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piastrinorris · 2 years

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busy streets and busy lives • ralph penbury x reader

A strange day at work gets even stranger when you meet a man who claims he's from 1926. With no certainty as to when he can get back, you decide to take him in until that time arrives.

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Tags: Timewasters (series), modern!au, slow burn, mutual pining, idiots in love™, fluff, some angst, swearing and mentions of adult themes throughout, eventual adult content, alcohol content, drug content, penbury is a fanon surname

Word count: 8.8k

A/N: Here it is, folks. The one you've all been waiting for. Enjoy. <3

I might have been a tiny wee bit self indulgent at one point in particular. Bet you can't tell where.

You frown as you swipe to answer the call from Scott. "Who died?"

"Woooow," a very familiar sarcastic response rings through your ear. "Can't a friend just call up another in this day and age?" You let the silence linger just long enough for him to then add, "Yeah, I'm chatting shit. No, I was going to ask, are you running late?"

You frown, "No, I'm not long about to close up now. Why'd you ask?"

"Well, Ralph texted me." He puts on a voice, the way you all do when talking about your flatmate. "Good afternoon, Scott. I hope you have been keeping well, and that the snow hasn't interrupted your daily life. I would like to request your assistance, I am aware that we have been tasked with making dessert for the Pal Valentine's Day meal later, but unfortunately I have noticed that we are severely lacking in eggs. I was simply wondering if, by chance you could bring some up to the flat? I would be most grateful, and willing to more than compensate you financially! Regards, Ralph."

You groan, "I asked him to get eggs this morning, he didn't want to because there were kids throwing snowballs and he was scared he'd get caught up in it. I told him to suck it up, because they can smell fear, but he's clearly too chicken-shit to go out there."

"Aww, he's never even had a snowball fight before? What even was his childhood?!" You rasp, hoping to quickly evade that topic. "Oh my god, you thinking what I’m thinking?”

You grin, “I think I am. You wanna rally the troops?”

“On it.”

You look up from your phone, still giggling, to see two of your sales assistants watching you, looking at each other and waggling their eyebrows at each other. You shake your head, “At this point, you’re well beyond barking up the wrong tree! My friend Scott and I are planning something,” you flash your eyes mischievously, and they tut back at you.

“Well, at this point, it’s not like we were expecting you to have some hot date on the other end of the line, is it?” One of them jokes, nudging the other as they run off and busy themselves at the other end of the store, still cackling.

“You two are lucky you’re my favourites!” You shout after them with a laugh. “Can I trust you to close up tonight?”

“Nah, we’re gonna loot the place,” one answers with a false sincerity.

“You poor sods won’t find much here,” you point out. “But thank you, you’re the best!” You singsong as you head past them to the back room.

“Then pay us more!” Another jokes.

“If I had control over who earns what, d’you not think I’d have done that by now? You wound me,” you dramatically push your hand to your chest as you walk backwards through the door out of the main shop floor. Once you’ve collected all your belongings, and put on all your layers, it’s pretty much time to close anyway. You salute your colleagues with a, “Godspeed getting home tonight,” and brave the cold.

Since the roads hadn’t been salted by the time you needed to get to work, you’d walked there, and while you would much rather be sitting in a heated car than feeling your cheekbones freeze over, it’s quite nice to walk through the streets of Croydon, watching the thick snow fall with the slightest bit of sun still peeking through. A gentle little reminder that longer, warmer days are just around the corner, and that winter’s soon at an end.

You’re greeted in front of your tower block by all your friends, all with varying expressions. Scott and Connor are eagerly plotting, Anna still looks a little unsure, and Grace just looks like she’s fed up of the cold. “So, what’s the plan, who’s getting him to come downstairs?” you ask once you’re with them.

“That’s what we were just deciding,” Scott replies.

“My suggestion was that Anna would be the least suspicious, but she wants no part of this,” Connor pulls a face and Anna slaps his arm.

“Shut up! I still think it’s mean,” she frowns, and you hold her arm comfortingly.

“Listen, who’d you rather be the first people to engage Ralph in any kind of snow fight, us or those little pricks up there?” You jerk your head over to where a group of middle school-age boys are playing around together.

She sighs, “Fine, but I’m aiming for his feet, okay?”

“Aw, but it’s fifty points if you hit his face,” Scott teases.

“Okay, okay, before Grace gets hypothermia, let’s just get this over and done with, shall we?” You ask, and Grace nods from somewhere beneath her fluffy hood. “Scott, he asked you to pick up those eggs, didn’t he? Just make up some guff about how they’ve locked the front doors so he needs to come push the button to let you in.”

Scott nods, texts something, and within a few minutes pumps his fist with excitement. “Okay, he says he’ll do it! I told him to wrap up and let me know when he’s on his way down.”

“Tell him you’ve had to step away from the doors so it doesn’t look like you’re loitering,” Connor adds, “so he can’t just run back.”

“Okay, this does feel a little mean, now,” you admit, and Anna looks at you incredulously.

“No, no, you don’t get to back out now! Not after all that talking me round!”

“Yeah, c’mon, you two have been smooth sailing for ages now, surely there’s something that you can only get off your chest by a one-time snowball pelting?” Scott asks, and you think for a moment.

“He did watch the rest of that new show we were watching without me and then spoiled the ending,” you ponder.

“Jail.” Grace pulls her hood back momentarily to stare at you with wide, serious eyes.

You nod, “Yeah. Or a snowball to the shoulder. Both are the same punishment, I think.”

“Totally,” Connor sneers, and you and Grace both flip him off - or you assume that’s why she’s holding the back of her hand up to him, it’s hard to tell with her wearing mittens, but it does put everyone into a heap of laughter.

Connor’s phone beeps, and he gasps as he looks at his screen. “Alright, gang, he’s on his way down! Lock and load.”

You all get into position, snowballs in gloved hands, as you watch Ralph push the door open with ease, walk through it and look back with a frown. He tentatively moves forward one cautious step at a time, his big baby-cow eyes darting around all the while. You all hide a little further back each time until he’s inevitably in line with you all. He looks at Scott first, then his hand, then around at all of you. “Oh, fiddlesticks,” he whispers.

“This is for your own good, mate,” Connor grimaces as you all throw your missiles at him. With a half-scream, half-squawk sound, Ralph tensely curls himself up in self-defence, holding that position long after he’s been hit. “See, mate, that wasn’t so bad, was it? And that was all of us!”

“I thought you were all my friends,” he glares indignantly at you all, and you nod.

“Yeah, which is why we did it knowing you wouldn’t get hurt,” you point out. “You’re alright now, aren’t you?” He nods tentatively. “See? And the best bit, is now it’s your turn, and you get pick of the lot as to who you hit first.”

“Just hit me first, if you like, I won’t mind, and I won’t hit you again, either,” Anna shrugs, but Ralph studies all of you.

“Who’s idea was this?” He eventually asks Anna, who quickly points to you and Scott.

“Wooooow,” Scott shakes his head, but Anna simply flips him off.

Ralph bends down, eyes still flitting between all of you, as he grabs two handfuls of snow and immediately flings them both at the two of you. While you get a tiny little lump that just grazes your chest, at least he landed it with Scott, as that one flew out of his grip and straight into Scott’s mouth. A laugh bubbles out of Ralph’s lips and you all grin back at him.

“Okay, that was good, but a good snowball is two handfuls, smushed together into, yeah, that’s it, just like- ack!” Connor is silenced and humbled by Ralph throwing his third and far bigger snowball, straight into his stomach. “Prick,” he laughs as he scoops another one up to toss at Ralph again, who manages to evade it this time. “Mine was way bigger than theirs!” He makes another, adding, “Although, while I’m here, if you’re not retaliating…” Before extending himself to standing and throwing one at Anna with an almost evil cackle.

Anna gasps, “Only not to Ralph, asshole!” And throws one back at him with a giggle.

Before long, you’re all running around, including Ralph, throwing snowballs at each other and laughing like you were kids again. You’d never had thought, at your big age, that this is how you’d be spending a snowy day, but it brings back good memories of you and your four oldest friends, knocking at each other’s doors after the local news had announced that your school was closed, taking old bin lids up the steepest hills you could climb to slide down again. You look over at Ralph, with the apples of his cheeks glowing as red as his ears and the tip of his nose from all the cold, his whole face lit up as he catapults snowballs in the strangest fashion, and wonder what snow days must have been like for him. Obviously, he wasn’t sledding down hills on bin lids, but you’d have thought he and Victoria and their friends would have had friendly snowball fights. Though, you remember, from what you’ve learned of Victoria and her friends, perhaps those weren’t so friendly when aimed at Ralph.

Your thoughts are interrupted when another snowball hits Ralph, though not from any direction that any of you are standing. You all look over to the gang of young boys, snickering at each other for having landed one on “one of the oldies”, especially commending the offender for “getting the posh one”.

Though rage boils through all of you, it’s Grace, already warmed up from running around, who pushes her hood back to give them all a death stare and tell them, “You’ll regret that.”

As though called to arms, the five of you form a protective wall in front of Ralph and start hurling snowballs at the group of pre-teens at top speed until one of them yells, “Alright, alright, truce! Mercy! Whatever word gets you to stop!”

Just as you all stop, one more snowball flies up above all of you. Over your heads, down, down, and lands perfectly on top of the head of the kid that the others were praising for hitting Ralph. All your friends spin around on the spot so that all of you, as well as the boys, could stare in disbelief at Ralph, who has a small but very proud smile on his face. “Oi, that was sick!” One of the boys yells out. You mouth to Ralph that that’s a good thing as the other boys start laughing and cheering for him, too.

“Okay, alright, we’ve all had our fun,” you start holding your hands up in the air, “but this isn’t getting Palentine’s dinner ready, is it?”

“Isn’t it Valentine’s? That’s tomorrow, innit?” One of the boys answers.

“Nah, isn’t Pal-a-tine the wrinkly geezer from Star Wars?” Another asks.

“I thought it was that place that’s always fighting with Israel,” another comments.

“Maybe pay more attention to your teachers, yeah?” You ask them with a slight nod. You turn to the others. “Still meeting at Anna’s?” You ask, and they all non-verbally confirm. “Cool, see you guys in a bit. Ralphie!” You shout for him and he springs to attention, practically jumping to stand next to you. You smirk, “Ready to go get those eggs I asked for this morning?” He nods sadly and you nudge him towards the row of shops.

As you walk away, Ralph mutters, “I know I’m not supposed to interfere with knowledge about those world wars, but have there really already been ones in space, too?”

Had the snowball incident not already happened, you’d have absolutely messed with Ralph by convincing him that Star Wars were actual battles that took place in outer space. However, enough guilt consumes you that you correct him by trying to explain the entire movie franchise to him as you buy the eggs you need. Though he listens intently and nods attentively, you can tell from the vacant look in his eyes that nothing’s really going in, but at least he’s trying.

Baking with Ralph sounds like a nightmare, but he’s a diligent little helper when he’s trying. He measures your ingredients for you and he’s quick to wash up your equipment once you’re done with it. You’d only planned to go for the safe option of a simple sponge cake, predicting disaster, but the speed at which you’re all done leaves you pleasantly surprised. You’re even able to snap a little photo for Ralph’s instagram without him noticing. Once you’re all dolled up, he suggests you both take one to “show” his instagram and twitter accounts, but you opt to keep that one for just the camera roll. You’ve not seen or heard any speculation about your potential love life revolving around Ralph, and you’d like to keep it that way.

Once you finally get to Anna’s, after explaining that the boys outside of your flats had since decided to gather all the snow in the street to make one giant snowball, and had recruited you and Ralph to roll it when it got too big for them to, until you two couldn’t either. “Perfectly understandable reason,” Connor nods in understanding, and the others agree.

Once all the food is laid out, you’re glad that you all a) worked up an appetite and b) ended up pushing dinner back on top of that, because everybody preparing separate dishes has definitely overestimated what six portions of each part should be. Regardless, it’s another night of eating food, chatting away and ending with dancing around Anna’s living room, much like Ralph’s second night with you.

Another morning of February 14th, another empty bed to wake up in. You sit up, stretching out your arms, and grab your phone to look through the folder in your phone labelled “shitty mspaint valentines” to send to your friends and some of your coworkers, to make them laugh. You’re met with some laughing reactions, some rebuttals and a couple of reactions that you can tell were written with a sarcastic eye roll, which only spurs you on more.

You also post a photo you took yesterday to Ralph’s instagram, to keep his brand alive:

You’re about to drag yourself out of bed when the door opens to reveal Ralph, holding out a tray with two plates piled with waffles, two glasses of fruit juice and two mugs of tea. You watch him carefully set it at the foot of the bed and then sit next to you with your lower lip out in an affectionate pout. “Aww, Ralphie, what’s all this about?”

“Well, usually tradition would have it that Father and I would take Mother and Victoria breakfast in bed on St Valentine’s Day morning, as a tradition, and so Victoria insisted that tradition still be upheld even after our parents… Well, let’s not already put a dampener on the day before it starts! You’ll have to forgive the absence of flowers, I used to have the luxury of picking them out of the garden, but none of the plants in the flat are flowering, and it would be criminal of me to steal from others’ gardens, and all the florists were specifically selling bundles that were far too big for such a gesture, an-”

“Deep breath,” you coach him as you put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It’s sweet that you still wanted to uphold your little tradition. You know, my dad used to leave me and Mum Valentine’s cards on the doormat, each from “a secret admirer”, though it used to terrify me at first because I didn’t realise it was him!” You pull a face as you take a bite out of a waffle, and Ralph laughs softly. “’Course, after a while, it’d get a bit embarrassing having your dad be your Valentine, but hey, it was one more than I’ve been getting these past few years!” You finish your mouthful and wave the rest of the waffle at him. “These are pushing the boat out for you! Get you!”

“Yes, my dear American friend recommended them to me! And I managed to successfully cook them in the toaster oven!” Ralph chimes gleefully.

“Look at you go!” You beam proudly. “Soon enough, you won’t even need me!”

“Oh, don’t be preposterous,” he mutters under his breath just before taking a big sip of his tea. “Any plans for the day?”

“You mean, other than beating the hoards of men waiting for me outside that door with a stick?” You joke, and Ralph chuckles lightly. You shake your head. “Might just do another self-care day. Be my own Valentine, as if things weren’t sad enough!”

“Well, perhaps I could join you, and we would be our own ones together,” Ralph offers. He awaits your reaction with bated breath. If that goes well, perhaps he could segue into asking you to be his actual Valentine, and that would be at least one more step above simply being housemates, over being bedmates, even.

You take a deep breath in. Maybe you could ask Ralph if he’s willing to take it the slightest step further and be each other’s Valentines. It’s just an arbitrary title, really, but at least you’d have one this year. And, whenever Ralph finally leaves, at least you can remember him as more than just your flatmate who you platonically shared a bed with. Wistfully reminiscing over a Valentine does sound more romantic.

But, you have to respect his boundaries. If he felt comfortable enough to make you breakfast in bed, he would have accompanied it with a request for you to be his, but he didn’t. He’s offering to be his own Valentine, parallel to you. Message received. “That’d be nice!” You put all your effort into trying not to sound disappointed.

It works, as Ralph reads your reaction as being very happy with that idea, and he daren’t tread over that line. “Very well. So, what does being your own Valentine mean?”

“For me? Junk food, junk TV, and in this weather, wearing at least two blankets at all times,” you count off on your fingers, making Ralph laugh. “Though I better head out and get you some of your favourites, too.”

He frowns, “There’s no need, you’ll catch your death of cold out there!”

“I mean, obviously I’d get dressed first,” you pull a face. “But yeah, you deserve to get spoiled a little, too. I mean, you did all this for me,” you gesture to the tray, but Ralph rasps flippantly. “Plus,” you add with a smirk, “don’t want you hoarding all my favourite snacks.”

“There it is!” Ralph grins, pointing a finger to you and leaning in so it hovers close to your nose, making you laugh.

“You caught me!” You hold your hands up in mock guilt. “I’ll head out in a bit, okay?”

Once breakfast is over, and you’ve washed up after you both despite Ralph insisting he would do it and trying to get in - which resulted in some rather creative ways of blocking him out of the kitchen - you get dressed ready to brave yet another cold front.

You know what Ralph’s most favourite sweets are. Jelly Babies. But the ones he loves the most aren't the kind you can get from any shop - of course not, that would be too easy, and this is Ralph. No, his favourites come from an old fashioned sweet shop that lives on the same street as the shop he works in. You remember its location vividly. as you'd made a point to think about memorising it and nothing else the day you'd dropped off a treat to Ralph while at work and seen his latest idea in action - an immersive display where he dresses up to fit in with it too. But you'd firmly blocked that mental image out of your head. Of him surrounded by Wild West imagery while wearing a cowboy hat, a plaid shirt and very well-fitting jeans. You definitely hadn’t focused on that at all.

The trek to the old high street is a long one, especially since the snow that wasn’t quite gritted over had formed a barrier of sludge along the roadside that was creeping into the remnants of yesterday’s clean, soft, crunchy snowfall. You make the most of the childlike wonder that comes from stomping through it while you can, before it inevitably ices over into a deathly lumpy terrain.

You spot someone ahead hobbling through the snow, walking in your direction. You watch them carefully, unsure whether to try and help, casually walk past or actively avoid them, when an unmistakably pungent aroma precedes them. You study them a little closer and shout in recognition, “Homeless Pete!”

The man looks up and grunts at you. “How‘ve you been? Not seen you in ages!” He shrugs. Heart sinking, you note, “You were walking with quite a purpose there. Headed anywhere in particular?” Your fears are confirmed when he points over to the block of flats Ralph showed you that he’d emerged from almost half a year ago. “Oh… Today? It’s working?!” You ask, feeling your heart hurl through the ground. He nods, then gestures to you and flashes you a hopeful look. “What?! No! Not me! No, d’you remember, you brought a guy back with you from the 20s? Well, not these 20s, the nineteen-twenties.”

He looks blankly at you. You groan, “Please don’t tell me you’re some kind of past Pete who doesn’t know about Ralph, I don’t need a migraine today.” The name seems to resonate with Pete, which is promising. “Yes! Ralph! You remember! He was all dressed up like he was in the army! And he ended up coming back with you! And then he ended up with me! S’pose I better… Could you hold off on using it until I can get him there, too?” Your words hang heavy with sadness, but you knew this day was coming.

Pete stands there in silence for a moment, thinking. He traces the air from time to time, then claps his hands, making you jump. He mimes scratching at a beard along his own stubble-covered jaw. “You mean, you’ve seen Ralph with a beard now?” He nods, pointing downwards in front of himself. “You’ve spoken to him?” Another nod. Pete looks up at the tower block, then at you, gestures with two hands towards the building, then makes an X shape with his arms, waving them down.

“Please just fucking speak, mate.” You sigh, but he just repeats his actions. As you look lost again, he holds his two hands out again, but stops, looking at you in waiting. “So, that’s you and Ralph?” You guess, and he nods. He moves his hands up towards the building. “You and Ralph went to the place with the… Time machine.” Saying it out loud still sounds insane, even after all this time. He holds one hand close to him, and waves the other one out at you. “Is that one meant to be him?” Another nods, and then the crossed-arms gesture. You frown. “Ralph… Didn’t go in with you?” He shakes his head. “Why not?” He shrugs.

The sorrow and confusion you’ve been feeling this whole conversation start to curdle into all kinds of other feelings. There’s still some confusion there, but mostly it’s anger, frustration, disbelief. He knew how cautious you were about this day finally arriving. He knew of all the countless sleepless nights you’d spent trying to figure out things like how to hide him from your landlord, what to do if he ever falls ill. He knew that every time you picked up your post, you feared a letter from the government with big red letters asking to confirm the identity of the man who’s been claiming to live there despite not being legally registered to. He knows that you’ve been up until all hours some nights searching desperately for some kind of explanation for this phenomenon, since it can’t just be something that only Homeless Pete knows about.

Things had been going so well, especially since Christmas. You’d made peace with the fact that the clock was very much ticking with how long you’d have left with Ralph, and especially after Brighton, you had been telling yourself over and over to not sweat the small stuff, and to just enjoy having him around. You’d figured that with your feelings for him growing stronger the more that he’s around, it’s better for everyone if, instead of constantly counteracting them with the negatives, you’d just let yourself get over him quietly.

Maybe you should have been more forceful. Created more boundaries. Made it more obvious that he can’t just cheat his own fate, who knows what kind of damage he’s done to… Literally the entire universe, anything could be possible! You’d thought you’d always made it so clear to Ralph to always be preparing for the day he goes back. That no matter how great the life is he’s made for himself here, at the end of the day, all this is, is a learning experience for him to take this level of confidence back with him to his own time.

Forgoing the sweet shop, and any other shop for that matter, you make a beeline home, your steps far more deliberate and angry than the gentle march you had been taking through the snow. Even the sight of the lift in your building angers you, so you push your way up the stairs up until the ninth floor, storming through your front door.

Ralph looks over at you from where he sits on the sofa, delight on his face, which quickly falls when he sees your expression. “Is everything alright?”

“Is it?!” You screech. “Have a guess who I saw out there.”

He frowns. “I’m not sure, I didn’t quite think there was anyone out there who upset you to that degree. Would you like some tea or something to calm down?”

“Don’t you dare tell me to ‘calm down’ when you are the reason I haven’t felt ‘calm’ for almost six months now!” You hold your forehead, and Ralph looks back at you, confused, sad and a little scared.

“I - I quite apologise, is there something I’ve done that’s brought this -”

“Don’t you go giving me the ‘oh, yes, quite’ spiel,” you mock his tone, “not when you’ve been lying to me under my own roof! I trusted you!” You stop yourself when you hear your voice crack at that last sentiment.

He swallows hard. “In what respect have I been dishon-”

“I saw H.P. while I was out, didn’t I?! Going towards that block of flats. So I tell him, I say, oh hang about, Pete, let me go grab Ralph so he can go back. And what do you think he told me?!” You ask, now stood next to the couch, squatting down to get eye level with Ralph.

His eyes dart as he wrings his hands, his eyes squeezing shut and open over and over again. “Yes, well, you see, that -”

“Right, all this umm-ing and ahh-ing is just… Annoying me even more,” you state, rubbing your temples. “I just want the facts, Ralph.”

“You said not to talk about anything from that weekend,” he mutters, and you look at him in disbelief.

“You’ve been holding out on me about this since November?!” You ask incredulously.

“You said! Not to talk! About anything! From that weekend!” Ralph jumps to his feet, punctuating every gap in his sentence with a chop to his palm.

You stand back up to level with him. “Yeah, as in all the shit about - God, are we really gonna drag all of that into light again, now?!”

“Well, if we could just talk about it, calmly,” Ralph gesticulates, but you scoff.

“You gave up all rights to that the moment you started lying to me,” your voice shakes. “It’s you, Ralph. You’re the one person I don’t expect to lie to me, since I don’t lie to you.”

He rasps in disbelief. “That’s not entirely true, now, is it? Or else you wouldn’t react so harshly. There’s something you’re hiding from me, isn’t there? Has your sense of charity finally worn, is that it?” He speaks with the venom in his tone that you’ve only ever heard whenever he’s talking about himself. “What, have you been counting the days down until you could throw me back out? Is that why you’re up until the ungodly hours, researching how to get rid of me sooner?”

You groan, pressing your fingers into your eyelids. “You can’t keep doing this, you can’t just keep making yourself the victim here when that obviously isn’t what I want!”

“Ah, yes, well, you must forgive me for not realising sooner that everything here is exactly as it always has been for my entire life,” Ralph spits. “People pretending to care about me to then use me for my money, or my social status, is one thing, but I have nothing here. Nothing but… Being a pitiful little man.”

“How many more times are we going to have this argument, Ralph? Everybody loves you here!” You punctuate every syllable of the first word with claps. “It’s not just because they pity you, because they don’t know you! They don’t know how you got here, or anything about your shitty family, people just like you! You have to stop being so narrow-minded and start seeing how this,” you gesture in circles in front of him, “affects the rest of us! Especially me, I’m out here having to - to keep track of what secrets I’m keeping and what lies I’m telling to who.”

“Yes, well. Nobody asked you to,” he mutters, looking at the floor.

Your blood now boiling, and all rationality out of the window, you scoff, “Oh, so now you’re ungrateful?!” His eyes snap to yours, but you carry on before he can interrupt you again. “I put my job on the line every time I have to leave early for you. I put my entire livelihood on the line harbouring a fugitive that doesn’t legally exist anywhere, not to mention that I have no clue what to do if you ever need urgent medical attention, if my landlord suddenly decides to kick me out, I don’t know how I’m going to keep them from finding out about you and potentially charging me a fuckton extra, I just - You can’t just think about everything I risk for you even once, can you?”

He frowns, “How dare you say that I don’t care?! I keep a healthy diet, despite all the times you decide we’ll just take away food instead, I keep to myself as much as possible other than the things that you have me do, and whenever I do leave the flat, I leave no trace that I was ever here!”

“Look, we’re getting away from the main problem, here, and I’m not skirting around it any more,” you shake your head. “Why did you lie to me?”

“Strictly speaking, I’ve never told a lie, merely omitted my meeting with Peter from any conversation between you and I,” he points out, and you scowl at him. He sighs, “But you don’t understand. If I told you that, you’d want to know why. And I can’t - there are far bigger things at play here,” he shakes his head.

You look at him in disbelief, “Like what?! Are you some kind of time-travelling spy? An intergalactic detective?”

“Clearly not,” Ralph scoffs.

“Then what, Ralph?” You raise your voice. “What possible reason do you have for - for causing me all that grief all those months ago, just to then go against the one thing you were supposed to do, putting the fate of whatever’s out there at risk all while only living the life of half a person, hm? Why would you choose to stay here like this?!”

“Because I’m in love with you, obviously!”

You and Ralph stare at each other for what feels like hours of silence. His wide, terrified eyes boring into yours as his whole face turns red. His lip quivers and then, suddenly, he pushes past you as you’re still frozen on the spot. You just about turn around to see the last of him rush out of the door, carrying his shoes in his hand.

His coat still hangs on the door, and you can see the snow is falling again. Not realising you’d been holding a breath in the whole time, you groan it out as you grab his coat, wrapping it around your arm to avoid it dragging on the floor, and head out to follow him. You see the display above the lift counting down and curse yourself for having worn yourself out on the way up here earlier.

You huff your way back down the stairs and try to find any trace of where Ralph could have gone. You study the footprints in the snow, vaguely recognising some in the shape of Ralph’s shoes, and decide that it’s as good a lead as any to try and follow them, though they quickly disappear once you get to the main street area. You notice someone loitering and decide it’s worth a shot.

Running across the road to meet them, you ask, “I know this sounds strange, but have you seen a guy go past? Had on a fuzzy blue jumper and no coat, I mean like -”

“Like he was wearing the Cookie Monster’s skin?” They ask with amusement. You sigh with relief, nodding hurriedly and they point, “Went towards the old high street, looked like he was tweaking.”

You thank them and start running as quickly as the resistance from the snow will allow you. It doesn’t help that the wind happens to be blowing the snowfall directly into your face, causing you to constantly stop to rub your eyes or sputter at whatever lands on your mouth.

Once you get back to the street you’d just been to moments before, you sigh with exhaustion as there doesn’t seem to be any trace of him. You still begin pacing the street, looking in every shop window that you pass. You wonder whether he’s hiding at his work, where you wouldn’t be able to get near him, and whether it would be worth asking in there. You’re on good enough terms with his colleague now, and perhaps the eclectic owner of the store might lift your spirits a little. There’s an awful lot of emotional weights on your chest right now, and you’re not sure which ones you’re supposed to be holding. You’re not entirely sure of anything right now, other than that you need to find Ralph.

Not paying attention to what’s in front of you at all, you end up almost vaulting over some poor baby’s stroller as their mother tries to get past you. “Oh my god, I am so sorry!” You apologise hurriedly, and she looks at you with a weirdly knowing smile.

“You looking for the guy who’s been cutting about in just his jumper?” She asks, gesturing to the coat in your arms.

Your eyes widen, “Yes! Oh my god! Have you seen him?!”

“Nice fella, helped me get the little’un across the road amongst all the snow. Really posh?” You nod again, hoping to egg her along. She eventually tells you, “Yeah, I told him to hurry up and get inside, he’ll catch his death! He went over there, towards them flats.” You don’t even need to look in the direction she’s pointing to know where she means.

You thank her profusely, adding a, “Cute baby!” over your shoulder as you quickly make your way down to your next clue.

Thankfully, it’s more than just that, as you find Ralph leaning against the wall of the building just next to the front door, squatting not far from the ground, his arms crossed over his torso and his head sunk low.

He doesn’t look at you as you walk over to him, but you hold his coat out in front of him. “At least put this on, yeah? That mum’ll have your throat, otherwise.” He silently reaches out for it and stands to put it on.

“He’s not here,” he mutters quietly. “Peter, I mean.”

“So, that was your answer to all of this?” You ask, your voice strangely calm considering how tumultuous your internal monologue is. “To just run back to your old life and leave this one all unanswered and up in arms? No care as to how it’d affect anyone else?”

“Of course I care about - well, I suppose the cat's out of the bag. Of course I care about you. It’s why I thought I shan’t burden you any further. I’ve already insulted your generosity by assuming you hadn’t the agency to tell me that you didn’t want me, without taking into account that perhaps you were being genuine. It’s what caused all that trouble when we were in Brighton. And I didn’t want you to feel any more obligated to do anything more out of - I can’t describe it as anything other than pity, but I never wanted you to feel as though you had to pity me, either.”

You sigh, “Look, I get it. It’s complicated as all fuck. Trust me, I’ve been trying to work out all the ins and outs and ups and downs of it all for months, now. But anything here, it just - we don’t know what it’s gonna do, you know? There’s far bigger forces at play here, you literally travelled through time, surely that’s cocked the universe up cosmically somehow? I don’t even know,” you groan in frustration.

“Well, obviously, I wouldn’t have agreed to stay unless I absolutely knew it wasn’t going to put you at any risk. But Peter stated that… Lauren and the rest, they’ve yet to make any sort of return. And since they could have chosen any time, they surely would have by now. I think… I think they stayed, in the past. And it’s not as though the sky’s turned upside down as a result, or that the world is being run by lizard people, now.”

“Depends on who you ask,” you mutter to yourself with a smirk, before looking over at Ralph. “I’m just hurt that you didn’t think to tell me. I know, I know, it was that weekend, but still. You could have told me that you’d thought it safe to stay, regardless of when you’d figured it out.”

“Would you have still been mad at me?” He asks quietly.

“Honestly? Probably,” you shrug. “I’d probably have argued the toss with you over every single possibility that things could still go wrong. But I’d never, ever force you to come here. Haven’t I been saying it all along? I don’t want you to leave. I’ve been dreading the day that you’re not in my bed anymore, that the flat becomes too quiet again, that I’ll have to spend my evenings watching TV alone without your constant nagging.”

“I thought that rather bothered you,” the hint of a soft smile just about tugs at the corners of Ralph’s lips.

“Oh, it does,” you admit, laughing softly, “but I don’t even want to think about a life where I won’t hear any of that, again. You know, and - and just being reminded of you all the time. All our friends always asking after you, and talking about you, never letting me get over you. I’d stay up at night, staring at the bedroom door from the sofa, wondering what’d be worse; that, or you living your old life meaning that you’d never have existed in mine, meaning I’d have no memory of you at all.”

“I’d always perished the thought of leaving - well, all of you, but especially you,” Ralph’s voice is still quiet. “You’d always - always tell me to tell my sister and Lauren to shove it, but honestly, I don’t think I could ever do that without you there with me. Even if they were to throw me out and I had to find my own way around, nobody else would hold a candle to…” He takes a deep sigh. “I always… I know I’ve always been the hopeless romantic, it’s one of my biggest flaws. And after falling for Lauren as soon as I’d seen her, and everything that happened thereafter, I swore to myself that I’d never let myself do that, again. That’s why I joined the French Foreign Legion, so I could focus on the task at hand, and learning how to build a camaraderie with my fellow soldiers. Except none of them wanted to do that. And so I left, and I ended up right here, and it was only a few streets away that -”

“That some dickhead spilled coffee all over you,” you finish his sentence with a smirk.

“I told you then as well, didn’t I, you’re far from one of those,” Ralph looks at you softly. “But I felt it all come back again. Everything I felt when I first saw Lauren. And before Lauren, when it was Maggie. And before Maggie, when it was - oh, heavens, you don’t need to hear about all my failings. But every time, I acted too quickly, and I only caused myself shame and heartbreak. And when I ended up here, I needed - well, something or someone, anything to anchor me, I had no clue what was happening to me. But you were so kind to me, from the very beginning. And I didn’t want to jeopardise your generosity by ruining it the same way I ruin most other things. So I kept my feelings to myself, for once, hoping that the time to leave would catch up before I let my feelings grow. But here we are,” he sighs. “I suppose I shall have to come clean to the others, and seek refuge with one of them. Though not one of your friends as well, I would never put you in that position. I’d have to perhaps tell Loz, out of all of those…”

You frown, “But why would you have to?” He opens his mouth to answer, but you interrupt him, “You’ve not once asked me how I feel about you.”

“Yes, well, you made some things rather obvious in the flat,” he replies coolly.

“Fair enough,” you nod, “but don’t you think I’d only overreact like that if I was really upset? And that I’d only be that upset if I cared about you so much that it’d break my heart to think you could have lied to me? You’ve yet to ask me how I feel about all of this.”

Ralph wrings his hands together, wincing as though bracing for a physical impact as he asks, “Of course, my apologies. So… How do you feel?”

“It’s hard to say,” you admit, trying not to laugh at his offended face. “Okay, I know, I’m being a dick again. I’m just… I dunno, even though, like, I know now that I can say it, it’s still not easy to just, say out loud for the first time.” You let out a long and shaky breath. “I think that… I’ve never been in love before. But if feeling safer being around you, and always wanting to share my life with you, and dreading the day I never see you again, and my heart soaring every time your face lights up with happiness… I think all of those things are the kind of guff people talk about in those romance films. And I didn’t think those kinds of feelings happened in real life, but… I think I know it, now.” You hold his face in your hands and finally say the words that have been dying to leave you all this time. “I love you, Ralph.”

He looks awestruck back at you. You study his face for any other reaction at all, and after a few beats, any sign of life since he remains unmoving, but he soon gleefully grins, leaning in to kiss you. You meet him halfway, moving your arms to wrap around his neck as you press peck after peck against his lips. His arms wrap around your waist as you just kiss him, and nothing else, because nothing else matters. You only break away from each other for air, and to turn your heads to then resume kissing each other as the snow falls around you both.

It’s only when someone clears their throat to get your attention, commenting, “I know it’s Valentine’s Day, but Christ on a bike,” as they push past you, that you actually step away from each other for more than a split second.

You catch Ralph’s eye and hold your hand out to him, “Wanna go get some jelly babies, put on those face masks that make you look like you’re glowing and curl up watching crappy movies and stuffing our faces?”

“I could enjoy watching paint dry in your company, my love,” Ralph smiles warmly at you as he takes your hand, and you take a step back, aghast, but still intertwined with him.

“And where was Ralph the smooth-talker hiding this whole time?!” You ask incredulously, laughing as you fall into step with him.

“Oh, that’s nothing, darling,” he comments, and your heart flies into your throat. You’d heard him call you that in your dreams a hundred times over, but actually hearing it drives you wild. “As I said, I’ve always been quite the hopeless romantic. I’m afraid you’re going to be seeing that at full throttle, now.”

You cackle so hard you bend double. “Oh my god, I can’t believe I’m gonna see Full Throttle Ralph,” you just about manage to choke out the name through your laughter, and he frowns at you.

“I’m simply warning you that, in agreeing to our courtship, you understand that Ralph Penbury does nothing by halves.”

“Oh god, I’m gonna have to do a lot of catching up, then!” You joke, but he squeezes your hand.

“Oh, good gracious, no, you certainly don’t have to do that! You already do more than enough for me, and I don’t show love just to receive it back, anyway,” he shakes his head.

The journey back to your flat takes the best part of an hour, mostly because you keep interrupting your walk to pull Ralph in for more kisses on the way. You can’t help it, the way his face blushes with the cold just makes him look so adorable, who wouldn’t want to kiss him?!

Plus, when you’d gone to pick his sweets up, he’d told you he had somewhere else to be, run out of the shop, and returned minutes later just as you were leaving, with a bunch of flowers. “I’m cutting it a little short, I know, but would you like to be my Valentine?” He asks as he offers you them.

You take them as you exchange the bag of his sweets into his hands, gasping, “How did you find these so last minute?!”

“Well, they were in our window display,” he admits bashfully, and you laugh.

“Wait, these are from your shop?!”

Ralph nods. “Yes, but I don’t think they mind, too much. Babs was punching the air and telling me to ‘Get in, my son’, but I couldn’t leave you outside and I was technically born in time to be her father, let alone son,” he shakes his head, causing you to laugh even more.

“Shit, I forgot to answer you, didn’t I?!” You look over at Ralph adoringly. “I’d love to be your Valentine, Ralphie. D’you wanna be mine? I’m afraid the sweets won’t last nearly as long as these, as an offering, but -”

“They’re perfect. As is my Valentine this year,” he beams, kissing the part of your forehead not obscured by your hat.

Once you get home, you change out of your snow-soaked clothes and decide to wear the pyjamas you’d both gotten for Christmas from your parents. You wonder whether to tell your friends right off the bat what’s happened today. You know Ralph can keep a secret, but ever since you’d said those four words to him, he’s been practically shouting his devotion to you from the rooftops. As much as you can’t wait to share in this big milestone of yours with your best friends, you just want nothing more than some uninterrupted time to spend catching up with all the affection you’ve been so desperately wanting to give to Ralph this whole time, and vice versa. Besides, they’ve all got dates tonight, too. You don’t want to interrupt their evenings. That’s what you’ll tell them when they inevitably find out.

Instead, you spend the afternoon and well into the evening pampering yourself and your - Boyfriend? What would you even call Ralph? Although that remains short lived as he realises that face masks are just a barrier preventing more kissing from happening, and he pouts until he’s got full access once again. Every peck comes with its own sweet nothing - a declaration of love, a compliment, a comment of gratitude. Although he’d told you it wasn’t necessary, you do try to match his energy - but it just becomes exhaustive after a while.

You had your heart set on ordering from your favourite Chinese takeaway from this morning, before the day's events had transpired, but Ralph is more than happy to eat from there, as well. You even go so far as to try and teach him how to hold chopsticks, though his adorable attempts to keep interlocking your fingers to pull your hand to his lips to to kiss it instead are far more adorable.

After watching some cheesy rom-coms - or rather, spending the night cuddling and constantly kissing Ralph some more while Sandra Bullock tries to find love over and over on the TV - you eventually retire to bed. As you do, your phone chimes its specific tone to tell you the group chat has updated. Laying in bed, you unlock your phone to see a photo of Scott and his partner, on their sofa with a glass of wine each, which is then followed by Grace sharing a snap of her and her boyfriend wearing face masks together in her bathroom. Anna sends a mysterious snap of two fancy-looking meals and two glasses being clicked together, one certainly in her own hand but the other is held by a mystery man, and Connor shares a very sweet photo of him and Ralph's friend Lauren in a restaurant booth together.

Ralph's head rests on top of yours as you show him the photos, and you can feel his smile getting wider at the photo of his two friends from different parts of his life here sitting so closely together. You lean your head up to grin at him, "Should we?”

He smiles back at you as you switch to your camera app. You aim it at you and Ralph and look back over at him, for him to press a kiss to your forehead. You close your eyes, smiling into it, and tap at the screen, your muscle memory still knowing exactly where the shutter is without having to see the screen. You type “happy vday from me and my valentine, too 😘”, hit send, laugh loudly with Ralph as you see all four speech bubbles show up at once, and then put your phone on silent and lay it face-down on your nightstand.

You roll back over to snuggle up against his chest, and he wraps his arms around you, tucking your head under his chin as he embraces you. “Goodnight, my love,” you hear him whisper in your ear. “Pleasant dreams.”

“Night, Ralphie. Love you,” you mutter back, holding him tight and breathing in deeply, finally free to indulge all you want in the prospect of having a relationship with the man you’ve been in love with for the last five months.

next chapter

#ralph timewasters #ralph timewasters x reader #ralph timewasters x you #ralph timewasters fanfic #ralph timewasters imagine #ralph penbury #ralph penbury x reader #ralph penbury x you #ralph penbury fanfic #ralph penbury imagine #ralph timewasters fluff #ralph penbury fluff #bsbl #fic: bsbl #*myfics #fic: ralph

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partywithponies · 2 years

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So I have a really elaborate headcanon for the movie Bill, so elaborate that now every little fanfic I imagine in my head actually takes place during an entire sequel movie I made up inside my own head, and I've been talking about it with @quillandrapier at great length and now I have so many Thoughts I may explode so I'll share the general idea of my elaborate headcanon here:

Anne, Gabriel, and the other "cockney players" who stayed behind in London form a kind of vigilante gang behind Bill's back to rescue Croydon out of a sense of guilt that he's the only one being punished, Anne shoots Ian in the arm with an arrow or something on brand for him, and in the chaos they manage to get Croydon away, and some criminal underworld contacts get him a job working in a butcher's or a baker's under a new name where he can lie low for a bit until they find a way to smuggle him out of London so he can really start again under his new identity, and he actually gets a taste for working in a shop, people actually appreciate him, and he obviously has good cake ideas, and maybe he spend a lot of time in the kitchens at his father's house as a young boy, watching the cooks and bakers? I get the feeling he was always a lonely child. Anne starts sneaking out to visit him, at first just to keep an eye on him and make sure he isn't going to do something stupid and blow all their covers, but they get really close, but they both think nothing can come of it because she's married and he's leaving London forever any day now, so they're both just quietly Pining and Yearning. Meanwhile Anne, Gabriel, and the cockney players have developed a taste for vigilante-ing and have starting freeing young boys and people who did it out of self defence from the chop and have become both wanted criminals and local heroes. Bill is still completely oblivious that it's them. MEANWHILE meanwhile Bill and Gabriel are also getting really really close, but Bill's too stupid to realise that they're in love and Gabriel's getting very frustrated. Eventually they finally get word that Croydon's to be smuggled out of London to the countryside tomorrow and Anne suddenly realises she can't bear it and announces she's going with him. She runs off with Croydon and leaves Bill and the kids a note apologising and explaining everything, and Gabriel takes this moment to finally give Bill a kick up the backside and make a move on him.

#bill the film #bill 2015 #debgatus 2: tudor boogaloo #it's about the PINING #it's about the YEARNING

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360homesecurity · 3 months

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denimbex1986 · 8 months

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'There’s a scene in Andrew Haigh’s new film All of Us Strangers that felt a bit like watching my own life in flashback. It takes place in the Whitgift Centre in 1980s Croydon, south London, where key parts of the film were shot. Also included is Haigh’s actual childhood home in nearby Sanderstead, where he lived until around the age of nine, before his parents divorced and he moved away. The scene in question lasts only a few seconds as a young boy (Adam) crosses the sombre shopping mall. But it was enough to transport me back to my own experience as a young kid growing up in the same London borough, a few years after Haigh’s time there.

In the 80s and 90s, Croydon felt like an incredibly oppressive place to grow up in. Head down there today, and you’ll find that the shopping centre hasn’t changed much, save that it’s largely lined with discount stores rather than the popular high-street names that once filled it. Meanwhile, the sense of alienation that comes with being a young person in this incongruous suburb tacked onto the southwest of sprawling megacity London feels hauntingly familiar.

“It’s those English suburbs, they’re very, very conservative. They always were,” Haigh says when we meet for our interview in Soho on an unseasonably warm autumn afternoon. “Back then, they were not a pleasant place for someone that’s different to grow up.”

In All of Us Strangers, young Adam is beginning to realise that his sexuality is setting him apart from the comforting familiarity of his beloved parents’ world. Sadly, this is not an experience unique to the 80s, but one that resonates with LGBTQ+ people even now.

The grown-up, contemporary-era version of Adam is played by Andrew Scott. The Fleabag star plays a lonely gay man that is struggling to let go of the past in order to find happiness and move forward. One day, Adam meets the younger and far more outwardly free Harry — exceptionally played by Paul Mescal — who lives in the same apartment block. They begin an intoxicating affair that at last allows Adam a sense of connection and freedom he has denied himself.

You’ll likely know Haigh’s work from his 2011 breakout romantic drama Weekend, starring Chris New and Tom Cullen, which resonated with audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. Its frank depiction of an overnight affair between two gay men captured the attention of a community that responded well to seeing a sexual and emotional relationship being handled in such a refreshingly candid way on screen. The film’s commercial and critical success opened doors for Haigh in the US. HBO courted him to create Looking, the cult TV series starring Jonathan Groff, Russell Tovey, and Murray Bartlett. But it’s the intense and challenging All of Us Strangers that has propelled the director back into the spotlight.

“When I wrote [All of Us Strangers], I did feel like my intention was to tell an experience of a very specific generation of gay men,” says Haigh. “I think it’s been called by other people the ‘middle generation’, the generation of gay men that came into their sexuality, or came to understand their sexuality, while AIDS was affecting and killing so many people. So, you’re not in the generation before, who grew up coming into sexuality before AIDS, and you’re not in the generation who came after, where there is now medication, and it’s no longer a death sentence.

“Coming out in the 90s, in the shadow of AIDS and HIV, to be gay and to have gay sex equated with death, disease, and social isolation. I remember growing up thinking there was literally no future for me: ‘I cannot be a gay person in the world.’ That carries a lot of shame and a lot of self-hatred. It takes a lifetime to get rid of that,” he reflects. “You don’t have to scratch the surface very far to feel how you used to feel.”

While legislation may allow gay people greater equal rights, Haigh underscores that social attitudes are still a way behind. The wounds of growing up in the years post-AIDS are still raw. “Today, straight people have decided it’s OK now. They’ve decided that now we’ve got gay marriage, that it should be fine for us now. And they’ve forgotten how they used to treat us. We haven’t forgotten; we can still remember,” says Haigh, his calm and measured tone belying a defiant message. “We’re being told we should be happy. It doesn’t mean we are actually fully embracing who we are.”

On shame, Haigh highlights how it never just vanishes. “We’re supposed to have got rid of it, but of course, it still lingers. It doesn’t go away, but you can soften it and deal with it. But I also feel like that’s not necessarily a queer thing. Any kind of difference can make you feel isolated and alone. And lots of people have things that make them different.”

In terms of realising his own sexuality, Haigh remembers finding other men attractive as a kid. “There was always something about boys that I wanted to be around. I’d see a teenage boy and be like, ‘Why am I staring at that person’s hairy legs?’” says Haigh of those early impulses. On a trip to London, he was confronted with a poster about HIV featuring a man and a woman. “It was like, ‘Which do you prefer?’ I remember thinking, ‘I definitely prefer that picture of that man.’ It was the first time I really realised. It’s of no surprise that those things became connected.”

Closeting himself through school and university, Haigh had girlfriends to hide his identity. After university, he found himself living in London. ‘I cannot do this any longer,’ he told himself. “I was wandering around Soho after work looking in the windows of sex shops and wanting to buy a porn video, finally plucking up the courage to buy one. Then, sneaking it back to my flat and watching it and being like, ‘Oh my God, I know what it is that I want.’”

With his newly accepted sexuality, Haigh did what most gay men in the 90s did: he hit the scene, from Heaven to Popstarz and Wig Out at The Ghetto. “I remember going to G-A-Y in the Astoria and seeing what felt like a thousand gay people all in one room, and I was like, ‘Fuck. Oh my God, all of these people are like me.’ It makes me a bit sad that some people maybe don’t experience that now, because those things don’t exist in the same way.”

It was through London’s gay scene that Haigh came across his first film subject: an escort named Pete, who would become the focus of his semi-dramatised 2009 documentary film, Greek Pete. The film’s naturalistic style was the perfect precursor to Weekend, which felt relatable to so many gay men for its forthright take on love-at-gay-sight, and the giddy highs that come with exploring somebody new, and how you can give of yourself to them so unreservedly. “You have a chance, don’t you, to redefine yourself when you meet someone new,” says Haigh, “and you don’t have so much baggage that you have with friends and family. You get a chance to be like, ‘Actually, I’m going to say this thing about me or express this feeling,’ which you might not have ever said to anybody before.”

Arriving over a decade later, All of Us Strangers is viewed by Haigh as having a conversation with his breakthrough second film. “I’m 12 or 13 years older than when I wrote Weekend. I’ve changed, and my understanding of my own queerness has changed and developed,” muses Haigh of the two films’ thematic connections.

“I wanted to expand things that I had been thinking about for a long time. People had always asked if I was going to do a sequel to Weekend, and it just never made sense to me. Weekend is crazy because I had no concept that that film would be seen by people. Or, I think if I did know, I probably would have been more timid at the time about certain things.” Where Weekend may have been audacious for its time, the years since have allowed Haigh to fully release the restraints in All of Us Strangers.

There are many complex, intertwining layers in his universally lauded new film, All of Us Strangers: addiction, shame, grief. While they all pull at the characters, it never at any point feels excessive. Striking that balance was pivotal to making the film feel authentic. “I knew that it was about a lot of things all working together, and all of those things come from a similar place, essentially,” says Haigh. “The grief of losing a parent, the trauma of that, and also the trauma of growing up in a time, and the grief that your childhood wasn’t what you wanted it to be. I wanted the film to feel like there were so many things wrapped up together that linked to other things that can lead to addiction, that can lead to pain, to someone shutting down and not allowing anyone into their lives.

“They’re wrapped up together in a way that you can’t tell where the edges of all of those things are. They’ve all become this knot, essentially. What’s driving the film is the only way to soften that is to find people that care about you. And perhaps, more importantly, how you do that for other people. Adam and Harry, they realise that they need to do things for each other. That being there for someone else is as important as them being there for you. I think sometimes you can be quite selfish with love, expecting that you need to be loved, without realising you actually need to make sure that you’re giving that to someone else.”

The uncanny isolation of the characters is even more tangible seeing as the film was written during the Covid pandemic. “There’s an element of that, of being locked literally inside your house, but also into yourself. And I think when you focus in on yourself, the past comes back. Relationships from the past come back,” observes Haigh.

Another way All of Us Strangers sets itself apart from the director’s filmography is the unnaturalistic cinematography and vivid lighting that fills many of Scott’s scenes with Mescal. “I knew that the only way for this film to work was if it felt slightly shifted from reality,” says Haigh. “I wanted it to exist on a slightly different plane. You had to feel like you were somehow suspended. I wanted to be plunged deeper into some kind of psychological state.”

The actors are similarly beguiling in their roles. Mescal excels as Harry, bringing an effortless toughness and tenderness in equal parts. “I wanted this character to be someone who you felt like his version of falling in love was caring for that other person. That’s what you see unfolding. His version of love is: ‘I care about you, and I want to help you, and I want to know you,’” says Haigh of messy Harry. “Paul’s a really compassionate person. He genuinely cares about people, and is emotionally engaged in other people’s struggle. You feel that. His performance is really beautifully judged in terms of that.”

Mescal was fully aware that the role would only work if it didn’t compete with that of his on-screen partner. “He’s a very generous person and a generous actor. He knew that this is a film essentially about Adam, and he’s a supporting role in that. That’s not easy for an actor. They know they are supporting, but they know they need their role to be important, too.”

Scott’s portrayal of Adam is similarly enthralling. The character’s inner conflict is tortured, and Scott pours himself into the role, but never once does it feel unwarranted. Scott plays Adam delicately in moments, then viscerally in others. “I know that he felt so connected to the material,” says Haigh of Scott. “When I started giving the scripts to people, they’d say, ‘This feels like it’s written for me and about me.’ And Andrew felt that. This is a film about the past bleeding to the surface. When you see it in Andrew coming to the surface, it’s genuine. It’s a beautiful performance, and it feels so real.”

Haigh applies a considered touch to the more intense scenes, which never feel like they’re being played for a reaction. In different hands, with a different actor, a different director, they could have failed. “There’s lots of sadness in the story,” says Haigh. “I was like, ‘OK, I want people to have an emotional reaction to it. But I don’t want them to feel completely manipulated into that emotion.’ You’re trying at every stage to work out, ‘Does this feel genuine?’”

From the older married straight couple played by Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay in 45 Years (for which Rampling was Academy Award nominated) to All of Us Strangers, solitude and loneliness are consistent themes in much of Haigh’s work. If the British are renowned for their emotional reservedness, Haigh would be something of an auteur of the British condition on film.

Something the director is not shy to confront is how society also forces us to seek the comfort of others to mask loneliness. “We feel like that is the solution. But if you’re still hiding it, you’re still hiding it. And you can be very alone in relationships. You can be very alone with all of your friends,” he says. “But also the essence of being human is that we are essentially alone in the world. And our whole life is about dealing with that until the day we die, when you’re essentially alone again. It’s a greater existential question that will never go away, and we pretend it has. ‘Oh, no. I’m happy, everything’s great, we’re all good.’ We’ll buy things, we’ll do stuff, we’ll have fun. We’ll go and have a nice meal in a restaurant. It doesn’t escape the essential aloneness.”

On telling queer stories, Haigh is aware that LGBTQ+ people have been starved of on-screen representation for so long that people have a tendency to lash out at anything that either does not mirror their experience or presents them less than positively. “People can react with real vitriol, real hatred. I understand it when you’re desperate for representation, you want that representation to be you, essentially,” says Haigh about reactions to series like Looking or Russell T. Davies’ actually rather good Cucumber.

Haigh continues, “But it’s not you. It’s representing the person that’s made that show. It feels like that might be changing now. I feel like people are starting to be a little bit more compassionate to difference within the community, rather than it needing to be a strict representation of them.”

Part of these extreme reactions, Haigh says, is also down to the disparity between generations. “There’s a lot of anger from a younger generation against my generation. I’m like, ‘You’ve only just come out, please. We’ve dealt with our own shit.’ You just wish that everybody could realise that we’ve actually all been through the same fucking shit. We should as a community be supportive of each other. Even if we are very different and have different viewpoints on our lives.”

When it comes to those perspectives, there really is only one that Haigh can be responsible for: his own. It’s served him well. Over five remarkable films and his television work, he’s gradually unpicking what it means to be alone in a world that moves on regardless of our feelings, and what it also means to exist in the context of being loved in the same.

Haigh’s under no pretence that the medium of directing is a mirror through which he interprets his life. “It reflects my concerns, my ideas, my thoughts. I never want my films to be narcissistically about me. I’m not interested in that. But the films are an expression of how I see things,” he says as our conversation finds its natural conclusion. “It’s often what I find quite difficult, because [in terms of fame] I don’t want to be necessarily ‘in the world’. But I’m also making films that go into the world in a big dramatic way. So, there’s a tension there, and that triggers a lot of emotional things in me. But it definitely is, it’s a mirror, without a doubt.”'

#Andrew Haigh #Andrew Scott #Paul Mescal #All of Us Strangers #Cucumber #Weekend #Fleabag #Looking #Russell Tovey #Greek Pete #Charlotte Rampling #Tom Courtnay #45 Years #LGBTQ+

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insidecroydon · 8 months

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Latest CCTV swoop on North End delivers eight more arrests

Big Brother is watching: who knew that Marks and Sparks on North End was where the local crims do their weekly shop? The Met’s LFR camera deployed in Croydon this week The Metropolitan Police appear to have abandoned their regular Thursday afternoon appointment with local crims on North End, and after a month of trialling Live Facial Recognition on Croydon’s main shopping street, the force has…

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#Croydon #knife crime #LFR #Live Facial Recognition #London #Metropolitan Police #North End #Scotland Yard #West Croydon

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maxluff2102696 · 10 months

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Bibliography

Kefford, A. (2020). ‘The death of the high street’: town centres from post-war to Covid-19. [Online]. www.historyandpolicy.org. Last Updated: 2020. Available at: https://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/the-death-of-the-high-street-town-centres-from [Accessed 5 December 2023].

Sularia, S. (2023). Retail Evolution Through The Digital Decade: Three Factors Impacting Retail Today. [Online]. Forbes.com. Last Updated: 2023. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/02/02/retail-evolution-through-the-digital-decad [Accessed 5 December 2023].

Make Retail. (2022). Internet shopping and the effect on cities. [Online]. https://www.makearchitects.com/. Last Updated: 2022. Available at: https://www.makearchitects.com/thinking/internet-shopping-and-the-effect-on-cities/ [Accessed 5 December 2023].

Charm, T. (2020). The great consumer shift: Ten charts that show how US shopping behavior is changing. [Online]. mckinsey.com. Last Updated: 2020. Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-great-consumer-shi [Accessed 5 December 2023].

Cullumbine, L. (2023). From Pop-Up Stores to Seamless Experiences. [Online]. retail-focus.co.uk. Last Updated: 2023. Available at: https://retail-focus.co.uk/from-pop-up-stores-to-seamless-experiences/ [Accessed 5 December 2023].

Mcfayden, A. (2020). Croydon, community, soundsystem culture: Tracing the history of dubstep. [Online]. redbull.com. Last Updated: 2020. Available at: https://www.redbull.com/gb-en/history-of-dubstep-music [Accessed 5 December 2023].

GetDarker. (2022). Dubstep Heritage - Location 02 - Big Apple Records [Croydon]. [Online]. youtube.com. Last Updated: 2022. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxjMZTZ_PqY [Accessed 5 December 2023].

O’connel, S. (2006). Dubstep. [Online]. timeout.com. Last Updated: 2006. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20081227132828/http://www.timeout.com/london/music/features/2083.html [Accessed 5 December 2023].

pastfutures. (2023). #SoundsofCroydon. [Online]. pastfutures.co.uk. Last Updated: 2023. Available at: https://www.pastfutures.co.uk/soundsofcroydon-rave [Accessed 5 December 2023].

museumofcroydon. (2023). Meet Shaniqua. [Online]. https://museumofcroydon.com/. Last Updated: 2023. Available at: https://museumofcroydon.com/shaniquas-blogs/meet-shaniqua [Accessed 5 December 2023]

Londonist. (2015). The Man Who Created Croydon’s Art Quarter. [Online]. londonist.com. Last Updated: 2015. Available at: https://londonist.com/2015/07/the-man-who-created-croydon-s-art-quarter [Accessed 5 December 2023].

timeout. (2023). Cronx Brewery. [Online]. timeout.com. Last Updated: 2023. Available at: https://www.timeout.com/london/bars-pubs/cronx-brewery [Accessed 5 December 2023].

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lindsaywesker · 1 year

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Good morning! I hope you slept well and feel rested? Currently sitting in my study, attired only in my blue towelling robe, enjoying my first cuppa of the day. Welcome to the working week although, for those of you working in the NHS, welcome to just another day.

Well, that was a very enjoyable weekend for so many reasons! Straight after the show, I rushed home, had a shave, jumped in the shower, got myself dressed and then headed straight back out! We had a party to attend in Croydon and I know what Saturday afternoon traffic can be like! In fact, the journey from Harlesden to Croydon isn’t that bad (Shepherd’s Bush, Wandsworth, Streatham) but, London traffic is so horrendous, SatNav took me out on the A40 and sent me 35 miles round the M25! The journey home took half the time, although we did stop for a dirty Morley’s just before midnight!

The 60th birthday party we attended was a very stylish affair at a golf club. You can always judge a person by their family and their friends, and our beautiful friend Joy is surrounded by lovely people. In fact, The Trouble and I made some new friends on Saturday night. The wife said she became friends with Joy because she was blown away by how authentic, kind and supportive Joy is. We love her!

On Sunday morning, I watched ‘Match Of The Day’, my favourite drama series, and then I ducked into Sainsbury’s for the weekly shop. Two bags of shopping = £70. Fairly soon, we’ll be like one of those countries we used to think of as ‘third world’, and every loaf of bread will cost a tenner! (Don’t think it won’t happen!) The Mighty Josiah and I then spent 90 minutes in the park, although local kids are patiently waiting for the re-modelled playground to be finished and re-opened! And then we returned home for brunch and live football which, as you know, turned into another afternoon of joy and pain!

Very pleased to see my favourite track of 2022 – ‘People’ by Libianca – still climbing up the UK Singles Chart. Last year, I said it was a future No. 1 and it is now No.2 up from No. 4 (15 weeks on the chart.) Fingers crossed. My next prediction is ‘Jericho’ by Iniko.

Question Of The Week: if people could hear your inner monologue, would they be: a) amused, b) appalled, c) aroused, or d) terrified?

Many thanks to everyone that listened to the radio show live or on MixCloud. The Trouble loved being an executive producer and has told me that, unless she can do it again, she will withhold all love and affection. Crikey, talk about being over a barrel! This Saturday’s executive producer is The Seductive Sam Dimmer, who will be live in the studio, radiating all that goodness.

Have a marvellous and momentous Monday. I love you all.

#mixcloud #mi soul #dj #music #new blog #lockdown #coronavirus #books #weekend #democracy #brexit #cronyism #election #radio

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avaliveradio · 2 years

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Mick J. Clark's New Single 'This Moment' is a Sweet Goodbye Duet

Mick J. Clark - This Moment

Music Genre: Pop Vibe: Salsa Ballad Link to your streaming page: https://open.spotify.com/track/1qE16x1m3HWTgtU2fYcbMP?si=93d07d7a338b4648

‘This Moment' which is a duet about saying goodbye, ending with the words 'I loved you so'! It is a coincidence that this song is so poignant at these sudden sad times. ‘This Moment’ is the last song (No 60) on my Box Set Catalogue. I have over 1,000,000 Spotify Streams on my 66 songs, all genres. I had 54 of my songs played in shops, via Emerge Media, till they stopped trading last year.

I have been in the iTunes singles Chart six times and the iTunes Album Chart once. I made it into the official 64th Grammy Nominations with my album, ‘Causes’ and my single, ‘A Song Has Gotta Swing Like Sinatra’.Also, ’A Song Has Gotta Swing Like Sinatra’ has been put forward for this year’s UK Country Radio.com Song Award. I have had ‘15’ videos accepted by Promo Stream.

I have over 300,000 Spotify Streams on my three Christmas songs and 140,000 on my summer song, called: ‘Anuther Sunny Hulliday’ Also 115,000 on my birthday song, called: ‘Blow Those Candles Out’.

‘Me My Body And I’ was put into all the Schools in Croydon by the Education Dept. Leethan Bartholomew of the National FGM Centre has accepted this song because FGM is mentioned in the song.

Empowering Song for Children’ against Self Harming and Bullying.

‘Me My Body And I‘ By Mick J. Clark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCbPpfIGk-s

(And yes Life can be a Bully as well).

I was also in the local paper twice with my Anti Smoking song, ‘You Don’t Look Cool By Teenagers’, (The Brit School) as I visited Schools.

My 66 songs are all mixed and mastered, all with backing tracks, no Demo’s, and every song is on You Tube. Three Albums and three EPs, called, Notes 1,2,3,4,5 and 6.

I have also written a book that got great reviews from Kirkus and Blue Ink, which also has a film script. I have now brought out my ‘Box Set Catalogue of 60 songs. Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF9aDuFy1rc

Social Links & Website: Twitter @MickjclarkJ

https://www.mickjclark.co.uk

https://www.instagram.com/clarkmickj/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbscogfJoXL5h0IXcgp1jbw

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2AJWHKgZqSzehDP2yfDfBy?si=C2sCOOE3T8GEDzXJafTUrw

Added to this playlist

#Mick J. Clark #indie folk

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osferth · 3 years

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the haunting of cookham house: chapter 1

summary: In the midst of an exhausting flat search, newlyweds Sophia and Anjali Abbot suddenly inherit a large country house miles away in the serene village of Cookham. It proves to be much more than the couple bargained for, however, when they arrive to find it already occupied... by nine ancient ghosts.

tagging: @lauwrite1225 @maggiescarborough @morosemagick @solinarimoon @lannisterdaddyissues @firexfate @93xdiagonxalley @aadmelioraa @emilyhufflepufftlk

“Won’t be long now,” murmured Finan.

The laboured breaths of the elderly woman began to slow as the ghosts grouped around her bed watched over almost reverently.

“She had a good life,” Uhtred said quietly.

“At least she’s comfortable,” Sihtric added.

“Yeah, there are worse ways to go,” Osferth pointed out, gesturing to the arrow lodged in his chest. There was a mumbled chorus of assent amongst the ghosts before Hild shushed them all.

“Quiet,” she hissed.

“I think it’s happening,” said Father Beocca. “Look.”

Silence finally fell as a bright light began to emanate from the woman’s body, Beocca making a sign of the cross as her spirit rose up to face them all. “Who are you?” she asked.

Everyone immediately looked toward Uhtred, who for some reason was still considered their unofficial leader despite being… well, dead.

“I was once the lord of the village you call Cookham,” he began ostentatiously, “true Lord of Bebbanburg and a warrior with great reputation, now forced to wander the lands where I was slain as a ghost for all eterni-”

“And she’s gone,” finished Father Pyrlig unceremoniously.

“This always happens,” muttered Uhtred, staring at the patterned wallpaper before him. “I do not understand.”

Pyrlig shrugged. “Yeah, well, the rest of us do.”

“I have always thought not everyone seems to enjoy your speeches as much as you think,” commented Skade, appearing suddenly behind Osferth and making him jump.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that all the time,” he grumbled.

“Oh, honestly!” snapped Hild suddenly, glaring at all of them. “The woman has barely passed on! At the very least, we should show some respect.”

Father Beocca nodded. “The abbess is right. I shall say a prayer for her soul.” He cleared his throat slightly before beginning. “Our Lord in Heaven…”

Finan leaned across to Sihtric. “Bagsie her room,” he whispered over the prayer, to which the Dane only rolled his eyes.

“Amen,” said Beocca finally.

“Amen,” chorused the ghosts, Finan a little louder and later than the rest. With nothing more to add, silence returned for a brief moment until it was broken by Osferth.

“I wonder what’ll happen to this place once she’s taken away.”

Pyrlig looked sideways at him. “Well, I imagine someone else will move in,” he said dryly.

“All of you!” said Hild exasperatedly. “Please! Her body is still warm, for goodnessʼ sake.”

Looking appropriately chastised, Osferth looked down at the floor. “Perhaps one of us should say a few words,” he suggested.

“I shall do it,” said Uhtred immediately, straightening up. “As the lord of Cookham, I…”

“And he's off again,” muttered Pyrlig, shaking his head as he left the room. The other ghosts quickly followed suit amid murmurs and eye rolls, although Uhtred did not notice as his speech grew more passionate and heartfelt.

“Who will be the one to reclaim this as their home?” he sighed finally, looking through the window at the overgrown front garden.

“Um… let’s take a look at the view, shall we?”

The estate agent led Sophia over to the window with an apologetic look on his face, Anjali trailing slightly behind with about as much enthusiasm as you would expect when buying a cramped, one-bedroom flat in the middle of nowhere.

Peering over Sophia’s shoulder, she was greeted with the scenic image of a local chip shop sandwiched between a defunct barber shop and a Londis. Just on time, an old poster tacked onto the front door swung off one corner and was quickly carried down the street by a gust of wind.

“Well,” began Sophia uncertainly, “at least we won’t have to go far for groceries. Or fish and chips.”

“I don’t like fish or chips,” Anjali muttered.

Sophia squinted at the shop sign. “They also do kebabs,” she suggested, although she did not sound too keen.

“I’ll leave you two to have a chat in here,” said the estate agent tactfully. “Just give me a shout when you’re ready, alright?”

Anjali watched him disappear into the kitchen before turning to her wife. “I do like kebabs, I s’pose,” she conceded. Sophia smiled slightly, but before she could reply, her phone started buzzing.

“Hang on, I’ll just… hello?”

“Hello, is this Sophia Abbot?” asked a slightly-garbled male voice.

“Speaking,” she replied.

“I’m calling about a house.”

“We’re only looking at flats, we can’t afford to buy a house.”

“This one’s not for sale.”

Sophia frowned. “Well then, why are you calling?” she snapped, ending the call. God. Some estate agents really were the worst-

Her phone buzzed again before she could have a chance to think. Still irritated, she picked it up but did not answer.

“Sorry, I think we got off on the wrong foot,” said the same man quickly. “I’m a solicitor at Willard and Phillips and I’m calling to inform you that you have, in fact, inherited a house.”

The moments after that were a blur for Sophia and, after being informed of the news, for Anjali, too. Their estate agent simply seemed relieved to not have to accompany the couple on visits to flats that had, quite frankly, seen better days.

An appointment was scheduled for the very next morning. It all felt wildly surreal to Anjali and particularly Sophia, who was baffled upon being informed that the previous owner of the beautiful Cookham property was actually a distant great-aunt… or something along those lines, anyway. Even the solicitor seemed to be having trouble connecting the two, but as there was no other living relative, the house was legally Sophia’s.

Unable to contain their excitement, they promptly called off the flat search and decided to move in that same afternoon. Neither of them were familiar with Cookham, but the further they drove through the more they grew to love the village. With its gorgeous landscapes and old-fashioned architecture, Sophia and Anjali felt only enthusiastic to be able to call this place home.

“Feels like we’ve gone back in time, doesn’t it?” Anjali sighed, gazing out of the window.

“Yeah,” smiled Sophia, “it’s nothing like Croydon.”

Anjali consulted her phone, reading through the Wikipedia entry on Cookham. “It’s got a lot of history to it,” she said. “Listen to this: ‘By the 8th century there was an Anglo-Saxon abbey in Cookham and one of the later abbesses was-” sorry, no idea how to pronounce that- ‘widow of King Offa of Mercia.’ It’s still there, I think. We could visit at some point!”

“8th century,” repeated Sophia. “Bloody hell, it’s ancient, isn’t it?”

“Ooh, look: ‘It became the centre of a power struggle between Mercia and Wessex. Later King Alfred made Sashes Island one of his-’ er, berrs? Boors? Dunno- ‘to help defend against Viking invaders.’ This is so cool!”

“Is there anything a bit more recent?” Sophia asked.

Anjali rolled her eyes, skimming over the rest of the article.

“Nothing interesting… ooh, except,” she snickered, “a ‘Miss Isabella Fleming in 1869, who wanted to stop nude bathing at Odney.’”

Sophia snorted. “What?”

“Yeah, there is zero elaboration on that one.”

“Shame.”

“That yellow wagon’s given me an awful headache,” Finan complained, rubbing his head.

Brida looked disdainfully at him. “That’s not possible,” she said flatly. “You’re dead. And I believe they called it an ambulance last week.”

“Well, I would’ve had a headache if I was still alive,” muttered Finan.

Beocca sighed. “I am beginning to miss her already.”

Uhtred nodded, although the other ghosts suspected that had more to do with her being an indirect relative of his rather than him having any actual interest in her as a person. It was taken for granted that he continued to behave as though he still had ownership over the cottage - and indeed the village itself - even if he was because he was physically unable to leave it.

A creak sounded from the far corner of the room suddenly, startling most of the ghosts. Skade looked up from her seat by the table, a vase slightly out of place, as she met them all with narrowed eyes.

Thoroughly unsettled, Uhtred and all three of his men turned around without a word. Brida shook her head at all of them and marched off to sit beside Skade. Their relationship had been rocky at first, certainly characterised by animosity while they were still alive, but spending over a millennium together had softened it somewhat. It was more to do with the fact that nobody else, other than Hild and sometimes Osferth, tended to visit the lake she haunted. While Brida spent the most time at the lake, Hild had started venturing out to visit every so often, her hatred of the seer lessening as her curiosity grew. Osferth’s visits were still rare, however, given that he remained wracked with guilt.

“I wonder-”

“Who will come to reclaim this place as their home,” Pyrlig said, interrupting the former Lord of Bebbanburg, “yes, we wonder that too.”

Despite their respect for him, Finan and Osferth snickered.

“Well,” said Hild, “I don’t think we’ll have to wonder for much longer.” She waved all of them over to where she was standing by the window, Brida being the last to get there - the last they looked, Skade remained in her seat.

Standing near the back, Osferth suddenly felt a presence on his left. He jolted upon seeing the seer standing only inches away, smirking.

“Y’know, I’m beginning to think you enjoy this,” he grumbled.

“Looks a bit like that medical wagon, doesn’t it?” Finan commented, watching the car pull into the driveway.

“Ambulance,” Brida supplied flatly.

“I don’t think that’s an ambulance, Brida,” said Uhtred wisely, blind to the dirty look she gave him.

Hild shushed them as two women climbed out. One was considerably shorter and clad in an oversized jumper and jogging bottoms. Her skin was brown and her hair dark and wavy, curling over her shoulders. The other was slightly taller, dressed in jeans and a lilac knitted jumper. She was dark-skinned and her curly hair was pulled back, away from her face. Her arm was around the other woman’s shoulders as both gazed in awe up at the house.

“I think - this is it!” Sophia announced, slowing down as the car bumped over the gravelled drive. “Oh, wow.”

Parking the car, she turned the ignition off and opened the door to let herself out, taking in the sight of the grand house before them.

“It’s even prettier than in the photos,” Anjali sighed dreamily. “And it’s all ours.”

“I still can’t believe it,” said Sophia, breaking her gaze from the house to look at her wife.

Anjali beamed, pressing a little kiss to her lips. “Well, shall we?” she said, offering Sophia her arm. Sophia smiled and hooked her arm in Anjali’s, the two of them making their way over to the door.

As she turned the key in the lock, she felt a strange sensation from above, almost as though she was being watched.

Anjali shook her arm a little. “You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said quickly, “it’s nothing.” Shaking her head, she pushed the door open.

“Did you see that!” Finan exclaimed, watching the young couple before them briefly kiss before disappearing under the doorframe.

“I think we all did,” said Osferth dryly.

“Times have changed,” Uhtred said thoughtfully.

Sihtric rolled his eyes. “Have they?”

He was the only one who noticed the way Brida had begun looking longingly towards Skade, the seer seemingly having tired of tormenting Osferth for once.

“Well, it’s been a thousand years,” Father Pyrlig pointed out snidely, missing what was going on. “Obviously they have. Jesus.”

Clearly in a rush to get a closer look at the people who had ‘reclaimed his home’, Uhtred quickly left the room - prompting the other ghosts to follow.

“He was never one for patience, was he?” huffed Father Beocca as they descended the stairs.

Hild raised her eyebrows momentarily. “I’m afraid not.”

“How old did they say the actual house was?” Sophia inquired, peering over Anjali’s shoulder at her phone.

“Er… oh, yeah, here! It was built in 1808 and renovated in 1953.”

Sophia grinned. “Reckon it’s haunted, then?”

“Probably,” Anjali said, all-too serious. Out of the two, she was the believer - Sophia was the staunch sceptic. Anything even slightly out of the ordinary terrified Anjali, from flickering lights to objects moving without cause, while Sophia always had a rational explanation handy. Perhaps it was a good thing, then, that this fear did not extend to spiders - those were Sophia’s weakness.

The chess board was what caught Sophia’s eye first. “This is so cool,” she murmured, leaning over to pick up a pawn. Upon seeing that it was coated in a thin layer of dust, however, she pulled away. As she did so, she felt a strange sensation course across her forearm, almost as though a cold breeze had blown its way over. Ever the sceptic, she assumed there was a window open nearby and thought nothing of it.

Finan shuddered, backing away from the chess board. “God, I’d forgotten how awful that feels.”

Pyrlig rolled his eyes from where he was standing a safe distance away.

Just as Anjali was about to collapse onto the couch with the golden-gilded legs she had been eyeing for several minutes, Sophia pulled her away.

“It’s all dusty down here,” she explained, her voice muffled by the hand she was using to cover her nose. “Let’s dump our stuff upstairs and take a look around.”

“Won’t it be dusty upstairs, too?” Anjali dubiously pointed out.

“Nah, they'll have cleaned the bedrooms out at least,” said Sophia, “‘cos the last owner died up there.”

Anjali stared at her. “What?” she exploded. “Which one? I don’t want to sleep in the same room where someone died, what if-”

“It won’t be haunted,” Sophia quickly reassured her, “‘cos we’re not gonna stay in that room, not if it scares you that much. Ghosts aren’t real either way, so... you’ll be alright.”

“Agree to disagree,” mumbled Anjali, letting Sophia lead her upstairs anyway. As she left, she felt the uncomfortable sensation of being watched. It could have been simple paranoia, as Sophia would explain it away as, or it could have been something Anjali did not even want to consider - but either way, she was beginning to understand exactly why old houses gave some people the creeps.

#the last kingdom #tlk #uhtred of bebbanburg #finan #osferth #sihtric #brida #skade #father pyrlig #father beocca #hild #the last kingdom fanfiction #my writing

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