthhtgtbbbthblughsaaachkkk!”

---------------

ENGINE | TOTAL TIME | TIMED PORTION | AVG. SPEED | MAX SPEED ▼ PIP/EMMA | 0:56 | 29:31 | 107.17 MPH | 127.23 MPH ABBEY?? | 0:59 | 30:59 | 102.98 MPH | 111.68 MPH SAMARKAND | 0:59 | 33:11 | 95.61 MPH | 110.09 MPH DELTA | 1:03 | 34:01 | 90.22 MPH | 107.85 MPH BEAR | 1:01 | 36:12 | 86.74 MPH | 104.36 MPH WENDELL | 1:01 | 36:42 | 86.11 MPH | 102.04 MPH MARINA | 1:06 | 37:11 | 85.00 MPH | 101.73 MPH HENRY | 1:05 | 38:00 | 83.01 MPH | 101.34 MPH BOCO | 1:02 | 36:22 | 86.64 MPH | 100.81 MPH EDWARD | 1:05 | 38:55 | 80.52 MPH | 100.00 MPH JAMES | 2:17 | 40:09 | 78.60 MPH | 97.29 MPH

----------------------

The next day - for the penultimate time.

Considering the lunatic heights this time trial had reached, everyone else was thrilled that Caerphilly was finally on the boat train. Among other things, it meant that the trials were almost at an end, but more importantly, it meant that the “big ones” were finally going up against the clock.

The main line crews, who were scandalized to have been so so thoroughly trounced by Sam, Will, Siobhan, and by extension the rest of Cargo Ops, had fought amongst each other for the “honor” of manning Caerphilly’s footplate. The big engine thought it bemusing that they were so eager, and couldn’t quite keep a straight face when the two men (not Clancy and Rupert) who eventually emerged from the station bore scrapes, cuts, and a very noticeable black eye.

“I didn’t think you actually meant fisticuffs!” she squeaked, trying to keep the cackling at bay.

On the next platform, Siobhan was on James’ footplate with a van train, and didn’t even look up. “Ah tell ya,” she said to James. “Cargo Ops was the smartest fuckin’ decision Ah have made in years. Certainly is smarter than bashing someone’s face in to get a good driving spot on the express.”

“Didn’t you take the express last week? With Caerphilly?” James asked as Caerphilly’s crew scowled at her and then each other before sullenly clambering into the cab.

“Like ah said.” Siobhan oozed smugness at near-Gordon levels. “Smartest thing ah have done in years.”

------

Despite a small, petty voice in the back of her mind suggesting that she should slow down the train to upset her crew, Caerphilly found the prospect of letting herself fly down the line to be exhilarating, and was straining against her own brakes as the passengers boarded in Kirk Ronan.

“Easy there,” the driver said as the guard waved his flag. “We’ve got to wait for the signal!”

“You’ll have to keep an eye on her,” the fireman said, attempting to sound knowledgeable. “She’s liable to run away from you.”

The driver nodded in agreement, and got a firm hold on the controls as the signal - a GNR style model that “somersaulted” to vertical - flipped upwards to a clear aspect. He was ready for whatever this engine could throw at him.

Caerphilly proceeded to rip the throttle and reverser out of his hands anyways, and set off with a flurry of wheelslip and black smoke.

Gwen, the small tank engine who worked in the Kirk Ronan dockyard, watched the train leave. “Those idiots have no idea what they’re up against, do they?” she said to herself as Caerphilly’s driver tried and mostly failed to reign in his engine.

-------

Donald and Douglas were working on a slow goods train to the mainland. It wasn’t the pick up goods, but it still made a few stops between Arlesburgh and Barrow, one of which was Killdane. Douglas was working in the yard, collecting a line of aluminum trucks while Donald worked the motorail terminal. Located a few hundred feet away from the station itself, the motorail terminal served the Sodor Motorail passenger services, as well as goods trains that dropped off shipments of new cars bound for dealers and customers across the island.

The main line was elevated above the electric line and the yard on an embankment, and so Douglas didn’t see the boat train pass so much as he heard it - a shrill whistle sounding, followed by the deafening roar of a steam engine at full throttle, and then the coaches whooshing by. He paid it little mind, and once he’d collected the trucks he needed, he puffed up the embankment to the motorail terminal.

“Ach, for land’s sake! Wha’s happened ‘ere!” he gasped.

Donald’s tender was laying astride the rails, the cartic wagon behind him bent almost completely in half. Scattered around him were a half dozen Ford sedans, upside down or sideways, smashed half flat. As an explanation, Donald yelled something in Scots that was almost untranslatable to English. Roughly paraphrased, he said: “That stupid great cruise missile scared the living bejesus out of me!”

---------

Caerphilly flew down the line, at speeds she was not properly able to comprehend. The experience of it though, that was something she understood just fine. Her motion was fluid, the individual cranks and rods whirring away at speeds faster than they had ever been designed for. The feeling of it was indescribable, and she found herself hoping against hope that every signal would be green from here to eternity - so that she could keep going on like this forever.

Inside the cab, her crew were having a very different experience. The cab was noisy, bouncy, loud, and hotter than some furnaces. The draft from the firebox was so great that opening the firebox door would suck the coal off the shovel, and threatened to take the shovel with it. By the time they cleared Cronk station, the fireman had developed blisters on his hands from holding it tightly. His gloves were already starting to wear thin. At one point the firebox door stuck open, and the driver watched in morbid fascination as a loose lump of coal bounced out of the tender, onto the footplate, and was promptly sucked across the cab and into the inferno. Both men were sweating through their clothes, but they worried that removing them would only end with the garments being unintentionally fed into Caerphilly’s ravenous fire.

Whistling for the Maron signal box was perhaps the greatest indication of the dichotomy between engine and crew. The driver pulled the whistle lever for a short blast - just long enough to acknowledge their presence. Caerphilly held the whistle open until they stormed over the crest of the hill. The sound was jubilant, triumphant, ecstatic - a sign that the engine was experiencing the closest thing to heaven one could on the mortal plane.

To the crew, the sound of the whistle was a demonic howl that clawed away at their waning sanity. As the train crested the hill they went light in their boots, and for a moment both men would have sworn that the sound was not that of an engine, but that of Satan’s chariot.

In a macabre bit of efficiency, her heaven was their hell. Both were ongoing as the train raced towards Wellsworth.

--------

By this stage, BoCo was ready and willing to accept anything occurring when the boat train went through Wellsworth. Even still, it was somewhat embarrassing to see the signalman make a fool of himself yet again. This time, the daft idiot had fallen prey to the smell of freshly baked apple turnovers in the station cafe, and was trying to wave off a curious bee that was trying to inspect the man’s sticky, sugar-coated fingers.

With a cry of frustration (or perhaps fear, maybe the man didn’t like bees), the bee was swatted from the air just as Caerphilly’s whistle shrieked for the crossing outside the station. The signalman hurried into the box, and would have managed to actually be in position for when the train passed by if he hadn’t caught his shirt tail on the edge of the lever frame. With a ripping sound and a thump, the shirt gave way and the man fell to the floor, just in time for the Boat Train to hurtle through at near-relativistic speeds.

After the train had passed, BoCo had to bite back a bark of laughter as the now shirtless man peeled himself off the floor and belled the train through to the next signal box.

-------

At Knapford, a very bored Thomas was attempting to needle Gordon in an attempt to amuse himself. “And so Percy smelled like the water trough the rest of the day, which I must say isn’t quite as bad as ditch water, but…”

He trailed off when Gordon failed to respond. The big engine wasn’t even paying attention, instead staring down the line towards the next station, and Thomas scowled at the perceived slight. He began thinking of something that might get under Gordon’s paintwork when a whistle sounded in the distance.

In just a second, Caerphilly Castle thundered out of the tunnel that led to Crosby, wreathed in an angelic cloud of smoke and steam. Smiling broadly, she whistled long and loud as the train raced through the station and disappeared from sight.

Thomas’ eye glinted at the sudden opportunity, and he whistled softly. “Wow, I can see why the Fat Controller chose her to be the new Express.”

Gordon didn’t respond, but in a way that made Thomas hopeful of a reaction.

Finally, after a few seconds: “Indeed. There is only one other engine on this island I would choose to be my successor.” Gordon was calm and collected, and once the guard’s whistle blew, he steamed away in a regal cloud of steam.

A bewildered Thomas watched him go.

------------

ENGINE | TOTAL TIME | TIMED PORTION | AVG. SPEED | MAX SPEED ▼ PIP/EMMA | 0:56 | 29:31 | 107.17 MPH | 127.23 MPH CAERPHILLY | 1:00 | 32:71 | 97.22 MPH | 115.16 MPH ABBEY?? | 0:59 | 30:59 | 102.98 MPH | 111.68 MPH SAMARKAND | 0:59 | 33:11 | 95.61 MPH | 110.09 MPH DELTA | 1:03 | 34:01 | 90.22 MPH | 107.85 MPH BEAR | 1:01 | 36:12 | 86.74 MPH | 104.36 MPH WENDELL | 1:01 | 36:42 | 86.11 MPH | 102.04 MPH MARINA | 1:06 | 37:11 | 85.00 MPH | 101.73 MPH HENRY | 1:05 | 38:00 | 83.01 MPH | 101.34 MPH BOCO | 1:02 | 36:22 | 86.64 MPH | 100.81 MPH EDWARD | 1:05 | 38:55 | 80.52 MPH | 100.00 MPH JAMES | 2:17 | 40:09 | 78.60 MPH | 97.29 MPH

----------

The next day - for the last time

The morning brought an overcast gloom that worsened as the day went on. By the time Gordon backed down on the coaches at Barrow yard, stationmaster Burton was carrying around an umbrella. He strode down to the train, skillfully avoiding the damp patches of earth that threatened to soil his wingtip shoes, and handed a document up to Gordon’s driver.

“Heads up, you two,” the driver said after donning his reading glasses. “There’s a change in schedule. We’re leaving 20 minutes early from Kirk Ronan.”

“Twenty minutes early?” Gordon was befuddled. “What on earth could they have done that for?”

“Track work on the main line, it looks like. They want to get us and the Express through before they close off anything.”

Gordon grumbled something about the passengers complaining, but said nothing else. Meanwhile, the driver turned to the fireman. “Any complaints from you, Rupert?”

Rupert, still sporting a bruised cheek from yesterday, tried and failed to look imperious. “Not at all, Daniel.”

Daniel (please, his friends call him Dan) rolled his eyes. “Are we going to have a problem with anything else?”

“I don’t see why we should,” Rupert scoffed. “After all, it wasn’t you who put Clancy in hos-”

“We’re not going to talk about that during work hours, alright?” Dan cut him off. “I believe the Fat Controller said much more to you lot yesterday.”

Gordon heard all of this and rolled his eyes. I wonder if those funny automated trains on the Docklands Light Railway are interested in giving lessons on driving oneself…

----

The rain started about an hour later, as the train stood at Kirk Ronan. Inside the cab, Rupert and Dan looked upwards with dismay. “Just our luck,” Daniel muttered. “Wet rails and slick running in the middle of a damned time trial.”

Rupert snorted dismissively.

“What? What’s that noise supposed to mean?”

“I suppose it means that you should use the skills you supposedly have, then?” Rupert sniffed. “Two children in a freight engine beat three quarters of the damned railway down the Killdane straight on dry rails, so two men of our calibre should be able to achieve the same in these conditions just fine.”

Dan glared. “I feel like discounting Siobhan like that is really a-”

“Children in a freight engine.” Rupert said with a serious look in his eye. “Nothing more. We are gods compared to them.”

“Your speeches leave much to be desired, fireman.” Gordon rumbled. “If any of us is a god, it would be me, so perhaps you should allow someone else to take charge of this endeavour.”

He waited a beat, just long enough for Rupert’s face to twist into an ugly scowl. “Unless you would like to inform both Daniel and myself that you happen to have over one hundred and seven years of experience working on express passenger trains, at which point we will happily cede control to you.”

To his credit, Rupert took the tongue lashing like a man, and didn’t throw a tantrum, but he also didn’t say a word for the rest of the time they spent in the station.

Dan managed to keep his petty smile hidden throughout this time, although he gave Gordon’s throttle lever an affectionate pat when Rupert’s back was turned.

-------

Like Caerphilly and Sam’s runs, the signal at the main line junction was clear, the four-aspect colour-light model going from two yellows to a single green as they approached it. The AWS gave a cheerful all-clear chime and Dan opened the throttle fully. Given free reign, Gordon responded with a will, charging forwards towards the down fast line.

Before they’d even cleared the signal, still moving at a relatively slow pace, there was a shrill whistle from Kellsthorpe Road station, and Caerphilly streaked out of the rain-slicked gloom with the midday express. The train was already at a fast clip, and it roared past, running opposite-main on the up fast line.

Gordon’s wheels spun for a moment as the last coaches of the express streaked by, before digging in. Like a greyhound out of the gate, Gordon powered forward, each turn of his 7-foot drivers adding speed at a fantastic rate.

Despite the reduced visibility from the rain, the tail lamp of the express never faded away. Gordon was quickly catching up to the train, reaching over one hundred miles an hour within minutes of entering the main line.

Caerphilly wasn’t lazing around, and the express coaches passed by slowly as Gordon’s acceleration began to trail off. The speedometer needle was practically dancing around in its housing, but Dan could just make out an indicated one hundred ten on the dial as the two trains leaned into the curve that marked the ⅜ point of the Kellsthorpe-Killdane section of the main line.

Gordon was just about level with Caerphilly’s tender, and sounded a long blast of his whistle. Caerphilly’s drivers spun frantically for a half-second, while her crew almost jumped out of their skin at the noise.

“Funny running into you here!” Gordon shouted. “Lovely weather we’re having!”

“What are you doing?!” Caerphilly yelped. “You’re not due for another 20 minutes!”

“Perhaps I’m just that much faster than everyone else!” Gordon was full of mirth, and was only now starting to show that he was getting winded.

“Including me?” Caerphilly was momentarily the picture of innocence.

“Especially you!” Gordon was still accelerating, and was a few buffer-lengths ahead at this point. The speedometer needle was bouncing so much that Dan couldn’t read it.

“Well then!” The innocence turned into a strange combination of sincerity and deviousness. “Let’s see how fast you can go!”

Caerphilly whistled, long and loud, and began pulling ahead of Gordon, inch by inch.

Gordon responded with a burst of acceleration that would have made Nigel Gresley faint.

“Oh god!” Rupert shouted over the wind and the noise from two sets of valve gear whirring away. “She’s goading him on!”

------

The rain was an intense downpour across most of the island, and many passengers had retreated inside station waiting rooms. The rain had also delayed the planned track work, with many of the P-way gang retreating inside their warm vans and Land Rovers to wait out the storm.

This meant that very few people were on the platforms at Killdane, Cronk, and Maron stations as the two trains roared by with the intensity of a hurricane. Some even mistook the noise as a thunderstorm. At Cronk station, a group of tourists from the American midwest made a spectacle of themselves as they started yelling about there being a tornado.

-----

Possibly the best view of the two trains was the signalman at Maron. Sitting in his small brick signal box near the top of Gordon’s hill, he saw both trains emerge from the rain like spectres. They screamed towards him, trailing clouds of smoke and mist that stretched for hundreds of feet. His box’s territory was small - literally Maron station and nothing else - so by the time he’d sent the bells acknowledging that the trains were in section, he had to bell them out just as quickly.

For once, the layabout running the Wellsworth box was on the ball and in his box, and the bells chimed with his acceptance of two down-bound fast trains into his section.

The lamps of the express rocked and rolled over the hill, and then both trains were gone.

The signalman wanted to ruminate on the sight he’d just witnessed, but the railway waits for no-one, and within seconds of him logging the two trains’ passage, the Cronk signalman was ringing him. Slow goods train, down-bound.

He rang the bell to accept it. The railway kept on running, even as the express and the boat train remained fresh in his memory.

---------------

Gordon and Caerphilly were having the times of their lives as the two trains screamed down the hill towards Wellsworth.

“Feeling tired yet, old iron?” Caerphilly teased.

“Tired? Never!” Gordon declared with some bombastic flair. “This is the standard pace for all express engines. Or did you not know that?”

Caerphilly’s response was an enthusiastic whistle as the two trains passed the Wellsworth distant signals at speed. “This pace is perfect for me!”

At the speeds they were going, a mile was flying by every 35-40 seconds, and a single casual tease could fill a signal block. Gordon opened his mouth to retort, but the words caught in his throat as the sudden feeling of something being very wrong filled him.

“What? What’s the matter?” Caerphilly saw his face fall, and the teasing stopped in its tracks.

“Something’s wrong-” Gordon started, before all the breath left him.

The two trains were rounding the corner separating the hill and Wellsworth station. Time seemed to slow down, and Gordon could see multiple things happening in slow motion.

First, he saw Edward at the platforms, colour draining from the old engine’s face.

Next, he saw the Wellsworth home signal, located in the center of the platforms, dropping to red.

Then, he heard the AWS alarm start to scream a signal warning.

In the corner of his vision, he saw the Wellsworth signalman staring out of the windows of the signal box in abject horror.

And finally, he saw BoCo, slowly pulling onto the down fast line with the midday Suddery-Tidmouth service.

Time stopped, and became meaningless as Gordon, Dan, and the AWS all acted on their base instincts at the same time. The train brakes came on hard, and Gordon threw every ounce of steam he had into his pistons. The reverser - a massive steel screw that had to be turned a dozen times to change from forward to reverse - spun wildly in the opposite direction before Dan could even reach for it. It slammed into the stops in full reverse, and Gordon’s wheels began to spin wildly in the other direction, even as momentum and the wet rails continued to push him forwards, towards the rear coach of the train. The train screeched through the station, past the signals, and Dan heaved on the whistle, letting Gordon’s yell of terror be broadcast for thousands of feet.

BoCo had no idea that anything was wrong until shouting and yelling broke out behind him. His driver began to advance the throttle slowly. Then, in a matter of seconds, Edward bellowed “RUN BOCO!” at the top of his voice, the coaches started screaming, and Caerphilly rocketed by with a shriek of “What are you doing!?!.

The throttle was ripped from his driver’s hand and slammed into the forward stop, exhaust poured from his vents, and the train lurched forwards just as Gordon’s whistle began blowing behind them with all the urgency of the horns that heralded the apocalypse.

Inside Gordon’s cab, there was a sudden shout of “save yourself!” as the speed dropped below forty miles an hour, and Dan turned to see Rupert fling himself out of the cab like a professional gymnast. He managed to clear the rails of the slow line, but landed hard and tumbled to a stop in a puddle, at least one arm pointing the wrong way. Dan didn’t have time to be shocked, and instead braced himself as best he could, holding on for dear life.

Gordon shut his eyes.

BoCo willed himself to go faster.

The sounds of screeching metal got louder and louder.

And then everything stopped.

---

Gordon couldn’t hear anything but his own heaving breaths, and he opened one eye to see that he’d come to a stop on top of a level crossing some three thousand feet beyond the platforms at Wellsworth. BoCo’s train was racing away into the distance, and further beyond was the glinting lamps of Caerphilly’s express.

Behind him, the coaches were babbling incoherently to each other, which presumably meant they were okay.

“Daniel, Rupert? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, but Rupert jumped!” Dan was already clambering down the ladder. “He’s… oooh that’s not good. Stay right here!” he sprinted off down the line to check on the fallen fireman.

“Are you alright?” a small, shaking voice said next to him. “What happened? That was so close…”

Gordon looked, and there at the gates was Bertie the bus, shaking on his suspension like a leaf.

“I…” Gordon had to stop and think about the questions. “I don’t know.”

----------------

Later

Gordon was shunted into the engine shed at Wellsworth for examination. A few hours later, a very pale BoCo joined him.

“I’m telling you,” the diesel said in shaky tones. “The signal was green. It wasn’t even a semaphore - they replaced it last month. It was a colour light and it was green.”

“I believe you,” Gordon said quietly. “But the distant was up, and the AWS did not sound a warning.”

BoCo looked at him. “Then how did this happen?”

“I don’t know…” Gordon didn’t like how haunted he sounded.

-----

A few hours after that, the Fat Controller came to see them, followed by a number of men in windbreakers and polo shirts marked with “HMRI” and “HSE”. They examined Gordon and BoCo closely, took a great many notes, asked a few questions, and took the AWS boxes from both engines. Occasionally a man from the railway would come in, escorted by one of the HMRI men, and examine something, or offer an opinion. It took several hours for them to be satisfied, and it was nearly midnight by the time the last of them left.

The Fat Controller had stayed during the entire time, sitting quietly on a chair in the corner. Once the last polo-shirted man had departed, the Fat Controller stood up and faced the two engines.

“Sir,” Gordon said immediately, all thoughts of propriety forgotten. “What happened?”

The Fat Controller looked exhausted. “We don’t have the specifics yet, but it appears that at some point after your train cleared the AWS magnet for the distant signal, the signalman was somehow able to change the points and signals, and allow BoCo access to the main line.” He took a deep breath, and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Whether this was due to incompetence, malfunction, mistake, or… malice, we don’t know. We likely won’t know for some time, maybe months, or even a year.”

BoCo made a noise. “I can’t… I mean, this is - I should have-”

“Absolutely not.” The Fat Controller thundered. “We may not know what did occur, but we certainly do know what did not, and that was any rule-breaking on either of your parts. The blame is entirely on the signaling system, and by extension, the railway.”

“Sir-” BoCo and Gordon both tried to say something, but the Fat Controller held up his hand.

“No. Even if this was an act of pure malice on the part of the signalman, it should have been impossible for him to do so. Something failed today, whether it was our training regimen, a safety interlock, or some other thing, and we will find out what it was so it can never happen again.”

BoCo was cowed into silence, but Gordon still had one question. “Was… was anyone hurt, sir?”

The Fat Controller exhaled deeply, and relaxed his posture slightly. “Only a few passengers who happened to be standing up at the time. They mostly had cuts and bruises. One man has a concussion from falling down. The only substantial injuries were to your crew, Gordon; Rupert, your fireman, took quite a nasty fall when he jumped from the footplate. He’s in hospital in serious condition, but the doctors say he should make a full recovery by winter.”

“Very good, sir,” Gordon couldn’t help but feel guilty.

“However, Gordon,” The Fat Controller kept going. “The most injured party in this whole affair… is you.”

“Me?” Gordon was shocked. He did hurt all over, but he had assumed it was normal wear and stress, not an actual injury…

“Oh yes,” The Fat Controller was serious. “I might not be the mechanical engineer my grandfather was, but even a lay person would agree that your connecting rods are not supposed to look like that.”

“My connecting rods..?” Gordon was suddenly very aware that maybe he wasn’t supposed to feel the way he was.

“Oh yes,” The Fat Controller continued. “Not to mention the flat spots on every wheel you have, the damage to both your cylinders, and your motion - on both sides, may I add. I could go on, but I will summarize: You are going to the works in the morning, and your overhaul is starting early.”

“S-sir?”

“It makes no sense to fix all this for a few months of service before your boiler ticket expires.” The Fat Controller was becoming slightly more animated, walking back and forth, trying to stretch out his legs after the long sit in the chair.

“O-of course, sir.” Gordon felt slightly overwhelmed. Not only did all of… this happen, but he was supposedly free of blame, and getting overhauled immediately?

“I know that this may be a lot to deal with all at once, Gordon, but you prevented a ghastly accident from occurring.” The Fat Controller at once became still, and looked the big engine in the eyes. “People likely would have died if not for your quick action. This is the least that we can do for you.”

“Yes sir,” Gordon said quietly, a lump forming in his throat. “Of course sir. Thank you, sir.”

The Fat Controller made his way to the door. “I have to leave you both now. Have a pleasant night.”

“You as well, sir.” BoCo and Gordon chorused out of habit as the door shut behind him.

The Fat Controller’s footsteps made it a few feet away, before stopping and returning to the building. “Ah yes, one other thing.” He said through the re-opened door. “I must congratulate you, Gordon.”

“Sir? On what?”

There was the barest hint of a smile on the Fat Controller’s lips. “Well, you obviously did not complete your time trial, but we were able to analyze the raw speed data.” A pause followed, with a small amount of glee coloring his face. “Aside from Pip and Emma, you remain the fastest engine on this Island. Well done.”

----------------------

ENGINE | TOTAL TIME | TIMED PORTION | AVG. SPEED | MAX SPEED ▼ PIP/EMMA | 0:56 | 29:31 | 107.17 MPH | 127.23 MPH GORDON | DNF | DNF | DNF | 121.63 MPH CAERPHILLY | 1:00 | 32:71 | 97.22 MPH | 115.16 MPH ABBEY?? | 0:59 | 30:59 | 102.98 MPH | 111.68 MPH SAMARKAND | 0:59 | 33:11 | 95.61 MPH | 110.09 MPH DELTA | 1:03 | 34:01 | 90.22 MPH | 107.85 MPH BEAR | 1:01 | 36:12 | 86.74 MPH | 104.36 MPH WENDELL | 1:01 | 36:42 | 86.11 MPH | 102.04 MPH MARINA | 1:06 | 37:11 | 85.00 MPH | 101.73 MPH HENRY | 1:05 | 38:00 | 83.01 MPH | 101.34 MPH BOCO | 1:02 | 36:22 | 86.64 MPH | 100.81 MPH EDWARD | 1:05 | 38:55 | 80.52 MPH | 100.00 MPH JAMES | 2:17 | 40:09 | 78.60 MPH | 97.29 MPH

#ttte #sodor #sodor shenangians #fic #sentient vehicle headcanon #if you made it this far #congrats #you deserve a t shirt or something #I survived the NWR time trials and all I got was this lousy shirt

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mydaddywiki · 5 months ago

Text

David Somerset, 11th Duke of Beaufort

Physique: Lean, Athletic Build Height: 6’ (1.83 m)

David Robert Somerset, 11th Duke of Beaufort GCC (23 February 1928 – 16 August 2017), who graced the title of Duke in '84, was more than just an English peer; he was a land baron with a love for fox hunting, fine art, and fucking with hunt saboteurs. As chairman of Marlborough Fine Art, he knew beauty, whether it was hanging on a wall or writhing beneath him. He was notorious for his clashes with those who'd dare interrupt his hunt, perhaps because he liked his chases both on horseback and in the sheets. He was also the Hereditary Keeper of Raglan Castle—imagine the kinky possibilities—and President of the British Horse Society.

Born in the heart of London's elite, Marylebone, he was schooled at Eton, where I'm sure he learned more about seduction than Latin. Joining the Coldstream Guards in '46, he rose to lieutenant by '49, proving he could handle both weapons and, one imagines, the kind you keep under the covers. His lineage? A royal fuck-fest tracing back to Edward III, with some spicy, illegitimate twists.

He inherited the dukedom in '84 because his cousin Henry didn't manage to sire any sons, but thank fuck he did because David was the epitome of what you'd want in a duke: drop-dead gorgeous, with a roguish charm that could strip you naked with a look, and a physique that begged to be explored.

He married twice; first to Lady Caroline Jane Thynne in 1950, popping out four kids, and then to Miranda Elisabeth Morley in 2000, keeping his bed company. His son Harry got the title, hopefully along with his father's knack for seduction.

David was intimately involved with the Badminton Horse Trials, coming second in '59, giving us all a visual feast of him in those scandalously tight jodhpurs. His estate was where he played lord over more than just land—definitely a place for both equestrian and more personal jousting.

He left this world on August 16, 2017, at his Badminton Estate, but not before leaving a legacy of lust, fine art, and a wardrobe that could make anyone want to get down and dirty. My attraction? It's all about imagining what those tight breeches were barely containing, the promise of a duke who knew how to ride more than just horses.

Rest in peace, you magnificent bastard. You were a duke not just of land but of lust.

#mydaddywiki royalty #David Somerset

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aziraphales-library · 1 month ago

Note

A super stressful situation I’ve been involved in for over a year finally resolved a week ago, and my mind and body have been in some form of overdrive for so long that I find myself a bizarre ball of stress and adrenaline with nowhere to put it.

Processing through fiction is one thing that has always helped me, and I find myself relating to Crowley’s often ADHD-coded anxious and stress-fueled antics with sprinkled in over-thinking and self effacement.

Can you recommend any fics with Crowley in a bad way, stress-wise, where he learns to resolve it? I know I’ve read a few where he hatefully runs or does yoga because it helps, but I can’t recall them.

Long fics are preferable! (40k+ are ideal for me).

Thank you! You’re doing Heaven’s Satan’s Someone’s work here.

We have #crowley has adhd and #anxious crowley tags, so check those out. This is a difficult thing to search for specifically, and the 40k+ word requirement only narrows it down. Here are a couple in which coping mechanisms are mentioned/discussed/used...

Growing Pains by hope_in_the_dark (T)

Crowley goes to therapy, because he needs it. This is a story of hurt and healing, and eventually finding out what it means to be happy.

Tiny little fractures by Wildphoenix_ofthe80s (M)

In a human AU, Aziah Fell and Anthony Crowley meet while looking for distraction on a self harm help message board. Please pay close attention to tags, they're there to protect you.

Write A Way by AngieWords (E)

Azira Fell and AJ Crowley are both successful authors in their own right, invited to speak at the same national book festival. Despite a falling out a couple of years ago, they've never actually met in person - so this event is going to be excruciatingly awkward for both of them. Right? As it happens, and unbeknownst to them, it seems they share a love of a certain TV show... and being very active parts of its fandom (yep, it's Fanfic Writer Crowley and Fanfic Reader Aziraphale time!)

Darkness Dipped Oceans to Gutless Golden Suns by crazyzgurl (E)

Aziraphale is a kindergarten teacher in Marylebone who hates everything about himself and his life besides his job. Through thousands of self-deprecating and destructive relationships, along with a difficult transition, and getting paid next to nothing, Aziraphale wonders how much longer he'll be alive Crowley is an enologist who runs an extremely successful wine business with their closest friend. They've been through thick and thin, now having to balance their mental and physical health with a five-year-old kid and supporting their friend's sibling. Though they're one of the richest people in all of the UK, Crowley is one bad experience away from ending it all. Will the two meet and build a strong relationship, mutually solving their problems, or are they too broken to have any interpersonal relationships? Who knows? It's never that simple.

- Mod D

#good omens #ineffable husbands #coping mechanisms #long fic #mental health #mod d

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ladylaviniya · 1 year ago

Text

Wails of Wedded Bliss

Chapter 1 || Masterlist || Chapter 3

Chapter Summary: After your wedding night, you find Sherlock to be most unusual and confronting in nature.

Pairing: Sherlock Homes x wife!reader

Chapter Warnings: 18+ Dead Dove Do Not Eat, Dubious Consent, Insults, Rough sex gone too far, internal bleeding, Menstration/Period, Arguing, Typical Victorian Era Sexism,

Word Count: 9k

Author Notes: Hi all!! Here's the next chapter, sorry no smut but lots of tension. Love you all and appreciate those most that have been showing their support through comments or Reblogs or both ★

Inspiring Song: "Caprice N° 24" by Paganini

•❈•≫≪•❈•≫≪•❈•≫≪•❈•≫≪•❈•≫≪•❈•

12:49pm Monday 5th May 1890, 221B Baker Street, Marylebone, Westminster, London, England.

Sherlock, as he paced his own bedroom was frustrated...and furious to say the least...he touched the cut on his bottom lip and hissed.

He was not equipped for this arrangement. He was unprepared for the handling of a wife. He was not aware he would be so much for his new bride to take...no whore in Mayfair Row demonstrated such complaints...however he reminded himself they were experienced women...you were a new lamb.

He hit the side of his bed, hearing your crying through the walls. Guilt became his executioner.

You were so frigid, he just didn’t expect you to struggle so viciously. You were unexpectedly a savage bitch!

He decided to take a deep breath. The deed was done.

He palmed his soft red cock and wrinkles his nose at the blood. There was so much...his throat clenched, mayhaps he was too rough...normally blood excited him...normally tears and sobbing made his member thick and hard...

He eyed the trunk chest at the foot of his bed...you could not survive his flavours. There was no possibility...He was a wicked handler and he knew you couldn’t ever meet that side of him...

•❈•≫≪•❈•≫≪•❈•≫≪•❈•≫≪•❈•≫≪•❈•

12:55pm Monday 5th May 1890, 221A Baker Street, Marylebone, Westminster, London, England.

The Housekeeper slapped her novel shut. She heard the many thumps and shouts, and now she could hear the horrid sobbing coming up from the floor above...your bedroom.

She sighed...it wasn’t the first time she had heard such things from the apartment 221B. There was single difference...you were his wife...not some perfumed pretender with a pimp expecting a percentage of commission.

Mrs Hudson felt for you. She didn’t leave her apartment until she heard the stomping of Sherlock’s heavy feet going down the stairs.

Her eyes widened, surely he wouldn’t leave you when you were in such a state?

Mrs Hudson was an old woman, she knew it was expected she would ignore it and carry on with her daily activities, Mrs Hudson though knew many married women who had died from that lack of acknowledgement in a violent husband.

She stuck her head out her door and saw him making his way to the front door of the building.

“What have you done?” she scolded him as his hand clenched hard on the door handle.

His face was red. The elder gasped at the line of red rolling down his chin from a cut on his lip...His teeth were pink and set in a vile snarl.

“Nothing that concerns you Mrs Hudson, return back into your hole!” he hissed back as he left with another door slam.

Mrs Hudson tutted greatly and ignored his words all together.

She gathered her skirts and climbed the stairs to Apartment B. She slid the key into the hole and entered the premises speedily.

She heard your weeping in your room and followed to the closed bedroom door.

She wrapped her knuckle on the wood three times, “My dear,” she called, “It’s Mrs Hudson, may I enter?”

When you sobbed harder incoherently, she took it as a sign she should enter. In truth you didn’t know or have enough time to process what she had asked.

The elderly woman pushed the wood open and gasped in horror at what she saw...a naked girl...your bottom half and blankets drenched in crimson red. Your skin was covered in the stench of sweat.

She covered her mouth and tutted, “oh you poor, poor deary.”

You sobbed harder at feeling her cold hands touch your hot shoulder.

•❈•≫≪•❈•≫≪•❈•≫≪•❈•≫≪•❈•≫≪•❈•

2:12pm Monday 5th May 1890, 221B Baker Street, Marylebone, Westminster, London, England.

You hissed and sulked softly as your body sunk deeper in the warm bath water.

Your housekeeper had so kindly spent an hour filling the tub up with hot steamy water. During that time you cried and faded into light sleep before coming back to life with the painful memory of what your holy beloved had done to you

The elderly woman would come back every so often to check the packing of linen rags between your legs. For a honest moment she was afraid you might die. She called for the doctor...one she could trust...Doctor John Watson.

After the bleeding had lessened, she encouraged you to drink a cup of water and come out for the room to enjoy the afternoon bathwater...

You hadn’t said a word to Mrs Hudson this entire time. Too ashamed and shocked to form a word.

You couldn’t even form a ‘Thankyou Mrs Hudson.’ Only quiet tears would melt down your cheek.

The hot waves helped your muscles relax and sooth the anxiety under your skin.

Your head flopped on the lip of the bathtub.

With fluttering eyes... exhaustion took over and you fell asleep in the bath tub listening to the crackling of the wood and flames of the fireplace.

•❈•≫≪•❈•≫≪•❈•≫≪•❈•≫≪•❈•≫≪•❈•

6:30pm Monday 5th May 1890, 221B Baker Street, Marylebone, Westminster, London, England.

A hot hand touched your face and you gasped at the dramatic change in temperature. You were sitting in a freeze tub of water....it had gone cold hours ago...

Your eyes opened and focused on the deep smooth voice of a man. Not just any man however.

“Mrs Holmes...” he purred softly, “The bath is cold, it would be in best interest if you redress.”

Your body was incredibly weak and chilly while also impossibly hot. You were a slight dizzy and confused. Your lips parted and closed again repeatedly like a fish.

When his face met his voice and his nose and eyes came into true focus, you shivered and leant back and flinched away from his touch.

Your husband released a lengthy sigh and rolled his eyes, “Very well,” he murmured before forcing both his arms into the icy bath water and hooked them beneath your back and legs.

As he lifted you out, your stomach dropped and you squeaked, feeling that gravitational pull to which you might fall. Instinctively your arms wrapped around his neck and shoulders. You clung to him savagely digging your nails into his coat.

You felt him walk, your wet body trailing and dripping all over the carpet.

He journeyed back to your bedroom.

As the cold air hit your skin you started to tremble and felt him lay you down on your mattress.

Your mind was a mess.

Another person was in the room you noticed in the corner of your eye. You cowered in your nude state and whimpered. You felt delirious and confused.

You blinked up at the other stranger. Another man.

You didn’t know if he was real at first until his burning hands pulled from his black gloves and gently touched your knees.

“Sherlock, she’s sick.”

“Yes, how eloquently obvious Watson, check her,” you heard your husband hiss.

You tried to move away, roll and crawl but you were flipped once more onto your back, your legs weakly spread.

You groaned and your eyes fluttered. You needed to vomit.

You felt a body climb onto the bed with you. Sherlock. His thumb dabbed and rubbed across your wrinkled forehead, he hushed you softly like you were some weeping babe or startled horse.

You felt the doctors hand touch your intimates and you panicked, your breath hitched and you moaned a soft, “N-no.” You tried pulling your thighs together but Sherlock reached down and spread your knees forcefully.

You didn’t understand what he was doing and the worst thoughts washed over you, was Sherlock sharing you with another man like a sick villain?

You wept tiredly.

A cold hard contraption pierced the hole of your body. A shudder ripped out of you as you felt your vaginal walls expand.

“Minor tearing...what caused the amount of blood is your wife starting her menses.”

Sherlock sighed, “Thank god, I thought I almost killed her.” The metal object pulled out from between your thighs.

The room was lit by candles and kerosene lamps. And so in the low light, Sherlock’s face was softened. The shadows kissed his cheeks and lips.

“Bed rest and warm towels, give her a few days to rest, heal. Usually women finish their blood within a week.”

The doctor pulled away and you heard the snapping of a bag lock. You managed to catch a medical case in his hands in your blurry line of sight.

The doctor fled to your door, before he left, his hand clenched the handle and he turned lightly. He hissed at the detective.

“Be gentle next time you participate in these activities Sherlock,” John snapped, “She is your bloody wife, not your whore.”

Your husband, ever so gently pressed his hot lips to your forehead. You had not predicted such soft kindness after his mistreatment earlier today. He hummed. He held and pissed your back up, he forced you to bend you knees and slipped your naked body beneath the coverings. Your wet body soaked the sheets, your cheek dug into the soft pillows.

“My dear Watson,” you heard him snicker, “I am nothing more than a mere gentleman.” You heard the doctor scoff and shut the door behind him.

Warm hands squeezed your shoulders and rubbed your jawline.

Peaking up at Sherlock, he wore an unreadable expression...he did not appear happy nor angry, rather he appeared tired. Bags beneath his eyes could tell you that much. His bottom lip was slightly swollen, a little red line cut through it, you softly huffed, it was where you’d bitten him hours ago to get him off you.

You couldn’t believe you were back in the same bed he had hurt you in. It made you feel cold and a desire to be distant again...but the warmth of his hand and the blankets had a power over you.

Your chest was sore and a light cough climbed out of your throat.

He did not speak and for that you were grateful. It would’ve been a near impossibility to continue a conversation with him with the state of your being.

The nauseas sickness sweeping of your belly subsided. All you wanted to feel was the warm covers, the goose feather pillows and his warm hand, softly patting your head...it took you back to a happier time...a time where your father and you shared a bed and he held you until you fell asleep...some days it felt like a dream...

You didn’t want to admit it but you dearly missed those times. Sherlock smoked the same tobacco, the scent soaked in his vest. It brought you the tiniest comfort...

You yawned and lazily blinked up at him.

“Try and get some rest wife...should you need anything, knock on my door.”

And with that he climbed off the mattress. Your body flipping lightly as it sprung up. Your nose sniffled softly.

Your heart deflated, ah there it was again. The coldness, the disdain, the reminder...he didn’t want to marry you.

After his foul entrance earlier, you wondered if such a feeling was unanimous at this point.

You shut your eyes and moaned. You tried to roll onto your side...you hissed lightly at the sore stabbing of your pelvis and the stinging stretch inside of you.

As sleep carried you out of reality, Sherlock made his slow departure, quietly sliding his way to your bedroom door.

He looked over the room and shook his head slowly...this once was his friends chambers, and before that a space where he kept his fun tools and artefacts.

Now he had a sick woman in the bed, his wife whom he hadn’t meant to brutalise earlier.

You were finally snoring when he managed to find the courage to leave the room, put out the living room fireplace and finally return to his bed.

As he removed his own clothing, he stared at the wall that separated your rooms. He wondered how badly your sickness might continue and if it was permitted to leave you alone while you bleed so profusely.

He thought about how these few weeks were in fact meant to be a honeymoon, how he had most furiously refused the ship tickets to France where his brother Mycroft insisted you both go for your romance to blossom.

Sherlock had very little intention to be a romantic for a woman he didn’t desire.

He tore off his shirt and rolled his eyes at the memories that transpired over the last two weeks.

You were nothing but a baby carriage to Mycroft, the future mother to the future Holmes son. So of course Sherlock could not understand his brothers incessant pandering to be a match maker of lovers.

The detective was no small minded idiot either...he knew plenty about you just from today...he knew about you before meeting you... He knew exactly why this marriage occurred on your end.

A bastard daughter of sir Y/L/N, son of the Lord and Lady Y/L/N. This was merely a way to keep your social hierarchy to a suitable and respectable level.

He had heard and read the scandalous rumours.

You were half the soft rose and half a weed in regards to your breeding...which meant you were a weed in the end, an illegitimate, unrecognised bastard.

He sat on his bed and untied his shoes.

Sherlock was not one to participate and discriminate the classes. Many a time it was speculated by John that Sherlock might’ve been a socialist.

The detective might’ve not cared for your breeding, but he didn’t appreciate being used as a climbing ladder of society which he didn’t receive well either way.

He was using you so that Mycroft didn’t cut him off financially, you were using Sherlock so that the people of culture no longer shunned and ignored your existence.

Mycroft was a down right fool if he believed such a union could ever bring together a matrimony of love. So Sherlock accepted it quickly...this would be what it was...a contract...you now needed to complete you aide of the bargain.

You needed to let Sherlock impregnate you...

With your stunt in rebellious adversity, you acknowledged his size and struggled to accommodate him, ergo your fear, pain and bite.

Sherlock huffed, he would need to wait another seven days before he could perform his husbandry duties upon you and press his seed within.

He laid back into his covers still staring at the wall...

He bit his lip. Oh if only he could punish you for such misdirected behaviours...he wondered how willing you really were and what lengths you were prepared to take to remain his Mrs Holmes so that the meek people of the middle and upper class might continue their false smiles your way.

A wicked smirk spread along his lips...

Perhaps a innocent bride was a perfect ingredient for his most filthy pleasurable plans...

Mycroft never stated how quickly it was expected of you to conceive and carry...he just said

“Soon.” And “Before he met the grave.”

He rolled onto his side and imagined you there with him in his bed. He imagined how your body curled up into such a small figure.

He envisioned the likeness of your tear stained face and an exhausted smile...

For now he would let you rest.

•❈•≫≪•❈•≫≪•❈•≫≪•❈•≫≪•❈•≫≪•❈•

7:00am Tuesday 6th May 1890, 221B Baker Street, Marylebone, Westminster, London, England.

The sound of a loud violin cord strong woke you up from your hours of needed sleep. You groaned as your head began to ache....

You drowsily tossed your head to the direction of your door way...your eyes narrowed. Someone was playing a violin very loudly just outside your bedroom.

You sniffled unladylike as your runny nose clogged your breath. You lifted your hands to cover your ears. Onto shaking legs you pulled out of your bed and used the canopy wood to steady yourself. You walked slowly to the wardrobe and plucked out a nightgown.

You hobbled to your bedroom door and as you opened the wooden barrier, the buzz of Paganini hit your ears. You wrinkled your nose as you watched your husband play the instrument, leaning over a table covered in papers, maps, receipts and a plate of toast.

As he saw you, his eyes widened slightly...you were not dressed appropriately for the hour of the morning. At any moment he might’ve had a client come inside if it were not for his honeymoon.

“Good morning, Mrs Holmes,” said Sherlock as he placed his instrument down on the table.

You sternly eyed him. Your hands trembled lightly. His face. His handsome evil features upset you. He offered a soft smile and kind eyes. You didn’t dare fall for his trickery. From the moment you had met him he had provided a twisted exchange of false care that twisted quickly to brutal cruelty.

You decided, you did not like your husband and it was not something you would hide from him.

“My grandmother insists that is the devil’s music,” You proclaimed, “It is most wretched to hear of a morning.”

He sucked in a deep breath of air and grounded, “I do not entertain superstitious conversation,

Paganini was gifted and because of this, other composers jealously invented rumours of a pact with Satan to dissuade the public from ever enjoying the expanses of musical differences.”

You glared at him. Of course he would say something so infuriating and liberal in the works. His tone tilted on belittlement and you felt there was absolutely no standing that could allow him to talk to you like this especially after yesterday’s events.

You lightly snorted, “As it may be so, I still urge the request you refrain from playing it so early and while in my presence. It woke me up most fiercely.”

In truth it isn’t what woke you up…You could still feel him there. The memory of his violent embrace haunted the muscles of your lower half. He was like a ghost remaining between your thighs. It made you feel ill to think about.

He looked down. A deep frown on his face. He wouldn’t meet your eyes. He pushed the plate with toast closer to you, “Mrs Hudson bid you a fair morning wife, you should be up earlier from now on to receive her.”

You looked to the softly ticking clock on the fireplace mantel and blinked, “Indeed, I shall need to apologise to her,” demurely you conceded, “I usually rise by six in the morning.”

“You are ill,” Sherlock said now holding the plate out to you for your weak hands to take, “I insist you sit and eat and return back to bed for further rest.”

You wanted to raise your voice at him. You wanted to scream and yell that you were not I’ll but rather hurt and in suffering after his careless mistreatment.

You couldn’t figure out if his gentleness last night was really a delusional dream. This world around you felt like some vicious game.

You chewed the inside of your cheek. You wanted to be a spitfire and tell him he needed to apologise for hurting you yesterday before you take anything from him...yet as your insides tightened at the smell of the warm butter soaking the hot cooked bread, you obeyed his demand.

You glided over to him and lightly pushed some of the papers on the table around. Sitting at the end, Sherlock mirrored your seating and went about picking up a newspaper.

On the front was a illustration of Lord Thaddeus Pennicott, a baron who from the title of the paper had gone missing.

You looked back to your breakfast and pondered on your husband’s work. How the articles written by John Watson had designed Sherlock to be a saviour to the public with a intelligence that might put most scholars to shame. The Sherlock you had come to meet was nothing like the gazette’s description, rather he was rude, ill tempered and coarse in handling any woman.

You chewed the soft delicious toast and swallowed gradually.

It was difficult to accept but not hard to see, you had married a brute.

You glanced at Sherlock again. His face was hidden behind the paper, his thick long fingers cradled and framed the edges of the news securely as he flicked through the gossips.

You nervously fidgeted in your seat as you ate breakfast. You did not see any tea and assumed you slept through any Mrs Hudson might’ve deliver.

It was so unusual waking up in a foreign home, having to accept this would be your place of residence for as long as your husband desired to live here.

You noted the oddities of your surroundings...objects you didn’t much think of as you moved in yesterday. There was a underwater helmet, a skeleton of some type of odd mammal, and even a telescope sitting on top of a piano.

You read over some of the framed newspaper headlines which were the retellings of your husband’s crime and mystery stories.

The will to speak to him again with level head and calm tones was as hard as walking through mud up to your ankles. You squeezed your eyes shut. You couldn’t ignore him nor refuse to speak to him for your entire marriage.

You licked your bottom lip and coughed into a napkin. Looking back to Sherlock’s newspaper you nodded and called across the table, “Are you helping with the Pennicott case, Mr Holmes?”

He flattened the paper on the table and stared at you as if you’d said something obvious.

“Of course not. Clearly he’s a man who ran out from his wife. It happens more often than you think,” he cleared his throat and picked up his cup to his lips, speaking into the cup “Perhaps you should sit pretty rather than voice your false interests in my work which you have no business in.”

You didn’t like the tone he used on you. Condescending. Icy. You wouldn’t allow it to continue. You remembered your grandfather telling you to put your foot down as a new wife or else you would be unattended to. It’s not that you desired the attending after yesterday, but you wouldn’t accept rudeness.

“Sherlock,” you hummed and crossed your arms over your lap as you tongued the inside of your cheek trying to not scream at him, “I am your wife,” you said it sternly, “Not a child, when I inquire on the better part of your interest, do not speak down to me like a dog.”

You jerked your chin dignified, holding your ground despite almost dropping the last crust of your breakfast.

He pursed his lips with narrowed eyes and thought before spoke. It was a chilling moment before announced, “You are my wife, that is true...and so I shall speak to you however you tempt me to, and this very morning you’ve put me in a disagreeable mood.”

Disagreeable mood?! You refrained from rolling your eyes at him.

You sat back and sighed, abandoning the last and tiny piece of bread. He was so foul to think of himself so justified. You expressed a disinterest to his music tastes and that indicated his deflating concern for you.

Not once had he asked in your wellbeing. Perhaps he was clouded with shame? ‘he should be shameful, he hurt an innocent woman.’

“Perhaps, you should practice on controlling and restraining your moods then Sherlock,” you griped, “I do not much care for your habitable outbursts.”

For the first time you caught his face expressing a new design...shock, flabbergasted. His face grew a small hue of pink.

You smirked a little at the small victory.

His chewed his bottom lip, “My habitable outbursts?” he pried, offence costing his words.

You swallowed and nodded curtly you leant back in your chair, “Now here at breakfast, the church flee yesterday, and the marriage bed rage also yesterday.”

An indignant chuckled crawled from his throat.

“You bit me like a wild cat,” he voiced rightfully, pointing hard at the small wound still in his mouth. The redden skin was a symbol of your defiance and escape. Instead of being embarrassed, you surged with pride that you punished him in such a manner.

You quipped back quickly, “and you stabbed me like an merciless villain.”

“A villain, you say?” his brows now raised and his eyes widened.

“Quite,” You glanced down at the plate and muttered, There’s no other term for what you did to me.”

Rape was not in the current vocab for this situation you believed. You were married and he was taking what was rightfully his as husband, he could have been gentler however. Your grandmother never shared that it could be so agonising, surely your grandfather had never inflicted such abuse into her?

Your husband slowly rose from the table and leant across it. You flinched and squeezed your eyes as you feared his sharp hand. Sherlock Holmes had every strength to hurt his weak wife, so why did you feel so mouthy in the sense of easily provoking him to rage or even potential violence?

The handsome detective with hot pale hands ran his knuckle down your cold cheek...it was wet. A tear had escaped. Dear god...you were trembling and clenching your skirts beneath the table.

“I can think of a plethora of words for what I did to you,” Sherlock muttered, he pulled his hand away and scoffed, “I did not think Mycroft to saddle me with such a stupid bride.”

A fresh flow of hot tears flooded your eyes.

A growl of outrage accidentally climbed from your chest, it came out like a needy whine, “I beg your pardon?”

“Granted my dear Mrs Holmes,” he smirked and clapped his hands gesturing to the room you left, “Now off to bed with you, I see your withering state worsen by the moment. Doctor Watson informed me you needed rest during your delicate...situation. Perhaps it has brought you to these hysterical theatrics.”

A light gasp of horror and a written expression of disgust painted your face, “I shall not, nay! I shall sit an disembowel your words,” you sniffled and tried not to fall into a pathetic sob, “D-did you just call me stupid?!”

As his smile widened and you angrily threw the last piece of bread at him, hitting his chest.

“You sir,” your bottom lip wobbled “Are out of place and feverishly I have discovered your lack of empathy most stunning, that or rather the amount of your selfish conceived motion that I am a docile woman who will put up with your conceited arrogance!!”

How dare he hurt you as terribly as he did in humiliation and physical behind that he should also find it acceptable to brandish you with further insults of your intelligence.

Before he could sit back down, you slapped your hands on the table, the china tinkled as you pushed yourself up to your feet. You hissed at him as you wobbled around the wooden furniture, “You may be London’s finest Detective, but I am your wife.”

You mapped your finger harshly into his chest and snarled with great venom dripping from your tongue, “By the lord of heaven, if I had only known the telling’s of our futures, I would announce full heartedly that you Sherlock Holmes would be the very last man I would prevail to marry.”

The room fell silent. His cold eyes burned I to your gullet. He licked his teeth, left slightly speechless and unsure if he should entertain the argument any longer than necessary.

Your belly felt tight. The toast was not sitting well. You were anxiously awaiting his roar, his bite or his strike. Your chest rose and fell with every desperate breath you took as to not fall into a heap of wailing. Breathe through the pain and the fear.

He stared at your lips and fluttered his eyes, shaking his head at you.

“...Good morning Mrs Holmes,” he bid gruffly and bowed his head before leaving the table to head over to the coat rack.

“And where is it you run off to this time?” You raised your voice shakily and waved your hands as if to conjure the words of his locations destination, “The same place you fled to yesterday and yesterday evening? To hide in a bottle?”

Mr Holmes snapped his head back at you, his eyes scowered your poorly glad form beneath the dressing gown. It took everything in him not to fuck your miserable mouth off.

“No...” he swallowed harshly, “I seek the companionship of bearable company.”

Your chest tightened and the whimper left, that could’ve been anyone or no one with how mysterious your husband had proven to be.

You rubbed your hot forehead and grunted softly to remind him, “It is our honeymoon.”

During the week of a honeymoon it was deemed improper to seek or receive guests and the company of any other than your married partner.

Sherlock leant forward, right down to your cheek, his lips scarcely touching the skin of your love and jaw as he whispered hauntingly, “And your honey is blood. I shall not interrupt your peaceful rest....” he kissed your face gently, and said at a room tempt tone, “Good morning Mrs Holmes.”

Argument over it would seem.

He picked up a walking cane and a hat, leaving the flat to yourself.

You sighed frustratedly and stomped a foot like a feral child. You wouldn’t put up with this, for this is not what was promised by the outline of marriage by every book, paper and word of mouth. You crossed your arms and sniffled. You wiped your eyes again.

Sherlock made you feel more like a child than a wife with how he used his words and the looks he threw at you. It was unfair and cruel.

You were a very smart young lady and practiced the skills of refine ladyship over the years of your teenage hood. You were a paragon of brilliance and etiquette...only for some lout you called a husband to drive you to irritation so unbearable that you felt it necessary to toss your breakfast scraps at him.

You ground your teeth and returned to your rooms to pick out a modest covering wrap over the dressing gown you already wore. It would be most annoying to have to strip your body everytime you vomited or perhaps didn’t reach the bed pan in time.

You shuddered and went about washing your face and fiddling with your hair...

As you stared at your washed out features, you heard your landlady arrive...

You thought about your wifely duties beyond the bedroom. With Sherlock going off to god knows where, you were totally left to your own devices and for the very first time in years, you had freedom to decide your days habits.

You thought half heartedly about calling upon Sherlock’s brother or the Doctor Watson to grant a visit and answer some questions beginning to form in your head.

‘Why is Sherlock so different in person compared to the papers?’

‘What displeases Sherlock into his outbursts and what pleases him to calm those said outbursts to dust?’

You tried to wonder on your marriage contract. You were not entirely privy to it even though you felt you had every right. It was a deal conspired by Mycroft and your grandfather after all. You wondered if Sherlock even caught a glimpse of it.

Why did Sherlock even agree to marry you if it was only to lead to his foul manners and hands to you?

Tapped your lips and shook your head.

What does every contracted marriage consist of? Land? Babes? Livestock? Wealth? Status?

You looked around your room and out the open door to the sitting room.

Sherlock did not strike you as someone in need of money...and yet...many of these items, surely were not affordable on a wavering wage as his alone? His family wealth most likely was directed towards Mycroft as the eldest.

And then you recalled your darling sister in law, her shrieking at the wedding, the words echoed back like a tunnel, ‘I can help pay off your debts when I marry’ she had said.

So it was money...debts...and enough to cause strains that would force him to accept your hand in marriage. You tried not dwelling on being reminded how undesirable you were as a bastard woman. This newly accepted information could be used to your advantage.

A fabulous idea occurred to you. An idea that would prove to Sherlock that you were in fact not a stupid imbecile.

Helplines:

If you are a victim of sexual abuse, assault or domestic violence or know someone who is please reach out to these links that share helpline services, phone numbers or emails. Consent and respect is important in every relationship whether between friends, family or even strangers.

Australian Helpline Services

UK Helpline Services

American Helpline Services

India Helpline Services.

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thefisherqueen · 2 years ago

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I was wondering about what the bathroom and toilet situation would likely have been like when Sherlock Holmes and dr Watson moved into Baker Street in 1881 (for fanfic reasons, obviously). An in-house bathroom and toilet have long been luxuries. My own parents have stories of not having a bathroom yet at home when they were young, and both grew up in the '60 in the Netherlands. They either had an iron tub filled or went to a public bathhouse, and the toilet was located in the garden. Both of them grew up working class, however. I imagine that Holmes and Watson's combined income would have made them middle class, so the Baker Street rooms would perhaps have been more luxurious.

Doyle thought it probably not appropriate or relevant to really directly discuss it in the stories, but there have been a few mentions of the possibility of taking a bath at Baker Street in the stories, for example when Holmes asks Watson why he would prefer to go to the Turkish bath over taking a bath at home in The illustrious client. I found this interesting article that discusses the likely bathroom situation at Baker Street!

"After 1870, a system of constant water supply began to be introduced to London, although it took over 20 years and a huge amount of pipe retrofitting to bring the “constant” to all of London. The West Middlesex Water Company supplied water to the Northwest section of London, including Marylebone (and thus Baker Street). By 1891, 43 percent of the houses supplied by this company were on constant. The change to the constant system involved the water company reworking its water main system under the street to each house and it required each homeowner to redo almost all of the piping system inside the house. The constant water system involved a much higher pressure of water, which the older pipers connected to a cistern could not handle. New fittings and faucets were also required inside the home when the conversion was made.

Thus, by the time that Holmes and Watson rented their rooms on Baker Street from Mrs. Hudson in January 1881, they almost surely had access to piped, running water and to a water closet in the building. More than likely, a room had been converted to a bathroom by the time they rented, but the “constant” water supply was probably introduced to Baker Street later during their tenancy. The Canon suggests there was a bathroom on the second floor of 221B. The precise location of the water closet(s) is not known."

Also, look at this victorian contraption! A hip-bath it was called. It just looks so funny

#letters from watson #sherlock holmes #baker street #history of bathrooms

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onegianthotmess · 18 days ago

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Ikemen Vampire OC

Ada Lovelace

(The images of Ada in this post were made with the Lady Of Hera character maker on picrew.me)

Ada in 1850, age 34

Ada in 19th century Paris (turn of the century)

Vampiric Type: Lesser Vampire

Date of Birth: December 10, 1815, in what is now London, England

Date of Death: November 27, 1852, in Marylebone, London, England

Cause of Death: Died from cancer (it is unclear which kind of cancer) or died from treating her illness

Reason for Resurrection: Ada wanted to spend more time researching and possibly teach less fortunate people how to read and write. She also wished to overcome her gambling and opioid addictions and die clean from both of them in her new life.

Random Fact: Ada is abysmal at any kind of cooking that doesn’t involve anything oven-related. If an oven isn’t involved, the result of her attempt is either burnt or undercooked or somehow a liquid that was once a solid, and it’s almost always inedible. She tried to help Sebastian cook one night, he told her to boil some potatoes, the water evaporated and the potatoes ended up burnt and stuck to the pot while Ada cried and apologized, and Sebastian learned to just only let her use the oven and nothing else.

This is her little munchkin cat! Her name is Madame Pouf because of how soft she is.

Though she is infertile, Ada keeps Madame Pouf in her room at almost all times (Ada occasionally brings her out to the garden to roam around while she reads or to nap/gently play with Cherie) so that Lumiere won’t try anything and because the poor kitty is so small that it would be easy for her to fall off of something and get very hurt. Madame Pouf doesn’t mind being in Ada’s room 90% of the time since she has a nice bed and a scratching post and toys to keep her happy and entertained.

She will also only eat finely minced cooked meats (chicken, turkey, salmon, or tuna) that’s mixed with two scrambled tiny eggs for breakfast lunch and dinner, and for some reason she will only drink warm water before her bedtime story. Madame Pouf is very picky about her food and drink, which is expected from a spoiled cat.

But Ada loves her fluffy baby, so…

…anything for the Madame!

And, fun fact, Theo is Madame Pouf’s favorite human behind Ada and Jean. She’s actually snuck out of Ada’s room many times just to chase after Theo and/or Jean or to lay on one of their beds. Theo thinks shrieking and running away from Madame Pouf deters her, but it actually makes her want to chase him more.

#ikemen series #ikemen vampire #ikevamp #ikemen oc #ikemen vampire oc #ikevamp oc #ikemen vampire ada #ikevamp ada #ada lovelace

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cumbercougars · 9 months ago

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Is there a GIF set for the scenes in Empty Hearse with Mycroft telling Sherlock that John has a reservation at a fancy restaurant on Marylebone Road (where John wants to propose to Mary) and Sherlock asking Molly "fancy some chips? I know a fantastic fish place JUST OFF Marylebone Road". Because with all the parallels between both couples in the The Empty Hearse, Sherlock asking Molly to dinner in the direction of the place where John had gotten engaged (on Marylebone Road/just off Marylebone Road) means asking her out to "solve crimes" and giving her that look about "having dinner", it was serious business for him because as Sherlock told Greg he was "seeing how it goes" with Molly and having dinner would have made him go the direction of getting engaged. The scriptwriting parallels are so strong that it shouldn't come as a surprise if years from now we'd find out that Sherlock had indeed taken John's S4 advice and gotten himself "a piece of THAT".

Thank you for the ask. I'm not sure if those precise gifs exist. Putting out a request for them may help.

The scenes could certainly be read that way. They do to my sherlolly-loving heart. ❤️

#sherlolly #molly hooper #sherlock #bbc sherlock

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whencyclopedia · 1 year ago

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Eyewitness Accounts of the London Blitz

The London Blitz (September 1940 to May 1941) was a sustained bombing campaign by the German Air Force during the Second World War (1939-45). Londoners were subjected to nightly bombings that killed thousands, destroyed homes, and necessitated long and uncomfortable nights spent in air raid shelters. This article tells the story of the Blitz through the eyes of those who experienced it firsthand.

After the fall of France in the early summer of 1940, the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) set itself the task of destroying the British Royal Air Force (RAF) both in the air and on the ground, a necessary prelude to an invasion. However, as the RAF began to win the Battle of Britain and so maintain air superiority, the Luftwaffe switched objectives to the bombing of cities, particularly London, in the hope of destroying civilian morale. Colonel Adolf Galand of Luftwaffe Jagdgruppe 26 explains this switch:

We didn't know at the time why he changed to London: we had only to obey orders. I believe today that Hitler and Göring wanted to make use of their advantage of having the capital of the enemy in the range of their fighters which could therefore escort the bombers. On the other side Berlin was far out of the effective range of the RAF at this time...Nobody knew at the time how much was needed to destroy a great part of the town. Perhaps Hitler and Göring hoped that they would force England to negotiate after these attacks.

(Holmes, 138)

Peter Stahl, a crew member of a Junkers Ju 88, noted in his diary his experience of bombing London in one of the first raids in early September 1940:

It must be terrible down there. We can see many conflagrations caused by previous bombing raids. The effect of our own attack is an enormous cloud of smoke and dust that shoots up into the sky like a broad moving strip.

(Holland, 731)

On the ground, F. W. Hurd, a member of the Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS), describes the sound of a bomb dropping close to him when fighting a fire in a London gasworks:

Guns started firing, and then I had my first experience of a bomb explosion. A weird whistling sound and I ducked behind the pump with the other two members of the crew. The others, scattered as we were, had thrown themselves down wherever they happened to be. Then a vivid flash of flame, a column of earth and debris flying into the air and the ground heaved. I was thrown violently against the side of the appliance…what a sight. About a mile to our right was the river front. The whole horizon on that side was a sheet of flame. The entire docks were on fire! On all other sides it was much the same. Fire everywhere. The sky was a vivid orange glow…And all the time the whole area was being mercilessly bombed. The road shuddered with explosions. AA shells were bursting overhead…The shrapnel literally rained down. It was now about midnight and still the racket kept on. It surprised me how quickly one got used to sensing whether a bomb was coming our way or not.

(Gardiner, 15-16)

Bombs landed on all sorts of places, but it was local landmarks being destroyed that often shocked the most, as explained by Anthony Heap, a local government official:

I heard that Tussaud's cinema caught a packet last night. So as soon as the All Clear went at 6.25 I dashed along to see. And by gosh it had too. Only the front of it in Marylebone Road and the proscenium was left standing. The rest was completely demolished as were some buildings behind it as well…not a single window in any building in the vicinity remained intact. Huge crowds thronged along the Marylebone Road to see the ruins. It was one of the sights of London today.

(Gardiner, 44)

Londoners went on with their daily lives as best they could, as explained here by Phyllis Warner:

One of the oddest things about our everyday life is its a mixture of ruthless horror and every-day routine. I pick my way to work past the bomb craters and the shattered glass, and sit at my desk in a room with a large hole in the roof (a block of paving stone came through). Next to a house reduced to matchwood, housewives are giving prosaic orders to the baker and the milkman. Of course, ordinary life must go on, but the effect is fantastic. Nobody seems to mind the day raids. It is the nights which are like a continuous nightmare, from which there is no merciful awakening. Yet people won't move away. I know that I'm a fool to go on sleeping in Central London which gets plastered every night, but I feel that if others can stand it, so can I.

(Gardiner, 48)

Sometimes people had no time to seek shelter, as told here by an anonymous East Ender:

The day I was hit was October 13th, 1940. About ten to eight I said to my wife and my in-laws, 'Well, I'll be off now,' and I just walked out the door. Lovely, big three-floor houses they were and I just walked up the approach road about twenty yards from the church which was our air-raid post and suddenly there was – shh – nothing. I heard nothing and I fell flat on my face. I picked myself up, I turned around and all I could see was just a grey curtain hanging down the middle of the road, about twice as wide as this pub. It was just a brownish-grey curtain hanging there and I thought, My God, something's happened. So I staggered down to the post and I said to the post warden, 'Jim, I think something's happened up at the Prince of Wales.' When we went up there and when I saw it I said, 'Christ almighty, the family's down there!' And there it was – we were there, about fourteen of us all on this big row of houses, and it was just one bloody great hole.

(Holmes, 140-1)

The authorities took some months to build communal shelters and then make sure they were not themselves unhealthy death traps. Barbara Nixon, an Air Raid Precaution (ARP) volunteer, describes the poor state of shelters in her district in Finsbury:

They were poorly ventilated, and only two out of nine that came in my province could pretend to be dry. Some leaked through the roof and umbrellas had to be used; in others the mouth of the sump-hole near the door had been made higher than the floor, and on a rainy night it invariably overflowed to a depth of two inches at one end decreasing to a quarter of an inch at the other, and rheumaticky old ladies had to sit upright on their benches for six to twelve hours on end, with their feet propped up on a couple of bricks. four or five times during the night we used to go round with a saucepan and bucket baling out the stinking water…There were chemical closets usually partially screened off by a canvas curtain. But even so, the supervision of the cleaning of these was not adequate. Sometimes they would be left untended for days on end and would overflow on to the floor…Then there was the question of lights…We had one hurricane lamp for about fifty people…The one paraffin light was the only heating that there was in those days. It was bitterly cold that winter.

(Gardiner, 62)

A shelter was not a guarantee of safety. Margaret Turpin recalls the night her shelter was hit by a bomb when she and her family found themselves buried in rubble:

I must have had lots of periods of unconsciousness…I remember seeing an ARP helmet, and it was way, way up, a long way away. And then suddenly it was quite near. I do remember the man saying to me, 'We'll soon have you out.' He said, 'All we've got to do is get your arm out.' And I looked at this arm that was sticking out of the debris, and I said, 'That's not my arm,' and he said, 'Yes it is love, it's got the same coat'…and I don't remember coming out of the shelter. I do remember being in the ambulance, and I think for me that was probably the worst part…I felt somebody's blood was dripping on me from above, and I found that awful - mainly I think because I didn't know whose blood it was, whether it was someone I knew and loved or not. And I tried to move my head, but of course it was a narrow space and I couldn't get my head away from the blood. And I heard a long time afterwards that the man was already dead. But it couldn't have been my father because he was taken out of the shelter and he didn't die till two days later…He died, my mother died, my baby sister died, my younger sister died. I had two aunts and they died, an uncle died…I knew almost immediately because when I came home from hospital…there were milk bottles outside and I just knew then that nobody had come home to take them in…The seven were all buried on the same day. My brother said that they put Union Jacks on the coffins…They sent me to Harefield…But unfortunately the people at Harefield could see the raids on London, and they used to come out to watch, to view it like a spectacle, and I couldn't stand that.

(Gardiner, 64-5)

The stations of the London Underground were a popular refuge, with people sleeping on the platforms in rows. A journalist describes the scene in the Elephant and Castle station:

From the platforms to the entrance the whole station was one incumbent mass of humanity…most of this mass of sleeping humanity slept as though they were between silken sheets. On the platform when the train came in, it had to be stopped in the tunnel while police and porters went along pushing in the feet and arms which overhung the line. The sleepers hardly stirred as the train rumbled slowly in. On the train I sat opposite a pilot on leave. 'It's the same all the way along,' was all he said.

(Gardiner, 84)

Some families preferred to stay near their homes, and so they erected an Anderson shelter in their garden. Made of sheet metal and packed around with soil, they could resist close calls and flying debris but not, of course, a direct hit. A London air raid warden, Mr Butler describes one tragedy where the Anderson shelter survived but not the occupant:

There was an Anderson shelter and apparently there was a little girl inside. Her parents had gone round the corner to visit their friends or relations or something and the shelter was more or less caved in and covered with soil. I got down into the shelter and there was this little girl about fifteen or sixteen and her mouth was full of soil. Naturally, I got hold of her hand, which is our job to console these people and try to quieten them down. She was in a pretty bad state and I cleaned her mouth out; she laid back and as she was catching her breath, sort of breathing heavily, some stupid devil walked over the top of the shelter, soil came down and went back in this girl's throat and as she squeezed my hand like that she just faded out. Now I had the feel of that girl clenching my hand for weeks and weeks and weeks. I could never forget it and I don't forget it now.

(Holmes, 144)

One family that stayed at home was the Royal Family, who earned much respect for remaining at Buckingham Palace. When the palace was slightly damaged on 13 September 1940, Queen Elizabeth was not too distressed:

I'm glad we've been bombed. Now I feel we can look the East End in the face.

(Ziegler, 121)

The government was keen to keep tabs on people down in the shelters and find out if any social unrest could be bubbling under the surface. There was a Mass-Observation unit that sent out secret observers who then compiled reports on the public's behaviour. Mostly there ended up next to nothing to report beyond rumours as to what some couples were getting up to in the darker corners or the existence of a black market in getting the best positions to sleep in. One mundane report is typical, the highlight being a little aggravation between understandably stressed family members:

First was a girl, shouting and screaming at her mother. In the end they were separated by force, and led away from each other, struggling and screaming. The other case was of a man and his wife. The wife wanted him to sit down, the husband wanted to walk about. She became very excited, and a crowd of 'rubberers' formed round them. She bit his ear and tore out his hair. He smacked her face and threw her to the ground.

(Levine, 88).

The number of homeless kept on rising, and the need to look after them inspired such organisations as the Women's Voluntary Service (WVS), as here remembered by an anonymous East Ender:

A big morale booster was the Women's Voluntary Service – the WVS…When the Blitz started they certainly proved their worth. They went out with mobile canteens right in the middle of the Blitz; the following day they had their clothing centres open. People who had lost everything were fitted up with clothes and then taken along by the WVS and be given a cup of tea and a bun, then taken along to the assistance people who doled them out £10 or £20, whatever the size of the family was.

(Holmes, 142)

Tragedies were everywhere as people lost much more than their property. Frances Faviell, a Red Cross nurse in London recalls one woman's grief:

There was a little woman from Dovehouse Street sitting on a bench…Dovehouse Street had had a parachute mine on it and the Chelsea Hospital for Women had dealt with many casualties. Suddenly her control gave way and she began screaming in a frenzy of grief…'He's gone…He's gone and I'm all alone and no home, nothing. No one wants me…Why didn't I go with him, it's cruel, it's cruel, cruel. Why? Why?' Her anguish was terrible.

In the appalled silence with which officialdom treats such outbursts – almost as if she had said or done something obscene – a sleek, well-dressed clergyman…told her sternly to desist – that what had happened was God's will and that she must accept it and thank Him for her own deliverance from death. She looked at him in dazed misery as if he spoke a foreign language and began screaming even more wildly. 'God! There's no God! There's only Hitler and the Devil'

(Gardiner, 317)

A spirit of defiance drove people on, as evidenced by this anecdote from Anthony Eden, then Foreign Secretary, who was with Wendell Wilkie, the US politician sent to determine the mood of Britain during the Blitz:

We were coming out of the Foreign Office and his leadership. But immense credit is also due to the British people, because it was their victory.

(Holmes, 147).

The 'Blitz spirit', the pulling together of strangers from different levels of society to defiantly resist the terrors of the bombing, was, for many, the defining experience of those dark days of 1940 and 1941. Much has been made in recent times of a 'myth' of the Blitz with undue emphasis given to rare incidents of social unrest, looting, and prejudices against perceived outsiders. The vast majority of eyewitnesses speak of people simply getting on with their lives as best they could in terrible circumstances. Another recurring theme in witness accounts is that people had an all too clear sensation that they were playing a role in a drama that would have consequences for the future of Europe. As Caryl Brahms noted in her diary in December 1940:

These are the days to be alive in. These days now. They are hard, unhappy, lonely, wasted, infuriating, terrifying, heartbreaking days. But they are history. And in them we are a part of history. We are lucky to be living now.

(Levine, 313)

#History #AirWar #London #LondonBlitz

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myemuisemo · 1 year ago

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Part 10 of "Letters from Watson" of The Sign of the Four starts with Sherlock Holmes enthusiastically infodumping.

He appeared to be in a state of nervous exaltation. I have never known him so brilliant. He spoke on a quick succession of subjects,—on miracle-plays, on medieval pottery, on Stradivarius violins, on the Buddhism of Ceylon, and on the war-ships of the future,—handling each as though he had made a special study of it. His bright humor marked the reaction from his black depression of the preceding days.

I wondered "why these topics in particular?"

Miracle plays were, in 1890, the subject of a new book by Alfred W. Pollard of the British Museum. It received a positive review in The Spectator.

The Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society had its first exhibition in London in 1888. While handicrafting, the William Morris aesthetic, and such, had been around for a while by then, this was the big organized push for public attention. Not only did the Arts & Crafts movement draw on medieval influences, but many a UK pottery maker was on the site of a medieval kiln and interested in medieval techniques.

Stradivarius violins are, of course, the sought-after antique violin. There were at least two donated to the Musée de la Musique in Paris shortly before the time of this story, as well as a number getting heard by important violinists in important orchestras. Even more interestingly from Holmes' point of view, a factory in Germany had just started making Stradivarius copies.

Buddhism in Sri Lanka had lapsed into torpor in the early 19th century but was, by 1890, well into a resurgence. The kick-off, back in 1866, had been Buddhist monk Mohottivatte Gunananda challenging Christian missionaries to a debate. In 1890, he had just died; but he had founded a political movement.

As for war-ships, in 1889, the Naval Defense Act had passed. It called for the UK Navy to be maintained at least twice as large as the combined navies of the next two largest powers (then France and Russia). War ships -- both quantity and design -- had doubtless been in the news for a while.

These aren't obscure hyperfixations (though I'm all for obscure hyperfixations!). These are conversational topics appropriate for a well-read gentleman of the era: the sort who gets three or four newspapers, reads the book reviews, and then reads the books reviewed. This explains how Dr. Watson and Athelney Jones set him off, or even participated in the conversation.

We also, while on a boat, get the return of Winwood Reade's Martyrdom of Man (making it Chekhov's book reference?). Says Holmes of Reade:

“He remarks that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician."

Statistics was not new -- scholarly sorts had become engaged with statistics during the Enlightenment -- but it was in the early stages of being systematized into the mathematical field we know today. Holmes sounds like he would have been a fan of Francis Ysidro Edgeworth's Metre-like: Or the Method of Measuring Probability and Utility, published in 1887, since it attempted to use probability as the basis of inductive reasoning.

Then we have a boat chase.

I love the boat chase. I feel like the boat chase might have contributed to inspiration for the train chase in Nicholas Meyers' The Seven Percent Solution, though I also feel that a train chase needs no justification other than "we have two trains and a problem."

Our heroes leave from Westminster Wharf, which I'm assuming is roughly today's Westminster Pier, which had not yet received its statue of Boudica. (Westminster is conveniently southeast of Marylebone, where Baker Street is located.) So that long gentle curve is the river past St. Paul's and the Tower of London and under multiple bridges. They pick up the Aurora about where the river heads into that first shallow down-curve and chase it up and down, around the Isle of Dogs, up past Greenwich, and around the down curve at Blackwall. So they must catch it as the river starts to straighten and widen.

A pleasure tour from Westminster Pier to Greenwich today takes about an hour, but those are the boats their launch was passing like they were standing still. The Eva, a Thames Steam Launch of the appropriate era, was one of the speediest of the time and could achieve 16.5 miles/hour.

Then... I really would have preferred an actual monkey. We've now had in this chapter so many reminders of the achievements of European, particularly English, civilization that the avalanche of adjectives framing the Andaman Islander as primitive stands out as a deliberate counterpoint, despite the inclusion of Ceylon and Winwood Reade. Will we ever know what the Andaman Islander Accomplice's motivations were? (If yes, will I wish even more fervently that we'd just stuck with a monkey?)

I love the boat chase, though.

#sherlock holmes #letters from watson #the sign of the four

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hailqiqi · 10 months ago

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these secrets beneath your fingertips

I'm going to (eventually) post all of my fics over here on tumblr, so here's the next one! Content warning for non-graphic L&O SVU style content in the first part. This fic was originally supposed to be crack. I'm not sorry.

Characters: Lucy, Skull, Sir Rupert Gale, Lockwood.

Words: 6,207

Read in full below or on AO3 here.

>>>>>>>>>⚔︎

Three in the morning was a good time to be out if you didn't want to be seen. It was still dark for a few hours yet, so most of the country was asleep indoors safe behind their ghost wards and lavender smoke. It being the end of the night, most agents were safe at home, too — maybe clean and in pyjamas, or maybe conked out on top of their quilts, still covered in grave dirt and magnesium ash and the other detritus of the profession (as I’d been known to do on particularly hard nights).

The only people on the roads were night cab drivers, DEPRAC workers, and the Night Watch — but few and far between, and all at the ends of their shifts. I’d only seen a single car on the short walk from Marylebone, and it hadn’t seen me. That suited me fine.

Now I crouched outside the front door of a semi-detached townhouse in St James’s. The windows were dark, as they should have been at that hour. The front garden was lovely and well-tended, with luscious fronds and rows of short palm trees celebrating the last vestiges of summer, and offering almost complete privacy from the road. My rucksack — with the ghost jar — was upon my back, my rapier hung at my hip, and my belt was well stocked, though I’d swapped most of the salt bombs for extra flares. I was after human prey tonight.

‘Since you’re picking locks like a cracksman, I assume this isn’t a social call.’

I hushed the skull quietly and turned my wrist a fraction, intent on hearing the tiny ‘click’ as the bolt slid into place. Two more seconds and the lock came free. I caught the door before it could open all the way, but paused.

‘There’s still time to turn back, you know. You haven’t told me what you’re up to but I know it’s a terrible idea.’

He had a point. I thought of the fight on the bridge, when swords had been drawn so quickly I hadn’t seen it happen. Twice Sir Rupert had challenged Lockwood, and twice Lockwood had been hard-pressed to fight him off. And I’d never beaten Lockwood in a proper spar yet, despite my suspicion that he was still going easy on me. I was definitely outmatched here.

But then I thought of George lying in Lockwood’s bed, so small and weak and broken and everything George wasn’t. I slipped inside the house.

The door closed silently behind me, and I took a moment to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. To my left and right were doors; presumably leading to the sitting and dining rooms. Ahead of me was a dark flight of stairs leading to the first floor, and a dim hall that probably led to a kitchen at the back of the house. The decor was surprisingly tasteful, given Sir Rupert’s garish fashion choices, though I couldn’t make out the colours in the dark. The walls were mostly bare save for some classical artwork, and the carpeting and furnishings in the hall both had a luxurious, moneyed look about them. At a glance, it all looked like the type of aesthetic Lockwood would pretend to like.

Out of habit, I closed my eyes and opened my inner ears to Listen. The streets outside were quiet, the area was well-defended, and the house itself had the usual iron and silver ghost charms (along with a costly runnel outside) so I expected it to be quiet. It was. I moved on.

The skull was quiet as I did a quick sweep of the ground floor — the kitchen was a modern, airy room that ran along the back width of the house, with floor to ceiling windows and doors leading straight out into the back garden that made it feel more like a conservatory. An open doorway led back towards a room of thick carpets and white chesterfields, and a matching doorway at the opposite end of the wall led to what appeared to be a library. Another door was set in the side wall close to the library which presumably led to a cellar of some sort.

I’d already decided not to open any unnecessary doors — silence was the name of the game here — but the cellar door gave me pause. The door was wooden, painted white to match the wall, but decorated with silver tracework that ran in thin curves to cover the entire length and width of the door. The handle was small and unobtrusive, but undeniably silver.

‘Do you feel that, Lucy?’

I stood before it and Listened, one hand on the wood; the only sounds I couldhear were the ticking of the clock on the wall, almost echoing in the quiet, and my own soft, even breathing. Still, the skull was right — there, underneath the darkness, hushed by the expensive carpets, was some sort of disturbance. It was muffled and restrained to the point where I couldn’t tell you anything about it. It didn’t have a discernible sound, there wasn’t an underlying current of distress or fear or anger like many psychic disturbances emanated. All I could recognise was a feeling of wrongness, and it wasn’t malaise.

Two nights ago — or was it three nights ago? I couldn’t remember at this point — Sir Rupert had quite clearly Seen the Clapham Butcher Boy in the pillar at Fittes House. Something told me that, despite the defences, he didn’t fear Visitors as much as most adults. Anything could be behind that door.

Carefully, I re-checked all the pockets on my work belt. Then I stepped away and padded back towards the stairs, keeping my footsteps as silent as I could.

‘Not going to check, Lucy? How very sensible…and un-like you.’

I couldn’t answer, but it didn’t matter. The skull was still acting much more subdued than its usual abrasive self; likely it had realised how tenuous the grip on my sanity was these few days and had wisely opted to cut the snark out of self-preservation. It certainly hadn’t offered any sympathy for George’s condition — but it had made an effort not to twist the knife, and for that I was somewhat grateful. Still, I couldn’t really tell you why I’d brought it with me tonight. Perhaps I just wanted the company.

Boots weren’t the best choice of footwear for this kind of job, but thankfully rich people loved their peace and quiet. The carpet absorbed most of the sound as I crept up the stairs towards the first floor.

The same hushed stillness permeated the first floor landing. Artwork hung on the walls, dimly lit by the moonlight filtering in from the window at one end. To my right, a staircase led to an upper level — likely guest rooms, or rooms that used to serve as servants’ quarters. Only three doors led off this landing, and it was anybody’s guess as to which one I wanted.

Maybe the skull could help. I jostled my rucksack quietly, hoping it would offer some insight. Luckily, it caught on quickly.

‘You’re not alone up here,’ it said, its voice pressing against my mind. ‘I don’t think I want to know what you’re actually planning, but stay quiet.’

I risked a whisper. ‘Is anyone awake?’

A pause, and then: ‘I don’t know. Tread carefully.’

Not very helpful, then.

One out of three, pick a door. It was a game agents often played in the dead of night, one we dreaded. It was a game that was always worse to play alone, of course, but at least I’d grown used to that the year before. I crept towards the door closest to the window and eased it open.

For a moment, I thought I’d found another library, this one more modern in décor and lit by coloured string lights, like my attic was now (George had once called it ‘basic teenage girl lighting’ and I’d immediately stormed out to buy another string). But then my eyes adjusted to the strange light in the room and I began to make out the details.

Thick, dark curtains covered two large windows, blocking out the light from the street and the ghost-lamp outside; the room itself was mostly open space, furnished with a few trophy cabinets and display cases, and the walls were covered in frames clustered around individual wall-mounted boxes. It was a trophy room, like we had back in the basement at home. I turned to leave, then paused.

It was a little too like the trophy room at home, actually. The pale blues, yellows, and lilacs were eerily familiar, as were the shifting glows cast as they shimmered across the floor in swirling ripples. Too familiar.

I walked softly towards the nearest light source, my mission momentarily forgotten. The pale blue light was contained within a small wall-mounted display case, a silver-glass box stuck to the wall at around waist-height. Inside the case was a severed finger, still wearing a ring — and, of course, a ghost.

As an experienced agent, these things shouldn’t affect me anymore. I’d seen worse — just five months prior I’d walked in another world of glittering frost and starless skies, a place where the only living beings were myself and Lockwood beside me. But sometimes the shock still gets to you, even when you were expecting it.

This one wall held at least five similar display cases interspersed between ordinary picture frames, all containing Sources glowing various colours. I counted seven on the long wall — the one with no windows or doors. The other two walls, with their large windows, held only one or two each, and each display cabinet held at least three Sources, scattered amidst dark frames and boxes. Gaping at the sheer scale of it, I shrugged my rucksack onto one shoulder and loosened the top so that the ghost in the jar could see out.

‘Oh, so now you want my— that’s…unexpected.’ The ghost inside swirled with a green light as the face spun, taking in the vast array of Sources on display. ‘Lucy… Where are we?’

‘Sir Rupert Gale’s house,’ I muttered, transfixed.

‘Marissa’s bodyguard? The bully with the bum-fluff moustache and terrible fashion sense?’

I nodded. Maybe he’d been an agent before, back in the day. Maybe, like Lockwood, he collected trophies from successful cases. He was admittedly an excellent swordsman; likely he’d had a great deal of those. And, I supposed, like many adults past their prime he longed for his glory days — the days before his Talent deserted him, the days when he was still useful in the fight against the Problem — and with all the money at his disposal, he’d decided to create a display room to help him remember.

But Sir Rupert’s glory days weren’t behind him yet — he still had excellent Sight, if the other evening was anything to go by, and it was hard for me to think he might be trying to fight against the Problem, when he seemed so devoted to the person we suspected of causing it. No, whatever this was, it was something else.

With a glance at the open door, I took my torch from my belt, set the light to low and flicked it on.

I expected the frame directly next to the box containing the finger to contain a newspaper cutting or perhaps some information on the Source itself. Instead, it contained a photograph: a simple picture of a slim boy about my age, dressed in an old-fashioned agency uniform and holding a rapier. He was smiling at the camera, all confidence and easy charm.

The next frame contained a newspaper cutting featuring an article about a successful case from the 80s, the sealing of a Dark Spectre that had caused several deaths by a team from the newly-established Sebright Agency. The boy in the first photograph was part of the team, again pictured holding his rapier. His name was James Hynes and he was 16 years old.

Above the article was another photograph of the same James, this time crossing the road with a smaller boy. He seemed unaware of the camera in that one. Next to that one, closer to the case, yet another photograph, this one taken in a shop. Then another of him on a street I didn’t recognise, leaving a building with the DEPRAC logo hanging above the door. There were a few more shots, all clustered to the right of the Source in a haphazard semi-circle — all candid shots where he was seemingly unaware of the camera.

I followed the images round, slowly moving my light up and around, to the frame hanging above the case. This time James was looking at the camera, but that charming smile was nowhere to be seen. His hands were bound behind his back, a gag was around his mouth, and his naked body was bruised and bleeding. He looked terrified.

Heart in my throat, my eyes roved frantically roving over the next few photographs. Clustered around the other half of the case were similar pictures of James naked, beaten, and terrified, his body growing more and more broken as the photographs went on. I didn’t get very far along that terrible journey — three or four more photographs, and then I looked away. I didn’t need to see how it had ended.

Perhaps in response to my turbulent emotions, the blue glow from the Source in front of me brightened, James’ ghost shifting restlessly, swirling and ebbing with new urgency as it tried to escape the confines of the silver-glass. Taking a calming breath, I reached out with my senses, trying to establish some kind of connection, but could only pick up the barest whispers of anger and frustration through the glass. Opening my mind further, I concentrated, trying to pick up a sense of the other Visitors in the room.

The feelings were muffled, but they were there: anger, sadness, and an almost overwhelming sense of frustrated helplessness. And so many of them. The sheer scale of it made my breath catch; for a moment, I was back under Aickmere’s, with the ghosts of those who’d been left to die, forgotten and abandoned until I’d found them — and then they’d been unceremoniously dumped in the fires at Clerkenwell, removed from this world without a shred of justice. Maybe I could do better here.

Determined, I stepped away from James’ display and moved further into the room, towards the next. Before I could take a proper look, however, the skull spoke.

‘Lucy…I think you should leave.’

I paused, my hand on the hilt of my rapier. ‘Why? Is he coming?’

‘No,’ it replied slowly, as though carefully weighing each word. ‘But I’ve…known people like this before. You don’t want to be at their mercy. They don’t have any.’

I checked my watch; it was half past three. I still had at least two hours before dawn, and likely more than that before Sir Rupert would wake up. I could afford to spend a few moments learning their stories, and I told the skull as much. It grumbled, clearly displeased, but by now it knew me well enough to know when I wouldn’t be dissuaded.

The next case held a human ear and a swirl of lilac plasm. The photographs to the right — all seemingly candid — showed a tall slim boy; the ones to the left showed the same boy, bound and gagged in what appeared to be the same windowless room that James had been in. I didn’t look too hard at those ones. A newspaper article on his disappearance named him Harry Newman, a 15-year-old agent who had worked at Grimble’s in the 90s.

I moved on. The next set of photographs showed an unnamed smiling boy with dark hair and a slender build, dressed in a Rotwell’s uniform. His Source was a rumpled and bloody prayer booklet. Another case contained a ring, like the one Lockwood wore, belonging to a dark-haired 17-year-old called Denis Butler who’d worked for Tendy’s just before I was born. Next to Denis rested Reginald Spencer, a tall 16-year-old Fittes agent in the 70s who was now a Dark Spectre tied to a mummified hand. I kept going.

Josh Murphy, 18, tall, dark-haired, cocky smile. Went missing ten years ago and now resided in what looked like his kneecap. Noel Hart, fifteen with a floof of curly dark hair, was an agent at Sinclair and Soanes eight years prior, now tied to a broken rapier hilt. Smiling Louis Burton, 17, a team leader at Mellingcamp in the 80s before being reduced to yellow light and a couple of teeth.

On and on it went, boy after boy after boy. My head was spinning, but somehow I managed to keep it together as I swiftly worked my way through the room. The last one made the bile rise in my throat: Lachlan Thomson, a tall, friendly Scottish Listener from Staines that I’d worked with over the Black Winter. One of the astonishingly few agents I’d enjoyed working with during those cold, dark nights, I’d been upset to hear of his disappearance five months back. I stared at the shifting maroon hues of his ghost with sorrow, remembering how he’d put himself between me and the Spitalfields Horror with zero hesitation, holding the Changer back while I broke free of the ghost-lock and gathered my wits. He’d been brave, and kind, and competent (which was shockingly rare), and he’d talked me into meeting him for coffee as thanks for a job well done. I’d had hopes that I’d made my first new friend as a freelance agent, but we’d never found the time to meet up.

‘Lucy! Lucy, look at this!’

The urgency in the skull’s voice pulled me from my reverie, and I glanced quickly at the door, hand on my rapier. The landing was quiet.

The case next to Lachlan’s was dark — I’d initially suspected another Dark Spectre, but a brief inspection showed it to be empty. There were, however, photographs, and the first one stole my breath in an instant.

It was Lockwood. I knew the photograph well, as it was one of my favourite images of him in our album back home: a mid-air shot of him leaping between two floats at the doomed ‘Take Back the Night’ Carnival last year, sword in hand, coat billowing behind him, the thrill of the chase clear on his face. George had cut it out of the Times and pasted it on the inside cover of our album.

But this wasn’t our album, and it wasn’t our cut-out. And it shouldn’t be here. In a panic, I checked the case, but of course it was empty; Lockwood was safe at home, hopefully still asleep on the library sofa. The frame hanging above the case — the one that would show the initial stages of the torture — was empty too. I stared at it, breathing hard. It seemed to me as though it were waiting.

‘Lucy, isn’t that you?’

Wrenching myself away from the empty frame, I shone my torch on the other frames to the right. It was a collection of candid photographs — Lockwood at Arif’s, Lockwood and Holly outside The Times offices in town, Lockwood sweeping the steps at home, Lockwood at Satchell’s. And there, as the skull had said, a picture of Lockwood and myself, though my back was to the camera. We were standing by the penguin enclosure at London Zoo, on a day last summer after the business with the Bone Glass — I’d mentioned that I’d never been to a zoo before, and Lockwood had managed to scrounge up a pair of tickets a week or so later, so we’d gone. It had been odd, walking around with Lockwood in the daylight without the excuse of work to distract us, but pleasant, too, in ways I wouldn’t have wanted to admit to anybody else.

He’d bought a flower from a passing vendor and presented it to me, and the photographer had captured the moment he’d tucked it behind my ear. It had been a sweet, unexpected gesture, a private moment between friends that cemented our closeness…but now it was here, hanging on the wall in a serial killer’s house.

I was horrified. ‘He’s been following him for over a year…’

‘Yes, well, he has proven rather difficult to pin down.’

The skull at my back let out a litany of profanity and I whirled around, drawing my sword in one fluid motion and dropping into a defensive stance. Sir Rupert Gale leant against the doorframe, sword held casually at his side, dressed in garish purple silk pyjamas that reflected the shimmering lights of the Sources in the room. For once, his arrival wasn’t heralded by a cloud of aftershave — I suppose that was his one concession to the late hour — and the smile he bestowed upon me was polite and genial, his eyes glittering with a benign amusement like a jolly old grandfather at a family dinner who had caught the children hiding their vegetables. He terrified me.

‘I rarely have guests, Miss Carlyle,’ he said, pushing away from the doorway and slowly moving into the room. I took a step back and strengthened my stance. ‘And when I do receive visitors, they tend to stay downstairs.’ His smile grew. ‘Only very special visitors get to lay eyes on this room, and unfortunately you don’t meet the qualifications yet.’

‘You mean I’m not dead,’ I spat, my heart pounding. I kept my eyes on his hips — after the chase at the carnival he’d attacked so fast I hadn’t even seen him move.

‘Lucy!’

He paused by one of the display cases in the middle of the room and raised a hand, as though to greet the Visitors on the shelves within. For a moment, his face took on a curious expression, something blank and almost gentle. An instant and then it was gone, his posture taking on a predatory air as he turned to me again. ‘I rather think, Miss Carlyle, that they failed to teach you proper manners in that hovel you hail from. I can fix that, if you accompany me to the cellar.’

I’d seen enough photographs of the cellar to know what that meant. My lip curled. ‘Fuck you.’

‘Are you sure? I’m a rather good teacher.’ He tapped lightly on one of the wall-mounted display cases as he prowled closer. ‘This young man was rather polite by the time I was finished with him. Used all his P’s and Q’s perfectly.’

‘And look at where that got him,’ the skull interjected. ‘Lucy, you have to get out of here.’

‘I know,’ I answered, gritting my teeth.

The problem was, there was nowhere to go. We were trapped in this strange dance, him slowly prowling closer, me slowly edging backwards, trying to keep up the niceties when in reality we were circling each other like two tigers waiting to strike. Only I didn’t feel like a tiger. I felt like the prey.

I’d never been foolish enough to believe I could beat him in a fair fight; the plan had been to slit his throat while he slept. But it seemed that, in all my hurt and fury, I’d forgotten something: I was an agent, not a killer. God, why hadn’t I listened to Lockwood? He’d said he had a plan. For once, couldn’t I have just listened?

Sir Rupert moved closer, regarding me appraisingly. ‘While it’s unfortunate that you’re nothing like my usual preference, I suspect I’m going to rather enjoy your extended stay.’ His smile was all teeth, like a shark. ‘At the very least, you’ll make excellent bait.’

A wave of fury rushed through me. ‘Never!’

‘I think you’ll find you don’t have much say in the matter,’ he said calmly, and in the same breath he lunged.

I parried the blow, barely dancing away from his follow-up in time to avoid having my thighs sliced open. He pressed the attack, and even as I tried to counter he caught my rapier with his own and tried to push it to one side. I only just managed to disengage before he twisted his wrist, scarcely avoiding the attempted disarm.

‘Lucy, let me out!’

‘How?!’ I cried, whirling out of the way of another swipe and letting the momentum carry me, futilely trying to put more distance between us. Even if I’d wanted to, I didn’t have the hands to do it; Sir Rupert was relentless.

Yellow light flared at my elbow and on impulse I feinted high, then used the split second of time that bought me to fling myself to the side and smash the hilt of my sword down hard on the display case. At once I was engulfed by a wave of fury, a desperate need for freedom and revenge that was abruptly cut off as Sir Rupert dispatched the Visitor with a swipe of his sword.

But the distraction had already served its purpose and before he could turn on me again I threw a flare at the display cabinet behind him. In an instant, it all changed: glass shattered, bright light burst against my tightly-closed eyelids, and a freezing cold wave of psychic energy slammed me back against the wall. My inner senses were immediately bombarded with a cacophony of sound and I winced, blinking away the last of the flare-light to see three or four Visitors converge on Sir Rupert.

He burst into movement with a roar of fury, his blade flashing as he whirled to defend against the advancing ghosts. Two were already rematerializing as I scrambled upright.

‘Oh, you’ll let them out, but not me,’ the skull groused.

‘Shut up,’ I answered, ripping another flare from my belt and lobbing it at where two cabinets stood close together. ‘You’re not as accessible.’

‘I’m also less likely to turn on you.’

‘Or more likely, depending on your mood.’

I braced myself and covered my face as the second flare exploded and more glass flew. Sir Rupert was — in a feat of particularly impressive rapier work — somehow holding his own, though I doubted it would last as the numbers grew. The most important thing was that he was no longer after me.

The ghosts weren’t after me, either. The first ghost I’d freed had rematerialised less than a foot away and completely ignored me, instead moving towards where a wild-eyed Sir Rupert fought for his life with a single-mindedness reminiscent of George with a new book. I moved along the wall towards the door, smashing cases as I went for good measure.

‘Are you going to let them all out? What’s the plan for when they’re done with their revenge?’

‘No idea,’ I huffed, ducking as the Dark Spectre floated to hang overhead. ‘He’s making a good go of it, hopefully I'll be out by then.’

The skull grumbled a response, something about a lack of planning. Part of me wanted to point out that I had no other choice, but as usual: it had a point. Annie Ward had moved on once she’d exacted her revenge on her killer, but there was no guarantee these spirits would. And there were so many of them — Spectres, Wraiths, a Raw-Bones, plus a few Type Ones. Leaving would be the smart option.

But I had one thing I wanted to do first. I spun around, carefully avoiding a Shade hanging at the edges of the fray as I cut the corner and flung myself at Lachlan’s display case, driving the hilt of my sword into it with my full body weight. The maroon glow flared brightly then disappeared, reforming right where I’d stood a moment before into the shape of a boy. His naked torso was covered in bloody gashes and bruises, the skin hanging off in places, the bones twisted and broken. I blinked back a tear.

The Wraith regarded me silently, and I held its gaze, my breath fogging in the frigid air. There was no trace of Lachlan’s confident smile on its visage, only a deep, hollow exhaustion. Then Sir Rupert screamed, and it turned and glided away towards the centre of the room.

I didn’t see him hit the ground but I felt it all the same when he lost the fight; the energy in the room suddenly shifted, expanding as the frenzied, focused rage lost some of its strength. Whether he was dead yet or not didn’t really matter; he would be soon.

‘Time to go, Lucy.’

‘I know.’ I stopped in front of the empty case beside Lachlan’s and snatched the photo from the zoo off the wall. Then I got the hell out.

⚔⚔⚔

The dawn chorus was in full swing when I slipped into the front hall at home. Quietly, very quietly, I placed my rapier in the umbrella stand, removed my boots, then tiptoed towards the library where Lockwood slept.

He’d shut the door.

‘You’d think he’d at least leave it open so you could watch him sleep.’ The skull sighed dramatically. ‘How short-sighted of him to deny you one of the few simple pleasures in your miserable existence.’

I scoffed and turned for the stairs. It was past four-thirty in the morning; I didn’t need to see him to know that Lockwood was fast asleep on the sofa, long legs slung over one end. George’s harsh breathing was audible on the landing, so I knew he was safe too. All was well.

Still, twenty minutes later I stood outside the library door, my hair damp from the shower. The skull’s derisive laughter echoed in my ears. It was irrational, and it was stupid, but…I just needed to be sure. I couldn’t rest until I’d checked.

The door opened with a soft creak and my entire being sagged with relief: there lay Lockwood, one arm thrown up above his head, his too-long legs hanging off the opposite end of the sofa, the spare blanket he’d taken from my room cutting out at his shins. I drank him in for a moment, studying the way his fringe flopped over his brow and the way his expression was relaxed and serene. Tomorrow he’d be a force of nature, a tornado of sharp focus and purpose as he rallied the troops for the next great challenge. Right now, he was just a boy.

The clock in the hallway chimed five, and he stirred.

‘Luce?’

‘Go back to sleep, Lockwood,’ I said gently. ‘I’m sorry for waking you up.’

‘S’okay,’ he mumbled, blearily rubbing his eyes. ‘Did you have a nightmare?’

I thought of the photographs covering the walls, of breaking glass and the smell of magnesium smoke. I thought of Sir Rupert’s shark-like smile as he moved towards me and found I couldn’t quite dismiss it. ‘Something like that.’

‘C’mere then,’ he said, shifting and lifting the blanket with a yawn. ‘There’s room for two if we squish.’

On any other night, I would have declined. I’m sure my face would have turned scarlet at the offer alone — surely only made because he was half-asleep — and I would have insisted that I was fine, that all I needed was a bit of warm milk and a book and then I’d be out like a light, all by myself. But tonight? Tonight I was haunted by images of an unaware Lockwood on the street, by wide, terrified eyes and horror and gore and cruelty too great to name. Tonight I had no strength to resist.

I crawled under the cover and he shifted to accommodate me, arms coming around to press me to his bare chest and keep me from falling off. Our legs tangled together, and I pulled the blanket up to my shoulders before wrapping my free arm around his back. Somewhere, at the back of my mind, time dipped and whirred; the clock on the bookshelf ticked softly, but my world was spinning with the way my face fit perfectly in the hollow of his throat, the way his breath tickled my ear, the way his hand felt so warm on the skin of my back where he’d slipped it underneath my top. We’d never been so close before, not even when we’d sheltered under the same spirit cape. And the circumstances had been quite different.

Eventually, though, I relaxed, the tension gradually drawn out of me like a slow sigh by the warmth of his body, his steady heartbeat, and the rise and fall of his chest. This was new, but this was Lockwood. I’d wanted to reassure myself he was alive, and really: how much more alive could he get? Neither of us had spoken since I’d lain down with him, but I could feel the lines of his muscles relaxing as I melted into his embrace.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ The question was soft, murmured into my hair. I shook my head. ‘Okay then,’ he whispered. ‘Go to sleep, Lucy.’ His hand brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, and the gesture sparked a memory.

‘Lockwood?’

‘Mm?’

‘Do you remember that day we went to the zoo?’

‘Yes?’

If I hadn’t been safely ensconced in his warmth, my face hidden in his neck, I would never have asked. But it turns out certain things are easier to voice when you’re snuggled up in the dark, and the way he’d looked at me in that photo…it was making me connect all kinds of dots. I needed to know, so I asked.

‘Was that a date?’

‘...Yes?’ His voice was laced with sleepy confusion, but the answer still made my heart skip a beat. ‘Wait, Lucy, did you not know that was a date?’

He tried to shift away, probably to get a look at my face, but I stubbornly pressed closer and shook my head.

‘Lucy, I gave you a flower!’

‘I thought it was just…you know, a flower,’ I said, my voice a strangled whisper. ‘You never said—’

‘I’m quite sure I did,’ he replied, his tone incredulous. ‘Even George knew.’

‘Oh.’ That explained why George had given me such an odd look when I’d invited him to join.

‘Did you really not know?’

‘I really didn’t know,’ I said, shaking my head again. My cheeks were burning, and I was very glad for the darkness. ‘Um…Do you think, maybe, when all this is over, we can go on a second date?’

Lockwood was silent for a moment, then his chest began to rumble with laughter. ‘Lucy,’ he began, ‘what did you think that day at the fair was?’

‘Oh!’

‘Oh,’ he agreed, burying his face in my hair as he laughed softly. ‘Oh my god, Luce. This explains so much.’

I was starting to laugh now, too, embarrassed though I was. ‘Like what?’

‘Like why you were always so hot and cold. One day I’d feel like we were doing great, and the next day I’d be wondering where I stood with you.’

‘Oh my god. Wait, so how long were we dating for?’

His arm around me tightened. ‘Well, you broke up with me when you left—’

‘I wouldn’t have if I’d known!’

‘—but if we ignore that, about a year?’

‘Wait, really?’ I finally pulled back so I could look at him. He looked as exhausted as I remembered from earlier — his smooth face lined and weary, the bags under his eyes prominent even in the dim dawn — but his eyes glittered with amusement. ‘Did you think we were dating now, too?’

‘Didn’t we just go out for lunch last month?’

‘That was a date?’

‘Lucy.’ He threaded a hand through my hair, drawing me closer. ‘It was a fancy restaurant. You wore a dress. Remember?’

His breath ghosted across my lips, and my laughter died away as we gazed at each other. Dark hair fell across his eyes, that floof I always wanted to reach out and push back, and I suddenly realised that he definitely wouldn’t mind if I did.

His hair was soft and silky beneath my fingertips. ‘Have there been others?’ I whispered, searching his gaze. ‘Since I came back, I mean.’

‘A few,’ he breathed, gently touching his nose to mine. ‘How did you not know?’

‘You never kissed me.’

His eyes darkened. ‘I could fix that.’

‘Please do,’ I replied.

His lips met mine — soft, gentle, tentative — just for a moment, and then he pulled back. I closed the distance for a second one, laughing as our noses bumped, pulling back just as quickly. But we were fast learners, Lockwood and I, and years of living and working together had us pretty in sync; it didn’t take long to find our bearings, to figure out how to melt against each other as what had always been between us deepened into something slow and warm and perfect.

Outside the window the first rays of sunlight spilled across the street, chasing away the last remnants of the night; here, inside, I held my own piece of sunlight safe in my arms, and let his warmth melt away the remnants of mine. Later, I’d have to tell him what I’d done, but for now? I’d let him help me forget it.

Thanks for reading! If you got this far, please reblog.

#lockwood and co #lucy carlyle #the skull #locklyle #anthony lockwood #my writing #look a lot of the series makes sense if you think lockwood thought they were dating but just didn't know how to go about it #while lucy had no idea #is it canon - definitely not #but it's a fun premise to play with #(equally entertaining: the opposite)

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ludmilachaibemachado · 8 months ago

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November 28th 1968 - John pleads guilty🎍🎍🎍

Originally published in the Guardian on November 29th 1968🍂

John Lennon, one of the Beatles, was fined £150 with 20 guineas costs at Marylebone Court in London yesterday after admitting possessing the drug cannabis. A charge against him of obstructing police in the execution of a search warrant, to which he pleaded not guilty, was dismissed after the prosecution had offered no evidence on this🌷

Mrs Yoko Ono Cox (34), a friend, who was with Lennon in the dock, was cleared of both charges against her - possessing cannabis and obstructing police - after the prosecution had offered no evidence against her. She had denied both charges🌱

Via Beatles and Cavern Club Photos FB🌼

#60s icons #girlsofthesixties #60s couples #the beatles wives #john lennon #yoko ono #john and yoko #1968

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darklydeliciousdesires · 9 months ago

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Little Earthquakes - Chapter Seven.

Previous chapters - Prologue One Two Three Four Five Six

Tag list - In the comments. Please DM to be added/removed.

Words - 3,525

Warnings - 18+ throughout. Minors DNI!

It had been two weeks since she’d seen Nathan, Holly beginning to wonder whether she’d done something wrong. At first, he’d had to cancel their planned Friday night date out of busyness, promising to see her the following week. It had been a promise yet to materialise a further week on from then, her messages beginning to go unanswered, too.

Her natural reaction was to wonder whether he was going off her, perhaps realising this casual dating thing they had wasn’t for him after all, but didn’t really know how to come out and tell her that. This truly wasn’t on brand for the kind of guy he was, though. As he’d said right from the start, he was straight up, he didn’t mess people around, and she believed that. However, this was odd behaviour, and it definitely negated his words.

Either way, she wouldn’t chase after him. The ball was now in his court, Holly carrying on with her life. She couldn’t deny it, though. She missed him.

“I think I’ve been ghosted.”

Kate paused from dipping a tortilla chip into the sour cream between them, gaping ever so slightly. “From Nathan?” It was hard to hear, given how into her friend he’d seemed, both witnessing it herself and from hearing Holly’s gushing over how lovely he was.

“Yeah. He's stopped replying to messages. I haven’t heard anything from him for five days now. Not sure what to do, other than leave the ball in his court, y’know.” It was Friday night, and she and Kate were having a few snacks before going out to meet up with a couple of their old friends from uni, sitting on the latter’s sofa watching a few episodes of Gogglebox.

“That’s, well. That’s strange, hun. He’s been so into you over the last two and a half months, all I’ve heard from you is how lovely he is and what a good time you guys are having together. Are you sure he’s not just busy?”

Her darling Kate. She always sought the best in people before jumping to the worst conclusions. “He said that,” she replied, scooping salsa onto the chip and popping it into her mouth with a loud crunch. “It’s the fact he isn’t messaging me back, though. I’m just being left on read.”

Kate’s face was a picture of surprise. “I don’t know what to say. I mean, men can be so bloody useless, can’t they? They don’t understand the urgency of replying to messages like we do, don’t realise our minds start going to the ‘but what if he doesn’t like me’ place more or less straight away. I mean, sometimes that’s just who they are. Hell, I’d never hold my breath waiting for the lummox to return a Whatsapp. I’d die!”

“I heard that!”

“You were meant to!” she shouted in the direction of the kitchen, Greg, her husband poking his head around the door with a huge grin. “I think leaving the ball in his court is the best idea. If he gets in touch, great. If he doesn’t, then we need to apply the Miranda Hobbes adage to the situation, tough as it might be to hear.”

As two die hard Sex and the City fans, she knew exactly what Kate referenced. It was tough, too, to have to reconcile that Nathan might just not be that into her. Whenever they were together, he acted anything but. He was affectionate and attentive, which made his radio silence even more baffling to fathom.

Kate’s usual no nonsense advice was probably the truth she needed to hear, though, no matter how much she pined for Nathan. If he wasn’t into her, then that was just the way it was. At thirty-four, she was beyond waiting around for a man. She wouldn’t let herself hang around in the fringes of his life while he decided whether or not he truly wanted to bring her into it properly.

They met up with their friends a couple of hours later, sitting outside at a bar in Marylebone, enjoying the bright summer evening. It was just as Kate was recounting a hilarious story of Greg and a decorating mishap that had led him to end up walking right off the end of a wallpaper pasting table that Holly’s phone beeped, unlocking the screen and feeling her heart quicken in an instant.

“Cutie!!! I’m so pissing sorry I’ve been MIA! Been up to my ears in work :( I know, I’m a bad man and you have full permission to smack my arse for not replying to you. I’d love to meet up with you tonight if you’re free?xx’

Part of her wanted to let him stew for a while, make herself unavailable, but she didn’t really go in for those kinds of game playing tactics. He’d offered an explanation and apology. Surely, that was good enough?

“I’m out with some old uni friends right now. I’ve missed you, too. It’s nice to hear from you. I can meet tomorrow, if you like?xx”

Immediately, she saw that he was typing a reply.

“Nah, where are you? Really want to see you now! Can’t cope with another day and no Holly!!xx”

“Girls, would any of you mind having a man crash our evening? Nathan, the guy I’m dating just messaged to ask,” she inquired, her friends’ faces all lighting up.

“Is he cute?” Trina asked. Going to her camera roll, she located a picture of her and Nathan, turning the screen. A few little coos abounded, seeing the image of them standing all cuddled up in her back garden she’d taken a few weeks prior. “He is! Tell him yes! Oh, look at his hair, wow!”

Wendy then chimed in, taking a look. “Hmm, not my type, but I don’t mind!”

“So, he finally gets in touch,” Kate spoke, giving her a little elbow nudge. “See? Told you he was probably just busy.” Turning to the group, she continued. “Wait until you see them together. They’re so adorable! He’s such a sweetie.”

“Very different from your usual type, though!” Penny, the third of the group announced, Holly tapping out a quick message to let him know where she was.

“I know, he really is. But he’s bloody gorgeous and so sweet, too.”

Kate snorted into her cocktail glass. “The seven-inch pierced cock doesn’t hurt either.”

Much screaming and whooping followed, Holly hiding her face.

“Oh, my life!” Trina cried, clasping her hands together. “What does it feel like?”

“Exactly as you’d imagine,” she revealed. “As do the two studs in his tongue.” More screaming. “I am telling you, that man is an absolute god in bed.” And yes, a little more screaming after that as the girls all descended into hysteria.

Reading his reply, she saw he’d be with them in just over half an hour, Holly going to get him a beer before sitting there fizzing with excitement that she finally got to see him again after two long weeks and no lovely man.

She was in the middle of hearing Trina speak about her very interesting day at her gallery when two tattooed arms folded around her from behind, a flurry of kisses pressed to her cheek.

“Missed you, gorgeous!” he announced loudly, vaulting over the barrier that bordered the outside area of the bar. “Alright, ladies!”

“Hello, Nathan,” they all chimed as he picked up the pint of beer waiting for him, thanking Holly, and then promptly downing it.

“Crapping hell, Nath!” she exclaimed as he placed the empty glass down again.

“I was thirsty.” Pausing, he then burped discreetly, beaming a grin. “Excuse me. Right, what’s that mad looking brown stuff in there that you’re all drinking?”

“An urban bourbon cowboy,” Wendy revealed, snort laughing at the confused look on his face.

“An urban, bour... whaty, what, what?”

The women all descended into laughter. “An urban bourbon cowboy!” Kate spoke for him again, having him move to give her a big hug and a kiss, almost knocking her from her chair with his enthusiasm. Something told her he’d probably already had a few drinks before arriving with them. He seemed a little more live wire than usual.

He looked to Holly, shaking his head. “I ain’t ever gonna remember that, nah. Come help me, I’ll get a round in.” They returned after a few minutes, Nathan placing down two large pitchers of cocktails on the table, the women thanking him, charmed by his generosity. He took a seat, welcoming Holly onto his lap, his hand beginning to smooth up her thigh as he reached for one of the two pints she’d carried out for him.

“Seriously, I really missed you, baby.” He kissed the side of her neck, grinning at her adoringly, Holly feeling her insides melt. Baby. He’d never called her that before.

“So then, how did you meet our lovely friend here, Nathan?” Trina asked, the man himself taking a big swig of beer before placing the glass back on the table. His head was buzzed already from the amount of vodka he’d drunk while over in Ealing, hanging out with the guys from the MC that night before deciding he really, really wanted to see Holly.

“We were in the same class at school,” he began, “and I always fancied her but never had the courage to ask her out. Then she came into my shop and I did the tattoo on her leg, and it all went from there.”

A few coos resounded at hearing that. “Well, you both look very in tune with one another. She’s been singing your praises.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked, watching Holly suddenly snort with laughter and hide her face against his neck. “Ahh. I know what you told your friends! She’s been telling you about a certain piercing I’ve got, ain’t she?”

Snorts of laughter filled the air, Kate holding up her hand. “Nope, that was me!”

He couldn’t help himself. “I’ll show you, if you want?”

“You wouldn’t,” Trina teased him, leaning across the table with a big grin.

He matched her lean, grinning widely. “How much do you wanna bet I wouldn’t?”

“Nathan, calm down,” Holly warned, moving his hand when he went to unfasten his jeans.

“Get up a minute,” he spoke, patting her thigh. He wasn’t serious?

“Nath, stop!” she cried, grasping his jaw and turning his head to kiss him, hopefully distracting him. God, he was certainly amped up more than usual.

He chuckled filthily. “Alright, I’ll stop, I'll stop.” He then looked right at Trina. “When she goes to the loo, I’ll show you then, sweetheart.” He winked, accompanying it with a little click of his tongue, sending the women into hysterics. “So, all of you went to UAL too then, yeah?”

They confirmed yes, Nathan seeming to settle and calm down as he asked into their respective careers, being attentive, listening to what each of them revealed. As he did, Holly felt her insides unclench a little after being so taken by surprise at his slightly altered behaviour. He could be a little frisky when he’d had a drink, as could she, but honestly, she was the only thing that had stopped him from revealing himself right there in public. It was very unlike him to act in such a way.

They continued having a good night together, Holly slowing down her alcohol intake a little while he sped his up, everything fine until another behaviour she wasn’t used to seeing in him manifested itself.

“Oi mate!” a man from the next table called, attracting his attention. “How the fuck did a skinny, scruffy, tattooed fuck like you manage to get a girl like her?”

Immediately, his brows furrowed, Holly answering before he did. “Being bloody lovely, is how he did.”

“Don’t think much of your taste, love,” the man remarked, obviously spoiling for something.

“And I don’t think much of your mouth, bruv,” Nathan spoke, glaring at him. “Unless you want it cut to fucking pieces on a glass, I’d watch it if I was you, you gobby fucking gammon cunt.”

“Oi, don’t threaten me, sunshine,” the man pointed, “just having a laugh with ya, yeah?”

“I ain’t stupid, you prick. Nah, fuck that. Weren’t a threat either, it was a promise.”

The man lunged, his friends grabbing him, Nathan trying to move Holly but struggling as she wrapped her arms around him. “Nath, Nathan! Stop it! Just ignore him, he’s pissed and looking for a fight.”

“Sorry, guys,” one of his friends spoke, moving him away. “Your missus is right though, mate. He’s just drunk, he don’t mean it.”

“Yeah?” Nathan snapped, pointing at him. “I fucking do. He looks at me again and I’ll fucking cut him, you understand?”

“Nathan!” Holly exclaimed, feeling her cheeks begin to tingle. Good god, this was so unlike him to be aggressive. He hated fighting, wasn’t one for violence at all, his body rigid with agitation beneath hers. “Look at me, Nath.”

Finally, she had two shards of green fury tear themselves away from the other table, stroking his face as he looked at her. “Calm down. He’s just being a drunken wanker.” It sent the mood at the table crashing down, Holly apologising to her friends, telling them it was best they leave so she could get him out of an environment that cracked with hostility. It was embarrassing to say the least, for them to meet her new guy and have him behave like that, no matter that he wasn’t the instigator.

As soon as she’d gotten him into an Uber, though, he was immediately back to the Nathan she knew.

“Fuck, I'm so sorry. I shouldn’t have risen to him like that,” he lamented, grasping her hand. “I'm just a bit pissed and he irritated me. Already feel like you’re too good for me, don’t need some gammon twat pissing rubbing it in, I’m telling you.”

“Is everything okay with you?” she found herself immediately asking. “Because this is all very out of character, and I know I’m still getting to know you, but things aren’t adding up for me. You stopped replying to me, stopped wanting to see me and then you turn up tonight already quite drunk and start acting in a way that just doesn’t fit.”

Glancing down, he sighed, his jaw tightening a little. “I’ll tell you when we get back to yours.”

Her stomach dropped a little there, knowing her intuition wasn’t off, that there definitely something amiss with him. In a way, though, it was relieving as well. This out of character behaviour had a cause, one he was willing to open up and reveal to her. Once back at her flat – and after prising a bottle of bourbon from his clutches – she made them both a coffee instead and sat down on the sofa next to him, Nathan taking a little while to gather his thoughts before speaking.

“Oh, hell upon hell,” he began, scratching the back of his neck. “I hate this. Right, so I filed for divorce just over a fortnight ago, like I said to you I was gonna do when I got that number for the solicitor from you. Lisa hit the pissing roof.”

Sitting there next to him, she could only wonder why. A cold feeling crept over her, that perhaps he was about to tell her that he couldn’t see her any longer, that the reason Lisa had hit the roof was because she wanted them to reconcile. Of course, that made little sense in the face of him being so adamant to meet her that night, but she couldn’t help her thoughts. Keeping silent, though, she sat with patience as he continued.

“It weren’t even because of anything big either, simply the fucking grounds I’d filed it on. Unreasonable behaviour, which she then accused me of and we got into a huge row before I kicked her out the shop. She fucking called me a useless excuse for a man, too, the bitch, and that’s been pissing bugging the life out of me. Yeah, it’s been proper messing with my head ever since and I ain’t been right. Fucking drinking too much, doing things I shouldn’t be doing, avoiding you.”

Watching him continue to scratch, she saw the way agitation corded in his muscles, his arms tense, reaching to stroke his shoulder. “I think that’s understandable, given what she did to you and then turning up like that screaming, saying the things she did. I don’t understand why you’ve avoided me, though. What did I do?”

“That’s the point,” he scoffed. “You did nothing wrong, but I...” He paused, closing his eyes tightly, clutching the sides of his head between his hands. “It’s pissing scaring the shit out of me, for real, how much I like you. Can’t get hurt like that again, Holly. Nah. Can’t let it happen.”

Sliding off the sofa, she crouched before him, taking his face in her hands. “Nathan, I can’t say I’m never going to hurt you, I can’t know that. I might have a bad day at some point in the future and say something regrettable in the heat of the moment because I’m human, but I can tell you this. I’ll never lie to you or deceive you. I’ll never willingly hurt you like she did. I’m not her, y’know. You can trust me, but you’ve got to let yourself trust me. All well and good for me to say, I know that. Give me a chance, though,” she stated, stroking his cheekbones, watching him nodding.

“You might not want me to,” he suddenly snorted. “I’ve been with other girls since we started dating. Trying to convince myself I’m not as fucking into you as I am. Which is stupid, because I legit adore you, Holly.”

She couldn’t say it didn’t make her heart sink unpleasantly to hear that, especially given her own circumstances, but at least he was honest. He’d told her off his own back, which was more than Dean ever had. “We never discussed exclusivity, did we? I won’t lie, it hurts to hear you’ve been with other women, but I still stand by what I just said. We didn’t say we were exclusive. If we had then I’d be punching you on the nose about now.”

He laughed softly through said nose, resting his forehead to hers. “Seriously, nah. You’re so fucking lovely and I’m just this mess of a person, for real. What do you see in me?”

God, Lisa had dented his self-esteem so badly. It was the second comment he’d made that night that reflected as much. “You’re kind, you’re sweet, you’re an absolute god in bed – and yes I told my friends in as many words!” He laughed much louder at that, Holly pausing for a moment. “You make me laugh, you’re fun to be around, you’re interesting and thoughtful, and you’re so bloody talented, too. Oh, and you’re about one of the most gorgeous men I’ve ever seen! Look, I can’t say forget about all this damage Lisa did to you and just move on, it isn’t that simple, sadly. At least trust me enough to help you get over it and begin that moving on, though?”

Trust her. But how could he? He’d sank into Eden with Lisa without a second thought, and she’d hurt him more than his fragile heart could truly withstand. What she’d said was right, though. She wasn’t Lisa. If he was to move forward and truly heal from the wreck of his marriage, he knew he needed to find a little trust, or he’d be stuck there forever. He would be exactly all the things his estranged wife had told him he was.

“Dunno how to.” He received a slightly exasperated sigh at that, covering her hands with his. “Sorry, I’m not trying to be difficult, but it’s fucking scary.”

“Okay, I understand that. It’s just a matter of knowing what’s the worst that could happen? You’ve already been there, doesn’t get much worse than that, does it?” His head shake confirmed no. “And there’s a fifty percent chance this thing with us will go beautifully, and you’ll settle and trust you’re safe enough to feel happy, right?” A nod confirmed yes. “So, you have to be brave, and hold onto that fifty percent. If I’m honest, I’d like to say it’s even higher than that, because I’m a bloody catch, you know.”

His smile widened in an instant. “Oh, I fucking know you are, cutie.”

“Next time you feel upset about Lisa, or like you want to dive into a bottle for comfort, call me. Talk to me. Let me be there for you and I promise, I’ll become your comfort rather than the person you’re scared of getting in too deep with. As I should be, if I’m going to be your girlfriend at some point. In case you haven’t realised it, I’d actually quite like to be.”

Oh, he had. The way he kissed her as he lifted her onto his lap confirmed that, too.

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