#polishing it up before uploading the full chapter

[everysatelliteandstar]

“So this is Yoo Jae-ha,” says the man under his breath, eyeing Yeon Kyung’s companion, and her cheeks turn a shade of pink as she hears him.

“Did you say something?” asks Jae-ha, turning to look at him, but the man reassumes his smile and shakes his head.

“Just talking to myself,” he grins, reaching for his coat on the rack by the door. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss…”

“Choi Yeon Kyung,” she answers, dipping her head slightly. “And you were…?”

“Heo Im,” he introduces himself with a similar gesture.

This gets Jae-ha’s attention. “Heo Im?” he questions, turning once again to face him. “Like the famous Joseon physician?”

He laughs shortly. “Yes, just like that.”

— excerpt from Chapter 1 of "on a crowded street in 1944..."

[fourraccoonsinacoat]

Head Full of Ghosts: Chapter 3

Pairing: Astarion x Dark Urge

Summary: Takes place during the events of Baldur's Gate 3 and explores the romance between Astarion and the Dark Urge, as well as the friendships and relationships she has with her companions. Plus, everyone gives shit to Gale about his cooking. Tags: Slow Burn, Angst, Pining, Humor, Violence, Friends to Lovers, Developing Friendships, Developing Romance, Spoilers for the Dark Urge and BG3 in general, Dark Urge as Original Female Character Rating: Mature (Will eventually be Explicit, just not there yet.) Current Chapter Count: 3/? Read on AO3 Current Word Count: 13,050

Author Notes: I'm finishing up the fourth chapter and realized I never uploaded this chapter to Tumblr. So here we are! Getting this fic back on track and should have the next chapter up soon.

Chapter 3: Monsters

“You know she is a hag, yes?” Lae’zel’s severe and even voice cut through the sticky swamp air like a hot knife through a wedge of Durinbold cheese. 

The bog was a foul place, both in atmosphere and in smell. The air was thick with humidity and an ever-present smell of wet rot. Trees sagged and bent at jagged angles, their tired limbs wilting in the gloom, and a thin fog seemed to permeate every corner of the swamp. A hazy light filtered through the tree canopy, casting blotchy shadows upon the muddy ground. 

The path the four companions were following sank into marsh every several yards, forcing the group to pick their way through mire and muck. The slog was slow, and there was much complaining. Especially from one particular high elf who no one had told not to wear freshly polished leather boots. 

“I am like…seventy percent sure she is a hag, yeah,” Eli answered as she carefully stepped over a rotted tree limb, half submerged in murky filth. “I mean, she’s entirely too eccentric to just be a normal human, right?” 

She looked over to Astarion for support, who was currently trying to rub some manner of sludge off his doublet.

“She certainly isn’t playing Three-Dragon Ante with a full deck, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Astarion replied coolly before throwing up his hands and huffing in irritation, the stain unyielding.

Lae’zel hummed for a moment, considering. “Gale is eccentric and a normal human, is he not?” she questioned, amber eyes fixing on their resident wizard who, at the moment, was trying to free the hem of his robe from the clawing grasp of a gnarled tree root.   

Eli sighed. “Gale has a magic bomb capable of leveling entire cities in his chest. I would not call that normal.”

“You wound me, Eli.” Gale responded in a good-natured tone as he tugged his robe free and the group began moving once more.

“You consumed an enchanted bracer yesterday at breakfast,” Eli quipped, recalling the morning fondly. Karlach had been fascinated, quickly trying to get Gale to absorb several other items from their camp hoard and asking him if he “took on their powers,” as she put it. 

Eli chuckled at the memory before concluding, “You’re as deranged as the rest of us and it’s not up for debate.”

Their little group really had become a hodgepodge of oddities over the past few days. Karlach was settling in well, because where else would she fit other than with their traveling sideshow which included a vampire who could walk in the sun, a warlock who was recently transformed into a part-devil by his patron, an amnesiac with the compulsion to murder anything that looked at her crossly, and all the rest of them. 

Eli was starting to wonder if she had a penchant for picking up emotionally constipated strays. They were all kind of outcasts in some way or another. People just trying to get along in a world that had kicked them in the teeth and tossed them out with the garbage. She still had no idea why they’d all just sort of accepted her as their group’s figurehead, but she was beginning to feel a certain affinity for their gang of misfits. They were all fighting battles both within and without, and Eli couldn’t help but feel a certain kinship with people who were struggling with their own personal demons, just as she was.

At least as the day wore on her constant headache had faded to a dull throb, rather than the brain splitting white-hot pain she’d been experiencing. Her memories were still lost, and whenever she tried to call upon them she was only met with flashes of red violence. Images of mangled bodies, ruptured limbs, stringy viscera…it all melted and jumbled together in a confusing blur of chaos. Her dreams were no better, and her nighttime raids on the camp’s supply of books and wine were no secret among the party. Both Shadowheart and Karlach had even joined her on separate occasions. Hells, she’d have a proper book club up and running soon.

“So,” Lae’zel’s stern voice brought Eli out of her musings. “You trust this hag?”

“No,” Eli nearly spat the word out in a laugh. Auntie Ethel, as she called herself, was a lot of things, and trustworthy was not one of them. Astarion’s assessment of Ethel as ‘positively demented’ was accurate, and hags were not known as an honest sort.

“Good,” said Lae’zel, slightly drawing out the word in approval. “Lest I remind you that the only way to remove a ghaik tadpole is a Zaith'isk.”

Eli could feel the gith’s eyes on her and she did her best not to bristle under what she was sure was a judgmental stare. “I am aware,” Eli said, trying to sound unfazed and relatively certain she was failing miserably.

Lae’zel continued to press. “And a Zaith'isk can only be found at a gith creche.” She laid emphasis on the last two words, as if she were pointing something obvious out to a very dimwitted child.

Eli felt the back of her neck and ears start to go warm as irritation stirred in her chest and tightened her shoulders. The throbbing headache at the back of her skull began to growl. 

“You don’t say…” Eli replied, quietly pleading to whatever deity she couldn’t remember worshipping to please just let her have the rest of the day without feeling like her brain was on fire. 

“I just did say.” Lae’zel shot back, drawing a sidelong glare from Eli.

Eli liked Lae’zel. For the most part. When she wasn’t threatening tiefling refugees or complaining about the lack of spice in Gale’s cooking. Though, to her credit, Gale’s food was kind of bland. 

The gith fighter was blunt, stubborn, opinionated, fierce and one hell of a talent when it came to steel and blade. Eli appreciated Lae’zel’s steadfast loyalty and belief in her people’s culture, and even felt a slight pang of jealousy for it. It grounded the warrior and gave her a perspective from which to view the world, something Eli did not have. Culture, family, heritage…they were the building blocks of a person. Even if a person rejected or outgrew those foundational aspects of themselves, they still provided guiderails – or at the very least an anchor for one’s identity. 

Without those things, Eli felt adrift and directionless in a vast and swirling ocean, constantly beaten upon the rocks before being dragged back down to drown.  

“Explain to me why we are seeking this hag who you do not trust and who cannot remove the tadpole,” Lae’zel said, driving at a point Eli knew was coming and one she wasn’t sure she had a decent argument against. “Instead, should we not be pursuing a more productive course of action?”

Eli sighed, rubbing at her temples as her headache began to mount. “I’m curious,” she responded rather lamely. 

“I see,” Lae’zel said with a tone that indicated the gith was wholly unimpressed by Eli’s reasoning. “So, the situation at Emerald Grove continues to escalate, goblins continue to terrorize the Sword Coast, the druid healer remains missing, and the tadpoles in our brains remain unremoved.” Eli internally cringed at the chiding way in which Lae’zel spoke. “But, let us humor your curiosity. What is the worst that could happen?”

The question hung in the air uneasily. The worst that could happen was…really fucking bad. Everyone could die. Eli and her merry band of misfits could all turn into mind flayers. The Grove could fall under the absolute rule of a tyrant and racist. And the Sword Coast could get fully and aggressively fucked. Why was this all her problem, again?

“Lae’zel, was that sarcasm I just heard?” Astarion chimed in, and Eli felt a pull of appreciation towards him. He probably hadn’t meant to run interference between Eli and her interrogator, but she was thankful for it all the same. 

Truth be told, there was a small part of her that hoped Auntie Ethel did have a solution for their tadpole troubles. While they weren’t the most honorable of sorts, hags were rather enterprising and shrewd. And given the nature of their unconventional problem, an unconventional solution would more than likely be required. Besides, if things went south, they could just kill her. That seemed to be a particular specialty of their group. 

“Sarcasm often accompanies truth,” Lae’zel said with a pointed tone. 

Astarion chuckled lightly and Eli felt something not unlike faint affection flutter in her chest. She very quickly shoved it down into the black hole within herself where all the things she didn’t want to deal with went. Nope. That wasn’t good. That was the very last thing she needed right now. 

It had been happening more and more since the night she’d made a complete fool of herself, drunkenly asking him if they were still friends. Still friends. Gods, she was such a loser, and Astarion surely thought she was a total basket case after that encounter. But, every now and then, he’d give her a smirk or say something that caused a laugh to bubble up, and then that weird and endearing feeling would creep up and holy shit was this not the time or the place! Besides, that man had more red flags than a circus, and it wasn’t like Eli was a bastion of sanity, so together they’d be about as functional as wet hot garbage. 

“How profound,” Astarion continued, oblivious to Eli’s distressing mental spiral. “This little jaunt in the swamp does seem to be a rather unhygienic deviation from more pressing concerns.” 

The appreciation she’d felt for him earlier poofed away, and Eli glared. “I will turn this whole party around if you all don’t stop your complaining!”

Astarion’s eyes lit up with delight. “Oh, please do! I worry the putrid scent of squalor and anguish is never coming out of my clothes.” He ran his hands down his doublet, trying to smooth out some wrinkles, and sighed in an overdramatic fashion.

“I, for one, am looking forward to seeing Ethel again,” Gale chimed in as they continued to trod down the muddy path. All of them would be washing muck off their clothes for days. “Fey and the like often have access to magic that even a wizard of my caliber cannot wield. This deviation - as you put it, Astarion - could prove very advantageous if we play our cards right.”

Eli resisted the urge to glance over her shoulder at Astarion, who had surely just rolled his eyes so hard he could see up into his own skull. She could practically feel the disdain radiating off of him and pointedly kept her eyes ahead, scanning the dreary bogland for any sign that they may be nearing Auntie Ethel’s dwelling.

It took Astarion all but two seconds to quip back at the wizard. “Gale, your opinion is like the filth on my boots. Unwanted and irritating,” he said with all the cheer of a muddy wet cat as he paused to kick some grime off the bottom of one of said boots.

“It is a wonder any of you have survived this long,” Lae’zel said, glowering at Astarion as he continued to preen. 

“We are a rather astonishing group, aren’t we?” Eli asked with a small smirk, glancing back at the gith.

Lae’zel just rolled her eyes.

Eli was glad for the banter, as it provided some distraction from the pulsating headache growing behind her eyes. However, as they rounded a bend in the path where the trail began to climb upwards towards the interior of the bog, snaking away from the swampy shoreline, Eli was struck with a surging agony that flashed white hot throughout her head. She doubled over, the heel of her hand pressing into the ridge of her brow as a hiss escaped from behind her clenched teeth. Her stomach churned angrily, a hunger rising from deep within that neither food nor drink would satiate. Her head felt as if it were shattering into fragments, her conscious self being pulled apart at the seams as something else tried to push its way to the surface. Something feral, and frenzied and starved.

From somewhere behind her, Eli thought she heard Gale muttering a question. She then felt a hand on her shoulder and wanted nothing more in the world than to seize it and dig her nails into the supple flesh. She wanted to smell the crisp metallic tang of blood in the air as her fingers peeled back skin as if she were pulling the rind off a particularly ripe fruit, bloody pulp exposed and raw. The thought of her fingers sliding between muscle and skin, slick with blood, feeling fibrous sinew tear away and hearing the wet squelch and pop as she degloved flesh from limb…   

Fist clenched, her nails dug into the palm of her hand as she fought to keep control. A pleasurable shiver ran down her spine as her mind entertained depraved thoughts, and for a moment she thought she may vomit where she knelt. She was not herself. Her mind was splintering with a hundred craven desires…she wanted to walk across fields of ruptured bodies and feel the viscera turn to jam between her toes. Her muscles tensed and she flinched away from the hand, standing in a near delirious state and muttering some nonsense about “needing a minute” before stumbling off into the fen. 

Eli needed to put distance between herself and her companions. At least for the moment. At least until her head cleared. She slogged through the wetland, unfocused on where she was going, until she felt a dampness seeping through her boots. She stopped and blinked, trying to wrench her consciousness back from the brink. As her sight cleared and the world around her came back into focus, Eli found herself standing ankle-deep in water near a riverbank, looking out over the vast and gloomy expanse of the Chionthar River - the opposite bank obscured by fog. 

Sloshing her way back to shore, Eli stepped back onto somewhat solid ground just as she heard a rustling in the thicket. Her eyes shot up to see Astarion picking through the snarl of brush and weeds that bordered the muddy shoreline. His expression was one of exasperated frustration, brow furrowed and mouth pulled into a grimace, as he tugged a booted foot free of the clinging bramble. 

“Gods below, this entire place needs to be tossed into Avernus,” he grumbled as he plucked a bur off his doublet and flicked it to the ground. Astarion then glanced up at her, crimson eyes guarded, although Eli thought she caught the glimmer of something else in his gaze…a flash of something softer. But it came and went like a spark catching alight then burning out just as quickly. “Are you…alright?” 

His tone was hesitant and uncertain, as if he were unused to the concept of asking after someone else. Astarion had an edge about him that never seemed to dull, as if he were always acting under the assumption that those around him would lash out at any given moment without warning. Eli wasn’t sure why, but she felt as if she recognized that particular brand of uneasiness. It was a tension that came from an impartial distrust of anyone and anything. A response to a life lived in a constant state of conflict, always ready for fight or flight. Something gnawed at the far recesses of her mind, tugging at a memory she couldn’t quite grasp. She understood that feeling, though she did not know why…

“I think I am. Now, at least," Eli said, rubbing at her eyes as her headache growled but remained tempered. Her mind seemed to be clearing and realigning itself to the present, no longer at risk of breaking and letting loose whatever atrocity lay coiled up inside herself. “You didn’t have to follow me out here. I just needed a moment to collect my thoughts.”

Astarion eyed her and raised a brow, disbelief apparent on his face. “My dear, whatever just happened in that pretty head of yours is not nearly as frivolous as you’re trying to make it seem.” 

Eli winced internally. He was right, of course, and it wasn’t as if she had been subtle when she’d walked off aimlessly into the bog after being doubled over and obviously in pain. Hell, given how she must have looked in that moment, he’d probably followed her to make sure she didn’t trod blindly into a sinkpit or end up ensnared by some flesh-eating swamp ficus.

She sighed and ran a hand absentmindedly through her silvery hair. “I just don’t want to worry people,” Eli conceded. “We have enough to deal with, without adding my violent mood swings and absconded memory to the mix.” She spread her hands out, as if the gesture could represent the absolute shitstorm they dealt with on a daily basis.

Astarion considered her for a moment, expression thoughtful and impassive, before he shook his head with a small smile. “I believe you were the one who pointed out earlier that everyone in our weird little group is ‘deranged,’ as you put it.” He emphasized her choice of wording with a gesture of his hands, pantomiming plucking the word out of thin air.

The action brought a soft smile to her lips. She enjoyed Astarion’s embellishments and dramatics. The elf had a flare for the extravagant that she found both endearingly silly and strangely alluring…

Nope. No. Stop it. She shoved that twinge of attraction back down into the deep dark hole within and refocused herself. “Yeah, well, one of us needs to at least act somewhat sensible,” Eli quipped with a smirk. “Can’t have Zevlor and his lot figuring out how truly unhinged we all are. We may not get paid,” she said the last bit with more than a little fake indignation. 

Astarion played along, pretending to be scandalized and clutching his nonexistent pearls. “Now that would be a tragedy. I have every intention of hiring a witch at the first opportunity to hex Gale’s cookpot so it will only produce boiled squid,” he said cheerily. “I’m assuming that won’t be cheap.” 

Amused with himself, Astarion tipped his chin up, smirking at Eli with all the wiliness of a fox. For her part, Eli just rolled her eyes but couldn’t stop a grin from spreading on her face as she imagined Gale, flustered and put out, ranting about the juvenile use of magic. 

A thought occurred to her, then. Something unbidden and completely inane, but one she latched onto desperately. It was a joke that had bubbled up from the deep recesses of her broken memory, and though she had no idea where she heard it or in what context, she was delighted at the prospect of finding something among the rubble of her ruined mind. It set the tiniest flicker of hope alight within her that maybe, eventually, she may be able to recover more. 

Eyes bright, and with a reserved sort of hopefulness stirring in her chest, she gave Astarion a genuinely dorky grin and blurted out with all the self-restraint of a toddler; “What do you call a magician who cooks?”

Surprise overtook the elf’s face, and he tilted his head curiously with a small laugh, thrown by the sudden and highly abrupt tangent. Before he could speak, however, a snap sounded in the brush behind the pair. Both Eli and Astarion turned to find a man, tall and well built with slicked back hair the color of burnt coffee. His mouth, framed by a neatly kept goatee, was turned down in a grimace, jaw clenched, and in his hands the man held a very large crossbow - loaded and aimed in their direction. 

“I’d think twice before you get much closer to him, miss,” the stranger warned, eyes darting from Eli to Astarion as if he expected the elf to set upon him any second. “He’s dangerous.”

Eli frowned at the stranger, fingers curling reflexively into the beginning gesture for her Eldritch Blast incantation. “And yet you’re the one with a crossbow pointed at me,” she said warily, watching the man’s fingers for any twitch or movement on the trigger. 

Next to her, she could feel Astarion stiffen defensively, but he remained quiet. Had the stranger not had a crossbow bolt aimed in her direction, Eli would have been more curious who he was and his connection to Astarion. Due to his comments, she assumed he was aware of Astarion’s vampirism, though she couldn’t be certain. Her curiosity, however, would have to simmer in the face of their current predicament. 

“Call it a precaution,” the stranger said before tipping the crossbow in the direction of Astarion. “You know what he is? Vampire spawn.” He said the last bit as if it was supposed to be some revelation, venom laced within his words. 

Eli studied the tip of the crossbow bolt, noting how the sharpened edge glimmered faintly in the hazy light. Silver? She glanced back and caught the man’s eyes with her own, a growing dislike darkening her expression. 

“Old news, my friend,” she said with more than a hint of antagonistic sarcasm. “Known that since I met him.” 

This drew a somewhat startled noise from Astarion, whose gaze she could suddenly feel turn to her. “You did?” he asked with a genuine note of surprise in his voice. 

Astarion had not admitted to being a vampire spawn until the night Eli caught him creeping in on her as she slept, hungry and poised to bite. Up until that point, though, he’d done a rather poor job of concealing his nature. What with the bite scars on his neck and his pale, almost pearlescent, complexion. The fact he could walk in sunlight was an oddity, of course, but given that she’d just flown through Avernus on a mind flayer ship after having an illithid tadpole inserted into her brain, a vampire traipsing about in the sun wasn’t even the weirdest thing she’d seen that day.   

She chanced a quick sidelong glance at Astarion and quirked an eyebrow. “Well, yeah. It was kind of the worst kept secret in Faerûn. Shadowheart and I even had a bet about who you’d try to bite first.” Eli still owed her a bottle of sweetwine, come to think of it.

She shook the thought from her head and turned her attention back to the stranger who still had his crossbow trained on them. “Mind introducing yourself before you start a fight you’ll regret?” she asked, watching his body language for any sign that he may back down now he knew Eli was fully aware of her companion’s condition.

The stranger glared at her, and Eli sighed. Another day, another fight with some ignorant douchecanoe who was wasting the last moments of their life antagonizing her. That darkness inside of her, the thing that craved slaughter and whose language was only violence, shifted restlessly like a dog in a cage, pressing at the barricades with a cruel need. She fought to push it back, but gods she could imagine her hands tearing into his gut, ripping dying organs from the yawning wound, warm and wet. The iron scent of blood in the air. The agony twisting his face as he writhed. It would be beautiful brutality. 

Her headache was mounting once again, and through the throbbing pressure she heard the man say; “You can call me monster hunter.”

He braced his crossbow, targeting Astarion, and Eli was moving faster than coherent thought. She felt a force collide with her left shoulder, nearly knocking her off balance, and then the world melted away into a manic savagery that was both achingly familiar and terrifyingly transcendent. 

Flesh would rend. Bone would snap. And her hunger would be sated. For now. 

The headache faded, and Eli was suddenly aware of a thick and deep pain radiating from her shoulder. Her mind swam dully, like a bobber struggling to stay above water as forces tried to pull it down. She felt…tired. Dazed. 

Why was she on the ground? Was that her blood spattered across her bracers? Why was Astarion yelling?

“Godsdamnit! Why would you do that!” 

Something jostled her, and the pain in her shoulder flared. She groaned and tried to turn her head towards Astarion’s voice only to find she was propped up against him. He was kneeling next to her, a hand braced against her back to keep her seated upright while his other hand pressed into her shoulder. She grimaced, trying to ignore the searing agony rocketing down her left side, but found herself unable to focus. 

She looked up into Astarion’s face, head bobbing to the side, and squinted at him. A range of emotions flitted across his face as he looked down at her. Anger, frustration, exasperation…all common day-to-day expressions for the snarky and uppity elf. But there was something else, too. Something in the clench of his jaw, the tightness of his lips and the way his sharp, clear eyes stayed fixed on her. Concern…

“Do…what?” she asked, confused. 

Eli continued to watch his face, thinking dully about when she’d ever seen him worried and coming up with nothing. Well, she wasn’t in a great state of mind at the moment and kind of just wanted to go to sleep. She was probably just forgetting…

Her mind drifted…eyes closing wearily…

Astarion shook her gingerly and she let out a noise somewhere between a hiss and a growl. “That bolt you idiotically decided to jump in front of was laced with poison! Do. Not. Fall. Asleep.” He pressed at the wound on her shoulder and her eyes wrenched back open, pain flooding her senses and slamming adrenaline into her system.

“Fucking rude!” she yelped. 

Then, the pain was fading and a slow numbness was creeping down from her shoulder. It felt cold and soothing, and she was so tempted to just relax into it and fade away. Her head dropped and came to rest against his chest, eyelids fluttering closed again. 

“I think I just like to annoy you…” she said weakly, then gave a hiccupping sort of laugh. 

Astarion was trying to jostle her out of the daze again, only this time there was no pain and she felt too content to open her eyes as her head rested against him. 

“Eli! Eli! Shit!” He sounded so far away. So far…far…away…

“What do you call a magician who cooks?” Astarion asked, a hint of panic coiling around his words. 

From somewhere very distant, Eli remembered she hadn’t finished telling him her joke. A small laugh caught in her throat as she thought about it…but she really didn’t feel like talking right now. Gods, she wanted to sleep…

Astarion was shaking her again. “What do you call a magician who cooks! Eli!”

Fucking hell, he was loud. 

Eli groaned and tried to lift her head. Too heavy… 

…she needed to finish the joke…

“A…saucerer…” she said lamely, then laughed, head still slumped against his chest. She’d have to tell Gale…

There was some muttering, then a feeling of being lifted. The ground was gone. Her arms sagged. 

“You will not die,” she heard Astarion say from miles away. “You will not die because that was just awful, and it will not be the last thing you ever say."

Eli smiled to herself. She was hilarious…

Everything went dark.

[kazoosandfannypacks]

summary: when sworn academic rivals Belle French and August Booth are put in the same group for a presentation, things get out of hand— not in the predictable arguing or usual banter, but instead in Belle and August spitefully asking each other out on a date.

word count: 6K words (five chapters, all uploaded at once)

a/n: i started this one a while back but finally came around, polished it up, and got it finished for you guys! I wanna warn you going into this that it is horribly out of character, especially since most of my beauty and the puppet fics are very soft, and this one is a bit... crunchier? edgier? anyways, it's great and we love it. shoutout to the loyal and spectacular @kanerallels for betaing!

taglist: @kanerallels  @accidental-spice  @poptart-cat-78  @booksteaandtoomuchtv  @silver-the-phoenix  {if you’d like to be added to or removed from my Beauty and the Puppet taglist, let me know!}

the first chapter is here, but you can read the full story on ao3!

Calling Bluffs- Chapter 1:  the group assignment that doesn't go as planned

 If you'd asked August who he'd pick as his partners for this group assignment, he wouldn't've picked the class clown and his academic rival.

 If you'd asked Belle to pick her partners, she wouldn't've picked Will— she'd made that mistake before— and she certainly wouldn't've picked the only other student in class whose intellect came close to hers— not nearly her equal, if course, but pretentious enough you wouldn't know the difference.

 If you'd asked Will who he'd pick as his partners, he'd've been smart enough not to say the two smartest students in class— the only people on campus stubborn enough to push him to do some of the work himself.

 And yet, when Professor Heller announced the team assignments in class last Monday, he put August, Belle, and Will in the same group.

 And so, Belle found herself in her dorm room with Will and August, sitting around their textbooks and a bag of chips, trying to work on a presentation about classic American Literature.

 "So, what were everyone's ideas for this presentation?" Belle asked.

 "Oh?" August said, "you're actually going to condescend to such lowly individuals as anyone-who's-not-you and actually listen to our input?"

 "I don't know," Belle rolled her eyes, having already failed at starting this project as professionally as possible, "are you going to share intelligent input?"

 "More intelligent than some people here," August glared at Will.

 "For your information," Will rushed to his own defense, "I actually do have an idea."

 Belle knew Will too well than to suspect this would be a good idea.

 "Let's hear it," August said.

 "Our report's on great American writers, right?"

 "Classic American writers," August corrected.

 "Exactly!" Will said, "and who's a more classic writer than famous songwriter Rick Astley? I suggest we start our presentation with…"

 Belle cut him off before he could finish vocalizing his stupidity. "We're not rickrolling our classmates."

 "You didn't even let me finish!" Will said.

 "But was she wrong in her assumption?" August asked.

 "What's that got to do with anything?" Will asked, "Literature is all about conveying emotion, and it's hard to put to words that emotion you feel when an inconspicuous link leads to Never Gonna Give You Up."

 "We're not gonna rickroll the rest of the class," August said.

 "Yeah," Belle agreed with August for the first time that semester, "some of us actually care about our grades."

 "A little too much," August said.

 "For the sake of diplomacy I'll ignore that hypocrisy," Belle said, trying as she may not to get into one of those petty academic feuds they so often partook in, "did you have any ideas that won't fail us immediately, August?"

 "As a matter of fact, I do," he said, "we pick an author, each of us writing a synopsis about a different aspect about them- such as recurring themes, personal lives and how it affected their literature, or effects on their works in the academic community- and then compile our findings, using the same template for the PowerPoint so it looks like we actually worked together on the project."

 "An unexpectedly great idea," Belle said.

 "I'm down for it," Will said, "how about I create the PowerPoint while you guys work on the boring stuff?"

 "I don't think so," August said, "in a group project, everyone brings something to the table- something more than throwing a PowerPoint together. What exactly do you bring to this group?"

 "For one thing," Will said, taking a few chips from the bag in front of them, "Doritos."

 "You'll have to try harder than that," August said, "we won't do your work for you."

 "August," Belle said, leaning closer and motioning for him to do the same, speaking in hushed tones so Will wouldn't be as likely to hear, "do you really want to be graded based on how Mr. Astley's biggest fan over here writes a report?"

 They watched Will stack six Doritos on top of each other and shove the whole stack in his mouth at once.

 "He's trying to take advantage of my intellect and your stubborn persistence not to appear imperfect," August said.

 "Will has a special set of gifts," Belle explained, "and one of them is graphic design. He can make our PowerPoint look so professional that no one will notice how pretentious you sound while you're presenting."

 "And to cover up for whatever your intellect may be lacking," August clapped back, then turned to Will, "I think we can make that work- just promise me you won't troll the rest of the class."

 "What if I find a way to thematically tie it into our selected author's themes and narratives?" Will asked.

 "Deal," Belle rolled her eyes again.

 "No deal!" August said, appalled.

 "You wanted him to do research," Belle said, "and he'll do best if he's researching something he's passionate about."

 "And next he'll be comparing The Gifts of the Magi to tortilla chips."

 "I care about more than just tortilla chips," Will scoffed, "there's potato chips too. But believe it or not, I am capable of getting us an A on this assignment."

 "You'd better be,' August said.

 There was silence for a moment as Belle picked up her textbook.

 "Which author would you guys like to write about?" Belle asked, "Hawthorne, Poe, Hemingway…"

 "Samuel Clemens?" August suggested.

 "Everyone is going to do an assignment on Samuel Clemens," Belle said, "that's the most basic answer you could've chosen."

 "You suggested Edgar Alan Poe, and you think Samuel Clemens was a basic suggestion?" August asked, "any self-proclaimed academic would come up with that one."

 "O'Henry then?" Belle asked.

 "Fine by me," August said, "I'll work on the themes and analysis if you wanna study his personal life."

 "So you think the personal life is the easy part, then?" Belle asked.

 "Pardon my display of chivalry," August said, "I simply thought you'd enjoy digging into people's history. Which part of the report would you prefer to give?"

 "Personal life is fine," Belle said, "I wrote about his themes back in high school and want to give myself a challenge this time."

 "And I'll put together the PowerPoint based on what you find," Will said.

 "Meet back here next week to compare findings?" Belle asked.

 "Fine by me," August said.

 "But you guys are bringing chips to the table next week," Will said.

 "Gladly," August said.

 As they began to pack up their supplies, Belle's roommate, Ruby walked in.

 "Hey, Ruby," Belle said.

 "Working on your Classic American Literature project?"

 "Just finished deliberating about it," Belle said, as Ruby sat down at her desk.

 "My group finally settled on an author," Ruby said, "we're gonna present on O'Henry."

 The others all sighed.

 "I told you that was a basic choice," August snapped at Belle.

 "You said Poe was basic," Belle said, curtly, "and that O'Henry would be fine."

 "Let's just do Hawthorne instead."

 "May as well," Belle said.

 "Doesn't matter to me." Will said.

 "Oh, hey, Belle," Ruby said, pulling out her phone, "don't forget to take out the trash."

 "Take out the trash?" Belle asked. Tired of trying her best to be civil, she turned to August, "fine then, wanna go out sometime?"

 It was a cheap shot, but she had to take it.

 "I suppose I have to say yes," August stood up, "it's my turn to take out the trash as well. Tomorrow at six?"

 "Sounds like a date," Belle crossed her arms.

 It wasn't until after the guys left that Belle turned to Ruby and asked, "what just happened?"

 "I think you just got yourself a date," Ruby said, not even looking up from her phone.

 "We were only arguing with each other," Belle explained, "it's a thing, ya know?"

 "Arguing, flirting," Ruby said, "it's all the same thing the way you two do it."

 "You don't," Belle laughed, "you don't think there's anything between August and I, do you?"

 "You mean besides chemistry, tension, and half the campus shipping you?" Ruby asked, "not at all."

 "The rest of our peers think there's something between August and I?" Belle asked.

 "Some of the teachers do too."

 "The same August who refutes everything I say in every class we have together?"

 "He's obsessed with you," Ruby said.

 "Obsessed with hating me," Belle said, "I can't stand him."

 "Yeah," Ruby smiled, "he 'can't stand' you either. That's why he asked you out."

 "We can't carry on a civil conversation," Belle said, "he's a pretentious know-it-all who's always trying to one up me. Why do you think he asked me out as a joke after I asked him? He can't stand being second to me. Knowing him, he'll probably show up at our door with a bouquet of cheap flowers tomorrow night, just to spite me."

 "How is that spiteful?" Ruby asked.

 "Trying to get me to back down from fake asking him out," Belle said, "I'll just have to be one step ahead."

 "How's that?" Ruby asked, "getting all ready for a date, just in case he does show up?"

 "Exactly," Belle said.

 Ruby sighed and rolled her eyes.

read the full story on ao3!

[hypnogoopgardennerd]

So, I just seen the One Piece Life Action Trailer and I loved it, but there are some things that I have to say.

First of all, I'll say all of the good things I saw so far:

The characters design is awesome! I had some doubts with the chosen cast at some point but now I can say that they chose the best options. I seen some people complaining about Nami's hair but I think they are overreacting. Zoro looks straight up taken from the manga. Sanji and Usopp had a great adaptation and Iñaki Godoy is the best option to play Luffy. Also, the background characters look amazing (Koby is also taken from the manga and they seem to be respecting the original designs very well), and Buggy looks incredible.

The scenarios are also really good. I believe they made a great job with the ships design, even though I think that in some places (like at the beginning with the Going Merry and later on Morgan's base) they took some liberties and it looks a bit bit weird (still not bad, just different).

Second of all, I'll say all of the bad things I saw so far (not really bad things either, just not that good and a bit worrying):

The CGI need a little bit of polish. I wasn't expecting Luffy stretching to look realistic (I don't really think it's possible) but in some scenes you could really see that the ship in the water is not real. I think that mostly everyone thought that what was going to be the most complicated thing to adapt was going to be the CGI. I don't think that all of the series will look that weird, just in some of this parts were there is too much CGI going on.

I still fear that they might had included too much history on a single season. Even if it's the most logical thing to do (make a season of a saga) I think that adapting the first 100 chapters of the manga in a eight chapters season might be a mistake, maybe they'll end up leaving behind too much history. I surely don't think that they'll do a Sherlock (a season with chapters that are over an hour long) but maybe I'm overeating (I hope I am).

Lastly, what wasn't good but wasn't great:

The script writing. We really can't comment about the writing yet, since we had (literally) two lines and Luffy s monologue (which will probably won't make it to the final product). We also have to be realistic, we can't expect every single line to be exactly like the anime or the manga (they aren't the exact same lines in there either, the ones in the anime are more complex that the ones we seen in the manga).

Extra point!

The fact that the trailer got uploaded in Twitter BEFORE One Piece appeared in the TUDUM2023 event was very disrespectful. It's not fair that there was people watching the full event, patiently waiting for One Piece (for HOURS) and then, ten minutes before the crew appears on stage, the trailer gets released and those who were waiting for it leave. I almost got spoiled by a friend while I was STILL watching the event, that was a dick move Netflix (well, what does Netflix do that isn't a dick move...).

That's all I have to say! I hope you guys enjoyed this Trailer as much as I did!

[itsamenickname]

If you're still doing that writer's ask thing, I have a question:

💌

(Btw, I found your Bowuigi story earlier today and I freakin love it!!!!! I can't wait to see how the awesome story ends!!!!)

Aww, thank you so much anon! 😊 I apologize that it's taking me a while to get back on my feet, but trust me when I say that I have every full intention of finishing To Break the Bonds Within Two Kingdoms. :) (I already have the ending planned out, but it's more so of a matter of me taking some time to sit down and polish up the last two chapters (especially after I took an almost 2-month hiatus from writing). 😅))

And to answer your question, yes, I'm still accepting questions from the writer's ask (this specific post is what anon is referring to). :) As a way to make things easier for everyone who's reading this, I'll paste the question right next to the emoji/symbol so that everyone will know what anon is specifically asking.

💌 question: "Share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

So if you remember this post I made a while back, once I'm back on my feet, I am planning to upload a one-shot story before I start working on To Break the Bonds Within Two Kingdoms again. As I'm writing this response, there are two one-shot ideas that I've thought about for at least a few months (especially the second idea I'll talk about because that idea was a story I was originally going to work on after I finish TBTBWTK).

(Adding a cut here because the 2nd WIP will contain spoilers to TBTBWTK)

Idea/WIP 1: So the title of this WIP is called, Till Death Do Us Part My Sweet Little Bride and I'll start by saying right away that this story is a lot different than TBTBWTK because it's a one-sided angst Bowuigi story. Now to provide context on the events that happened before the actual story, Bowser kidnapped Luigi because he decided that he wanted to marry him instead of Peach (haven't figured out on Bowser's actual reason in wanting to marry Luigi instead of Peach yet). Now at first, Luigi was pretty compliant in waiting for Mario to rescue him, but minutes before the actual wedding would take place, Luigi made the brave and bold decision to attack the Shy Guy who was taking him to Bowser's throne room and make an escape attempt (the reason he did this is because he noticed that there were no other guards nearby who could stop him from escaping. It was just Luigi and that one Shy Guy in the hallway.) After Luigi attacks the minion/guard, the story would then center around Luigi trying to escape Bowser's Castle (while wearing a wedding dress), but would then hide in one of the guest rooms after he hears Bowser's voice and realizes that Bowser is now actively looking for him. (I will point out that this idea was kind of inspired by @jelixpo angst Bowuigi's au (which y'all can read about here), but the very first inspirations of this idea was me wanting to write a one-shot angst Bowuigi story after I finish TBTBWTK and the idea of Luigi wearing a dress to his wedding.))

Idea/WIP 2: I haven't found a title I like for this WIP yet, but similar to Till Death Do Us Part My Sweet Little Bride, this is going to be an angst Bowuigi story. However, unlike TDDUPMSLB, this story not only centers around Jerry the Hammer Brother, but it's actually kind of a prequel to TBTBWTK because the main focus on this story is Jerry's reaction to finding out that Luigi tried to kill himself (if you recall in chapter 17 of TBTBWTK, Luigi admitted to Mario that Bowser successfully saved him from committing suicide).

Now whether I'll work on WIP 1 or WIP 2, that's where I've been a little indecisive on. As of right now, I'm really leaning towards the Jerry-focused one-shot because I do really like the idea of sharing some of the events that happened before TBTBWTK took place (not to mention that I do want to create at least one story that centers around Jerry since he's become a pretty popular character in my story). :)

Although, I will say that I do love the Till Death Do Us Part My Sweet Little Bride title because of how mysterious and ominous it sounds.

[leos-regression-cove]

All the Lessons I Never Learned

2. The Trip Home

Synopsis: Loki heads home to Norway to see his family again.

Word count: 1,777

Stand Alone?: Nope! This fic is pretty plot focused.

Warnings: Alcohol/alcoholism, No regression in this chapter

Notes: I had surgery yesterday and wasn't sure if I'd have the time or energy to upload today so I did all my set-up at 5 AM before I left yesterday. Because of that, my proofreading may be a little off.

Read on AO3

Loki lazed around as he packed, knowing he was going to make that plane no matter if he took forever or not, his last name was Odinson, after all. Any plane would wait for him, he assumed. 

He packed his large suitcase full of clothes and fancy toiletries, then a carry-on with his laptop, chargers, and four thick books to read. He also ate a small microwaved meal in front of the tv, sitting crisscrossed on his couch and enjoying his apartment one last time before he left, just in case, the thought crossed his mind, he never returned. 

By that time, it was hardly noon, but Loki looked around and realized he simply had nothing more to do at home. The house was clean and polished, as it always was, and all of his essentials were packed properly. So, he called a cab to take him to the airport and took the elevator down to the ground floor of his building to wait for it in the crowded NYC streets. 

Upon arriving at the airport, he checked his bags without a hitch, and managed to make it through security without losing anything. It wasn’t quite busy today, but it was an airport, so long lines were to be expected. 

He walked around the mall-like structure of his terminal and poked around, seeing what was and wasn’t open yet, only choosing to bypass the airport bar because he knew he’d probably have a few glasses of chardonnay during the flight and definitely did not want to show up to his parents’ home smashed at midnight. 

He’d much rather show up sober and at midnight, thank-you-very-much. 

As he passed a couple shops, he stopped to buy his mother some flowers, knowing he’d be allowed to keep them in his seating area and the florist in Oslo would probably be closed by the time he got there. 

Another thought crossed his mind. Thor! You forgot about Thor! The alarms went off in his brain. Right! Of course! He peeked in shop after shop and thought about what he could possibly bring as a gift to his older little brother. Gods, how old was he, again? Where did mother say he was at? Three? Four? Two? Loki couldn’t keep track. Oh, and what was it that he liked? 

He felt like he should know these things, having grown up at Thor’s side, being the little brother until Thor turned fourteen and bets were placed off any hopes of him ever taking over the company when he began to regress. Loki had been nine at the time, and it was all downhill from there. 

It wasn’t like Loki had ever been the center of attention anyway, but after that, he pretty much checked out and started doing his own things, away from his family until fifteen when he asked for a job and became a mail assistant in the basement of the Oslo offices. 

He moved out at seventeen and started college the same year, graduating high school early, and soon choosing to move to the states with a rich sum of money from his parents and a guaranteed starting position at the company offices over there. 

Loki had stayed stagnant in this position since then, just taken on more hours after finishing some extra degrees for fun.  

It was only when thinking about this that Loki realized he hadn’t talked to his brother much, if at all since then, only seen pictures of him, and heard his voice asking Frigga who she was talking to on the phone and giving Loki a brief “Hello!” before running off to deal with other, more important, matters. Once or twice he had said “hello” back during a party or family function. 

Dinosaurs? Trains? Okay… what do toddlers like? Books? Picture books? Loki picked out two of those, and a small plush goat for his big little brother, and put them in a paper bag next to his carry-on before deciding to give his parents a call and let them know he was on his way. 

He found a spot in the corner of a nearly empty sitting area, leaning against a large pole and staring out one of the twelve foot high windows that looked out onto the runway in the afternoon sun. 

“Hi! Hi, mother.-- yes, yes, I’m doing well. How are you? You scared me a bit with that email this morning. -- Yes, I’m on my way now actually. -- I know, I’m well aware. But I’ll be right there soon. Around Midnight. -- He won’t?... Ah, that’s okay, I’m sure I’ll see him in the morning. -- Hey, um, do you think daddy can get me a car? Just for the ride home? It’s not far if I remember correctly, yes? -- Okay, well, send me a text-- oh, you don-- okay, well, thank you for asking him-- I’ll look for it,-- yes, yes, mother, I know my last name-- thank you.-- I love you, too.-- I’ll see you in a few hours-- goodbye.-- Oh, goodnight, too, right, just in case.-- Okay, love you.”

Loki hung up the phone and set it back in his pocket before letting out a long breath and grinning. It had been a year or two since he had last been at home, but even those instances were short business trips, like Christmas parties, and in those few occasions, he had ended up in a hotel. This time, things felt much different, and he couldn’t help but be a little bit nervous. He shook out his hands anxiously and smiled. This was going to be a fun change of pace, huh? Maybe it wouldn’t be a “fun” one exactly. Maybe a horrible one, but what an adventure either way, right? He told himself as his heartbeat quickened. 

He boarded his plane and sat in his plush pleather seat, putting his feet up, tossing his devices on airplane mode, and began drafting all those stupid emails and reports he´d need to send next week anyway while he plugged in some headphones for an in-flight movie that he didn’t actually care about or watch. With that being said, it made wonderful background noise, and he had all his documents finished up within the first two hours of his flight. For the remaining eight, he pulled out the first big book in his luggage and started from page one. 

With a glass of wine in one hand, he read during the whole trip, only taking a bathroom break and a small meal of a charcuterie board, croissant, and a bowl of soup. In all, it was a lovely experience for a ten hour flight.

He stepped off the plane a little buzzed, but nothing more, went through customs, and quickly found his luggage, all in one piece, before exiting the terminal and finding his driver in the small, but still slick, black car with the big “Odinson” sign. 

“Hi, hi. Loki Odinson,” he introduced himself to the new driver in his slightly rusty Norwegian, “nice to meet you.” Before showing off his ID and passport, proving that it was really him. 

The driver nodded without saying a word and opened the back door of the car for him after taking his luggage. 

They did not make conversation on the way home, and for a minute, Loki felt just like he did as a schoolboy, sent home for playing pranks that got him suspended from school one week in autumn when he was ten or so. Probably the first year he had been away from parents at an overnight school, actually. 

He had nothing to fear, not tonight, but he still found his palms sweaty, and this sense of embarrassment and shame washed over him, anyways. He felt like he should call Hela, and ask her how to get out of this mess, even though there was no mess to get out of exactly. He quickly decided telling his disowned older sister that he was visiting their parents probably wasn’t a good idea. 

Lights were on in the house when Loki got there. Not all, but just a few downstairs ones that made the bright, open-floored, window-covered rooms feel like they had been flooded with illumination. 

Loki knocked on the door of the white mansion after grabbing his bags himself, but the driver quickly let him in. 

His mother was there waiting in the living room, sipping on a cup of tea with a book in her lap.

She smiled when she saw him and set down her things to get up and give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek, touching his shoulders as if testing to feel he was really there, not a mere figment of her imagination. “It feels like you grow every time I see you,” she said wistfully. 

It took a few seconds for Loki to process her words in the language he only spoke in once a week and sometimes read. To him, it was the language of family, so for the past fifteen years, it had almost faded into obscurity.

He handed her the flowers he had brought. 

 “Thank you, darling… You need some rest, you poor thing, you must be so tired!” she added, running her fingers through his unwashed hair and examining the wrinkled and dirty state of his clothes. 

“Yes, very much so,” he agreed in English, not quite sure how to react to the first comment aside from smiling back at her. 

“The guest room’s been made up for you,” she told him. “Do you need help with your luggage?” 

“...No, no, mother, it’s quite alright, I have it,” he replied in his native tongue with an awkward laugh, imagining the old woman trying to carry his suitcase upstairs when he was having a bit of trouble lifting it himself. 

“Rest well.”

He checked his watch, “Same to you… and wake me if I’m late for breakfast.” He blew her a kiss as he hauled his bags up the grand staircase. 

Upstairs, Loki passed the master suite, and Thor’s bedroom, curiously pausing to see if he could hear any noise, before arriving at his old room, which had previously been his older sister, Angela’s, before she moved out. It was now decorated floor to ceiling in white, just like the rest of the home with an all white queen bed, an all white dresser, a white chair, and a white table lamp. He couldn’t help but feel like he was in a hotel room. Not a spot which had ever been uniquely his own. 

Regardless, he flopped down onto the plush sheets and entered a six hour dreamlessly deep sleep. 

[barbwritesstuff]

Happy full moon everyone.

I have uploaded the new chapter. It’s still a little rough around the edges, sparse in places, and may be buggy, but after two months I think I really need to share this with other people, if nothing else then just to get an outside perspective. Part of my writing goal for next month is to take some time to flesh out the scenes, polish up the writing, and add a few extra events and story paths to this chapter.

I’m really sorry if it isn’t as good as my previous chapters. I’m honestly really scared sharing it with you. I could barely sleep last night and, I swear to God, I was making changes to it up until a minute before the update.

So... yeah. Please let me know what you think and thank you so much for all the support and encouragement so far. It’s honestly been so wonderful getting such positive feedback.

[13atoms]

Deep Focus: Chapter 1 [Tom Hiddleston x Reader]

Summary: Tom’s a successful porn director with a romantic streak which proves very popular with his female audience. His resident porn actress and business partner has been with him through thick and thin, the two of them growing completely inseparable, even as her own career starts taking off.

But working in such close proximity is intense, and burgeoning feelings threaten to complicate their professional relationship.

Mature, smut, porn director!AU, ethical porn production discussion, porn-star-and-coworker!reader. Friends to lovers, slow-ish burn. [7.7k]

________________________________________________________

There was such a style to everything Tom wrote, everything he directed. A sincere passion that you suspected was always meant to be used elsewhere. You wondered if his craftsmanship was ever appreciated, on the other side of the screen, as strangers got hot and bothered watching each meticulously designed frame of his vision come to life.

Sure, it was porn. But Tom directed it like he could win an Oscar for ‘hot lifeguard pounded poolside’. This was his livelihood, his passion, and it was a damn shame he wasn’t award-season eligible.

The names would make you wince, as you saw them uploaded to the site, thumbnails and previews drawing in viewers by the million with their shots of heaving bodies and glistening sweat. Tom never called the videos such crass things. Not in his scripts. You would get copies titled ‘Romantic Night In’ or ‘Office Love Affair.’ He was a fan of sugar-coating what would be inside those innocuous white pages, a veneer of respectability which Tom insisted upon, regardless of how obvious the true nature of the videos was. But once the videos were sold, it was out of his hands. Your face contorted mid-faux-orgasm would be plastered across the site, and everyone involved would try and forget what happened.

Ignore the comments.

Keep moving.

You often wondered how Tom wound up in this place, with his sharply tailored suits and polished shoes, eloquent and educated, his words almost poetic as he directed mid-budget porn in hotel rooms and his studio day-in, day-out.

Then again, he never seemed particularly bothered by it. He gave each shoot his full attention, his full boundless enthusiasm and all the professionalism he could muster. You wondered how he balanced it, sometimes, the creative drive to press on with trying to be creative and shoehorn romance into films knowing that, ultimately, it was porn.

He had interviewed you like a real director might, talking about your life and experience and ambitions, almost apologetic when he had finally choked out ‘could you undress’, barely glancing at your naked form before he hired you as his first employee.

You asked him early on, while watching him try and assemble a fake restaurant-date set in the studio, complete with faux windows and an extra playing a waiter, why he bothered when three-minutes of good quality fucking footage would make him the same amount of money. He’d given you a strange smile, the wrinkles beginning to appear at the corners of his eyes, and shrugged.

“I make what I’d like to see.”

The words haunted you later, as your rather attractive co-star bent you over the white-cloth covered dining table and you allowed mewls and groans to escape your mouth without a second thought. Trying to avoid the muted blue of Tom’s eyes behind the cameraman.

Despite your reservations when you first started to work for him, Tom had won you over. His gentler, more romantic approach to pornography had a loyal following. Both of your pseudonyms garnered huge numbers of views across various platforms, and Tom was keen to cultivate a collection of female-friendly porn. Against all the odds, it was working.

And you loved working with him. He was a great director, and inspired writer, and a genuinely brilliant boss. He made sure you saw royalties, good pay, that everyone you worked with was screened and tested, always keeping you safe. Always.

Each time he called a wrap, passing you a robe and offering a meek congratulations on your performance, you found yourself more and more pleased you had wound up working with him.

“You really do have a talent,” he’d told you one day, distracting you as you discussed a new script in his office.

You were sat opposite him, Tom’s glasses perched on his head as he watched you read, your feet resting against the leg of his desk. You’d come in to your shared workspace to try some costumes out, to discuss new scenes, still recovering from a thoroughly exhausting shoot the day before. There were still light bruises around your wrists, and you caught Tom glancing at them worriedly each time your long-sleeved shirt slipped.

“I love that you’re such an actor,” he continued, hands tapping the desk as he spoke, “like, a real actor.”

Your eyes drifted across the script, scanning it with your bottom lip between your teeth. He always appreciated your input, wanting the ‘female fantasy’ in a lot of his work, and he’d timidly shown you some ‘student-professor’ script he’d been working on. He was like that, embarrassed in a way which you wouldn’t expect from a man with his considerable experience in adult entertainment. He was assertive, certain, even stern where it counted. But with just the two of you together, dancing around what was sexy and what wasn’t, he seemed desperate to avoid saying anything you might perceive as too ‘crude’.

“What do you mean?” you’d chuckled, still flicking through the first draft.

He only entrusted you with such early versions of his work – but that made sense. Your careers were symbiotic, tied to one another with an unspoken pact. He directed everything you were in, and you were in everything he directed.

It made sense.

“You don’t just… I don’t know. You never make my scripts seem silly. Or cheesy. You… you really try and make them feel real. I could write anything, and you’ll deliver the lines well. I was overseeing auditions earlier and... I just kept thinking none of them were you. I think you might be the best in the business.”

You rolled your eyes, offering him a disbelieving smirk, and he scoffed.

“I’m serious! I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

The weight of his words settled heavy in your chest, and you turned back to the script, frowning as you flicked through the loose-leaf pages. Tom fidgeted behind his desk, unhappy with losing your attention, but you ignored him.

“Here. If you want the fantasy to be believable, I think he needs to lock the office door. Make a show of it, you know. Cover my mouth,” you comment dismissively. Tom already has as pen in his hand, making notes. “It could be hot, maybe ‘Don’t make a sound or you can’t cum’, something like that. As if there’s other students in the corridor outside.”

Nodding, Tom dutifully wrote down your words, mouth slightly open in realisation as he listened.

“Don’t make a sound…” Tom repeated, and you felt yourself blush.

“Not… not that exactly,” you backtracked, “you’re the real writer! I just think, there needs to be some build up. A remind of the power dynamic. Him going straight to oral is a bit… fast. That could happen in any old plot, you know?”

You felt his eyes on you, looking up from the paper to spot Tom leaning back in his chair, a distant smile on his face.

“You really are the best,” he praised, “that’s great. I’ll do rewrites tonight.”

For a moment, you let his words hang heavy in the air. Then you blinked back at him, a slight frown pinching your forehead at his strange mood. He was calm, for once. Tom was usually a ball of enthusiasm, and you wondered if your dismissal of his words earlier had done something to hamper his spirit.

“It’s always easier to critique,” you dismissed, “I love the script, it’s great. I really think it’ll be good. Hot. Maybe I can wear a Britneyschool girl costume, or something?”

He frowned a little, pinching the bridge of his nose at the thought.

“No, weird. We’re going for University student, just… a nice pair of jeans or something.”

“Don’t they wear suits where you went, posh boy?” you teased, loving how it riled him up. “I’ll try and dress like a smart person.”

“You are smart, don’t give me that.”

You rolled your eyes, loving how you managed to fluster him, putting the script back on his cluttered desk as you reached for your bag. This was how your meetings always went, a few hours of notes, some teasing, and a hasty retreat once Tom told you the next shoot day you had to attend. You still had a few hours of social media to do for the last video you’d shot together, notes from Tom, and you lamented the sight of the sun setting outside of your shared office. You’d hoped for at least a bit of natural light today.

“I’m serious, you are!” Tom asserted, and you ignored him purposely as you shut down your laptop, preparing to take it home.

“Yeah, I know, whatever. Don’t work too late!”

“Rich coming from you,” he sighed, “it really doesn’t matter if we send that last edit late.”

“It matters to me! I’d quite like to get paid this week, you know?”

Tom sighed. The two of you tried to produce a couple of videos a week – one for Tom’s site and another to sell to a third party. It didn’t leave either of you with much free time, both of you left in the tiny office at all hours as you worked to keep up with demand.

“Very true. But I’d rather you got some sleep, you know I can help if you’re short on money,” he offered, shuffling papers on his own desk.

He was always quick to jump to an offer to help, and you tried to ignore the fondness spreading through your chest at his eagerness to look out for you. That gentle protectiveness which coursed through Tom was enough to make you melt.

He was one in a million, that was for sure.

“I’m fine, Tom. Thank you though, I’ll ask, if, y’know –”

“Do! Any time. Actually…”

Tom cut himself off, typing something into his phone, and your pocket buzzed with a notification.

“Get yourself a nice dinner.”

You checked your phone to see a transfer from Tom. It wasn’t a crazy amount, but too much for just dinner, and you huffed performatively as he grinned at you.

“No! Don’t be ridiculous –”

He barely made more than you, and you were certainly doing perfectly comfortably.

“Royalties are really good this month. That old break-up sex video is trending again, apparently.”

You smothered a smile. It was hate-fucking, as you’d told Tom a hundred times. That was the title. You could still remember the look on his face the day you’d filmed it, his twitchiness, the unknown male actor who had slightly scared both of you with his sheer size as he stepped into the studio. The male star had fucked you like you’d broken his heart, hands on your neck and hips bruising yours as he pounded into you, and you’d be a little alarmed at how little you had needed to act in his domineering presence. He’d been muscular and tall and assertive, almost injuring you with his enthusiasm, and the shoot had ended with you a sweaty mess, struggling to walk, eyes watery.

You had ached from the moment Tom helped you up from the bed, a protective body between you and your costar as you watched the man collect his clothes and his paycheck. The footage had been great, you’d watched Tom edit it, but it had been your first taste of Tom’s protectiveness. The actor had never returned, and Tom had bought a hot water bottle for the office, pressing it into your lap as he brought tea for the pair of you, loathing how you winced as you moved.

He’d taken you out for dinner that night to celebrate a good edit, but you knew the real reason. That neither of you wanted the other to be alone. It had been a lovely evening, a restaurant then a bar, without a break in laughing conversation the entire night. It hadn’t been a date, but if it had been a date, it would’ve been the nicest date you’d ever been on. In those moments, you wondered if Tom was really cut out for the industry. If you were.

As much as Tom hated the film, it was hot. It had propelled your studio into the spotlight, and it paid a significant chunk of your rent.

“Thank you,” you smiled to him, wracking your mind for anything else that needed discussing before you headed home.

Maybe you’d get takeaway. That would be nice.

Tom cleared his throat.

“What are we shooting tomorrow, by the way?”

You looked up at his words, frowning a little at the realisation you hadn’t been given a script yet. It was unlike him, to be so unprepared. Usually everything was organised weeks in advance. With a glance at the shadows under his eyes, you decided not to tease him about it.

“We’re shooting tomorrow?”

“This week… we’ve only got one video. I was just thinking something simple, I haven’t called a costar yet, but we don’t have to if you don’t want to –”

It was your paycheck on the line as much as Tom’s, and you wondered how the hell you’d forgotten.

“Do we have a camera crew?” you frowned.

“No, not yet. I can call though. Or I could just do it myself, if we’re not doing anything too complicated?”

You thought for a moment, leaning against the open doorframe as Tom started to pack up his own desk, nimble fingers tapping across his keyboard.

“Solo?” you suggested, stifling a laugh as Tom blinked and tilted his head to face you.

“I missed that, love?”

“Solo. Like ‘hot female solo’ or something?”

He smiled slightly, closing his laptop lid.

“That’ll do well, I’m sure. Do we need anything costume-wise? Props?”

Toys. He meant toys. You smiled at his refusal to call a spade a damn spade.

“I’m sure we can find everything here. It’ll be nice to do a simple shoot for a change,” you enthused, holding the door for Tom as he moved to turn off the lights, lingering nearby as he locked up the office.

“Yeah. Single-shot, no camera-man either.”

“Cheap,” you sighed, as though it was the sexiest thing in the world.

You did the books, and avoiding having any more costs this month sounded great.

“Yeah,” Tom smiled, falling into step beside you as the two of you left the warehouse studio.

He looked ready to say something else, but changed his mind. For a second the two you stood by the exit, words trapped beneath your closed lips as the early evening air enveloped you.

“Do you need a lift home?” Tom finally offered.

“No. No, I’m good. Thank you.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, yeah. Usual time. Twelve?”

“Perfect.”

He reached an arm out, ready for you to walk into his embrace, and you froze. The moment was over as soon as it started, his arm retracted, and you could only stare. His hand found the curls at the back of his head, scratching there, a blush dusting his cheeks in the harsh fluorescent lights of the car park. You could kick yourself as you watched the bob of his Adam’s apple, the clench of his jaw. He felt awkward. You contemplated hugging him, but the moment had passed. Instead you rocked on your heels for a second, before turning to leave.

“Bye, Tom!”

“‘Night! Look after yourself, don’t forget dinner. I’ll see you – ”

He cut himself off as you walked too far away, and you could have kicked yourself for the sadness in his final syllable. You sighed as your feet fell against the pavement, your whole walk home haunted by the awkward shuffle of Tom’s hands as he went to hug you goodbye.

*

You were surprised by how difficult it was to brush off that awkward memory. As you ordered and ate dinner, you were reminded of Tom with every bite, that he’d snuck aside part of the company’s petty cash budget to give you dinner. That both of you had gone home, separately, to separate empty houses and empty beds.

Had he wanted to go for drinks? Wanted company? You had come to accept a long time ago that the man was your closest friend. He would be the person you called in an emergency, a shoulder to cry on. You liked to think he’d lean on you the same way.

Despite that, you spent limited time together outside of a professional context. You never met up on weekends, or casually called. Of course you didn’t. He made a career out of seeing you naked, watching you fake orgasms for other men. As you readied yourself for the day, you reminded yourself that of course, he would be nice to his only full-time, very lucrative actress. To his business partner.

As you’d queued up the company’s social media posts the night before, you could only think of Tom behind the camera, orchestrating each photo and clip you uploaded.

You couldn’t help the grin which split your face as you walked into the studio, bag flung over your shoulder, overpacked with everything you thought you could possibly need. Tom greeted you, emerging from his office with a smile.

Before you could overthink it, you walked into his arms, giving him very little choice in the matter as you greeted him with a hug. In his surprise you felt his body stiffen, his arms slowly wrapping around you, and you were momentarily gobsmacked by the muscular form he seemed to hide behind those suits.

He was a little more dressed down today, smart black jeans and a button-up white shirt, unruly hair sticking up like it did when he forgot to brush it. He looked better than yesterday, like he’d had a good night’s sleep.

“Good morning,” he chuckled, bemusement clear in his voice.

You pulled back from the hug, a little embarrassed at the affection until you saw the smile stretching across his face, reaching his eyes. Suddenly the previous night, worrying you had inadvertently rejected him, seemed to be erased.

“Morning! What have you got for me?”

The studio space was cleaned, but empty. The camera stood in the corner as Tom lead you further into the room, his office door open to the side of it, and you frowned at the emptiness of the space.

There were tape marks on the floor where sets were usually assembled, conspicuous without the usual hive of activity buzzing around some piece of furniture you would be thrown onto or fucked against. There was nothing.

“I didn’t know what you wanted to do,” Tom was saying, his gentle voice booming in the empty space, “we don’t have a script or anything so… I’ll leave it to you.”

You bit your lip.

It was more freedom than you were used to, less direction, less to build the fantasy where you could forget you were ultimately in a warehouse with just your business partner. It was… nothing. Tom said your name quietly, and you nodded, stepping back to assess the space.

“I’m just thinking,” you reassured him.

Had the studio always been this quiet? You tried to remember a shoot day where it had been this silent, this calm, without the stress of lighting people or cameramen or scripts being thrown around. You could hear every step Tom took as he walked towards the camera, the wheel-mounted tripod creaking as he moved it across the floor, checking batteries and SD cards while you stood in place, your bag still hanging from one shoulder.

Noticing your frozen stance Tom frowned across at you, nothing but gentle concern in his blue eyes and the fine lines around them.

“I was thinking something kind of minimal, maybe cosy?” he offered, “Maybe an armchair? Something like that?”

You thought about it for a moment, crossing to the corner of the room to finally set down your bag.

He was finally getting into ‘director mode’, growing more energetic by the second.

“I’m thinking we just frame it on you, no distraction. Single take, if we can.”

You nodded silently as he crossed to the storage cupboard he’s overeagerly labelled a ‘props department’. It was stacked high with fabric and furniture and lingerie, tubs of various exotic sex toys near the door. Tom stepped straight past them.

There was a mattress in the props room, materials to build a bed, and you pondered on the idea for a moment.

“We could keep it really simple, maybe?” you suggested, “Find a warm background. Or just use white. Try and get one twenty minute shot, or something.”

You reached for lube without thought, collecting the near-empty bottle of body oil beside it too, as you perused the options in front of you.

“Remind me to buy more of that,” Tom mused, sparing a glance to the bottles in your arms before standing beside you to peruse the options.

You nodded silently, your free hand rifling through bagged silicone toys, slightly in a daze as you picked out a few options. There was a slight blush dusted across Tom’s high cheekbones as he turned to see your arms full of dildos. You smiled as it took him a second to find words, and wondered how the hell he’d chosen to start a porn studio in the first place.

“Colour co-ordinated,” he commented, and you smiled, picking out yet another pink toy from the pile.

“Naturally,” you smiled, “I think that’s everything? Could we drag a mattress and pillows out?”

He nodded silently, already moving to manoeuvre the double mattress leaning against a wall in the props room. You rolled your eyes before helping, knowing he was being a gentleman, or whatever he called it. You called it putting his back out.

He rejected your help, so you grabbed as many pillows as you could, following him back into the main studio, privately smiling at the dramatic grunts he made trying to move the mattress. He tossed it to the ground with a grunt, shoving it into the corner of the room, before pausing again.

You dropped everything down on to it, toys, lube, pillows and all.

And then both of you waited.

It was so strangely intimate, just the two of you in the room, the strange nature of your relationship weighing heavy after last night’s miscommunication. Suddenly there was nothing you wanted to do less than take your clothes off.

“White sheets?”

“Hm?” you hadn’t processed what Tom said, too wrapped up in your own world, frowning down at the bare mattress.

“I was thinking white sheets.”

“Oh, uh, yeah.”

He was off, assigned another task, and you almost envied his distraction as you slowly sorted the pillows how you wanted, gathered the toys absentmindedly. Before Tom came back from the props closet you made yourself scarce, catching sight of his slim outline through the doorway. Facing away from you as he rummaged.

In the single bathroom of the studio you cleaned anything that would be going inside of you, avoiding your reflection, trying to shake off the odd nervousness coursing through your veins.

Why? It had been years since you felt this way before a shoot. Before you’d met Tom, even. Sure, shoots could be exciting, exhilarating, intimidating, but this self-consciousness, this self-doubt… it had come from nowhere.

You pressed your forehead to the mirror, closing your eyes, breathing deeply. The tap running sounded like a waterfall, the silicone under your fingers felt alien, the air almost claustrophobic as you wondered what the hell was wrong with you.

Tom was done making the bed when you got back, frowning at his phone until he heard you re-enter the studio space, quick to look up and see if you were happy with his set. You felt hyper-aware of him, of every movement he made, a clean towel and toys cradled in one arm as you took in the space. It was a simple premise, just a clean fitted sheet pillows in a corner, a clear space for you in the middle. You knew it would look good on screen. You knew this was an easy job.

You felt sick to your stomach.

“Do you want to face the camera? Or kind of, not acknowledge it?” Tom asked, speaking again as you forgot to reply, too caught up in your own mind. “Maybe if you ignore it that’s more… voyeuristic?”

“Sounds good,” you responded, kneeling to prepare your space. This was autopilot, your day job. You could do this.

“Right.”

He sounded a little put out by your response, but moved the camera anyway, switching to a knee-height tripod. You stood, stepped back to give him space, and frowning at the sudden headrush. You blinked, catching yourself staring at the flex of his arms as he moved the heavy equipment. You didn’t realise how long you had been staring into space until Tom called your name a second time, crossing into your personal space.

“Are you okay?”

Tom’s voice was so soft you wanted to cry, fingers hovering beside your bicep, his gentle eyes demanding for you to meet them, daring for you to lie while his face is so close to yours.

Somehow, the guilt of his worry made you feel worse.

“No, I’m…I’m being stupid. Sorry, just tired.”

“Did you not sleep well?”

“No, I, uh, I slept fine. I’m not sure. Just not really feeling it.”

His face fell, but you knew he wasn’t disappointed in you. He thought he’d done something wrong. Immediately you were talking, doing anything you could to soften his guilt.

“It’s my job, though. I can do it. This is great Tom, I think it’ll be a good shoot.”

“Sweetheart –”

You sighed, eyes falling to the mattress, before forcing a smile.

“Let’s get this over with!”

He looked like he wanted to argue with you, but you forced yourself to move, pulled your feet from the floor with far more effort than it ought to take. There was some comfort in rummaging through your own bag, that piece of home, something private from the studio. You found the vibrator you’d brought, a pink bullet you used almost exclusively at home, fully charged that morning. Behind you, Tom snorted in amusement.

“Nothing here is ever charged,” you shrugged off his stare, knowing damn well you didn’t have to explain yourself.

You wanted to explain anyway though. Just in case, Tom thought anything he did wasn’t enough. He seemed perfectly fine with the criticism, though you knew he was making a mental note. He always did, then you had something to say.

Trying not to make a big deal out of it, you stripped to your underwear, folding your clothes neatly and being careful not to show any self-consciousness in your posture. You’d never been ashamed or embarrassed before now, and you weren’t about to start. Even if it was just you, and a very well, fully dressed Tom. Vibrator clutched in your fingers, you finally sat on the damn mattress.

He was the other side of the camera now, somehow both distant and a few feet away. You found yourself staring at your body in the monitor, just watching. Tom’s voice broke you out of yet another daze, and you wanted to pinch yourself. Why couldn’t you do it today?

“We don’t have to do this today, if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s okay I just… I forget it’s just us sometimes, you know? There’s such a production and so many people and at the end of the day…”

Tom smiled, a relief on his face that told you he had been feeling it too. That this was weird.

“I know what you mean. If you’re uncomfortable…”

“Just give me a second to warm up, we need to make something, after all.”

You stretched, not really sure why, moving a little around the nook Tom had created, shuffling pillows and practicing where you wanted to lie back, watching a monitor as Tom played with a soft lighting, twisting and turning to find the most flattering angles you could.

As he shuffled things around, Tom nodded to the spread of toys you’d set out. You’d added your vibrator to the pink line up, perfectly organised on the white towel.

“Do you want those in shot?”

You shrugged.

“Might be hot?”

He nodded silently. You moved the toys in to the frame, trying to blink away the cloud which had settled in your mind. The world felt foggy, your arms like they were moving through treacle, and you knew Tom had noticed.

As he prepared two directional microphones, you tried not to feel claustrophobic. The audio from the microphone he was pointing towards your pussy would be almost grotesque, and you fought not to shuffle further from it as you imagined Tom listening later, headphones in, as he balanced the levels between your moans and the wet sounds of you fucking yourself.

Fuck.

Why was this so different to a regular shoot?

You’d done solo shoots before. With Tom. And half-a-dozen other crew, you reminded yourself.

You caught sight of his curls above the monitor, face serious as he set everything up.

“Speak?”

“Testing, testing,” you spouted off nonsense until he offered you a thumbs up, happy with the audio.

Then there was nothing else to do.

He stood, looming over the equipment. And you looming over you.

“What’s the plan?” he asked, smiling at your frown. “You’re in charge here, I’m just the camera guy.”

You rolled your eyes, knowing he was trying to put you at ease.

“You’re the director,” you reminded him, knowing how he preened himself under the title.

You were impressed that his eyes had only roamed down your body once as he took in the shoot, glancing at the indulgent layout of toys, double checking the monitor, one headphone in. He had that stance he always adopted when he was directing, and you knew it was his favourite moment in any of this. The moment everything was pinned on him.

It happened so quickly you almost missed the moment he knelt down, blinking in surprise as his face remerged at your level beside the camera.

“Then my direction is: enjoy yourself. Forget I’m here. Let’s show them something real.”

He must have seen your shock, because it made him smile.

“Real?” you questioned, and he nodded firmly.

“I’m serious.”

For a beat, both of you were silent, his eyes meeting yours over the body of the camera.

“If you can,” he offered, “I understand it’s not always…”

You interrupted him with a hand, smiling your understanding of what he was saying, and dismissing it in one motion. The silence dragged on, and you decided to push this forwards. If you were done by lunch, Tom would probably insist on taking you somewhere nice.

“I don’t know if I should use – ” you ghosted a finger across the biggest toy, worrying a bottom lip between your teeth, “Simplicity might be key.”

“Do what you want, darling. What feels good.”

You nodded mutely, and for just a second you saw doubt flicker across his face. This was new territory, and even you weren’t sure if this was a step too far.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah! Yeah. If I’m… actually… it might take a while. Let me know if I’m taking too long.”

“Take as long as you need, darling. I’ve got nowhere to be.”

Tilting your head at him a little, you realised abruptly just how intimate this was. Moreover, that you wanted it anyway. That you were about to make him watch you cum. Make him hear you, smell you. He couldn’t touch, but he could watch.

And that was enough for you to perform.

Tom gave you a countdown, red lights peppered your field of view, and he was recording. He had taken a seat on the floor behind the camera set up, one headphone in to monitor audio, waiting.

You stayed sat up, back arched a little as your hands began to caress you own body, keeping on eye on the monitor while your face was out of the shot. You rubbed along your thighs, across your stomach, teasing at the lace of your bra and the elastic of your underwear each time you passed them, trailing your fingertips. It didn’t really feel like anything, doing this to yourself, but you knew to tease the camera. Tom would cut out anything too slow.

Your gaze remained firmly on the screen as you began to make your touches firmer, more deliberate, dragging lines into your skin and flirting with the camera. You admired the soft skin of your breasts as you started to shift your bra, enjoying the stiffening of your nipples in the monitor until –

The screen went black, and you immediately glanced at Tom, frowning as you lost the visual of yourself. He met your questioning gaze sternly, eyebrows furrowed, and you remembered his direction.

“Enjoy yourself.”

With nothing left to look at you closed your eyes, feeling the blood rushing to the surface of your skin, the sensitivity of your breasts as your fingers idly danced across them. You shoved your bra down unthinkingly, wanting to feel more, rubbing at the heaviness of your breasts and wincing as you enjoyed the pleasure and pain of pinching at your nipples, teasing them to attention. You glanced your nails across them, feeling it in your core. You didn’t want to wait anymore. Fuck the cameras.

It was hard to let to, to stop the delicious feeling of your fingers on your own breasts, but you forced yourself to free one hand, shoving off the bra, desperate to feel yourself without it. You knew you were grimacing, it wouldn’t be sexy, but you didn’t care. That was Tom’s problem.

You needed to touch yourself.

One hand reached below the waistband of your underwear, seeking out your clit, guided by a familiar ache. It was all you could focus on, your other hand forgotten, cupping your breast, the sensation vague and lost as your fingers found your clit. The sensation overwhelmed you as you shifted the hood, your body beginning to produce wetness. The room was a little cold, the air relieving against the heat of your bare skin, making your nipples peak as you leant back into the nest of pillows behind you.

You felt your stomach tense, a bolt of electricity tensing the muscles up and down your body as you brushed across your clit a little too hard. Your middle finger probed your pussy experimentally, slipping inside of you, quickly joined by a second as you played with the wetness there.

One, two, three pumps of your fingers inside you was enough for you to gasp, your eyes still closed against the bright lights as focused on nothing but feeling. No more fucking around.

You reached for your vibrator, hand knocking against the thick silicone toy lined up beside it, writhing as you pressed it against the fabric covering your clit. You cycled through the settings as fast as you could, still desperate for more stimulation.

More. It was on the highest setting. You wanted more.

Without moving the vibrator you shoved your underwear off, huffing as you kicked them away, not caring where they landed. The tip of the toy nudged against your clit exquisitely, and you froze.

There.

There.

You thought about Tom watching you. The hot blood coursing through your body, the line up of toys just waiting to be shoved inside of you. The sensitivity of you clit as you held it against that perfect point. The air against your dripping, aching pussy. The muscles starting to clench, the rhythm of your body. Building, building, you didn’t fight the feeling.

This was what you wanted.

That warm familiarity of the vibrator on your clit, the runaway train of your thoughts, it was enough to drive you over the edge. You hadn’t realised the keening, groaning noises you were making until you heard them, pleasure leaving your lips as an afterthought.

You felt empty.

Blindly you reached out, sticky fingers finding the shaft of a toy you wanted, a smaller one you could take right now. A dollop of lube in the palm of your hand was all it would take, a few pumps of the toy enough to coat it, the excess lubricant smeared on the sheets. You didn’t care. Not your problem.

Without conscious thought, you were still rubbing yourself, two fingers absently making circles against your clit as you fidgeted to be able to take the dildo. You didn’t bother preparing yourself anymore. You were wet enough, and you wanted the stretch.

Needed it.

Needed to feel full.

You shoved the toy into yourself, gritted teeth and your spare hand grasping at your breast, giving the nipple a sharp pinch to interrupt the overwhelming feeling of that silicone pushing inside of you. Your walls were stretched open, a gasp reaching your ears as you felt a nudge against your cervix.

It wasn’t enough. You felt wild, desperate, as you sloppily pulled the toy from yourself and shoved it back in, clenching down and still needing more.

Your fingers found a larger toy, arousal and lubricant smearing across your body as you discarded the dildo which you had just been fucking yourself with, leaving it somewhere on the mattress, forgotten in favour of the bigger option. It was thick. Maybe, in your right mind, you wouldn’t have considered it. But instead you coated it in lube, squirting the clear liquid on to the tip and rubbing it down the toy, focusing on nothing but the need pulsing through your pelvis.

On the emptiness inside you, begging, pleading to be filled. It hurt, how much you wanted to be stretched out, to feel something pounding into you. You felt animalistic, desperate for anything. The last of your conscious thought was occupied by the need in your clit, the demand for friction, and you just didn’t have enough hands. It was impossible to think. When you finally sank down on the fake cock, leaning back, legs apart, gaze focused on nothing but your own swollen pussy, it was a relief. You gasped, then sighed, pushing another inch of the toy inside you. You felt stretched already, split in half, but you kept going. With each thrust, you took the silicone further inside of you until you felt the dull ache of the toy going too far.

Finally, that emptiness felt sated, and you stayed still, too stuffed to risk moving and too blissed out to care.

But you needed more.

Each bear down made the toy threaten to shift, and you didn’t have the brain power to thrust and pay attention to your aching clit. You moved gingerly, grabbing a pillow to straddle, holding the toy inside you as you hunted for your vibrator.

You couldn’t even lean too far to reach it, you were so full it ached. And it was delicious.

With the smooth plastic finally in your hand you leant back, ready to bring yourself to another orgasm. With a blink, you realised there was a tear tracking its way down your cheek, and you smiled to yourself.

And then you accidentally looked forwards. Your eyes met Tom’s. The camera. The lights. The switched off monitor.

You wanted to cry.

He was watching you directly, with those sharp blue eyes, one finger resting along his jawline, his usual calculating, wide stance replaced with one knee hugged to his chest as he sat on the concrete floor. He was watching you.

You. Stuffed full, straddling a pillow on the bed Tom had fucking made, covered in a mix of lube and your own arousal. That strange feeling from earlier came back full force.

God. He had seen you actually come. Without acting or cheesy lines or clever angles to hide the worst of your O-face. You could pretend to come, tell your male co-stars what a good time you’d had, follow direction, anything. But this was too real. And it was just you and Tom. In the corner of a huge studio, bright lights and cameras and –

Had he called cut? You wouldn’t have heard. Did he realise you’d lost control? That you had forgotten you were supposed to be acting and been so desperate and –

“You’re doing amazing.”

You smiled at him weakly, gasping as the toy inside you nudged your cervix as you fidgeted. You didn’t realise that you were awaiting direction until he spoke.

“Another one?”

His voice was a little throatier than usual, though you supposed he’d been quiet for a while. His eyes kept drifting from your face, and you wondered if he felt as uncomfortable as you did.

You nodded silently, closing your eyes, listening to the increasing pitch of the vibrator as you turned it up to its maximum setting.

The minutes stretched on as your orgasm built, little raises and falls of your hips accompanying that insistent buzz of your favourite vibrator, the toy inside you starting to ache as it stretched you apart. It was impossible to forget that Tom was watching you now. That his piercing gaze was on you. As a matter of professionalism, you tried to avoid looking up. You ignored the camera, fucked your body in the way you knew it would respond to, only half-faking it as you came a second time.

You moaned and groaned and gave the camera an indulgent few seconds of overstimulation, the vibrator pushed against your clit to make you writhe and shake. You pulled yourself off the dildo in a mess of arousal, played with yourself, showing off how stretched out you were.

Fingers swirling in the arousal inside of you, you sighed in relief when Tom called, “cut.”

Dropping the toy, you pulled your legs together, ignoring him for a second as you took deep breaths. Taking stock of your body, the residual pleasure and pain and stickiness. A lot of stickiness.

Tom took pity on you, shifting a softbox so you had a clear path out of the corner you were hemmed into.

“Go and have a shower,” he told you, the most softly-spoken command you’d ever heard.

Nonetheless, you followed orders. On weak legs, you indulged in as long as shower as you dared, cleaning up and then just… waiting. Trying to avoid the real world. When you finally opened the door, wrapped in a robe, you found your clothes folded outside. Tom was nowhere to be seen, but you thanked the universe for him anyway.

When you re-emerged you were fully dressed and feeling a lot more like yourself again. And, actually, quite proud of yourself. Tom’s busyness told you everything had been recorded properly, equipment moved and the mattress bare, leant against the wall.

“All good?” you asked, more to announce your presence than anything. He stopped moving, offering you a gentle smile.

“Perfect! I think it’ll be great. Do you want to go get lunch somewhere? To celebrate?”

Predictable as anything. The thought made your heart swell with fondness for him, his head tilt and excitement, his strange place here.

“I think I’ll just go home,” you tried to smile apologetically, but you could still feel the ache inside you, the dull oversensitivity of your clit against your underwear.

The embarrassment and excitement fighting in the fit of your stomach.

Tom nodded, clear understanding on his face. He held the door for you on the way out.

“Are you coming in tomorrow?” he asked, quietly, like you might run off if he asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll see you then.”

*

Your bedroom fell silent as the vibrator stopped, the battery finally flat. You whined in disappointment, desperate for another orgasm. Your fingers replaced it instantly, rubbing, desperately pulling more wetness from the arousal weeping from you, but you were too oversensitive.

Panting, vision blurry, your thighs aching, you blinked away tears. You glanced at the nightstand. Tom hadn’t text you.

*

When you woke up the next morning your phone was dead. You’d forgotten to charge it last night, and leaving it in your room to charge offered a strangely peaceful morning. You had a few hours before you would be expected at the studio, and no work to do before then.

You indulged in spending time getting ready for the day, making a decent breakfast, doing a few chores you’d been putting off.

Processing what had happened yesterday.

In the clear light of day, you wondered if you ought to be embarrassed for the way you’d completely lost yourself at the shoot. The more you thought about it, the more you thought about it, the more you rationalised at you’d just followed Tom’s direction. Done what he’d asked. It had been intense, for sure, but you’d done what he’d asked. If anything you regretted the moment he’d had to speak, losing your nerve. You hoped he didn’t want pick-up shots today, you weren’t sure your body could take any more.

You thought about the night before, clearing up the scattered clothes and charging the vibrator you’d left strewn beside your bed, more ashamed of the images which had been conjured by your overactive imagination in the late-night privacy of your bedroom. You hated that everything you imagined was involved blue eyes. Distinctive curls. Pulling buttons from smart shirts and kissing along sharp cheekbones. Poor Tom. He didn’t need you overstepping that mark. And yet when you had closed your eyes, imagined you were under those lights again, all you could imagine was Tom. His creative gaze. Listening to the smoothness his voice leant to everything he said as he instructed you even more intimately than usual.

As you switched your phone back on, you forced the thoughts from your mind. They couldn’t follow you to the studio. The two of you had built something good. Something successful. The studio was doing well, you were both saving money away for the future, building your brands. You couldn’t screw that up now by imagining him like that. He trusted you. You trusted each other. Relied on one another.

You wondered if he ever fucked other actresses.

[pterodactylterrace]

Guys Like You Chapter 19

Title: Guys Like You

Chapter: 19

Chapter Summary: Just a bunch of random fluff for the time being.

Rating: 18+

Warnings: Mentions of pregnancy, and so much tooth rotting fluff.

{Prologue} {Chapter 1} {Chapter 2} {Chapter 3} {Chapter 4} {Chapter 5} {Chapter 6} {Chapter 7} {Chapter 8} {Chapter 9} {Chapter 10} {Chapter 11} {Chapter 12} {Chapter 13} {Chapter 14} {Chapter 15} {Chapter 16} {Chapter 17} {Chapter 18}

“Faye?” Henry called out, wandering into the living room where she was lounging on the couch with Kal.

“Yes?” Faye asked slowly, lifting her head from the fluffy canine’s side.

“Would you mind looking this over? Tell me if you’re ok with it?” Henry requested, handing her his phone to look over his newest Instagram post in the making, several pictures lined up and awaiting her approval.

First, was one of his signature boomer selfies, his face and chest covered in pony and princess stickers, glitter shimmering on the planes of his face, almost shining as bright as his smile. Second was a snapshot of his feet, nail polish globbed on the ends of his toes, Briar’s tiny hands in the frame adding more onto the top of his foot. Next was another selfie, his curls now tugged up into random tufts, secured with bright glittery hair ties, another amused smile on his face. Last was a small video clip of Briar painting makeup on his face, chatting away about the differences between unicorns and pegasus’, Henry asking at the very end if he was pretty yet, only for Briar to very definitively tell him ‘no’ and continue brushing over his face with more eyeshadow.

The post was captioned as:

“Girl Dad

#girldad

#glitterbomb

#amIprettynow?”

“That… that’s adorable.” Faye gushed, throwing her arms around his neck, his nervousness fading away. He had yet to introduce his fanbase to Briar. They had seen Faye a few times, different paparazzi photos surfacing of the two of them out together along with her accompanying him to the Witcher premiere. Neither of them minded Faye being photographed. She knew what she was signing up for, and Henry was always careful to only show her the good comments and headlines. The last thing he wanted was for her to be driven away thinking she wasn’t good enough again.

They had yet to reveal Briar’s presence, however. He had a Zoom interview later on in the week, and they had agreed that he could mention her if he was asked about family life. This was just him wanting to reveal his daughter on his own terms before people began trying to invade the child’s privacy. He could already see the feisty toddler chasing after someone with a camera, smacking them with her stuffed rabbit, Kal dutifully chasing after her.

Though, in retrospect, Kal may actually not chase after Briar to back her up. In the last couple of weeks, he had been by Faye’s side almost constantly. Not that he was jealous or anything, but he wasn’t exactly happy about now being Kal’s third favorite human. He’d raised that dog since he was ten weeks old, then Briar comes into his life and suddenly she’s the best thing ever. Now that Faye was pregnant, he split his time between curling up next to Faye and playing with Briar. The only time Henry spent with him was when he fed him, literally drug him out for a walk and at nighttime when he would lay on Faye’s legs all night. The poor dog was going to go crazy after the baby was born trying to split his time between everyone.

“So, is it ok to post?” Henry asked, shooing Kal from the couch so he could be closer to his fiancé. The dog was less than pleased to be uprooted form his spot, but relented and laid at her feet instead, huffing in annoyance as he laid his giant head on her tattooed foot.

“Well, nothing is showing her face, and I can tell you’re about to explode if you don’t tell the world about her soon.” Faye teased, gently kissing his stubbly cheek.

“I’m going to disable comments on it.” Henry explained, taking his phone back to finish the post and upload it to Instagram.

“Might be a good idea.” Faye agreed, peering over his shoulder as the images uploaded, hugging his thick arm to her chest. “I love you so much.”

“Aww. The baby’s making you all mushy.” Henry teased, dropping his phone onto the couch and wrapping his arms around her, kissing the crown of her head.

“Shut up.” Faye whined, leaning further into him, her face drawing into a pout.

“Please don’t cry, I was just teasing.” Henry requested softly.

“Sorry. Hormones are making me crazy.” Faye apologized, hiding her face in his chest.

“There’s no need to apologize.” Henry assured, squeezing her a little tighter.

“We’re going to have to tell Briar eventually.”

“We can’t just wait until the baby gets here and just be all ‘surprise! You’re a big sister!’?”

“No. She’s going to wonder why I’m getting so fat long before then. There will be questions. They might make me cry. Are you still going to love me when I’m huge?” Faye asked suspiciously.

“When you’re rounded out carrying my baby, tits full and just begging to be sucked on? I’m probably going to have a hard time keeping my hands off of you.”

“You can’t keep your hands to yourself now.” Faye teased, turning her head to look up at him.

“You aren’t wrong. I love feeling your skin on mine. In any way I can get it. Kissing you.” He whispered, gently kissing her neck. “Holding your hand.” He continued, tangling their fingers together as he nipped at her neck. “But best of all, I love being buried balls deep in that sweet little pussy of yours.”

“Bedroom. Now.” Faye hissed, Henry popping up with her in his arms, all to eager to carry her back to their bedroom, closing and locking the door before Kal had the chance to squeeze his way in.

~*~

“Just pull it off like a band aid, right?”

“Quick and easy and it’ll be over with.” Henry agreed, wrapping one large paw around her hip and pulling her closer.

“Briar, can you come here for a minute?” Faye called, resting a hand on his knee.

“Hi Mommy!” Briar greeted enthusiastically, practically tacking her mother as she launched herself into her lap, stuffed bunny still in tow.

“Hi.” Faye giggled, situating her daughter in her lap. “Briar, Mommy and Papa have something to tell you.” Faye started, Briar turning her wide innocent gaze up to her mother expectantly. “Henry?” Faye delegated, looking up at him.

“Princess, you’re a big sister. Mummy and Papa are having another baby.” Henry explained, Briar staring blankly up at him for what felt like an eternity, processing what he just said.

“Where?” She finally asked, Henry stifling a laugh at her innocent question.

“The baby is in Mommy’s tummy.” Faye told her, taking her daughter’s tiny hand and resting it on her stomach.

“You ate baby?!” Briar gasped, her eyes going wide as she frantically pulled up her mother’s shirt. “I get you out baby!” She yelled, poking at her mother’s navel, Henry unable to contain his laughter this time.

“The baby needs to stay in Mommy’s tummy until they’re ready to be born. They’re still too little.”

“How baby get there?” Briar asked, continuing to poke at her mother’s stomach curiously.

“Papa put the baby there so they can grow big and strong.”

“Big and strong like Papa!” Briar giggled.

“Yes, like Papa.” Faye laughed. “So, Mommy’s tummy is going to get bigger and bigger as the baby grows, just like when you were in my tummy.”

“I was in you belly?” Briar whispered in amazement. “Papa tummy get big too?”

“Yes, you were and no, I don’t see Papa getting a big tummy anytime soon.” Faye laughed.

“Nope, no tummy.” Briar confirmed after pulling up Henry’s t-shirt and taking in his still firm, furry abdomen.

“Thank you.” Henry chuckled, pushing his shirt back down and kissing the top of her head. “So, is that ok with you, princess? Would you like to be a big sister?”

“Yeah! I help with baby!” Briar squealed excitedly, hugging her stuffed bunny close to her chest and bouncing on her mother’s lap.

“Will you show Papa how to take care of a baby?” Henry asked, Briar nodding her head excitedly.

“Yeah! I show you!” She agreed.

“Ok, how do you hold the baby?” Henry asked, leaning down to look her in the eye.

“Like this!” Briar explained, cradling her stuffed rabbit in her arms.

“Ok, I think I can do that. How do you burp the baby?” Briar flipped the bunny up onto her shoulder, smacking it on the back and looking up at Henry to make sure he was paying attention. “Alright. What about feeding, how do you feed a baby?”

Without missing a beat, Briar pulled up her shirt and pressed the bunny’s face to her chest, Henry bursting out laughing along with Faye. “Very good, sweetheart.” Faye praised around a laugh, kissing the top of her daughter’s head. “Now why don’t you go play with Kal for a little bit?”

“Kal!” Briar called, hopping off her mother’s lap and running off to her room, the canine hot on her heels.

“I still don’t think I’m going to be very good at breastfeeding.” Henry lamented, Faye snickering and shaking her head.

“Yours are still bigger than mine.” Faye pointed out, playfully grabbing at his chest.

“I’m not so sure about that anymore.” Henry teased, resting one hand on the side of his chest she wasn’t groping and the other on Faye’s swollen breasts, pretending to contemplate as he shamelessly squeezed at her chest.

“You may have a point. The only bras that fit anymore are sports bras. I’m gonna need to buy more. Sports bras and swollen tits are not a fun combination right now.”

“You have my attention.” Henry purred, perking up at her declaration.

“Henry, I’m going to be getting ugly nursing bras, not sexy lingerie.”

“Why not both?”

“Really?”

“What? You’ve been pouncing me at least twice a day for the last week. How is me wanting to see my gorgeous pregnancy fiancé in something sexy out of line?”

“Ok, first of all, I haven’t been pouncing on you twice a day.” Faye started, Henry raising an amused eyebrow at her declaration. “I may have suggested we get closer a few more times than usual, but it’s not like I’m barging in while you’re busy to try and get some. I’m not some sex crazed maniac.”

“You barged in on me showering twice.”

“You do that to me all the time!”

“And I haven’t been able to complete a workout without you demanding I finish with a round of couples cardio.”

“Have you seen what you look like all sweaty with your muscles all pumped up? It’s not my fault you’re irresistible.”

“I also seem to remember you surprising me in the gaming room and riding me while I was on coms playing world of warcraft.”

“Ok, so like one slutty instance.” Faye scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“There was also that time last week when we went out for dinner. You had your hand shoved down my trousers before the driver even finished putting up the partition.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was bothering you so much.” Faye grouched, crossing her arms and scooting away from him.

“You’re not bothering me at all.” Henry laughed, grabbing her hips and pulling her closer. “I’m just making a point. You can’t keep your hands off of me, and I’m loving every minute of it.”

“Wouldn’t mind your hands on me a little more.” Faye lamented, turning sideways on the couch and tossing her legs over his, leaning back to rest her head on the armrest.

“Are you hinting at something?” Henry asked, his fingers just barely skimming above the waistband of her leggings, a shiver following in their wake.

“Probably not what you’re thinking. My calves have been really tight lately. It would be great if my loving fiancé were to rub them down for me.”

“Are you sure that’s all you’re wanting?” Henry teased, his hands sliding down her legs to gently knead at her tense muscles.

“We’ll see.” Faye half yawned, already settling down for her usual mid-afternoon nap.  

~*~

“Faye.” Henry started out sternly, crossing his arms and raising a brow at his fiancé as she attempted to look innocently over her shoulder.

“Yes, my love?”

“What do you have there?”

“Nothing.”

“So, it’s not another cup of coffee that I’m smelling?” Henry challenged, crossing the room as Faye sat the cup down on the counter, spinning around to face him.

“But… the baby…”

“The baby is the exact reason you asked me to make sure you’re not drinking as much caffeine. Remember what the doctor suggested? Only one a day.” Henry scolded, gripping her hips to pull her closer.

“The baby wants coffee.” Faye whimpered, giving him her best puppy dog face.

“Then the baby will have to settle for decaf.”

“It’s not the same! Why are you being so mean?”

“I’m not. You told me not to let you drink more caffeine than you should, so I am.”

“Can’t you just leave me alone for two minutes? One extra every now and then is fine!” Faye growled.

“Of course I can leave you alone. I’m doing what you asked me to, so don’t yell at me.” Henry stated calmly, reaching past her to grab the pot from the coffee maker, dumping it out and taking it with him to his office, wincing at her irritated ranting. She had been very clear and adamant about him monitoring, and limiting her caffeine intake, especially coffee. Unfortunately, her most recent craving had been exactly what he had been told to keep her from. Why couldn’t she just crave normal things, like pickles and ice cream? No, she had to be obsessed with something she couldn’t have, and now she was extremely upset with him for doing exactly what she had asked him to do. He could almost feel more gray streaking through his hair.

He was just finishing up a phone call with a contractor when he could hear her again, this time strangled sobs and quiet sniffles meeting his ears rather than her ranting. He was up and out the door in a second, almost running into her when he found her loitering just outside the door.

“Darling, what’s wrong?” Henry asked, holding her shoulders gently and leaning down to look at her more closely.

“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.” Faye apologized, looking up at him with red rimmed eyes.

“Faye, please don’t cry.”

“I’m sorry, I just feel really bad. You’re just doing what I asked, and I started screaming at you!”

“Faye, darling, please calm down.” Henry soothed, pulling her closer and letting her cry into his chest. “I’m not mad, I know you didn’t mean it.”

“I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”

“Faye, I’m not mad.” Henry insisted, kissing the top of her head. “There’s nothing to forgive. I love you.”

“I love you too.” Faye sniffled, wrapping her arms around his thick waist and squeezing him tight. “I’m sorry I was acting so crazy.”

“There’s nothing to worry about.” Henry repeated, rubbing her back softly. “The builders are going to be starting later on this week.”

“Really?” Faye sniffed, looking back up at him, Henry cupping her face and wiping her tears away with his thumbs.

“Yes. I told you we would get it done in time. It does mean we’ll have to watch Kal when he’s outside now, make sure he’s not getting into anything.”

“This doesn’t even feel real. I’m engaged to an amazing man, pregnant with his baby, living in a house with more than two rooms in it, and now we’re building a guest house out back.” Faye half laughed, reaching up to rest her hands on his wrists.

“Well, originally I wanted to move back to Jersey before we started expanding out family, but well… that didn’t happen. I don’t think moving out of a house we just moved into while you’re pregnant is a good idea, and we don’t have any family that lives close. Next best thing is building a guest house so family can stay without everyone being under each other’s feet.”

“Are you still wanting to move back to Jersey?”

“It would be wonderful if we could, but only if that’s also what you want. I just wanted us to be closer to family.”

“Maybe after I recover would be a good time. Kinda sucks that we’re building just to sell the house not long after.”

“We don’t have to sell it. Unless you’re not wanting to come back here at all.”

“Hen, you have to remember, I’m not the kind of person that owns multiple houses. I’m used to renting questioningly inhabitable apartments.”

“Never again.” Henry stated firmly. “Only the best for you from now on.”

~*~

Five minutes. They made it five minutes before being interrupted. Four minutes longer than he thought it would take. He gave Briar specific instructions not to come into his office until the door was open again. He never should have said anything. She normally never went into his office, finding the room ‘boring’ even after she put stickers all over the back of the door and window clings to the window. Now that he had told her not to come in, she was looking for reasons to do just that.

The interviewer had just asked him a question, and he opened his mouth to answer when he saw the door opening out of the corner of his eye.

“Yes, Princess?” Henry sighed, smiling and turning his head to see her standing perfectly still in the doorway.

“Hi.” She whispered, quickly running over to him and throwing her arms around his leg. “I love you!”

“I love you too, Princess.” Henry replied quietly, gently removing her from his leg and shooing her off towards the door, “Papa’s busy right now, so you need to wait outside, ok?”

“Ok.” Briar agreed, sitting down in the open doorway and staring at him again.

“Can you close the door, please?”

“But I wanna see you.” Briar pouted, her face falling at his stern look, standing herself up and closing the door again. He could faintly hear her crying her way down the hall, his heart shattering at the sound.

“Sorry.” Henry apologized, shifting uncomfortably. He wanted nothing more than to go and apologize for pushing her away like that, but the interview wasn’t quite over yet.

“Was that your daughter?”

“Yes, it was.” Henry responded, unable to keep the smile from his face.

“When are we going to get a peek at your family? There have been rumors of you settling down.”

“Yes, I am settling down.” Henry agreed, “I have found the most wonderful, amazing woman. We don’t want the children to be drawn into everything, though. That’s a pretty big boundary for us.”

“Children? As in, more than one?”

“We do see more children in our future.” Henry skittered around the question. Faye had been adamant about waiting until they knew what they were having before announcing it to the world.

“Papa, I brought you something.” Briar’s small voice cut in, peeking her head around the cracked open door, holding up a sticker she had already peeled from its backing.

“Thank you, princess. Papa’s trying to work now.” Henry chastised softly, leaning down when she crossed the room to let her place the pony sticker on his cheek.

“Almost done?” Briar asked hopefully, batting her lashes at him.

“Almost. Why don’t you go get Kal’s leash on him? We’ll take him for a walk just as soon as I finish up here.”

“Ok, Papa!” Briar gasped excitedly, rushing out the open door again.

“That should give us about two minutes.” Henry laughed, turning his attention back to the screen. “I’m terribly sorry about all the interruptions. I would have come in person, but my fiancé isn’t feeling quite well, and I didn’t want to leave her.”

“It’s alright, I understand.” The interviewer assured, flipping through their notes again. “Last question, do you have any future projects in the works?”

“I have one movie that is in post right now, but I haven’t lined anything up right now for afterwards. I’m focusing more on family at the moment.”

“You’ve stated before that having a family was your dream. What’s it feel like to have it actually happening right now?”

“I’m happier now than I’ve ever been.”

Tags:  @weallhaveadestiny @lunedelorient @summersong69 @mis-lil-red @lharrietg @amberangel112 @mansaaay @packerfan43

[dorminchu]

Insult to Injury: The Director's Cut — Chapter 01

Note: All right, it's been a hot minute since I uploaded anything substantial in regard to this fic. So I'm going to try something a bit risky! I've archived Insult to Injury as you all know it, with the exception of a few errant reblogs outside of my control. But that's neither here nor there; I am very excited to present to all of you all the definitive version of this fic — the Director's Cut, if you will. ;)

Fandom: James Bond Characters: Madeleine Swann, Lyutsifer Safin, various OC(s) Relationships: Madeleine & OC(s) Warnings: Strong language, intense scenes of violence, general cynicism. Rating: M Genre: Crime/Drama Summary: A troubled psychologist desperate to escape her past criminal ties finds herself drawn into a far more insidious schism. [Post-Skyfall]

[Ao3 | FFNet]

— ACT I —

“Everything which is done in the present, affects the future by consequence, and the past by redemption.” — Paulo Coelho

— Episode I: A THOUSAND DETAILS —

In the sterile comfort of her office, Dr Madeleine Swann stared blankly at her computer monitor. The notification that her application as a psychologist consultant with the Médecins Sans Frontières had been sent six days prior blurred with lack of focus. The location of the mission in question was Conakry, Guinea. Her contract duration would last from the start of May to the end of August; just shy of two months away from now. There was an additional caveat:

All non-ECOWAS foreigners are required to have a valid Guinean visa and a vaccination card in order to be granted entry. Yellow fever vaccination cards are verified upon entry into the country at Gbessia.

Approval for the visa necessitated a seventy-two-hour window of clearance. And it would be at least four weeks until she heard back from the Human Resources Office—up to six if she were unlucky. She sat erect and the movement alone was enough to incite a sharp stab of pain into the back of her head. Through the window the sun cast a reddish glare, obfuscating the monitor and warming the nape of her neck. She shoved her face into the heels of her palms while the pressure in her skull abated to a dull throbbing.

Usually she made a habit of drawing the blinds. There were already enough odd complaints about her office being too cold and sterile passed along by the secretary. It had been a stressful enough week that Madeleine saw no reason to keep the shutters closed, so her clients might have something else to focus on besides four polished wooden walls and the analog clock.

What came off to most outsiders as a cool and direct manner of conduct was simply pragmatism. She had a laptop computer used primarily for sending emails. She recorded the bulk of her notes on patients by-hand and revised by means of portable recorder. She kept no photographs in her home nor office. The casual anecdotes she provided to her colleagues were ostensibly as droll as her taste in décor; though her efforts to blend in had largely gone unappreciated.

There wasn’t anything else immediate to review for tonight. She wished a curt good-night to the secretary before donning her coat and exiting into the crisp evening air.

⁂

It was only a fifteen-minute walk from the clinic to the flat. Above her head the clouds hung grey and pregnant with snow. By the time she had ascended the staircase and opened the door to her apartment her fingers prickled. Numbness seeped into her skin. She’d never much cared for the colder seasons.

“You’re back early,” said Arnaud—a fellow Sociology major from her college days. After graduating from Oxford, Madeleine had taken his offer to return to Paris and transfer over to the 8tharrondissement with the understanding that they would be rooming together. Her colleagues back then often referred to them as friends-with-benefits as Madeleine had showed little interest in dating before. After three years of cohabitation, her co-workers at the office wondered how she and Arnaud remained so cordial while balancing their careers and relationship.

“Yes.” Madeleine hung up her coat, noting that he had not yet changed out of his own. “I submitted my request with the MSF a week ago. If I am accepted I’ll be working as a psychologist consultant. In that case, I’ll be out of the country until August at least.”

“Well, you’ve never landed a position that didn’t suit you.” Madeleine smiled politely. “Can I get you anything?”

“No, thanks.” She looked away from him towards the window. “You could open the blinds. It's very bright in here with the lights on.”

“There’s hardly much to look at when the sun is in your eyes. Isn’t that what you say?”

For the most part, Arnaud was easy to live with. Neither of them required financial support and he was of equitable social standing. Her relentless volunteer work did not always lend much time to get to know his inner mind. “It’s late. Are you going out again?”

“No, I got back first. And it’s fortunate. You looked awfully cold when you came in.”

“I can hardly control the weather. And you needn’t worry, I always carry a key on me.”

“Madeleine, we live together. It wouldn’t be right to avoid you. But you know, if I were going out to an unscrupulous club it would make for a pretty good story.”

“Hm.”

“And knowing you,” Arnaud continued, “you probably won’t be going out drinking. The sunrise disturbs you in the mornings, and you woke up before I did, at seven. I assume you’ve been busy all day. In just a few weeks you’ll be working that much harder. You ought to get some rest while you can.”

“So,” a little cooler, “you’ll be another mission?”

“Most likely.”

“All these countries must seem the same after a while.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t expect you to understand. When was the last time you volunteered out of the country? 2011?”

Arnaud laughed. “Jesus, this isn’t a competition.”

“But it’ll give you something to talk about to your friends while I am away.”

Arnaud said nothing. Madeleine frowned. She went into the other room and began to change. He could not approach her in the same casual manner as his peers, nor dissect her outright. His life was one of prestige as well as privilege, and Madeleine could not foster any underlying resentment towards him for acting in his nature. The silence held, strained. Then Arnaud said:

“It’s always been important to you. That’s what should matter.”

⁂

In two weeks’ time she got a response from the HRO; the initial interview was scheduled shortly thereafter. By the middle of April she was making preparations to depart. Thanks to Arnaud’s tactic of avoidance she had little reason to tell him the details. No one would know where she was headed unless they broke inside her laptop and hunted through her mail. The situation in Guinea had kicked into mainstream awareness back in February for a week or so before gradually sinking back into obscurity.

Reports from several news outlets cited the emergence of an outbreak primarily affecting South Africa. Originating inland, a mysterious illness that revealed itself first with fever and spells of vomiting, then gradually ate away at the flesh of those afflicted and bore their bones and muscle, vulnerable to further rot. More emboldened journalists had taken to calling it the Red Death on account of this. Neither a cure nor a place or origin had been discovered.

The situation had not improved in the last two months so much as stabilised. Madeleine had been assured several times over email and electronic conference that those working in the field had already taken precautions, and she’d be instructed further on what to do upon her arrival. She was issued a few pamphlets and strongly advised to vaccinate before boarding the flight. Which she had done, but it was very kind of them to remind her.

In spite of Arnaud’s apparent disinterest, his last words to her before she departed had been: “Last year it was four missions. I'd never seen you so tired. I wish I knew what you’re trying to prove.”

After managing to get some sleep on the plane she touched down Conakry International Airport around mid-morning and contacted the Project Coordinator; a shorter man in his mid-forties with a photogenic smile and toupee. He clasped her hand in both of his clammy ones and said: “Very glad you've made it, Doctor. We need you on-site in twenty minutes. Make sure you are ready.” Her luggage was dropped off on the second floor of the Grand Hotel de L’independence, where she and the other MSF members would be rooming. The staff were polite enough, though their attention was fixed on the Project Coordinator.

Her room was spare and a little dingy, and the only means of fresh air came from opening the window and polluting the room with outside noise, but it was at least reasonably clean. A fine sheen of sweat was building on her skin. No reason to delay the inevitable.

Upon reaching Donka Hospital she met up with the rest of the team, most notably the Medical Coordinator, and the Psychosocial Unit. It soon became apparent that there were still not enough medical doctors to handle the influx of infected. An isolation ward had been established before the MSF’s involvement, but they were reportedly at full capacity; the workers in there were clad in full-body personal protective equipment. Another section of the grounds had been set aside and fenced off; rows of tents all lined up, reminding Madeleine distantly of a prisoner’s accommodations. No matter where you went the stench of rot always seemed to hang pervasively in the air.

She was paired off with another psychologist by the name of John Herrmann; American, around her age. He was of a friendlier disposition than she was used to, introducing her semi-formally to the rest of the group before adding:

“So, one thing you should know now, we’ve been having problems with the electricity on site as well as the hotel. There’s no running water either.”

“This isn’t my first mission with MSF. And I lived out in the countryside when I was small. I know how to look after myself.”

Herrmann smiled. “That’s fair.” He scratched his neck. “The mosquitoes are worse. Bug nets won’t help worth a damn. Make sure you close your windows at night, I had to learn that the hard way.”

“I see.” The humidity combined with the smell off-road were already becoming intolerable. But she did not want to appear so snobbish or weak in front of someone she would be monitoring for the next three months. “I won’t go any easier on you just because you are unaccustomed to the environment.”

 “See ,that’s the kind of attitude we need around here!” He clapped a hand on her back; Madeleine regarded him levelly until he relented. “Good to have you on the team.”

The other members on the Psychosocial Unit were as amicable with Madeleine as the situation permitted. None of them got on her nerves as much as Herrmann. His enthusiasm was never to the point of seeming false or obsequious, but he remained just enough of a go-getter to piss her off. After a week of monitoring them she came away with the impression that Herrmann was genuine. He had been consistently genial with the clientele and hospital staff alike, no matter the severity of their condition. She saw no reason to socialise with him outright. The most he ever noted about her mood was: “You’re pretty reticent for a psychologist consultant.”

“I’m here to do my job. That’s all.”

Herrmann shrugged. “I can respect that. We all deal with the situation in our own ways.” He paused. “I can see why the Project Coordinator wanted you. You’re handling this situation a lot better than I would have.”

“Thank you.”

“The workload must be insane compared to what you’re normally used to. I know it took me time to adjust—" he stopped as Madeleine threw him a look of confusion “—what is it?”

“Back home, I am usually referred to as what one would call a workaholic. Or didn’t anyone tell you?”

“Oh, hey, I didn’t mean to imply—”

“No offence taken.”

The higher temperature was not so bad as the humidity that slapped her in the face whenever stepping outside—according to the forecasts, it was only going to get worse within the coming months. There was no manner of ventilation or air-conditioning in the hotel so often times she had to draw the curtains and keep her hair back. She resigned herself by reminding herself that it was better than sleeping in a tent.

There wasn’t much time to be hung-up on much else besides her assignment. The members of the Psychosocial Unit all looked good on paper, but they betrayed their inexperience through a shared level of idealism towards the mission that Madeleine deemed ill-fated. She did not blame them. Young, perhaps fresh out of school, looking to make a difference in the world without truly anticipating the gravity of the situation. Their time spent observing the crises of the rest of the world through the lens of journalism and outside empathy could not compare with the experience of actually sitting down and listening to the stuff their patients talked of with prosaic seriousness.

It often sounded outrageous when Madeleine played back the recordings, taking down notes in the quiet, stuffy hotel room. Mortality was an expected outcome, and the implication of negligence by their government a common topic of discussion among patients. Most conversations were conducted in French or else by way of an interpreter, though the antagonism in the voices of these patients needed no translation.

There was a growing disparity between the narrative put into circulation by the news and what was happening in the field. According to several members of the MSF and the staff at Donka, the media blew the problem out of proportion. The people whose condition had kicked off the “Red Death” story had been subjected to long-term exposure. Most of the patients that came through were not in that same condition, but it created an illusion of immediacy that incited concern in the public eye and a need for donations. Government officials wanted to cover up the severity of the situation as not to detract from any potential business opportunities; until the MSF got involved, they were only employing the most rudimentary of safety procedures.

This latter revelation had shaken up the Psychosocial Unit considerably; Dr Herrmann had lost his patience with the Medical Coordinator. To this end, he’d apologised profusely to Madeleine afterwards though she would hear none of it. Whatever he felt about the situation was not necessarily invalid, but out of consideration for their patients, he would not bring it up again.

Herrmann never held it against her. So Madeleine busied herself in her own work. Whatever quiet camaraderie forged between the other MSF members was not her business. When pressed for advice, she would talk calmly, carefully with the rest of the team about what would be optimal but never overreach. In the sweltering nights and throughout the early morning, Madeleine would pore over her notes, listening to the passing automobiles and indistinct conversation carried over by civilians.

⁂

June crawled by. Currently the MSF were in the process of dealing with a new influx of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the surrounding prefectures and villages, all of whom had to be tested and separated from those not stricken with disease. Thanks to the cooperation with the local civilians and tireless efforts on part of the medical staff and Medical Unit, there had been a forty-five-percent decrease in fatalities compared to the start of the year.

The atmosphere within the hospital was not improving. The topic of insurgence was the new favourite with patients. Allegedly there had been several attacks on neighbouring villages; a consequence of the lack of tangible progress coupled with deep-seated mistrust of government officials. Now the Force Sécurité/Protection, or FSP, had been brought on in collaboration with an additional Protective Services Detail (PSD) by the name of Kerberos, to ensure the hospital and surrounding property remained untouched.

Their Project Coordinator called them all in for the sake of reviewing protocol in the event of an attack. Outright criticism of the government’s method in handling the situation was discouraged. Madeleine was savvy enough to keep herself abreast of any controversy. For the rest of the Psychosocial Unit, she presumed they were either too naïve or willing to look the other way.

The only exception to this was the Vaccines Medical Advisor, Francis Kessler; a stoic older man with thinning hair and glasses. He and Madeleine had cooperated a handful of times beforehand, at the discreet behest of the Medical Coordinator. Madeleine had found nothing wrong with his conduct. A diligent worker, he acknowledged her judgement fairly but did not overextend his gratitude. Outside of his work he was straight-laced and reserved and wouldn’t be seen socialising with any of the younger MSF who all talked about him as though he were some out-of-touch stick-in-the-mud. As the situation in the hospital became more dire he would stay behind on-site, late into the evening. Whenever they had a break, he would disappear on calls. Once he came back late by only a few minutes and apologised to Madeleine.

“I was supposed to be sent home last month, but with the situation being what it is, I decided to stay on until things are resolved.” He did not sit down, his attention turned towards the path back to the infected ward. “It’s madness. We’ve already waited until things are too severe to think of bringing in a proper security detail—who the hell does the Project Coordinator think we’re fooling?” Madeleine ignored him. “Dr Swann. The Medical Coordinator tells me you’ve been involved in volunteer work for a while.”

“Five years, as of March.”

“Perhaps they would be more willing to listen to someone with your expertise.”

“I’m flattered. But it’s fortunate that I was not selected for my personal opinion.”

Kessler chuckled. “You’ll go far.”

Madeleine had no interest in pursuing this topic any further. “Who were you speaking to?” He froze up, didn’t answer immediately. “My apologies. I shouldn’t have been so blunt. But you leave often enough on calls, and it appears to be taking a toll on you.”

Comprehension dawned on his face, his shoulders relaxed. “Just my wife. This past month has been no easier on her. But I find that it can help somewhat, just talking to someone outside of this element.” Madeleine nodded stoically. “I’ve never seen you contact anyone outside of your unit.” Madeleine did not anticipate the conversation to take such a turn, nor did she wish to divulge much about herself. But she could not deflect as she could in the clinic back home, and Kessler seemed forthright enough to warrant a harmless response.

“I’m living with a friend. We graduated from college together.”

“And you keep in touch while you are abroad?”

“He tends to lead his own life while I am away.”

“That’s a great deal to ask of someone.” Madeleine inclined her head in his direction. This was not a man that emoted often; now the thin mouth was set, and the eyes behind the glasses disillusioned. “Few women your age would devote themselves to a thankless vocation as this. Not everyone is going to want to stick around until you decide you want to settle down.”

Madeleine’s smile did not touch her eyes. She hadn’t even mentioned the nature of her relationship to Arnaud. “We have an understanding, that’s all. Besides, I don’t bother him about his social life.”

Kessler shook his head. In a few minutes they were back to work as usual. By the end of the day, Madeleine resolved to let him dig his own social grave without further interference.

By the time July rolled around Madeleine found her mind snagging easily on technicalities. She became less tolerant of the Psychological Unit’s personal hang-ups with the lack of resources and lack of any obvious moral closure. Smell of rot and disinfectant permeated into her clothing and hair until she had begun to associate the smell itself with a total lack of progress.

She left the window to her hotel room cracked most nights, afraid to open it completely. Alone with her own mind and the recorder. The conversations now circled back readily to death and terrorism. An overwhelming fear of retaliation from looming insurrection.

Madeleine stopped the recording. She checked the time and cursed under her breath. Just past one in the morning. In six hours she would return to Donka Hospital and repeat the process. A month and a half from now she would be on a flight back to Paris. Her mind wouldn't settle on either direction.

Outside her window she heard the distant voice of Francis Kessler. He was conversing in German, from a few storeys down, but as Madeleine came over to the window she understood him clearly:

“…I’ve been saying it for weeks, and they dismiss me every time. These wounds are the result of prolonged exposure from chemicals. We’ve seen evidence of IDPs coming through, exhibiting the same symptoms as the PMCs we treated back in February. How we can expect to make any progress if the Project Coordinator refuses to bring this up? We’re putting God-knows how many lives at risk waiting for a vaccine that we don’t know if we need—and even so, it won’t be ready for another week. There’s not enough time to justify keeping silent….”

Madeleine closed the window carefully. She’d never been one to intrude on family matters.

⁂

When Madeleine exited her room the next morning, she found the Project Coordinator waiting for her in the hallway, along with the head of security from Kerberos and a couple Donka Hospital staff Madeleine knew by sight but not intimately.

The vaccines had arrived earlier than anticipated, around three or four in the morning. Several members of the Medical Unit had stayed on-site in order to determine if all had been accounted for and subsequently realised it was rigged. Thanks to the intervention of Kerberos the losses were minimal. Several doctors had suffered chemical exposure and were currently isolated from the rest of the IDPs to receive immediate medical attention. Others, such as Drs Kessler and Herrmann, had been less fortunate.

Now there was additional pressure from the hospital doctors and Logistics Team to begin moving the high-risk patients to a safer area. The fear that this story would circulate and any chance of obtaining vaccines would be discouraged could not be ruled out. So they would not be reporting this as a chemical attack, but as a failed interception of an attack by local terrorists, stopped by the FSPs.

“Dr Swann.” The head of security, Lucifer Safin, gave Madeleine pause. His accent would presume a Czech or Russian background but his complexion and eye colour invited room for ambiguity. The MSF on staff commonly referred to him by surname; perhaps Lucifer was simply an alias. What set him apart was his face. Gruesomely scarred from his right temple to the base of his left jaw, though the structure of his eyes and nose remained intact. In spite of the weather, Madeleine had never seen him without gloves. “I understand that you were one of the last to speak with Dr Kessler?”

His manner wasn’t explicitly taciturn, more akin to the disconcerting silence one might experience while looking into a body of still-water—met only with your reflection.

“Yes,” said Madeleine, “but that was nearly five days ago.”

“You were instructed to monitor him during that period by the Medical Coordinator?”

 “That’s correct.”

Safin glanced at the Project Coordinator. “I’ll speak with her alone.”

“Of course.”

Safin nodded. They walked down the length of the hall back to her room. His gait was purposeful and direct. He had a rifle strapped to his side. Madeleine tried to avoid concentrating on it. Her attention went to the window. She'd forgotten to lock it.

“Dr Swann.” The early morning light put his disfigurement into a new, unsettling clarity. Too intricate to be leprosy or a typical burn wound, it was more as if his very face were made of porcelain and had suffered a nasty blow, then glued together again. “What was the extent of your relationship to Dr Kessler?”

“I did not work with him often. We talked once or twice but that was all. I have my own responsibilities with the Psychosocial Unit. From what I could tell, he never made an effort to befriend anyone.”

“But you were asked to monitor Dr Kessler.”

“I was requested to do so on behalf of the Medical Coordinator. There were concerns that Dr Kessler was somehow unqualified to continue his work. In observing him, I had no reason to suspect he was unfit for the position psychologically.” Safin said nothing. “The only issue I could see worth disqualifying him for, was that Kessler and the Project Coordinator had very differing views on protocol.”

“He spoke to you about his views?”

“He expressed to me once, in confidence, that he did not understand the Project Coordinator’s hesitance to bring in a security detail.” Safin’s attention on her became sharper. “He also told me he’d elected to continue volunteering here past his contract duration, just to ensure the operation was successful. That was my only conversation with him outside of a work-related context. You would be better off asking the other doctors about this.”

“We have video surveillance in place on the Grand Hotel de L’independence. At around one in the morning, Dr Kessler exited the building and contacted an unknown party by mobile phone. Then, a minute later, you were at your window.”

“Oh, yes. I have been forgetting to close it. With so many longer days, it can be difficult to remember these things.”

“Your room was the only one to show signs of activity at that hour.”

“I was reviewing my notes from that day’s session. I heard a voice from outside, though not clearly. It was distracting me from my work, so I got up and closed the window.”

“Do you commonly review your notes in the early hours of the morning with an unlocked window?”

“I just wanted some quiet. I leave the windows open because otherwise I seem to find myself trapped with the smell of rotting flesh as well as humidity.”

Safin’s expression became easier to read, but not in a positive sense. This was not a man you wanted to be on opposing sides with. Madeleine kept any apprehension away from her face and her voice tightly controlled.

“Look. Without information about Dr Kessler’s lifestyle outside of the MSF, I cannot give you an answer in good faith. I was assigned to survey him. He showed no signs of dereliction in his work, and to my knowledge kept his personal views separate from his work. Whatever he said to me during outside hours was assumed to be in confidence. Many people say things to one another in what they believe to be confidence that they would not admit to otherwise. If I had reason to suspect he was unfit to work, I would have contacted the Medical Advisor immediately.”

Safin held her gaze. She did not dare avert her face. Then he said: “Thank you for your cooperation. The Project Coordinator is waiting for you downstairs.”

The rest of the day she spent in a different wing of the hospital. The Psychosocial Unit was cut down from four members to three. Another inconsequential day of thankless work that never seemed quite good enough. That night Madeleine laid back on her bed and watched the shadows on the ceiling stretch over peeling paint until daybreak.

When she’d arrived at the airport she could stave off her doubts with shallow, private reassurances. As long as you are here, you are just Dr Swann the psychologist consultant. Your father is many miles away and he won’t contact you again. No one else will come looking for you in a place like this.

With a guy like Safin around she was undoubtedly safer than she would have been with the FSPs alone.

Safer, but no longer invisible.

⁂

July brought hotter weather and brittle peace—the vaccines had finally arrived. The wing of the hospital that had suffered the terrorist attack was still closed and they had lost several more staff members wounded in the initial attack. Madeleine and the remaining MSF were encouraged by the Project Coordinator to take earlier shifts. Progress remained steady but there was no clear resolution in sight. The stench of rot imprinted into Madeleine’s senses to the point where she no longer consciously registered her own nausea. Discontent among the staff continued to bubble under the surface on account of the closed wing and bad press.

It couldn't last forever.

A week away from August. Just another humid morning at six AM. Madeleine rose and prepared herself mentally for the day ahead. Stress kept her mind working late into the night, but her position with the Psychosocial Unit barred her from working overtime in the hospital. She was overwhelmed with keeping up the pace, not yet to the point of exhaustion.

There was an inordinate of activity on the road outside as she got dressed and left the room. She put it out of her mind.

Outside the hotel she met up with the Medical Coordinator and a few members of the Logistics Unit. They spent about ten minutes standing idle in the humid air, too weary to speak. The streets were usually empty this time of day.

An unremarkable black Jeep pulled up. The Medical Coordinator opened the door and was about to step into the car when it happened. The Medical Coordinator’s head burst over the interior of the vehicle and Madeleine. The body slumped like a doll to the dirt. Madeleine wanted to scream but could not. She turned and found herself facing down the barrel of a rifle.

Around a dozen men with guns, sans insignia, circled them. The man who had fired addressed her harshly in French: “Where are the rest of the MSF? Why are they not at the hospital?”

“I don’t understand.” Madeleine could see another group of men approaching from the rear. A massacre, onset.

“We’ve been waiting for months for a solution, and you have been injecting us with a useless vaccine.” He aimed right at her sternum. “Your doctors gave them all false hope for months. Now the MSF have abandoned you.”

“You have been protecting them!” the insurgent roared, levelling his weapon. “All this time! You knew why they were here, and you allowed them to experiment on our families like dogs!”

The man at his left turned and fired. The insurgent fell dead. “That’s enough.” One of the men from Kerberos in plainclothes. A dozen more in military gear materialised as if from nowhere. “There is no need for additional bloodshed,” said the plainclothes. “Release them now or you will be shot.”

All around her at once, gunfire. Madeleine didn't wait to see who had fired first. She prostrated herself, hands clasped over her neck, breath clogged in her throat.

All sound ceased. Her head continued to ring. Her eyes were open but she did not process the colour staining her skin, on her clothes, the smell of it. She hadn’t been shot. Her heart hammered against her ribcage.

Heavy footsteps approaching. She closed her eyes awaiting the kiss of metal at her temple.

“Dr Swann.” Madeleine shrunk away instinctively from the gloved hand upon her forearm. “It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Another soldier pulled her upright. Sight of blood on dry earth briefly mixed up with blood spattered across wooden floorboards. Madeleine went limp. Ushered into the backseat of an unmarked Jeep, she could not stop trembling. Shoulder-to-shoulder with another man she recognised as head of Logistics, Peter Miller. The door slammed shut, jolting her back into her own body. Sound of the ignition set her into trembling. Miller’s naked hand materialised on her shoulder. His voice overtaken by the roaring in her ears. Madeleine bowed her head into her hands like a child, whispering: “Ne me tuez pas. Je n’ai rien fait. Je ne sais rien.”

[twistedtranslations]

Trey Clover - Just a “normal” guy

You can unlock this story by getting Trey’s SR Lab coat

Translation under the cut

Rook: The science club. We do everything from cultivating plants, to chemistry experiments to cooking… There are plenty of clubs that do activities besides sports. Because of our wide range of activities, we are also called the "Whatever club", as there are many human oddballs affiliated with us. And here it is, today's activity of the science club…

Trey: Rook, it's nice that you come earlier than anyone else to the botanical garden to participate passionately, but… Can you please stop talking while you're watering the plants.

Rook: But Trey. Don't you think they want to know more about their caretakers?

Trey: Haha… You’re an oddball as usual.

Trey: Okay, I should take care of my potted plants as well. How are the strawberries doing that I'm cultivating…? Oh, they seem to have gotten redder than yesterday. It should be fine to harvest them now. Hm… They smell nice, and their shine is the optimal right now. It was worth it to spare no effort in cultivating them.

Rook: Hey, Trey. There's something that’s been on my mind for a while, can you hear me out?

Trey: I don't really mind… Is it that serious?

Rook: They often say that the science club is full of oddballs, but in contrast, you are a normal person. I want to expose that mystery.

Trey: Then I'll have to disappoint you. Process of elimination is the reason I entered the club. I would enter the home economics club or the cooking club if those existed, but they didn't.

Rook: Yes, you love making sweets. So, how do you feel, having chosen this club?

Trey: I'm having fun. I'm not only cooking but also cultivating the fruits to put on my cakes… I tried it and surprisingly got into it.

Rook: I see, so you're the kind of guy who gets obsessed with one thing.

Trey: For example, there are many varieties of strawberries. They can range from having a sweet to a sour taste. The kind I'm cultivating now is very sour, so I think it would taste nice in a tart. Our dorm leader is extremely fond of strawberry tarts. He'll be glad if we have some for the next tea party.

Rook: Hehe… I think you are plenty passionate about researching strawberries. Roi des Roses… so Riddle was your motivation. Having such a deep loyalty is très bien! As expected of the Chevalier, Trey!

Trey: Deep loyalty… Don't exaggerate. Riddle is my childhood friend, so I just know what he likes. That's all. 

Rook: Is that so? My eyes reflect a much deeper bond between you two! But yes… a flower will wither if you give it too much water. It's fine to hold back so you won't break his heart.

Jade: Trey!

Trey: Hm? You are Jade from Octavinelle… Is there something?

Jade:… Actually, something awfully troubling has happened. Won't you lend me your power? Floyd has embezzled all the fruits that were supposed to be served at Mostro Lounge.

Rook: Oh my, Floyd is such a mischievous child as usual.

Jade: It fills me with great embarrassment. To request something of you is awfully painful, but… won't you hand over the strawberries you grew?

Trey: No, I'm sorry, but I was planning on using these strawberries for the tarts for the next tea party…

Jade: I know it is an impudent request but… I must request it nonetheless. An important customer has reserved us today for a birthday party. Unfortunately, the school store has also run out of fruits. I don't have time to go shopping off campus.

Rook: Les Miserables! If you cannot have a cake for a birthday party…

Trey: It would be sad to present a birthday cake with only the base and cream. … I understand. I shall give these strawberries to you.

Jade: Really? Ah, I'm relieved. Thank you very much!

Trey: However, I have one condition.

Jade: Of course, I'm grateful. Please ask me anything.

Trey: I'm relieved to hear that. In exchange for the strawberries, I’d like…

Chapter 2

Trey: And now we remove the axillary buds of the roots… Okay, this way they won't take nutrition from the sprout. Please grow up to be sweet and tasty. 

Rook: Bonjour, Trey! Once again, are you seriously participating in today's club activities! This is the first time I've seen that planter, is it a newbie?

Trey: Yes. I'm planting new strawberry seedlings.

Rook: Ah, you did give the strawberries you've raised until now away to Jade. Oh, I know something! Let me give the newbie a name.

Trey: No, it's fine, you really don't have to give the strawberry a name.

Rook: You don't need to hold back… If you do change your mind please tell me though! Your modesty. And your kindness of yesterday. You are such a virtuous person! To think you'd give away the strawberries you put your soul into for a complete stranger's birthday cake.

Trey: I can just grow more strawberries. Besides, it's not like I gave them away to Jade for free.

Jade: Trey, I have brought the goods you requested.

Trey: Oh, now that we speak of the devil. I've been waiting, Jade.

Jade: Thank you very much for rescuing Mostro Lounge from yesterday's crisis. Here are your desired items, in exchange for the strawberries… A strawberry tart from the famous patissier from the town at the foot of the hill.

Rook: How beautiful…! The strawberries are vibrantly shining and look like polished rubies!

Trey: As expected of you, Jade. There was a rumor going around that you have to line up in the early morning to buy it, but you managed to.

Jade: As a punishment for the embezzlement, I had Floyd line up in the morning.

Trey: Huh. I didn't expect "that" Floyd to line up obediently like that.

Jade: Even if we're brothers, I was sure to make him repay his settlement for the embezzlement.

Rook: Oh my. The relationship between those is complicated and interesting.

Trey: In any case, thank you for the strawberry tart. I'm sure Riddle will be overjoyed.

Rook: Hey, Trey. While the tart that Jade bought seems extremely delicious, are you satisfied with that?

Trey: In what way?

Rook: I thought Riddle would be more pleased with handmade tarts and the strawberries you put so much love into raising.

Trey: Haha, no way.

Rook-Jade: Huh?

Trey: What's with you two. It's not like I said anything weird.

Rook: But you started cultivating strawberries because Riddle loves strawberry tarts, didn't you?

Trey: I guess so. While Riddle tends to fuss about the taste, his tastebuds are actually not that refined. If he knows it's from a famous store, he'll be happy. And I won't have to make it by hand. 

Rook: I say… This is quite surprising, Jade.

Jade: Indeed. I was sure Trey was the type that wanted to make Riddle eat homemade food with plenty of love.

Trey: What kind of type is that? Well, it's true that I love cooking so I get why you’d misunderstand...

Trey: Frankly, I don't care about how it's made or if there's love in it. The priority is making sure that our dorm leader doesn't get his tyrannical mode switched on. Anything in the world but that, you know.

Rook: Dear me, And I thought you were Riddle's faithful knight… what a little misunderstanding. Trey. You are kind of shrewd.

Trey: I'm nothing like that. I'm like you said, just a "normal" guy.

Heartslabyul Dorm - Tea Garden

Cater: Aaaah!

Trey: ! Why did you suddenly yell out like that, Cater?

Cater: Isn't today's tea party cake the strawberry tart from that famous shop in the town at the foot of the hill where you have to line up from morning!

Riddle: Hmpf… is it that rare?

Deuce: Yes, I even saw it on the TV.

Cater: If I upload this to Magicam it will go viral! Let me take a pic before we eat it~

Ace: Trey, how did you get such an outrageously popular tart?

Trey: It certainly took some time and effort. However, I did all of it for the dorm leader's tea party. Going this far is no problem. I don't know whether this will satisfy your palate though, Riddle.

Riddle: W-Well, I have gotten used to eating strawberry tarts. Since Trey went through the trouble of getting it, I shall carefully savor it.

Trey: That's an honor. Let's serve the first piece. Here, dorm leader. Bon appétit!

[twilitty]

Moonlit ch.1

This is the first chapter in my new fic Moonlit, it will be posted on Tumblr, ao3, and ffnet. New chapters uploaded every week and a half. Message/comment to be added to my tag list.

3k words

big thank you to my beta reader @effervescentlyirrevocable who has given me the absolute best criticism and helped make this chapter so beautiful :)

Bella moves to Forks Washington, her first week is uneventful. This fic has aged up characters, making them all at entry-college level ages.

Chapter One

My senses are sharper in Forks than they were in Phoenix, I’ve only been here a handful of days yet everything seemed brighter, louder, more alive than my past home. There was something here for me, something that made me feel more alert than I have in years.

The sound of heavy rain slowly pulls me out of my restless sleep, an elbow is thrown across my eyes in an attempt to keep the real world at bay. It’s always raining, the mist layering the ground never abandons its post, and the chilly air seemingly lasts indefinitely. The rainy town of Forks Washington sooner resembles my personal hell than it does a sleepy old town. The forest that borders the town at each cardinal point is layered in green moss, damp dirt, and an endless supply of fresh animal tracks. I’d moved to Forks only a week ago, the sum of which was spent unpacking dreadfully thin clothing and acquainting myself with the few stores and public access areas the town has to offer.

My father, Charlie, has had little to do with this process apart from moral support and the occasional bag of fast food that he’s picked up while on shift. Charlie is the town's police chief, a job that both seems ill-needed and also unbearably boring. How much crime can be committed in a town of fewer than ten thousand citizens? Other than the odd tag on a school building or bush party, what does his shift consist of? I have yet to bring my insulting opinions on his career to his attention, and likely will never do so. He’s a good man with a heart of gold and a passion for the judicial system, which is ever-present in his TV browsing as he cruises through endless episodes of Law & Order.

I’m not a big TV person, even back home in Phoenix, I preferred reading to the television. Perhaps this was related to my mother’s endless stack of yoga DVD’s that seemed to consume our viewing; her in a downward dog position gossiping about her latest advancements at her newest club membership, me sitting on the couch finishing a craft for her so she won’t be late submitting it. My favourite of her crafts was embroidery, one month I embroidered nearly two hundred dandelions on a pair of jeans for her. She gave them to the club administrator as an apology before she quit.

Regardless, at night when the TV is blaring the intro theme to a cop show, I am curled in bed with a book under my nose and headphones in my ears. Blocking out the rain is a full-time chore.

This morning is a particularly eventful morning, not because of any specific events, but rather the events that will be set into motion because of this morning. Today is the first day of my online college courses. I’m currently enrolled in an undeclared major. My hope is that the three courses I’m taking this spring term will help me decide on what I want to do in the future.

Charlie had given me a new laptop upon my arrival in Forks, a current model with modest upgrades to “enhance my academic experience”. Or at least that’s what the box boasted. I am not entirely convinced that a larger memory will miraculously cure me of my educational despise. High school was tortuous, I had few friends and fewer interests outside of my mother’s hobbies. I had no extra-curricular activities that were not synonymous with financial responsibilities. The monthly budget book was mine to care for, as was the constant, intrusive phone calls of the bank when my mother got too engaged in a store. She’s a gullible woman if nothing else. If a store clerk tells her a blouse suits her figure, she’ll purchase ten colours in the article along with two in a size lower just in case she finally loses the ten pounds she’s been trying to shed.

My eyes have barely opened, the down of my forearm just a fraction away from my pupil when Charlie pounds against my door. You’d imagine I was fostering a fugitive in here with the noise he’s making, but this is just the way my father is, loud noises and soft voices. I wonder, idly, if perhaps he has minor hearing loss from spending so much time around guns.

“I’m up!” I call out, my voice is thin and calloused with morning sleep. I clear my throat as the knocking cuts off, “Good morning, Dad.” Charlie doesn’t like me calling him Charlie.

“Morning, Bells,” he calls back through the door, quiet enough to not be taken as aggressive yet loud enough to sound authoritative. He is a father, my father, at heart. He pauses, and it’s as if I can hear the mental gears shifting in his mind. He hasn’t had to be a father since I was a baby, after that Renee was the parent. Charlie was the summer distraction. “Don’t be late for school.” I grunt a response, reaching for the alarm clock on my nightstand and groaning at the early hour of the morning. Barely eight, class doesn’t officially start until noon. I guess there’s nothing wrong with logging in early, although I’d much rather catch up on the sleep I’ve lost to the thunderous storms we’ve been experiencing recently.

As if he could sense my intentions, Charlie knocks against my door again. “Bella, I mean it. You didn’t come here to slack off, now.” No, I think nastily, I came here for peace and quiet.

Between unpacking my belongings and touring the town, I’ve developed a routine in my new living situation. Charlie is fond of my company, enjoying having a woman in the house outside of his ex-wife, my mother and ex-roommate. Although, his fondness of my presence does not directly translate to time spent together. He makes me breakfast, occasionally placing it in the oven to keep warm, and then immediately heads off to his family that is the Forks police station. We meet again for lunch, depending on our individual plans for the day, and then reunite again just in time for dinner. Food really is the great American pastime.

I dress in jeans and a light blue sweater that smells mysteriously of mildew although it’s a recent purchase and has yet to be worn outdoors. I suppose the rain permeates every available space, closed windows be damned. My socks are tall and I have to roll my jeans up at the bottoms to accommodate for the thick, high fabric of them. It’s a trick Charlie taught me for wearing rain boots, the higher the socks the less likely they are to run down to your toes as you walk. Immediately after that trick was taught I went to the nearest hiking store and purchased a pair of rain boots. My first pair of rain boots at nineteen years of age. Unfathomable yet ironic considering my lineage marks back to the wettest town in the continental US. My ancestors roll in their graves every time I step outdoors and forget a jacket or umbrella, I’m sure of it.

Charlie is waiting for me downstairs, both a surprise and unwelcome presence. I had a battered copy of Dorian Gray under my arm, I was expecting philosophy and moral ambiguity, not idle conversation. Before the chief notices my book, I slide it over the back of the couch and enter the kitchen with a polite smile. There’s bacon frying on the stovetop, the police chief is dressed in uniform already, but has a stained white apron tied around his neck. “Dad?”

“Oh,” he turns around and gives me a tight smile, “Excited for your big day?” You’d imagine it’s my first day of preschool with the amount of enthusiasm he’s trying to keep hidden from me, not my first day of online school. I don’t say anything to dampen his mood, I’m glad he’s excited about something. His life is repetitive, if my existence here proves to be no more useful than just disrupting his schedule, it will still be a success.

“Yeah, I guess.” He turns back to the bacon and shifts it around quickly, the grease snapping up at him. If it burns him he doesn’t show it, just maintains the stiff-backed posture of a respectable police officer cooking his daughter breakfast. “I’ve gotta ask, what’s up with the apron?” I stifle a giggle behind a bite of the toast that’s sitting in the middle of the small table. He shakes his head in faux annoyance.

Charlie takes the pan off the hot element, sliding the bacon onto two plates and pouring the grease into an open can. The second trick he taught me since arriving here: never pour grease down the drain.

“I’m in uniform, it would be disrespectful to the badge to stain it.” He slides a plate of bacon in front of me, sitting down in his designated seat across the table. “Besides,” he takes a sip of coffee from his to-go mug. “Can you imagine walking into a police station smelling of fried pig?”

Breakfast ends quickly. We each eat a piece of toast, Charlie stuffing a second piece into a plastic bag “for later” and heading out the door. I still have half a plate of bacon in front of me after he leaves, the maple glaze filling the small kitchen with its smell.

After my Mom and Charlie got married, Renee redecorated much of the house. Her lace curtains still hang in the master bedroom window, constantly drawn closed. The rest of the house has been minorly updated with age, the TV got bigger, the couch more comfortable, new bed linens and even newer rocking chairs on the porch. I had asked Charlie if they were Moms when I first came up to the house a week ago.

They were rocking gently in the wind, the wood seemed to be polished as it shined in what little light filtered through the depressive clouds. They were sitting side by side, matching pillows on them both, a coffee table in the middle with a stack of coasters. It was an old person's porch, where husband and wife would sit all grey and wrinkled, waving at the neighbourhood kids as the bus dropped them off from school. I could almost picture Charlie and Renee sitting there, her knitting a scarf and him content to just watch her and the scenery.

He informed me that they were relatively new, a purchase from a shop down on the Reservation. We haven’t spoken about them since, but I wonder if perhaps he wishes he had someone to sit out there with him.

I spend the morning before class doing odd chores around the house. It’s nice living at Charlie’s, nicer than I had expected it to be. I’m not a fan of the weather or the fact that I currently have no social life, but it’s nice to just sit. I throw my laundry in the wash and manage to get the kitchen cleaned up with just enough time left over to sit on the couch and read a chapter of my book before class.

School has never been my strong suit. That’s not to say I get poor marks or intentionally skip classes, I just never found it as fulfilling as my peers seemed to. I never woke up and looked forward to the social or academic aspect of high school. Perhaps this contributed to me postponing my college experience and only starting it now when I should already be a year into my program.

When I log into my schools online database and click on my first class, Social Psychology 1001, I’m immediately transported to a screen filled with windows and the faces of my classmates. “Hello, class!” The professor's voice calls out over my computer. Perhaps online school won’t be my strong suit either.

Class ends and the next one starts, and I get through all three classes and an hour's worth of homework by the time Charlie pops in for dinner.

“Hey, Bells,” He calls as he opens the front door. I can hear him from where I sit in the kitchen, hanging his gun belt up by the front door and kicking his boots off into a heap on the floor. I imagine Mom back in Phoenix, walking into the house with arms full of bags and tossing her flip flops onto her pile of shoes beside the coatrack she used for purses. Some things won’t ever change.

“How was work?” I ask. He pauses to poke his head into the kitchen, moustache moving as he chews on his lip. I can’t remember when Charlie initially grew out his moustache, just that one summer I arrived and thought could he look more like a cop?

“Good, good, just some meetings. New family moving into town, all foster kids around your age.” He takes pause, staring off into some middle ground in the hallway as if deep in thought. His eyebrows furrow, “Don’t want any trouble makers coming in, but the father seems nice. Respectable.”

“That’s nice,” I contribute conversationally. Charlie and I rarely have material conversations, always just idle talk of the weather or what's for dinner. I’m not entirely sure how to approach this topic, which clearly seems to be occupying his mind.

“Yeah, he’s a doctor.” He grins at this, toothy and a little crooked to the right side. A pang of embarrassment settles in my chest before he speaks, as if knowing where this will turn. “Perfect for you, considering how often your clumsiness-” I wave a hand over my face, grimacing at his words. “Don’t speak it into existence,” I mutter with a half-hearted plea underlying my words. He chuckles, disappearing up the stairs.

I hear the shower turn on after a few minutes of him fumbling around, presumably trying to get undressed. I’m sure once he’s showered and in sweatpants it’ll be twenty questions about my day of school. I’m not sure I have the heart to break the truth to him: it absolutely sucked.

The material was interesting enough, psychology has always been close to my heart. I loved the idea of people being more than their actions and thoughts, that there was something making them say that or something making them act that way. Perhaps this was yet another symptom of having Renee for a mother.

I sit at the kitchen table for a moment longer, my computer is closed in front of me and my pencil case- dreadfully unnecessary with school being online-sits closed and untouched. I haven’t made any friends in my classes, not that I had expected to. Twelve years of public school and no friend group to show for it, just a few texts every couple of weeks. Why would I have believed college, and an online college at that, would be any better?

Having enough with my thoughts, I get up from the table and pack my things into my bag. I’ve completed enough work for today, the rest of the evening I’ll spend either with Charlie or in my room. I’d rather not be nose deep in pdf textbooks and youtube videos constituting as follow-up lectures, I’ve had enough of that today. As if sensing the immediacy of my departure from the kitchen, the shower cuts off and I hear the bathroom door squeak open. For a man who, until recently, lived alone with too much free time, you’d imagine he’d have taken better care of the house. Nearly every door, except my own, creaks open and closed. I made sure to oil my hinges nearly immediately after moving in, I didn’t want Charlie to wake up every time I sneak downstairs for a comfort snack or warm glass of milk to help me sleep. He’s lived alone for nearly twenty years, he doesn’t need his sleep schedule disrupted now.

“The game is on in-” Charlie pauses as if double-checking the times mentally, “- an hour and a half. Are you interested?” He’s calling from up the stairs. I wonder if he truly wants me to watch the game with him, whatever sport it may be, or if he’s only being polite.

“Uh, I was just going to organize my room right now and then maybe make something for dinner,” I say in response. The floors don’t make a noise and I know he’s heard me, but he doesn’t respond. A lump forms in my throat, perhaps he really did want to watch with me.

“That’s fine, but if you want we can order in?” The lump passes and I convince myself that there is no reason to avoid the TV. It’s not like I’ll be a disruption, if I get bored I can read on the couch. I’ve only watched TV with Charlie on a few occasions since my move here, and each time I strategically saved my questions for the commercial breaks.

“Sure! That works.” The floorboards creak and I hear him retreat into his room, the door closing with a pitiful squeak.

We eat pizza on the couch, a large meat-lover for the carnivorous father and a small vegetarian with extra mushrooms for the daughter who cares about her cardiovascular health. We eat slowly, occasionally Charlie will make a face at the television or mumble something under his breath, but other than that we’re quiet. The sport turns out to be baseball and I recall a few of the basic rules from the tragic gym classes of my past. It’s not disastrous in any way, and surprisingly I don’t get bored. There is something relaxing about the repetitive nature of the game.

After the game ends we box up the remaining slices and put them in the fridge to be eaten tomorrow, say good night, and go our separate ways at the top of the stairs.

taglist:

@musingsofvenus @maybesandohnos

[prolestariwrites]

Are you still writing? I don't see you post as much stuff anymore.

I’m still here, alive and kicking and writing lol… I hope you don’t mind but I’m going to use this ask to give an update on me and what I’ve been doing.

The truth is, I write almost every single day. I have dozens of drafts and another dozen of nearly complete fics for different fandoms. I have some one shots that I never got around to publishing. I also have outlines for stories that I might or might not get around to doing. I have full fics that I’ve written in a discord server with my writing pals that are waiting for me to copy and paste into a document so I can edit and upload.

I’m going to go into my thoughts on these things, where I’m at, and what I’m working on under the cut. Maybe if you’re reading this you can help me piece it all together?

First I want to acknowledge that at least half of what I write, I do with my friend and writing partner @solynacea. We have novels of unpublished stuff that we’ve done just for fun that has never gotten published, and maybe never will. A lot of what I’ve written has been done with them, and many times we’re onto the next idea before editing and uploading and I think we’ve forgotten about half the stories we’ve written, lost into Google chat backlogs until one of us remembers something we can search to find it.

So if I’m doing all this writing, where is it? The truth I guess is that I’m still writing, but for a while I just haven’t been into publishing. And this isn’t going to be a sob story about not getting enough attention or credit, because I stopped looking at kudos and comments a long, long time ago. I like publishing my work because I like to know it’s somewhere where I can find it easily again. (My Google drive is a hot mess.) I like knowing that there is someone who read it and saved it to come back to again. If each of my fics has just that one person, I’m cool with it.

For me, writing is fun and publishing is work. I need to edit, I need to find visuals, I need to think of a title and write a summary and actually remember to update with new chapters. I need to be ready for other people to read it. So I’ve adapted this habit of writing without expecting to publish, and it’s helped me flourish.

But it’s also made me pretty inept at getting anything to the point where it can go on AO3. There is an expectation when publishing that things should be a bit polished. I’ve never been one to just throw whatever up unless I knew it would be finished, because I get the sense that people hate unfinished work. Am I wrong?

If you are asking about NnT, anon, I think we can agree that it’s unfortunately a bit dead. I do have one story to finish, The Dark Fate. I also have some outlines done, a bunch of completed or nearly (like just need one more chapter written) fics, some that were started and left halfway through.

But in general I feel like I’ve told the bulk of the stories I had for NnT. I don’t have much more left. Which really kind of sucks because it was the perfect place for a content creator. There were enough characters that you could interpret in a lot of ways, plenty of lore left undiscovered to flesh out, just fantasy enough to not get caught up in real-world locations or rules, but also not so big you get lost. Yet NnT is over and I’m not feeling the sequel. There’s just no inspiration.

I’m writing for a BNHA zine which is fun, and Kacchako is still one of my fave ships of all time. I have a story I’ve started about them that I can’t seem to get any gas on. The space though feels too big. I enjoy more of what other people do than what I can make myself. I do still want to write this fic though.

As for DMC, it was a nice place to hang my hat for a while, but I’m feeling like I’ve run out of things for it too. I wrote the things I wanted to say about Dante, Vergil, and Nero. I have a couple more chapters to do on The Wish and started writing a steampunk AU, but once those are done I’ll probably close the book, at least for a while. Writing in this fandom wasn’t at all what I expected coming from NnT, and the culture shock sort of zapped the inspiration for me, even though I’ve had a great time and met some great people. I also ended up liking the reboot more than the main games and finding anyone else in the same boat is like a needle in a haystack.

So what’s next? I’m on the hunt for inspiration. I’ve been catching up on Resident Evil and started writing for it. I’ve been editing an original work (supposed to be anyway, haha) and writing more original work with solynacea. I’ve tried my hand at the Witcher and looked into getting into other fandoms but nothing is striking my inspiration. Tried writing threads for a bit but it’s not my style. There are tons of things that I love, but it’s a whole other ballgame to have your own stories to tell outside of the original, and that’s what I’m waiting on.

I hope if you’ve read this far you can see that it’s not a lack of motivation or interest, just inspiration. I'm an author in need of a new home, so to speak. I’m not in a writing rut, and there are thousands and thousands of words unpublished that I’ve written over the past year since my publishing slowed down. I hope that RE can give me that push, and if it doesn’t, I’ll look for something else. Any ideas, anon?

In the meantime, I wonder, do you guys want rough or partially-finished stories though? Let me know. I can publish if you guys know what you’re getting into by reading it lol. And I don’t mind comments when people ask if I’ll ever finish xyz fic or asks like these that are about what I’m up to, so hit me up any time.

[professorsnape394]

The Potions Master’s Apprentice

Chapter Nine: Letters, Lovers and Loyalties

A/N: This is the ninth part to my fanfiction ‘The Potions Master’s Apprentice (Severus Snape x OC)’. Chapters 1-16 can be found already uploaded on Wattpad under the same name. Feel free to leave requests in my inbox for anything Snape related you want me to write. Leave a comment below if you wish to be added to my tag list.

Pairing: Severus Snape x OC (Dumbledore’s Granddaughter)

Summary: A talented young witch is employed as an apprentice professor at Hogwarts, but who will she be working under? Severus Snape is not best pleased with his new responsibility of taking on an apprentice, however she is relentless to create a friendship between them. Will she be successful? Or might the friendship just go a little two far? With the eyes of her grandfather constantly watching over them, an attempt at a relationship might not be in the cards for Aria Dumbledore and Severus Snape.

Word Count: 2185

Warnings: n/a

Credits to Gif Creator

Yet another letter dropped into the lap of Aria Dumbledore as she sat absentmindedly sketching. Dropping her quill back into the small pot of ink which balanced on the arm of her chair, a small sigh escaped her lips. She had been expecting another to arrive any day now.

Aria allowed herself a small glance in the direction of her desk where the ever growing pile of unopened letter sat gathering dust. Disregarding her drawing, Aria traveled to her desk, fingers fumbling with the edge of the envelope. Admittedly, Aria's mind had been focused on that small pile of letters the past few days, and consequently the man who sent them. She couldn't bring herself to reply to his constant inquiries, but she had considered there was no harm in opening a few of them. She longed to hear from him, though she had been in denial for so long now she wasn't sure what to expect from his most recent letters.

Waiting no longer she ripped the paper from its wax seal, her eyes quickly scanning every word on the page.

My dear Aria, Though I know you say you cannot reply to my letters, I write them all with the hope that you will find the time in your busy schedule to at least read them. As always things are quiet here without you. Too quiet. I miss your voice. I miss hearing you sing to yourself in the shower thinking no one can hear you, I miss hearing you hum as you wander aimlessly through the house, I miss watching you draw as I pose for you, but most importantly I miss holding you in my arms. I long for the end of the school year when we will be reunited and I will have nothing to miss except maybe writing these letters. I long for a response to my letters, my darling. I simply must know that you miss me as I miss you. In the mean time I will continue to write to you to keep myself distracted from everything terrible happening in the world, by simply thinking of you. All my love, S.

Aria couldn't help but feel a great pang of guilt in the pit of her stomach for ignoring the letters, but she couldn't bare the thought of reading them, while she was still coming to terms with how she felt when she decided to leave for Hogwarts. She knew immediately she would not be able to maintain a long distance relationship with him. Though he was the first man she had ever loved she had been too cowardly to confess her feelings for him in person, let alone on a piece of parchment. She knew she was a pathetic coward from the moment he told her he loved her and she could not find it in her to return the favour. Her cowardice was more than proven the day she left for Hogwarts. Aria had planned to break up with him, to avoid further heartbreak down the line. But she could not even find the courage to do that.

Instead she was living in denial. In her mind they had broken up, and refused to face up to whatever she was truly feeling until it was absolutely necessary. Her plan had been to distract herself as much as possible, suppress her feelings and just forget about the situation completely. And to be totally honest her plan had been working for her, with the exception of a few off days such as today. However when it came time to wake up and face the music she had no idea what her plan would be then.

Leaving the letter open on her desk she took a stroll around the grounds of Hogwarts to clear her mind. The time to figure out all of her problems was not now. She was still a young, carefree woman and she didn't want the burden of guilt stopping her from living her life however she so wished.

Arias walk led her to the village of Hogsmeade, and after working up a light sweat, the young professor opted to pop into the Three Broomsticks to quench her thirst.

Unsurprisingly for a late Tuesday evening the place was barren. Besides for a drunken wizard practically falling off his bar stood, a crazy witch whispering to herself and two well dressed men, sitting out of place in a side booth, the place was completely deserted. Planning to only stay for a pumpkin juice Aria took a seat at the bar and begun chatting to the same barmaid who had served her and Severus all those weeks ago.

"Busy night?" Aria joked, rolling her eyes at the drunk to her right.

The woman laughed in return, handing over a glass of pumpkin juice. "This is pretty much the standard, at this time." She shrugged, polishing off a perfectly clean glass, to keep herself busy. "That one over there doesn't even order anything, but its not worth the hassle kicking her out." She gestured to the old hag in the corner, her perfectly polished nails glistening in the dim bar light.

"I wish I could say I felt sorry for you, but a break away from the chaos that is Hogwarts is a slight relief." Aria sighed. She was still not used to being around so many people all the time having spent the past few years alone, besides her mother, she often needed time alone to breathe.

"Oh, then you must be new. I've had my fair share of lonely professors spend an evening behind my bar, and I usually remember who's spilled their whole life story to me. Though you do look familiar, what do you teach?" She finished up with her glasses, leaning her elbows on the bar to get a closer look at the younger woman, her breasts practically falling out her blouse.

"I'm just an apprentice for now. I'm the new Potions Mistress." Aria smiled, taking a small sip of her drink.

"Oh yes, now I remember. You came here with that Severus. He's not unfamiliar with our whiskey selection, if you know what I mean." Both women rolled their eyes in unison. "He doesn't seem to talk much though, I can't say I know anything about him. I must admit I was surprised to see him with a gorgeous young witch like yourself."

"You weren't the only one." Aria scoffed, finishing off her pumpkin juice.

"Well it makes a little bit more sense now." She laughed, a set of pristine pearly teeth emerging from her red glossy lips.

It seemed Aria was not the only one who had been admiring the woman's beauty, and almost right on cue the drunk decided to look a little bit more lively, demanding another pint. Reluctantly the barmaid obliged, shooting Aria an apologetic look.

Aria couldn't help but notice the gruff looking man practically throw himself over the bar in order to get a good gawk at the barmaids behind. The slightly older woman seemed unfazed by the mans actions, in-fact Aria wasn't entirely unsure she wasn't enjoying the attention. Choosing not to interrupt as neither party seemed to object to the altercation, Aria kept her mouth shut.

That was until the man's attention turned to her. The barmaid disappeared from view, presumably to refill the barrel the drunk had practically drowned himself in. "Haven't seen you around here before." He started harmlessly, though Aria did not miss the way his eyes seemed to scan the whole of her body.

"Just moved into Hogwarts, haven't seen much of Hogsmeade." Aria admitted, but made the conscious decision to turn away from him, hoping not to engage in any further conversation.

"You a friend of Ros'" He asked, intrigued, while downing a good half of his pint.

"Not really, no." Aria shrugged. "I didn't even know her name until just now."

"Rosalind Rookwood." He edged his seat closer to Arias. "Fantastic barmaid, though I wouldn't say it was her best profession." He winked.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean." Aria turned her nose up at the man, just praying he would leave her alone.

"Well, you know, bein' a barmaids fine an all, but it doesn't always pay the bills. Miss Rookwood's got her fair share of stories to tell, and not all of them her own." He laughed, the potent stench of his alcoholic breath suffocating Aria as he leaned in closer, wrapping a heavy arm around her shoulders. "If it turns out teaching isn't for you, just know you'll have a loyal customer in me." He hiccuped, his free arm, reaching down to stroke the woman's exposed thigh.

Instinctively Aria gripped onto his wrist, forcing it off of her. "What the hell do you think you are doing!?" Aria exclaimed, pushing the man away from her. "Don't you dare lay your hands on me again."

The drunk showed no sign of guilt or remorse, he simply chuckled to himself, revealing a shocking lack of teeth. Disgusted, Aria made to move but found herself cornered against the bar.

Fortunately the altercation had caused enough disruption to alert the two men having a casual evening drink. Instantly one rushed over to her aid, stupefying the old man. The second man followed suit and made it his business to remove the frozen figure from the bar.

"Are you alright?" The first man asked, his brow furrowing with worry.

"I'm fine, thank you for stepping in." Aria smiled, brushing herself down, as though she was riding herself from the drunks disgusting touch.

The man returned a boyish grin, his eyes bright blue and full of kindness. Aria had never seen anyone like him. His presence was almost cartoon like, with positivity radiating from him. Aria couldn't help but let out a nervous laugh, her smile growing just by looking at him. His energy was contagious.

"Is... is there anything I can do to thank you?" She tried your shake herself back to reality though remained entranced by him.

"Nothing at all. I'm just glad I was here to help." He extended a hand, almost nervously, introducing himself. "Alexander Turner, pleasure to meet you."

"You too." Aria blushed, unable to break eye contact with the man, and was now incredibly aware of how dumbfounded she must look. "I'm Aria" She stuttered, the sound of his friend retuning sending her back to reality. "I apologise for staring, but I just can't seem to take my eyes off you, you have an enchanting aura about you. I'm sorry if I may seem a little strange."

"There's no need to apologise, I get it all the time." He laughed, though not arrogantly, it was sweet and innocent. "My mother's a Veela." He added, almost embarrassedly, upon noticing the slightly look of confusion appearing on Arias face.

The couple shared an awkward smile, both at a loss for words.

Alexander's friend passed by the pair silently, slapping him encouragingly on the shoulder before disappearing behind the bar, Rosalind following closely behind.

Aria noted the difference in both attitude and appearance in the two men, finally able to distinguish between the two. The friend was tall and broad shouldered, his hair messy though not long. He gave off a sort of American football, "bro", fratbroy vibe. In other words kind of arrogant and full of himself. Clearly he saw himself as the one in control. Alexander on the other hand was more slim, but not skinny. Tall but not lanky. Innocent but not naive. His clothes appeared similar to his friends but presented more neatly and well put together. She assumed he felt sorry for his friend, knowing his Veela parentage would gain him lots of female attention, and in return Alexander simply allowed himself to get pushed around to boost his friends ego.

With a roll of his eyes Alexander practically confirmed her theory and Aria couldn't stop herself from laughing once more.

Knowing that while Rosalind and 'Braydon'; as he turned out to be, would not be returning any time soon, Aria and Alexander chose to occupy one of the booths and get to know a little bit about each other, where Alex truly confirmed all of Aria's suspicions.

Upon Braydon's return, he flashed his rather large biceps, kissing each one in turn as he flexed them, before letting out a hearty growl, presumably this was a display of male dominance among his kind. His kind being; douchebags.

With another roll of her eyes Aria bid farewell to the men, thanking Alexander once more for his heroic rescue.

"How about a date?" Alex called nervously as Aria had just about reached the door.

"I'm sorry?" She replies, caught off guard.

"A date, here, with me. What do you say?" Aria shook her head unable to look away from that damn charming smile of his.

"I'll agree to a few drinks." She clarified. "Just send me an owl, you know where I'll be." And with that she disappeared once more down the path to Hogwarts, the grey sky above all the while threatening to rain down on her.

Taglist: @ayamenimthiriel @lizlil​