#croinagreine

[brooklynislandgirl]

@morgansmornings, @tabbyrp, @corinnebaileyrp​, @croinagreine​, @onlydevilsleft​

[tabbyrp]

📷 - tabby / caity / beth / cory (girls friday night maybe?)

Shoulder to shoulder with my tribe Bolder and bolder in my vibe

[damhsagreine]

@croinagreine​

For My Beautiful Bride on Mother’s Day

Irish Wildflowers and cream coloured roses, to greet her. A card written within by their sons. His own message written in fountain pen, big bold strokes.

Mo shíorghrá,

Mother of my sons, my bright shining heart, a blessed mother’s day to you. Since you could not be in Ireland, I’ve brought a bit of it to you. Always, Lugh

PS Your last surprise is out in the back garden.  

[whosxafraid]

insp.

It was always you. It was always you. It was always you.

[the-blackest-spider]

Lost in Living

@croinagreine

She remembered falling. Then silence. Nothing.

Peace.

It was short lived. Voices echoed, words, a conversation. Things she didn’t want to hear. She didn’t want to live. She had finally absolved her sins, the red wiped from her ledger. She was good with that. She had found the thing she had been searching for all her life. A way to heal, to be good. To move beyond her horrors and be free. And then it was ripped from her. Everything was. The pain was unbearable. Hell. This was hell.

It stopped.

A gentle coolness met the burning, the tearing and seemed to dull it. Shrinking it back into a constant throb at the edge of her nerves. She felt soft beneath her hands and head, not hardness. Giving earth. Warm and cool at the same time. Something falling, water. Rain. It hit her eyes, making the lids move and close tighter to keep the moisture out. But then it grew stronger and a sound echoed, one that had her body, the muscles going tight, tense and nervous. She could move?

I’m dead…

The dead did not move. But she could and was she breathing? Natasha could feel her chest rising and falling, her lungs filling and she could smell. Wet soil. That scent that came with a rain storm and something beneath that, which again had her tense. Ozone. Familiar, but not comforting. Not like the other scents.

Thunder crashed louder and that brought her up and out. Gasping as she shot into a sitting position and hugged her arms to herself, shivering. The rain fell stronger now, drowning her, red and blonde plastered to her head, but luckily her tacsuit remained dry. Still she felt cold along with confused and aching.  Blinking, with unsteady hands, Natasha pushed the hair from her eyes and looked around trying to discern where the hell she was and how.

The sky above was dark, gray and black and then would flash brilliantly with lightning. Not far away she could hear the sound of something else, water? She wasn’t certain, all she knew is that she was somewhere and it wasn’t Vormir. Too green and this was rain not snow.

Slowly, after a moment she managed to stand, after several failed attempts. Her legs felt off her whole body did as though she no longer knew it. And that pain. The ache, she had never felt that before. Sure she had felt pain, but not like this, so lingering. And she could feel every injury, every wound she’d ever gotten. It made no sense. But that was the least of her worries at the moment, what she needed to concern herself with was finding shelter and then figuring out where she was. It seemed familiar, but it also didn’t. Wherever it was, hopefully it was Earth.

With each step, she slowly got better at it, only stumbling once or twice. Her movements once fluid and effortless now were the opposite as though she was in a way having to relearn how to walk again, how to stay upright. Head down to keep rain out her eyes as she kept moving uncertain of direction, but surely she’d come across something at some point.

The storm continued as it was, raining heavily. She could feel the water slip down inside of her suit, it was cold and yet that kept her going. Her hair utterly drenched, but curling in the humidity becoming a wet mass tangle of red and white. The rolling thunder giving her pause every few moments, eyes closing tight as she resisted the urge to cover her ears as well. She shook more from that, than she did anything else, except for feeling weak. Uncertain. She shivered from that too. But not the cold, no she was still fairly impervious to that.

Slowly her direction took her to what seemed like a pathway and she followed it, still uncertain of things, but at least there was something in that. A path meant civilization of some sort, somewhere she just needed to keep going to find it. But how much time that would take, how much had already passed, Natasha wasn’t certain. A few more stumbles happened along the way, but she managed until she came upon a gate, a sigh of relief as she moved towards it, looking beyond in the heavy rain to see a house. Relief flooded the Widow as she looked at it, surely that meant she was somewhere on Earth as she felt her body beginning to do the rare and unthinkable, want to give out. Something was wrong, besides the fact she was alive when she ought to be dead. She felt herself sliding down, knees hitting the ground as she gripped the bars of the gate, her hands sliding on it from the rain as another, louder crack of thunder sounded over head, causing a little noise to leave her lips. She hated feeling fear, it made her angry and on top of that at the moment, she felt helpless. It was not a combination she was enjoying nor wanted, but then again this whole being alive again? Hadn’t been on her list either.

[thewinemomtm-blog]

       --- “Oi’be o’mo’der, no’ a saint.                                         S’fecking bollocks people d’inkin’ d’ta be mutually exclusive.”                          

[riggsanity]

Continued from [x] @croinagreine​

He couldn’t fault the patrol officer’s assumption that being stuck up at the manor after the road washed out would be an improvement over his trailer. The Airstream was an acquired taste of a living arrangement and it was easy to think that a bed would be a nice change of pace over the couch. Truth be told, Riggs had far worse during his tours overseas, coming home. At least the couch was broken in, cushions sunk down and worn in in just the right way. Still, when the officer called him to let him know, Riggs didn’t bother to correct him and asked to be kept in the loop. 

Sleep didn’t come any easier. Fully clothed, sprawled out on the bed in the room provided by management, he alternated between staring out the window, rain pounding against the glass in sheets, and rolling onto his back to stare at the ceiling. Somewhere in this place, someone played the resident impacted by a murder investigation while they were responsible for the body in the bag in the basement. Finally, he swung his legs over the edge, bare feet padding along the hardwood floor as he left the room.

Hands stuffed in his pockets, he wandered along the hall down to the main floor. Most seemed to be locked away in their rooms, lights off, either asleep or quietly talking among themselves. All but one, using a small light source in the sitting room just off the lobby, working on knitting or at least trying to. 

“Don’t know if I’d call it night patrol so much as the ceiling got boring,” he replied, the corner of his mouth twisting up faintly in an attempt to emphasize the humor. He ruffled a hand through his hair, the other in his pocket, arm held close to his body, a little awkward. “I didn’t mean to sneak up..well, interrupt. I’m just checkin’ around,” he added, spinning a finger in the air to indicate the general vicinity of the manor. 

“I'll let you be. I know that takes some focus.”

[brooklynislandgirl]

A Walk In The Woods || Accepting @croinagreine​

lavender 💜 - what’s your favorite smell?

The question is so hard to choose from, and the answer that immediately comes to mind? If she’d have taken a sip of her tea any later than she had, it would have either gotten spat right back out across the counter, or would have choked Beth to a premature death so that Caity wouldn’t have to break a nail over. Because her favourite smell is the crook of Lorcan’s neck first thing in the morning, where his breath is warm over her hair, and her face is pressed into the hollow of his shoulder, nose right up against his collarbones. Its the smell of her sheets and the heat of his skin. A lingering sweetness from whatever he’d been drinking the night before, the ghost of his cologne. Something so naturally all his own, the alchemy of himself. Its the weight of his arm around the curve of her waist and the slight growl in his throat when she moves just the tiniest bit.

But it’s also, horrifically, her best friend’s youngest son. It’s a secret that she is ashamed of, could be eaten alive from the mortification alone. She’s very careful to keep her face as neutral as possible even if she can’t make herself meet Caity’s gaze.  “Oh, ya know. Ocean jus’ after it rains, where everyt’ing is clean an’ uncomplicated and peaceful. A lil salt, a little ozone. How da sun bakes da waddah right from da sand an’ it smells warm an’ comforting almost like bakin’ bread? Mebbe wi’ a hint of coffee. Sometimes its plumeria an’ green growin’ grass long aftah tourist season is over, an’ the pulelehua are flitterin’ about ya hedges.” Butterfly, that’s what he calls her. And the colour starts rising in her cheeks and along the necks, prouder and more defiant than any of Kamehameha the Great’s warriors. She falters a minute and then gets to her feet, taking the tea kettle to the stove so she has an excuse to turn her back on Caity Sweeney. “Uh...why...why ya aks? An...what would you say is yours?”

[brooklynislandgirl]

27) things you said on the phone at 4 am [Boston]

Things You Said || Always {Selectively} Accepting

  “Uhm. Heeeeeeeeey.” Her voice is smaller than usual, and there’s a trembling edge to it, a gap between words that isn’t her normal hesitation.

“I know it’s ...well eiddah supa late or supa early but uhm. I’m... I guess I’m a’ Suffolk County General.”

And by the sound of it, she’s not there as an employee. Especially when every one knows she works in the ER department of Mercy, one of the surprising few Catholic hospitals still running in Boston. And that’s because she isn’t. Calling from work at this ridiculous hour. “Uhm. So...Andy’s out of town righ’ now, an’ dey keep tell me I no should take cab or Uber cause I’m no all togeddah, an’ dey prefer I stay ovahnight for observation but I...uh... I jus’ wan go home, Caity. I wan lay down in m’ own bed, an’ make people stop pokin’ an’ proddin’ at me. I’m fine... I mean I only bruise one set of ribs. Bus’ my ankle pretty good, dey got it in a soft cast f’ now. Cut an’ bump on m’ forehead but I’m fine...I jus’...” She can’t drive home, her Prius is trash. Her doctor says he’s surprised she’s as unscathed as she is, especially when her blood alcohol is clean and there’s no trace of so much as ibuprofen in the tests they ran. She tried to tell them she’d got run off the road, and it was either slamming into the telephone pole, or being splattered by one of those huge SUV things the name of which escapes her right now. She’d given her report to the nurse and to the police but there’s nothing she can really do.

“Please, no be mad...I no have anyone else t’ call....an’ I’m sorry.”

She really is. If she had any other person she could call, she would have. But Andy, as she’d said, is back in New York, doing something or other with the Admiral. He’s planned on being gone for two weeks and even if she called him right now it would take hours or even a day for him to get back and then what? She’d be stuck in bed with someone angry that she’d gotten into an accident and how the accident was cutting into his valuable time. She couldn’t call Jay for similar reasons, the woman still lived in New York and wouldn’t be able to get to Beth for hours or a day. She would be overly concerned and it would be just as cloying but in a different way than with Andy. Her work friends are... work friends and either still on the floor or desperate for their day off which are few and far between for most of them.

And so here she is. “You can...say no. An’ I’m sorry f’ wakin’ ya up.”

[brooklynislandgirl]

A Walk In The Woods || Accepting @croinagreine

sword 🗡️ - is there anything you always carry with you?

Riley thumbs the space dead centre below his lip, all the while managing a chuckle. She doesn’t mean his badge, gun, or his hold out piece, ankle strapped. He doesn’t wear those on his day off, especially not when going to Mass. There’s his watch and his dog-tags. Those -or rather at least one- don’t go in the shower. He hasn’t so much as looked at his wedding ring in six years. Not since the divorce. He keeps it in his safe deposit box. There’s the medallion that hangs from the rear-view mirror of his car, it’s the shape of a shield, has a simple cross etched on one side and the back reads Joshua 1, 9:  Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

His sister isn’t something he carries with him, she’s free to come and go within reason, though they are often together. Her gentle faith in him, her love though...but he doesn’t think that’s what Caity is talking about either. She doesn’t mean the emotional scars from growing up, what insecurities he’s developed, the things he’s proud of doing. “A picture of my mother.” The words are quiet, simple. Very unlike him at all. He reaches for his wallet and pulls it out. It’s old and faded, there’s lines scored into the surface of the black and white image of a young woman, roughly about their age now. The woman is beautiful, fine of feature. It’s not hard to imagine laughing green eyes and the brightness of her red hair. It isn’t hard to imagine the lilt of her voice or the way she kisses her infant son’s forehead before putting him to bed for the night. It’s not hard for Riley to imagine, he does it all the time because he really can’t remember his mother at all, and this is the only thing of hers...of her...he has to work with.

Like a sacred relic that ought to be enshrined in some church, he hands it over to the other woman, also green eyed and red haired and just off the boat from Ireland as his mother had been, allowing her to examine it to her heart’s content. “I think that was taken just before she got pregnant with me, or just after. Not really sure when. A long time ago.”

[tarnishedhalo]

@croinagreine {{XX}} He’s tried to be as courteous as he can be, even his captain had given him a hard eye about it. First, the interrogation room with the most space. Matte blue grey walls rather than the dingy yellow ones that are little better than closets with a closed circuit camera in them, designed to confine and agitate suspects. Second, escorting her through the bull pen, and never leaving her with fellow officers, strangers to her. Third, the cup of coffee in place of tea because they don’t have it here and an ashtray from nineteen-seventy-five just in case. And lastly, keeping the other cops on the other side of the mirror so they can’t ask her the questions that will pry into every private part of her life. When he asks about Angus, he does so as quietly as he can. In his eyes there is a sea of compassion because he’s already read the guy’s Interpol jacket. He knows there’s more to the story than the list of crimes and offenses only a third of which makes Riley want to tear his head off and shit down his neck. He hates having to ask. He hates that they’re making him because he has a soft spot for Caitlin Buckley. Not the least because she’s beautiful, but it’s about that sliver of vulnerability beneath the veneer of steel she wears like most women would wear fur coats or diamonds. And he asks her about it.  Wants to kick himself. The look that crosses her face. He’s seen it before, in some of the women back in the desert. He’s seen it before, on his sister’s face sometimes when someone she doesn’t know reaches out and touches her from behind. He’s seen it too often and too deeply and it makes the bile rise up in the back of his throat. But as much as he wants to protect the Caitys and the Beths and those other nameless women, he still has a job to do and he’s been attached to this detail, to this investigation. A transatlantic journey that coincides with one too many cases, a piece of human filth at it’s core. But he’s trying and he gives her all the time she needs, making mental notes of her posture, the smallest of fiddle of her fingers, how many times she licks her lips, how many times she fails to maintain eye contact.

And when she starts talking? Of course it’s being recorded, audio and visual from the camera, and by the men behind the glass, and by the notes that Riley’s taking personally, so that she has a human face to connect with, someone familiar and comfortable. Someone who isn’t going to eat her alive. “I know,” he says quietly, and he means that. She’s become a staple in his life, even at the edges of it, and his sister has more stories to tell about Caity Buckley and the twins than she has of work or people they knew growing up. “And Lorcan and Luka are lucky to have you, but that’s not...” He falls silent when she pauses. He wants to tell her she can call him Andy. He wants to tell her that this is all coincidence and he’s sure has nothing to do with her, but he can’t, can he? It wouldn’t be right to lie to her face. But again, he lets her take her own time, and wonders what exactly is going on inside of her head.

And there...given that space, she tells him without so many words what he suspected, and what he’d read in the files. The man was charged with a crime that would have made her a minor here, and there, barely legal. But the investigation had been poorly handled ~Riley would swear it was on purpose, that the man has someone on the inside~ and then those charges were dropped. He doesn’t blame her for leaving. For trying to put as much distance between them as she could.  “I’m pretty sure we can avoid your family finding out, you know the department isn’t going to go all the way overseas to check in on things, so I think you can take that worry off your shoulders. And work visa or not, you’ve got all the same rights as anyone else, which includes not being afraid to leave your house or the kids. And not having some prig harassing or stalking you. We can put in a restraining order and get it signed by a judge, and that’s the first step. He will be informed of this immediately, and if he violates the order, than you can call us and press charges. That’s the first step.” Riley reaches an empty hand across the table for moral support if she wants it, and quietly, under his breath, he murmurs. “And of course, you can call me at any time you feel unsafe and I’ll drop everything to be there for you Caity. You don’t have to leave, and you don’t have to worry about the kids or Mr Sweeney.”  

[tarnishedhalo]

Green peers at him over the lip of her tea cup. His question "Are you afraid of the future?" lingering on the edges of the table linen. It's a bit of an ominous question but then again Americans (second gen though this one might *be*) she's still getting used to them. And the cup is set down again upon the table between them, and confused tinted tilted to her head. "Afraid? No, oi' dunna think so. Boston be new an' strange bu'--that be the makin's of better adventures, aye?"

She reminds him of his mother. Not in any weird Oedipal way, not because she’s old…if anything, she’s probably a lot closer to his sister’s age than he wants to think about. No…it’s the red hair. The only photograph of his mother is black and white and so he likes to imagine it’s red, like Caitlin’s. His mother had also been about her age when she came over from the Old Country. To marry his father. He imagines a lot of similarities that separate the women over thirty fi…thirty-six years. He almost asks Caity if she would ever leave her children. Instead, he asks about this. And he wants to believe her, he does, though he’s not sure he does. Something in the way she hands off her tea. The look on her face. He’s too practiced at his job not to notice, not to make note of it. And maybe her voice has just a shade of tremble to it that gets under his skin.

He reaches across the cafe’s table, palm up and hand open. “I didn’t mean to upset you, right? I just.”He’s worried. More than he would imagine over his sister’s new friend, but the truth of the matter is…he’s had an eye on Lugh Sweeney for years, doesn’t trust the man as far as he can pick up and throw him, and now…now he’s worried that this woman’s going to get swept up in it all.

“But if I can ever help you… well. You’ve got our number, yeah?”

[damhsagreine]

She stepped away from me And she moved through the Fair And fondly I watched her Move here and move there And she went her way homeward With one star awake As the swans in the evening Move over the lake

[damhsagreine]

Kettle Corn: Your muse’s most outrageous sexual fantasy?

There’s a slow drag of his tongue tip across chapped lips, his breath unsettled in his chest as he first looks at his beautiful Heart. The sun itself could not rise over a more perfect woman, and this he knows. But the more he thinks about her question, of the million and one different things he could put at her feet…paens to his own narcissism, one truth keeps leaping to the forefront of his mind. That has colour creeping up the back of his neck and stains his ears with a ruddy hue to rival his own hair.

When he speaks, it’s with a kind of tarnish, a rambling walk backward into memories he thought were half-dreams.

“If I could move time so easy as wind and rain or spear in hand, I’d take off the years and the scars they’ve left. Back to those moments when we first met and I was young and strong and full of pride.”

He remembers them then, and while she is still as beautiful and unchanged as she was then, he is a different story. Inks and stains across the pages of himself and partially written stories he can no longer stomach, haggard years of being bent by chains willingly submitted into because he had so very little choice. His tone thickens. Takes on a heavier veneer of the Old Tongue.

“Oi’d pull ye down by water’s edge, and bare yer star-white skin t’ the heavens in fullest day. Burn kisses from yer lips t’ yer neck and worship each breast. Oi’d whisper a thousand sunrises across your belly and lower still. Drink of ye til I were coated in yer finest honey and every epitaph I could mark against yer thighs lingered damp and sweet. Slow t’ bury myself in ye, crowned by yer radiance, an’ move with t’ song of t’ earth, until ye’ve harvested me to fullness.”

After a moment or two of lingering silence, he clears his throat, wipes at his face with one hand, and chuckles more to himself than anything. It’s not a laugh of amusement but because he knows a simple truth.“You, Cethlinn, are my most outrageous fantasy. That somehow I’ve managed t’ ever deserve ye.”

[brooklynislandgirl]

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most?

Personally Personal || -

“Uhm. Le’ it Be, by da Beatles. Walkin’ in Memphis, by Marc Cohen. Hunger Strike by Temple of da Dog, but really is jus’ Chris Cornell and…” And Beth legitimately swoons a little bit just saying the name…“Eddie Veddah. I really li’dat Pearl Jam, ya know? Shine, by Collective Soul. Love Shack, B-52s.” She looks up and over. “Lessee…dat.. one, two, t’ree, four, an’ five. So uhm. I guess da six song is…Alannah Myles.. love dancin’ t’ Black Velvet, ya know. Is very slinky kine of song.”She grins. “Your turn. Wha’ six places ya wan visit in da nex’ ten year?”

[brooklynislandgirl]

10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?

Personally Personal || -

“In da car, t’ree weeks ago, when I was taking Lorcan…” There’s a car-crash noise in her head, World War Two air sirens and shattered glass all at once that signalled she’d come too close to letting the secret out of the bag and she has to jump immediate tracks.“…for cocoa after school, cause I figure wi’ it bein’ flu season, ya had ya hands tied up an’ figure sometimes bein’ da middle kid, he needed a break. But anyway, we were lissen some of his music an’ at da stop light, dere was dis really great riff an’ I couldn’t help myself. T’ink I horrified him a little bit though cause of the look he give me.”Other than why they were together, it was the absolute truth. And maybe it was because there was a little headbanging in there, or an homage to Wayne’s World, but he had looked as if he wanted the seat to open up and eat him.