#i think we all remember the first time we read jane eyre and we saw jane and rochester got engaged

[britneyshakespeare]

did i tell you guys i got my dad to start reading jane eyre

[flowerandblood]

The Doubt & The Delight

[ modern Frollo • Aemond x Esmeralda • female ]

[ warnings: sex content, oral sex, smut, angst, description of physical and mental disabilities, remorse, depression, hysteria attacks, swearing, trauma, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempt ]

[ description: After a car accident, his brother has to deal with the consequences of what happened, and he, as his protector, does not know how to help him. His sister comes up with the idea of hiring someone as his carer who will be able to cheer him up and occupy his mind. It turns out, however, that the girl he hired charmed not only his younger brother. Obsession, self-destructive behavior, verbal and physical aggression, sexual tension, dark, malicious Aemond. ]

Author's note: This story is a request, but I decided to freely use what I liked in the book and Disney film to create a new, disturbing story taking place in modern times. It is intended to be uncomfortable and will contain scenes that are at least morally questionable, in my version "Esmeralda" is not Romanian. This story will also include motifs from Jane Eyre, which was a separate request. My story will also touch on the problems of people with disabilities, so if these are sensitive topics for you, I advise against reading further. You have been warned.

Part 1 − The Knight & The Judge Part 2 − The Sin & The Penance Epilogue

Main Characters Moodboard Aemond NSFW Alphabet

This is the last part of this story. Thank you all for such a nice reception of this entire mini-series, it was supposed to be a oneshot, but as usual it turned out to be something more! This is probably one of my favorite works here and I can't wait to hear your opinions.

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Previous chapters: Masterlist

_____

That night, after what had happened between them, he sobbed silently for the first time since the day of the accident in which his parents died. He didn't know what else he could do − he felt helpless and couldn't sleep, despair completely possessing his heart and mind.

Don't ever touch me again.

We are even.

He clenched his eyelids, letting the tears run down the sides of his face onto the pillow lying under his head.

Some part of him wanted to go to her door, to fall to his knees and beg her to open it for him, to let him hold her close, to fall asleep in her embrace.

He needed her so much, but he knew he had no right to demand anything from her.

She was doing more than she had to anyway.

He shuddered as he heard the sound of the door opening; stupefied by the sedatives and painkillers for a moment he had no idea where he was or who he was − he raised himself up on his elbow and hissed, feeling his head ache incredibly.

He opened his eyelids and immediately closed them, blinded by the light from the windows − he gave up with a sigh laying back on the couch, trying to calm himself down.

"Daeron?" He called out loudly, trying to remember what had happened, whether he had drunk too much alcohol the evening before or overdosed on sleeping pills.

He heard someone's footsteps and froze when he saw her frightened face; she came towards him with her eyes wide open as if looking at a ghost, stopping at a safe distance.

"− I'm just helping him change, we'll come soon − God, how pale you are, should I call the doctor again? −" She muttered clearly genuinely horrified by his condition, but he shook his head quickly.

"− did you call the police yesterday? −" He asked lowly, thinking with horror that no one at the prosecutor's office could find out that he was still struggling with his trauma and had almost caused a car crash.

She shook her head quickly, playing with the fingers of her hand in a nervous gesture.

"− n-no − the man we almost collided with wanted to do it at first, but when we got out of the car and said you'd fainted he called an ambulance and let it go − he apparently decided you'd just had some sort of attack and didn't want to add to our problems −" She replied once looking him in the eye, once looking away − he could see that she clearly wasn't coping with the situation or what had happened between them.

He sighed in relief, running his hand over his face, thinking about the fact that securing Daeron's fate was now his priority and he needed to pull himself together.

"− I'm going to go help Daeron and we'll make something for breakfast soon −" She said quickly and turned away, moving down the corridor towards his little brother's room, disappearing behind the door.

The two of them had tried not to look at each other all morning, heartbroken and horrified by what had happened between them − they both felt that their lives had slipped out of their control and he resented himself for dragging her into it all.

The doctors advised him to stay at home for a few days and rest, so he called Alys to ask her to bring him his documentation.

"− sick leave? − something happened? −" She asked concerned, and he sighed heavily, tightening his fingers on the base of his nose, not having the strength for this discussion.

"− I've been overworking lately, I need to slow down − can I count on you? −" He asked matter-of-factly, hearing her snort of amusement on the other side.

"− sure − I'll be there in half an hour −" She replied calmly and hung up; he sighed heavily, running his hand over his face and put the phone down on the table top.

He glanced over his shoulder, hearing the sizzle of the pan and shuddered meeting her gaze − she lowered her eyes immediately as if caught in the act, concentrating on not burning the pancakes, Daeron wheeled around her in his wheelchair placing clean plates and cutlery beside her.

They ate breakfast together, both of them really only talking to Daeron, passing cups and juice to each other out of politeness only. He felt a pleasant shudder when his fingers touched hers, looking her straight in the eyes − her lower lip twitched a little, only a quiet, sad thank you came out of her mouth.

As they ate Daeron said he would do his own homework and then change her to look after him, as if he was now the one to take on the role of his caretaker.

As he left his Esmeralda stood up, picking up the dirty dishes from the countertop − he took his plate from her hand, swallowing hard.

"− no need, I'll do it − I'm better now, I don't want to force you to stay here any longer than necessary − thank you very much −" He said in a low voice, getting up from his seat and stepping around her, opening the dishwasher with a light movement, tossing in the cutlery and other dirty dishes she'd held earlier.

He felt her looking at him, his heart pounding like crazy, for some reason he wanted to cry again.

"− I'm sorry − for what happened yesterday −" She muttered in a whisper and he raised his shocked gaze to her, frozen still.

She stood in front of him covering her mouth with her hand, trying to silence the loud, ragged breath that shook her body along with the sob that wanted to break from her throat, tears began to fall from the corners of her eyes one after another.

God, she was remorseful.

"− no − no, stop − you didn't do anything wrong, I wanted it −" He said quickly, but she shook her head.

"− I couldn't sleep − I felt awful −" She uttered with difficulty, choking on her own tears, and despite her telling him never to touch her again he put his arm around her waist and pulled her to him in one sure movement − her body did not put up any resistance to him, her fingers tightened on his sweatshirt in a helpless gesture.

"− I-I'm sorry − I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you −" She mumbled out and burst into quiet sobs.

He thought with despair that he had broken this poor girl, brought her to a state where she felt like an abuser.

He embraced her tightly, snuggling his face into the hollow of her neck, stroking her back reassuringly − her wonderful scent and the warmth of her body had a soothing effect on him, he thought he wanted to remember this moment for a lifetime.

"− I'm the one who hurt you − I took something away from you and you tried to get it back − you asked me if I wanted it and I made it clear that I did − easy − breathe deeply − it's all right −" He whispered in a trembling voice, running his large hand through her back and hair. She snuggled into him so tightly that he felt tears under his eyelids himself − he pressed his lips together not wanting to let them flow out but it was no use.

"− thank you for everything − I'm feeling better now, I'll be fine by the time Helaena arrives − go home and get some rest − I'll think of something and explain to Daeron why you can't work for us anymore − I'll send you your pay by transfer so you never have to see me again − hm? −" He asked softly and she only nodded, her whole chest trembling in convulsion as she drew in a deep breath, trying to calm herself.

He wanted to tell her that he loved her.

He wanted to tell her that she was the most wonderful person he had ever met.

He wanted to tell her that if she ever needed help, she could always count on him.

He wanted to do that, but he only flinched when he heard the doorbell ring, reminding himself of Alys − they moved away looking at each other in pain, the sight of her wiping her cheeks red from tears broke his heart.

He realised that he was a monster.

As soon as he opened the gate for her, Alys walked into his house with thick folders of documents in her hands, looking elegant as usual in her jacket, long trousers and high heels. She smiled at the sight of his Esmeralda, and she pressed her lips together realising with horror that she stood dressed only in his hoodie.

"Good morning. We don't know each other yet." Alys said to her and held out her hand to her − she, not knowing what to do, herself embarrassed by the situation and how it looked shook her hand, squeezing it firmly.

"Good morning." She muttered and just threw to him that she was going to go see how Daeron was doing with his homework − Alys led her away with her eyes looking at her with a calm, curious expression on her face.

"Who is this beautiful little flower? In addition wearing your hoodie I think." She asked amused, a note of mock accusation in her voice, as if she had solved the equation. "Is it because of her that you can't concentrate lately?"

He threw her one warning, sharp look, which did not deter her, however − he sighed heavily and shook his head.

"She's Daeron's caretaker and she had to stay here to help me take care of him after I fainted yesterday. They were at a carnival ball together and she had nothing to change into." He replied coolly, wanting to end the subject quickly, frustrated.

"Is that why you both cried?" She asked lowly raising an eyebrow, the piercing look in her bright green eyes told him clearly that she felt the tension that hung in the air between them. He swallowed loudly, looking away, not wanting to look at her smile full of satisfaction.

"Thank you for bothering to come all the way out here. I'll be gone for a week, we're in touch." He replied dryly − she threw over his shoulder that if he needed her for anything he could count on her and smiled at his Esmeralda heading for the exit, saying it was a pleasure to meet her.

As the door closed behind her there was an awkward silence between them. He saw that she was wearing his hoodie and shorts that were too loose on his brother but on her they fit perfectly despite the manly cut, in her hand she held the bag with her costume.

She was leaving.

He will never see her again.

"Are you sure you can manage?" She asked uncertainly, not looking at him. She seemed pale to him, he thought that for some reason Alys' visit had saddened her, but he didn't even dare assume it might have had anything to do with him.

At most, she might have thought he was a bigger bastard and pervert than she suspected.

"Yes, we'll be fine. Thanks again." He muttered, trying not to look at her, but to poor effect, thinking only of how wonderful it was to hold her in his arms, how tightly she snuggled into him seeking refuge and comfort.

He realised that he craved such closeness from her as much as the touch of her naked body.

He wasn't just about sex.

She, however, merely nodded, raising her sad, tired, embittered gaze at him once more, and after a moment she turned and disappeared behind the door.

The hours leading up to Helaena's arrival he spent with Daeron, playing together FIFA'23 and other games that his brother thought would distract him from all the unpleasant events of the past weeks.

"Don't worry, everything will be fine. You just need to rest. It's good that you and Esmeralda have reconciled." He said clicking beside him on his pad, trying to win a race against him on the big space track. He swallowed hard, thinking with pain and shame that they hadn't reconciled at all, that they weren't even.

What she did was a desperate attempt by her to regain what he had taken from her, the feeling that she had power over her own body.

It didn't bring her any relief though − it seemed to him that it made her feel even worse.

She wasn't like him − she'd probably never behaved like this before, and she was horrified to find that she didn't recognise herself.

He had destroyed her, taken away her innocence, devoured her.

He pressed his lips together, trying to stop the burning tears that forced their way under his eyelids from flowing and grunted loudly, trying to focus on the game.

As he prepared the room where his sister was to sleep, and where his Esmeralda had previously spent the night, he noticed a purple cloth lying on the floor. He reached out and picked it up, realising after a moment that it was a scarf she had worn on her head in the form of a headband.

He pressed it to his face and closed his eyes, with a squeeze in his throat thinking that the material was permeated with her scent.

He kept it.

Helaena had arrived straight from the airport in a taxi for which she had paid crores − as soon as she stepped inside she dropped her suitcase, ran up to him and threw herself into his arms. He burst out sobbing, feeling her familiar, tender closeness.

He wasn't sure when was the last time someone had hugged him, stroked him, told him everything was going to be alright, that now he was the one being taken care of.

Taking the opportunity that Daeron was playing in his room on his laptop, they sat side by side on the living room couch to discuss what had happened.

"I think I've stopped coping. I'm slowly losing my self-control." He muttered, burying his face in his hands, feeling that he needed to at least partially throw off what was going on inside his head − he felt his sister stroking his back comfortingly.

"Me and Aegon left you alone with all of this, sinking into our own grief. We all focused on Daeron because we decided you were older and better able to handle it all." She said with pain and some kind of regret, as if she only now realised that he wasn't a fully formed adult then either.

He let the air out of his lungs, feeling like a small, clumsy child again, embarrassed that he wasn't coping, that he had chaos in his head, that he was stuck and unable to get out of the mess he had sunk all the way into.

"I thought it would be good for you to have a change. For you and Daeron to fly with me for a few weeks, get some rest, during which time we can work together to find you some sort of therapist, someone to help you get over all this." She said warmly, and he shook his head quickly, terrified of her suggestion, of having to reinvent himself somewhere, of not being in his home, of not having his things and activities.

"No, I can't do that. I need a rest, but here, at home. I do think, however, that it will do Daeron good to spend time with you, to get away from it all. Maybe when I have a bit of time to myself I can somehow…sort it all out." He muttered, feeling her worried gaze on him.

"You shouldn't be left alone."

"I haven't been alone with my thoughts for five years. I need this." He said regretfully, realising that he had devoted all his strength to his younger brother, leaving himself with nothing.

He felt empty.

"And he needs a change of environment. He sees me gloomy and tired every day. You will help me the most if you take care of him for a week or two so that I can get myself in order."

"You have to promise me that you will go to therapy. You're taking on too much on your shoulders." She said cautiously, and he nodded to her, wanting everyone to finally give him a break.

Daeron was at the same time happy about the sudden unplanned holiday, but on the other hand very worried that he was going to be left alone at home.

"But who will take care of you? Esmeralda?" He asked hesitantly, and he replied that he would manage on his own, that they would talk on the phone every day, that he just needed a bit of rest to think things over.

As they packed to leave he was with them in body, but not in thoughts which drifted far away to her, to what had happened between them.

Despite the fact that they had sex with each other twice, it was the memory of that morning in his kitchen when he held her in his embrace that he remembered most, the innocence and tenderness of that gesture, the warmth of her body, the smell of her hair, the fact that for a moment she had allowed him to get close to her.

He knew he would never see her again.

Waving them off, already seated in the taxi, watching them drive away he wondered what the point of living such a terrible person like him was.

He cleaned the whole house, sorted the papers in his office, put up the laundry and emptied the dishwasher, doing everything unhurriedly with complete silence all around him, only the sound of the wind outside the windows and the quiet pounding of raindrops against the windowsills.

He finally sat down on the sofa, staring dully ahead, before lowering his gaze to the small container of sleeping pills he'd been taking for days to get at least a few hours of sleep.

He wondered how many he'd have to swallow to not wake up.

He didn't know why his hand reached for his phone − his fingers tapped out a question on Google and, to his surprise, many different topics on forums about how to commit suicide painlessly popped up.

He read statements from some young, desperate, frightened people who couldn't cope with life and responses from others, some encouraging them to commit the act and explaining how to do it, others asking them not to do it, that they would be happy to talk to them, to support them through this difficult time.

He thought of Daeron, of how if he had done it, his little brother would have completely broken down, that it would only add to the pain of his whole family, and that Helaena would never forgive herself for leaving him alone.

That it would have been selfish of him.

On the other hand, his mind reminded him of his aggressive, merciless interrogations, the way he approached witnesses, the way he approached Alys, what he did to his Esmeralda when she recognised at once his malicious, dark nature.

How was someone like him supposed to continue to take care of Daeron? How was he supposed to pretend that he was a good man who could advise him on anything, be his authority?

He thought that his little brother should have stayed with Helaena − she was the calmest of them all, surely she would have handled his parenting much better, given him what he needed.

He reached for a small container of pills and stared at it, turning it between his fingers with a loud rattle, wondering dispassionately what he should do with himself.

He hummed as if he remembered something and slipped his hand into the pocket of his trousers, pulling out a thin, purple folded cloth − he looked at it, feeling the need to call her.

He didn't know why he would do that when he was sure she didn't want to see him and couldn't even look at Daeron, to whom he would have to explain why she would no longer be taking care of him upon his return.

He guessed that she would only pick up out of politeness, and he would again flood her with his problems, his suicidal thoughts, forcing her to worry about him, to feel sorry for him even though he didn't deserve her sympathy.

He didn't even know when he unscrewed the container, when he tilted his head and poured its entire contents into his mouth, taking a deep sip of water after this, letting his judgment of himself run deep into his stomach.

He seemed to regain his sanity only after a moment, staring at the empty vessel wondering what he had actually done.

Oh fuck.

God, what had he done?

No, no, no, no.

He went into a complete panic, his heart started pounding like crazy − he didn't know how much time he had before he lost consciousness, so in a gesture of helplessness he dialled her number quickly, wondering if she would answer from him this time.

He thought he was pathetic, but he was scared, there was no one else to turn to − his body was shaking all over from stress and terror, his breathing quick and raspy, tears of fear in his eyes.

Biip.

Biip.

Biip.

Biip.

Biip.

Biip.

Biip.

"− hello? −"

He heard her uncertain voice on the other side and drew in the air loudly, shocked, swallowing hard, taking a deep breath, running his hand over his face.

"− fuck − I − I − I did something very, very stupid − I took a whole packet of sleeping pills − I don't know what came over me − oh fuck, what have I done −" He muttered in a squeaky, high-pitched voice, like a helpless child who had broken a vase and realised what his parent would do to him when they found out.

"− what? − oh God − are you home? − I'm calling the ambulance −"

"− n-no − no, fuck, they'll kick me out of the national prosecutor's office − please −"

"− go quickly to the bathroom and try to induce vomiting − give me the code to your gate, I'll be right there −"

He seemed to act in an amok, as he rose from the couch everything around him swirled − she told him to take his phone to the restroom, so he did.

He fell to his knees in front of the toilet, shoving two fingers down his throat − after several attempts he finally threw up, whooping with his tears, coughing loudly, his whole body shaking in convulsions, his heart pounding like mad in his chest.

How could he do this, how could he be so selfish?

"− I'm sorry −" He mumbled, sliding slowly to the ground, feeling his mind begin to envelope in a blissful peace and quiet, her voice coming from the speaker of his phone seemed to him only a distant whisper.

He thought he would take a nap for a while, rest and when he woke up everything would be fine.

It seemed to him that minutes, hours or years might have passed when he felt someone move his body − he shuddered as someone's fingers forced their way between his lips, his numb body powerless to resist.

"− come on, please − get it out of you − God, what have you done − please, please, come on −" He heard her crying beside him, the tips of her fingers pressing against the back of his tongue, until finally his stomach convulsed with a powerful spasm, and his body threw it all out with his throaty cough of exertion.

He heard her sobs, smelled her scent, her closeness, how her hands washed his face with water, how she stroked his head as she hugged him to her breasts, mumbling in despair that he was a fool, something warm and soft enveloped them.

He fell asleep, recognising that this was what heaven must have been like.

When he woke up he felt everything around him spinning − he muttered in displeasure, another cramp squeezing his stomach.

He pulled himself up, in the dark looking for the toilet, at the last moment leaning over it and vomited again, panting loudly, everything around him blurred, it seemed to him that it was morning.

He heard movement beside him − someone's hand touched his back and stroked him with a gentle, affectionate gesture as convulsion again shook his body, which was trying with all its might to rid itself of what he had swallowed the day before.

Nothing more than a mumble left his mouth, his head drooped involuntarily − he felt someone pull him back to keep him from sliding down onto the tiles. He lay down, something soft enveloped him again.

"− it's okay − sleep −" He heard her whisper and thought that the pills he had taken were causing him to hallucinate, that he was probably dreaming it all, and since he was and she wasn't really there he could embrace her, his arm grabbed her waist, his face snuggled between her breasts again with his loud purr of contentment and exhaustion.

He felt her hands embrace him, stroking his head and back − he thought, feeling the hard floor beneath him, that they were lying in the bathroom and she must have brought the duvet and pillows from his bedroom, sleeping in that room with him.

He fell asleep and woke up hearing someone walking around his house, once in a while someone touched his head − he heard her voice asking him some questions that he was unable to focus on − she was only answered by his frustrated sounds indicating that he just wanted to sleep on.

Finally when he opened his eyes he managed to see anything − the bathroom door was open, the light in the room was off. He had a perfect view of the corridor and part of the living room lit up in the sun − he heard someone's footsteps, his heart jumped into his throat when he saw her silhouette in the doorway.

"− hey − hey, how are you feeling? −" She muttered walking up to him and kneeling beside him, her loose hair in a slight disarray, she was wearing shorts and a plain white Tshirt. He looked away from her breasts when he noticed she wasn't wearing a bra, swallowing hard.

He didn't reply, feeling an overwhelming sense of shame, remembering what he had done, how disgusting and selfish he had acted, that he had forced her to help him again despite having caused her such harm.

"− I − I would like to talk to some therapist −" He choked out with tears in his eyes, not looking at her but somewhere in front of him, his breathing shallow and uneven − it seemed to him as if his lungs had completely clenched.

"− alright − alright, I'll look for someone nearby − okay? −" She asked tentatively and he just nodded, unable to look her in the eye. He heard her get up quickly, and a moment later she was back, sitting down next to him with her phone in her hand, typing something quickly on her screen, apparently scrolling through the accounts of doctors who had offices in the same town.

"− there's a Dr Smith, he's got a free appointment in two days at one o'clock in the afternoon, or a Dr Morgan, but he… −"

"− anyone − as soon as possible −" He said dispassionately, looking blankly ahead, heard her swallow hard and click something quickly, heard his phone vibrate beside him on the floor.

"− I've booked you an appointment and sent you details via message −" She mumbled, and he nodded.

"− thank you − you can −"

"− I spoke to your sister on the phone while you were asleep and told her everything − we agreed that Daeron will stay with her and I'll watch over you until your first appointment −" She said coldly with some kind of regret from which he felt a squeeze in his throat. He pressed his lips together, feeling his body tremble and closed his eyes, wanting to just disappear.

He shuddered, looking at her in disbelief as she slipped her purple scarf out of the pocket of her tracksuit shorts, the same one he'd found on the floor and kept. She tied her hair with it, combing it into a ponytail, staring straight into his eyes.

"I found this on your couch. Did you think of me before you did it?" She asked, with soft, sure flicks of her fingers arranging her curls as she saw fit. He swallowed hard at her question, feeling a burning sense of embarrassment.

"− yes −" He sighed. She let out a quiet breath at his words, placing her hands on her thighs.

"− are you able to get up? −"

With her help he managed to rise with difficulty − he brushed his teeth feeling the still disgusting taste of vomit and acid on his tongue and then lay down on the sofa, grabbing his head. He watched her silhouetted in the kitchen as she opened the cupboards one by one until she found his first aid kit.

He saw her throw away all the packets of sleeping pills he had.

"− hey −" He threw to her wrinkling his eyebrows, knowing he wouldn't be able to sleep a wink without them.

"− you'd better not speak −" She said warningly, without giving him a single glance, so he gave in, sighing heavily and closing his eyes, figuring there was no point in arguing.

To his surprise she moved around the rooms as if this was her home, sat down next to him at the other end of the sofa with an apple in her hand and turned on the TV as if nothing had happened. He looked at her, wondering if she was really going to sit here for days, but then decided it didn't matter.

When he finally got the phone call from Helaena he listened to almost half an hour of a litany from her about how irresponsible and selfish he was, only to hear a moment later that she loved him very much and that he needed to start taking care of himself − he assured her several times that he already had an appointment with a therapist, and Esmeralda wouldn't leave his side.

"− is that what you call me? −" She asked quietly after he had hung up, looking at the TV screen on which the news had just been airing. He looked at her surprised, realising that it wasn't actually her real name after all.

"− yes −" He replied lowly, playing with his phone between his fingers.

They didn't talk much to each other apart from the usual basic politeness. After a couple of hours he felt well enough to get up − he was still dizzy and still had no appetite, but he drank plenty of water and thought with relief that the danger had passed.

Evening finally fell and, tired after all that had happened, he simply headed upstairs to his bedroom, wanting to give her some solitude and privacy.

Changing into his pyjamas, which consisted of a simple t-shirt and black tracksuit bottoms, he shuddered and looked in disbelief at the door to his room when it opened, her figure stepping inside as if nothing had happened, climbing on his bed, lying under his duvet, turning her back to him.

What?

He pressed his lips together, wondering if he should say something or not, but in the end he couldn't resist.

"What are you doing?"

"I want to sleep. I'm tired. Could you turn out the light?" She asked quietly.

He grunted and, as she requested, walked over to the switch, flicking it, complete darkness fell all around them.

The thought that she was going to sleep in the same bed with him, even if only to keep an eye on him, made him instantly hard.

He lay down at a safer distance behind her, looking at her back and neck, knowing that she could feel his breath, but not daring to touch her.

He wondered if she was punishing him this way, showing him that she was at his fingertips, but after what he had done there was nothing else he could do but watch.

It would have been enough for him if he could have just jerked off looking at her, concentrating on her scent and the fact that she was next to him, but he felt he had no right to bring himself relief after all of this.

He didn't deserve it.

That's why he was just dying in agony, writhing − without his pills despite his fatigue he could not fall asleep, on top of that he was too aroused, her closeness was driving him crazy.

"− will you stop squirming? − I can't sleep −" She muttered at last, raising herself up on her elbow, looking at him with furrowed brows.

He felt his lips part involuntarily in desire at the sight of her face, at the thought that she didn't have a bra under her shirt, that there were her lovely breasts under that material that he could caress all night.

"− sorry −" He just choked out, trying to calm his breathing, his cock pulsed painfully swollen under the material of his sweatpants.

He made big eyes and flinched, embarrassed as she pushed back the duvet that covered them both, her gaze going to his trousers and what was going on inside them.

A tense silence fell between them − he could feel his whole body quivering with desire, grief and shame.

He wondered if she would mock his state and his desperation.

"− we can do it if you want − like civilised people − I'd like to experience some sleep tonight −" She said softly and he looked at her in disbelief, the bulge in his sweatpants twitched hard at her words.

"− are you sure? − I wouldn't −"

"− make me feel good −" She said quietly.

He drew in the air loudly as she said this, grabbing the material of her t-shirt and lifting it, pulling it over her head, revealing her lovely breasts to him.

She sighed loudly when his face immediately pressed against her nipple, alternately sucking and licking it with the tip of his tongue, his fingers digging into the soft skin of her back. She moaned quietly, surprised when he pulled her to him, her palms sliding into his hair, holding him close.

They lay on their sides, embracing each other in a tight grasp. He wriggled in disbelief and delight, willing and eager to show her how much he regretted it, how much he desired her, how much he loved her − his hand grasped tentatively her other breast, kneading it with his fingers.

"− so soft −" He gasped, listening to her quiet sighs of pleasure. He felt her throw her leg against his waist, which he grasped confidently, clenching his fingers on her thigh and pulled her closer, letting her feel how much he wanted her, his manhood throbbed impatiently beneath his trousers, hitting her stomach.

"− how −" He asked between flicks of his tongue licking and sucking her hard, puffy nipple like a little child, stroking the soft skin of her hips. He slipped his hand under the material of her shorts, tracing his fingertips over her plump buttocks, wanting to be sure that this time he would do everything the way she needed it, give her pleasure and reassurance, at the pace and the way she wanted it.

She stroked his hair at his question and placed a short, warm kiss on his forehead − he murmured lowly as he felt her begin to rub against him, encouraging him to do the same, his lips letting go of her nipple with a loud plop to look at her.

"− you on top − but touch me down there first −" She whispered embarrassedly, turning onto her back, pulling his arm behind her, looking at him with a gaze hot with desire and affection.

He leaned in, letting his swollen lips brush hers, which responded immediately to his caress, her fingers cupping his neck, deepening the kiss.

"− mmm −" She hummed, squirming beneath him. He ran his hand down her body, in a tentative, unhurried motion slipping his hand under the material of her shorts, wanting to give her time to react, but she sensing this spread her thighs wider, easing his access, his fingers finally running over her swollen, hot, wet womanhood.

"− God, little one − I want to use my mouth here −" He gasped appreciatively, thinking only of the fact that he had been dreaming of this for weeks. He smiled involuntarily when he saw her nod quickly, her sweet, full lips parted in an accelerated breath.

"− okay −" She whispered quietly, letting him slide the material of her shorts and underwear off her − he marvelled at the sight of her naked body, thinking with some kind of emotion that he felt like crying.

"− so beautiful −" He whispered, placing a gentle kiss on her stomach, on her womb, on her hip, on her thigh, knee and calf. He looked at her and noticed that she was watching him intently, her breasts rising and falling in uneven breaths, her hands on either side of her head.

"− come here −" He murmured softly, in a gentle motion pushing her hips closer to him, spreading them in front of him − he heard her gasp loudly as he leaned over her bared flesh. He let his hot breath envelop her skin before his nose ran over her hot, soft womanhood, his lips lazily clinging to her folds, placing a lingering, sticky kiss on them.

He tightened his hands on her thighs when he felt her throw her head back with a sweet, surprised moan, her fingers traveling to his short hair, stroking it in impatient motion, pressing his face close to her body.

"− please −" She mumbled, and he huffed with amusement, trailing his lips up to her puffy clit, sliding then down to her leaking, swollen slit, teasing her barely, not giving her what she needed.

"− no − we're going to do this very, very slowly − with due respect to you −" He hummed contentedly, feeling some kind of pride that he could do it this way, could give it to her and be what she needed.

She whimpered softly, writhing before him, her breathing quickened and shuddered, her body trembling in his hands, thirsting for fulfilment.

"− don't be cruel −" She mumbled resentfully, as if she thought he was teasing and taunting her. He sighed quietly, placing a warm, hot kiss on her sticky skin − a surprised, loud moan escaped her lips as the tip of his tongue suddenly forced its way inside her, deeper and deeper with each stroke, imposing an intense, fast pace on her.

"− o-oh fuck, yes, lick me −" She mewled, clenching her fingers in his hair, bucking her hips against his face, trying to find a more intense source of rubbing. He smirked under his breath as he discovered after a moment between her fleshy muscles the spot he was looking for, her whines increasingly pathetic and helpless, her walls beginning to throb around his tongue.

He heard her whimper his name, her whole body tensed as if she was trying to break away from him, but he didn't stop, letting her come on his face.

He purred contentedly as he felt how much of her moisture flowed out of her tight entrance, determined to make sure he licked every drop and not let anything go to waste despite her cries.

He surprised her when he didn't pull away, but repeated all the steps from the beginning, slowing his pace again, merely teasing her with his lips, her body twitching at his every move, overstimulated and delicate.

"− n-no more − I want you inside me −" She mumbled softly, and he looked up at her, licking his lips with his tongue, feeling her words in his trousers.

Even though he planned to spend the whole night between her thighs, he couldn't refuse such a request.

"− it's okay − there you go −" He hummed, rising to his knees, slipping his sweatpants down just enough to release his swollen, hard erection leaking from his precum. He placed one hand next to her head, the other guiding the fat, pink head of his cock between her widely spread thighs.

"− such a good girl − hm? − my sweet little baby, am I right? −" He cooed and she nodded quickly, looking at him with big eyes hazed with desire − it seemed to him that she didn't recognise him, that she didn't believe he was the same man she had met then.

He didn't believe it himself, but it felt wonderful.

They both sighed loudly when, with one slow thrust, he opened her wide on his swollen length, leaning over her, pressing his forehead to hers, her trembling hand rising to stroke his cheek, her lips pressed to his in a warm, innocent kiss.

He murmured contentedly, forcing her to fit all of him inside her with an impatient thrust of his hips − he heard her quiet cry of discomfort and surprise and swallowed loudly feeling his manhood pulsing intensely inside her, so hungry for her closeness.

She closed his waist between her legs, crossing them over his back, and he lay on top of her, pulling his t-shirt off quickly, resting his weight on his elbows to keep from crushing her, feeling her little, puffy nipples on his naked chest.

She sighed sweetly, looking up at him dreamily, trailing her fingers down his face and neck as he slipped out of her only to sink into her again a moment later with a loud click of her moisture − she was all wet and warm inside after her intense orgasm, her muscles squeezing him wonderfully from all sides.

"− that's it − just like that - it's okay −" He whispered tenderly, letting himself sink into the taste of her sticky, plump lips again, her hands trailing down his sweaty, muscled back as he involuntarily sped up his pace, pressing his nose to her cheek, slamming into her with more and more sure, brutal thrusts of his hips, groaning low along with her.

"− oh, fuck, baby −" He gasped, listening to her moans of pleasure, her insides wonderfully warm and tight, quivering all over in sensation, soaking him wet. He began to root aggressively into her weeping cunt panting hard, all around them only the loud sound of their moist, naked bodies slapping quickly against each other.

"− please − please − please −" She mumbled out looking up at him with her mouth wide open, digging her fingers into the hot skin of his back − he could feel her walls clench around him tighter, sucking him inside. He shuddered hard at her words, focusing now only on rooting again and again into her warm, fleshy interior.

"− I don't know if I'm going to let you sleep tonight − I think I'd rather do this with you instead −" He breathed out into her mouth, pushing his tongue deep into her throat − he felt her body shake as she convulsed, her hands clenched painfully hard on his body as she came a second time with sweet mewl of effort, panting loudly as if she couldn't catch her breath, her muscles began to throb greedily around his cock, sucking him inside.

He tilted his head back and sighed in relief, a few sloppy, rough thrusts prolonging the inevitable − his warm cum spilled deep inside her, a hot wave of pleasure surging through his lungs.

He crushed her with his body, feeling their bodies quivering and twitching all over, both of them panting hard as if they had run a marathon, their hands running blindly over each other's naked skin as if they wanted to calm and soothe each other.

"− I love you −" He muttered, lying with his eyes closed, his nose snuggled into her hot, soft cheek. "− you know that, don't you? −"

"− yes −" She answered him quietly, and he sighed heavily, snuggling into her like a small child.

That much was enough for him.

He didn't expect anything from her.

He just wanted her to know it.

He spent that night as if in a frenzy, holding her close, embracing her from behind tightly with his arms, their legs entwined together in disarray. He fell asleep with his face pressed against her hair, completely overwhelmed by her wonderful scent, the warmth of her naked body, one of her hands placed on his making sure he didn't let go of her soft breasts.

They hadn't said much to each other after they awoke − when he turned her face towards him and he just sank into her swollen lips in a sticky, hot kiss. She purred sleepily at this caress, her fingertips running over his jaw.

She let him take her a second time then, from behind this time − she was so wet from their shared moisture that he slid into her without much difficulty, stretching her wonderfully tight walls with a sigh of delight.

He rooted into her with lazy, slow thrusts of his hips, making sure that each time the fat head of his cock rubbed her sweet spot, one of his hands playing with her puffy, little nipple, the other sunk deep between her thighs, teasing her swollen clit.

"− do you want me to stop? −" He whispered in her ear, and she shook her head, digging her fingers into his arm with which he embraced her at the waist.

"− n-no − it feels good −" She muttered in embarrassment − he kissed her hot cheek with a sticky click of his saliva seeing her lips parted in accelerated breath, her dreamy, warm gaze.

"− so I'm afraid I'm going to fill you a second time, sweet girl −" He hummed, running the tip of his nose over her pretty face. She moaned quietly at his words, feeling him suddenly speed up, slamming into her with more confident, brutal pushes − she tilted her head back, his lips immediately pressed against her neck.

"− d-don't − don't leave marks −" She mumbled out, quickly clenching her hand in his hair − she whimpered softly as she felt his fingertips dig harder into her fleshy folds.

"− I won't, baby − shhh −" He hushed her, running his lust-swollen lips over her soft skin, feeling her weeping walls squeeze him greedily at his words, forcing him to thrust into her more aggressively, his fingers sinking into her plushy thigh, holding her in place, panting along with her.

"− ah, G-God − She babbled, responding helplessly to his movements with rocking, both of them groaning in pleasure and relief as her muscles began to clench against him in a sudden orgasm, his thighs all sticky with her wetness.

"− yes, that's it − oh baby −" He muttered, letting go, with the last of his strength thrusting into her for a moment more before his seed filled her to the brim.

He hid the tip of his nose in her hair with his eyes closed, panting loudly with pleasure, holding firmly her body trembling in fulfilment in the tight embrace of his arms.

"− can I stay inside you? −" He whispered into her ear and she only nodded, falling into slumber again a moment later.

For the first time in many years he didn't have to get up at dawn, he didn't have to focus on work, on Daeron, on anyone or anything more than himself and her.

He couldn't believe it was really happening.

He lay thinking only of the fact that he was deep inside her, that he could feel her and smell her − he placed one of his hands over her heart wanting to feel how it beat, how her chest rose and fell in calm breaths.

The days before his appointment with the psychiatrist he had spent between her thighs.

She walked around his house wearing nothing but his T-shirt and it was enough for him standing behind her to lift its fabric a little to see her lovely, plump buttocks.

"− stop − we need to eat something −" She muttered as he knelt on the kitchen tiles while she was trying to prepare dinner for them, so that he could kiss her hot, soft skin with a murmur of satisfaction. His hand slipped lower, between her thighs, his fingertips collecting her moisture mingled with his semen, a reminder of what he had been doing to her all day.

"− I adore you −" He gasped, sliding his lips lower, placing warm, sticky kisses on her thighs and calves, he heard her quiet sigh.

"− does your friend know that you have a second lover? −" She asked quietly, and he froze, quickly lifting his gaze to her, understanding immediately that she was talking about Alys.

He didn't want to make a mistake and lie, but he also didn't know how to present it so she would know that it was a done deal for him.

"− I stopped seeing her after what happened between us −" He said softly getting up from his knees, looking down at her, putting an unruly lock of her dark hair behind her ear. "− I didn't see the point in it, because all I was thinking about was you −"

He confessed with a kind of pain and weariness, and she lifted her gaze to him, her bright eyes looked at him piercingly, warm and gentle. He leaned in placing a long, drawn-out kiss on her forehead.

She snuggled into his chest as if seeking refuge, and he embraced her kissing the top of her head devotedly, running his large hands down her back in a reassuring, tender gesture.

"− I can't promise you anything −" She said at last, and he swallowed hard, knowing what she meant.

"− I know − I don't expect it −" He whispered, cuddling his face into her fragrant hair, closing his eyes, her closeness and her scent calming him in some strange, incomprehensible way.

"− I will always wait for you −"

_____

Aemond Taglist:

(bold means I couldn't tag you)

@notnormalthings-blog @nikstrange @zenka69 @bellaisasleep @k-y-r-a-1 @g-cf2020 @melsunshine @opheliaas-stuff @chainsawsangel @iiamthehybrid @tinykryptonitewerewolf @namoreno @malfoytargaryen @qyburnsghost @aemondsdelight @persephonerinyes @fan-goddess @sweethoneyblossom1 @watercolorskyy @randomdragonfires

[0ur-diabolikal-rapture]

the past month or so has been really strange for me in terms of my current fixation/interest/idk the word for with toby stephens

In 2010 I studied jane eyre as part of my english class and my teacher made us watch the 2006 bbc adaptation with him and ruth wilson in it, and although I didn’t read the book cover to cover, I really loved the adaptation

In 2013 I went to see him perform in private lives in london. at the time I was really into the tv show the hour, and seeing anna chancellor being cast really made me want to see the show, and recognising toby from the promo material made me even more excited about going

after the show my friend at the time and I waited at stage door to try and meet anna, and we were lucky enough to meet the entire cast as it was literally just me and my friend waiting there. all of them were really great but toby in particular went out of his way to interact with us and was really sweet I’ll never forget it. the show itself was so funny and was definitely a highlight of the theatre trips I’d been on that year, and I’d even got clippings of interviews and other promo bits that anna and toby had done during that time too

and then in 2014, I’d always been obsessed with period dramas but I’d managed to watch north and south (2004) for the first time, which honestly changed my life it’s still one of my favourite things ever. and as a collector I’d obviously wanted to have it on dvd, so I opened up amazon and added it to my basket and I’m not sure why, maybe it was offered as a recommendation? or having watched a period drama it made me think of others I’d enjoyed? but I bought the dvd for jane eyre as well.

and since then, even through the many times I’d culled my dvd collection I always managed to keep those two even though I didn’t watch them, because I knew how much I’d enjoyed them in the past I couldn’t part with them

since around 2021 I’ve watched north and south maybe once a year maybe twice but I was still reluctant to rewatch jane eyre in case it wasn’t as good as I remember but finally in 2024, after a little period drama resurgence I rewatched it. and I couldn’t stop thinking about it for weeks. I wanted to rewatch it immediately, I’d completely forgotten how good it was all those years ago and I was so glad I’d chosen to watch it again

about a month ago now, I’d seen a edit on my twitter of toby for black sails, I didn’t even know the show existed I had no idea of the context or anything but I saw it and was so intrigued by it that I went out the same day and bought the entire boxset, I had no job and I really didn’t have the money to purchase it but I just had a good feeling about it. (for context: I don’t have wifi at my place so I buy dvds to watch things) but after a couple of episodes I was so happy that I got them and I knew it would be my new favourite show ever and I was obviously obsessed with flint

since finishing black sails I bought a few more dvds of toby’s work and I’m having such a good time and I genuinely don’t know why I didn’t do this after seeing private lives because that’s my usual pattern after seeing things that I really enjoyed. I really admire his craft and there’s just something about him I can’t really describe but I’m just a little fascinated at the moment

it’s just been a strange but interesting time for me having loved an actor’s work for such a long time, having met him such a long time ago and only now really exploring his work properly. I’m obviously having the best time but it feels so.. bittersweet? illogical? like I’ve missed out on a lot? life is strange…

but anyway I watched the tenant of wildfell hall today and baby toby holding a puppy healed me

[ejzah]

A/N: After an extremely long break, I’ve returned with this story after someone on ff.net requested an update.

***

There’s Nothing Friendly About It, Part 4

“Hm, maybe I should have picked a different book,” Kensi mused, flipping to the next page of a worn copy of “Jane Eyre”. She’d just finished narrating a heartbroken Jane leaving Mr. Rochester. “I remember it being less…depressing last time I read it,” Kensi continued to Deeks, even though she knew he wouldn’t respond.

From everything she’d read, reading was supposed to stimulate brain activity, and Kensi would do anything that might help Deeks regain consciousness. It had the added benefit of filling the silence and keeping her mind occupied. Nell had dropped off a small stack of books, including a couple Harry Potters, a terrible looking romance, and a couple of fantasy novels the other day.

“Why were crazy wives in old books always from tropics? Maybe we should switch to Harry Potter. Right now He Who Must Not He Named seems a little less dark. What do you think?”

“Not the fifth one.”

Kensi’s head snapped up at Deeks’ croaked request. His eyes were slightly cracked, his head turned towards her.

“Deeks,” she whispered, all but falling out the chair in her desperation to be at his side.

“Mm,” he grunted.

“Oh my god, you’re awake!” She cupped his cheek, needing to confirm what her eyes were telling him. His skin was just as pale and cool as before, but she saw the spark of light in his eyes.

“I’m guessing it would be in poor taste to joke right now?” Deeks said, pausing every few words to catch his breath. When he was done, he cleared his throat.

“You’ve been unconscious for six days,” Kensi told him carefully. “Do you remember what happened.

“Something not good.” He coughed a couple times and winced. “I remember something about mechanic and fraud, but nothing else. Did I get shot or stabbed this time?”

“How about we talk about that after I get a nurse?”

Deeks narrowed his eyes at her, but it didn’t have its usual affect since he blinked halfway through.

“I’ll be right back.” She hurried off, grabbing the first nurse she found (they all new her at this point), who immediately grabbed a car and accompanied Kensi back to Deeks’ room.

The nurse performed the usual checks and asked Deeks a series of orientation questions. For once, he wasn’t actively flirting, but Kensi could tell the nurse was charmed by all the same. Especially when he recalled her name.

“Well, your blood pressure, oxygen, and heart rate are in a good range,” she said. “I’ll ask the speech pathologist come around to assess you and

let your doctor know you’re awake.”

“Thank you, Renee.”

“Oh, you’re going to be trouble.” Smiling at Deeks, she patted his arm, then added to Kensi. “Don’t give him anything to drink or eat until the speech pathologist is by. Ok?”

Any worry Kensi had about Deeks insisting she answer his questions turned out to be unnecessary since his eyes started slipping closed again shortly after Nurse Renee left. He slept restlessly until the speech pathologist came.

She brought in a tray of various liquids and foods, giving Deeks a little of each to try. After that, she asked him a variety of questions and story problems. Even with his energy clearly waning again, Deeks answered them with little difficulty.

In the end, she determined that Deeks didn’t have any trouble with swallowing and aside from some confusion with the date and time, his cognition appeared to be unaffected. Kensi quietly sighed in relief.

Once the room was empty again, Deeks patted the side of his bed, waiting until Kensi gingerly scooted in beside him. He looked thoroughly exhausted and in pain, but determined.

She curled around him as best she could, automatically threading a hand through his hair.

“Ok, what happened?” Deeks asked.

“We went to the mechanics garage, just like you remembered and it turned into a shootout,” Kensi started. “You were hit.” She paused, needing to steel herself against the pain of remembering him laying on the ground, trying to stop his bleeding, and then watching him lose consciousness.

“Hey, it’s ok. I’m here,” Deeks murmured, shaking her free of the memories.

“The doctors said the bullet hit a small artery. You nearly bled out.” She shuddered, and Deeks kissed her temple.

“I guess that explains why it feels like several elephants walked over me.”

“Deeks.”

“I’m sorry.” He tried to slide his arm around her, but gave up when he couldn’t figure out the tangle of IVs. “Did we catch the guys who did it?”

“Um, yeah, they’re either dead or under arrest,” Kensi said. She knew what he was asking, and that she was lying by omission. She also knew she couldn’t tell him the truth. She hadn’t even come to terms with the reality that he’d been shot by a teammate.

“Good,” Deeks sighed. He closed his eyes, then squinted one back open almost immediately. “You’ll stay here?”

“I wouldn’t dream of leaving.”

Closing his eyes again, he settled into the pillow. Kensi ran her fingers through his hair, relief overshadowing every other emotion.

The truth could wait until later.

[emilykaldwen]

Fanfic ask game: 17, 19, 37!

Thanks oh so much!!

Fic Writer Ask Game

17. what is your favorite line you’ve ever written?

They're simple, but they live rent free in my head. Both from Alicent's first POV of Maiden. Dragons had robbed Alicent of everything. Time stole away kindness. There's a lot of moments I'm obsessed with in my story, a lot of things that I'm proud of, but these are two lines that I think fully embody what I'm writing and I do very much love them.

Honorable mention goes to this passage from Boy With a Broken Soul (Heart With a Gaping Hole) Aegon remembers the first time he had shown his mother his human form, yearning to banish the perpetual tears from her eyes, for her to grace him with attention and a smile rather than the cold, disapproving look she so often sent his way when she could bear to look at him. Her hands had trembled when she’d taken his face in her hands. In this twisted, unusual shape, he was barely taller than she was, his face as soft as hers, large eyes and pouting mouth all mimicry except for the pink lilac of his gaze. See? He’d told her, twisting his mouth into an attempt at a grin, laughter ringing out. We match now. Tears had filled her eyes, happy tears, he was sure, and she whispered harsh and soft all the same. It appears we do.

19. what are some books or authors that influenced your style the most?

So every time I take one of those 'whose your writing style most like' I always come up with Douglas Adams (who wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) which was never a favorite book of mine but it's definitely written in a style that I love and appreciate and so perhaps there's a kindred spirit there. I know as I've gotten older and explored the tropes and stories that I try write, I've found that novels like Jane Eyre and The Secret Garden have definitely influenced the things I like.

37. when creating characters, what comes first: appearance, backstory, motivation, personality, something else?

Oooh this is a good one. For me, it's definitely mmmm I would say it's a combo of motivation and backstory - and that has to tie in with a general idea. I cannot, for the life of me, create a character to "ship" first. (Abby, for example, was not created for Aegon even though now she's grown into Aegon-Only Attachment). The character has to come first, they have to tell me where they fit and live in the world, what are they contributing, what is their story about. For me, this lends itself into a far more well rounded character who does not revolve around who (if anyone) they get shipped with. Every character, for me, must 100% stand on their own two feet, and have compelling arcs and stories that do not revolve around other people. So with Abby, I knew I wanted to try create a character who embodied kindness and balance in kindness and boundaries (I guess you can say recovering people pleaser?) because it was a concept I've always wanted to write and I saw a way for that to happen. So for Abby, her personality and motivation came first, and her backstory naturally expanded from there to show why she was the way she was. And that isn't to say my way is the Right And Only Way To Do A Thing, because it's soooo not! But these are things I've discovered over the past twenty twenty-five years (jfc where has the time gone) that I've been writing/beta reading.

[queenlucythevaliant]

An Autobiography in Books

We made a list, my mom and I, of all the picture books we loved best

All the Places to Love, which made my mom and my aunt cry together on a summer day once and I didn't understand why

Miss Rumphius

Miss Fanny's Hats

Doctor Suess's books - all of them. We used to have Suess-a-thons on snow days, all curled up together under covers in my parent's bed.

The Best Place, which was probably our favorite

(I would still like to have a screen porch someday, like the Old Wolf)

We had only just moved when we listened to Mr. Revere and I in the car on cassette tape. My parents had to pause it every few chapters to answer our questions, but after we finished with it I played Sons of Liberty with my dolls for years.

And over the years, my parents must have read the Laura and Mary books (so I called them) aloud to me twenty or thirty times. Silver Lake was my favorite. I didn't much mind which parent read them to me, except for Farmer Boy. That book belonged exclusively to my dad.

Pages and pages. I'm in my pajamas with a glass of chocolate milk. My mom or my dad sits on the edge of my bed. Ramona and Avonlea and Where the Red Fern Grows.

My first grade teacher read us a picture book that had a witch in it. I told my mom when I got home. "Can you write me a note to sit out?" I asked, thinking of the previous year's Halloween party.

"What was the book called?" my mom asked me.

"The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe."

My mom laughed. "That's a Christian book," she said. "There's a longer version. We can read it together."

My mom's copy of Little Women had gilt pages and the most beautiful painted illustrations. Sometimes, I would open the book up and flip through it, just to look at the pictures and feel the paper on my hands.

I still dream about running away to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, like Claudia in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

There was a book called For Freedom, which almost no one else seems to have heard of.

It was about a teenage girl training to be an opera singer in occupied France.

She was a spy who carried coded messages in the hollowed out heel of her shoe.

In the end, her voice gave out while singing Carmen, which to me seemed a fate worse than death.

She- the girl in the book- would pray: "God, make me brave. Make me brave and make me sing. Protect my family. Make me brave."

I won a Hunger Games trivia contest at my library before Mockingjay was released.

In sixth grade, my friends and I all read Shannon Hale's The Books of Bayern together. There were four of us and four female heroines. We each chose one and we played pretend: Elizabeth was Isi, Lauren was Dasha, Morgan was Rin, and I was Enna

(And then!)

My whole world blossomed into color when I read Gone with the Wind. I had never known such books existed! I remember a kind of frenetic eagerness. A thousand pages in less than a week, and I came away with a fierce, joyful love for messy antiheroines, sprawling epics, and bittersweet endings.

"Recommend me some more of your favorites!" I begged my mother. She handed me Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, the Brontes.

Jane Eyre was a challenge. I was forever flipping to the footnotes in the back of the book, translating the French dialogue and making note of all the words I didn't know. My reading pace was like frozen molasses and I remember several times thinking "Why is this so much harder than Gone with the Wind?"

But by the end, I saw myself in Jane. I was quiet, like her, and I hoped I could capture some of her integrity.

I read Kristin Cashore's Fire right in the middle of my forray into Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility before, Emma and Persuasion after. For that reason, my mind insists on erroneously filing Fire with Austen's work, a sort of forbidden sixth novel. It does feature

a beautiful, clever heroine who plays an instrument and wanders through the forest,

a romance with a stern but kind young military man,

and issues of class, wealth, and family,

so maybe it's an okay thing if it stays.

Anna Karenina was magic, pure and simple. I couldn't shut up about it. Eventually, my friends begged me to stop quoting. "I think you're even more into Anna Karenina than Narnia nowadays!" This assertion offended me; Narnia will always be my favorite.

(Here, I started high school.)

How to describe the first experience I had with The Age of Innocence?

I read it sitting in a sunbeam over several summer afternoons.

When I was finished, I flipped it back over and read it again.

I think I mostly wanted to embrace Ellen and tell her she was very brave.

I wanted to tell Archer that he wasn't, but that he should be.

My dad gave me a copy of The Story of Earth by Robert Hazen. It was a secular history of Earth's geology and biology, but it had just the slimmest glimmer of theism around the edges. I think this book has set the course of my life more directly than any other.

I read War and Peace and Atlas Shrugged back to back the same summer I read The Story of Earth. What a summer of ideas that was.

More needs be said about War and Peace: I set out to read it because I wanted to conquer it, but then I read Natasha and Sonya gazing at the lovely moon with Andrei below. I was still in my sundress and gold eyeliner from church, and reading Natasha's "Oh, how lovely," I felt positively celestial.

So it was that conquest became a love affair.

The Killer Angels came in the first full year of my battle with chronic illness. It was hopeful, brave and sad; it made me proud to be an American and equally proud to be fighting my own small battle. I wondered if I had any hope of winning.

On the mornings when I didn't have migraines, I sat on a certain bench outside the gym complex with a book until 7:59. I ignored everyone who spoke to me.

I didn't like The Lord of the Rings the first time I read it. I was dreadfully disappointed because I expected to find Narnia. Yet in the pages of The Return of the King, I found no Aslan, only Aragorn.

(Here, I began college.)

The Far Pavilions was just the epic I needed my first year. The migraines were bad; I was alone and in pain and my thoughts were muddled, but whenever Ash thought how unfair his lot was, I felt a little better in mine.

After considerable peer-pressure, I re-read The Lord of the Rings- on it's own terms this time- and at last I loved it.

Then I read The Silmarillion and made all the same mistakes.

It took me four attempts to finally understand the glory of Tolkien's writings.

I read most of The Gulag Archipelago crammed in the back of a van on a road trip to Florida. It was too loud - people talking over one another, radio cranked up high - and I could barely move my legs from where they were pinned to the seat in front of me. My shoulders spasmed and ached. I felt that book in some small yet visceral way. My physical discomfort made the suffering more immediate, which allowed the Solzhenitsyn's knife-words to cut me deeper than they could have otherwise.

Solzhenitsyn got some stuff wrong, my dad says. He just didn't have access to the best information. Try Anne Applebaum, if you really want to know about the gulags. But how can I replicate the experience of reading The Gulag Archipelago in the back of that van?

I was reading Nicolas and Alexandra the next-to last-time I saw my grandfather alive. We sat in the cafeteria in his nursing home and I recounted the most interesting bits for him.

I wasn't finished reading it by the time I left. I'm glad I was reading history that trip; my granddad already knew the ending.

Villette was a book about loneliness and Protestantism. It made me feel less lonely and more Protestant, which is exactly what I look for in a new favorite book.

(Okay fine, I do quite like Wuthering Heights actually, though I wouldn't call it a favorite. Are you happy?)

I picked up The October Horse for quite a shallow reason: because I learned that Julius Caesar was an epileptic, and epilepsy is quite closely related to migraine.

Julius Caesar and Ulysses S. Grant, those were my guys. However, I'd read Grant's memoir all the way back in fifth grade, so Caesar it was.

The rich velvet of Colleen McCullough 's writing came as a delightful surprise, and The Thorn Birds (soon to be another favorite) soon followed.

(It's getting harder to write this now. It's harder to write about more recent history, even indirectly.)

The Master and Margarita was strange and fascinating and I couldn't look away. I have spoken and written hundreds and thousands of words trying to explain it's appeal. I have evangelized on behalf of this book, but ultimately all I can say is: Go read it. Read it right now.

The Sparrow made me weep more times than I would like to admit. Like Emilio Sandoz, in reading it I felt naked before God. How horrible and how lovely a thing it was.

Which of this year's books will I carry with me into the future? This Too Shall Last for practical advice? Dead Souls for justice, Pyrenesi for joy, Deathless for beautiful prose? The Queen of Attolia for friendship, perhaps, or Six of Crows for my sister? Only time will tell which shapes me most.

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

A Reflection on Childhood

Note on the text: I used Quentin Tarantino’s Cinema Speculation as published in 2022 by Harper Collins

This is a great book for cinephiles. I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves films. Quentin’s love for the films he talks about here is contagious (I actually decided to go out and rent some of the films that he mentions here because he made them sound so interesting). 

This book came at an interesting time in my life. I’ve had many discussions with people over the last few years about what books/films are appropriate for kids. When I was a kid I loved books. Books were my first love (I enjoyed watching movies, but my love for them didn’t really come until high school). I was a voracious reader who read everything that I could get my hands on: I read Jane Eyre when I was in 5th grade, Frankenstein in 6th, and had read 10 out of Dickens’ 14 novels by the time I reached high school. I was lucky that my parents never really prevented me from reading whatever I wanted to. The benefit of all that, besides the fact that I was reading great books, was that my mind was able to stretch in ways that it couldn’t have otherwise. Did I understand everything that happened in those books? No, but I understood enough. More than that, I found myself getting a slightly deeper understanding of how the outside world worked. I remember someone asked me once when I was a kid what I loved so much about books. I told him that I loved how books brought me into the minds of other people. How I got to see things from the perspective of other people and learn something about the world that I didn’t know before. 

So when people ask me what books I think are appropriate for children, the first thing I say is that I don’t know. Because as a kid I was allowed to read anything that wanted, I tend to believe that kids should be allowed to read whatever they want to. Kids are more capable of understanding the world around them then we give them credit for, and even if they don’t totally understand something that’s ok too. It’s ok for children to be a little scared, confused, or even a little disturbed by what they’re reading. The world is a crazy, scary, confusing place. In fact I would say allowing kids to encounter some of those things in their literature will turn them into stronger, more capable, more open minded adults. I remember reading Ender’s Game (I was probably in 3rd grade) and being so disturbed at the presence of androids that I threw the book across the room of my daycare and just sat there thinking for like 20 minutes. I remember not only being disturbed at how the androids were being treated, but by their very existence. It had never occurred to me that someone might try to create “a perfect human”, and I remember being horrified at the idea. What would happen to silly, imperfect people like me? Eventually I did get up and continue to read it, but that idea stayed with me for years after that. I never forgot that feeling. All because of a book. 

So reading Quentin’s account of his childhood really struck a chord with me. I’d like to think that he and I would have been great friends. Before talking about the great films he saw in the 70s, Quentin talks about the impact that going to the movies with his mom as a child had on him. Like my parents, she rarely prevented him from seeing whatever movie he wanted to. He talks about how, similar to what I discovered with books, even when he didn’t entirely know what was happening in the movies he was watching, he got it: 

When a child reads an adult book, there’s going to be words that [she or he] doesn’t understand. But depending on the context, and the paragraph surrounding the sentence, sometimes they can figure it out. Same thing when a kid watches an adult movie. Now obviously [there are] things that go way over your head [that] your parents want to go over your head. But some things, even if I didn’t exactly know what they meant I got the gist. . . . It was fucking thrilling to be the only child watching an adult movie and hearing the room laugh at (usually) something that I knew was probably naughty. And sometimes, even when I didn’t get it, I got it (10).   

A rather pedantic example of this comes when he describes seeing the scene in Woody Allen’s Play it Again Sam where Humphrey Bogart says “You’re as nervous as Lizabeth Scott before I blew her brains out”: “Did I know who Lizabeth Scott was? Of course not. Could I figure out at 12 that she was probably some old time actress that Bogart did pictures with? Of course” (70). 

Another thing worth pointing out is that kids inherently know the difference between truth and fiction. Adults are always surprised to learn that kids understand that stories, however dark, are just stories. People are more afraid of what their kids will read in a book, or see in a film, as if evil and complexity doesn’t exist in the real world. As if, were it not for books and movies, they wouldn’t encounter real evil in the world. It’s so silly. 

And just like I talk about my mind expanding through books, he talks about his mind expanding through movies. How these movies exposed him to a larger world. Look at how he describes seeing the scene in Dirty Harry where the girl’s body gets dug up: “When they removed the naked dead girl out of the hole in Dirty Harry, it was totally disturbing, but I got it. Scorpio’s inhumanity went beyond the beyond. All the better for Harry to blast him away with the world’s most powerful handgun” (15). She’s an innocent victim that this horrible thing happened to, which made Harry think he was justified in reacting the way that he did. And just like me with the androids, this caused Quentin to think about justice in a way that he hadn’t considered before. It made his mind and spirit grow a little. 

I love books and I love films. They have made me grow in ways as a person that I could never have imagined and I only hope that other kids will get the same opportunity to learn and grow that I did. What a wonderful gift. 

[heavyasafeather]

2022

1. What did you do in 2022 that you’d never done before? Portraiture? If that counts. Also, I've gotten into like... Not gardening, but growing things? Like I bought a bunch of flower growing kits. I also randomly got curious about playing with slime.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I never make any resolutions.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? If my office manager counts.

4. Did anyone close to you die? --

5. What countries did you visit? None.

6. What would you like to have in 2023 that you lacked in 2022? Joji.

7. What date from 2022 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

June 9: I saw Dan Rossen at the Cashbah. July 6: I saw Fleet Foxes at Cal Coast. Aug 20, 21: HITC 4.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? I think how much more I tried to get into photography or break out of my shell.  I tend to just stick to still life/flowers, and had always avoided portraits and the such.  But I did a couple “photoshoots” like for my office manager’s baby shower, and a cousin’s grad photos, and all the praise I got made me feel great.

I also managed to grow a mini rose from one of the kits I bought from Five Below. I was just gifted a couple more kits for Christmas, and I'm excited.

9. What was your biggest failure? Being alive.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? I had COVID in earlier January.

11. What was the best thing you bought? Literally, any ticket to any concert. The Dreamfx lens filters for my camera. And the Buzzy seeds growing kits. And funnily, this strawberry scented slime.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration? ?

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? There was a thing with my coworker, but I think it was mostly miscommunication, and we got over it after we talked it out.

14. Where did most of your money go? Bills. Clothes, I suppose.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Mostly Joji. And growing some fucking flowers.

16. What song will always remind you of 2022? There’s a lot actually: Joji, “Die For You”

Andrew Bird, “Underlands”

Daniel Rossen, “I’ll Wait For Your Visit”

Mei Ehara , “不確か”

Mom Jeans., “What's Up?"

Ruby Haunt, “Crave”

Toledo, “Fixing Up the Backroom”

Tim Bernardes, “BB (Garupa de Moto Amarela)”

Vision Video, “In My Side”

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

i. happier or sadder? Happier, maybe. ii. thinner or fatter? Fatter. iii. richer or poorer? I mean, technically richer, but…

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Skating.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Going to work.  Caring

20. How did you spend Christmas? Christmas Eve, I watched Avatar 2 with Adam and then opened presents with him and his dad. Christmas day, I went home and my parents weren't doing shit because they were fighting I guess, but I mostly remember trying to get food with my dad that we ended up going to Jack in the Box for dinner because nothing else was open.

21. Did you fall in love in 2022? With anyone new? No.

22. How will you be spending New Years? I’ve only just realized for the last few years after I first started doing these, that this question had been erased. I spent most of New Years at Adam’s, and we binge watched House of the Dragon.

23. How many one-night stands? 0.

24. What was your favourite TV program? Orville!

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Is it hate that I feel? I definitely bounce between not giving a shit about them and wishing that there was still a friendship. It definitely feels like there isn't anymore, and it makes me feel angry that I feel like I've extended my hand more times than they have in the last few years. And then I remember all the times I felt like they never really have a fuck about me in the first place, and I get angrier, so... yeah, maybe.

26. What was the best book you read? I don’t know about “best,” but I started reading Jane Eyre, and restarted The Sorcerer’s Stone.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery? .

28. What did you want and get? Joji tickets to the Forum next year.

29. What did you want and not get? Probably better seats to Joji, but I’m still in a better section that I expected.

30. What was your favourite film of this year? Dinner in America. Or Top Gun, maybe? The Banshees of Inisherin.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 31. I went to work, then went to Cheesecake factor for dinner with my parents and Adam.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably satisfying? More Joji, seriously.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2022? Scrubs. And because of my Stitch Fix subscription, a lot of floral dresses... And more Joji merch.

34. What kept you sane? Literally, just listening to Joji.  And naps.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Seriously?

36. What political issue stirred you the most? Eh.

37. Who did you miss? Literally, everybody...

38. Who was the best new person you met? No one's really standing out to me.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2022: –

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. “Deep red, seething anger, it is natural, all too familiar. That legacy is yours and mine to own, that's you and me.”

[mybookplacenet]

Featured Author Interview: Claudia Ricci

Tell us about yourself.: I started my professional life as a journalist for two major newspapers but turned to fiction writing three decades ago. During a bout of cancer in 2002, I started painting and it has flourished over the years. Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?: I grew up in the Hudson Valley of New York State, and always loved to read. I remember spending summers with piles of books. Living in a beautiful rural area, I felt close to nature and that surely influenced my first book, Dream Maples, a story of women artists set in a sugarbush in southern Vermont. Do you have any unusual writing habits? For many years I "saw" my fiction like a film strip inside my mind. All I had to do was sit down and the words just poured out. More recently, I have been writing out of a more spiritual energy. I meditate every morning and often ideas come to me during this quiet time. What authors have influenced you? I grew up in the Hudson Valley of New York State, and always loved to read. I remember spending summers with piles of books. Living in a beautiful rural area, I felt close to nature and that surely influenced my first book, Dream Maples, a story of women artists set in a sugarbush in southern Vermont. Do you have any advice for new authors? Try to write every day. Try to say the things that are deepest in your heart. Try to lay the images and ideas out in the most poetic prose possible. And then, after you publish, don't get bogged down worrying about how many people are reading your writing. You are writing for yourself. You are writing out of a deep psychic need, so just keep showing up at the computer. I think of the writing practice as if I am going outdoors every morning with a beautiful silver cup. I hold the cup up and let the words flow in. Some days the cup is sparsely filled but that's OK. And some days the cup is overflowing!!! The best book I can recommend to young writers is Brenda Ueland's classic, "If You Want To Write." As Ueland points out, "No writing is a waste of time." And "Inspiration comes very slowly and quietly. When I wait with inspiration, my time is not wasted." Ueland wrote some six million words in her 93 feisty years! What is the best advice you have ever been given? "Just keep writing!" I got my PhD in English at UAlbany, SUNY, in 1996 in a program called, Writing, Teaching and Criticism. I became very close friends with another fiction writer, PM "Peg" Woods. We continue to write together every week on Zoom. Whenever one of us gets stuck we remind each other that the only way forward is to "just keep writing." So that means you might write some 2,500 pages (as I did with Dreaming Maples) to produce a 425 page finished book. And it might take you 23 years to finish a book, as it did with my third book, Sister Mysteries. What are you reading now? "The Oracle of Stamboul," by Michael David Lukas and "Hell of a Book" by Jason Mott. Both are very very strong works of fiction (for very different reasons.) I try to find books that are not only technically masterful but also offer characters I can really care about. Too many "fine" works of fiction leave me wondering why I should care about the characters. What's your biggest weakness? I am impatient by nature, so I have to work at slowing down and appreciating small steps in the writing process. (That's also true for my painting.) What is your favorite book of all time? Ah, it has changed over the years. As a youngster I loved Jane Eyre and I have read it many times. In high school, it was Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury," as I had no idea that you could write in stream of consciousness as he did. In grad school it was "The Song of the Lark" by Willa Cather, the captivating story of a young woman becoming a singer. Today I'd have to say that there are many favorites, including "Beloved" by Toni Morrison, "The Hours" by Michael Cunningham, "The Keepers of the House" by Shirley Ann Grau, and my own novels, which are like children to me. When you're not writing, how do you like to spend your time? Hiking in the Rocky Mountains and the Sierras, canoeing, traveling, especially in Italy, sewing and gardening. And of course playing with my grandchildren, who are gifts from heaven. Exercise is essential to my writing process, as it clears my mind and calms me down. Do you remember the first story you ever read, and the impact it had on you? As a very young child, I loved "The Bobbsey Twins, again, because I loved the characters, two sets of twins, Nan and Bert, and Flossie and Freddie. I still have the books on my shelf! What has inspired you and your writing style? I have been inspired most of all by nature, and by writers who write beautiful poetic prose about nature. I have been inspired by music, especially flamenco, in my second and third novels. I have been inspired by paintings, most of all the work of Impressionists, especially Renoir. I have been inspired by the stories of my Italian ancestors too. What are you working on now? I am working on a book that is both memoir and fiction. It's a tale about my great grandfather, Pasquale Orzo, who was born out of wedlock in southern Italy in 1870. (He was given the name Orzo, a type of macaroni, and I believe it was a way of branding him for life as an "illegitimate".) Most babies born out of wedlock in those days in Italy perished so it's a miracle that he lived. I have started to write his story and his mother's, and it is forcing me into fiction. What is your favorite method for promoting your work? Hosting parties and readings in bookstores and other venues. Also, I am an avid blogger and a lover of Instagram so I try to promote my work on each. What's next for you as a writer? I have all I can do writing the book I am writing now (I started it two years ago.) How well do you work under pressure? I was once a daily newspaper reporter (most recently with "The Wall Street Journal.") I could meet any deadline, even with complex stories. But these days, I see no reason to pressure myself with artificial deadlines. I live day by day, in deep gratitude and appreciation for the bounty of blessings I've been given. How do you decide what tone to use with a particular piece of writing? The tone comes with the words. The first chapter of my new novel, "Pearly Everlasting," poured out of me in a breathless staccato voice, in part because it was about a sexual assault. Other writing in the same book is slow and very poetic. It all depends on what is happening. If you could share one thing with your fans, what would that be? I would share my deep appreciation for writing and reading -- which are gifts. What a miracle that we have brains to create the words and images and characters and worlds we create. How amazing that we then have hands and fingers to transfer these complex ideas to paper and ebooks, and astonishing eyes to read the books that are written. All of it is part of a great great mystery and one I am constantly thankful for. Claudia Ricci's Author Websites and Profiles Website Amazon Profile Goodreads Profile Claudia Ricci's Social Media Links Facebook Page Twitter Instagram LinkedIn Read the full article

[imherongraystairstrash]

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, do you think Charles,Barbara, Eugenia and Anna were close? Anna maybe less because she’s closer in age to the merry thieves set and she probably ghosted Charles after the Ariadne engagement. Would you consider a fic of them all growing up, starting with them 4 as little kids and then slowly becoming teens and adults and then dealing with Barbara’s death. I think it would be a fun idea since nobody ever considers them to be a older merry thieves.

You can thank my social anxiety for this one bc I stress wrote it in school 🙃

TW: panic attacks, death

Title: When we were young

Characters: Barbara Lightwood, Anna Lightwood, Eugenia Lightwood, Cecily Lightwood, Gabriel Lightwood, Alexander Lightwood, Sophie Lightwood, Gideon Lightwood

Anna was sitting by the fire when Charles came into the room. She hated him. She truly did. But, somehow, at that moment, she felt strange. He looked at her and it took her many years back, to when they weren’t exactly friends, but  they were far from what they are now to each other.

…

“And that was how Consul Wentworth fixed the crisis of 1687.” Charles said with a satisfied smile to himself.

The Lightwood girls were his audience. Well, sort of. Eugenia’s cheek was resting on her fist, squishing the right side of her face as her lidded eyes approached shutting completely. Anna was slumped against Eugenia, her lips pressed together tightly and her eyes opened wide, staring at a fixed spot on the floor. Their luminous dark blue glittered in the witchlight, looking exquisitely uncanny. Barbara was mid-yawn, leaning on the leg of a sofa.

“Wow, Charles. Thanks for the history lesson.” Eugenia said, monotonously. It was evident that she’d inherited her mother’s sass from the day she was born, when Barbara had woken her up by exclaiming at the sight of her newborn sister, and Genie responded by pulling her sister’s hair.

“Oh, and in 1690-“

“NO!” All three Lightwood daughters shrieked.

“I’m still not done, though.” Said Charles.

“Yes, you are.” Eugenia said, standing up and settling the matter. “We are positively bored. There is absolutely nothing to do except listen to Charles talk about politics, and if those are the only two options, frankly, I’d rather be bored.” 

Charles crossed his arms. “Being an intellect is not boring.”

Little two year old Anna looked at him with one eyebrow raised. 

“I swear, Thomas is having a better time than we are,” Eugenia said glaring at to where their parents were, with the tiny, almost invisible baby nestled in Gideon’s arms, his fingers wrapped around Sophie's thumb. The parents were all laughing about something, which made Eugenia scowl even more. 

“To be an adult.” Barbara said, with a martyred sigh. 

“We needn’t be adults to have fun.” Charles said.

“I suppose you’re going to torture us with more political trivia.” 

“No,” Charles said. “I was going to suggest we go through the attic.” 

The girls looked up at this and Charles smirked, clearly proud of himself at having come up with a good idea. For once. 

“What is in the attic?” 

Charles shrugged. “I don’t know, but there’s probably strange and obscure things. There’s a lot of that kind of stuff in our house.” 

Barbara and Eugenia exchanged a look before the eldest Lightwood sister turned to him. 

“We shall go and discover this mysterious attic you speak of.”

…

“What could this even be?” Barbara said, holding up a loose gear-like contraption. 

“Papa sometimes builds things out of clockwork.” Charles said, sitting cross legged. “Or, he used to at least.” 

 “That’s…” 

Genie and Charles looked at Barbara as she trailed off.

“Nevermind, I have no comment.”

Charles nodded as though that was a common reaction people had in terms of his father’s experiments. 

They rummaged through boxes upon boxes, finding momentos they didn’t understand such as papers upon papers of things that said many difficult words. They could distinguish a couple of words such as “infernal” and “devices”, however there were many that made no sense to them.

“What is a Mortmain?” Asked Genie.

“I think it’s an undead horse or something along those lines,” said Charles.

“Oh,” said Eugenia. “That’s disgusting.”

“Quite,” agreed Barbara.

Anna was toddling around the room, giggling. She almost tripped over a loose floorboard, and would have, had Charles not reached out and grabbed a hold of the back of her dress. 

“This is too dangerous for a small child like Anna,” Barbara said, ever the mother-goose. “I shall take her downstairs before she hurts herself.” 

Anna protested at first, but acquiesced once Barbara bribed her with the promise of dessert.

…

“What are you doing here?” Anna asked.

He looked up, his green eyes meeting her blue ones. 

…

Charles remembered that day like it was just yesterday. 

He and Eugenia had stayed behind rifling through boxes, which wasn’t unwelcome, as Eugenia and Charles had an easy, lighthearted and, at times, profound, friendship. Despite their age gap, they enjoyed each other’s company, though neither could say why. Perhaps, it was simply because they mocked each other. Or perhaps, it was sometimes they would occasionally talk about things such as philosophy, and whether what they were seeing was true, or the world was just a figment of their imaginations. Or a mixture of the two; they’d never really discussed it. 

Eugenia surprised him when she said, “do you ever feel… different from your parents?” 

Charles furrowed his brows, “in what aspect?”

“Love.” 

“Have you a suitor?” Charles inquired, intrigued.

“No. Actually, that was my question. I find that, sometimes, I don’t only enjoy the idea of a male suitor, but perhaps, I also enjoy the company of a woman. Perhaps.” She pressed her lips together tightly, as if forcing herself to stop speaking.

Charles looked at her, his bright green eyes wide. “I-um-…”

“But I’m not sure, of course.” Eugenia blurted out. “It’s not as if shadowhunters are precisely fond of that particular preference or-“

“Do you really think they wouldn’t like it?” Charles asked, softly. “Do you believe they will reject those who are like that?” 

Eugenia looked down. “I’m afraid I’m most sure of it.”

Charles had then realized that he couldn’t have both. There was no way around it. 

He knew his parents were happy and that love made them complete. However, they didn’t have to choose. They could be married and the idea wouldn’t affect their respective occupations. Charles, on the other hand, couldn’t be Consul and have the kind of love he wanted. He almost resented them because of it. They were able to do what they loved and nobody forced them to pick between one or the other. 

It was unfair. So incredibly unfair.

“I guess you better get rid of your feelings towards women than.” He said simply, “unless you’re willing to let something as simple as love get in the way of your dreams.”

“Dreams?” Eugenia asked, looking confused and a tiny bit hurt. 

 But Charles got up to go back downstairs to his parents, aunts and uncles.

… 

Charles slumped down in a chair and dug his fingers into his hair.

“She was just here.” He said quietly. “Babs, was just here.”

Anna felt sudden rage. “You are not allowed to mourn her.” 

Charles looked up. “Just because you don’t like me doesn’t mean I can’t be sad. She was my cousin too. Perhaps not by blood, but she was still a cousin.” He pressed his lips together angrily and stared fixedly at the witchlight stone that was illuminating the room. 

Anna, however, couldn’t find it in her to be diplomatic; she got up and left the room. 

…

Anna had never seen Eugenia look this way. She was always put together, posh. But now, she looked hollow. Like a shell of who she used to be. Anna wanted to go up to her, to say something, but she felt lost for words. What did you tell someone who lost a dear sister? If Anna felt sorrow, she couldn’t imagine what Eugenia was feeling. 

Her head was tilted upwards, looking up at the pyre where the corpse of her sister lay. Tears were streaming down her face, rolling down her cheeks, throat and chest, leaving streaks on her face that looked like the roots of a tree.

Sophie had her arm around her daughter. The sight of the four of them was very strange. There was a gap missing where Barbara should have been. She suddenly felt a hand take hold of her own. She looked to her right and saw her mother looking straight ahead, squeezing her daughter’s hand. Her father was looking down, holding Alex. Her baby brother was one of the few who looked up at the cousin who’d taught him to play simple songs on the piano, and had always let him sleep in her arms on New Year's eve.  

She didn’t know what he must have been thinking now, staring up at the pyre. 

Though, to be fair, she didn’t quite know what to think herself, as she looked up at the cousin who’s life was cut far too short.

…

Eugenia’s body didn’t feel like her own. She hadn’t felt this body was her own for a while. Even since Augustus and the secret she’d kept to herself.

This was somehow worse. To be torn away from your best friend, whom you’d shared a room with almost your entire life. Eugenia didn’t know how to live in a world without Barbara. Sometimes, in the rare moments when she forgot about her sadness, she’d call her sister’s name, ready to tell her about what had happened in her novel. Or find herself walking to Barbara’s room without thinking and then staring blankly at the door that has remained shut ever since the day she passed away.

A couple of weeks ago, she’d found a letter Barbara had sent her when she’d been in Idris. It was in between her copy of Jane Eyre. She couldn’t bring herself to read it in its entirety, but she stared at the signature blankly. 

Suddenly, she got the urge to run. So she ran. That’s how, an hour later, she’d gotten a small tattoo under her ankle that said “Sincerely, your favorite sister Babs.” 

It felt right to have Bab’s signature there, we’re only she could see. It made her feel accompanied everywhere she went, even though nobody else could see. 

Now, looking up at the pyre, her face tight from tears she’d left to dry, her mother weeping silently, she could almost imagine that her sister was there, simply caught in a slumber and that she’d wake up at any moment and come tumbling down, throwing herself in Eugenia’s arms.

Any moment now, she thought when the pyre burst into flames. 

“Ave atque vale, Barbara Lightwood.” The crowd said at once.

Eugenia shook her head and swayed on her feet. Her breathing became heavy and her fingers began prickling. Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. No nononono. 

She felt a hand on her shoulder, vaguely that it was her father’s. 

Not Barbara.

Not Babs.

“Calm down, Genie.”

Not her sister. Her sister couldn’t possibly be up there.

“Breathe Eugenia.”

She wanted to scream that she couldn’t, that she’d never breathe again, as long as her sister wasn’t breathing with her. Why did she have to live? She would have much preferred that Barbara live in her stead. 

The world was numb and fractured, never to be fixed again. 

…

(Don’t worry, Gideon was able to help Genie after the fic ends bc he’s the best dad)

Tagging: @tsccreatorsnet  @atla-lok143  @rinadragomir  @youngreckless  @autumnangel20  @julemmaes @cupcakesandkittens  @no-scones-allowed  @ninacarstairss  @stxr-thxif  @writeforjordelia  @icouldnotask @jordeliasupremacy  @cordelia-cardale  @will-effing-herondale  @axoloteca @heronstairs2014 @ilovemanicures @ti-bae-rius @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @readersconfessions812 @nightshade3465 @livvyheronstairs @zemiraa @proudtobealuthor @neurogliadudette @theenchanteddreamer @cheeseandmacarons

If you want to be on my tag list, or if you changed your url recently and your not in the tag list anymore, let me know! Also, if you want to be removed, send me a dm! I won’t be offended in the slightest :) Oh, and if you asked to be on the tag list and you’re not on it, please tell me (I’m very absentminded lol).

[cafeacademia]

Love Between the Pages | Chapter 1

Blaise Zabini x Reader

Part summary: When Blaise is forced to attend the book club for a month for being caught up in Draco's bullying of the club, he finally has a chance to get to know the girl he likes, only now he's afraid that she's intimidated by him.

Warnings: Some bullying, Draco being Draco, mostly soft fluff though, lots of shyness

Word count: Approx 2000

Navigation

A/N: Hi loves!! Here's the first part to my first Blaise series!! I hope you all enjoy! If you'd like to be tagged, please click the link on my navigation post which is linked above!! Flash backs indicated with ***

“Detention!”

It was shouted harshly, at the top of her voice, shrill and full of rage as the three Slytherins stood in front of her, each looking decidedly guilty in their own ways. Draco stood up straighter, defiantly crossing his arms as he began to make the whole situation worse by arguing with Madam Pince. “You’re not even a real teacher, you can’t give us detention. My father will hear about this.” But while Draco went on and Theo attempted to appear like he was vaguely threatening next to his best friend, Blaise slowly blocked out the entire exchange, his eyes fixed on someone else, sitting on the other end of the library.

“That’s enough, Mister Malfoy, I will hear no more of this.” Madam Pince shouted. “You’ll all attend the book club as your punishment.” She asserted. “Book club?” He scoffed, “It’s hardly that bad.” “For a month.” Madam Pince interrupted him, making Draco and Theo look at her as if she’d grown an extra appendage. “A month?” Draco glowered, seething with anger.

But all while this was going on, Blaise had barely paid attention. He’d heard what she had said of course, but he was too distracted by a little Ravenclaw, sitting at the other end of the library. “Do you hear this, Zabini?” Draco asked, nudging his friend, the Slytherin boy quietly nodding and attempting to seem undistracted.

Why had Draco dragged him into this mess in the first place? All Blaise had been interested in was the pretty Ravenclaw he saw so often between the library bookshelves and somehow he’d been pulled into something so utterly stupid.

***

“What are you doing?” Draco asked, snatching the book out of Blaise’s hand. “Isn’t it obvious?” Blaise asked, raising a brow in annoyance as he took the book back from Draco and carefully pressed it against his chest. “You’re reading muggle novels.” “And?” “It’s for the mudbloods and blood traitors.” Draco spat. “And that’s why you’re not a Ravenclaw.” Blaise rolled his eyes. “You think this stuff is good?” Draco sounded genuinely confused. “They seem to.” Blaise nodded his head up towards the group that sat around a table, enjoying books together.

Draco glanced over at the group and while he didn’t know who they were, Blaise did. He’d seen you with your little book club in the library every week, but more specifically, he’d seen you in the library nearly every single day. If you weren’t studying, you were reading and enjoying a good book and judging by the books he had seen you with, you seemed to have a wide interest in a lot of different subjects and genres. Blaise was absolutely fascinated by you.

“Half of them are mudbloods.” Draco rolled his eyes. Blaise wanted to protest, he really did, but he knew it would cause more drama than it was worse by attempting to put Draco in his place. I was nearly always messy. “Let’s distract them a little, shall we?” Draco asked as he fished about in his robes for something he’d kept in his pocket just for the right occasion.

And that was when Blaise had been dragged into Draco’s shenanigans of throwing mini fireworks onto the book club’s table, Theo jumping in to laugh at them as they shrieked and scattered. But Blaise hadn’t laughed. He stood there, feeling like an idiot and an asshole, because you looked over at them with your book clutched protectively to your chest, a startled look in your eyes as you met his gaze. Fuck. Blaise was sure that whatever chance he had of ever speaking to you now was completely gone, especially as you gave him one last look before Neville Longbottom carefully tugged you and some of your group between the bookshelves.

***

“This is ridiculous.” Draco grumbled to himself as he entered the library the next afternoon, Blaise and Theo walking in behind him. Blaise looked up, searching the library for the little book club, his hands shoved in his trouser pockets in an attempt to seem relaxed, when really he felt rather pissed off. Stupid Malfoy and his stupid prejudice.

“Is this Madam Pince’s way of punishing them or us?” Hermione scoffed as she clocked the trio entering the library. Glancing over at Cho and Ginny, the pair gave you similar looks of discontent about the mere idea of having to spend just over an hour doing something you normally all found fun with a group of people that had just attacked your book club with mini fireworks. It seemed utterly backwards. “It feels like the latter.” Ginny muttered as the trio approached the table.

Discomfort settled over you, of course the three Slytherins intimidated you, you were shy and quiet and had never really spoken to them other than the odd interaction in class, and it didn’t help that Crabbe had made a point out of bullying you for being a muggleborn-know-it-all not long ago purely because of your blood status and house.

But while all three of the boys did intimidate you, there was something a little more intriguing about the tallest of the three. It hadn’t gone unnoticed that Blaise had at least somewhat of an interest in observing you and while others may find it uncomfortable, his gaze was not intimidating or offputting. In fact he seemed almost fascinated and you felt that the way he looked at you was warmer, much more than the way Draco did. But as you glanced up, only to catch his eyes and immediately look away out of shyness, you remembered that perhaps he wasn’t worth giving the time of day to. He had, afterall, been involved when Draco and Theo had thrown mini fireworks at your group the previous day and you didn’t recall ever seeing him trying to stop them.

But despite the way that Draco and Hermione clashed and the warning looks the boys got from Ginny while you scoured the shelves for a book to read, you slowly relaxed even with the initially unwelcome presence of the Slytherin boys.

Slowly as you began to explore the shelves, your fingers trailing over the spines of the books, discovering which title you might like to pick up this time for this week’s read, you gently pulled out an old copy of Jane Eyre. You weren’t expecting when you pulled the book off the shelf, to meet the eyes of Blaise Zabini, who stood, leaning back against the far bookshelf as he skimmed through the book in his hands, his eyes meeting yours only for a moment. You froze as soon as you saw his eyes on yours, feeling warmth blossom in your cheeks at the way he studied you calmly, his gaze gentle and soft as he looked at you, giving you the faintest hint of a smile before he looked back down at his book.

Blaise felt awful. You had looked so startled when he’d caught your eye through the bookshelves and he wondered if he intimidated you. He decided he couldn’t blame you if you were intimidated by him, he was friends with a group that were prone to picking on everyone. That combined with how shy you obviously were meant you were unlikely to approach anyone you weren’t comfortable with and Blaise felt even worse about the whole situation. What if you thought he was targeting you? Blaise knew he hasn’t exactly been subtle the times he had been gazing over at you on those afternoons in the library, those soft Thursday afternoons when the sun was in it’s golden hour, sending the most gentle and soft glow of warmth through the wobbled glass windows, casting a beautiful haze over you.

Blaise just hoped that attending the book club with you wasn’t enough to make you want to never speak to him full stop.

It was difficult for Blaise to admit though, that he was almost disappointed when the meeting ended, although he’d had quite enough of Granger and Malfoy’s hushed squabbling at one of the tables that Blaise had almost wanted to throw his book at them, though he wasn’t sure it was worth throwing his copy of Anne of Green Gables at them both.

But as he packed his borrowed book into his school bag, he caught you looking over at him from where you had been standing, a curious little look about you as you observed him, though you were quick to look away, a look of embarrassment on your features when you had seen he had noticed you before you began to walk away. “Wait a moment.” Blaise blurted it out as he quickly stepped into your pathway, startling you as you bumped into his chest and stumbled back a little, barely able to look up at him. “Merlin, I’m sorry.” He muttered, scared to touch you in case you didn’t want him to. “I just wanted to apologise for what happened yesterday, Malfoy was being a right git and I should have stopped him. I didn’t want to see you scared- your club scared.” He struggled to get it all out. While Blaise was confident, he was not the most chatty himself and apologising was not something he often found himself doing. Looking up at him, a little surprised at his apology, you just managed to look into his eyes for a moment before you focused back on the Slytherin green of his robe lining that was draped around his shoulders.

“Zabini, hurry up.” Theo drawled out as he leaned around the doorway to the library, Madam Pince shushing him as he lingered around the entrance. Blaise glanced over his shoulder at the boy dramatically leaning against the doorway before he turned back to you. “It’s alright.” You replied softly, a lot quieter than perhaps you had intended. You couldn’t hide your flustered reaction when you saw Blaise smile at the sound of your voice, his eyes lighting up and softening as he idly adjusted the bag on his shoulder. “I know the others are not interested in books but-.” “Blaaaiiise” Theo dragged out his name, the Slytherin boy in front of you sighing as he clenched his jaw a little. “Perhaps, would you like to read together?” He asked. Looking up at him, you smiled shyly, feeling rather flustered and giggly at the question, summoning all of your courage to respond to him. “Yes, perhaps.” You replied after a comfortable moment of silence. You wondered if he could tell he made you shy and giddy, or if it came off a little strange, but you supposed he wouldn’t be asking to read with you if he found you that weird.

And as Blaise gave you a quick goodbye, he walked off towards the exit, wearing a stoic face but on the inside, he was absolutely beaming. With three more weeks of the club to attend as punishment, there was plenty of time for you to hopefully warm up to him.

Blaise Taglist (OPEN):

@paintballkid711 @megantje123 @chaotic-fae-queen @slytherinwh0re @frecklesandfirecrackers @starofthedawn @mingyuahjumma @dracosaccount @90smalfoy @fuckingdraco @loving-life-my-way @cpetrova @miraclesoflove @struggling-bee @weasleywhore @little-me205 @dreaming-about-fanfictions @eli-malfoy-asf @ur-local-reality-shifter

[bluuespring]

I was tagged by lovelies @ughbehavior​ & @ipegchangbin​ ♡!! thank you both

rules: share ten different favorite characters from ten different pieces of media in no particular order, then send this to/tag 10 people.

ajfpasf this took me forever to decide :’) so there are actually 12 and not 10 I’m so sorry. 

1. jane eyre / this novel got me into reading, writing and studying literature so I’m eternally grateful for it. jane is a badass. she will not be caged. also rochester is an asshole and doesn’t deserve her. 

2. bucky barnes (marvel) / I’m not into marvel that much anymore, but bucky will always have a special place in my heart, he is such a fascinating character and I will eternally love him and devote my soul to him. even my dad knows him too well (he took me to see civil war and i cried a lot) protect him at all costs. also fuck me up long-haired red shirt civil war bucky

3. jesse pinkman (breaking bad) / have I ever cried more tears for a fictional character? i dont think so. I couldve put anyone from this show (hANK SCHRADER????  MIKE?????? GUS???!?!! SKYLER???!?!?!!!!!!) but jesse... yeah. he’s my broken little dork and I still weep for him regularly. 

4. joel miller (the last of us) / that goes without saying....w tf..... joel miller has had a chokehold on me since 2015 and he will never leave me. the tears I wept. the hURT I have felt. he is so special to me and his voice, his actions, his very being has influenced me to the core. I could write an entire thesis on this man. 

5. elizabeth bennett / has a more badass mf ever existed in media? no. I think not. lizzie is the mvp. her and darcy are the originals. i dont care what you say.

6. jack from marrowbone / those who haven’t seen this movie just watch it... you’ll never be the same. what the fuck. I’m still not over it. wtf. 

7. violet baudelaire / my role model as a child. I wanted to be 14 so bad for so long because I wanted to be violet. she’s a star. now she’s like my child. forever in my heart.

8. fred and george weasley / they come as a pair ok fight me.... but those two. oof. their writer is a piece of shit that deserves the worst but gred and forge deserve the best. I will never forgive and I will never forget™️. they were also the objects of my first official fanfic which gave me confidence in writing so yeah. they’re my soulmates. a part of me will always live above weasley’s wizard wheezes. ♡

9. rengoku (demon slayer) / I know this must be a ~mainstream~ choice or whatever but I don’t care. the imprint that he has left on me. him and tanjiro remind me of the importance of kindness and I have embraced it fully since. 

10. kaz brekker (shadow and bone) / I really hesitated with inej but kaz. that boy. that character............ I will always vividly remember reading him for the first time. like oh. OH. oh. And it was too late

11. kang sae byeok (squid game) / I saw this girl and I knew... I knew we were going to have silent conversations. her portrayal. her vulnerability. her strength. she is it. 

12. opie (sons of anarchy) / I havent even finished watching sons but .... fuck.... I saw ryan hurst who plays him at comic con bc my dad was a fan and he told a story about shampoo and I was never the same since.... he tugs at my heart strings and he’s everything the universe ought to look up to and i’m soft

13. and finally matilda / if there is an origin story to who I am. it’s this.

I don’t know who to tag so... anyone who wants to do it go ahead and tag me I’d love to see <333

Honorable Mentions (bc yes I have a long list) 

- Dean Winchester from Supernatural (don’t ask me about it.... don’t...) - Eun-tak from Goblin (aposfjasfasf) -  Hong Du-sik from Hometown Cha Cha Cha (husband material™️)  - Celine & Jesse from the Before trilogy (those movies fucked me up..... but I love them.............) - L from Death Note (my little weirdo.... never change.... Ive never looked at a phone the same...) - Susan Pevensie from Narnia (another original) - Marta from Knives Out (i lOVE HER bless her heart) - Dallas from The Outsiders (its been more than a decade since.....) - Wanda from Marvel (she deserves better) - Temperance Brennan from Bones (inspiration)  - Arthur Shelby from Peaky Blinders (a puppy. a child. i want to hold him.) - Frank Castle from The Punisher (hE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the excellence of morally grey!!!!!!) - Jaime Fraser from Outlander (i can’t deal with him....) - Cha-young from Vincenzo (a bADASS) - Glenn from the Walking Dead (no i will not talk about it) - Rip and Beth from Yellowstone (those two..... i’m.... *bites lip*) - The 12th Doctor from Doctor Who (don’t be lasagna will forever be imprinted into my brain) - House from House MD (a life inspiration. dont give a shit about people) - Connell and Marianne from Normal People (i wept) - Everyone™️ in the Haunting of Hill House (masterpiece)

[butwhyduh]

Sickening

You looked at the blood in your sink. It was becoming sticky and rust colored at the edge. It probably wasn’t a lot but it certainly looked like it. The fact that you weren’t exactly sure who’s it was made you feel sick. You closed your eyes and grabbed some towels to clean it.

After spraying your sink heavily with antiseptic, you scrubbed your hands clean and left the room. Your boyfriend laid out on the couch. Normally you found it a little funny the way his long body would hang over the arm. Now you were worried.

“Jason,” you asked. What is going on? He sighed and rubbed his eyes.

“I got in a fight. It’s no big deal. You know how assholes in Gotham are,” he said. As if to emphasize his point, the sound of police sirens sounded close by. Yeah, this place was rough.

And Jason certainly looked like he had recently been in a fight. His knuckles were red and raw. He had a bruise blooming on his forearm. And his grey shirt had little specks of black that you couldn’t help but wonder was blood.

“Why are you always covered in bruises? Is that the assholes in Gotham?” You asked, sitting on the coffee table.

“You could say that,” he muttered under his breath. “I guess people just want to punch me. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

“You need a bath,” you said. “I’ll throw your clothing in the wash.”

“I’m fine-“

“You’re covered in blood and I’m not sure it’s yours,” you said. Jason slowly rose from the couch and you see that he favored one shoulder over the other one when pushing up. Probably also bruised. Or worse.

He all but stumbled into the bathroom. You started a hot bath. Your small apartment didn’t have a shower attachment. Jason roughly pushed off his boots before grimacing as he pulled off his shirt and threw it in your tiny washing machine. That one was a gift from him that somehow your landlord was totally cool with despite being a complete ass.

His shoulder had nasty red and purple splotches of bruises and there was a small bloody area. He shoved his belt open and pushed off his pants and socks. Jason slid into the tub. He groaned. His long leg had his knees sticking out of the water almost comically.

You bent down and sat on the old tile floor. Someone, probably in the 1920s or something, had out tiny little white hexagon tiles all over the floor next to the claw foot tub. You grabbed a cup and started pouring water on Jason’s chest. He hissed before relaxing. Steam from the tub rose in the cold room.

“I worry about you. Worry what you’re doing. Why you won’t tell me what you’re doing. That you’re in trouble or something. Do you owe a gang money or something? Who hit you?” You asked softly. Deathstroke, Jason thought but he certainly couldn’t tell you that. His hard look soften a little.

“I don’t owe a gang money. Nothin like that,” he said. He couldn’t help but look at your face. You were too pretty, too innocent, too good for his world. He didn’t want you in this. Hell, he shouldn’t have talked to you in the first place because no one lasted long in his life. Jason knew that taking you on a date had been selfish. And everything after that was him being too weak to do the right damn thing.

You took the cup and poured water over his hair. The slight pink color had you grimacing. You didn’t push your questions. It was something Jason loved about you. He was a hard nut to crack and usually what worked best was time and space.

You grabbed your shampoo rather than Jason’s to wash his hair. There was no way that you were going to use his ‘mountain bear scented 4 in one shampoo, conditioner, body wash, motor oil’ when trying to pamper him.

You’d never washed his hair before. He’d definitely never let anyone close to washing him. Shower sex, great. But never something non-sexual and intimate as just being bathed. You ran your fingers through his hair letting the soap rub in. Jason literally felt goosebumps on his skin and he closed his eyes and leaned into your hand. You were the only person that he let touch him and high key, this was the best relaxation he’s ever remembered feeling. You ran your hands through his hair longer that necessary but you could tell that he wasn’t complaining. He groaned a little.

You poured the water over his head and was pleasantly surprised that the water was soapy but clear. At least there wasn’t a lot of blood in his hair. Jason bent and washed his face in the water. He had more stubble growing than he usually did.

“Do you wanna shave your face? I can do it,” you offered. For a fraction of a second his brow creased before he gave you a half smile.

“Not today. I’m good. Thank you,” Jason said holding your hand. He couldn’t exactly say that he didn’t trust anyone with any kind of blade near his face.

“Are you okay? Tell me what’s going on,” You said reaching a hand to his other cheek. His jaw clenched a little and his eyes almost looked hurt. He was thinking of all the people who had died because they knew a secret. Other vigilantes who’d lost their entire families for knowing their secret identity. But at the same time, Jason knew that you wouldn’t stay around forever and the lies were growing. He was going to do one more little selfish thing. He sighed deeply.

“I’ve gotta tell you something but I don’t want to scare you,” he said and his eyes showed so much worry and fear. He genuinely thought he might lose you over this.

“Scare me? Jay, what are you talking about?” You said confused. He inhaled nervously.

“I- I’m Red Hood! Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to say it so loud,” he said. Jason’s eyes searched your face. Your eyes were wide and you were frozen. His breath was all over the place in absolute fear. It was only a few seconds but he prayed for you to speak.

“Did you just say that you’re Red Hood?” You said faintly. Red Hood was infamous. Brutally murdered gang members, rapists, and traffickers. Even once famously fought the dark knight himself. The one continued theme of everything you heard: cold, cruel, and highly deadly. If you saw Red Hood, it was probably the worst day of your life, if not your last.

“Uh... yeah? Yes.” He gulped and watched you. His blue eyes were so round and worried.

“No. I can’t believe that,” you said. Jason, who would read Jane Eyr to you, that fed stray cats outside of the apartment, and was literally the sweetest boyfriend couldn’t be this killer. He looked down with a sarcastic smile.

“I’m Red Hood. That’s me. If you don’t believe me, there is a Glock 26 Gen 4 strapped to my bedside table. There are a few more around,” he said motioning around the apartment.

“You keep stuff here?” You asked with a mad look. Your head was spinning.

“No. Just some protection. None of the Hood stuff is ever here. I don’t want anything that could be found in this apartment. All the stuff here is new and never fired besides a few practice rounds. I try to be as safe as possible so you are never in danger,” he emphasized. You both sat in silence for a few minutes. The only movement was Jason’s fingers running along your hand.

“Why? Why do you do it? Be the Red Hood?” You asked finally. He expected that question but not right away.

“I should probably tell you how it started,” Jason said and he didn’t hold back. He told you about his parents, attempting to steal the rims from the batmobile, becoming Bruce Wayne’s ward, becoming Robin, being killed by the Joker, the lazareth pit, and becoming the Red Hood. By the time he was done, the water was cold and your legs were numb. “That’s why I have bruises and scars. Why I leave sometimes or miss dates.”

“I’m sorry,” you said softly. He gave you a look of confusion. What could you possibly be sorry for? “You shouldn’t have gone through that. You shouldn’t have needed to hide it from me. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t scare you? You don’t want to run from a murderer?” Jason asked. His eyes searched yours for signs of fear or disgust.

“Is it really murder if they are evil? Or justice?” You said slowly and he winced at that word. Bruce certainly wouldn’t agree. “Every time I hear the question ‘would you kill baby Hitler’ I would. Without question. I would shoot a baby because I would be thinking about 6 million Jews and unknown others that died because of him. The bad guys always get out and make things so much worse.

“You’re going to have to tell me where all the weapons are here. I’m paranoid that I’m going to reach in the couch and grab a sword,” you said with a laugh, standing up. Sure, you were shocked. But that wasn’t going to make you run screaming into the night. Or maybe you were in shock? You’d find out in the morning.

“Swords are more my brother’s thing,” he said with a laugh. “I’ll show you. I’ve been wanting to teach you some self defense too.”

“We’ll get back to your brother being into swords later. But first, let’s get you out of that wet ass tub and into bed. Because I can’t process any more information tonight,” you said handing Jason a towel. He obviously favored his right shoulder when dressing in sweatpants before coming to the bed where he flopped down. The lights in the bathroom flickered and you rolled your eyes. That’s Gotham for you.

“I’ll fix that tomorrow,” Jason said quietly.

“Nevermind that. Do you want an ice pack?”

“No. I want you,” he said and you smiled a little before crawling in the bed. Jason moved around to lay with his head next to your chest snuggling close. It was almost comical the way the big man hugged you and laid in your arms. He needed to be close to you even though your arm on his waist made him clench in pain for a second before you moved to a better position.

“I don’t deserve you,” he said quietly. “You’re way too nice to me. Almost gullible. Like Baby, you live this way?” he said with a smile. His sarcastic defense was back up. You rolled your eyes.

“Maybe I’ve got a thing for the whole bad boy thing. Or that I know last week, you had cereal with water and honestly, that’s the ultimate weakness,” you said back and he gave you a rare grin.

“We were out of milk. Like what was I gonna do? Eat it dry? No.”

You kissed the corner of his mouth and he grimaced.

“Sorry. We should get some sleep. It’s super late,” you said.

“Yeah, sleep. Sounds great,” he said already drowsy. “I fucking love you,” he whispered before falling asleep.

[heliads]

lisa, honey, is the end of an era I FINISHED TEEN WOLF

honestly i can't believe it, it's been quite the journey and i wasn't ready for the end, i miss my characters what am i gonna do help

i was waiting for taylor's announcement and decided "ok, this is it, i'm gonna finish it" AND I DID AND I'M DEVASTATED

first of all, the very ending, when scott says "they're my friends... my pack" and they all walked together i was bawling my eyes out, i got so attached to all of them, i couldn't help it. i also cried SO MUCH when theo took that boy's pain because now he cares 😭😭😭😭 it was so emotional i was silently screaming on the couch

malia and scott trying to learn how to fight without seeing was incredible and i was shocked when deucalion died. peter and derek came wich was great because i missed them! OH, CHRIS ARGENT AND DEREK HALE IN BRAZIL, I SCREAMED SO LOUD, I CAN'T EVEN EXPLAIN.

the plot for 6b was really interesting btw, how fear can turn people into killers, there's a similar plot in supergirl and it's one of my favorite seasons. also, monroe was disgusting, everytime she showed up i was like "oh god, here we go again", the way she's a guidance counselor and talks about killing kids like it's killing a mosquito, she was terrible. and gerard... that man is the devil, that's all i'm gonna say

lydia and malia in the morgue was one of the best scenes of these last episodes for me, when lydia is like "pfff there's no way i'm gonna touch-" and malia just grabs her hand and place it on the corpse, i laughed so hard. i love their friendship.

now can we talk about the way that scott literally clawed his own eyes out to stop the anuk-ite from turning him into stone, i almost died. he's such an angel, he's just genuinely such a good boy i love him so much, i wanted to hug him so badly. the way malia had to kiss him later to trigger the healing process, it was really cute too.

i just think that they did my girl dirty in the last episode, lydia didn't do anything, i was sad. they spend all this time saying how her scream is extremely powerfull and everytime we get to the big fights, she never uses it. i mean, she saw malia turned to stone and literally disappeared until it was time to help scott with the eye thing, i was really upset about it

and of course, stydia. i think they forgot they made it canon, there's no other answer. i don't think they even interacted in the last episode, we were robbed. but at least stiles came back, i literally screamed when he showed up in his jeep, my dad was laughing at my excitement

chris and melissa are a great couple, i loved it for them. but i'm also curious about the movie because with allison coming back, this is going to be a gossip girl situation, but i'm here for it.

the nogitsune saying scott failed allison also broke my heart, i think i cried more than anything while watching the finale lol

well, i guess that's it, at least that's what i could remember. please tell me your thoughts, now that i'm done i'm dying to know! and about jane eyre, i'm reaching the end, she's in the moor house. she just got better and is bonding with the two other girls!

thanks for listening to me, you're really lovely <3

you finished teen wolf!! dear lord it hurts. from the season 6a ending alone i was absolutely devastated, i remember i literally had to go walk around outside for like half an hour because i couldn't take it. read into that as you will.

also, let's talk about theo's character development!! that's how you do it. he could take the boy's pain bc he had grown so much!! still makes me lose it.

no actually scott mccall deserves the world and i will never shut up about that. he is one of the honest to god best tv protagonists i've seen because he's so unselfish and kind it's insane. the clawing the eyes out thing was absolutely brutal and it killed me when i saw it.

yes, lydia was totally misused! it still bothers me that they waited so long to develop her banshee abilities and then she only used them once and twice. she could have been so powerful if she was allowed to be, which is so annoying. and yess the stydia agenda was kind of sidetracked throughout the entirety of that show. they loved teasing it but didn't actually want to show it lol.

i am fascinated to see how the teen wolf movie deals with allison. i loved that the show kept referencing her- i feel like it's super common to have a show that kills off a beloved character and then just never brings them up again? glad that wasn't the case here, but yeah allison somehow coming back from the dead is going to be bizarre.

i love your takes!! i'm so glad you liked the show, and would love to keep talking about teen wolf + future shows if given the chance. teen wolf is honestly one of my favorite shows because i felt such a strong wave of emotions throughout the entirety of it. love it and love you!!

[yugfics]

SECRET LOVE SONG LIM JAEBEOM (ANGST)

/unhappy with your arranged marriage, you find yourself having an affair with the man you fell in love with/

(inspired by & including some lyrics from Secret Love Song by Little Mix feat. Jason Derulo)

'All my heart is yours... it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence forever'

The words seemed to pour from the pages of the book you were holding, reaching out towards your heart and making it their home.

It wasn't the first time you'd read Jane Eyre, but this sentence, underlined and highlighted from rereading, always stood out. You'd memorised it -- like the words had been written especially for you.

Because it brought to mind the man you loved.

You closed the book, keeping your index finger where you'd stopped, leaning backwards onto the headrest of the bed you shared with your husband.

He was doing work in the spare room he used as his study, and you weren't sure when he'd be done -- he usually slept quite late. What he'd told you during dinner came to mind, and you closed your eyes to ponder on it.

The next day he'd be leaving on a business trip. It would last a few days, and you would be left alone. This thought lingered and you enjoyed the prospect of the brief freedom you'd experience. As you imagined everything you'd be able to do, excitement built inside you, causing your stomach to fill with numerous butterflies.

For it would mean you could spend time with the man you loved. Your husband wasn't that man.

You opened your eyes at the sound of your husband's footfalls.

"Mark?" you asked, surprised. "You're done early?"

"Yeah, I," he hesitated, approaching the bed. "Well, I'm leaving tomorrow and I wanted to spend a little more time with you before I went,"

"Oh," you replied, the sound not coming out at all the way you wanted as guilt settled in your stomach. You hated that you were doing this, being unfaithful to the man who was taking care of you and keeping a roof over your head, the man your parents had chosen for you. But what could you do, when your heart belonged to someone else?

You pulled your lips into a smile and pat the bed next to you. "Alright,"

He got in and laid beside you, arms slipping around your waist. It was quiet, and it was peaceful, but you couldn't seem to let yourself get comfortable. Because the only thing you could think about was Jaebeom.

—

You knocked tentatively on his front door.

Earlier that morning you'd said goodbye to your husband and promised that you'd talk at least once every day. After eating your breakfast alone, you'd decided to go meet with Jaebeom.

Now you were regretting not telling him you were coming. It'd been nearly a week since last being face-to-face, and a small part of you always wondered whether he'd get tired of what was going on between the both of you.

If he'd get tired of hiding your love.

The door opened, and as you found yourself looking into Jaebeom's eyes, those eyes that seemed to hold the universe, you felt previous agitation and nervousness fall away, replaced by a strong, unyielding love.

"Jaebeom," you said, softly.

His eyes were wide, and his lips formed a small smile. Before you could move, he pulled you inside, wrapped his arms around your waist, and swung you around.

You squealed at the suddenness of the action, and you both started giggling.

"I missed you," he told you, sincerely, as he set you down and closed the front door.

"I missed you more," you replied, turning to look at the living room of his apartment.

It was exactly the same as you remembered it, save for papers scattered all over the couch and coffee table.

"Are those...?" you began, approaching the mess and recognising the papers. They were your poems.

Along with reading, you had a love for writing, and you often wrote poems for Jaebeom, or simply left them over at his house.

He hurried in front of you, gathering the papers. "It's supposed to be a surprise, I didn't know you'd be coming today,"

"You were going to surprise me with my own poems?" you asked, confused and amused.

"I..." he struggled, trying not to reveal anything and ruin the gift.

"It's alright," you laughed." I know I'll love it if it's from you,"

Finished with putting the papers into a small stack on the coffee table, he approached you, standing opposite you and reaching his hand to push your hair behind your ear.

"How long can you stay?"

"He'll be away for two days. What should we do?"

"Have fun," he replied simply, before lifting his hand that held yours and spinning you around.

You laughed, and he bent forwards, placing a kiss on your hand. "May I have this dance?"

Smiling, you said "Yes,"

—

You sat on the windowseat in Jaebeom's bedroom, reading one of the books you'd left over.

Paintings covered the wall — he'd done them himself — and there were polaroids scattered around as well. He loved taking pictures. Especially of you.

Immersed in the book you were reading, you didn't register the sound of Jaebeom returning from buying lunch. He set the plastic bags on the dining table before walking down the hallway and entering the bedroom.

His eyes fell on your oblivious self, and he couldn't help but smile. You looked so beautiful in his eyes.

When he reached you and you still hadn't looked up from your book, he stood behind you and gently placed a blush-pink rose in the middle of your book.

Momentarily startled, you looked above to see a smiling Jaebeom. He leant forwards and kissed your forehead, causing you to blush.

"I didn't hear you come in,"

"Mhmm," he acknowledged, sitting next to you and pulling you onto his lap. You twirled the flower between your fingers.

"Where'd you get this?"

"On my way back from buying lunch. It was pretty, and it made me think of you, so I bought a few. The rest are in a vase outside,"

"It's beautiful. I love it, thank you,"

"Do you want to go out tomorrow?"

"Where?"

"It's another surprise," he replied, mysteriously. "Tomorrow is the day before your husband returns, so I wanted us go out,"

You nodded, turning to look out the window. There was a comfortable silence for a moment before he spoke. "I wrote a song for you,"

"Really?" you asked excitedly, turning back to him. "You wrote?!"

He laughed softly, embarrassed. "Yes, it's pretty short, though. I just... missed you a lot this past week and, yeah I wrote a song,"

You smiled. "Can I hear it?"

Before he could speak, the both of you were interrupted by your ringtone.

Rising from his lap, you approached the phone you'd left on his desk, among numerous polaroids and pictures. After reading your husband's name on the screen, you picked it up.

After a short while of conversing, you set your phone back down on the table and looked sadly at Jaebeom. "The trip was cut short and he's returning tomorrow morning,"

"Oh," he replied, and you could hear the disappointment in his voice, but he quickly changed his tone. "We have until tonight right? We can still hang out,"

He held your hand and pulled you out of the room and down the hallway. You sat on the couch and he faced you, hands still in yours.

You looked at him expectantly, and he smiled shyly. "Here goes,"

"We keep behind closed doors Every time I see you I die a little more Stolen moments that we steal as the curtain falls It'll never be enough

It's obvious you're meant for me Every piece of you it just fits perfectly Every second, every thought, I'm in so deep But it can never be this way

And you know this, We got a love that is hopeless...

Why can't I say that I'm in love?

I wanna shout it from the rooftops I wish that it could be like that Why can't we be like that? Cause I'm yours

Wish we could be like that Why can't we be like that?"

When he looked back up at you, he saw tears pooling in your eyes. He squeezed your hand and smiled comfortingly. "I didn't mean to make you cry,"

You shook your head. "I loved the song, and I... I'm sorry... I don't want us to be like this either, but... my parents... "

It was your parents who'd arranged for you to marry Mark. They'd said he would make you happy, and you knew that he did love you, but it just wasn't in the way you wanted to be loved. It wasn't the way Jaebeom did.

But you didn't want to upset your parents in their old age, and they always looked so happy when you went to visit them with Mark. You couldn't bear to break their hearts now.

He cupped your face and smiled. "I understand, okay? I love you,"

"I love you, too,"

—

The rest of the day flew by way too quickly, as it often does when one is enjoying themself. Soon, you were sitting beside Jaebeom in his car, parked in front of your house. After a few moments of not knowing what to say, he pressed a small polaroid into your hand.

It was a selfie, both of you smiling. You'd taken it earlier that morning, after dancing and running around like children.

In the white space below the picture, he'd written: "I'm yours,"

You smiled, leaning forwards and kissing his cheek. "I have something for you too—" you placed a carefully folded piece of paper in his hand— "I found time to write it after listening to your song. Read it when I leave,"

He nodded, and neither of your broke eye contact until you spoke, regretful that you'd be leaving him once more. "I… I should go now,"

"Alright," he replied as you opened the door. "Till we meet again~"

Smiling, you waved and closed the door behind you, before approaching your house. Jaebeom unfolded the piece of paper you'd given him. It was a poem, and when he finished reading it three times, he smiled and placed it in his phone case.

not a love that is hopeless but a love that is timeless; a love that will still live on for generations to come

in the poems that I wrote, in the things that you composed, in the memories we created in the things that were our favourite,

yes, ours is a love that will never be lost you're forever mine, and I'm forever yours. ____________ this is @yug.fics on instagram!

[thejgatsbykid]

Hi, I was reading some Charlotte Bronte criticisms and I saw your post so I have a question. I read Jane Eyre a while ago and I got the impression that it was subtly racist and/or xenophobic, and promoting British imperialism? Helen Burn's comment about non-christians, Rochester's comparisons between the non-British women he's loved and his wife vs Jane plus St. John - I feel like Charlotte Bronte leans into and promotes that? What do you think? Thanks and have a nice day.

Thank you for the ask!

So I'm gonna preface this by saying: the majority of British literature from, oh, the 18th century onwards is, by virtue of being British literature during the height of classic colonialism, going to be racist, xenophobic, and pro-imperialist to one degree or another. Even if it's not blatant, unapologetic propaganda (looking at you Rudyard Kipling) it is steeped in the culture of an England that derives almost all of its wealth, resources, value, and cultural identity from being an imperialist oppressor. That's just… unavoidable. It's the background radiation of English society. (Exceptions made, obviously, for specifically anti-colonial and post-colonial literature, but the uhhh majority of the English literary canon is. Not that.) Furthermore, as argued in this article, one purpose of a lot of Victorian literature was to paint over Victorian crimes against humanity- "Many imperial officials moonlighted in both the active (killing) part of the genocides, and the passive PR side. Many were very popular writers, and all their doorstop books were virtuous, virtuous, oh so virtuous."

Charlotte Bronte (and her sisters, and Dickens, and Thomas Hardy, and many other writers of the era) wasn't an imperial officer, obviously. But that doesn't erase the cultural influence that Victorian imperialism had on Victorian writers, nor their dependence on Victorian colonial brutality to maintain their lifestyles of blood-soaked Victorian comfort through stolen wealth. Which isn't to say that none of that literature has value, obviously, just that, you know. It's definitely all at least a little racist.

Jane Eyre, however, definitely falls on the "more" side of the "more or less racist" scale. Jane Eyre is, at times, abominably racist. You've named more instances than I can remember (not having read the entirety of it in uhhh long time) but like… yeah. All of that. Plus the anti-Romani racism in Rochester's weird little fortune teller costume thing (which is just… so fucking weird and uncomfortable for so many reasons lmao) and the inherent racism/xenophobia/imperialism of missionary work as a rule. I assume this is about my Bertha Mason post tho so I'll talk a little more about her.

The paragraph introducing Bertha Mason is by itself, in academic terms, a fucking doozy, in that it refers to her consistently as "it" and describes her with some of the most dehumanizing language I've ever encountered ("whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell" "it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal" "the clothed hyena rose up, and stood tall on its hind-feet" it GOES ON). See here an essay alluding to Bertha Mason's role as a specter of the evils of race-mixing, a la HP Lovecraft, which, yikes!

Now all that isn't to say that all the racism in Jane Eyre makes it, like. Worthless as a novel. Like I said, all Victorian literature is a little racist, backdrop of colonial brutality, maintaining the visage of a polite society through propaganda, etc. Personally I think Jane Eyre sucks and isn't worth reading by itself, and I think, like all the books we venerate as classics, it DEFINITELY needs to be read with a critical eye to its flaws (personally I would pair it with Anne Bronte's Tenant of Wildfell Hall or Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper to highlight the violence against women, or with Conrad's The Heart of Darkness or another anti-imperialist book (sadly I'm not as well versed in anti or post colonial literature as I'd like to be, I'm dead certain there are Indian or Caribbean writers with some bangin post-colonial lit to contrast) to highlight the racist/colonial themes) but, like, I only have a bachelor's in lit so the Literary Canon doesn't care what I have to say lmao.