#but still you’d imagine the jury did

[benejessica]

i simply cannot get over the fact that the op-ed amber wrote was not even about johnny d*pp. she did not name him she did not provide any details she only said that she was abused. and they still ruled that she defamed him. like the only way you could even link the article to d*pp in the first place is if you already knew that he abused her in which case the article would not add any more ‘’’’defamation’’’’ anyway. its absolutely sickening

[trashogram]

He Chose You (Pt. 12)

Lucifer/Reader: Lucifer chooses you to be the mother of his child. Rated E for Explicit.

(LISTEN… this story has gotten out of control and I need help.)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13

“It’s alright, child.” Sera’s moods swung round like a revolving door. She could change and bend from someone motherly to a raging Force to an uninvolved observer in a millisecond. “You don’t know any better.”

She reach out and placed a hand on your cheek, perfectly warm and loving in her caress while her eyes remained like flint against the loveliest of features. “Everything has come to pass as it should. You’ll understand in time.” 

It made you sick. Your skin grew clammy as an acidic substance shot up your esophagus and your whole body pitched backward to escape.

You would’ve taken hours locked away with that asshole Adam before you stood another minute being condescended to by the Seraphim.

You were sulking, and you knew it, but you couldn’t stop. 

The building that you had been taken into to meet Sera in the first place served as some sort of Capital. It was grandiose and reached so high up that you couldn’t see where the damn ceiling ended. Perhaps it didn’t. 

You had to take great pains to escape it, navigating among high-ranking angels of all kinds filtering from both the ground and air above you in orderly chaos. It quickened your step to notice that a number of them did a double-take at seeing you. 

           They resembled different things, just as the angels outside did, although most of them appeared human-like. You wondered briefly if there was a rhyme or reason to it, or if God chose to make the woman you barely avoided running into resemble a moose because it made Him laugh. 

Once you’d escaped the war room, you had immediately breathed a little easier. Still, you continued on until you physically felt the tiny shocks and electric currents of warning ebb from your skin. It was as if Sera’s essence had stuck to you, her presence clinging to your frame to make a longer impression.

It had your skin tightening, muscles clenching as a chaotic flood of anxiety and fear prevented you from walking solidly. Too many ‘what if’s’ took you in and out of awareness, making you stumble over nothing. 

It had crossed your mind that Emily did not appear before you’d made yourself scarce. A part of you had wondered at that, feeling as though she’d have waited for you out of some concern for your wellbeing. 

Perhaps that was all for show, however. Sera was clearly excellent at appearing benevolent, and Emily had looked toward the Seraphim for guidance in front of you. It stood to reason that Emily could also be two-faced. 

The logic was sound and yet it made you wince, whether from shame at your incorrect judge or character —

‘Or how much she reminds me of Lucifer.’

You imagined Emily looking at you while stripped of any warmth and compassion. She quickly changed, morphing into Lucifer with hollow, unfeeling red eyes. 

It hurt.

—

Panic had you frozen in place a time or two before you’d gained a wide enough berth to stop. 

Beforehand you’d walked clouds so polished and flat you’d swear they were glass, amidst the more general population of Heaven with your arms wrapped around yourself. It felt needed when even those outside the Capital looked at you with interest, as if they knew. 

Maybe they did. Was it against the rules to keep secrets in Heaven? 

“We are literally judges, juries and executioners in Hell.”

“Executioners?” 

“What’re you talking about?” 

The recollection of a seemingly insignificant moment drew you to a halt. You stared at the pristine ground, fists knocking at your sides. The confusion on your face doubled when you looked up. 

Your ‘wide berth’ had led you far away from the crowds of perfectly content angels and their sleek, futuristic buildings. Farther than you’d anticipated, as ahead of you lay a line of trees that thickened into a dense forest. 

Like Earth, Heaven had a variety of terrains — or so it would seem. Child-like curiosity had you crossing the line between airy openness and into the thicket of pines. All varieties of fir, pine, and larch coexisted with one another, bowing and swaying in the wind. There was nothing to be afraid of, but a sense of oddity hung in the air as you walked a perfectly sculpted path. 

The smell of damp earth and lilies rose from the ground at your feet. A warm breeze rustled the hair that hung limply around your face. Birds sung merrily above you, flitting from branch to branch. 

It occurred to you that no matter how deep you traveled into the woods, the sunlight never waned. 

And yet faintly you heard roaring. It was distant but growing louder with every step you took. 

It was not an animal nor man calling out to you from far away. You felt the change as the smell of sap intermingled with that of salt on the wind, and the floor turned from nettles and moss to pale sand. 

You rubbed your eyes as the trees parted and seemed to disappear as they revealed a beautiful, sparkling sea. 

Sun cast off the surface of the ocean, bouncing against a kaleidoscope of multicolored clouds surrounding it. And you had Dejá vu before blinking away the flash of purple and honey in your eyes. 

You watched tiny waves as they fell against the shoreline, seafoam disappearing within moments. It continued, mesmerizing you, as you ambled toward it. When the water finally rushed over your feet, it carried tiny seashells that scuttled around you. And unlike the ocean you were familiar with, this one was a perfect temperature, no acclimation required. 

For the first time since arriving in Heaven, you felt yourself smiling genuinely. 

You gave into the urge to squish the wet sand between your toes and waded into the water up to your ankles. Your worries began to wash away with each pull of the tide, slow and steady. 

Eventually, you meandered away from that singular spot and began to trek parallel to the shore. The sun never got in your eyes nor did the sand get whipped up and blow into your mouth. Everything from the waves to the breeze was gentle. 

As were the eyes that were upon you. 

As soon as you felt that stare, you stopped in your tracks. Just the thought of turning to them was daunting. 

You don’t have to look, but you do. 

There’s a woman with you now, with hair so long and blonde it’s almost white. Her chin, lips, nose, and eyes are delicate and soft.

—

Eve had lingered upon your every step once you’d arrived in her neck of the woods. 

She was glad to see that the effects of the beach it hid were enough to soothe you, even if it was more of a distraction than a cure. You deserved something good, even if it was relatively meager compared to everything you’d endured up to this point. 

Your figure grew smaller as you crossed the sand, away from the first woman’s hiding spot. You were none the wiser, engrossed in the soothing give and take of the water. It made it easier for Eve to creep up the beach only a few paces away, free to follow your path without ruining your tranquility. 

It reminded Eve of a simpler time when she was the one being eyed curiously from afar. 

*** Tag List: @crescent-z, @for-hearthand-home, @undertale-is-sansational, @loslox, @navierkalani, @yaimlight, @ivoryviness, @crystalplays28, @flowerempress, @wally-darling-hyperfixation, @altruisticradiodemon, @moonlight-readings, @halparkebitch, @charliecharlie65, @sockgoblin, @cocomollo, @caniseethefourthsword, @squeegeeclean, @crow-twink, @an-emovision, @marydragneell, @lafy-taffy, @fandom-imagines1, @loquacious-libra, @glowymxxn, @avadakadabra93, @froggybich, @hamthepan, @ukor02, @adaizel, @boogiemansbitch, @vinillies, @lbcreations-blog, @thesoundresoundsecho, @serenity-loves-red, @alientee, @aquaamythest96, @0strawberrysorbet0, @fluffy-koalala, @washeduphazbin, @rebecca-hvnstn, @velvette3, @kermitdafroggy, @wpdarlingpan, @apatcheworkofproblems, @cherry-cola-100, @pink-apples001, @al-of-the-stars, @backinthefkingbuildingagain, @martinys-world, @alastorssimp, @wobblesthewaffle, @shikiribee, @undertale-anomaly20, @asakura-fangirl-stuff, @ringsofpersonti, @angelicwillows, @wingoodlilboymyway, @cimadreamer, @museofzealoushope, @oneiric-rotaerc, @call-me-nyxx, @darling-angel222, @elementwind91, @bloody-delusion-expert, @martinys-world, @devilslittlebabyxx

Forgive me if I forgot to tag you or the tags don’t work, I don’t know what that keeps happening.

[evita-shelby]

Dance with the Devil

Gif by @crackshipandcrap

Another tommy and eva ficlet where they met before black star day

Cw:implied past alcohol abuse

It is out of guilt that he accepts Polly’s suggestion, no, orders that he talk to the lovely Miss Smith at John’s wedding.

She is a beauty, wealthy beyond imagination and has that spark of magic that beckons him to her even before he even truly met her.

Grace was enough to distract him from her, but because Polly convinced Arthur to have her work tonight, she was not here to keep him from being drawn to the pretty witch like a moth to a flame.

“Do you drink?” he asks offering some of the bathtub gin made for the occasion.

“I have been trying not to.” She smiled with a hint of embarrassment.

There was a past there, one that didn’t fit the refined lady she gave off. Grace had that, something peeking behind the mask she wears.

“Can’t be that bad.” Tommy tries to see what it was she hides behind her all-knowing eyes.

“Trust me, it was bad.” The witch admits brushing a stray hair away from her face and yet takes the offered bottle and drinks like someone who’s been to war.

“’Cause I have been, Mr. Shelby.” She spoke as if she’d read his mind.

His mother used to do that, Polly too until they took Sally and Michael from her and her magic left with them too.

“Call me Tommy, then.” Perhaps it won’t be as bad as he’d thought. “Do you dance?”

The witch laughed, “I was wondering when you’d get the nerve to ask me, Tommy.”

He likes the sound of her laugh and the way she says his name, despite the strange American lilt to it that he found grating amongst soldiers and nurses he’d met.

“You don’t look like someone who likes to dance.” The witch comments after he reminds his friends and family about the Tommy that died in France.

“Appearances can be deceiving, Miss. Smith.” He remarks and hopes she can keep up.

“Call me, Eva.” She kicked off her fine shoes and gave him another reason to think this scheme of Polly’s wasn’t half bad.

Polly really knew what she was doing, she’d picked out Esme from the Lee girls, Martha before her, Greta and now Eva. She’d make a killing if she ever charged for her matchmaking.

He hasn’t danced like this in a while, he’d danced with Grace alone in her room, but that had been to woo her. This was done not to woo Eva, but to enjoy his brother’s wedding with a girl he might consider wooing later depending on how the night went.

“Won’t your barmaid mind?” she teases.

“She’s not mine.” He answered. Not yet anyways, or even not ever, jury is still out on that after all.

“I would be careful; she is a loyalist like the inspector who threw out all my lovely things into the street.” The dark-haired woman warns with a tone of disgust towards the subject. “Same paramilitary group and all.”

That was far too specific to be just a hunch.

“Did you figure that out with your second sight, Evie?” He asked, wondering what she knew of Grace.

“That and a specific set of skills she and I share, though I am obviously the superior one.” she smiled like the cat that ate the cream.

A spy. He was falling in love with a spy, a narc put in place by his own enemies.

“Don’t beat yourself up for it, for as great a head you have on your shoulders, the other one you have can make you ignore it when it comes to women.” She is witty, sharp like a pretty knife.

Polly’s influence, he thinks. Or she was already like this and that was why she got on so well with his aunt and sister.

“What else do you know?” he won’t be letting her go now. Not when she’s got his attention like this.

“They are plotting something tonight; I don’t know what it is but they will blame it on you. We can stop it if we act now.”

There was no real doubt that she spoke the truth, Tommy had let his cock and loneliness serve himself and his family on a platter to their enemies. Polly ,as always, was right.

“We?” the word and the surety she added herself into this mess is not lost on him.

“As you yourself just said, your prick served you on a platter to your enemies.” Eva answered. “Besides, don’t you want to see a professional in action?”

[wuxiaphoenix]

Worldbuilding: Getting the Point (or Edge)

Does your character carry a knife?

We’ve had knives of one kind or another since the first hominids cracked rocks together to get sharp edges. I imagine we’ll still have them as long as there’s a species of humanoids around. There’s nothing quite like having a cutting edge when you need it - and little as daunting as needing it and not having it.

So depending on the time period and culture, the more important question might be, why doesn’t your character carry a knife? Or when do they not carry one? In the bed might be one place for most of us; in the bath, another.

This is apparently one of the reasons Miyamoto Musashi had a skin condition - he was paranoid he’d be ambushed in the bath away from his swords. In defense of said paranoia, he’d really ticked off a lot of people. OTOH given his usual M.O. was to straight-up demolish a guy with a wooden sword, you’d think he could have taken one of those into the bath with him!

Your character might not have a knife if they have to get through some kind of security, as anyone who’s been dragged in for jury duty or tried to catch a plane ride can attest. Though in that situation odds are that part of the time said security will have a knife. You just have to get to it....

(For self-defense. If a bad guy berserks in either a courtroom or a plane, odds indeed are that he’ll be stopped... eventually. Not so good if you’re the one he happens to. Think of something to grab!)

OTOH going into a secure area may not mean you don’t have a knife. It depends on the time, the culture, the relative status of the person coming in and the people being protected. You might let a guy with a knife in because you don’t dare insult him. Or you are trying to insult him, by implying that even armed he’s nothing to worry about. (Power move. Can end badly.) Or you might not know if he’s got a knife, because you’re demonstrating good faith by not searching him. Or it might be lunch, and everybody has knives....

So much posturing and fretting over a small pointy object. Humans. Heh.

Once you’ve established where knives are and are not, what kinds of knives are your characters familiar with? Eating knives? Carving knives? Pocketknives? Box-cutters? Scissors? Longer and more serious sharp edges like the machete, bolo, butterfly, and kukri? Each of these implies your character has different backgrounds, skills, and resources. I for one would be really interested to know where Jonathan Harker learned to use a kukri knife. Did this solid, staid, young solicitor know one of Her Majesty’s Gurkhas? Someone write me a Dracula fanfic!

Or no, you can do legal Dracula stories now....

Do your characters a favor. Stay sharp!

[storiesofsvu]

Censured Ch 2

Warnings: Language

A few weeks later and Jenna Spencer’s case finally made it into the courthouse, you and Carisi had continued to follow the trial, attending all court days, supporting Jenna through her tribulations. The jury had left for deliberation as you and Sonny moved across the street with the need to be re caffeinated. Carisi picked up his phone while you waited for the coffees, when the barista called out your orders you grabbed them, barely noticing the crowd around you, you handed Sonny’s to him while he was still on the phone, relishing in the sip you took. You thought you were seeing things when a smiling face nearly popped up in front of you, 

“Y/N…hey!”

“Oh my God, Casey!” You felt the smile break upon your lips, your instinct to pull her into a quick hug winning over any awkwardness, “What’re you doing here?” You practically kicked yourself at the statement, she was a paralegal, of course she’d frequent a coffee shop sandwiched between the courthouse and Hogan Place. She was about to answer before Carisi moved back to your side, hand gracing your lower back, 

“Hey, jury’s back, we gotta go.” Her face scrunched, confused and slightly worried about what he meant,

“Y/N…what happened? Are you okay?” Your eyes widened, realizing the situation and what exactly it looked like.

“Oh shit! I met you at the club, right!” Sonny quirked a brow at that, his intensity of wanting you to leave the shop evaporating, “I work for NYPD, this is my partner, Detective Carisi.” Your hand moved to reveal the badge on your hip, “The piano bar’s a fill in thing, helps me escape…live a different life for a couple days.”

“Barely, ya almost always come straight from there to the hospital.” Carisi commented, you were quick to smack him, practically rolling your eyes, he extended his hand to the other woman, “Call me Sonny.”

“You’re a cop?” Casey was in a sense of disbelief, as she shook your partner’s hand. Your performance and interaction at the bar had been so far from detective like that this was certainly a shock for her. You’d been so comfortable, so chill and she couldn’t imagine someone with the talent you had deciding to pursue criminal justice instead of a career showcasing your talents. Though it did make sense as to how quickly you’d called her out as a lawyer, and why you’d apparently vanished that night, you’d caught a case. You laughed lightly, 

“Yeah..no one ever expects it, but someone’s got to do the job, right?” You wished you’d had more time to linger, but Sonny was tugging on the elbow of your blazer, knowing you had to get back to the courthouse. You whipped around with ease, reaching inside his suit coat, retrieving a pen from the inner pocket. In a complete moment of childhood innocence you grabbed Casey’s hand, scribbling your cell phone number into her palm quickly. “Call me sometime, will ya?” With a flash of a dazzling smile, the two of you vanished from the cafe, leaving Casey in wonderment of the whole situation, there was something simply so intriguing about you she needed to know more.

“Wow….” Sonny started as you crossed the street.

“What?” You fired back, cocking a brow.

“Ya weren’t kiddin’ when you said she was stunning.” You shot him a glare over your coffee lid at that, he laughed heartily, “You outta business cards or something?”

“K, now you’ve lost me.”

“You just wanted an excuse to hold her hand…” That warranted a shove from you, 

“Shut it Carisi…” He simply shot you a grin as you ascended the courthouse stairs.

[tropes-and-tales-archives]

Rafael Barba:  Charmed

Word Count: 957

TW:  None.

AN:  Part one of a three-part series:  Part Two, Part Three

By the time December came to New York City, Rafael Barba was already tired of winter.  It got dark earlier, the wind chilled him to the bones.  Worse, with the holidays approaching, he was reminded – more so than usual – how alone he was.  The holiday displays in the store windows, the invitations to parties…he felt walled off from people, unable to embrace the charm of the season when he knew he had nothing to really celebrate.

Maybe that’s what made him call you to his office to run through your testimony for court the next day.  Maybe that was part of the reason, anyway.  Rafael had worked with you now for over a year, and if he couldn’t work up the courage to ask you out, he could at least admit to himself that he was half in love with you.

You arrived in his office with your usual sharp knock on his doorjamb, and even though it was late afternoon, the gloomy dusk was already falling outside.  It didn’t seem to affect you, though – you give him your usual smile, asked the usual good-mannered questions about how his day went, told him a bit about your day.  Then you segued to the case at hand, the testimony you’d give tomorrow.

It was a flimsy excuse, calling you in to practice.  You were an ace on the stand.  You never got tripped up or flustered, and you hit that sweet spot, the middle ground of competent and caring.  Juries loved you.  You could conjure up sympathy for the least sympathetic victim.

You knew you were good too, so Rafael wondered what you thought of the practice runs he did with you.  You probably didn’t see the obvious signs of how he felt about you – the way he always sat beside you at squad happy hours, how he engaged in small talk with you but none of the other SVU detectives.  You probably just chalked it all up to his own sense of over-preparedness.

Rafael glanced at his watch.  The courtroom he wanted to use was probably still in session, so he had a bit of time to kill.  With you.

“Want to go grab a coffee?” he asked, and he hoped he sounded casual.

“Sure,” you replied.  You buttoned your coat back up, pulled on your gloves and waited for him in the doorway.

One of the nice things about you was that the silences that fell between you were always comfortable.  He never felt the need to fidget with his phone, or fill in the quiet with awkward small talk.  He may be uncomfortable with his feelings for you, but that was just borne from a fear of rejection.  You exuded a calm competence, and it soothed him too.  

At the nearby café, at such a late hour, it was pretty empty, so you stood side by side and perused the menu board.  

“Red-eye,” Rafael told the cashier, and you seconded it but then hesitated and changed your mind.

“Actually, I’ll take a hot cocoa,” you said.  You glanced over at Rafael and gave him a little shrug and a smile.  “If I drink caffeine so late, I’ll be up all night, unable to sleep.”

“Maybe that’s my problem.”  He smiled back at you, switched his order to hot cocoa too, and paid the cashier.  

You murmured your thanks, first to him for paying and then to the barista who handed off your drinks.  Then you gestured at an empty table near the window and asked if he wanted to sit and drink instead of the usual drinking-on-the-go.

“I imagine the caffeine is part of it,” you said once you were both settled into your seats, picking up the thread of conversation.  “The sleepless nights, I mean.  And you have all that pressure, trying to find justice with impossible cases.”

Rafael scoffed, as he always did, when you gave him these small concessions to his job, but it made him feel seen that you noticed.  Liv acknowledged it sometimes, but you consistently recognized the uphill battles he faced dealing with rape and assault cases in a society that routinely failed to deal with them.  

And you, as always, scoffed at his scoffing.  You read him the same gentle riot act about not selling himself short, not discounting the good work he did even when he failed in a case.  You were like his own little cheerleader, propping up his failing spirits and confidence when no one else did.

“How’s your cocoa?” you asked.  “Are you going to go into withdrawal during our court prep?  Will I have to administer an emergency espresso shot?”  You pulled a face of mock-panic, and added, “I need twenty cc’s of Colombian Supremo, stat!”

Rafael laughed and tried his drink.  It was good – not too sweet – and it made him feel a cozy sort of warmth in his chest. That wasn’t the cocoa though – that was you making him feel that way.  Talking up how hard he worked, joking with him.  It was all you.

“Colombian Supremo sounds like really good cocaine,” he pointed out as he chuckled.

You laughed back at him and did your shrug.  “Caffeine, cocaine.  Whatever gets you through the season, I guess.”

Rafael Barba didn’t take many quiet moments in his life.  His life was, in fact, mostly work, and he was mostly alone because of it.  But as that familiar, comfortable silence fell between you – as you each sipped your rich hot cocoa and watched the traffic, watched the holiday lights shift and change in the display across the street, he was able to take a moment and allow a bit of the charm of the holidays into his life...with you seated across from him.

[twistedtummies2]

The Devils I Know - Number 7

Welcome to “The Devils I Know!” For this spooky time of year, from now till Halloween, I’ll be counting down My Top 31 Depictions of the Devil, from movies, television, video games, and more! And SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND! Number 7 is…Al Pacino, from The Devil’s Advocate.

Several years before facing Peter Stormare’s Lucifer in “Constantine,” Keanu Reeves had to challenge the Prince of Darkness in the 1997 crime/horror combo “The Devil’s Advocate.” In the film, Reeves plays Kevin Lomax, an up-and-coming lawyer working in Florida. Lomax is not necessarily an evil man, but he is a highly ambitious one, and is both dedicated and skilled when it comes to his job: even when defending a client he realizes is guilty, Lomax is still able to find a way to gain an acquittal from the jury. He’s a man who refuses to lose a case, no matter what. Indeed, his incredible ability to help his clients gets him the attention of a prominent law firm in New York City. Kevin accepts their job offer and moves to New York with his wife, Mary Ann (played by future Evil Queen and Morticia, Charlize Theron), expecting big things from this change in his life…and he certainly gets them, thought not at all the way he expects. The head of the firm is Al Pacino’s character, who goes by the name of “John Milton.” (A reference to the writer of “Paradise Lost.”) At first, Lomax and Milton get on swimmingly, but over time, as Kevin’s life begins to fall apart – his wife going insane, his career taking nightmarish directions – he begins to realize more and more that Milton is not all he seems. It’s ultimately revealed that Milton is not only Kevin’s long-lost father…but, more importantly, that Milton is the Devil himself. Milton’s whole scheme is to force Kevin into a position where he will willingly become the father of the Antichrist, so that Milton can – of course – take over the world. While Pacino was always the first choice to play the Devil in this movie, the creators didn’t secure his performance right away. Apparently, Pacino initially felt the role of Milton was too one-note, and rejected earlier versions of the script no less than three times. He did recommend other actors who might be able to take the part – apparently, both Sean Connery and Robert Redford, of all people, were considered for the role, per Pacino’s suggestion – but these performers ended up being either unavailable or simply unwilling to tackle the character. Finally, on the fourth proposal - and with some changes made to the script by that point – Pacino accepted the part. Thank goodness (or badness, I guess, in this case), because it’s hard to imagine anyone but ol’ Scarface here doing such a great job with the portrayal of the Devil in the film. Pacino’s Devil is a wonderfully fun villain; he’s somehow a character who hides nothing and yet remains an eternal enigma. Much like Jack Nicholson’s Daryl Van Horne, there’s a mixture of coarseness and dignity to this take on the concept. Pacino swaggers through the role, and carries himself with…basically the exact kind of attitude you’d EXPECT Pacino as the Devil to have: he's somewhere between a gangster and a sleazy snake oil salesman. It’s Pacino at his most…Pacino-y, but he also has a strength and sense of uneasy menace to him that gives him the power and believability a part like this requires. He speaks so sensibly and makes many good and interesting points, yet at the same time he never hides the fact that…well…he is who and what he is. To me, when I think of the Devil, this is one of the first versions I think of, and it’s easily in my Top 3 of Pacino’s performances (my favorite is Michael Corleone, my second favorite is Tony Montana). All in all, an easy choice for high placement on this countdown. Also…Keanu, you should probably stop ticking off the Devil. It, uh…doesn’t seem to go well for you, whenever it happens. Plus, now you have both Michael and Dracula mad at you, so…(pauses)…oh, who am I kidding, he’s John Wick. He can take care of himself. :P Tomorrow, the countdown continues with Number 6! HINT: One…Two…Three Strikes, You’re Out!

[stellarcyber-security]

MSSP Focus: Three ways your SIEM (even NG-SIEM) is hurting your ability to grow

In today’s ultra-competitive MSSP market, business owners are looking for ways to make their offerings more attractive to customers and their SOCs more effective. To that end MSSPs add new technology to their security offering stack with the hopes that prospective customers will see this addition as an opportunity to outsource some, or all, of their security monitoring. There is some validity to that strategy; Unfortunately the new technology often fails to deliver their stated benefits leading to higher customer churn. So while keeping your technology and security team abreast of the latest and greatest security technology is essential, sometimes you must look at what is already in your security stack.

The one technology I am referring to specifically is your SIEM. Depending on who you talk to, we are currently in the third or fourth generation of SIEM technology; however, when I talk to practitioners, their frustration level with their SIEM is at Defcon.

1. MSSPs continue to use a SIEM that is not delivering what they need because of the time and resources required to rip and replace it with something that will probably leave them with similar disappointment.

Let me talk about three ways this old SIEM (or even not-so-old SIEM) is causing more harm than you think.

SIEMs are Lazy

There, I said it, but we all know that SIEMs, up until recently, didn’t work smarter, they made you work harder. While they did allow you to collect all kinds of logs and correlate alerts from different security controls, the result you would get was only as good as your most ingenious security analyst. If they were a security ninja with a vast understanding of the threat landscape and knew how to write intelligent correlation rules, you were probably loving your SIEM.

If your team is like most, where companies try and lure your best players away, you’d see a dramatic shift in your SIEMs effectiveness if they did leave. Yes, NG-SIEM providers are trying to address this issue by delivering more out-of-the-box content (the jury is still out on it’s effectiveness). Nevertheless, just like that package of Oreo’s your kids open and forget to close correctly, that content quickly becomes stale, leaving you with the task of creating new rules or scouring communities for content you can import. Bottom line, the SIEM, even NG-SIEMs, are leaving the heavy lifting to your team, hampering your ability to add the number of customers your team could handle without this burden.

SIEMs are Data Hogs

Cybersecurity today is a data problem, scratch that, it’s a BIG BIG data problem. With so many products in use daily, the volume of logs a typical mid-size company generates is ridiculous. While specific industries require complete log collection and review to comply with this or that regulation, many customers that might look at an MSSP are not trying to solve a compliance problem. Instead, many are looking to do a better job of identifying and mitigating threats before they can harm their business. SIEMs, in their inherent, built-in bias to complete data collection, means that a security team looking to identify threats will wade through oceans of irrelevant log data in the hopes of uncovering a danger. It’s not an impossible task since you are probably doing this today, but imagine if you were a 49er panning for gold in the 1840s. Instead of using a pan to sift through small amounts of silt for gold, you decide to use a giant bucket with the hopes of eyeing that valuable mineral. Which do you think would take longer? Of course, I know this isn’t an apple-to-apple comparison, and our advanced computing capabilities can speed up the process. However, saving a few minutes a day adds up, especially across a SOC with ten, twenty, or fifty security analysts. Bottom line – SIEMs are great at solving pure compliance use cases since they collect all log data, but for security use cases, which is what you are typically selling, you need tech that understands the difference between relevant security logs and irrelevant ones, and only collects what it needs.

SIEMs don’t like Everyone

When I was running product marketing for another vendor (who shall remain nameless), one of the most common questions was, “Do you support XYZ product?” or “Can I bring in data from ABC product?” Savvy security buyers who have been around the vendor circus once or twice understand how security vendors will downplay the lack of pre-built integrations to your products. They will say things like, “I can get that for you, no problem,” or “I’m sure it’s on the way; let me get back to you,” while in reality, they will have to go back to their integration team and beg and plead for a new integration, especially if they need to close your deal to hit their number for the quarter. Now someone in the integration team whips up a one-off script that shows data flowing from your product into the SIEM backend, hoping no one takes a fine tooth comb to what was delivered. Again, if you have been around for a minute, I am sure this sounds familiar.

The sad reality is that most SIEMs are challenging to integrate, given the underlying complexity of their data models. You might be able to write your integrations, and if that is the case, great, but what happens when the SIEM vendor rolls out a new version and breaks your integration? It’s back to the drawing board. Bottom line – out-of-the-box integrations to a SIEM that work are what you should expect from your SIEM vendor. If that isn’t what you are getting today, your customer onboarding time will suffer, and, worst case, you will lose out on business waiting for your SIEM vendor to deliver an integration that you hope works.

We have helped many MSSPs see the benefits of ripping out their old or not-so-old SIEM and replacing it with our Stellar Cyber Open XDR Platform. With our platform, you get:

– The right automation, where you need it: Stellar Cyber’s goal is to make threat detection, investigation, and remediation as automated as possible. When you move to Stellar Cyber, your days worrying about correlation rules going stale are over. Stellar Cyber does the heavy lifting enabling faster customer acquisition.

– Intelligent data collection: we collect security-relevant data enabling our AI/ML threat detection engine to identify threats as fast as possible. When seconds matter, Stellar Cyber makes sure you have all the seconds you can get.

– Everyone is welcome: If your SIEM and Stellar Cyber were both throwing parties, our party would look like a class reunion with everyone having the time of their life; the SIEM party might look like a gathering of people that have never met. In other words, Stellar Cyber’s architecture is open, with integrations to just about every popular security, IT, and productivity tool around, making customer onboarding and your business growth faster than ever.

We owe a lot to SIEMs. They opened our eyes to the importance of data analysis, but today you can do better than the SIEM you are using. To learn more about Stellar Cyber, check out our MSSP-specific five-minute tour.

[moonlit-imagines]

So Help Me God

Matt Murdock x Castle!reader

warnings: anything that has to do with the the people vs frank castle case, so murder, blood, gore, guns, you know the deal

a/n: this is like, mainly dialog, the descriptors are pretty weak just because this heavily relies on conversation. honestly, i always thought i’d do amazing in the writers room for a show or movie bc i rely on dialogue so fuckin much but i can never creatively write in descriptions.

prompt:

“I’d like to call y/n Castle to the stand.” Matt Murdock announced and the members of the courtroom began to murmur as you stood from your seat. With your head held high, you strode along the floor and ignore the cruel whispers that were made to shake you. You took a seat at the podium and ignored each pair of eyes staring through you.

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” The deputy asked as you raised your right hand.

“Yes.” You bluntly answered.

“Will you please state your name for the record?” The blind lawyer asked of you.

“Y/N Castle.” You answered—almost bravely still using that name.

“And your relationship to the defendant?” Matt followed up.

“Oldest and only surviving child.” It was a hard fact to face, and saying it aloud was never easy. Your father had a hard time looking at you since the accident, but right now he was looking straight at you, wondering what could possibly be going through your head.

“Thank you, Mx. Castle.” The lawyer paced back and forth a few times. “I’d like to ask you a few personal questions if that’s okay with you.” You nodded out of instinct and realized your mistake.

“Yes, sir.” You confirmed to him and a half-smirk formed on his lips.

“I assume you learned your manners from Mr. Castle?” He said hypothetically as your dad smiled to himself. “Y/N, how do you feel about your dad’s recent activities?” The first personal question came to light and you held back a chuckle that connected you seamlessly to the man in custody.

“I have mixed feelings.” Another blunt answer given by the teen on the stand.

“How so?” Matt inquired.

“They were extreme, yes, but they might have also been necessary.” You said without hesitation, hesitation was one’s biggest enemy when on record. You looked over to Frank, who was obviously scoffing as he looked down at his steel desk he’d been chained to. “In the eyes of the law, it was murder. I can’t deny that fact, but has anyone stopped to imagine life through his eyes right now?”

“You think he’s angry.” His lawyer retorted.

“I think he’s ashamed.” Your answer caught your dad’s attention once more, he looked right up at you with a tight jaw, but you knew that he agreed with you completely. Most of the room had turned to him for a reaction, even the defense was a bit surprised by the answer.

“May I ask why you think that?” Matt calmly continued questioning and you prepared yourself for your story, one that may strike a chord with the members of the jury.

“I think back to the day I lost everything pretty often. I was thought to be the only surviving Castle for a while since my dad, Frank, was in a coma for so long,” you began to explain the story you’d been rehearsing for a while, before you had a clue that you’d be speaking for a courtroom, “how many of you can imagine what it’s like to be me, let alone my dad?” It sounded so much different for the crowd than it did for your mirror. “I’m alive because I wasn’t there and in some ways I feel guilty for it. I was at soccer practice, far away from the massacre. I don’t know how to describe the feeling of being called away from my team by cops to be told without remorse that my family is dead. My mother, my little brother and sister—then there was my father just hanging on by a thread. Not only did I lose my family, I lost my innocence, my hope, and my future.”

“I’m very sorry for the loss of your family, y/n. I think I see where you’re going with this, please continue.” Matt replied as you took your pause. A pause as a preventative measure for tears. Sure, they’d get you some sympathy, but you wanted to stay strong in front of all these people, you wouldn’t dare let them see you cry.

“My grandmother had to take me in since I had no one else to care for me. I’m only sixteen, I don’t have a lot of options.” You shrugged to yourself and leaned back in the chair, getting a bit more comfortable for the room. “But I visited my dad every day, no matter how much Grandma pleaded with me.”

“Your grandmother, is she your maternal or paternal grandmother?” Matt asked.

“Maternal. She was not doing too well with the news, either, obviously. She didn’t even want me coming here today. And she’s been begging me to change my name since the so-called ‘killing spree’ started.” You explained to the court. “We were both pretty shocked when my dad woke up.”

“Were you there?” Matt asked.

“I was there to say goodbye. He woke up after they took him off life support.” Images replayed in your mind. “He was a little out of it, had a hard time remembering what happened, but he recognized me. I had to fill him in on what happened.”

“Apologies for interrupting, y/n, but may we circle back to why you claim your father is ashamed of himself?” The lawyer asked, and you saw Frank shake his head. He knows you hate being interrupted.

“I think I answered that already, but I can do it more clearly. You know, for the record.” You leaned forward, closer to the microphone, and got to the point. “Frank Castle is a marine, right? It was his job to put his life on the line to protect others. Yet where it mattered most…he failed.” Frank gulped at your bold words, horrified by how true they were. “He can feel guilty for their deaths alone, but what about the life left behind. The one whose future was ripped away from them. He didn’t just want revenge for death, he wanted revenge for the loss of my life. The one I would have lived instead of the mess I found myself in. I was left alone. All the dreams I had seemed unimportant. I’d lie awake wondering if I’d ever see my father wake from his coma. I had to attend the funeral of my mother when I was just fifteen years old, before she was able to really guide me through life. I had to attend the funeral for my two younger siblings. The ones I held just after they were born and cried over just before they were buried. That wasn’t fair to me and who’s to blame?”

“Is there someone you blame, y/n?” Matt’s eyebrows raised, the counsel looked to you ask if they thought you were going to say your father, but there was nothing to blame him for. Nothing.

“Whoever pulled the trigger, obviously.” You and your dad made eye contact once more and you nodded at him. “My dad, he had the right idea, but it was executed poorly—sorry, poor choice of words.” You brought a smile to your dad’s battered face. “The men he killed, I’m aware they had families, and I don’t want anyone to suffer the way I had to, but they were still on the streets. The same streets that I walk on. The same streets your daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, husbands, and wives walk on. And you never know who’ll be hit next. At least with my dad, he had a code. Something like ‘an eye for an eye.’”

“So you’re saying that anyone who is innocent in the eyes of the law has nothing to worry about?” Matt tilted his head as he questioned.

“Maybe property damage as far as I’ve heard.” You nodded.

“Y/N, what do you plan on doing after high school?” The lawyer asked another personal question.

“I wanted to be a marine, but that guy in orange you got chained up over there told me there was no way.” You announced to the room.

“You want to follow in his footsteps?” He inquired.

“Is that a trick question?” You smiled.

“No tricks, I promise.” Matt replied.

“I wanted to be like my dad, yes. Always liked the way he stood up to bullies.” You continued on. “Although, he did assure me that if I enlisted, he’d bust at least one of my kneecaps to keep me safe.” You tried to be funny, but few laughed. Maybe a few chuckles from the back, and definitely one from Frank. Reminded him of better times. “For the record, he was joking. You don’t need to crucify him yet.”

“What was your second choice, y/n?” Mr. Murdock got you back on track.

“A law degree, but I’m starting to second guess that now.” You just couldn’t help yourself, these answers were getting too tempting.

“Sorry to hear that.” Matt smiled. “So, one last time: how do you feel about the actions of Frank Castle?” Once again, Frank looked right at you, tuning into this answer deeply, almost as if he valued your opinion more than anyone else’s not only in this room, but in this world.

“I want my dad back. Whatever pieces of him are left. His actions were not selfish, even if they were vengeful. He wanted to make this city safer, and maybe be did. I just wish that he would have grieved with me, maybe that way I wouldn’t have to worry about whether or not I’d ever be able to see my dad again without a pane of glass in between us.” You looked at your dad the entire time you were speaking, letting him know how hard it’s been on you, too. He knew he hadn’t been there for you. At all. He’d been off on his own on his righteous mission and only checked on you maybe twice, now he may never get a chance to make it up.

“Thank you, Mx. Castle. That will be all.”

taglist: @alwaysananglophile // @locke-writes // @sweetheartlizzie07 // @queen-destenie // @johnmurphyisqueer // @captainshazamerica // @ravenmoore14 // @canarypoint // @procrastinatingsapphictrash // @lxncelot-recs // @swanimagines // @randomfandomimagine // @petersgroupie // @summersimmerus // @scarthefangirl // @bad4amficideas // @sheridans-dynamos // @simsrecs // @prettysbliss // @popeheywardssecretgf // @skdkdkckfk // @simp-legend // @zoeyserpentluck // @wild-rose-35 // @confessions-of-a-adhd-teen // @itachisdangos // @nekoannie-chan // @punk-rock-raven // @evilcr0ne //

[bbytamaki]

FOR REAL — k. souya

with: timeskip!souya x gn!reader

genre: exes to lovers

content: idk just super soft exes to lovers (this is me not knowing how to tag things)

note: i went from “i hate this” to “this has potential” off and on so if this disappears you know why

souya wasn’t a bad guy. in fact, he was quite the opposite. his childhood nickname was a misnomer, but only a few people really knew it. you were close to him and his brother when they were a part of toman. hanging out with him became routine in high school. trips to the convenience store would turn into holding each other’s hands and goodnight kisses and “i love you’s”.

was breaking it off at graduation the best idea? the jury was still out. there were so many things the two of you wanted to figure out on your own, there was a whole life ahead of you. the breakup was mutual but so were the feelings. what were you supposed to say? “i take it back”?

now here the both of you were 11 years later. you’d found souya and nahoya running a ramen shop in tokyo and just had to have in on it. the twins could finally cook on their own now? it was as much of a shock to them as it was to you. when you first walked in, angry could hardly believe it was you.

you’d grown so much since he’d last seen you all those years ago. surely you’d grown a few inches from what he could see, and the curve of your hands when you waved was so familiar, and the way you slightly tilted your head when you smiled made him feel like he was being warmed up after coming in from the cold.

soon enough, the two of you were friends like you used to be. he would drop off a hot bowl of ramen to your job almost every day, and you would come see him after work every night. souya often crashed at your place, claiming that his brother snored too loud or always had someone over. he would lay peacefully on the couch and imagine you before he went to sleep, daydreaming about you climbing onto his lap and falling asleep there like you used to.

in the coming months, it felt like you were closer than ever. there was no doubt that you were his favorite ex, as much as he hated that word. it happened one night when he was comfortably lounging on your sofa, barely keeping up with some romance tv drama playing on the television.

“are you sleeping?” souya turned around at the sound of your voice coming from behind him. you were perched on the back of the couch with your elbows folded under your chin, a lot closer to his face than he would’ve expected. something about it made him squirm in his seat. a grown man approaching 30, still trying to slow his heartbeat around you.

“nah. you need something?”

you smiled and held out your hand for him to take. “come back to bed with me.”

your bed was softer than he imagined. you were softer than he imagined. he spent the night cuddled up against your chest with his arms wrapped tightly around your waist, listening to the combined melody of your heartbeat and your voice, asking him about how he was doing.

souya doesn’t remember how he responded. it was all a blur by the end of the night. he can only remember you leaning in to connect your lips with his, and the way his mouth gaped open when you pulled away. was that really what he had been missing for so long?

in the morning, you woke up alone. you could only think of one reason why he’d leave so early without saying anything. your heart raced when you reached for your phone to send an apology message.

souya — had to work early today. sorry about that.

maybe two reasons.

the slight feeling of guilt lingered for the rest of the day. throughout working, you’d suddenly remember how you kissed him out of the blue and stop what you were doing to hide your face in your hands. did he not like it? maybe you had the wrong idea.

souya didn’t come over that night. he stayed at the shop late when he had things on his mind. it was a bad habit, considering the kind of things that went on in the streets after dark, but it helped.

you lied back in bed that evening. of course, you’d tried to fall asleep earlier but every time you tried, you’d just end up waking up again. the message notification you received wasn’t unwelcome, but wasn’t necessarily relieving either.

it’s not like you had many options. he had probably just called you up to let you know where you stood. though he could be awkward, souya having another partner wasn’t too far fetched. but then again, why would he treat you the way he did if he had someone else?

all the lights in the shop were off except the ones in the kitchen. you stood at the counter until angry poked his head out from the swinging doors. “you can come back if you want.” you followed him into the warm light coming from behind the doors.

“is everything okay?” your hands couldn’t rest by your sides. you stared at them as you wrung them together, waiting for his answer.

souya shook his head and averted his eyes to the floor.

“is it because of last night? i didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable-“

the hand resting on your cheek answered for him. he gently stroked your cheek with his thumb.

“be mine. for real this time.” his downturned expression couldn’t hide the pleading look underneath.

“you’re for real?”

his body slouched as his hands dropped to his sides. souya leaned forward and plopped his forehead on your shoulder. “why would i joke about that?”

“sorry, i panicked.”

by now, most of his weight was rested on you. you made him feel so weak. only you could make him feel like that. like his heart would go weightless and lift him into the air.

“i’m not sure.”

you lifted his chin from your shoulder with both hands and smiled. “let’s think about it together, yeah?”

[the-insomniac-emporium]

Bound Blood (Cassandra Dimitrescu/Reader, Soulmate AU) Pt. 1

Fandom: Resident Evil: Village Rating: T for blood, language, brief nudity. Later chapters will be M Warnings: Nah fam Summary: Local vampire finds out she can't kill soft human (because they're soulmates, baby), human becomes insufferable bastard, oops they fuck later. Soulmate AU where if one person gets injured, their soulmate feels the same amount of pain and receives a scar in the relevant area.

1: Sharing Is (Not) Caring

It’s not that you had expected to survive this- being locked in the dungeon of Castle Dimitrescu, waiting for the day you’re picked to be someone’s meal. Oh no, you had given up on surviving long ago, it was just that… well, you had hoped that someone with a softer touch would do you in. But here you were, too exhausted to cry, hanging naked in front of none other than Cassandra Dimitrescu. Her eyes were trailing you up and down, examining every inch of your skin, every flaw, every unique trait. It was like she was making a mental map of which parts of you would taste best. Goddamn, you wanted to spit in her face, or scream, or say something, anything that might make her feel even an ounce of what you had felt for weeks.

But you know that she’s already planning to kill you, and to make it painful. Why give her any more reason? Why dare her to find a worse way to end your life? There was no good answer, so you stayed still, just watched her move. Maybe if you looked bored enough she’d make it quick, just stab a knife in you and drink you up like a capri sun. Or, maybe, if you kept a straight face, she would admire your courage. Oh, how you longed for people to think of you kindly now, in your last moments, when dying clean and pretty was no longer an option.

Pulling a blade from some hidden sheathe, Cassandra approaches you with a wicked grin. There’s still blood on her lips from her last victim. Had they not sated her? Or had she been like this for some time? When she inevitably drank from you, how long would your blood remain on her lips? You weren’t sure that you wanted to know. In your mind, you picture her cleaning up as soon as she was done with you. It does not make you feel any better. Neither does the way she traces a finger across your chest, left to right, practicing for the incision to follow. She pauses to lick her lips, making direct eye contact as she does.

What happens next passes by so quickly that you don’t process any of it until the whole ordeal is over. The blade’s tip digs into your chest, just below your collarbone, before dragging along half the width of your torso. It hurts like hell, but you manage to keep your misery to yourself. But your pain is soon replaced with confusion; Cassandra screams, loud enough to echo throughout the basement, doubling over herself. In an instant her knife has clattered to the floor, forgotten. Instinct takes over your brain, the default programing kicking in, and you say something that fills you with instant regret.

“Are you okay?” Your voice is a bit quiet, and raw, worn out from lack of hydration. But it is enough, evidently, for Cassandra to hear. She’s rising back up and glaring at you, one hand clutching her chest. Something in her expression tells you that she thinks you’re mocking her. While that wasn’t technically the case, there was a part of you that found joy in this, watching your captor get a taste of their own medicine. The question left in your mind was why she was in pain. “I’ll take that as a no,” you said, again left with regret at your choices.

Now her hand is swiping at your face, nails cutting you open. Once more she hisses in pain, now clutching her head, shaking a little as she does. When she meets your gaze, you see that she’s more confused than anything. More than that, you see the marks on her face, knowing instantly that they match your own. Oh hell no, you thought, grimacing.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Cassandra growled through clenched teeth. Bouncing back and forth on her heels, she seems tense, unsure of how to process what’s happening. You feel the same way, desperately wanting to pretend that this doesn’t mean you’re her soulmate. Maybe the universe had just messed up, crossing some wires, or decided to pull a prank on the two of you. Either way it was better than the alternative. Eager to think about something else, you start considering your options. The first that comes to mind is ridiculous. Stupid, really. But would it amuse you? Absolutely.

“Not gonna lie, I feel better about the idea of you killing me now. Feel free to make it painful, darlin’, I won’t mind,” you snarked, lips curling up into a smirk. Oh boy was it satisfying to watch Cassandra’s response. One of her hands raises to smack you, only for her to freeze before releasing a torrent of swears. Hurting you meant hurting herself. “What’s the matter? Can’t handle a little aching? Haven’t you ever imagined what it’s like to be on the other side of things? Under the blade yourself, blood soaking your skin, eyes too dry for even a single tear? Poor thing,” you purred, tone as teasing as it could get. Apparently it’s aggravating enough for Cassandra to fight through the pain, as she slams her fist into your stomach, leaving both of you gasping for breath. “This is fun-” you pause to cough out a few drops of blood- “really, really fun. Hey, if you kill me, how bad do you think you’ll feel?”

Before Cassandra can react, either to speak or hurt you worse, the sound of approaching footsteps draws her attention. From where you hang you can’t see much, too many cells and hanging bodies blocking your vision. But your “soulmate” seemed to know who was coming. Her face scrunches up a little, and she adjusts her robes, trying to cover the mark on her chest. Had you not still been coughing, you would have sarcastically asked her how she intended to hide her face.

“What the hell is going on, Cassandra?” An unfamiliar voice asked. The footsteps grew louder, and faster, until the new figure stood in the same cell as you. Not even bothering to spare you a glance, she approaches Cassandra, reaching to examine her face. “Did a prisoner manage to get you? I’ve told you a thousand times-”

“Don’t fucking touch me, sis,” Cassandra snapped, pushing away her sister’s hand. Both of them are visibly tense, and for a moment they stand still, staring each other down. Then the sister (who you assume to be Bela, from things you’ve overheard recently) shifts her focus to you. Something tells you that she has no intentions of being gentle.

“Did you do this, you rotten little thing?” Bela questioned, glaring at you hard enough to send a shiver down your spine. But that doesn’t stop you from trying to have some more fun.

“Oh, of course I did! I rattled my chains real good, scared the shit out of her, made her fall on her own knife a few times. You know, like that one musical?” You must look insane as you speak, grin wide but face dripping with blood. If it unnerves Bela, she hides it well, though you doubt it does. As soon as you’re done poking fun she’s pulling out her sickle. Still grinning, you make eye contact with Cassandra, who realizes what’s happening a second too late. Then the two of you cry out in unison, as the blade carves into your shoulder. Instantly Bela pulls back, stunned, turning to her sister with genuine concern. “I might have lied. Rest assured though, it was for comedic purposes.”

The next thing you know the two sisters are shuffling away from you, Cassandra begrudgingly being dragged along by Bela. Though the younger of the two had been adamant about not receiving help, she now had little choice in the matter, skin searing from your blood bond. Even you are starting to breathe harder than you’d like.

“Was it something I said?” You barked, barely able to manage a fit of giggles between your coughing. Bela shoots you a glare over her shoulder, but quickly returns her attention to her sister. They talk, quickly, soft enough that you can only make out a few words here and there. It’s hard to make meaning from it, especially considering their vastly different tones. Cassandra is pure anger, gestures fast and wide, while Bela is oddly solemn, even regretful. When you finally catch a couple full sentences, things start to make a little more sense, though you wish they didn’t.

“We can kill them painlessly, in their sleep. That way you won’t have to suffer,” Bela whispered. She’s doing her best to comfort her sister, despite the tension in the room, gently patting her on the back. Briefly, you make eye contact with her. In that moment she looks equal parts executor and unwilling jury. But she looks away quickly, even shifting her angle to prevent it from happening again.

“No, fuck that, fuck this, I’m… I’m not killing them. Nobody is,” Cassandra growled, daring to emphasize her point by pushing Bela away. Now it’s her turn to look at you, brows furrowed, eyes betraying something more than just anger. Somehow it’s a million times worse than when she first came in. You strain yourself trying to look away, cursing the chains keeping you in place, resorting to closing your eyes and pretending none of this was real. “I don’t care what you think, Bela. They’re already my ‘meal’, might as well get what enjoyment out of this that I can.”

Again, footsteps echo through the basement. Tension locks your muscles in place, and your eyes are still clamped shut, to the point that you don’t realize your chains are being undone until you’ve hit the ground. Cursing under your breath, you finally open your eyes again. There’s blood on the floor, only some of it yours, and you’re suddenly aching for a bath. More than that, though, you’re praying for something to cover yourself with. Certainly Cassandra didn’t need to see everything, now that you weren’t a piece of meat for her to enjoy? As if reading your mind, the middle Dimitrescu daughter flings open a nearby cabinet, messily searching for something. Eventually she gives a hum of approval, then tosses a blanket in your direction.

“Put it on, dipshit, then follow me,” she snapped, already walking away. For a moment you’re tempted to stay there, sitting still, waiting to see how long it would take for her to notice. But one look from Bela sends the thought back to whatever crevice of your mind it crawled out of. So you’re moving, hastily, awkwardly wrapped in a somewhat itchy blanket. Other prisoners eye you as you pass, some shouting curses or even spitting at you. At first Cassandra takes no notice, or simply doesn’t care, but eventually the noise seems to irritate her. Turning back, she takes her sickle in hand and slams the handle into the bars of a cell. It’s loud, making you flinch, but gets everyone’s attention. “Next one to make a peep gets the blood eagle!”

“Is that, like, a sex thing?” The words leave your mouth before you can stop yourself. Laughter rings out around you from the few prisoners capable of it. Cassandra is seething again, looking about ready to kill you. Then she’s shifting into swarm mode, spreading out wide, insects barreling through half the occupied cells. A few cries escape the prisoners, as the flies take bites out of them, cutting a perfect balance between pain and (a lack of) lethality. They’d be suffering for days to come, every movement making their wounds ache. “Not a sex thing, got it,” you muttered to yourself, just as Cassandra reforms in front of you. This time she grabs the blanket you’re wrapped in, using it to tug you forward, sending you towards the exit.

“Shut up for five minutes and I might let you put on actual clothes,” she growled, keeping one hand on your back to guide you. The offer is the closest thing to kindness you’ve seen from her, and you have half a mind to do what she says. Would you actually manage to keep quiet for that long? Well, you were certainly looking forward to finding out...

[freedomseeker91]

The Ultimate Betrayal....

Chapter 17

Title: Stay

Summary: After speaking with Aubrey, Chloe becomes acquainted with some of Beca’s residual health issues and the former soldier makes a request Chloe can’t turn down.

Rating: T for Angst

Warnings: None

Beca and Chloe watched Aubrey pace the floor as she spoke on the phone with the prosecutor on the case. Though the blonde had no jurisdiction over military law or court cases she been helping out wherever she could, usually fielding questions, explaining complicated legal jargon and offering guidance and advice so both Beca and Chloe were kept informed and felt secure in any decisions that were being made.

“Uh huh, yeah, okay that sounds good. I’ll have copies of the letter on file, if there are any problems or you need any help, please don’t hesitate to contact my office. Okay, thank you, bye.”

As Aubrey hung up the phone, she huffed out a breath and crossed her arms.

“Okay so the prosecution team over the case are confident that entering the letter as evidence will cast major doubt over Chicago’s defence, but they still need your testimony to make sure that they’re that they have the jury on side,” Aubrey said, directing her gaze towards Beca.

“They want you to fly down to Washington next week so they can meet with you and prepare you for the case, do you think you’d be up for that?” she asked, and Beca was already nodding her head.

“Yeah, yeah that, that sounds good. Did they say when next week?” she asked and Aubrey shook her head.

“Not yet. They’re going to email me details tomorrow. I’ll forward them on as soon as I receive them and get my assistant to make arrangements for travel. I’ll be with you the whole time to offer any legal advice I can so if there’s anything you’re worried about I can help you out.”

Beca gave the blonde a small but warm smile, hands coming to rest on the wheels of her wheelchair.

“Thanks Aubrey. I really appreciate everything you’ve done. You’ve gone above and beyond,” Beca said and the blonde just waved off her gratitude.

“Trust me I wanna see that asshole locked up as much as you guys do. Anything I can do to help make that a reality is a win for all of us,” she replied.

“Thanks Bree,” Chloe said as she stood up and walked with her friend to the door. As the redhead was showing her out, Aubrey turned to face her just as she crossed the threshold into the main building hallway.

“I’m assuming I’m booking three tickets to Washington,” Aubrey said as she pulled on her coat and fluffed her hair out over her shoulders, Chloe’s hand clenching tightly to the door handle as if readying herself for an argument.

“I’m not letting her do this alone Bree. I need to be there to support her,” Chloe replied and Aubrey just put a hand up to stop her.

“Hey, I wasn’t gonna suggest otherwise. All I was gonna say is you need to be prepared,” Aubrey stated, her gaze locked on Chloe, “whatever you think you know about what Beca and those soldiers went through is nothing compared to the truth. It’s gonna be hard and it’s gonna be painful. As much as it’s going to hurt Beca to have to relive it, you need to be prepared to hear it.”

Chloe blanched at this, feeling somewhat sideswiped by that Aubrey was saying. For all of her motivation and desire to support Beca, she had never actually stopped and taken the time to consider what the case would actually entail.

Though Chloe was aware of the physical and mental trauma the soldiers had gone through, and could only imagine what they had been subjected to, she didn’t know the details. Beca had never opened up about that time and she understood why, but it was now blatantly obvious that there were things about the woman she loved that she didn’t know.

And the thought of hearing those things for the first time in a court of law in front of a judge and jury and other witnesses suddenly didn’t sit right with Chloe. Tipping her head at Aubrey a friendly goodnight as Chloe closed the door and made her way back to the living room.

Just as she was approaching the couch, she noticed Beca sitting with her back pressed against the backrest, one hand gripping the arm of the couch while the other gripped a cushion, her face scrunched up in pain. Chloe rushed around the couch and perched herself on the edge of it next to Beca, her hand instinctively coming to rest on top of the other woman’s forearm.

“Bec’s, what is it? What can I do?” Chloe asked as Beca puffed out a pained breath.

“It’s n-nothing, it’s just…ughhh” she groaned as another rush of pain coursed through her, “it’s just ph-phantom pains.”

It was then Chloe noticed that Beca’s stumps seemed to be flexing every time another wave of pain would come. She thought for a second and then she was suddenly struck with an idea. She stood up and went to her bag and retrieved a small bottle of lotion she always kept in there.

Working with chemicals developing film, and having always had slightly sensitive skin, Chloe always kept a small bottle of moisturiser in her handbag to rub on her hands throughout the day, especially if she had washed them frequently or during the winter when the weather was particularly harsh on the skin.

With the bottle now in hand she placed her bag down and proceeded down the short hall to the bathroom, retrieving a towel from the rack before making her way back to the living room and reclaiming her previous position on the couch.

“This might help, do you mind?” Chloe asked gesturing with her eyes down to Beca’s stumps. The brunette thought about it for a moment and in any other circumstance she probably would’ve said no, but in this particular moment, she was in too much pain to think about anything else. With a faint tip of the head, she indicated that she was okay with whatever Chloe was going to do.

Placing the bottle down, Chloe carefully lifted one of Beca’s stumps and placed one end of the towel underneath, before repeating the same process with the other, conscious of the pain the former soldier was in. With great respect to Beca, if the movement did cause her any pain, she hid it well.

Chloe then rolled up the short leg of the cotton bottom shorts Beca was wearing and then applied a generous amount of moisturiser to her hands. With one last look toward Beca for confirmation that she was comfortable, Chloe gently took one of the stumps into her hands and began to gently need and massage the residual limb with as much care and tenderness as she could.

Beca audibly moaned as the shooting pains were replaced with a much duller ache. She wasn’t sure if the massage was actually working or if it was merely a placebo effect, her mind focusing more on the hands that were stoking her limb than the pain that had been consuming it a mere minute ago, but it was heaven in that moment.

“Is this okay?” Chloe asked and Beca nodded her.

“More than,” Beca replied, her body beginning to visibly relax.

Having sufficiently worked one limb, Chloe applied more moisturiser to her hands and began kneading the other one.

As she worked at massaging the limb, her eyes regarded the scars at the bottom where the amputation had occurred, and it instantly made her think about all the other scars that marred Beca’s once flawless skin.

She had yet to see the full extent of the damage that had been inflicted on Beca’s back, but from what she understood, it was in non-medical terms, a mess. Scars upon scars, upon scars. Chloe knew Beca still had trouble from time to time sleeping on her back, so she could only imagine the true extent of what lay underneath her shirt.

She had caught small glimpses at the hospital when Beca’s back was being drained of infection, but for the most part, it had been so heavily bandaged, she never caught a glimpse of the full picture. And those scars didn’t account for the other scars Beca had accumulated through war and surgeries, even before she had been captured.

Beca must have sensed Chloe’s silent musings as she broke the silence that had engulfed them.

“You can ask you know,” Beca said, as Chloe’s head snapped up, not expecting her to speak, her eyes looking at her curiously.

“About what happened, over there, you can ask,” Beca said again, licking her lips to ease them of their dry state and swallowing thickly, “you’re gonna hear about it at the trial, and, it’s not fair to you to find out that way. So, if you have any questions, you can ask.”

Chloe wasn’t expecting Beca to be so forward, not with something as sensitive as this, but part of her realised, maybe Beca needed to talk about it, to acknowledge it with someone who wasn’t a fellow solider or a counsellor. To make her experience feel less isolated.

“Bec’s,” Chloe sighed, “there are so many questions to ask and it’s such a loaded topic. It’s late, this isn’t something to just delve into casually,” she said.

“So stay.”

Chloe’s head snapped up at the words, that was definitely not what she had expecting to hear. Beca shifted herself so she was sitting more comfortably in an upright position.

“I don’t mean it in that way, I just meant,” Beca huffed out a breath rubbing at her forehead, “there’s a lot you need to know and, I need to get comfortable talking about this before I take the stand. I need to do this for me, so please, stay. The couch is way more comfortable than it looks and I have some old sweats that still have legs attached you can sleep in.”

Chloe shook her head chuckling subtly under her breath. Trust Beca to find a way to poke fun at her situation to bring levity to a conversation. Glancing back up she gazed deep into Beca’s eyes seeking out any ounce of hesitation, her answer finally coming in the form of a hand that was resting atop of hers on the couch.

“Please stay,” Beca whispered.

Chloe’s eyes dropped down to the hand on top of hers. Taking a deep breath, she flipped her hand palm side up so it was now laced with Beca’s and nodded.

“Okay.”

Chloe wasn’t sure if this was the best idea, and she would’ve been lying if she said there wasn’t some doubt about staying over when they were still working on themselves. But she knew this wasn’t a sexual thing or anything close to the sort. It wasn’t two people trying to skip past the steps to get to the end result quicker. It was one person asking another for support, for comfort, and Chloe couldn’t deny Beca that.

Not when what was ahead of them was likely going to be a painful situation for both of them. Beca was prepared to open up and Chloe wanted to be the safe space for Beca to feel comfortable being vulnerable and being exposed. She wanted her to know that when she was on that stand, sharing her experiences with a room full of people she had never met, that Chloe was there and that she understood.

That when Beca was struggling, she could look to Chloe and see her unwavering love and support. But for that to happen, Chloe needed to know that there were no walls between them. That she wasn’t going to be left shocked or surprised by any revelations that came out in court. That Chloe could understand how Beca was hurting and how best to help ease that pain.

So, with one last deep breath through her nose Chloe nodded.

“Okay.”

With that, Beca squeezed Chloe’s hand that was now laced with hers and heaved out a sigh of relief. She knew what she had to tell Chloe would be painful to hear, that’s why she knew this conversation wasn’t just a casual conversation. It would be long, it would be graphic, and there would be things that Chloe would probably wish she had never had to hear in the first place.

But it was Beca’s reality, memories and nightmares she had to live with daily that would never truly fade. Whether Chloe liked it or not, Beca needed her to understand that. To understand that, good or bad, this was who Beca was now and for Chloe to be aware of what she was signing herself up to if they were to come back together as a couple.

“Thank you,” Beca replied, her voice strained from the emotions she was trying desperately to hold back. 

Though Beca would always be steadfast in her desire that their individual healing should be prioritised above any potential reconciliation, the relief she felt in that moment far outweighed that desire.

She needed Chloe to know the truth, her truth, so that they could both come from a place of fully understanding how those two years had changed and shaped them as people. 

And as she sat there, holding Chloe’s hand, Beca was forever grateful that the woman sitting next to her reciprocated that sentiment just as fiercely. 

[edie-baby]

to have and to hold | juri vips

summary: Juri Vips was a bastard of a teammate. Mostly just because you were insanely in love with him and his flirtatious ways. Juri senses a change in your behaviour and when things begin going back to normal, Juri just fucks it up again. (Similar premise to the Mr & Mrs imagine with Liam, but different[?])

word count: 2894

warnings: swearing, still. i don't think i should have to put warnings about swearing anymore, it's basically a given.

Working with Juri Vips was a fucking trainwreck. There was no light way to put it, it was messy, it was painful, and yet you could never stop fucking staring at him. Being his teammate in F2 for the past year and a half, the two of you had gotten quite close, to the point where his family invited you on vacation with them when they were going, and you had joined them once, but realised about two hours in, that it was a thinly veiled attempt from literally his entire family to get the two of you together.

And while you were all for it, being forced to spend so much time with Juri, while he was shirtless nonetheless, was a literal dream come true, it was also incredibly painful for you to stop from pouncing on him at any given moment. Because as much as his family thought there was something between you, it was purely Juri’s charisma and character to be almost constantly flirting with you.

You remember the first time the two of you, a few other F2 drivers had come along as well, had gone to the beach and he had seen you bust out the bikini you knew made you look like a hot piece, he hadn’t shut up about it, or you, for weeks afterwards.

“Well look at you, little miss supermodel. I would have thought you’d be walking catwalks with legs like that, not pushing pedals like the rest of us. God, you look like you just stepped out of my dreams and onto this beach. If you keep looking like that, I think I might have a problem to deal with later in the shower.” He had hollered, and many of the guys around you either joined in or had nothing to say but gawk. Juri’s comments had cemented themselves in your brain however, calling back upon them whenever you felt less than top dollar, which you had to admit was becoming more often in recent months.

Juri had noticed your slowly waning confidence, of course he had. His gorgeous view of you in crop tops, little skirts, and tight shorts had turned into oversized shorts, hoodies, and ill-fitting jeans. All of which still made you the most beautiful girl in the world, but there was something missing from your aura, a general happiness that had been lacking since the new season started a few months ago. In the entire time Juri had known you, you were never one to listen to other’s opinions of you, whether they be good or bad, the only people you had ever listened to and taken words to heart from were himself, your parents, and your boyfriend.

Somehow in the span of about three minutes, Juri had tracked the four most likely culprits of your diminished ego. He knew he hadn’t said anything harmful or damaging to you since the season began, as many of your conversations had revolved around racing, other drivers in the paddock, or your family. Your parents, he was confident in, he had met them many times before, and they were always genuinely warm and welcoming, he supposed there might have been another side to them, though he believed he would have picked up on it by now. Which leaves only your boyfriend, whom Juri had zero confidence in.

Tye was nice, almost disgustingly so, but he was also much too proud of being nice for it to be genuine. He would open car doors for you, give you flowers every few months, and once bought you a necklace with a pendant of his name. But you would never forget that he did those things for you, because as soon as you would mention something relatively negative, those few acts of kindness were shoved down your throat.

Juri, of course, was not privy to that information. All he knew was that Tye’s possessive behaviour and complete lack of care for your wishes meant that there was something beneath the surface Juri was sure was the reason for your confidence, or lack thereof.

So when you came into work one day, to continue shooting some videos for the YouTube channel, wearing a gorgeously fitted pair of jeans, and a halter-neck singlet, Juri knew something was afoot. Also notable was your lack of gold necklace and your beaming smile toward the Estonian.

“You gonna keep staring like that, or do you want to take a photo?” You asked, your voice holding the teasing lilt Juri had missed in the past weeks. Without breaking his gaze from your body, Juri reached into the pocket of his shorts, his hand retrieving his phone and taking a photo of you standing there, tight clothes and bright smile in all its glory. He smirked when he saw your barely concealed smile.

“You’re in a much better mood than usual. What happened?” Juri couldn’t help but ask, the drastic shift in your mood was more than intriguing to him. Your smile widened, taking the last few steps toward his position in a chair behind the large conference table.

“I lost 80 kilos last night.” You whispered, leaning in closer to Juri, the glint in your eyes, the proximity and the tone were all so familiar to him that he couldn’t help but meet you halfway, barely three inches between your faces as the words processed in his mind.

Juri glanced down at your body confusedly, trying to figure out where exactly the 80kg had disappeared from. Then, the pieces began clicking into place. The lack of gold necklace, the tighter clothes, the glowing smile, none of which would have been staring Juri in the face if Tye had a say.

“You dumped Tye?” Juri questioned, his eyes lighting up, his raise in volume betraying just how excited he was for you, and himself. You nodded, eyes softening as you watched the pure joy cross Juri’s face. Him being happy was something that always warmed your heart, but Juri being happy about you finally being happy? You were sure your knees were about to buckle.

“I’m glad. I can have you all to myself now.” Juri grumbled, reaching for your hands that were braced against the arms of his chair. With a sharp tug, your balance was offset, and your body was tumbling toward Juri’s. You landed with a giggle in Juri’s lap, his own laughter joining yours and the two of you simply enjoyed each other’s presence after having an intangible wall built between you during your relationship with Tye.

Juri couldn’t hold a taken woman like he loved her, not when that taken woman wasn’t his to hold. And you, how could you revel in the feel of man’s touch that was anyone’s but the man you supposedly loved. You couldn’t break out in goosebumps, or have a shiver roll down your spine when you felt the familiar pressure of his calloused fingertips pressing into the skin of your back, desperate to keep you close. You weren’t allowed to sigh in content when you felt the warmth of his body seep into your skin, or whimper when his hot breath rolled over the skin of your neck.

But now you could. Now, without the moral implications of enjoying another man, you could sink into this all-consuming feeling you have when Juri is near.

“Morning you two. We’ve got a video to film in the garage if you want to follow me?” The social media manager, Georgina,  a lovely woman in her 40s whom you always went to for advice and style tips, poked her head into the room you and Juri were tangled in, a cheeky smile on her face when she spotted the somewhat compromising position. A blush fell heavy on your cheeks, and you were quick to try and scramble away from Juri.

He had other ideas though. When Juri began moving, you clutched onto him for dear life, terrified of falling to the ground even though it was only about two feet. Your arms circled around his neck, your legs fully wrapping around his hips from where you were straddling him on the chair. His large hands came to rest on the underside of your thighs, hoisting you up higher on his body. Your legs clenched around his middle, the feel of his fingers pushing into the soft skin of your legs was electrifying, and you were sure if you didn’t have a video to film, you would have been telling the Estonian to find an unoccupied office to take what he needed from you.

But alas, you had a job to do. So, still wrapped around Juri like a vice, he carried you through the Hitech office, nodding to other staff you passed, and occasionally nuzzling his nose into your neck to get a good whiff of your perfume. Juri had said multiple times the scent was intoxicating and could bring any man to his knees. You may have gone out and bought an extra bottle to ensure you never ran out after that.

After a few minutes, you stepped into the garage with Juri, well, he stepped in you just kind of floated in. The scent of grease, rubber and a slight hint of fuel invaded your nostrils, and you sighed in content. Juri chuckled at your actions, he always loved watching you step into a garage, or out onto the pit lane to take in the smells of burnt rubber. You told him every time he laughed at you that it evoked a calm feeling within you, it was nostalgic, filled with happy memories from your childhood and the memories of races you shared with Juri on track.

“Alright lovebirds, can we get you in these chairs and we’ll start explaining while we finish getting set up.” Georgina stated, smiling fondly at the love between her two youngsters. Juri sat you down in one of the chairs sitting before the cameras, not leaving your side for long as he planted himself in his own chair and dragged you as close as possible.

Georgina explained the rules of the game, and the way you would be playing it, choosing you to sit in the background listening to music whilst Juri answered questions about you. First, they gave you a list of questions about yourself, asking to circle the correct answers and they would be compared to Juri’s during the game.

“Ok Juri, the first question. How old was Y/N when she started karting?” Georgina questioned. She watched you in the background closely to ensure you couldn’t hear anything, but you were blissfully unaware of everything around you, headphones in your ears, legs tucked up on the chair, scrolling through your phone with the occasional giggle escaping your lips. Each time Juri heard the angelic sound, he would turn to look at you with a look so soft it made the entire team’s heart swell.

“Uh, I think she was 10, I know she started late because she had to argue with her parents to let her do it with her brothers, and I think 10 is about the right age.” Juri answered, looking as though he was thinking quite hard about it. It had been a long time since the two of you discussed your start in karting, it was one of the first conversations you had together, and since then you hadn’t had to talk about generic teammate topics. Juri was proud that he remembered something seemingly insignificant from a year and a half ago, but supposed when it came to you he could never forget a thing.

“Alright, next question. What is Y/N’s biggest fear? Is it A, the ocean, B, goblins, or C, heights?” Juri’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head when he heard the second answer, trying to figure out why it was even an option in the first place. His eyes focused on one spot on the floor, his brain moving a mile a minute to analyse conversations he had with you.

“Well, we’ve been to the beach together a few times, and thinking back I don’t think she’s ever gotten into the water. So maybe the ocean, but she also said once when we were looking at a castle that she doesn’t like gargoyles, so goblins could be a thing. But she’s definitely not scared of heights. She’s gone skydiving, bungee jumping and climbed bridges and things like that. So I’m going to say the ocean. I feel like I would definitely know if she was scared of something like goblins.” Juri laughed, his eyes still glued to the spot on the floor, his thoughts flowing through his mouth with little consideration of how they could be interpreted.

“What is something Y/N never leaves the house with?” Georgina was hopeful for this question, she was sure it could be the catalyst for the two drivers to finally own up to their feelings after reading your answer. Juri listened to the multiple choice answers, but none of them sounded just right.

“So, the rings sound the closest, but sometimes she will wear lots, and other times only a few, and when she can’t wear them on her hands, she’ll thread it onto a necklace to wear under her race suit, or something so yeah, I’d say the rings.” Juri answered, turning to look at you behind him, wearing the exact ring he was talking about on the ring finger of your right hand.

“And what ring is the one she wears on her necklace?” Georgina probed, knowing the answer and just wanting to see the way Juri heated up when he talked about it.

“Uh, it’s a diamond ring that has a J engraved on the inside.” Juri answered, his cheeks turning an adorable shade of pink. A smile broke out on your face as you watched Juri, his flustered state always made you giggle as he was such a confident and put-together person usually. As a habit, you began spinning the ring on your right hand around, feeling the shape of the diamonds and knowing the initial carved into the inside was a claim over you.

“Do you know where she got it?” Georgina asked. She was getting frustrated, Juri was much more calm about revealing the intimacy of the ring than she had hoped.

“I gave it to her. About a year ago, and then she gave me a necklace with an (your initial) on it. I wear it every day, and it’s the only piece of jewellery I wear while I drive.” Juri answered, his fingers reaching up to toy with the thin gold chain hidden beneath his shirt. He looked over his shoulder at you, spotting the spinning ring immediately and smiling at you.

You looked up at him, a dazed look as you stared at the gorgeous man in front of you. He could see the stars in your eyes, staring at him as though he hung the moon, and if he was honest with himself, if you asked, he would. There was nothing you could ask of him that would be too much, even if you didn’t ask, he would do everything for you. No one had ever held this power over him, he wasn’t even sure it would feel this good if it were anyone else, but you just did something to him. You unlocked a part of him he didn’t know existed.

You were just, everything. To him. You were everything he ever wanted, ever needed, even everything he didn’t know he needed. You opened him up, poured sunshine into his life in the form of your smile, happiness penetrated his bones because of your laugh. He didn’t want to lose that again, didn’t want to lose you to another man. He needed you, and he needed you now.

It was like slow motion, the way Juri surged out of his chair toward you, his hands cupping your jaw roughly as he guided you to your feet. The laptop on the ground pulled the earphones from your ears, your phone clattering to the floor in your surprise. Your hands reached up to fist in his shirts, not wanting to lose this proximity. You had him in your grasp and you’d be damned if you ever let him go again.

Juri pressed his lips to yours, as soft and warm as you’d imagined them so many times before. You kissed him back with ferocity, the eighteen months worth of emotion poured into a kiss to communicate your feelings in a way that didn’t need words. He kissed back just as fiercely, his hands holding your face still to allow him to do exactly what he needed. You were pliable to his every demand, putty in his hands. Juri had always had this effect on you, every fleeting touch or brush of a hand on your waist made your knees weak and your stomach flutter with the force of a thousand butterflies.

Juri pulled away, barely a breath between your lips as he panted slightly. Your eyes were trained on his lips, the fullness of his bottom lip, the redness from your assault on them making them look all the more kissable.

“So, how about we switch that ring to the other hand and really make this a Mr & Mrs video?”

[aidanchaser]

A Proper First Kiss

For February @jilychallenge​

Prompt:  “shit... i didn't mean to do that." "you didn't mean to kiss me?“

Partner: @redheadreader7​

A Proper First Kiss Rating: T (for underage drinking and excessive drinking) Word Count: 3K read on ao3 listen to the playlist

“Do you have a death wish?” Sirius asked.

James’ leg bounced anxiously and he tightened his hands into the red bedspread on his unmade dormitory bed. “No.” He got up to pace, unsure what else to do with the nervous energy that coursed through him.

“Are you an idiot, then?”

“Jury’s out on that one,” Remus muttered around the pen he was chewing on as he worked through their Defence against the Dark Arts essay.

“Should I have said no?” James ran his hands up over his face and into his hair, tugging sharply at the roots. His glasses slid a bit further down his nose.

“Did you ask if it was as friends?” Peter asked. “Maybe it’s one of those things where she just can’t say that she really does like you.”

“I didn’t have to ask. She said, ‘Please, you’d be the best date to spite my sister, other than Black, but he’s already said no.’ They were exact words, Pete! I’m literally her second choice after bloody Sirius!” James flopped down onto his bed and groaned into the pillow.

“I thought she was going to ask Remus next, or Fenwick,” said Sirius. “If I’d known she was going to corner you, I would’ve warned you.”

“That would have been worse,” James said into the pillow. “Then I would have had all day to think about it. And I still probably would have said yes.”

“Nothing to it now,” said Remus. “Unless you want to be rude and back out at the last minute. But I won’t save you by going with her, and she’ll go with Fenwick instead.”

James was not about to watch Lily take Benjy Fenwick to her sister’s wedding. He sighed and tried to put on the bravest face he could manage, something to make Godric Gryffindor proud. “I’ll go,” James sat up. “It’s just a wedding, anyway.”

“It’s her sister’s wedding!” Sirius said. “There’s going to be photos and dinners and all sorts of things.”

“But I’m just a plus one,” James protested. “I’m not… Oh, Merlin,” his attempt at bravery evaporated as quickly as a Wisp exposed to wandlight. He sank back into his pillows and tried to disappear into his bed covers and pillows. “I’m fucked. I’m well and properly fucked.”

“Remus and I will pick out all your outfits,” Peter promised.

“Suits are simple as long as they fit right,” Remus said without looking up from his parchment, “but you’ll need something for any dinners or rehearsals.”

“I’ve got jeans.”

“Oh no,” Peter said. “Well, maybe for a nice breakfast or lunch. But otherwise it’s slacks only.”

“We’ll send you with notes,” said Remus. “And a list of wizardly things you absolutely shouldn’t say.”

“I think I just won’t say much of anything.”

Sirius laughed. “Potter, keep his mouth shut in front of Evans? Potter, not bang on about his Quidditch record for more than five minutes?”

“Shove it, Sirius! This is your fault entirely!”

“Hardly. No one told you to accept Evans’ invitation to her sister’s wedding this summer. Even though you knew it was just as friends. Even though you knew it was a spite-date because she hates her sister.”

James groaned once more and pulled his pillow over his head to drown out Sirius. He had really put himself into the middle of something truly awful, just for the chance at a weekend with Lily Evans. He was a fool and an idiot and a berk and every name he could think of.

“You’ll be all right, James,” Peter promised. “What’s the worst that could happen, really?”

The worst that could happen, it turned out, was far worse than James could have imagined.

Meeting Lily’s family was hard. Meeting Petunia’s fiancé was hard. Meeting the extended family at the rehearsal dinner was hard. Sitting around while Lily had to manage her sister as the girls got ready for the ceremony was hard. Sitting through the ceremony, staring at Lily in her powder blue gown that showed off her bare, freckled shoulders was hard. Going through all of it, knowing how much he loved her and knowing how much she did not love him — not the way he wanted her to, at least — was hard.

But it was not the worst.

After the ceremony, they moved from the church to the nearby hotel that had been reserved for dinner and further celebration. As they entered the lobby, Lily linked her arm through his, grinned as a couple of the other bridesmaids whispered to each other about how tall her date was, then led him to the bar.

James raised an eyebrow at her. “Isn’t the Muggle drinking age eighteen?”

She shrugged. “I’m the sister of the bride. Rules don’t apply to me today.”

James was not sure that was true, but the bartender didn’t ask questions as Lily gave her name and ordered something called a John Collins for herself. It took James a moment to realise that John Collins was the name of a drink and not the bartender. “Want one? My parents are covering everything tonight.”

“Er — no thanks. Maybe later.”

“I thought you’d dive right in,” she said and pulled a bit of paper Muggle currency from the top of her dress and dropped it into the glass jar of tips. James hurriedly looked away, feigning interest in watching some of the bridesmaids hovering around Petunia and her now husband as they arrived in the hotel lobby.

“I’m surprised. You’re always the first one to pop open the Firewhiskey after a Quidditch match,” Lily said.

James shrugged. He drank in the common room because it felt safe to drink with friends. He did not think that he ought to lose any sort of focus in a crowded room full of Muggles. In fact, he was more surprised that Lily had ordered something than she was that he hadn’t. She never drank in the common room. She was a Prefect and above such frivolity and rule-breaking.

The bartender slide a tall glass toward Lily, full of a drink coloured dark like Firewhiskey, but decorated with a lemon and a cherry.

Lily wrapped her pale pink lips around the straw, drank quickly, and set the glass down. She asked the bartender for another.

James wondered if maybe Lily drank at home but not at school, perhaps for similar reasons he was comfortable drinking at school but not here. “Are you trying to make up for missing the hen party?” with a wary smile.

She wrinkled her nose. “I wasn’t invited — and even if I had been, it wouldn’t have been any fun. It’s not as if I know any of her friends.”

“Ah.” James felt as unsure of how to interact with Lily here at a wedding as he did interacting with her Muggle family. At school, they had a familiar rhythm. They teased each other, he embarrassed himself, and sometimes, if he was lucky, she would smile at one of his jokes.

She took her second drink from the bartender and led James to their assigned seats for the dinner portion of the evening. Luckily they were seated with her parents, so James did not have to worry too much about blending in with the Muggles. They would be understanding of any blunders. The trouble was, they were also seated with Petunia’s husband’s parents, and that made for a unique challenge of trying to engage very boring people in a conversation James could only half-participate in.

But once the meal itself had passed, and the toasts were done, and both sets of parents got up to greet close friends and extended family, James thought that he had survived the worst of the night. Until he counted up four tall glasses, filled with nothing but ice and lemon peels, in front of Lily.

He couldn’t be sure if it was Lily Evans or John Collins who dragged him out onto the dance floor when the disc jockey put on something that made Lily, Petunia, and several other girls squeal and drag their dates onto the floor. James didn’t know the song, exactly, but he thought he recognised it from one of Remus’ albums — the one with the men in pastel and one of them possibly wearing a bucket hat.

The tinny speakers fought to be heard over the sounds of conversation that echoed in the small hotel ballroom, but there was something strangely intimate about the way Lily’s fingers linked into his, her hips swayed to the “bah-bop” of the music, and her lips moved around the lyrics. The low, yellow-ish light and the dark wood panelling coupled with the soft fade out of the music swirled in James’ head as dizzyingly as if he had been the one to down four bourbon drinks.

Yes, Lily had invited him here to spite her sister, to give herself a bit of entertainment on what might have otherwise been a miserable day, but now he was actually here and they were dancing and she was smiling and before he quite knew what he was doing, he leaned down and kissed her.

The song swelled up again as he pulled away, face hot and sweat pearling on the back of his neck. “Shit,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

Her freckled cheeks were pink, and he had no way to know if it was the dancing, the alcohol, or the kiss. She blinked up at him with bright green eyes, a bit unfocused but shimmering even in the dim light. “You didn’t mean to kiss me?”

He waited for her temper to flare, or for her to tease him the way she always did. But neither happened. Instead, a lazy grin split her face and she, though she was not much shorter than him, pushed herself up onto her toes for another kiss.

He tasted the sweet, lingering bourbon and lemon on her lips, mingling with syrup and cherry and he stepped away. “Maybe we ought to talk about this tomorrow,” he suggested, afraid to end this moment he had longed for for longer than he could accurately describe, but afraid to take it without proper permission.

“I’m not interested in talking, Potter. I’m just here to dance.” She slid her hands up his arms to his shoulders.

James, unsure what to do with his hands now that he could not hold hers, carefully dropped his hands to her waist. The cotton dress felt strangely rough against his palms, and he felt like a boy on his very first date again, hyper aware of every touch, breath, and sound, and terrified that one wrong move would end the whole thing. Her fingers laced together behind his neck and she pressed against him with a bit more weight than usual for a simple dance. She swayed out of time with the music and leaned up to kiss him again.

He turned his head, ever so slightly, and her lips found the corner of his mouth. His mind whirred as he fought the desire to just let her lead, to take his chance while he had it. She clearly wanted to kiss him, but if she didn’t want to kiss him when she was sober, he didn’t want her to kiss him at all.

She said in a low voice, “You know what would be really funny?”

Her weight shifted suddenly and it was all James could do to hold her up on her feet.

“If you proposed right now,” she giggled. “That would show Petunia.”

And James knew that, however much he might want to enjoy one more dance and one more kiss, he needed to get Lily away from this wedding.

He carefully guided her away from the dance floor and found her parents. They had the key to the room Lily was sharing with them; James had a key to his own room and, despite the way Lily’s warm breath was making his head spin, he at least had the sense to not take her upstairs without letting her parents know he was taking her to their room.

He guided her to the lift and, as it lurched upward, she went very pale. James had indulged at enough Quidditch match after-parties that he knew what was coming next.

He hastily pressed the button for the next floor and yanked a wastebasket from beneath a table just in time.

Lily slumped around the small bin and fell to the floor of the lift. It was not a pleasant set of sounds, but James felt more comfortable here in a lift with a queasy Evans than he did in at dinner with her parents and in-laws.

She moaned as the lift continued its ascent and James knelt beside her. He promised that the floor would stop moving shortly.

When he carefully led her out of the lift and onto their floor she whined about moving and clung to the basket like a toddler might clutch a teddy bear. James had endured enough of Sirius, Remus, and Peter overindulging and did not find any of Lily’s behaviour unusual. He supposed he had also had his nights where he had been as drunk and miserable as Lily was, but he didn’t exactly remember what it was like from her perspective.

Still, he promised her that it would be okay, that she just needed to get water and get to bed, that he was going to help her, that she could lie down soon, and though she protested and moaned and cried about how she did not want to move, she allowed him to guide her back to her room.

Though there wasn’t much left for her to evacuate, she had another sick-fit over the toilet then lied down on the cold tile.

James bit down on his lip. This was the part where he would help Sirius out of his nice leather jacket, where he would get Remus into the shower, or where he would help Peter dress for bed. None of those were things he felt comfortable doing with Lily.

He weighed his options and tried to imagine the worst possibilities: either Lily’s mother and father came back and found her like this or he took care of her now and, with any luck, Lily would simply not remember it in the morning.

James sighed and prayed for luck. He wasn’t sure who he was praying to, but he hoped someone was listening as he turned on the shower and helped Lily out of her dress.

The next morning, when he met her parents downstairs for breakfast in the hotel lobby, she did not look much better than when he had left her. It was hard to gauge if the misery written on her face was purely physical or if she remembered what had happened.

In an effort to spare her unnecessary conversation, he asked her parents how the end of the wedding had gone, and if Petunia and Vernon had gotten to the airport alright.

“Oh, yes, it went wonderfully,” Mrs Evans said. “It’s a shame Lily wasn’t there for the bouquet toss.”

“Busy doing a toss of her own,” Mr Evans grunted.

“I’m hungover, not deaf, Dad,” Lily grunted and took a large sip of coffee. “As if you two were perfectly sober all night. I saw how much wine you had.”

“Neither of us spit sick all down our nice dress,” Mrs Evans said as she stirred sugar into her coffee.

Lily wrinkled her nose. “I am sorry, Mum. I was fine, really, until the dancing… Thanks for cleaning me up, at least. I think you got most of it out of the dress.”

Mrs Evans suppressed a smile and James’ ears grew hot. He searched for something to say before Mrs Evans could out his good deeds — he did not want Lily to know, he had hoped she would not remember — but his usually quick wit felt sluggish.

“Er — I’d recommend something heavy —”

But James did not get to finish his hasty hangover advice before Mrs Evans said, “I’m not the one who cleaned out your dress, dear. That was James.”

James was not sure if he watched Lily’s thoughts come together in slow motion or if she truly was that slow this morning. It was like he could see each piece of the night slide into place and horror slowly took over her pale expression. Waking up in her pyjamas, examining the wet, freshly cleaned splotches on her dress, noticing her hair had been washed, the used towels on the floor, the stolen wastebasket…

Lily was silent for the rest of breakfast; James, too, did not contribute much to her parents’ conversation. It was not until they were in the back of the car, on their way back to Lily’s parents’ house, when they had a brief moment of semi-privacy, shielded by the music from the car radio and her parents’ facing the road that she whispered to him, “And… did you really… kiss me?”

So she had not forgotten everything as he had hoped.

“Er — I am sorry about that,” he said, and picked at a bit of lint on the slacks Remus and Peter had so carefully packed for him. “You er — you did kiss me back.”

Lily wrinkled her nose.

James heart sank.

“It’s fine,” he said hastily. “I won’t tell anyone. I know you don’t like me, exactly.”

She stared straight ahead with a stricken expression and, for a moment, James thought she might be about to be sick again. He didn’t do well with cars normally; he could not imagine how Lily must feel on a long drive, hungover as she was.

Finally she turned and looked at him. “It’s not that I don’t like you. You’re…” she hesitated, which James did not think was a good sign. “You’re an absolute arse, you know, and you’re constantly preening and worried about what others think and those are all the reasons I wanted you to be here, because it would be fun — and it was. But I… I forget you’re kind when no one’s looking. I like the person you are when you’re not around others. I wish you were that person more often.”

James swallowed. Oh. He had never thought she actually paid all that much attention to him, beyond calling him a toerag and wrinkling her nose when he scored during a match. He could not help himself. A grin spread across his face.

“I suppose,” he said, “if you want me to be kind more often, you’ll just have to get drunk more often.”

She slapped his arm, but no harder than Sirius might have if James had called him a dog. And — yes, he was sure of it — she was fighting a smile.

James resolved to write to her once a week over the summer, at least. She wanted him to be kind more often? He could manage that. He could manage trying to be just a little kinder, for her sake.

There would be a few more sloppy drunk kisses in the common room when they returned to Hogwarts, but eventually, as James practised being kind and Lily practised letting her guard down, they would have their first proper, sober kiss, tucked away in one of the many hidden passages, and neither of them would have to apologise for it.

[hollyhomburg]

Before I Leave You (Pt.2)

(Omegaverse au, Mafia au, Bts x Reader)

*SNEAK PEAK*

Summary: On the worst days, Yoongi is judge, jury, and executioner. But he judges you and finds you worthy of protecting (and loving too). 

Tags: Dead bodies, blood, murder/crime themes, guilt, childhood trauma, drugs (cocaine, heroine), domestic abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, controlling behavior, implications of omega mistreatment/discrimination, anorexia, blood, graphic depictions of violence, manipulation, talking behind someone's back, morally gray Yoongi, 

W/c: 14.5k

A/N: Honestly this took me way too long to write and edit. I can’t tell if this is my favorite depiction i’ve ever written of falling in love or if I hate it. But yeah- i didn’t want to sit on it for much longer. This part takes place chronologically before the last part, and documents what happened while yoongi was away from the rest of his pack. 

Previous part — Masterlist

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

CHAPTER 2: THE DON

“She’s just an omega- you know how they are- they need a firm hand to keep them in their place.” Yoongi scoffs thinking of his omegas. Anyone who even dared to think that Seokjin and Jungkook did not wear the pants in their pack had another thing coming to them. 

He watches his older brother cut another line of cocaine. 

The amount of drugs in this Geumjae’s study cost enough to feed a small family for a year. But Yoongi knows better than to partake. He pretends to take a Bump and taps it off when Geumjae tips back a shot."Omegas aren't even fucking worth it if you ask me, brother, you're supposed to give half of yourself away, and for fucking what? A glorified bed warmer?"

Yoongi boils and stays silent, letting Geumjae get himself wasted on drugs and alcohol. He can't tell what distresses him more Geumjae has such little regard for life that he can't recognize that omegas are fucking people- or that he's so freely sharing this with him. 

He knows he’s toeing the line. More pushing might hurt you more, if he provoked aggression from his brother- it would no doubt come back to bite you. Yoongi can’t imagine wanting to hurt someone he loves or speaking with the same callousness that Geumjae speaks. “Don’t you love her?”

Geumjae laughs at Yoongi’s childish question “Oh little brother, don’t you know that love makes you stupid?”

His brother has it all wrong but Yoongi’s powerless to say it. Those threats from the funeral linger. And it's not only your life and Yoongi’s at stake here but the rest of his pack. He has to fool Geumjae into thinking he is on his side. 

“Work with me here- what will the other omegas in the pack think of you if they find out what kind of shit you pull? And they’ll take their concerns straight to their alphas and say you’re unfit to lead. You know I have to listen to the bulk of them regardless of what you want.”

If he can’t appeal to Geumjae’s humanity- he can appeal to Geumjae’s better interest and common sense. His image in the family is arguably the most important thing in geumjae’s mind, and Yoongi can tell by the way that Geumjae stiffens when he says the words that it’s stuck.

Geumjae might have been trained in torture, but Yoongi was trained in manipulation. And he take the bait- hook, line, and sinker. 

After that, he has the good sense to act softer with you in front of the rest of the family at the very least. But he fears he might have done more bad than good when he sees the way you stiffen and fail to meet his eyes more consistently as the days go on. You’re sensitive about eye contact, Yoongi gets it. you don’t have as much control over your facial expression as the rest of these robotic mobsters.  

Group dinners are routine, and while Yoongi could find an excuse to see you during the day, he’s also often pulled in 50 different directions by the expectations of his family.

He finds himself reading for dinner in a hurry most nights, eager or maybe a little panicked to check in with you. You never request his presence, you never text (though he made sure you have his number just in case), and the family dinners are tense between the two of you.

You maintain none of the easy friendship you’d started that day in the rain or that closeness. You avoid him like the plague at dinner, and It’s like that day in the rain never happened. 

Geumjae sticks to your side like glue too. A hand that probably looks protective to anyone else but looks possessive to Yoongi slung around your waist. Yoongi sees the harshness and pain in your body when Geumjae’s hand tightens digging into the swell of your hip. You’re soft in the way that most omegas are a little soft- and it’s as expected as it is distracting.

He manages to corner you during one of the dinners. you're not alone- and you can hear the grannies and omegas prattling to each other in the kitchen. the alphas are outside enjoying a cigar and investigating one of the new rolls royces that one of yoongi’s uncles recently purchased. 

The corset portion of your dress making your chest soft looking, plump and inviting if yoongi was the kind of man to get distracted by something like that. As it is- all he notices is how it’s making your chest heave. Breath uneven, he thinks he can hear the boning in the dress creek. It’s a designer thing, but it looks way too tight on you. he can tell how uncomfortable you are. 

“Are you okay?” he asks, though it's clear you’re not, you dont reply, looking down and away worried. Hand hovering over your stomach, “I won’t get mad whatever it is.”

You bite your lower lip. hand catching yourself on a side table before you teater over, dizzy. Yoongi grabs you before you fall. “He did my corset too tight, it’s hurting my ribs. I feel like im going to pass out.” Yoongi quickly looks around, but there is no one around in the part of the house right now, the garden is a backdrop, speckled with lights. you’re alone. 

Yoongi turns you around quickly, setting his champagne to the side and grabbing yours out of your hand. He undoes the top knot of the dress and you inhale gratefully as he tugs at the strings looser, fingers touching your bare skin. “Is that better?” he has to be quick. This isn’t exactly scandalous- but- its not quite proper. 

You inhale deep and grateful. “So much better, thank you.” you barely have a second to both straighten up, Yoongi's fingers pulling the bow back together. grabbing your champagne and sipping at it a careful distance away from Yoongi. looking for all intents and purposes like you’ve been swathed in uncomfortable silence the entire time they were gone. The picture of propriety as Geumjae and a few other alphas return in a puff of rich smoke. 

“Don’t mention it.” Yoongi says it softly so that only you can hear it.

More than once. Geumjae catches him staring at you during the dinner. you look so much more comfortable now that it’s been loosened. Your hand hovering in front of your dress to conceal your cleavage under the guise of fiddling with your necklace. During those moments, Geumjae rewards Yoongi’s wandering gaze with bold touches. A hand sliding from waist to hip and your sudden straightening in pain. 

Geumjae’s harsh fingers digging into a bad bruise on your hip. you’re so trained, you barely flinch when he does it. And still- Yoongi’s hands tighten in his slacks. Gritting his teeth and biting the inside of his cheek to stop himself from making a scene and reaching across the table to stop Geumjae from hurting you.

Many of the other members of the family notice Geumjae’s sudden dogmatic approach to your presence in his life. Confirming what Yoongi suspects. That he’d never given you too much attention at these family meals before Yoongi came with his wandering eyes. He should do better be better not to put you in harm's way.

Yoongi keeps his eyes firmly trained on his plate full of spiced soft-shelled crab as one of the grannies comments on how sweet the two of you seem. Yoongi wants to gag. “You know how new love is. I feel like we’ll be in the honeymoon phase forever. I want her all to myself so bad I think she’s worried I’ll chain her to my bed” he says- feigning drunkenness. You laugh too- trying to play it off but Yoongi can see your barely concealed fear.

Staying silent and letting your husband hurt you is the hardest thing that yoongi’s ever had to do. But there are many more battles, fights and skirmishes to win in this war. Yoongi has to be patient.

He’s a poised snake, ready to strike at the perfect moment.  

COMING WEDNESDAY APRIL 21 @ 6PM EST

[new-sandrafilter]

How Timothée Chalamet Channeled The Blockbuster Pressure of Leading Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Dune’ Back Into His Role – Venice Q&A

DEADLINE: In a few days Dune will premiere at the Venice Film Festival. You first met Denis Villeneuve about the role in May 2018 and started shooting in the early half of 2019. It was always going to be a long journey, but the pandemic stretched it even further. How does it feel to have finally arrived at this moment?

TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET: You know, I like to think that with every film I’ve done, whether it’s Call Me by Your Name or Beautiful Boy, The King, or Little Women, the character you play is almost a piece of your flesh. And that’s always true, but simply from the perspective of how long the shoot for Dune was, and also the arc that Paul Atreides is on, as well as the huge love and almost biblical connection that so many people have for the book and the original film, it really felt… tectonic, if that’s the right word for it. Just getting to this finish line feels like: phew.

And independent of what the film is now, and what it has become, the experience of making it was I was put in such a safe environment, which you can never take for granted as a human, as an actor, but especially when you’re just starting your career, and when this is the first film of this size you’ve ever done.

To get to work with Denis on it, to get to work with someone of his caliber, let alone on a book that he considers the book of his youth and one of the things he has connected to the most… When he would have it in his hands on set, his body language would become that of a fan; of a kid who had fallen in love with the book at home in Montreal. And when all the kids around him were wearing hockey jerseys with their favorite players’ names on the back, this was a kid wearing a jersey that said ‘Spielberg’ on the back.

For it all to come together, especially with the added challenge of the pandemic, it has all combined to make this moment feel especially spicy [laughs].

DEADLINE: The entire ensemble will show up in Venice.

CHALAMET: Right. And I just can’t believe it; Jason Momoa has the number one film on Netflix right now with Sweet Girl, which I just watched. And since we shot, Zendaya has had all this success with Euphoria and Malcolm & Marie. Just to be part of this cast, period, let alone as one of the title characters, it’s really the shit you dream of.

And let me not forget, too—and I know I’ve told you this before—that The Dark Knight was the movie that made me want to act. That movie had a score by Hans Zimmer, and he has done the score for Dune. And it’s almost not what you’d think. It’s totally appropriate and excellent for the movie, but he has somehow managed to do something subversive, in my opinion. It’s a pinch-me moment all over.

DEADLINE: So, take me back to the start. Is it true you had a Google alert set up to track the latest news on this project before you were ever cast?

CHALAMET: Yeah, it’s true [laughs]. Not right away—Legendary had the rights and was developing it—but as soon as Denis got involved, I set up a Google alert and that’s when I got the book.

In total honesty, I think my understanding of Dune at that point was from a graphic novel I’d seen at Midtown Comics when I was shopping for Yu-Gi-Oh! cards when I was about 10. The year you and I first met, when I was there at Deadline Contenders with Call Me by Your Name, that would have been 2017 or early 2018, and Denis was there with Blade Runner. I remember I was trying to put myself in front of him as much as possible and set up a meeting with him. We had a night at the BAFTA where one of my good friends, Stéphane Bak—who’s also an actor—saw Denis across the room and was like, “Hey buddy, he’s right over there.” So, we went over to talk to him. I kept trying to put myself in front of him, but I didn’t really get a sense of the possibility [of working with him].

I was about halfway through the book when I got the call that he was going to be the president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival, and I was in London prepping The King. He asked me if I could come out there, so I quickly busted through the second half of the book as best I could. So, like, the first half of my copy is properly annotated and full of my thoughts, and then the second half I just raced through. And then I had that meeting with him, and it was such a joy.

I’m struggling with this even now, as I’m working with Paul King [on Wonka], because he’s another guy I have huge respect and admiration for, and it’s hard to feel on a level. Not that you ever are, because as an actor you’re a cog in the machine, and you’ve got to be humble to the vision of the director. But with Denis, he was pacing around the room, throwing ideas around, in some fancy suite in Cannes, and all I could think was that a year before I was just sat on a stoop on 9th Street in the East Village or something.

DEADLINE: Was that your first time in Cannes?

CHALAMET: Yeah. Well, bizarrely, my sister would do dance camps growing up. Ballet intensive programs in a town called Mougins, which is nearby Cannes, so I spent a lot of time there growing up, but never during the festival, and not on the Riviera. To get to be there for the festival was just nuts. I went to see the Romain Gavras movie, I think, and it was just a huge joy.

I got attached [to the role in Dune] a couple of months after that, and it was nerve-wracking from the announcement, because like I said before, the fans of the book, and the fans of David Lynch version, the computer game, and everything, there’s so much love and strength of feeling. And so much of our pop culture and films and books have been derived from Dune, and all the philosophy the book. I’ve been shocked to learn how many people have a next-level connection to the book. I compare it to how our generation grew up with Harry Potter, and that one makes sense to me. But it’s cool to see with Dune also, when you actually sit down and read it… It’s not that it’s a quote-unquote “hard read” or anything, but it’s not made to be consumed easily, I think that’s fair to say.

So, I was grateful to be working on something of this size not only with Denis Villeneuve leading it, who between Polytechnique, Incendies and Prisoners had nailed the smaller indie film across languages, and then had nailed Arrival and Blade Runner, but who, in his own words, he didn’t feel he’d made his greatest film yet. But also, to be working with this cast. I don’t know if there’s some nightmare version of a film where a young lead is not supported by the rest of his cast, where every one of them had been the leads in their own huge projects. But on this, everyone was there to support, and I think it’s because we all wanted to be foot soldiers for Denis, and I think we understood the potential, based on the script by Eric Roth, Jon Spaihts and Denis, that this could be something really special.

DEADLINE: I don’t have a connection to Dune; this movie is really my first experience of the story. What strikes me is this is clearly an enormous universe—a broad canvas being painted with various families and factions and politics and mythos—but that ultimately it comes down to very elemental, human themes, and we feel them through this character you play, Paul Atreides. Did those themes help ground the experience for you?

CHALAMET: Yes, and I would give the credit entirely to Denis. He would constantly say on set that he had some opposing drumbeat or something. In my diminished intellectual standing, I didn’t understand it, but it was like some vision for the movie based on how biblical the book is that tries to tackle so much that it doesn’t tackle anything. I think he felt the need to be close to a character in it, and Paul is that guy in the book. He’s a character that is still in formation, like a lump of clay, which makes him a great figure for the audience to mirror off.

It speaks, I think, to Denis’ premonition and his directing ability that there were times when we’d move on from a shot or move on from a scene, and I swear, literally, we’d go back because Denis wanted to get something over my shoulder, or push in on my reaction, just to make sure [it stayed on Paul].

And again, it’s something where I’m pinching myself. I had the best time on Interstellar, and that was one of my favorite films I’ve ever worked on, but it was very much something where I was aware of when I had the opportunity to do real acting. And on a movie like Dune, again, one could think it would get lost in the scale and scope. But I felt every day like my plate was full.

DEADLINE: One of those themes is fear, and Paul must overcome his to become the person he needs to be. When you are number one on the call sheet on a project of this scale, and the cast list reads like an address book of Hollywood in the 21st century, and Legendary has injected hundreds of millions of dollars into this production, and it’s all falling on your shoulders, I have to imagine fear is a theme you can readily relate to.

CHALAMET: Oh yeah, and they can bleed into each other for sure—not to diminish the other work that goes in. It’s great when your life experience can inform the role. That’s not at all to say I’m on some crusade in the universe or anything, but definitely… And I had that same good fortune with The King I think. My life is not nearly as significant or as exciting as Paul or Prince Hal, but we all share an unwitting needle in the haystack feeling. On The King that feeling was because I was so new to having a career. On Dune it’s because of, as you say, just feeling the pressure of the hugeness of the project in all those different ways. Those things can absolutely inform each other.

And then there are the moments of glee that come, too, like seeing Jason Momoa running at you at a hundred miles an hour, or just getting to shoot the shit with Josh Brolin, or getting to do a scene with Oscar Isaac. I felt so supported, whether it was Rebecca Fergusson or Charlotte Rampling. When Zendaya came, it was a total breath of fresh air, and she’s one of my favorite parts of the movie. I just got really lucky, and I can’t wait to see them all in Venice.

Denis split the book in half, and the hope is a second movie will get a greenlight. That’d expand Zendaya’s role in the story.

CHALAMET: Definitely, Chani will play a huge role in the next film. I don’t know if there’s a script yet, but just based on the book, along with Lady Jessica [Rebecca Fergusson], they have a lot to do together, let’s put it like that. And Zendaya was incredible in this movie; the moment she pulls the mask down, it felt properly showstopping and powerful. I was hiding behind the camera, counting my lucky starts, because I was there in month two of the shoot and here was a total powerhouse just coming in for the first time.

And as I said before, this was before I’d seen Euphoria and Malcolm & Marie. She’s doing such incredible work and is just trailblazing her own path, and she’s so, so cool. She also happens to be in the most-watched trailer of the moment, too, for Spider-Man: No Way Home. I cannot wait for that movie, and I was there, by the way, with everybody else, clicking through the trailer frame by frame looking for clues [laughs].