#i have never in my life drawn stitch before the event announcement

[egophiliac]

the Stitch crossover so far is just pure chaos and honestly, that tracks.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

But You Can Never Leave [Chapter 6: Something Borrowed, Something Blue]

I’d like to give a very special shout out to @killer-queen-xo​ and the insightful prediction she left on Chapter 5 about Y/N and the camera...you were close! 😉

Chapter summary: Y/N breaks a promise; John gives a gift; Freddie has a request; Roger makes a scene.

This series is a work of fiction, and is (very) loosely inspired by real people and events. Absolutely no offense is meant to actual Queen or their families.

Song inspiration: Hotel California by The Eagles.

Chapter warnings: Language, creepy male behavior.

Chapter list (and all my writing) available HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii​ @loveandbeloved29​ @killer-queen-xo @maggieroseevans​ @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark​ @im-an-adult-ish​ @queenlover05​ @someforeigntragedy​ @imtheinvisiblequeen​ @joemazzmatazz​ @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhye​ @namelesslosers​ @inthegardensofourminds​ @deacyblues​ @youngpastafanmug​ @sleepretreat​ @hardyshoe​ @bramblesforbreakfast​ @sevenseasofcats​ @tensecondvacation​ @bookandband​ @queen-crue​ @jennyggggrrr​ @madeinheavxn​ @whatgoeson-itslate​ @brianssixpence​

Please yell at me if I forget to tag you! :)

“Welcome!” Mary chimes as she opens the door for you, then her eyes flick down to the gift bag decorated with Santa hats and sprigs of holly. “Oh, love, we said positively no presents!”

“It’s just something small, I promise. Very inexpensive.”

“She’s here!” Freddie announces with a flourish of his hands, leaping up from the couch. The apartment he shares with Mary is tiny and very cluttered, and absolutely none of the decorations match. The walls are a collage of Bohemian tapestries and family photos and prints of Rococo-style paintings and magazine cutouts of articles about Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Queen. Freddie pecks you on both cheeks; Blue Christmas is drifting from the record player. You’re suddenly aware that the apartment is brimming with the scent of baking cookies. In the living room, Roger, Brian, and John are hanging strings of popcorn and paper ornaments on a short, rather scruffy Christmas tree. There is a vast array of presents scattered around the tree stand; all are small, with the exception of one large square box swathed in silver and sapphire wrapping paper.

“I see no one else respected the no presents rule either.”

“You Bostonians and your insatiable need to rebel,” Freddie quips, shooing you towards the tree.

“Y/N, look at this,” Chrissie says from where she and Veronica are sitting on the couch threading popcorn. She’s frowning and holding up a piece of paper cut into the shape of a Pontiac Firebird. “Will you please inform Roger that this is not Christmas themed?”

“Awww!” You grin as she hands it to you. He’s even drawn on a windshield, headlights, and a smiley face floating behind the steering wheel. “Let him hang it, Chris. It’s the only car he’s going to be able to afford for a long time.”

Roger bounds over and embraces you, nearly knocking you over. “This is why you’re my favorite American in the entire world. Possibly my favorite person period. The love of my life.” He takes the paper Firebird and impales it on an ornament hook, then combs through the tree branches for an ideal location.

Brian points heatedly at Roger. “If he gets to hang the damned Firebird then I get to hang my Saturn!”

“Look what you’ve done,” Chrissie tells you, but she’s smiling. She’s wearing a gorgeous green velvet dress and pieces of mistletoe weaved into her long dark hair. Veronica is beside her in a chunky red sweater and denim skirt, not particularly flashy yet festive nonetheless; she waves to you as she pushes pieces of popcorn one by one down the string. She’s wearing makeup tonight, which is unusual. Her lace-white cheeks are tinged with rouge, her slate-blue eyes rimmed by lavender shadow. Freddie and Mary are removing a sheet of cookies from the oven and quibbling over whether they’ve browned enough.

Roger gestures to the gift bag as you place it under the tree. “You better not have spent your own money on that.”

“Oh, tons. It’s diamonds and gold and a dash of overpriced modern art, just to spice things up.”

Roger growls theatrically in his high, raspy voice. Brian stands back and admires the tree as John loops a strand of multicolored Christmas lights around it.

“It’s actually very modest,” you assure Roger. “Not impressive at all. Chris helped.”

“You enabled this behavior?!” Freddie scolds Chrissie as he traverses the room with an overflowing plate of chocolate chip cookies.

She sips cheap red wine impishly and shrugs. “I know a girl in fashion school, I can get their extra yarn if I buy her a cup of tea and pretend to care about her disastrous love life.”

You smirk. “Disastrous love life? I’ve got one of those.”

“You knitted something for us?!” Roger shouts, delighted.

You wiggle your fingers in the air. “What can I say? I’m good with my hands.”

Roger groans. “Don’t tease me.”

“You certainly are,” Brian tells you. “That roadie who busted his forehead open got fixed up straightaway.”

“That was literally two stitches. Head wounds just bleed a lot, it looked way worse than it was.”

“Well,” Brian insists. “I was impressed.”

Freddie claps his hands, slick obsidian nail polish gleaming. “Ahhhh, I’m so excited! What have you made for me, love? Oh, I hope it’s a nice thong.”

“It’s probably not,” Chrissie says.  

Mary pours you a glass of wine and glances around the room. “Does everyone have enough cookies? Drinks? Veronica, dear?”

“I suppose I could use a refill.” She passes Mary her glass and smiles as John sits beside her on the couch. You’ve never quite been able to figure out Veronica; she’s cordial yet removed, kind yet wary, extremely dogmatic in her Catholicism and yet simultaneously socializing with rock stars who are unmistakably living in sin. Her most redeeming quality, as far as you’ve observed, is her steadfast devotion to John...or, perhaps, to the life she’s envisioned they could build together. She rests her hand on John’s thigh and glances coolly at you as you pretend not to notice.

Mary returns with a fresh glass of wine for Veronica. “Alright. Should we start with you, Y/N?”

“What, for the gift exchange we all promised wasn’t happening?” You grin. “Sure, I’ll start.”

You open your Christmasy bag and start doling out small boxes. It’s December 23rd, and Queen is enjoying three weeks off for the holidays before the Sheer Heart Attack Tour resumes. The next show is in Columbus, Ohio—not exactly a cultural mecca, it’s true—followed by a scattering of stops across the continental United States. Half of you is thrilled, especially for the night the band will spend in Boston; the other part of you is dreading it. You don’t talk to Roger about what he does with groupies on tour—or what Brian does, or what Freddie does—and Rog doesn’t mention it around you either. He asks you to join him after every show, for dinner or drinks or clubbing; and you tell him no (though it’s never easy to) and try not to think about the apparent eventualities of stardom. Then Roger goes one way, and you go another.  

“Let’s see, what do we have here...” Brian begins prying open his box with long careful fingers.

“You can’t judge me,” you plead. “I’ve only had the tour break to work on them, and I’m really not an expert knitter or anything, and I—”

“Oh, it’s lovely!” Freddie gushes, holding his black and white striped hat aloft for everyone to see. He pulls it on over his silky hair and turns to Mary. “What do you think? Am I dashing?”

She beams as she kisses him. “Overwhelmingly so.” And you think about how being on the road feels like one dimension, and being here in London another. Here, fidelity and domesticity; there, freedom from the familiar world and all its browbeating rules.

“Mittens!” Brian proclaims joyfully. They’re an olivey green, and just large enough for his hands. “They’re so comfy, feel these Chris...”

Roger whips his hat out of the box; it’s very fuzzy and a fiery red with flecks of burnt orange. “I’m obsessed! I adore it! I’ll never take it off!”

“I can’t believe you did all this,” John says. He’s sliding on his mittens, which are a soft greyish blue. “This must have taken you days.”

“It’s Christmas! You’re supposed to slave away for the people you love at Christmas. And you’ve all done so much for me, the scales will always be hopelessly lopsided, don’t you worry.”

“The color is beautiful,” Veronica observes as she touches John’s mittens, but perhaps guardedly.

“They match his eyes!” Freddie exclaims; and they do. “This is delightful, Nurse Nightingale. Truly. How can I ever repay you?”

A smile ripples across your face, full of serenity and relief. They really do like the presents. I didn’t stay up until 4 a.m. knitting for nothing. “The cookies and wine are more than sufficient. I’m so sorry I didn’t have time to make anything for the ladies, but hopefully your charming future husbands will share and there are chocolates in the bottom of the boxes for you—”

“Oh please,” Chrissie snaps. “You’ve already made the rest of us look thoughtless enough. Kindly shut up and drink your wine now. Thank you, obnoxious Bostonian.”

You laugh as Chrissie distributes her and Brian’s gifts for everyone. She decreed weeks ago that you’ll spend Christmas Eve and Day with her family in Dartford. You can help me keep Brian distracted and in good spirits, she’d told you. His father is livid about us living together without being married, and I’m petrified Bri will give himself another ulcer over it.

Inside the small boxes Chrissie passes out are fancy teabags that smell like pomegranate and peppermint. Freddie and Mary dispense pouches of little pink soaps shaped like dolphins and seashells. John and Veronica give everyone homemade candles, which are either ruby red or evergreen. Roger has picked out three novelty mugs: Led Zeppelin for Brian and Chrissie, cats for Freddie and Mary, and raining gold coins for John and Veronica.

“Well I hope that’s prophetic,” John jokes.

“I don’t get a mug?” You’re trying not to show it, but you are hurt that he forgot you.

“No, you don’t.” Roger rummages around under the tree and passes you the large square present wrapped in silver and blue paper. Chrissie and Mary whistle and clap.

“Oh, big spender!” Freddie chastises.

“Roger, no,” you breathe, horrified.

“Roger, yes!” He drums the coffee table eagerly. “Open it.”

“No real presents allowed! You don’t have the money—”

“Are we married?” Roger asks.

You blink at him. “What?”

“Are. We. Married?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Then you don’t get to tell me what to do with my very tiny sliver of earnings that the record company doesn’t steal.” He grins. “Now open it.”

Slowly, cautiously, you tear through the wrapping paper as the others hover on the edges of their seats. John is squinting suspiciously. Roger balls up his fists and presses them to his smiling lips. You open the top flaps of the box.

“No.”

“What is it?!” Mary begs. “The anticipation is agony!”

“Yeah, love of my life,” Roger taunts, his blue eyes luminous. “What is it?”

Carefully, you lift it out of the box. It’s brand new and shiny and perfect.

“A camera!” Freddie cries.

“A Canon F-1, to be precise,” Roger says. “And a manual too. For our aspiring wildlife photographer. Us feral musicians being the wildlife, of course.”

“Roger...” You reach for him instinctively, and he rushes over to wrap you in a hug. “Thank you so much. I don’t know why you would do this for me.”

He laughs. “Because you’re the best gift I ever got, Boston babe!”

“Let’s give it a try!” Freddie plucks the camera from your hands and begins loading film. “Alright, click this...press that...oh fuck, how do I do this?! Deaky, come over here. You can fix anything.”

“Sure thing, Fred.” John readies the camera in just a minute or two, no longer than it takes Mary to refill glasses and send around another plate of cookies. He looks a little ashen to you, a little stunned; but when you ask him if he’s okay, John just smiles and nods.

Freddie snaps photos of Brian and Chrissie as they snuggle on the couch, of John posing sheepishly in front of the Christmas tree, of Veronica waving as she nibbles a chocolate chip cookie, of Roger in his flame-colored hat. Then Roger makes sure you get your camera back, and it’s your turn to take the pictures. You sit beside the tree, the kaleidoscopic glow of Christmas lights speckling the walls like stars, and collect still frames of memories like catching lightning bugs in jars, like it’s July instead of December, like it’s the heart of a year instead of the end. After a while Freddie comes over to sit next to you, to toast wine glasses with you, to make fun of your flushed cheeks. Then he watches as you gaze at Roger from across the room. Rog is trying on Brian’s mittens and clapping his hands like a seal, grinning hugely, flashing his pointy little canine teeth. And despite all those oh-so-rational promises you’ve made to yourself, you begin to wonder.

“Don’t do it,” Freddie says quietly.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” you sling back, pleasantly tipsy. And then: “Why not?”

“Because I like having you around. And if you do this, eventually you won’t be around anymore.”

When you’re finally exhausted enough to drag yourself away from them and catch a taxi, John follows you out into the hallway of the apartment building.

“I have one more gift for you.”

“John, no, absolutely not, I am thoroughly unworthy—”

“Stop.” He pulls a thin, rectangular item from behind his back. It takes you a moment to recognize it.

“Your notebook...?”

“I know it’s not wrapped.” He’s anxious, you realize, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “I kept trying to work up the nerve, and I still wasn’t sure about it when we came over here, and now, well...here I am.” He gives the notebook to you, and you open it, and you gasp in awe.

Inside are sketches from Rome: the concert, the temples, the museum, the beach on that cool breezy afternoon, and, best of all, the people you shared the city with. You and Roger laughing in front of a statue of Perseus. Brian and Chrissie contemplating ruins. Freddie hunched over a piano, his dexterous hands stretched across the keys. And you sitting in that sweltering, fire-lit corner of the Italian restaurant, smiling from behind a glass bottle of Coke. You trace your fingertips over your own face; it’s blissful and peaceful and beautiful in a way that you’ve never seen yourself. “John...”

“Because, you know, you said that you wanted to document the tour so you could remember it all, and I figured...since you didn’t have a camera...maybe this would be better than nothing.”

“It’s a lot better than nothing, John. It’s incredible.”

“They’ll do for now. You won’t need drawings anymore,” he notes, somewhat mournfully. “You can put them on your refrigerator until you have photos to replace them with.”

You shake your head, still staring. “The way you captured my face...”

He shrugs, smiling crookedly. “I just borrowed it.”

“Thank you.” You climb onto your tiptoes and wrap your arms around the back of his neck. He’s warm and gentle; his fluffy hair tickles the sensitive undersides of your wrists.

“Happy Christmas,” he whispers to you; happy, not merry, like a true Englishman. And he’s right. You can’t remember a time you’ve been happier.

~~~~~~~~~~

The phone rings like a scream, like shattering glass. It wrenches you out of that fogged, heavy precursor to sleep and your hand fumbles from beneath the covers to grab the receiver. The cord bounces clumsily against your nightstand and nudges the blush-colored conch shell that lives there.

“Hello...?”

“Darling, there’s an emergency.”

You bolt upright in bed. “What happened? Are you okay? Is the band—?”

“There’s going to be a party on New Year’s Eve and you have to come.”

You groan and fall back into the embankment of pillows. “Fred, that’s not an emergency. Jesus christ. I thought someone died.”

“Then you should be overwhelmed with gratitude for your friends’ continued existence and delighted to join us!”

You glance at the calendar tacked to your wall. “That’s tomorrow, right?”

Freddie scoffs. “Of course it’s tomorrow! Some bloke from the record company is hosting and I need a date. Makes me more marketable or something. Mary can’t come, she’s got the flu. So you’ll have to take one for the team and play the adoring paramour. Shouldn’t be too heavy a lift. I’ve been informed that I’m very adorable.”

“Make Roger do it.”

There’s an edge to Freddie’s voice when he speaks. “They aren’t quite that progressive, dear.”

“I’m really more of a museums and restaurants person than a getting coerced into socializing with strangers person, if I’m being completely honest with you.”

“You’ll survive,” he replies brusquely. “Chrissie and Brian will be there. You’ll have fellow boring people to hide in a corner and eat biscuits with and discuss planetary movements or whatever the fuck.”

“Great. Roger and John are coming too?”

“Not Deaky. He already has plans with Veronica’s family and can’t weasel out of them. It’s not like he would schmooze anyone anyway.”

“Oh.” That disappoints you, more than you thought it could. “Maybe I have plans I can’t weasel out of, ever think of that?”

Now Freddie sounds amused. “You don’t.”

“How do you know?”

He laughs. “Because there’s no one you love in London more than us.”

~~~~~~~~~~

The paramour ruse doesn’t go very well; within twelve minutes Freddie has abandoned you and is guzzling martinis with Elton John and some record company guys you don’t recognize, pointy party hats on their heads and silver balloons bobbing against the ceiling. It’s not 1975 yet, but it will be soon. The mansion is decked with suits and ballgowns and expensive-looking vases perched precariously on end tables. Elegant white columns rim the vast living room. You, Brian, Chrissie, and Roger are chatting nervously by a massive punch bowl carved in ice, swiping appetizers off the waiters’ trays and trying not to break anything.

“I feel completely useless,” you say, nodding to Freddie.  

Chrissie chuckles. “I think he just wanted you to be here. He thinks you’re good luck, you know. All our fates turned around when you showed up.”

Roger points at you with his punch glass. “Your people specialize in witchcraft, don’t they?”

“Oh, so close. That’s Salem, about thirty minutes up the road. No witches in Boston.”

“Hmm. Sounds like something a secret witch would say.”

You brandish your hand through the air. “I summon more mini crab cakes.”

The others glance around. “It didn’t work,” Chrissie observes sadly.

Brian sips his punch, which is bubbling and a vivid red. “Maybe you have to invoke Satan first. I saw a toy poodle on the couch you could sacrifice.”

“Yes, yes,” Roger agrees. “Just toss it in the oven and see if anyone notices.”

You throw your head back and laugh. “Now that would make a fantastic impression.”

Roger grabs your empty glass, plops it on a passing waiter’s tray, and takes your hands in his. They’re rough and strong, and they feel a little too good. “Alright, are you going to dance with me now?”

“Roger...”

“Don’t harass her,” Chrissie warns. “She’s here, she’s working on conjuring more snacks, she’s under no obligation to dance with you on top of all that.”

He frowns at you, those intense blue eyes bright beneath shagging bangs. “Really?”

You smile, reaching up to straighten the collar of his sparking rainbow jacket. “If you’re still interested in 1975, you can ask me then.”

“Yes ma’am.” He grins triumphantly at Chrissie, and she smirks back. “Can someone kindly tell me what that clock over on the mantle says? Obviously I can’t see that far.”

“11:19,” Brian says.

“Fantastic. I’ll be back.” He winks at you, then looks to Brian. “Stay with her, will you?”

“Sure.”

Roger lights a cigarette and saunters away, smoke drifting around him. Several young women—escorts or daughters of producers or soon-to-be-ex-girlfriends of musicians—descend upon him and start asking about Killer Queen. Roger is radiant when he replies, enchanting, wearing charisma like a snake’s skin, climbing ever onwards up the rungs of the social ladder; and you think about how there’s Home Roger and Tour Roger—though he felt like home in Boston, and  though he feels so distant now—and how any woman who chooses him will have to spend her life watching him devour other people’s love from across the room, from across the world.

“Be careful,” Chrissie tells you softly.

“He won’t be back at midnight.” You pour yourself a fresh glass of punch, avoiding her eyes, hiding your disappointment...or, embarrassingly and infinitely worse, perhaps your hope. “They’ve been staring at him all night. And he’s noticed.”

“Oh, honey...” Chrissie rubs your bare shoulder, not knowing what else to say.

“It’s fine,” you tell her. And you plan to drink until it feels like it is.  

Some guitarist from Genesis appears to introduce himself to Brian, and Bri leaps into a fevered discussion of how much he admires the band’s work and how he built his Red Special and the merits of guitar techniques that sound like Russian or Japanese to you. Before you know it, the mysterious Genesis man is hauling Brian off to present him to someone equally important. Chrissie shoots a worried glimpse at you as she follows Bri away.

“Go!” you insist, forcing a smile. Just abandon me in this super intimidating mansion full of rich important strangers and breakable museum artifacts, that’s totally cool.

“We’ll be back in five minutes, I swear.”

You wave cheerfully. “Take your time!” You peer at the clock. Thirty minutes until midnight.

As you’re dishing yourself yet another glass of punch, a man in a posh white suit approaches from the other side of the table. “Are you hiding from people as well?”

“Not too successfully, apparently.”

He recoils and raises his eyebrows. “My apologies. Want me to disappear?”

You almost say yes—it wobbles on your lips like an unsteady toddler—then you reconsider. He’s tall and blond and polished; he looks a bit like Roger from an alternate universe where Rog went to boarding school and plays polo. More significantly, he could be someone important, someone the band needs, someone you don’t want to offend. “No, I’m sorry, that was so impolite. Please forgive me. My judgment is quite impaired, that’s my excuse, I blame the punch. Also I’m a New Englander and thus inclined to be uncooperative towards Brits.”

He laughs, a full genuine laugh; and it feels like a victory. See? I’m clever, I’m charming. Anyone would be lucky to have me. “I’m Eric.”

“Y/N.”

“It’s a resounding pleasure to meet you, Y/N.” He gestures towards the open area on the floor where buzzed men and giggling women are tripping over each other. “There’s no way I could interest you in that, is there?”

You ponder it, nursing your fourth punch. You aren’t much of a dancer, that’s true; and this handsome stranger of a man isn’t Roger. But he might be able to get your mind off him.

You sling back the rest of your punch and slam the glass down onto the table. “Okay. But only because there’s an Eagles record on.”

“Deal.”

He follows you to the dance floor, weaves his fingers through yours, sways easily with the music. Eric tells you that he’s from up north, in the Lake District; his family owns an estate that used to be the seat of an earldom or something. He describes endless emerald hills and castles and horse farms until your mind starts to swim, until the effects of the punch and scant appetizers roll over you like a wave.

“Okay,” you announce dreamily. “Thank you so much, Eric. This has been lovely. But I have to go sit down now.”

“Oh come on, one more song!”

“I’m flattered, but I have to pass. Maybe after midnight...” You move to pull your hands away, but he doesn’t let go. His fingers are locked with yours. You try again. Eric’s still smiling, but his eyes have gone flinty. Oh no. You look around for Freddie or Brian, both of whom have vanished.

“One more, come on,” he presses. “I insist.”

“Eric, I’m really dizzy—”

“Don’t be rude. We’re having such a nice time, aren’t we?”

“Please let go of me.” You try to keep your voice level, try not to offend him. Everyone around you on the dance floor is laughing and drinking and smoking, not paying any attention at all.

“Look, you said you’d dance, so that’s what we’re doing. Am I suddenly not good enough for you?”

“Seriously, you need to let go.” You try to tug your hands away. Your heart is racing, blood rushing in your ears. The room is listing to the right, now the left. You realize that Eric is gradually leading you away from the center of the room and towards a quiet hallway. I can’t let this guy get me alone. I’m weak and I’m drunk, and I don’t know what he’ll do to me. You struggle harder, more visibly. His grip on your hands tightens. “Let go, Eric, let go of me!”

“Calm down, bloody hell lady, I’m just trying to—”

And then Eric is ripped away from you and his face smashed with vicious force into the nearest column. You scream, your hands covering your gaping mouth; the room goes silent. Eric crumples to the floor, unconscious. Blood pours from his broken nose and litters his white suit with crimson blotches and smears. Droplets drip crawlingly down the column. Roger stands over Eric, shirt completely unbuttoned, jacket rumpled, shadows of lipstick peppering his neck and chest. He wipes his own palms on his rainbow jacket, scowling, disgusted. Then he turns to you.

“Ready to go?”

“Roger, I...” You gaze in shock down at Eric. I hope he’s not dead. That might make things awkward with the record company. “I-I-I’m so sorry,” you manage finally. “I’m sorry, Roger, I didn’t mean to interrupt anything—”

“No, I’m ready to go.” He lays his hand on the small of your back and guides you towards the front door, grabbing both of your coats off the rack. “Let’s go.”

“Okay.” And relief floods through you. Okay.

Brian pushes his way out of the stunned crowd as Roger swings the door open. Frigid air skates over your cheeks. “Rog, what happened?!”

Roger glares savagely. “When I tell you to stay with someone, you fucking stay with them.” And then he steps with you out into the bitterly cold, nearly-January night.

“It’s not his fault,” you explain as you and Roger hurry down the sidewalk, your words spinning mist into the air. “Some guy from Genesis showed up and you know how Bri is about them, and I told him and Chris to go, please don’t be mad—”

“Are you alright?” He’s scrutinizing you closely; you can still see the rosy lipstick stains on his skin as you pass beneath each streetlight.

“I’m fine, I’m completely fine. Please don’t be mad.”

He narrows his eyes. “Well obviously I’m not mad at you, babe.”

“Oh god, I hope this doesn’t hurt the band. I don’t know who that guy was with. You broke his nose, you know.”

“Good.”

You shake your head, trying to chase away those ghosts of lipstick and the girls who left them there. I won’t fall in love with him. I won’t fall in love with him. “I know you were busy, I know the party was important, I know I ruined midnight for you—”

“You didn’t ruin it. We still have a few more minutes. We’ll duck into a pub somewhere and have a pint to welcome in the new year, it’ll be grand. Maybe get you some food. You look like you could use it.”

“I just...” You bury your numb, shaking hands in your coat pockets and brace yourself against the cold. “You left the girls. Left the party. I just don’t understand why you would do that.”

“Are you serious? Obviously I’m going to drop everything if you need me. I’m always going to do that.” He pulls his fiery red, hand-knit hat out of his coat pocket and slips it over your wild, windswept hair. “You’re still on my list, you know.”

You sigh. “You’re a smart man, Roger Taylor, but that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.”

“What,” he says, a tad bitingly. “Because I can’t promise you a picket fence and precisely two well-mannered, unremarkable children and a golden retriever? You’re right, I’m not going to promise you that. Because that’s not who I am. That’s not who you are either, by the way. But I can promise you that your life will never feel like a cage. And isn’t that what this was all about for you anyway?”

And that stops you, here in the cold dark heart of London, here beneath a cascading streetlight on the opening page of 1975. Because Roger’s right.

He takes your left hand and lifts it to his lips, and you know exactly what he’s going to do even before he oh-so-feather-lightly bites your goosebumped knuckles. “Look, forget about it. Don’t worry. Don’t freak yourself out. We’ll get a drink, we’ll watch the fireworks, and then I’ll walk you home. No questions, no answers. You just let me know if you ever change your mind, okay?”

You watch Roger, his cheeks ruddy from the wind, halos of streetlights reflected in his eyes. And you echo: “Okay.”

[joon-ipersgirl]

O3 - “the eventful evening”

genre: mafia!au, angst, fluff, slow burn, mystery-thriller

pairing: namjoon x reader (f)

summary: charismatic. beautiful. fearless without question. the ambitious team of seven young men in charge of spiral, downtown district’s hottest new club, go above and beyond to provide 100% satisfaction to their clients. 

after an eventful night out, you have no choice but to join the team for property damages greater than your intern salary. challenging a series of events that can no longer be left to coincidence, secrets threaten to burst at the seams as your professional and private life collide, and another - more sinister - debt is added to your total.

how far are you willing to go to pay back your pound of flesh? remember, nothing is ever as it seems...

word count: 4k

warnings: cursing, mentions of guns (no shooting done here), small mentions of blood

a/n: we’re keeping on schedule! i’m proud of myself. this was a bit of a challenge to edit, but hopefully it makes sense. if it doesn’t shoot me a message and i’ll fix any errors. we’re getting into the set-up of the entire plot these next few parts and then it’ll really start picking up. if i missed any warnings, let me know too. i hope you guys will enjoy this part and as always, thank you vi for all your help with editing. enjoy!

full masterlist // series masterlist // previous // next

“What the fuck were you thinking?!” Jin yells at you, holding you up in his arms. “Are you hurt?” he asks. You don’t have the strength to argue and only nod. Your first wave of adrenaline is wearing off and you’re starting to feel the pain of your injuries.

“We need to get you somewhere safe,” he tells you.

“No shit,” you respond and he narrows his eyes at you. Maybe you did have a little strength left in you.

“You can hide in the ladies’ room until one of us -”

“No!” you interrupt him, grabbing his arm. “Bad guy in there.”

“A bad guy?”

“That’s what I said. He should still be unconscious though,” you answer. Jin glances back at the door.

“Alright, let’s go,” he says. He pulls you to your feet and towards the main floor.

“We’re going out there?” you can still hear screaming and the sounds of shots firing.

“That’s what I said,” and he chuckles. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.” It’s then that you notice the gun in his hand. You nod and lean on him for support as he tucks you under his arm. Hopefully he can shoot better than you.

“Do you think you can make it to the bar?” He pokes his head around the wall, checking the surroundings. More shots are fired. You swallow.

“Possibly?” you say, unsure.

“Well, you’re going to have to. Suga’s right there. Run behind him and stay low. I’ll cover you,” he checks his gun as he gives you instructions. You stare at him in disbelief.

“Come on, we’re running out of time. You have to go!” he yells. You swallow again, biting your lip; it was now or never.

“On my mark, okay? Go!” He steps out into the open, firing shots quickly. You inhale deeply before you sprint past him, dodging the stairs, and diving for the safety of the bar. Bullets whizz past your head as you cross the short distance. Glancing back, you realize Jin has disappeared back behind the wall and you pray he hasn’t gotten hit by any of the bullets.

“Boss! Sirens! We gotta go!” you hear someone yell from your crouched-down position. Broken glass and spilled alcohol cover the floor.

The chaos seems to be calming down and you chance the possibility of being shot in the head by peering over the top of the bar. Small tables have been turned over as people tried to escape the danger. Glass glitters from the still flashing lights you hadn’t managed to shoot out. Spiral is mostly empty save for a few people still frozen in panic and those who were injured in the crossfire. The erratic man in the center had disappeared along with most of his henchmen except for the one that the DJ holds at gunpoint and the other that Honcho has restrained on the ground. Suga and Moon are by the corners of the bar, and Min is nowhere to be seen. It’s then that you can hear the distant blaring of sirens.

“Everyone freeze! Drop your weapons! Let us see your hands!” The cops. Always on time for when the action’s over.

Suga and Moon place their guns on top of the bar while the DJ places his on the ground. Surprisingly, they all seem unharmed as the police secure the area, the bouncer from outside enters after them and also places his gun on the ground.

From your position, you can’t see Laura nor Paul. In fact, all of your coworkers have disappeared. Those fuckers. More cops file in, guns drawn, through what you come to realize is the second emergency exit, a few paramedics following behind them.  

“Ladies and gentlemen, please remain calm. We’re going to secure the area and then ask you a few questions about the incident. Please stay where you are until an officer approaches you. If you need medical attention, a paramedic will be with you shortly,” an officer announces.

“You okay kid?” Suga asks me. You shake your head.

“Quite exhausted actually,” you sigh and lean onto the bar for support.

“Woah,” you hear the crunch of glass and then feel someone grip your elbow. “You don’t look too good.” It’s Moon.

“Yeah, I don’t feel too good,” you reply, leaning into him for support, forgetting your brief spat.

Moon scoops you up into his arms with ease and you’re grateful you don’t have to tiptoe your way through the shattered glass and alcohol barefooted.

“Excuse me?” he calls to the nearest paramedic. You groan.

“Too loud!” you whine. “Can’t you see I’m fucking concussed you dick?”

“You know, I’m going to need you to stop calling me a fucking dick whenever I try to help you,” he tells you. You ignore him and turn your face into his chest to shield your eyes from the lights as he carries you to a small medical station set up in the middle of the dance floor.

“Yes sir? Do you need help?” the paramedic asks.

“I’m fine, but she seems to be injured,” Moon tells him as he sits you down on the little bench. The paramedic nods.

“Okay. Miss, can you hear me? Can you tell me your name?” he asks, picking your head up slowly.

“Y/N Y/L/N,” you reply.

“Do you know where you are?” He turns your face left and right. You nod.

“Spiral.”

“And your age?”

“22,” you tell him.

“Can you tell me where you’re hurt?”

“My head. I think I might have a concussion. I hit my head and there might be some glass and - fuck,” you whimper. “My arm. A bullet grazed me,” you finish. You bite your lip hard to stop the tears from spilling over.

The paramedic nods. “Alright. I’m going to clean your wound and then check your head to see if you need any stitches. After that, we’ll do some brief physical tests to see if you have a concussion, okay?”

“Sounds good to me, doc,” you say nodding and immediately regret it after a new wave of throbbing took over.

“Where’s Jin?” you ask Moon as the paramedic starts to clean your wounds. You need something to distract yourself from the stinging of the antiseptic. Just as he’s about to answer, a cop interrupts.

“Sir, do you need to receive medical care?” he asks Moon. Moon shakes his head no.

“Okay, I’m here to take your statement. If you could follow me.” He doesn’t wait for Moon to respond before he starts walking away. Moon glances over at you and then follows the officer.

You peer around the working paramedic to look for Jin. Honcho and the DJ are talking to an officer. The bouncer’s also receiving medical attention for a busted lip while another officer takes his statement. Moon is back over by the bar. You squint your eyes trying to see through the flashing lights. Someone really needed to turn them off. There. He’s standing by the stairs as Suga sits, the two of them deep in conversation.

“Was that your boyfriend?” Your eyes snap back to the paramedic.

“Excuse me?” you ask.

“The guy,” he jerks his head over to Moon. “Are you two together?” you blink up at him the way an owl would blink at the night sky before you laugh.

“No. Not at all,” you reply, still chuckling.

“So you’re single?” he asks while taping the gauze down firmly against your arm.

“Are you really trying what I think you’re trying right now?” you narrow your eyes at him. He blushes.

“I’m sorry. That was extremely unprofessional of me.” you hum in agreement. “You’re just really beautiful,” he continues as he double-checks the back of your head for any glass.

“Thanks,” you reply shortly. “Do you think you could tell me if I’m concussed or not now, please? I need to go talk to someone.” You glance back over at Suga and Jin who are also looking at you.

“Right. Yeah, of course,” he stutters.

As the paramedic asks you questions, you continue to watch Suga and Jin converse. Occasionally, one or both of them glance over at you and you’re curious as to what they’re discussing. Where had Jin disappeared to? Had he gone to look for Min and not found him? You glance back at the hallway to the restroom and realize that no one had brought out the man you’d shot. You may be concussed, but you weren’t blind. There was no way he could have made it out with the rest of his squad.

“Yep. You’re definitely concussed. You’re going to need someone to monitor you for the next 24 hours. If your headache gets worse, you experience loss of consciousness for longer than 30 seconds or your speech starts to slur, get to an emergency room immediately.” He discards the gloves he’s used on you and pulls on a fresh pair.

“Thanks, doc,” you say while hopping off the table, nearly stumbling.  

“You should also refrain from any quick movements,” he chides you and holds your arm as you find your footing.

“Got it! Thanks again!” You don’t wait for his response as you start to head over to Jin, Suga, and Moon. Before you can make it a few steps, an officer steps in your path blocking you.

“Yes, officer?” you huff.

“We need to get your statement please, Miss?” he trails off.

“Jung. And okay. Can we make it quick though? I have a concussion and the nice paramedic over there said I need to take it easy,” you say smiling up at him sweetly. He clears his throat and pulls out his notepad, not fazed by your antics.

“Can you tell me what happened tonight, Miss Jung?” you internally roll your eyes. Did he really need you to explain the entire scene when it was all still laid out in front of him?

“There was a shooting. I was in the restroom when it happened though. I heard the screaming and the shots, but I didn’t see any of the shooters,” you tell him.

“Were you alone in the restroom?” he asks and you narrow your eyes suspiciously.

“Yes,” you respond.

“Are you sure? There’s an awful lot of damage in there for it to just be caused by one person,” he explains. you cock your head to the side, staring up at him.

“Of course I didn’t cause the damage by myself Officer -” you look at his name tag, “ - Lee, but I couldn’t tell you the name of the man who did it.”

“And the blood? Where did all of that come from?” he continues as he looks up from his notes to stare at you. You look over his shoulder to the group of three men still sitting on the stairs watching you.

“I assume a human Mr. Officer. Some of it could be mine. I was thrown into the mirror during all the commotion and I don’t remember much else after that,” you tell him, feigning more confusion than you feel. You need answers and Officer Lee would not have them.

“Right,” he nods. “Well, if you remember anything else please give the station a call. We really want to catch the men who did this,” he says and hands you his card.

“I will, Officer Lee. Thank you for your service,” you call and slip past him as he thanks you for your time. Your cheeks hurt from keeping your fake smile plastered on your face as you speak.

Your eyes were firmly set on your target and you arrive at the same time as Honcho, the DJ and the bouncer do.

“How’d it -“

“We need to talk. Now,” you say, pointing your finger at Jin and cutting Moon off.

“About what?” Jin asks casually.

“The man in the bathroom,” you reply, crossing your arms.

“Oh, you mean the man you shot?” Suga asks me nonchalantly with a grin. You whip your head towards him.

“She shot a man?!” The DJ asks quite loudly. You turn towards him, eyes wide.

He’s fairly tall like the rest of them. Slightly broad shoulders and lean muscles with a small waist to match. His hair is a faint bubblegum pink that falls in soft waves against his forehead and large ears poke out from underneath. His jaw is quite square and strong, the kind that most girls - yourself included - like to drool over. Of course, like the other men who work here, he’s extremely attractive. You were honestly getting tired of it.

“Shut up!” you hiss at him, looking around to see if anyone else had heard.

“Jin, are you sure? Did you see her aim?” Honcho asks while laughing. It’s as loud as his burgundy-colored hair and hurts your ears.

“Could you guys be any louder?” you yell and throw your hands up.

“No, but you definitely seem to be able to,” Moon says with a low chuckle. You glare at him.

“You might want to keep your voice down, kid. You’re drawing attention to yourself,” he tells you as he points behind you. You glance over your shoulder and realize there are  a few people watching indeed.

You take a deep breath to calm down. There was no way you’re going to let them get under your skin. If they weren’t going to give you any answers, you’d find them yourself.

“I’m going to get my shoes,” you announce and stalk towards the restroom. Fuck them.

Glancing back over your shoulder to make sure no one’s paying attention to you, you slip down the hallway looking for any clues as to where that man could have disappeared to. Trailing your hand against the wall, you scan the shiny black tiles for any trails of blood from the wounds you’d given him. Nothing. You’re at the end of the hallway and the only other door is the one that led to the restroom. You groan. Maybe you’re crazy. For all you knew, he had made it out past Jin after you’d ducked behind the bar.

You push open the door to the restroom and try to avoid the snail line of blood on the ground. Wait. That definitely wasn’t here before. You turn around and really look at the floor. Streak marks. As if he was dragged. You breath catches in your throat as you look around for any signs of his disappearance. Nothing. You do notice, however, that someone has started to clean up. A small kit lays open next to the larger puddle of blood in the middle of the floor.

“Um, you can’t be in here Miss.” You whirl around and come face to face with a young woman close to your age. Her hair is pulled back into a high ponytail and emphasizes the narrowness of her eyes.

“Excuse me?”

“This is a crime scene. You can’t be in here,” she enounciates slowly as if you were dumb. You glower at her, biting the inside of your cheek. There was no reason to be rude. Yet.

“I came to look for my shoes,” you tell her matter-of-factly and turn the corner to look for them beneath the stalls, ignoring her mild protests. Definitely no body.

“You mean these?” she asks, holding your heels in her hands.

“Yes, thank you.” You grab them from her and drop them on the floor to slip them on. She stares at you expectantly and you raised your eyebrows at her silent question.

“Aren’t you going to leave?” she asks. “I have work to do,” she continues as she crosses her arms.

You stand almost toe to toe between the main space of the restroom and hallway between that and the main door. Neither of you are looking to back down; you can tell from the way the wrinkles on her forehead deepen as she scowls further. Her blue eyes contrast her deep black hair and make her expression fierce. Her forensic investigator uniform and overall appearance are clean-cut and you feel slightly annoyed that you no longer looked the same because of your torn skirt and bandages. You weren’t going to let her intimidate you.

“Miss Jung? Are you alright?” Both of you glance at the door while trying your best to maintain your stare-off. The bouncer pokes his head around the door carefully.

“Yes, just fine,” you respond, still not looking at him.

“Jeon, would you be so kind as to escort Miss Jung from the restroom? It seems she’s feeling a little dizzy,” your competitor tells him. You didn’t think you could have glared at her any harder, but you found a way.

“Yeah, of course.” He pushes open the door and gently takes your arm.

“And tell Moon we still need to talk!” she calls as the bouncer leads you back down the hallway.  

“John?” I asks.

“Hmm?”

“Your name is John right?” you clarify.

“Yeah, sure,” he responds, not looking at you. He finally lets go as you enter the main space again.

“Are you sure that’s your real name?” He only smiles.

Just like his coworkers, he’s attractive. Tall, shoulders almost as broad as Jin’s, and muscles any fitness junkie would die for. His black hair is long, almost to the point of needing a haircut and the ends curl slightly. His eyes are deep and brown and never linger over you for too long, though one is slightly swollen from the earlier incident. It doesn’t bother you as you could appreciate the way his cargo pants clings to his thighs as he walks back to the group.

“Miss Jung!” It’s the paramedic who had tended to you. You were getting tired of everyone screaming out your government name. “Are these items yours?” He holds up a small purse and coat. You nod and he jogs them over to you. You thank him.

“Again, I’m sorry for my behavior earlier, I hope you can forgive me,” he says, his head hanging in a bow of apology. Before you can accept, a cop interrupts you.  

“Alright ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your cooperation. You’re free to go. If you remember anything or need anything from us, please don’t hesitate to give us a call. All units, roll out!”

“I guess that’s my cue to go. Sorry again,” the paramedic apologizes before he scurries away.

You shake your head. It was time to go home. You had no idea what time it was and the fatigue from the concussion was finally starting to set in. Between the fight and all your unanswered questions, your brain had gone to mush trying to make sense of everything. You watch as all the personnel pack up their equipment and the cops file out of the club. As you shoved your arms through your coat, you see the small forensic detective leave along with the rest of them, a small briefcase or whatever her little fucking toolkit was called in her hand.

“Hey kid!” Suga yells at you, still sitting on the stairs along with Honcho. “Just want you to know you owe me $3500 for those lights you shot out.”

A gaping goldfish had nothing on you as I stare at him with mour mouth open. “What?!”

“Yeah, just looking at the damages. It’s not looking real good. Look, we gotta get this place cleaned up so we’ll talk soon,” he says nonchalantly while standing and heading up the stairs.

You’re speechless as you stare at Jin who only shrugs his shoulders before following the smaller man along with Honcho. This is fucking ridiculous. After your fucking move is the one that saves these assholes lives by shooting those lights out, this is what you get. Why didn’t you mind your business?

“Y/N, I’m so sorry that I left you! I feel so horrible!” Laura sobs while standing at the corner of your desk. It was days like these you wish you had your own office.

“Laura, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” you tell her, setting your purse down on your desk and slipping your heels on.

“Of course I have to worry about it! We could have died!” she shrieks, hand over her heart. You roll your eyes and plop down in your desk chair. It’s only 9:15. Gods be with you.

“Laura, shut up. Some of us are trying to do work over here,” James chides from behind his partition. She mumbles an apology before sitting down at her own desk.

You sift through the documents neatly stacked on your desk. Though your concussion seems to have passed with no adverse effects, your head’s still sore and the burn on your arm is still extremely tender after four days. The cut on your palm was much better though you know it’ll leave a scar. If those weren’t a reminder of the past weekend, here’s Laura bringing it up out of guilt. You wonder if it’d make her feel better if you tell her you’d probably have left her too.

“I just didn’t want you to think I purposefully left you, that’s all. Everything happened so fast,” she mumbles behind her computer.

“No hard feelings, Laura,” you say absentmindedly, concentrating on the Xiao event. “Paul disappeared too.” She nods her head in agreeance.

“I just can’t believe I survived my first shootout robbery,” Laura continues. You look up, confused.

“A robbery?” You repeat. She nods again.

“That’s what the news report is saying.”

A robbery? That didn’t seem to make sense. Had you missed them taking money while you were in the restroom? None of the guys had looked too choked up about losing their night’s earnings and with the number of people who were there that night, it would have been quite a large haul. But if the news was reporting it, it had to be true right? You shake your head. The last thing you need is to get more involved after already being in debt to the club. You groan internally and rub your forehead. How were you going to pay that back?

“First? Does that mean you’d like to go back?” Paul chuckles as he walks in, coffee in hand. Laura’s head snaps up so fast she could have given herself whiplash.

“Absolutely not! You’d have to be crazy to go back there! In fact, the people who work there are crazier. You couldn’t pay me enough!” she huffs and slumps back into her chair. “Would you?”

“I doubt he would. The atmosphere might be a bit too much for him so Paul might run again,” you say before he could respond. He flashes you a sour smile before sitting down at his desk.

“Maybe if you ran, you wouldn’t be nursing so many wounds,” he counters. You glare at him over the folder you hold. Fuck Paul.

“Could you guys just focus on your work? Who cares about the stupid club? It’ll probably get closed down because of lack of business and a bad reputation,” James comments.

“Or it could boost revenue and Spiral’s reputation,” you think aloud, pen tapping on your desk. “People love the dark and dangerous.”

“Like Laura said, anyone who would actually go back there after last weekend is crazy and looking for trouble,” Paul adds. You grin.

“The perfect storm. You know what they say? Lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice,” you say.

The smell of Paul’s coffee drags you from your desk to the breakroom to make your own. Maybe Paul, Laura, and James are right. It’s quite possible that Spiral would close down because of a lack of business. It’s very possible that everyone who worked at Spiral is indeed insane. It’s also probably true that you couldn’t pay any of them to go back there, but you’re not them. In fact, Friday and Saturday nights at Spiral could - quite literally - work. They didn’t call you “The Mini Maniac” in college for no reason. You sip your coffee and slip your phone out of your pants pocket.

“Yes, hi. Could I speak to Suga please?”

full masterlist // series masterlist // previous // next

© joon-ipersgirl, 2020

[thewhiterabbit42]

Wicked Games Part 2

Pairing: Gabriel x reader

Series Summary:  When a trickster seeks revenge on Gabriel, he traps the archangel in a sex dungeon with the person he despises the most: you.  

Word Count:  2726

Written for:  @spndarkbingo​ - sex dungeon

@heavenandhellbingo​ - dark fic

Chapter tags/warnings: kidnapping, nonconsensual removal of clothing, threats of violence

Series tags/warnings (as it stands): dark fic, medium burn, kidnapping, sex dungeon, mutual pining, enemies to lovers, violence, graphic depictions of horror, dub con, non con, oral sex, it’s a sex dungeon so likely all the sex, confessed feelings, bondage, more tba

<<Part 1

“You are such an asshole!” 

You’re crouched behind - well, you honestly don’t want to think about what it is you’re hiding behind.  Your stomach flips just acknowledging the combination of wood, leather, and metal bars, let alone the variety of uses one could get from it.  

There’s a chill to the room that settles across every inch of bare skin, which happens to be just about all of you, because someone decided to outdo themselves in the giant dick department and play the douchiest prank of the century.  Possibly the last several by snapping you to some god awful place in a matching set of black lace bra and panties.

This isn’t what you expected to find walking into an abandoned hunting camp in the middle of the woods.  It has to be Gabriel’s doing.  There’s no way that faded wooden planks can disguise this much concrete, let alone double in size the moment you walk through the door. 

You know you saw windows, a little sliding glass door off the side, but the only glass you can find comes in shapes for things you’re trying really hard not to remember exist.  

“This isn’t funny!”

“Do you hear me laughing?”  The sardonic edge beneath his words becomes lost to you as you look up at the wall.  

There are rows and rows of hooks with various items hanging from them.  Floggers, paddles, canes, whips, all staring back at your wide-eyed face.

Then there's the restraining materials; ropes, chains, zip ties, leather cuffs, actual manacles, metal ones that belong in medieval dungeons.  

Given the lack of anything but wall to wall stone, you can't discount that you might really be in one.  

What the actual fuck. 

Your heart hammers in your chest, and you have to remind yourself that none of this is real;  you haven't actually woken up naked in some sort of sex dungeon.  This is just Gabriel being a shit.  

The worst kind of shit, but one nonetheless.

"Bring us back," you order, hugging your knees to your chest.  

"You need to calm down," he barks right back at you. 

Yeah, like that's helpful.  Like you want the sensation of your lungs shrinking as another windowless room starts to overlay this one.  

You try to focus on something else, but it’s hard to ignore the way your head begins to spin as you struggle to take in air, how unforgiving the lights above you are, highlighting all the physical reminders of why you hate being boxed in by concrete.  

The back of your neck begins to burn with a familiar feeling of helplessness, signalling things are about to get messy real fast.

"You need to bring us back right fucking now!" You've never yelled at him before, not like this, and he has to know how much he's messed up and snap you back.  He has to.

"I can't!"  He erupts, voice booming through the large room.  "You really think I'd snap myself naked into a place like this?" 

The unspoken with you is a given, and you're so done with everything that it takes a moment for what he’s saying to sink in.

He’s naked?

You lean toward the end of the table, curiosity making you slowly peek around the side.  A muscular thigh greets you, pale golden skin offset by meticulous black stitching that runs nearly to his knee.  He shifts his weight, and you yank your head back a split second before anything else can slide into view.  

Oh sweet jesus.

Heat sweeps into your cheeks.  Of course he’d be naked.  Why wouldn’t he be?

"You know anyone else that can pull things out of thin air?"  Your retort comes out a little less confident, though you’re still not convinced he’s not to blame.  Who’s to say he’s not smart enough to put himself in a precarious position to prove his supposed innocence?

He goes silent, and after several seconds of nothing you begin to worry.

Your second glance around the corner gives you an eyeful of firm backside.  He’s drawn up to full height, spine straight and proud as if surveying his handiwork.

What.  A.  Jerk.  

"It's got to be another trickster," he announces.

Yeah.  Like you’re going to buy that.  

Your eyes are drawn past him to the carnival-esque signs that detail what can be found on each wall, as if advertising for things like ring tosses and balloon popping rather than dildos and nipple clamps.  Not to mention how every wall of sex toys is backlit in some gaudy display, surrounded by obnoxious flashing lights you might find on a gameshow.

What really makes you suspicious is the giant wheel in the midst of it all, which is clearly the centerpiece of this freakshow.  

"You're so full of shit." And you're so so over this. “Give me back my clothes and get me out of here right now.”

Apparently, so is he.  

“Are you really that brain dead after spending so much time with the dynamic duo?”  He snarls, and it isn’t the contemptuous bite of his tone that has your stomach knotting, but the black bands you notice as he throws his arms out wide.  “Because what part of I can’t did you not understand?”  

His hands shake with his frustration, the material around his wrists flaring bright with his anger.   

You swallow, more than familiar with the types of symbols that glow a heavenly blue before fading from sight once again.  

Oh fuck.  

“God dammit, Gabriel!”  You scream, because you have to scream at something.  Someone.  Anything.  

You drop your head back hard against the metal eyelets behind it.  For a moment there’s nothing but the small flare of pain and the increasingly frantic cadence of your heart thumping away in your ears.  

You’re actually trapped.  In a sex dungeon.  With a powerless archangel who hates you so much he'd likely prefer to bury his angel blade inside you before he touched you with his personal one.   

“What the hell did I do?” 

He has the gall to sound miffed, and you cling desperately to your fury like driftwood to keep your head from going under. 

"Anyone else kick a hornet’s nest lately and now has a host of vengeful deities on their ass?”  

He at least has the decency to shut his mouth for three seconds.  

You, on the other hand, lose the ability to close yours.  “Let’s not all speak up at once.”

"Just... let me think.”  The bite beneath his words unexpectedly vanishes, and you don’t like how deflated he sounds.

Your mind starts to race, the frantic pace pushing the fringe of hysteria with how fast it whirls.

You should have seen the signs.

You should have walked away.  

You didn’t, and just like before, you’re going to pay for it.  

“Jesus Christ, kid, can you take a breath?  I can’t hear myself think with the way you’re panicking.”  

He’s not harping for once.  If anything, he might be the one panicking, but you’re beyond being able to read the subtleties of his demeanor.  All you hear is the same message he’s been feeding you for months.  

You’re the problem.  You’re always in the way.  Useless.  Useless.  Useless.

“Why is it always my fault?”  You yell.  “I’m the one that always ends up as collateral in the collective shitstorms you bring down upon yourselves.”

You know you’re not thinking clearly.  You’re falling straight down a rabbithole that has nothing good on the other side.  But your brain doesn’t see that, and it can’t do anything other than fire away with warning.

“For all the bitching you do with each other, you’re exactly the same.”  Your voice continues to rise, adrenaline saturating your system.  “You’re so wrapped up in your own agendas that you can’t see what it’s doing to anyone around you even when the damage is sitting in front of your god damn face.”

For the life of you, you don’t understand why you do it anymore.  Your relationship with Dean is so broken you’re not sure it can ever be repaired, and you’re pretty certain what shred of one remains with Gabriel won’t survive this encounter.  

The archangel says your name, but you can’t hear him.  There’s so much you’ve held back and desperately tried to bury that there’s no more space for it to go.  Everything comes barreling to the surface in a tidal wave of rage, because you can’t allow it to be what it actually is.  Hurt layered upon injustices that fester so deeply, trying to cleanse yourself of it at this point might actually destroy you.  

But hate, you can handle that.  

“I don’t need either of you or your bullshit excuses!”

For a moment there’s nothing but seething red and an overwhelming need to release it.  You don’t even know what’s happening with your foot until it slams against the pillar in front of you.  The stone doesn’t give, but your ankle does, and you growl at the explosion of pain that cuts through the whirlwind of emotions inside of you.   

“Now, now, we can’t have you damaging the goods so early in the game…”  

You can’t tell where the voice is coming from, only that it’s everywhere.  Above.  Behind.  Flooding in from every side, wrapping you within the confines of its sultry accent and sending a knot through your stomach.  It pulls your head back above the water, where you find you’re dragging in lungfuls of air no differently than if you really have been drowning.  

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”  Gabriel knows who it is, and given recent events, you’re not reassured, even if he sounds more peeved than anything.  

The air next to the cement column shimmers, and if there was any give to the object at your back, you would have shot back several feet.  The thing sits bolted straight into cement, however, and it doesn’t do much other than wiggle as your spine slams against it.  

You’re not sure what materializes in front of you.  Those are definitely human legs rising up from the floor, long and lanky, with golden bronze skin that make you think of places filled with warmth and sunshine.  The rest of it is most definitely not a person, though you’re grateful at least one member of this party comes with clothing.  

Somewhere beneath the brightly colored wrap around its waist it changes, skin giving way to a sprinkling of fur that thickens the further up your eyes travel.  It’s chest is fully covered with a coat so glossy you’re tempted to see if it really does feel as silky as it looks.  As odd as the whole thing is, it helps make the coyote head sitting on top of humanesque shoulders a little less shocking.  

You take in the regal headdress that you imagine says something about its status, the red and yellow feathers a colorful contrast to the sea of blacks, metal, and greys of the room.  Nothing about the figure jars anything specific loose from your lore knowledge, though by it’s accent and appearance your guess would be some sort of deity from Latin America.

“You.”  The archangel grumbles, accusation threading through his word. 

The creature smiles.  “Me.”  He spreads his arms wide, an exorbitant amount of pride accompanying the gesture, and it’s not lost on you how very Gabriel-esque the whole entrance is.  “How are you, old friend?  I imagine you’ve seen better days?”

His gaze drops to where you’re sitting, and his head gives a curious tilt.  “And I imagine you have too, my dear?”

“Who the hell are you?”  You don’t feel as fierce as your words would imply, and you could be wrapped from head to toe and still feel exposed with the way he drinks the sight of you in without shame.  

The thing chuckles, clearly amused.   

“Kid, meet Huehuecoyotl,” Gabriel announces.  “Another trickster.”  

You can feel the smugness permeating the space around you, bordering on hubris in a way that’s been inauspiciously absent.  You can’t help but feel like it’s an act, no different than yours, and it only makes you that much more nervous.

“Now are you going to tell me what is going on, or are you here to finish that round of twenty questions we started at the turn of the century?”  He demands.

You can just see him now, hands on his hips, boorish indifference splashing across his features.  

The whole act is just as ignored by the thing in front of you as it would with you.  

“May I?”  The trickster inquires, though he doesn’t actually wait before he reaches for your ankle with grotesque nubs caught somewhere between a paw and a hand.  

You jerk back and he pauses, letting out a soft snort.  “Ah, yes.  How silly of me.”  

An unsettling popping fills the room, and you watch as it’s joints begin to shift, tips extending into fully-formed, fingers.  The fur covering them adds another touch of surreal to the whole situation.

“That’s better.  Won’t get very far without these.” He wiggles the new digits at you, bones cracking as they shake off their stiffness.  

He’s not going to get far, period, opposable thumbs or not.  

You’ve never been so relieved to hear Gabriel open his mouth or intentionally diminish your presence.  “C’mon, Coy.  Stop wasting time with her.”  

The thing smiles, and your stomach drops at the row of long, jagged teeth that emerges.  

“I don’t think you’re in any position to tell me what to do with my time, Loki, or should I say, Gabriel.”  He draws the archangel’s true name out, rolling the r on his tongue in a way that’s intimate.  

There’s an unmistakable gleam in his gaze when he glances up, and the moment the weight of his stare shifts from you, you realize how magnificent it is. Copper hues blend seamlessly with bronze, the colors tied together with flecks of gold that sparkle more playfully than anything. 

It tugs at something in your chest, something you immediately smother.

“That was quite the trick you both pulled, making the world believe that only one of you existed.” He clicks his tongue, shaking his head.  “But we’ll get to that in a moment.”  

With a wave of his hand, the room around you fades to darkness, as the light above your head intensifies.  The sudden spotlight makes you uneasy, as does the way you can still touch the floor beneath you, but not the table at your back.

“Seriously.  Stop dicking around with her and let’s talk about this.”  Gabriel’s voice floats in on the fringes, but it’s like he’s calling across a chasm, the familiar timbre distant and faded.   

It takes all of an instant to realize what’s happening.

“What do you want?”  Your arms tighten across your chest, and you’re even more acutely aware of just how exposed you are.  

“So many things.”  You can’t begin to unpack the complexities of his statement or the ones that follows.  “Mostly, I just want to help.”

Your eyes widen at the knife he brandishes, stomach plummeting well beneath concrete as he holds the blade up in front of your face.  Power pours off the metal, prickling over your skin in a way that alarms you.  It has to be ancient, filled with something you don’t recognize or understand.  

“Sometimes, in order to make something stronger, we must first destroy it.”

You can’t help but notice the short but curved blade attached to the end or the spiked ridges along the inner edge that can’t be for anything other than tearing through flesh. 

“Pain, as a construct, is ultimately fleeting, though the weight of breaking or watching someone break can be unbearable, no matter which side of the knife you are on.”

You swallow, eyes drifting up to the handle, trying to find something you recognize.  

It’s exquisite, a combination of beautiful gems and the finest spellwork you’ve ever seen with ethereal, symbols and lettering shifting along the surface in a way that almost makes them seem alive.  There’s no rhyme or reason to how they move, not that you can tell, and you’d be otherwise fascinated with the weapon, except it’s leveled in your direction.

“Now hold still,” He instructs, his grip on your calf tightening. “I’d prefer not to hurt you more than necessary.”

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[toloveawarlord]

What Once Was (Pt. 2) Telling Jonah

You can find my masterlist in my bio!

Tagging all those who asked to be on this angst train, there is no exit. @jennacat84 @otomarichan @otomegamesaremydrug @ikemenprincessnaga @plumpblueberry

A harsh melody of rain splattering against the ground and thunder growling through the skies drowned out the steps of the polished boots striding down the hallway at an unusually quick pace. Streaks of lightening lit up the darkened hallway, glinting ominously on the drops of water painting a trail to his own quarters. His late dinner interrupted by a soaked solider announcing her arrival. How audacious, appearing to him at such a late hour.

“Emery—” Whatever scolding words meant to pass his lips evaporated at the sight of her. No mere statement that she had arrived had prepared him to find her in such a sorry state. The carpet around her feet had begun to pool water, unable to soak up any more. “You’re utterly drowned. Did you walk all the way here in this storm?”

The Queen of Hearts examined the woman closely. Paled skin, daze and distance in those usually bright and full of life blue eyes. Not once in his time spent with her had she ever been so drained, merely existing. He surely needed to bring her back to him, to reality, before any of his questions could hope to be answered.

Slender fingers brushed across her rose-tinted cheeks, taking a slick piece of black hair and tucking it behind her ear. How he ached for a snide remark or an accusation of attempting to seduce her, always paired with that tinkling laughter more melodic than any sympathy could play. “You’re absolutely frigid. Let’s get you a warm bath and dry clothes, hm?”

Emery couldn’t bring herself to give a reply, much less meet his gentle gaze. Identical amber eyes were carefully watching her with profound care and tenderness. The gushing wound inside her couldn’t bear to allow such affection to be given, not when the truth would drive that away soon enough.

If Jonah knew, he wouldn’t treat her with such kindness.

Coward.

The Queen of Hearts left her to warm up in the bath while he prepared tea for them to share. Each warm word of reassurance cut into her like a whip meant to tame a wild lion.

She had to tell him... the reason that she had walked for hours in the raging storm from Black Headquarters to Red... the reason his beloved little brother would harbor even more resentment toward him. Jonah desperately wished to mend his relationship with Luka, and Emery had cut the very thin rope with her own two hands. 

Her mouth refused to speak, tightly stitched shut by her overwhelming guilt.

Coward. Tell him. Whatever his reaction, you deserve it.

“I know,” Emery whispered, covering her face with her wet hands. Her torment inside wasn’t enough. She needed more, more anger, more blame, someone else to punish her.

But perched stiffly on the edge of the couch, dressed loosely in one of his pale pink dress shirts that surrounded her in his comforting scent, Emery couldn’t speak. The tea cup hot against her bare thigh as blue eyes stared at her pitiful reflection. She longed for his wrath, to somehow atone for the sin by being brutally reprimanded and torn apart.

“Now, then,” Jonah gracefully sat on the cushion beside her, hooking a finger under her chin to lift her sorrowful features up to meet his concerned gaze. “Tell me what this is about.”

Hadn’t she done enough damage to the Clemence brothers? How could she bring the same pain to Jonah? She’d already destroyed one man, slaughtering his soul with her own selfishness. Could she do the same to the one before her? The knife she wielded far more deadly than any weapon that could be bought.

His amber eyes filled with adoration and the promise of protection resonated within her battered mind. “Emery, I’ve waited long enough. Spit it out. Or I’ll have to make you speak.” He didn’t mean it, not a word. That much she had learned with her time spent in his company.

“Jonah--” Speaking his name both healed and sliced at her heart. Drawn in by his gaze, latching onto the sliver of hope, she relinquished to him. “I’m pregnant.”

Not the words that he had been expecting, Jonah had a momentary lapse of composure. Lashes fluttering as his lips parted in shock. Then, as the proper Queen of Hearts that he was, the man straightened his back, addressing her properly once again. “And you are proclaiming this because you believe the baby is mine?”

“You’re the only one who it could be, Jonah,” Emery said, swallowing down the lump in her throat. She didn’t watch him rise from the couch and disappear over next to his dresser. His abrupt behavior sending mixed signals.

Now’s the only time. If she waited any longer, then it would cause more pain. Mechanically moving her arms to set the tea cup on the plate, sloshing a little onto the table, Emery squeezed her eyes closed. Her fingers dug into the skin of her knees, nails piercing and threatening to draw blood.

Luka tormented her mind. His agonized features etched into the backs of her eyelids, to never let her forget the damage she had inflicted on him. The depths of despair were rising up to drown her in their murky waters.

“Emery,” Jonah called to her, having returned to her side.

Tell him.

“Jonah, I-” Her words caught in her throat at the sight of the Queen of Hearts. No, no, no. He couldn’t do this.

Jonah was knelt beside her, gracefully on one knee. Between his slender hands rested an open velvet box. Resting in the center, a marvelous golden ring with a diamond cut into the shape of a rose glared up at her. The promise of a happy future, of protection and a lifetime in the arms of the eldest Clemence.

“Emery Elise Hayes, I, Jonah Clemence, am asking you for your hand in marriage. I swear to protect, love, and serve you and our baby with all that I have. Will you marry me, Emery?”

Time stopped around her. Every bit of her screamed at him, cursing him for promising those things to a woman who wounded his own brother so badly that he may never recover.

Tell him. You must tell him before it’s too late.

But it was already too late. A pair of loving amber eyes locked onto hers, a silent promise so strong that it washed away the guilt, replacing it with the desire to let him take her pain away. If only a temporary feeling, one that would fade and be overtaken by a guilt with such vengeance that neither of them may survive it, Emery clung onto it with all her might.

And like the coward she was, the secret of her and Luka would remain just that.

“Yes.”

Another pair of hearts severed, brothers no longer to be.

Part 2 is complete! She didn’t tell him, but all secrets come out eventually right? Next part will be the Black Army’s reaction to the events that have happened. Emery will be promptly moving in to Red Headquarters but by demand of the King of Spades, she must retrieve her things herself. One last officer meeting with her.

[snowfall-fanfictions]

Beware the Frozen Heart Ch. 6- The Tailor Shop

Ao3 link

FF.net link

It’s time we got this romance thing rolling. Enjoy!

minor blood tw

“How… the HELL… can one woman run… THAT FAST?!”

 Eryn gasped for air as he clutched the doorframe to the tailor shop. For the past five minutes, he had been chasing the princess as she dragged the queen through the entire town. The scene had caught the attention of the masses around the city, which Eryn despised. Now people knew the royals were out and about, which means that other potential assassins would be moving to strike against the queen. Eryn was somewhat glad they managed to get away from the public eye when they entered the tailor shop. It was a fairly large store, with mannequins dressed in various attire lined up around the brightly lit  room. The air was thick with the smell of perfume and violet, which made Eryn gag slightly. The queen and princess were currently sitting a few feet away with an elderly woman near the counter discussing… something or other, Eryn was too exhausted to pay attention.

It may have been the exasperation that resonated in Eryn’s body, but some things weren’t adding up in his mind. The man who hired him described the queen as “a witch” and “a monster.” Eryn had a hard time seeing how exactly this woman was capable of such evil to be labeled as such. Everyone they passed through the town either ignored her or gave a pleasant hello. And for that matter, he wasn’t sure how someone (or anyone, for that matter) like her could have such magical prowess to encase the kingdom in an eternal winter. He hadn’t even seen her use her magic! Eryn started to think that those stories about the queen’s magic were nothing more than flights of fancy from fools who thought they were in some fairy tale. Or drunkards. Or both, for that matter. Eryn decided to seek some “expert advice” on the matter.

Oi, you can sense magic in others right? Eryn thought, projecting his thoughts to the dagger at his side.

Of course I can, boy… the dagger responded, slightly annoyed, What do you take me for?

Does the queen really possess magic then?

The dagger took a moment to respond. Yes. Most definitely. By the Old Ones, her power is quite impressive! I’m not even sure if she knows how much power she possesses. 

Is that good or bad?

Mmmm… Hard to say. This will require much more attention, though it does make our job slightly harder.

Eryn fixated his eyes on the queen. No one has ever gotten that kind of reaction from the blade. It both fascinated and deeply terrified him.

“Now then,” the old hag said in a raspy yet upbeat voice, “if you can follow me, your highness, we can start with the measurements.”

The princess was radiating excitement through the entire room. It was as if she forgot that just a few days ago someone tried to kill her and the queen. The elderly woman slowly got up from her chair (Eryn was certain he heard something in the broad’s body squeak) and the princess followed suit.

“Should I go back with you?” The queen asked.

“That isn’t necessary, your majesty,” the old woman answered, “we won’t be long.”

“A-alright. I’ll be out here once your done.”

The old woman gave the queen a grin. “Why don’t you look around while we’re gone. I’m sure you will be in my store one of these days getting fitted for your wedding dress.”

The queen’s face turned bright pink at the old woman’s suggestion, who let out a small chuckle. The princess gave the queen a quick embrace before bolting away with the elderly woman behind a dark blue curtain. It was at that point Eryn perked up and felt his exhaustion dissipate as he came up with a daring yet stupid plan.

Don’t. You. Dare. The dagger scolded, reading his thoughts

C’mon, they’ll be in there for who knows how long, Eryn reassured, All I have to do is kill her and we’re off! Easy.

Since when has that ever worked? Do you remember London?

That whore knew more than she let on. Besides, there are no witnesses here. With a bit of magic we can make this as quick and painless as possible.

The dagger let out a defeated sigh. I have only a little bit left. Once I use it, you won’t have any more until she’s dead.

That shouldn’t take long, then. Let’s get moving.

Don’t blame me when you’re trapped in an ice block.

Eryn felt a surge of energy course through his body as he casually raised his hand towards where the princess and the tailor shop owner were. Small darts of darkness flew from his fingertips to the curtain they were behind. Should keep them from hearing any screams he thought. He then delicately shut the door as he unsheathed the blade from its holster, ready for the kill.

XXXXXX Elsa sighed at the events that had transpired. She was getting incredibly tired of the constant reminders of her marriage status. It was one thing to be asked by her advisors, but it was another thing to be asked by the common folk. Even if she wanted to seek a future husband, her duties as queen, along with the recent attempt on her life, had pushed that notion to the back of her mind. It felt like she had a thousand pound weight hanging on her shoulders

At least Anna was happy through all of this. Elsa remembered how estatic her sister was a few months ago when Kristoff proposed, how she teared up when he slipped the ring onto Anna’s finger. She was glad Anna was getting the happily ever after she always wanted. It also helped that she had some piece of mind with Derrik around. While not by any means a permanent solution, the extra security made Elsa feel better, if only by a little bit.

The queen rose from her chair and began perusing the store, noting the various fabrics and bolts of cloth. She could easily have the royal tailors fashion Anna’s dress, but the redhead insisted that it be done by Mrs. Rusgard, as she “put love in every stitch,” as Anna put it. Besides, Elsa liked getting out of the castle every now and then to visit the smaller shops and such. It made her feel like a part of Arendelle, rather than just the queen. Elsa picked up a spool of red yarn, twisting it around in her hand. She never tried knitting, but thought it wouldn’t hurt to try.

Before she had time to think about what to knit, however, she found herself forced onto the ground.

XXXXXX

Eryn wasn’t sure what just happened. He was silently striding towards the queen, dagger in hand and ready to strike, when he lost his footing and fell face forward into her. The two of them slammed onto the floor with a loud THUD. Eryn groaned in pain as he propped himself up onto his arms. Reorienting himself, he looked down and saw the queen looking up to him completely shocked, her blue eyes the size of dinner plates. Her hair was slightly messed up as well, with random strands falling out of place. Eryn felt his heart race as he stammered, “Um, so-sorry ma’am, must’ve uh- tripped on something.”

“O-Oh no it’s fine,” the queen responded as her face grew pink, “I’ve done that a couple of times.” Eryn quickly jumped to his feet as he helped the queen off the floor. As she put her hand in his, Eryn couldn’t help but notice how soft they were. As the queen fixed her hair, running her hand through her platinum locks, Eryn felt a surge of warmth across his face and his heartbeat grow rapidly. The assassin wasn’t sure what was going on. He didn’t have much time to ponder, as the princess and the old woman came out from the curtain.

“Okay, Elsa, we- oh!” the princess exclaimed as the old woman lightly chuckled.

“Well, well, well,” the woman chortled, “I see the queen of Arendelle has finally found a man.”

Eryn looked down and realized he still had the queen’s hand in his. He quickly snapped his hand back, clasping it behind his back, and directed his attention to the floor. Both his and the queen’s faces were bright red from embarrassment.

“O-oh no,” the queen sputtered awkwardly, “Derrik is just our bodyguard, he tripped and landed on me and-”

“Yes, yes,” Eryn chimed in, “I- uh, lost my balance on… something or other.” He quickly turned around and saw a basket of small spools spilt on the floor. “Ah! Here’s the culprit,” he announced, picking up the basket and replacing its contents.

“Ummmm, Elsa?” the princess said, “You might want to turn around.”

With that, both Eryn and the queen shifted their gaze to the direction the princess was referring to. He saw that one of the mannequins was completely coated with a sheet of jagged ice, the clothing it was wearing ripped to shreds. He heard the queen let out a horrified gasp.

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed, turning to the old woman, “I’m so sorry, I’ll happily pay for-”

The old woman raised her hand. “That won’t be necessary. Between you and me, that old thing was attracting more moths than customers.” The princess slightly giggled at the old woman’s joke as the queen snapped her fingers. The ice covering the mannequin slowly evaporated before Eryn’s eyes. Half of him was impressed at the queen’s abilities. The other half, however, was deeply disturbed at the scale of the woman’s power.

“I’m really sorry again, Mrs. Rusgard,” her majesty murmured sheepishly.

“Not to worry, dear,” the elderly woman reassured, “It was due to be replaced anyway.”

Eryn dropped his gaze to where he and the queen had fallen. There he saw the dagger resting a few inches away, the runes no longer glowing. Damn! He thought, I’m not going to hear the end of this…

“Alright, where to next?” The queen asked the princess.

“Follow me!” The princess grabbed the queen’s arm and bolted out of the store. Eryn quickly dashed over to grab his dagger.

“God damn it!” Eryn groaned, bolting after them with increased speed.

Later that night…

Eryn flopped onto his bed with a drawn out groan. He had been playing a game of keep-up with the royals for the past two hours as they traversed the city. His legs felt like jelly as his lungs cried out in pain. He was certain that the princess had some form of speed magic to not only be able to make such a mad dash around the city, but also while carrying another person in tow. Whatever it was, Eryn held a newfound respect for the young princess.

Despite his fatigue, Eryn began to mentally kick himself for what happened today. Never in the past twelve years has he fucked up as royally as he did in the tailor shop. He was supposed to be a master assassin, not some clumsy fool. This was even worse than the time in London, though luckily no one saw how awful he had messed up.

Eryn’s thoughts soon settled on the events after he stumbled into the queen, how his heart began beating loudly in his chest, how the image of her disheveled hair made his face turn bright red. He dashed these thoughts from his mind. It’s probably something I ate, he thought to himself. Imagine if the dagger read his thoughts at that minut-

SHIT, THE DAGGER!

Eryn shot up in his bed. He unsheathed the dagger and inspected it. As he suspected, the runes etched into the blade were no longer glowing. He mentally tried to grab the dagger’s attention, only to be met with silence. Eryn let out a frustrated sigh. He knew what had to be done if he wanted the dagger’s assistance.

Without thinking twice, Eryn held his right hand open and placed the blade in the middle of his palm. Pressing the blade into his skin, he dragged the dagger across his hand, slightly wincing at the pain. Blood began leaking from his palm, dripping onto the sheets of his bed. He quickly placed the top side of the dagger underneath his fresh wound, allowing the blood to drip onto the runes. As soon as blood met steel, the carvings began glowing bright crimson. The dagger’s voice soon followed, groaning as if awoken from a nap.

About time, Odrikson! I was wondering what took so long with- wait… This isn’t the blood of the queen! I thought you said killing her was ‘easy '.

A slight miscalculation on my part, luckily she still doesn’t suspect anything. Eryn reached over to his nightstand and pulled out a strand of cloth and wrapped it around his wound.

You need to exercise caution, boy. The goal is to kill the queen, not yourself.

Tell me something I don’t know. You were right about her having more power than she knows what to do with.

Is that the only thing I was right about?

Go fuck yourself… 

Regardless, we should still plan out our next attack. Stumbling our way through this is damn near suicide.

Agreed. What do you propose?

We bide our time, use our position to uncover the weaknesses in the queen. Maybe through the princess or the snowman we can find some information that will be instrumental in her demise.

I’m vetoing the snowman. Stupid pile of piss would probably get lost in an empty room, not very reliable for information.

Very well… we shall pry at the princess then.

As long as I don’t have to chase after her, that’ll be fine.

With that, Eryn stabbed the dagger into the nightstand and flopped back onto his bed as he let his eyelids grow heavy with sleep.

[mollymauk-teafleak]

but the heart of a man is a simple one (part 3)

Sorry this took so long, you know how school be 

Ao3 | ko-fi of a broke trainee teacher/author 

reblog & comments = a very happy and motivated author 

Caleb wasn’t very good at sitting still.  

His leg itched to bounce, his spine to slouch, his fingers to drum restlessly against his kneecap. But every time he did, the painter would give him a sharp look, as if Caleb had ran up and kicked his easel over with no word of warning. Every time it happened, he could feel his husband next to him trying to hide a bemused smile.

He’d tried to protest this, trying to argue that having a portrait done was a senseless extravagance, a waste of time and money. But it was tradition apparently, that all newly married couples who dwelt in the palace be immortalised in paint and plaster and a huge, grandiose gilded frame. Caleb had tried to find the courage but, after a supercilious smirk from the Grand Mage, his argument that just because something had been done thousands of times before didn’t mean it was the right thing to do had stayed on his tongue and he’d slumped into his chair and not spoken for the rest of the meeting. He sometimes felt that the other archmages only ever allowed their little pet, quota filling commoner a certain number of spoken words per meeting and after that he was little more than a prattling child to them.

So here they were, a bitter Caleb and a faintly perplexed Mollymauk, sat in a ridiculous half- reclining pose on two of the most hideously fancy and most uncomfortable chairs in existence, getting all manner of aches and bruises while a commissioned human artist, with squinting eyes and a long pointed nose that made him look rather like a fastidious little rodent, sketched out their forms and filled them in with colour over the course of five hours. Caleb was ready to scream within five minutes.

After the hundredth or so time of being asked it the honourable archmage could please tilt his head up a little further, thank you, the wizard had been ready to snap until Mollymauk shifted beside him and soothingly squeezed his arm while flashing him a sympathetic grin, flickering back to his statuesque pose before the painter could notice.

Caleb felt a small smile tug at his own lips, his blood cooling a little bit. At least there were much worse people to be stuck posing beside.

The month or so since their wedding had been odd, though not in an uncomfortable way. Caleb was still getting used to having someone else there in his apartments, to there being another set of footprints, soft breathing next to him in the night, the water running in the bathroom when he wasn’t in it. Purple hairs clinging to some of his clothes, jewellery that was definitely too extravagant to belong to him left abandoned on the dresser, a scent of lilies and jasmine lingering in the air even when he was alone.

It was new, which meant it automatically made Caleb feel dizzy. But there were good bits about it too.

Sometimes there would be a pot of tea waiting for him on his desk beside all the books, steaming contentedly. Mollymauk would make light comments over dinner, not seeming to mind that Caleb would mostly read through the meal, making light fun of the people he’d encountered and the things he’d done that would always make Caleb laugh and feel as though he was being entrusted with a secret. The warmth of another person beside him in the night was a comfort too, especially the moments where Molly’s hand would stray as he slept to rest on Caleb’s arm or his shoulder. The first time that had happened, Caleb had been tempted to gently shrug it away, Molly would never know to mind. But somehow he hadn’t. Somehow he’d started to wish for it.

True to his word, Mollymauk had never expected anything more than Caleb was ready to give him. Right at the start, he’d even offered to remain in the guest suite that he’d been allocated back when he was simply a visiting dignitary and not a lord of Zadash by marriage. Touched but understanding that it would only raise suspicions and but him more in the council’s firing line, Caleb had declined and his humble apartments were slowly starting to fill up with all of Molly’s things, somehow slotting in beside his own with minimal disruption.

Caleb found it strange how two lives that were so startlingly different could be stitched together so easily. Next to Molly, he felt like rough, cracked leather next to the sheerest, most elegant silk and yet their peculiar patchwork seemed to be coming together, slowly and tentatively but all the same.

“I am finished, my lords,” the painter announced, waking Caleb up from his own thoughts, “Your portrait is complete.”

He turned around the canvas far bigger than himself, for the two of them to see. Caleb didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Molly apparently did, as he stifled a laugh with a cough that quickly turned into effusive praise that seemed to please the artist, even as hollow as it sounded to Caleb. He just stayed staring at the painting, feeling his heart sink further and further.

In short, they looked utterly ridiculous. If it were just a bad painting, Caleb probably just have giggled along with Molly and shrugged it off as a waste of the council’s money but it wasn’t that simple. The two figures were so far removed from the actual people they were supposed to portray that it was more caricature than portrait. In the painting, Archmage Widogast had the most smug, most haughty expression that clearly didn’t belong on a face as long and drawn as his. It was as if the painter had pulled the expression Caleb detested most right off the face of the Grand Mage and pasted it onto a thicker, more farcically masculine version of Caleb himself. Mollymauk looked slightly better though his natural colourfulness clearly hadn’t translated well into the more traditional, baroque Zadashi style, like hastily trying to cut a ball gown into a pair of overalls. The painter hadn’t even done most of his tattoos, completely inventing imaginary long sleeves to cover his forearms and a high necked shirt to cover his chest.

They looked like two people who had absolutely no business being together, being in the palace even. Under the direction of those in charge, they’d been forcibly remoulded into the people they wanted them to be, not who they actually were, and the result was a depressing misery.

“Well, at least we got a laugh out of it?” Molly chuckled as soon as the door closed behind the artist, “Though I swear, that abomination is not hanging in our apartment. Shall we fake a mortal accident? What do you think, we accidentally left it too close to a candle and it went up in flames or oh! Maybe Frumpkin thought it was a new toy for him and clawed it to shreds…”

He didn’t see. He didn’t see the spite that lingered behind the ridiculousness. Of course he didn’t, he hadn’t been here long enough, he’d been born into this life, he’d never felt out of place in this world.

“I’m going to go to the library,” Caleb mumbled flatly, unable to even try and sound normal.

Molly’s smile died, “Oh…okay, love. I’ll see you for dinner?”

“Yeah, maybe,” he was already at the door, already letting it close behind him.

***

There had been revels going on through the city right from sunrise and even now, at sunset, the faint shouts and songs and even the low booms of firework spells still reached the palace.

Caleb could read the wistful expression on his husband’s face as he paused in the process of getting ready for the ball, standing by the window and watching as flowers of fire and light and noise bloomed over the city at the base of the hill. He had no doubt that his high-spirited, colourful husband would be much happier down in amongst the citizens, drinking ale and watching the parade and the fireworks and dancing in the streets. Certainly happier than he would be at the archmages’ own celebrations, a lavish ball with only delicate flutes of champagne and expensive canapés and dignified conversation, in the room they’d been married in just a few months ago though considerably more pomp was being thrown behind this event. Distinguished people were coming from all over the realms to attend the performance masquerading as a party. Caleb was already sourly wondering what new deals and agreements would be made over the caviar and wine that would suck even more funds out of the charitable foundations he’d been arguing fruitlessly for at all the recent meetings.

“Your people seem to really love this day,” Mollymauk murmured suddenly, making Caleb lift his head from trying to tie his cravat to very limited success. He hadn’t been paying enough attention to his husband as they’d been dressing, only now could he see how elaborate his dress actually was. It was tight, clinging to his body, adorned with so much gold thread that it seemed entirely made of spun metal and over the top was a loose, flowing curtain of almost see through purple silk that would brush the floor when he danced. His jewellery was just as elaborate, amethysts in a tight, almost lace like web around his neck and piercings dripping with gold, arching right up to his horns like the metal had taken on a life of its own and grown like vines.

“It’s one of our most important feast days,” he nodded in agreement, moving over to stand by his husband at the window. Zadash really did look beautiful from up here, a maze alive with colour and light from the many lanterns hung high the streets and the folk in bright costumes wandering through the merriments, “It celebrates the city’s founding.”

Molly frowned, trying to remember, “You did tell me, didn’t you…it was the one in the book about the young elf woman lost in the woods who found the spring, right? And she had her family there and the city grew…”

“You were listening!” Caleb smiled, teasingly.

“I only fell asleep towards the end,” Molly rolled his eyes, grinning, “I got the gist of it.”

“But yes, that’s it in essence. Everyone in the city gets a day off and there’s music and a parade and all the children dress as folk heroes and hold treasure hunts all through the streets.”

“Sounds fun,” the wistfulness deepened. Caleb could easily picture Mollymauk in his gilded mask and his peacock feathers, part of the parade as he juggled his scimitars atop a cart strewn with flowers, running with the children and directing them subtly to where the gold coins were hidden in the nooks and crannies of the alleyways, complimenting all the regular attendees to his shows on their costumes and re-enacting the tales from which they’d sprung, playing the parts of the dragon or the monster to make the children laugh.

“Maybe…” Caleb bit his lip, “Maybe we need only show our faces tonight? Have a drink and then make our excuses and go into town? No one would know us in costume.”

Molly’s eyes brightened for a few moments before he slumped a little and sighed, “No. No, this is our place now. I need to stop pulling stunts like that, I promised the lords back home I would. Time to grow up and be old and boring…”

Caleb smiled slightly, reaching out and taking Molly’s hand. He was getting much better at that, offering touch and accepting it in return. The whole concept was really starting to grow on him; it was almost like every brush of Molly’s hand against his own, every time Molly would let him brush his hair of a night because the movement of the brush through his long, silken curls was comforting to him, every time the tiefling would squeeze his shoulder or brush a stray lock behind his ears or nudge him to punctuate some whispered joke filled a hole inside his stomach.

“You could never be boring, Mollymauk,” he said gently.

Molly seemed touched at that, his smile growing back. He turned to Caleb, his hands gently flickering up to redo his cravat correctly, “Flatterer. Here, let me fix that for you…”

He tied it with effortless elegance whereas Caleb had been struggling with it for what felt like an hour. And as soon as it was done, he leaned forward and kissed him, just softly, just swiftly, on the cheek.

“We should head down there, don’t want to be late…” the tiefling whirled away carelessly to give himself a last check in the mirror.

Leaving his husband standing rooted to the floor, his cheek burning where the kiss had landed, mouth slightly open. As another spell infused rocket whistled and exploded over in the distance, Caleb felt much the same sensation in his chest.

The elaborate decorations that had arched overhead when they’d entered the ballroom, the canopy of the traditional blue roses that ridged the ceiling like the spine of a creature hunched over in slumber, the scented candles drifting atop levitation spells that moved though the room like lily pads on an invisible pond, the behemoth of a crystal chandelier that hung over the heads of the guests, it was all starting to look rather sinister as the evening wore on and the light of the sunset dimmed. Everything seemed to have an edge to it, the sharp lances of crystal lengthened and became more pointed, like teeth and the elaborate dress of the guests looked pale and washed out, greying, ghost like. Empty glasses lay abandoned on tables or the windowsills, on their sides or lopsided, as tipsy as the guests who’d drained them. The laughs were growing more strained, the conversations thinner as the night grew older and the alcohol was drunk more liberally.

Caleb was more than ready to retire and head up to bed. Maybe the fireworks would still be going on and he and Mollymauk could watch them from the comfort of their blankets. He’d made his limp circuits of the room, standing the fringes of conversations, nodding and making noises of agreement. He’d introduced himself to all the people who he knew would be expecting it, gave rehearsed, pleasant answers to many questions about his wedding and more enthusiastic ones to the few about his work. Though of course the other lords and ladies had the standard response of looking slightly alarmed as Caleb launched into descriptions of his studies into crystal refraction to amplify magical traces and then pointedly not ask him any more about that or make their excuses and offload their conversation on whoever was standing nearby that they didn’t like all that much. He’d done everything that was expected of him and now he was eager to flee.

He looked around and managed to find Mollymauk, over the other side of the room, holding a conversation with several other people who looked incredibly important, looking as at ease with them as could be. The kiss came back into his mind as he weaved through the crowd towards him. It was a little distressing that one brief second was commandeering his mind so completely, making his face feel hot and his feet want to fidget and his heartbeat pick up. Caleb shoved it out as mind as best he could as he eventually gravitated to his husband’s side.

“Hello, love,” Molly beamed at him as soon as his red eyes settled on him. They were always a little more demonstrative in public, keeping up the image as it were. But then again, Mollymauk did give pretty much everyone he met a pet name.

“Ready to go?” Caleb asked quietly, hopefully, giving him a tired smile.

He got a flash of an exaggeratedly relieved look in response and a squeeze of his hand, a silent pledge that he’d be ready in five minutes.

“You’ve met my husband, haven’t you…” Molly continued the conversation smoothly, making Caleb feel part of it the way no one else had all night. He was so much better at this than his husband, at talking to these people and blending in, acting like one of them.

Caleb felt a little awful thinking it but he could see why so many people who met his husband assumed he was just another privileged little lordling with more money than personality, who’d never had to develop beyond the surface level because his title would open every single door he ever encountered. He could see why they only saw the easy, airy party boy in him, why they loved to swap gossip about his extravagant orgies. It was only after spending time with Mollymauk that it became clear how much of it was simply an act. More clever than any of these people put together, he very deliberately managed the façade of the archetypal young lord while keeping all of his true self, his wit and kindness and perceptiveness, hidden away where they couldn’t reach it.

But Caleb was allowed in. And he was slowly starting to realise just how much he appreciated it.

The older woman was talking now, something about the opera house she’d founded back in her own city of Bladegarden that actually sounded quite interesting, maybe he and Mollymauk could go…

“…utterly ridiculous, the fact that they even let such a creature through the gates is a disgrace. I mean, not only does he frequent whores, he dresses like one too…”

Caleb went very stiff and very still. The voice came from somewhere behind them, no doubt meant to be a conspiratorial whisper though swelled with drink and slurred, but the words and the tone of derision was unmistakeable.

Another voice, though the spite and the wine in it was twin to the first, “…made a freak show out of the institution of marriage. That sort of thing might be acceptable on the Menagerie Coast but we’re a little more civilised here…”

“…should never have allowed it, I have no idea what the Grand Mage is thinking. How are they supposed to produce an heir, what’s even the point? An utter farce. Widogast must be ashamed to even leave his room…”

“Prancing, preening little thing. Half the lords will be laughing in their cups at us, having someone like that around…”

“…they’re all descended from demons, that lot, they can’t be trusted. We’ve let a devil into our midst and invited him to infect us as he pleases with his deviant behaviour. The empire will crumble within the year, just you wait…”

The hand in Caleb’s disappeared suddenly, yanked away before he could even try and hold on.

“Please excuse me, my lady,” Molly’s voice was flat and stony cold, killing off any hope Caleb had clung to that he hadn’t heard the voices. Quick as he’d ever seen him move, the tiefling turned and ducked into the crowd, disappearing into the press.

Caleb swallowed back a cry of his name, mumbling his own hasty apologies and making to follow his husband. Though before he did, he whirled to find the sources of the two voices. He wasn’t surprised to see them, two of the other archmages, two who had wanted to cancel the betrothal as soon as they realised they’d sent another man, two who had opposed Caleb’s appointment to the council in the first place, two who raised their hands to vote against any measure Caleb proposed before he was even finished speaking.

Caleb narrowed his eyes and exhaled sharply, muttering a word as he did, walking away as soon as he saw a faint pule of light emanate from the glasses the two men held. No one seemed to notice.

Just as he reached the door he assumed Mollymauk had fled through, there was a sudden horrified shout from the crowd and a sickening, strangled noise, accompanied by a wet slapping sound as two of the archmages, for seemingly no reason at all, suddenly found their tongues lengthening grotesquely and springing from their mouths to roll across the marbled floor like a grisly carpet. All after just a sip of their drinks.

Caleb allowed himself a small smirk before he left the ballroom.

***

“Caleb? My love?”

The wizard started a little, he hadn’t even heard the door open. That happened a lot when he got so engrossed in his work that everything else seemed to fade away to an easily ignored static in the back of his mind. Often Frumpkin would jump into his lap while his master was in full flow and scare him so badly that he’d tip backwards right out of his chair.

“Oh, hello,” he turned in his seat to see Mollymauk standing just a little ways behind him, hovering close to his husband’s desk. He’d changed out of the ridiculous traditional robes they’d been given to wear for the painting- Caleb had balled his own up as tight as possible and thrown them against the wall- and was now dressed more simply in fawn coloured leggings and a knitted tunic in stripes of warm browns, oranges and greens that Caleb had no doubt he’d made himself.

Molly’s gentle smile only made his husband feel more awkward, like a small child who’d thrown a tantrum and now had to explain himself. Molly had pointedly not approached him since yesterday after they’d sat for that disastrous painting, had only made the lightest conversation over dinner and kept his distance as they’d slept, taking a long, long bath and only coming to bed after Caleb was dozing. It was obvious that he was giving his husband space to cool off and bring up whatever had upset him in his own time, an obviousness that Caleb had ignored, embarrassed and anxious.

Clearly Mollymauk had decided to take matters into his own hands.

“You’ve been working for a long time,” the tiefling raised an eyebrow delicately, “Fancy taking a break? Your friends are all in the parlour?”

Caleb’s eyes drifted to the pile of notes on his desk, the ones he’d made frantically as he’d been carrying out his experiments and now had to decipher and make into a formal report. Even after working all afternoon, he was barely a quarter of the way through.

Almost as if he’d read his mind, Molly sighed, “Please? It’ll only be for a little while, I promise.”

A little taken aback, Caleb tried to think when the last time was that someone had shown so much concern for him. His friends had long since given up on reducing the time he spent scribbling away at his desk or in his lab to a more human friendly level, preferring to just pick up the pieces by having Fjord lift him into bed and Nott tuck the blankets around him and Jester heal his headaches after he would crash out in his chair.

“I mean…yeah, okay,” Caleb finally said, seeing no other available answer. Maybe he did owe Molly a little, after staying so stubbornly clammed up all night. He tried for a smile, “Maybe one game of chess…”

Molly wrinkled his nose and groaned. Caleb had been trying to teach him chess for a week or so, the game not being very popular on the coast, and the tiefling had quickly developed a vendetta against it, refusing to call anything a game if it involved this much thinking and remembering facts.

“Or maybe you could finally make good on your promise to teach me your best drinking games in return?” Caleb smiled, nudging his husband playfully as he got up and shook some feeling back into his legs.

His husband laughed, “Oh, all in good time. But I have something else to show you tonight.”

Caleb blinked in surprise as he walked into the small parlour in his apartments, where they often spent their free time in between Fjord and Beau’s patrols and Jester’s stints in the healer’s house and Nott clearing away whatever messes she’d manage to make in the lab trying to find inventive ways to cook up her acids. His friends were flopped over the furniture as they always were, across the comfortable old chairs of cracked leather and overflowing stuffing that Caleb had picked up from antique shops in the city and handmade blankets Jester had provided a long time ago during her macramé phase.

But there was a large blanket covering something tall and rather square in the middle of the room.

“Is…is this that intervention about the amount of coffee I drink you’ve been threatening me with?” Caleb felt rather lost, every pair of eyes in the room suddenly on him.

“No, no,” Mollymauk came up behind him, putting a hand on his shoulder, “As necessary as that sounds, that’s not it. I asked your lovely Jester to made a few…amendments to our portrait. So it better reflects you and me. Jester, if you would, my love?”

“Oh…” Caleb murmurs softly, looking over just as Jester swept the cloth away with a bright trilling ‘tad dah’ and her usual sunny fanfare.

He’d known what a talented artist his good friend was. But he hadn’t realised that she had enough skill to actually make him look beautiful.

Instead of a stiff, unnatural pose on awkward furniture, the two of them were sat on the sofas of the room they were currently stood in, perfect paint recreations that somehow managed to capture exactly how comfortable they were, how the smooth old leather felt underneath his hands, even how they smelt of must and home. There was a fire roaring in one corner, so real it almost seemed to flicker as he gazed at it, bathing the two of them in light, as well as the bookcase behind them, all the titles even done in minute calligraphy. The painted Molly looked as relaxed and confident as he always did in real life, every single inch of his beautiful tattoos lovingly recreated, as well as the perpetual kindness in the smiles he gave his friends.

And Caleb would himself looking at a much more comfortable, much more content version of himself. In his own clothes, his old motheaten brown jumper and patched trousers, with Frumpkin wound around his neck and his hair tied back in a leather thong. His smile was small but comfortable and didn’t look out of place on his face at all, the way smiles often did. His shoulders slumped, relaxed, his eyes were bright and alive and confident in a quiet sort of way.

And his hand rested lightly on top of Mollymauk’s.

Unsurprisingly, Caleb felt tears slide down his face and the wind rush out of his lungs as Jester threw her arms around him and hugged him tight. He returned the embrace as fiercely as he could, trying to show the gratitude he knew he’d never be able to fully express in words. As the painting shattered into colourful fractals before his streaming eyes, he realised what he saw on that canvas, just what Jester and Molly had been able to show him, why it made his chest feel so warm.

Caleb didn’t see himself as he was now. Instead he saw a future. A warm, safe, happy future with his friends and his new husband. It was the first time he’d been able to see that maybe everything was actually going to turn out okay for him.

After deciding that the inaugural hanging of the painting required some drinks to celebrate, the friends trouped out towards the palace’s cellars. But just before they joined them, Caleb reached out and tapped Molly on the shoulder, keeping him back for a moment in the fresh silence.

“Mollymauk, I…” the words caught in his throat, the tears still in his eyes. Caleb cried so infrequently, it was always a while before he could stop once he got going, “I just…I can’t thank you enough.”

The tiefling shook his head, reaching out and gripping Caleb’s arms reassuringly, “No thanks necessary, darling. What they did with the first one…it was disgusting.” A flicker of anger crossed his face, like a bitter taste had entered his mouth, “The way they treat you is just disgusting.”

There it was again, the unfamiliar and dizzying feeling of someone else caring about him. Maybe he was going to have to start getting used to that.

“I mean…it’s okay, I’m used to it. It’s always been like this…”

“But not anymore,” Mollymauk smiled defiantly, “As long as I’m here, you have someone in your corner. Got that, Caleb?”

“Yeah,” the wizard smiled, eyes meeting his husband’s, “I got that.”

***

Mollymauk hadn’t gone far. He didn’t know the layout of the palace very well just yet and Caleb imagined he didn’t want to get lost.

The guests had been handing their coats and furs off carelessly to dutiful servants who’d then hung them up with painstaking care in a nearby closet, thin but deep, disappearing off into shadow and close enough to the ballroom that the music could be heard faintly, the efforts of the flutists and violinists reduced to vague mumblings and the chatter to an indistinct buzz. It was here that Caleb found his husband, slumped to the floor and leaning miserably against a row of coats.

In the low light, the tear tracks on his cheeks were silvered rivers. Caleb felt his stomach lurch; he’d never, ever seen his husband cry. It filled him with disquiet, with grief, with fury, making his hands start to shake where they rested awkwardly on the doorframe.

“Mollymauk?” he made the word an offer, willing to reluctantly withdraw if his husband didn’t want him there. He wasn’t good at comforting others, it just wasn’t in his nature but despite all that, his heart ached to at least try.

“Hey,” the tiefling grunted thickly, eyes gazing up at the ceiling, “Look, I’m sorry if I made a scene…”

“Not at all,” Caleb shook his head quickly. That had been his own doing, “Can I come in?”

Molly gave a shrug of assent, shuffling over so the wizard could slump against the wall and slide down beside him. He still didn’t look at him, eyes staying upturned to the shadows though Caleb was fairly certain that wasn’t what he was truly seeing.

Often, Caleb found the best way to approach a situation was to stay silent. So, unsure of any alternative approach, that’s what he did, simply offering his closeness and the warmth of his body next to Mollymauk’s. No one was more surprised than him when it actually worked.

After a few moments, Molly let out a long sigh and wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his dress, “Believe me, I don’t like letting those assholes get to me like this. I’ve had stuff like that said about me so many times and…and I try so hard…”

Caleb reached over and threaded his fingers through Molly’s, face tight and pained with sympathy. Still, he didn’t say anything.

“But…gods, I just feel so homesick,” Molly’s voice broke like glass and fresh tears budded in his eyes, defying his efforts to wipe them away, “I miss the beaches. I miss my friends. I miss the sunsets and my bed and my home. I…I just hate realising that I can’t ever have that back and now I’m here where I’m not even wanted…”

“I want you here, Mollymauk,” Caleb insisted softly, squeezing his fingers, “Please don’t forget that.”

The tiefling managed a shaky smile that looked more like a grimace in the low light, “I know, Caleb, thank you…I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be offloading all this on you, when you didn’t want this any more than I did and you’ve been so welcoming.”

Caleb shuffled closer, feeling the silk of Molly’s train whisper under his knees, now close enough that he could smell his perfume and hear his raspy breathing, “No…I didn’t want this, Molly, but you’ve…you’ve actually made it the best thing that’s ever happened to me here?”

Molly’s red eyes, shining and shimmering until they looked like dancing candleflames, turned to Caleb, surprised, “Really?”

“Yeah, really,” Caleb grinned crookedly as he realised just how true it was, “It’s so strange, I feel as though I know you better and you understand me better than people I’ve known for years. I feel safe around you. I feel…happy. And I know those others might not want you here but I do, I love everything about you that they’re scared of. Cos that’s all it is, Molly, you tear down all the ridiculous ideas they have and show them the things they want to believe aren’t true so they decide they hate you when really…they’re scared of you.”

“Little old me, huh?” Molly chuckled, thickly.

“Exactly!” Caleb nodded, “And…no matter what they think, as long as I’m here…you’ve got someone in your corner. Got it?”

This time his smile was sure and genuine and his fingers clasped Caleb’s in return, “I got it. Thank you, my love.”

“Believe me, Molly, the pleasure is all mine,” Caleb breathed a soft sigh of relief to see that smile return, “I’d say we’re done with the festivities tonight. Shall we steal a bottle of champagne, go upstairs and read and watch the fireworks? I think they’re still going on…”

The tiefling smiled and rose to his feet, a little shaky but he had Caleb to cling to, clearly having no intention of letting go of his arm, “I’d like that very much, Caleb.”

Mollymauk looked surprised at the commotion coming from the ballroom as they passed it on their way to the stairs , his ears pricking up, “What on earth is going on in there?”

“I have no idea,” Caleb shrugged.

[madisonsclarks]

Time

Inspired by a prompt from @scullbob-mulpants: “In an ambiguous world where Bob no longer exists, Hopper - tentatively and trying to be casual - asks Joyce out for dinner.”

This is almost 4,500 words of pre-season 2 Jopper fluff. There’ll probably be a second part with another 5,000 words of Jopper fluff. I have no regrets. I live in this dumpster now.

*** 

It’s like clockwork.

Or at least it’s become a pattern, Joyce thinks, looking up from the peanut butter jars she’s been shoving onto the shelf from the cardboard box that sits, torn open, at her feet. She glances at the clock and the door in turn, confirms her suspicions, allows herself a tiny smile feels as natural as breathing.

The bells on the door jingle, proclaiming a kind of sharp announcement through Melvald’s General Store. Usually, the sound sets off faint alarms in the back of her head. A customer. Questions to be answered. Problems to solve. Transactions to ring through. This one – this ringing of the bells – is different. It has been different every Wednesday at noon for a month now, and she thinks it’ll probably continue to be every Wednesday in the future, too. At least if the current pattern keeps going.

She rises to her feet, brushes off the thin layer of dust that collected on her pants while she was kneeling. It doesn’t evacuate the soil-brown material completely, probably because it never really left. No matter how many times she washes these pants, dust and grime cling to them like cigarette smoke.

Which was exactly why he was here, if today followed the cycle. Cigarette smoke.

“Hey, Hop,” she says, offering him a genuine smile, free of the customer service shallowness that often lurks on her lips after a long day or a sleepless night. She could call him Jim, probably. They’re close enough for that now, probably, after all the levels of hell they’ve walked through together. They’re close enough for that now, probably, given the way he showed up – unannounced – on her front porch with a hammer and nails in his hands, to help her fix the hole in her wall. They’re close enough for that now, probably, because every Wednesday at noon he comes in to Melvald’s and buys a pack of Camels and talks with her for longer than a cashier transaction would merit, even though they both know cigarettes are cheaper at the Mobil station and it’s less than a block from his work.

Probably.

But probably isn’t good enough, and her stomach somersaults when she thinks about overstepping some invisible boundary he’s drawn between the first name in his past and the last name in his present.

He greets her in kind, takes his hat off and places it on the counter. It’s the first time since he’s started this ritual that she’s seen him without his blue police jacket. But today feels like the first day of spring – it takes until mid-April in Indiana, but when the warm weather arrives, it’s like a current of electricity sparks across all of Hawkins. Everything that fell out of place during the cold winter months snaps back in again. She even saw Will smile this morning when he realized he didn’t need a jacket for his ride to school: a ray of light she attributes to this, the first warm day.

“So,” he says as she slides behind the counter, turns her back to him to get the pack she knows he’s looking for. “How is everything?”

There’s no one else in the store, but they’re used to talking circles around the fallout from the events of last November. They’ve gotten good at saying everything without saying anything at all, at hiding the truth in plain sight. It’s almost a code they’ve developed without meaning to, the way they talk to each other now.

“Good,” she says, turning to face him. She looks up at him as she places the Camels down on the scuffed glass counter with a soft thunk, sees him raise an eyebrow as if evaluating her statement for validity. He knows she’s good at putting on a show in public, at stitching together her frayed edges for long enough to smile and tell Hawkins to have a nice day. But she can be frayed around him, and he doesn’t have to hide his demons from her, and there’s something comforting to both of them in that.

“Yeah?” he asks, and she knows she isn’t imagining the warmth in his tone.

“Yeah,” she insists, smiling when she thinks of Will’s smile, the way his blue eyes sparkled when he opened the front door. “Will was happy this morning. Really happy. Those nightmares he’d been having, he told me he didn’t have one last night. And I wasn’t sure if he’d ever-“

She stops before the tears start. But this time, unlike so many times before, they’re tears of relief, of a weight being lifted, of feeling free in a way she hasn’t since she walked up the stairs to her son’s room and found it empty. Joyce swallows hard, willing the lump in her throat to flatten itself, masks deeper emotions with a smile that wobbles, trembling, on her mouth. It must be contagious, because when she looks up, she sees his lips quirk in a similar expression.

The boys like him. That much, she knows. Jonathan accepted his presence without question and eventually with enthusiasm during the dozen or so times they had him over for dinner during the winter. Will’s attitude toward the police chief was half awe, half gratitude, and wholly admiring; he even managed to ensnare Jim in one of his board games, though much to Will’s displeasure he’d had to leave before they could finish it. 

“That’s great,” Jim says, looking at her with something like pride even though it’s Will who’s had the breakthrough. “That’s progress, Joyce. It takes time.”

He would know better than most, the time that progress takes. They’re haunted by different ghosts, he and Will, but they’re the same species, the same type of thing that lurks over their shoulders and hides in the shadows to come out and prey on them when they’re finally, at long last, feeling better.

Sometimes she wishes Will would talk to Jim. Well, she wishes Will would talk to anyone: the counselor she tried to send him to, his friends, his brother, her. But what happened in the Upside Down is a locked box inside his chest, and no matter how she tries to pose questions or help him, she can’t seem to find the key.

It takes time, she reminds herself, suddenly overwhelmingly grateful for the presence of the man standing in front of her.

She feels the words bubbling up inside her, common sense kicking in too late to push them back down her throat. Later she’ll blame it on the weather, on the good mood that seems to cover the whole city like a fog, that inhaling too much spring air intoxicated her somehow, lowered her inhibitions. But there, standing behind the counter with Jim smiling at her, she asks a question she hadn’t been bold enough to ask before.

“My lunch break is in fifteen minutes. Do you want to go somewhere?”

As soon as the words fly out, she clamps her mouth shut as if in fear that there are more that will spew out like vomit, that her tongue isn’t quite done embarrassing her yet.

Stupid. He has to get back to the station. Why the hell would you ask him that? What if he already ate? What do you think he’s going to do, drop all of his responsibilities to…and now you made it awkward, and he’s not going to want to keep coming to see you, and this is the last time he’ll ever visit you on a Wednesday to buy cigarettes.

 And she doesn’t catch the way he blinks, rapidly, as though the simple act of hearing her question has winded him. She doesn’t catch the redness that creeps across his cheeks, so preoccupied is she with the blush forming on her own. She’s so caught up in her instant, overwhelming regret that she almost misses his response.

“There’s nothing going on at the station,” he says. “Sounds good to me. How long is your break?”

She looks at him in shock and awe, only now remembering that she’s brought her lunch from home and can’t afford to waste the sandwich she packed this morning.

“Shit,” she breathes. “It’s a half-hour but I…I brought something from home. I forgot, but it’ll go bad if I don’t eat it today, and I can’t-“

He looks at her knowingly, as though he can see thousands of gears in her head that have whirred into overdrive, overheating, overcompensating. As though he can see her heart thrumming in her chest, beating harder and faster with every second.

“Joyce,” he says, his blue eyes comforting, calming. “I don’t care if we go anywhere. What works for you, works for me.”

Her lips are forming a smile before she realizes her expression is changing, and the fists that had closed themselves around her lungs start to relinquish their grip. Maybe she hasn’t ruined everything, after all.

“Okay,” she says, two syllables of a sigh of relief.

She moves her hands to rest on top of the counter, and they land on the plastic-wrapped package she has yet to ring up. Her smile turns into a kind of mystified laugh, and she wonders how the hell they both seemed to forget the reason he came here in the first place.

Unless, something in the back of her head whispers, that’s not really why he’s here.

She’s never asked him. His ritual is something she’s accepted without question, largely because she worries prying too far into the reasoning behind its existence will destroy it completely. There are mysteries in her life that she needs answered, but Jim Hopper showing up at her work every Wednesday isn’t one of them.

They both look down at the pack of cigarettes in her hand, and she wonders if they’re thinking the same thing.

***

There’s a lonely wooden park bench a few blocks from the store, on the border between downtown Hawkins and the woods. It’s where Joyce goes when she needs peace, where she goes to smoke and slow down her thoughts during the fifteen minutes she’s allotted outside her lunch break on a 12-hour day. 

It’s where she goes when she needs to be by herself, just for a few minutes, since that’s often all she has there before she needs to turn around and head back to work. But it’s calming, looking at the contrast between the greenness of the forest and the stumbling bustle of the sleepy city. It’s free of judgmental, pitying stares. And most importantly, it’s quiet.

She has never taken another person there, largely because there’s no one else to share the space with. Jonathan and Will visit her at work sometimes, but rarely when she has a break to spare – and if she does, she’ll walk around town with them, do something more interesting than sit on the outskirts of Hawkins and look at the trees and the fallen leaves, still lying on the ground though fall is long gone.

For that reason it feels almost personal, private. Joyce has never seen anyone else there, and has slowly come to believe she’s the only person in Hawkins who knows of its existence.

It’s there – that park bench – she takes Jim for her lunch break.

There are, of course, benches in the city. There are places that would have been less of a walk. But in the city, they can’t say anything. They’d have to stick to pleasantries – his work, her work, “safe” topics regarding her family – and it would be torture to be with the person she can be open around and close a huge part of her life away.

He picked something up from the sandwich shop across the street from Melvald’s, unwraps it while he talks.

“This is nice,” he says, looking across the road, where trees span for miles. “I didn’t know this was over here.” 

She knows he’s enjoying being away from everything, just like she is. There’s a reason Jim Hopper lives in a trailer at the edge of town, just like there’s a reason she stumbled on the bench in the first place.

“I found it on my break, a few months ago. Right after…everything. I went for a walk, and it was here,” she says, remembering that first shift back at the store, the overpowering need to go somewhere else, to be by herself. Spending those fifteen minutes in the tiny break room or in the middle of downtown made everything seem like it was shrinking around her, closing her in, and by the time she left her hands were shaking. “I guess I needed some quiet.”

He nods, understanding.

“When I asked how things were going,” he says, pauses, looks at her. She can feel him trying to fit the words together, and she already knows what he’s going to say before he says it. “I didn’t just mean with the boys, Joyce.”

Her mouth is half-full of sandwich, and she swallows hard enough to make her throat ache. Of course. She should’ve known this conversation wasn’t over, though she’d hoped beyond all hope it was.

The nightmares weren’t something she talked openly about. Will’s state was of more concern to her than her own, and she figured they would go away with time. But she’d told Hopper, exactly once, when he remarked that she looked “like hell” one day on her shift, which was exactly how she felt. She figured he’d take it as a throwaway line, as an explanation for the bags under her eyes and the vacant emptiness of her stare on that day in mid-March. I didn’t sleep well. I had a nightmare. Apparently, he hasn’t thrown it away so much as he’d stored it for later.

She doesn’t know if she’s annoyed or touched. A little bit of both, she thinks as warmth floods her chest. As much as she dreaded talking about it – about her mind and the hells to which it subjected her when the sun went down – she wasn’t used to this. To someone taking an interest in her, outside of Jonathan, around whom she always felt ashamed of showing weakness. God only knew Lonnie never did. She could’ve woken up shrieking, sobbing, struggling for air her lungs and brain wouldn’t let her have, and Lonnie would’ve just rolled over.

“I’m…a lot better than I was before,” she says, choosing every word carefully, walking a tightrope between complete honesty and leaving out information for Jim’s sake. “I still get them, but it’s less often. I’m sleeping through the night most of the time, now.”

The last thing she wants is him worrying about her. The sun seems to grow uncomfortably hot as she waits for his response, and she takes a bite of her sandwich to distract herself.

“I get ‘em, too,” he says, quieter, though there’s no one else around to hear him. “Used to be every night, a few months ago. Now it’s…once a week, maybe. Less than it was.”

This settles like a weight on her chest. The first thing she thinks is the thing she always thinks – that this is somehow her fault. That if Jim hadn’t been so involved in saving her son, if she’d come home earlier that night, if she’d figured everything out earlier… 

They came back from the Upside Down, but part of them – the part giving them nightmares and keeping them up until the tiny hours of the morning – was still stuck there.

Her nightmares are always about Will or Jonathan. About CPR not working, about getting trapped only a few feet away from him, about the monster tearing her sons apart in front of her while she screams, trembles, cries. The Upside Down is recreated in all its overgrown, mucky glory, complete with flickering lights and Barb Holland’s glassy, lifeless stare. She awakes, bedsheets plastered to her with sweat, and only a cigarette smoked on her front porch in the dead of night can slow down the speeding of her thoughts.

 “Hop, I’m s-“ she starts, ready to apologize, but he shakes his head, cutting her off.

 “Don’t do that,” he says softly, and she closes her mouth. “I wouldn’t take any of it back. Will’s safe. That’s what matters.”

He trails off, fixing his gaze on the horizon, and she wonders what his nightmares are about. Are they about Eleven, who they know is out there, somewhere, in the Upside Down or in the woods? Are they about his daughter? Are they about Will?

He’s giving her a look that makes her wonder if there’s a fourth option hidden there somewhere, and again, she thinks about when he started visiting her every week. It wasn’t the week after they found him, or the week after that…could it have been mid-December? Early January? A few months ago…it could’ve been in that timeframe, or it could’ve been later than that. She won’t ask him to answer that question, so instead she poses a new one.

“How are things at the station?”

“Pretty slow,” Jim says. Not surprising – he once told her the only case he’d had at the time of Will’s disappearance revolved around vanishing garden gnomes. Since he never found them, she once – when things had settled considerably and they could stop looking over their shoulders on dark streets – joked that maybe they were hiding in the Upside Down. It was the first time she’d seen him smile since November.

“Although…” he starts.

“What?”

“I pulled over Jonathan’s friend the other day for speeding,” he says. “The Harrington kid. He was going twenty over the speed limit, right at the edge of town.”

His stare, the cringe in his tone, says he knows this has won him no points with her eldest son. From what Joyce knows about Steve, he’s a good kid. A daredevil, to be sure, and she doesn’t doubt that Jim would’ve had to pull him over. But underneath the bravado, Joyce can see how much he cares. He has a good heart. And he really does care about Jonathan, which is good. She doesn’t remember the last time her son had that – at least with someone his own age – and though they’re an unlikely pair, Steve is a good friend.

“Oh, no.”

“Yeah,” Jim says. “First he tried to tell me my radar was broken. When that didn’t work, he said my new jacket looked good on me.”

“Were you wearing a new jacket?” 

“No. Same one I’ve had for the past four years.” 

Joyce laughs. “What did you do?”

“I let him off with a warning,” Jim elaborates. “Probably should have given him a ticket, but he got pretty upset.”

Joyce grins at that, giving him a smirk. She knows why he let him off with a warning, and though she has firsthand knowledge of Steve’s flair for the dramatic, she doesn’t think Jim is being completely truthful about his reasoning. 

“What?” he asks, a slow smile spreading over his lips.

“You’re going soft,” she says, raising an eyebrow.  

“No, I’m not,” he says, indignant.

“Yes, you are,” she persists, teasing, moving a little closer to him as though minimized proximity will help get her point across. “Letting Steve Harrington go with a warning? Hop, I’m amazed at you.” 

He gives a snort of a laugh, redness creeping across his cheeks. The change in complexion lets her know she’s hit home, though she’s only joking, and she considers thanking him for what he did. It’s no secret – at least among the kids – that Steve and his dad don’t get along, and coming home with a speeding ticket would have made things worse. But when she looks back at Jim he’s smiling, a softness in his gaze that both softens her heart and disarms her completely.

“He’s a good kid,” Jim says. “Doesn’t read speed limit signs, but a good kid. Figured I could let him off easy. Just this one time.”

“Well, I’m sure he appreciated it,” Joyce says.

“He better have,” Jim says. It’s probably supposed to sound threatening, but with his cheeks still a little pink and his mouth still quirked in the barest hint of a smile, she finds it utterly endearing. 

Joyce looks down at her watch – five minutes until she has to be behind the counter again. And although he said work is slow, she can’t help thinking he needs to get back to doing something, even if he’s just sitting behind his desk at the station or pulling over speeding teenagers. The thought of going back to work makes her chest feel hollow, though it isn’t the work she’s dreading so much as the lack of company. It’s easy to feel alone in a store full of people, and even easier now than it was years ago.

She feels alone when she’s with Karen Wheeler, who doesn’t know anything about what happened. She feels alone when she meets Steve’s parents for the first time, who stare at her like she’s a hole in a pair of jeans, something desperately in need of patching. She feels alone when she talks to her co-workers, who love to talk to her about her son, the “boy who came back to life” – and she forces herself to recount a completely fake story that tastes like soap in her mouth.

But she doesn’t feel alone with Jim. She never has. 

His visits are a highlight of her week, and she wonders why they didn’t start doing this before. Well, she remembers, probably because there was snow on the ground. It took the first day of spring and all the lightening of inhibitions that came with it for her to say those damn words, and now she’s elated that she did. Even if it’ll make it that much harder to go back to ringing up customers that aren’t Jim Hopper.

He catches her looking at her watch, seems to know what that means.

“Before we head back,” he says, “there’s…” he stops, takes a deep breath. “Something I wanted to ask you.”

Joyce catches the stumble in his sentence, blinks a few times in surprise. Her first worry is what her first worry always is: that something has happened with the lab. That they need to bring Will in, or that they’re sending Jim somewhere, or…she can’t keep going. But his tone isn’t right for that, it’s not heavy. It’s almost…nervous? He leans back a little on the bench, leans forward again, as though he’s knocked his posture off-balance and can’t seem to find the right calibration again. What would Jim have to be nervous about?

“Sure,” Joyce says, trying to keep her tone neutral. She knows anything that makes Jim nervous should probably make her nervous, too, but she’s not used to being the calmest half of the present pairing. “Go ahead.”

“Okay,” Jim says, and she has the feeling he’s stalling for time. He’s still fidgeting a little, looking at her and then looking away, staring out into the forest for a second as if he’s asking the trees to give him his next sentence. “I was wondering if you want to have dinner sometime.”

Joyce smiles, though she frowns a little too. They’ve had dinner plenty of times. He knows he’s always welcome at the Byers house, though she has to nag him incessantly to take her up on the invitation: she can tell he always feels like he’s intruding, like he’s taking food from her family.

“Of course,” Joyce says, “you’re always welcome to have dinner with us! Just let me know when you’re coming over, and I’ll figure out what to make. Can I tell Will? He would be so excited to know you’re-“

His face falls, and he cuts her off with a quiet, steady interruption, as if he’s afraid of being overheard by the trees or the empty road. 

“I, uh, didn’t mean it that way.”

Oh. 

Her breath catches, and she feels her heartbeat starting to pick up speed. There’s really only one other way he could have meant it…and suddenly, a hundred puzzle pieces click into place. His nervousness, when he said he had to ask her something. The consistent Wednesday visits. The way he looked at her sometimes, like he was working up the nerve to say something but couldn’t make himself talk.

Jim Hopper, Hawkins’ Chief of Police, the man who saved her son, her onetime high school boyfriend, is asking her on a date.

If she starts thinking about it, she’ll think herself in circles. She’ll lose herself in a maze of “what ifs” and “what would the boys think?” and “ruining the friendship,” although she suspects now that what they’d both been feeling had sped past platonic long ago, twenty miles per hour over the speed limit like Steve Harrington in his dad’s car.

She’s caught herself staring at him the same damn way he looks at her – only her, if the rumors around town were to be believed, but she never did. Not until today. He really had left his old lifestyle in the past, or so it seemed; she could hardly imagine the early 1983 model of Jim Hopper practically stuttering his way through that question. The thought that she might have been the catalyst for that shift is both overwhelming and electrifying, too much to consider and impossible not to ponder. 

Her heart feels both light and full, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Who would’ve thought fifteen years of growing apart would push them back together again?

Jim’s looking at her with an equal mix of hope and trepidation, and she realizes she’s unintentionally been keeping him in suspense. 

“Yes,” she blurts.

He looks dumbfounded for a moment, stunned, like she’s punched him in the face instead of accepted his offer. After a few moments her response seems to sink in, and he’s smiling that wide smile that threatens to split her heart open with sheer joy, his eyes sparkling like the ocean on a summer day. They’re both grinning at each other like the lovestruck teenagers they once were, the birds singing in the trees serving as the only witnesses to their moment.

 “All right,” he says, looking at her with that same look, the one she now has a definition for after months of searching, after seeing him stumble into Melvald’s and shake snow off his boots on that first Wednesday in winter.

 “All right,” she repeats back. On a wildly uncharacteristic impulse, she leans in and presses her lips to his cheek, the warmth of him radiating through her entire being.

All right.

And for the first time in a long time, she thinks everything really might be.

[londontheatre]

Made in Dagenham: Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance

Inspired by a true story and based on the hit movie, Made in Dagenham is the uplifting, new British musical comedy about friendship, love and the importance of fighting got what is right.

Essex 1968. Like millions of other working women, each morning Rita O’Grady (Lucy Elson) is just trying to get her husband Eddie (Elliot Coombe) out of bed, get the kids off to school and get to work at the factory on time. But life is about to change forever when it’s announced that the girls in the stitching room of Ford’s Dagenham car plant will have their pay grade dropped to ‘unskilled’. Quickly drawing on a strength she never knew she had, Rita leads her friends in a battle against the might of Ford and the corruption on the Union supposed to protect them. As the girls’ inspiring journey gets bigger than anyone could have imagined, the pressure is too much for some, but can Rita keep up the fight and the happy home she’s worked so hard for?

This performance was presented by Trinity Laban’s final year musical theatre students. However, and this is a big however, if I had paid to see this on a West End stage I would not have come away disappointed. Not sure how much more of a glowing review musical theatre students can obtain than the performance they gave could have been professional paid work. I cannot fault any member of the cast, each and every one of them gave a performance that made the entire show enjoyable, memorable and one they should be immensely proud of.

The part of Rita O’Grady (Lucy Elson for this performance) has to be loveable, strong but vulnerable preferably with a powerful voice. Thankfully, Elson delivers all of this and more. A truly wonderful character with an immensely strong singing performance and for me, she stole the show – it’s always nice when your lead delivers.

Eddie (Elliot Coombe) complemented Elson’s performance well. There was a chemistry between them and they worked well together as a believable couple. Coombe’s performance in the song ‘The Letter’ was superb. Emotional and moving but simple, just what was needed.

So many good performances but to pick a few; Lori McLare’s Barbara Castle was a superb character with a great song, ‘Ideal World’, although a touch too much Vibrato for my liking it was a strong vocal performance. Tom Ramsay as Harold Wilson was funny and the group performance of ‘Always A Problem’ was such entertaining fun. Morgan-Lee Wilcox playing Cass wasn’t a huge part but the energy Wilcox put into it was so high all the way through the show. So much so I found myself repeatedly being drawn back to watching what Wilcox was doing, even when it wasn’t meant to be the focus. At this point, I could honestly just go through and list the entire cast praising performances. They all came together as well as any cast I have ever seen and gave their all on the stage.

It’s great to see the creative team; director (Guy Unsworth), the musical director (Tony Castro) and the choreographer (Nicky Griffiths) work together to produce such a polished performance. The company looked fantastic, the production was superbly staged using the space available with pinpoint precision. They moved the set, performed visually impressive movement on stage and they all sounded wonderful. A standing ovation was given at the performance I attended and it was well deserved. I doff my metaphorical cap to everyone involved in putting this show on.

Review by Lee Cogger

Based on the real events of the Ford sewing machinists strike of 1968, Made in Dagenham celebrates the female workers at Ford’s Dagenham plant as they strike to fight for equality of status and pay, leading to the Equal Pay Act 1970. The musical made its world premiere in the West End in 2014, and makes a welcome return to the stage at Stratford Circus as final year Trinity Laban Musical Theatre students take on the roles of Rita O’Grady and her colleagues before embarking on their final careers. Rousing, witty and a visual treat, this is musical theatre at its finest.

Since introducing its brand new Musical Theatre Course just a few years ago, Trinity Laban has very quickly developed a high reputation for its unique Musical Theatre performance training experience, with students going on to perform in West End productions such as Mamma Mia!, Wicked, 42nd Street and Joseph and The Technicolour Dreamcoat.

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