#shelby the spider

[sl-newsie]

Normal people: look up an actor to see what other shows they've been in

Me: sees a hot character and immediately researches for fanfiction about them

It's an instinct now.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

The ‘Modena Monster’: The 1955 Ferrari 410 Sports Spider by Scaglietti - a storied history

Mr. Ferrari told me this was the best Ferrari he ever built.

- Carroll Shelby on the 1955 Ferrari 410 Sport Spider by Scaglietti.

Why do so many of us find sports cars irresistible? Of course, it would be impossible to isolate exactly what it is about a well-designed sports car that engenders such attachment, but there are some factors that would logically contribute to the commonly seen love affair between men (and yes, women too) and their sports cars.

It seems as if much of the attraction is grounded in symbolism. Racing cars have long been portrayed as sources of freedom. Talented drivers are left unencumbered by the limitations of our lives driving pedestrian automobiles. They are seen as having a uniquely freedom to test their limits against nature. In such circumstances the driver is not boxed in like others. He can tackle any unencumbered road using all his God given skills while being completely open to the elements of chance and fortune. The source of that freedom from the adrenaline rush is the need for speed.

But speed is tethered to design and engineering innovation. We live in a world that worships at the altar of technological advances. The sports car is a moving amalgamation of technical expertise. Racing cars are a bundling of technological miracles. From aerodynamic styling to compact yet powerful engines, they represent the cutting edge of technological design. In a society entranced by technology and innovation, the sports car has an iconic appeal that is difficult to equal.

For me though, it’s stories behind the drivers and the feats of engineering design that make me an unabashed petrol head. It’s not just appreciating the feats done in the car by magnificent drivers of their age. But recognising each car has a story too. Every car has a storied history.

And this is the story of one of my favourite racing cars in motor sports history.

The 1955 Ferrari 410 Sport Spider by Scaglietti has the reputation as an incredible and rare sports car that was driven by some very famous racing figures. In addition to Carroll Shelby, who would later join Ford in beating Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the car was driven by the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio and by Phil Hill, Formula 1 champions both, as well as Enzo Ferrari himself.

The 1955 Ferrari 410 Sport Spider by Scaglietti was birthed by Enzo Ferrari and Sergio Scalietti.

At a time when series car making was still in its infancy at his company, Enzo Ferrari would manufacture only the rolling chassis and drivetrain. For the bodies, Enzo employed several different coach-builders to “clothe” his machines. Performance was Enzo’s utmost concern and thus, styling came second. Still, he was acutely aware of how styling impacted peoples’ perception of his company and the cars that bore his name. Luckily Ferrari’s victories on racetracks caused the industry’s bespoke coach-building companies to want to work with the firm, and show what they could do on the Ferrari chassis. One of these firms was Carrozzeria Scaglietti.

Sergio Scaglietti, got his start working on Scuderia Ferrari’s Alfa Romeos (then Alfa’s racing arm) before World War II. After the war he opened a repair shop in Maranello, not far from the Ferrari factory, where he primarily repaired the bodywork of damaged race cars for gentleman racers. When one such racer brought his damaged race car to Sergio’s workshop, the quality of the repairs and re-bodying caught Enzo’s eye, and by 1955 Sergio was put in charge of bodying the majority of Ferrari’s competition cars.

Additionally, Sergio secured a loan from Enzo himself to start his own coach-building film, the aforementioned Carrozzeria Scaglietti. This was quite an honour because at the time there were quite a few established coach-builders who already worked with Ferrari including Bertone, Zagato, Vignale, Touring, and Pininfarina. Sergio won Enzo’s trust not only because of his skills with metal, but also because of his relationship with, and support for, Enzo’s son, Dino, who died in 1956.

With Scaglietti now an officially sanctioned Ferrari coach builder, he received chassis’s directly from the Ferrari factory for coachwork. By his own admission, he designed all his shapes “by [his] eyes alone,” letting his own “good taste, understanding of aerodynamics, style, and function” dictate his designs. He rarely drew out his designs in advance, instead preferring to shape the body directly over the chassis.

Enzo Ferrari was a man passionate about motorsport and high performance cars. He understood that one of the secrets to success for his young company was to obtain victories in high profile competition events, and an FIA World Sportscar Championship win would be a great feather in Ferrari’s cap - something that would make the motorsport world, and the sports car buying public, to take notice.

The final event for the 1955 season was to be the Carrera Panamericana. It was a gruelling five-day rally that traversed the Mexican wilderness en route to the border near El Paso, Texas. Ferrari had experienced overwhelming success on nearly every circuit in sports car racing, with the one possible exception being the notoriously dangerous Carrera Panamericana. Not for nothing it was known as the most dangerous motor race in the world with accident deaths being the norm each year among drivers and spectators. It’s fearsome reputation was such that it would bring extra kudos to a sports car maker whose car successfully completed the course and won the event.

Previously, in 1952 several privateer Ferraris were entered, including three of Maranello’s latest sports-racers, Vignale-bodied berlinettas built upon the Lampredi 340 racing engine platform. Subsequently known as the 340 Mexicos, these cars showed promise as Luigi Chinetti finished 3rd overall.

But a year later in 1953, the upgraded 340 MM entries could not hold pace with Lancia’s dominating D24 race cars, despite Umberto Maglioli’s commanding 10-minute lead during the race’s final leg. In 1954, Maglioli rumbled to victory in Erwin Goldschmitt’s 375 Plus. Ferrari had failed again. Riding too high to handle safely, these extremely powerful cars clearly required some chassis development to remain in control on the bumpy and unpredictable surfaces of the Carrera course.

In the years up to 1955 Ferrari campaigned in the event without success and so they went back to the drawing board, literally, and designed a car purpose built for that event. It was designated the type 519/C and the chassis numbers all ended with the initials “CM” which stood for “Carrera Messicana” for the event they were created for.

This new car was the 410 Sport and the second two of the four to be made were fitted with a revised version of the Lampredi V12 engine with a capacity of 4,961 cc. This engine was given dual spark plugs per cylinder (i.e. twenty four in total), a quadruple distributor arrangement, combined with magneto ignition in the first car 0596 CM and coil ignition in the second car 0598 CM.

To feed in a healthy dose of fuel/air mix into those twelve thirsty cylinders three twin-choke Weber 46 DCF carburetors were bolted on in the middle of the “V.”

The suspension system was designed to provide the best handling and durability the engineers could achieve, at the front a fully independent system with upper and lower wishbones, and at the rear a transverse elliptic spring built into a De Dion design.

The roads in Mexico were rough and the suspension was going to need to soak up some exceeding nastiness while keeping the car on course and providing the best ride possible to keep drivers from fatigue. The chassis was a tubular space-frame set for low riding for optimum stability and, they hoped, for survivability over the destructive conditions of the race.

The power of the dual ignition engines was slightly short of 400 hp, which was very high for cars of the period, and it would be this cutting edge level of power that would prove to be the car’s Achilles heel, paradoxical though that might sound.

Even as Ferrari’s engineers were designing and building these four the notorious 1954 Le Mans crash took place. This saw a very lightly constructed Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR  crash at the end of Mulsanne Straight. With the car traveling at top speed it broke apart in a collision and sent pieces through the spectators at that location, killing 83 spectators and the driver, and injuring about 180 people.

This caused the entire motor-sport fraternity to re-assess their participation in motorsport events, and the organisers cancelled the 1955 Carrera Panamericana. So the two cars Ferrari were working on suddenly did not have the race they were created for to compete in.

As a result, Maranello repositioned the two double ignition 410 S to participate in the 1956 World Sportscar Championship racing season, making their debut at the season-commencing 1000 KM of Buenos Aires in January 1956.

The pair of 24-spark cars, chassis numbers 0596 CM and 0598 CM, were respectively driven by the paired teams of Peter Collins and Luigi Musso, and Juan Manual Fangio and Eugenio Castellotti. The Argentine great, Juan Manuel Fangio preferred the pedals of his cars to be laid out in the old “C.A.B” layout. So from left to right the pedals were clutch, accelerator, and brake. This arrangement was not uncommon during the 1950s and 1960s. Some drivers, such as Fangio, preferred this arrangement for heel and toe gear-changing.

All eyes were on the local hero from Argentina, with the press focusing much of their attention on Fangio and his 410 Sport. But the  two Ferrari’s faced stiff competition, especially in the person of British driver Stirling Moss who was so noted for his fast driving that he created the famous line uttered by British traffic policemen when they pulled you over for speeding “Who do you think you are – Stirling Moss?” Moss was driving a Maserati 300S - an extremely fast car - as long as it didn’t suffer a mechanical failure (something they tended to be prone to).

The pair of 24-spark cars, chassis numbers 0596 CM and 0598 CM, were respectively driven by the teams of Peter Collins and Luigi Musso, and Juan Manual Fangio and Eugenio Castellotti. Fangio had requested a special modification to 0598 CM that moved the accelerator from its normal position to one between the brake pedal and the clutch. Disaster hit the Ferrari 0598CM team early when Castellotti experienced a tire issue forcing the car into the pits for repairs. Fangio jumped back in 0598 CM with a significant distance to overcome and furiously chased down Stirling Moss in the leading Maserati 300S. After Castellotti experienced a tire issue forcing the car into the pits for repairs, Fangio jumped back in 0598 CM with a significant distance to overcome and furiously chased down Stirling Moss in the leading Maserati 300S. Moss was happily storming ahead very comfortably from the rest of the chasing pack. But Moss didn’t count on Fangio’s drive to win. Fangio was after all driving in front of a home crowd of fellow South Americans and he really wanted to win – so he drove using all his skills, talent, and ability and he closed the gap with some dramatic driving until he had Moss’s Maserati in his sights.

And it was at that point that Murphy’s rule reared its ugly head - “if anything can go wrong, it will, and at the worst possible moment”. The other Ferrari 0596 CM of Collins and Musso lasted until lap 61 until the transaxle failed. Fangio’s car suffered a similar fate. In Fangio’s car the differential gave way from the punishment enacted by the feverish pace and raw power of the type 126/C engine on the 89th lap. The transaxle failed bringing Fangio’s wild drive to a heart wrenching end. 400 hp had proved the car’s Achilles heel - the engine was too much for the transmission.

The Brazilians mourned Fangio’s elimination from the race, although driving so hard that the car collapses under the strain is a pretty heroic way to withdraw. However heroic the effort was, Ferrari and his entire team including the drivers were devastated.

Ferrari sent both cars back to the factory for a refit. It was this point the fate of the Ferrari 410 S would take a momentous turn of fortune in 1956.

Racing team owner John Edgar had taken note of the two Ferrari 410 S fitted with the dual spark plugs and quad distributors and had set his sights on getting one. John Edgar had waited in the wings for his opportunity at 0598 CM, anxious to obtain the golden chariot that might deliver his own racing championship. Edgar had also taken note of a young American driver who had given up his life as a chicken farmer to take up motor racing. That ex-chicken farmer was of course none other than the future legendary driver, Carroll Shelby, and John Edgar wanted to recruit him to his racing team and put him in the driver’s seat of a 400 hp 410 S.

Not only John Edgar was able to purchase 0598 CM, the Fangio/Castellotti car, but he was also able to lure Carroll Shelby away from Scuderia Parravano with the promise of turning him loose in the Ferrari. Shelby loved speed, so much that despite his heart condition he did as much high quality motor racing as he could get: even though he had to keep a nitro glycerin pill under his tongue to help with his heart condition. It would be this heart condition would ultimately force him to stop racing – but Shelby was determined to get the maximum enjoyment in the sport before that happened.

While awaiting the delivery of 0598 CM, Shelby garnered a number of wins for Team Edgar at smaller venues, winning the “Race to the Clouds” at Mount Washington, New Hampshire, the Laurel Run Hillclimb, the Brynfan Tyddyn, and the Breakneck hillclimb outside of Cumberland, Maryland. But the central attraction was scheduled to arrive by airfreight in August 1956 at San Francisco, where the tireless team mechanic and hauler Joe Landaker picked up the 410 Sport and transported it to Bremerton, Washington for the 1956 Seafair event.

In his inaugural race in 0598 CM Shelby took the checkered flag, setting the stage for many more victories to come. The Shelby/Ferrari 410 S combination proved to be formidable. The 1956 Washington Seafair event and followed it up with a number of impressive victories. Shelby went on to a number of victories in the 410 S that year in 1956. With Shelby’s victories came telegrams sent to John Edgar by none other than Enzo Ferrari, who seemingly took an active interest in Shelby’s continued success behind the wheel of 0598 CM, congratulating him on more than one occasion.

At the season-concluding SCCA finale at Palm Springs in early November, Edgar entered six cars, hotly pursuing the elusive championship. The 410 Sport had been dubbed “Edgar’s Modena Monster” by the press, and with Shelby at the wheel, there seemed to be no race it could not win.

Shelby won the pole position during Saturday’s preliminary race at Palm Springs, facing a challenging field that included Phil Hill in a Ferrari 857 Sport, fresh from his rookie year with the Ferrari factory team (one that brought the FIA’s 1956 World Sports car Championship to Maranello). From a 3 PM standing start, Bill Murphy jumped out to the lead in his Buick-powered Kurtis, though he was quickly overtaken by Shelby and Hill. Through the corners, Hill’s nimble 857 S would get the upper hand as Shelby braked hard, then on the straightaways Carroll would pour on the 4.9-litre power to retake the lead.

This pattern repeated time and again throughout the race, with Shelby managing to finish first at each lap’s conclusion. In the final lap the two cars battled side-by-side until Shelby roared to victory, just a half-second ahead of Hill.

Shelby later quipped that with his power advantage he could have taken a bigger lead over Hill at any time during the race, but was having too much fun enjoying their epic duel. The captivating Texan had won the race, capping a season in which he won 40 different events, including 18 feature races. Four months later his infectious grinning mug graced the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine, which pronounced him the US Sports Car Driver of the Year for 1956 - his celebrity had transcended to a greater stage.

As the 1957 season dawned, John Edgar continued to pin his hopes on Shelby in the 410 Sport, and though Carroll failed to qualify at a rain-soaked Pomona race in January, he achieved two wins in February at New Smyrna Beach, Florida. The first Cuban Grand Prix was held in 1957 along Havana's waterfront, the Malecon, and by all accounts it had been a huge success. Juan Manuel Fangio, whose tally of five world championships has been surpassed in the decades since by just Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher, was favourite to win.

Shelby’s success though set up an epic duel at the ritzy Gran Premio de Cuba, a 310-mile race of 90 laps through the streets of Havana and along the beachfront Malecón.  The Cuban revolution was in full swing, but of course sports car racing should happen regardless of mere revolutions and so the Gran Premio de Cuba was organised with the race to take over the streets of Havana and bring the un-muffled roar of racing engines along the beachfront at Malecón. Filming the race from the perch of his hotel room balcony, John Edgar watched as Shelby’s 410 Sport held off Portago eventually finishing in 2nd place, 60 seconds behind Juan Manuel Fangio’s Maserati 300S.

From this point forward Edgar began to court Maserati, eventually agreeing to a deal in which Shelby would pilot a 450S, Modena’s prodigious new V-8 powered sports-racer. Maserati later struggled to deliver the car, and instead offered a 300S loaner during the interim. As the contract with Maserati specified that Shelby could not drive a Ferrari under any circumstances, Edgar was content to put Phil Hill in 0598 CM for the Hawaii Speed Week in April 1957. Hill shortly left the Edgar fold for good to race for Scuderia Ferrari at Le Mans.

John Edgar had sunk nearly half a million dollars into the construction of the new Riverside International Raceway, and after Shelby was hurt in a crash of one of the Edgar Maseratis, Richie Ginther was pressed into action in the Ferrari 410 Sport at the venue’s September 1957 debut. Richie Ginther was to discover the joys of the “Modena Monster” as 0598 CM had come to be called. And in it he won the first feature race at the Riverside International Raceway. From 5th place in the starting grid Ginther looked ahead at some daunting competition, including Chuck Daigh in a Troutman-Barnes Special, Bob Drake in a Ferrari 375 Plus, and Pete Woods in a Jaguar D-Type. Not to be deterred, Ginther took the lead after 22 laps, and he went on to roar to victory behind the wheel of 0598 CM - winning the first feature race ever run at Riverside as a result.

Ginther had a number of second place victories that year before 1958 arrived and with it a return to Cuba, still in the middle of a revolution. But last time the cigars were good and the enjoyment was fabulous - so what could possibly go wrong?

The 1958 Gran Premio de Cuba was ill-fated in so many ways. Not only was the race eventually stopped because of a on track accident, but Juan Manuel Fangio was kidnapped by Cuban communists and Stirling Moss almost shared the same fate.

Fangio came back to defend his title, and alongside him on the grid was a host of other big names from the era, including Stirling Moss. The drivers approached the non-championship race as any other, and the most famous were accommodated in the luxurious Hotel Lincoln in Central Havana.

On the eve of the grand prix, Fangio walked into the lobby of the hotel on his way to dinner, only to be confronted by a young man in a leather jacket brandishing a pistol.According to reports from the time, the slightly nervous assailant barked: "Fangio, you must come with me. I am a member of the 26th of July revolutionary movement." One of Fangio's friends picked up a paperweight and moved to throw it at the intruder, but the pistol jerked round. "Stay still," the kidnapper said. "If you move, I shoot." And with that Fangio accompanied the young man to a waiting car.

The motive was simple: by capturing the biggest name in motorsport the revolutionaries would show up the government and attract worldwide publicity to their cause. Yet despite the news of the kidnapping spreading across the globe, Batista refused to be outdone and ordered the race to continue as usual while a team of police hunted down the kidnappers.

Meanwhile, Stirling Moss was kept under guard throughout the night, with a watchman knocking on the door every three hours to make sure he was still in his bed. "It was a very disturbing night," he recalled. "Fangio told the rebels, 'You mustn't take Stirling because he's on his honeymoon' - which was a lie of course, but nevertheless was very decent of him."

In an unknown location, Fangio was taking it all in his stride and was being treated to a slap-up meal of steak and potatoes before "sleeping like a blessed one" in a well-furnished apartment. Convinced he was not in danger, he later said he sympathised with his captors' actions."Well, this is one more adventure," he added. "If what the rebels did was in a good cause, then I, as an Argentinean, accept it."

As ordered by Batista, on the morning of the race, the cars were fired up in front of a 150,000-strong crowd, with Maurice Trintignant filling in at Maserati for the missing Fangio. By this time the world champion had been offered a personal apology by Castro's man in Havana, Faustino Perez, and had even been supplied with a radio so he could listen to the action. But Fangio was not in the mood."I became a little sentimental," he said. "I did not want to listen because I felt nostalgic."

It was just as well, as Fangio's sentimental state of mind could have been pushed to the limit had he known what was happening on track.

The race got underway as normal without Fangio. It was going to be a close fight even without Fangio there. Masten Gregory drove the ‘Modena Monster’, now called the Edgar 410 Sport, admirably, passing the brilliant Stirling Moss in a Ferrari 335S and building on his lead. But by the time the leaders started their fifth lap, almost every corner of the 3.5-mile circuit was slick with oil and the cars started to run perilously close to the barriers.

At first the organisers suspected a second act of rebel sabotage, but it was later discovered that Roberto Mieres' Porsche had a broken oil line.

On the next lap, disaster struck. Local driver Armando Garcia Cifuentes lost control of his yellow and black Ferrari and went head on into a bunch of spectators lining the circuit. Over 30 people were injured and seven killed as the wreckage took out a makeshift bridge and flew over the crash barriers. Porsche driver Ulf Noriden stopped on track and attempted to help."I couldn't even see the Ferrari," he said. "The bodies were piled all over. I was wading in arms and legs."

After a Ferrari left the track due to an oil spill and went into a crowd of spectators, the race was red flagged with Gregory’s ‘Modena Monster’ in 1st place. Believing he had won the race, Gregory lifted off the throttle. Moss soon flashed past him at full speed. Moss, unaware of the extent of the tragedy, continued racing against Gregory’s Ferrari. A confused Gregory watched in horror as the checkered flag signalled Moss the winner at the finish line. It was one of the most bizarre victories of Moss’ illustrious career.

Moss explained soon after to a furious 2nd place-finishing Gregory that red flag rules required the final lap to be completed before determining race results. Moss realised Gregory would have won the race if not for his confusion over this technicality, and in true gentlemanly fashion, he split his race earnings with Masten 50/50.As Stirling Moss was to explain it years later, “"So I said to Masten, 'Look, keep quiet, we'll pool our prize money together and then split it'. And that's exactly what we did, because otherwise it would have gone to the organisers or whoever to decide and it would be years before we got the money, if we got it at all. So officially I was the winner. The truth was either of us could have won it, but what the hell, it didn't matter. Why have an argument about it? Especially with everything else that happened that weekend."

But in the bigger picture it meant that Jack Edgar and the Ferrari Modena Monster were denied sweet victory in the 1958 Gran Premio de Cuba.

For Carroll Shelby the sun was rapidly setting on his racing career.

In 1958, Carroll Shelby demanded to take one last drive in his trusted 0598 CM after the Maserati 450S was sidelined due to mechanical issues prior to the Palm Springs main event in April of 1958, breaking the Maserati contract requirements in the process. Back in the hands of Shelby, the 410 Sport responded commendably, finishing 2nd overall. It was to be Shelby’s last race in 0598 CM – a good finale for his man and machine team.

For Carroll Shelby loved 0598 CM as the best Ferrari he’d ever driven - and he’d had the opportunity to drive it in motor racing in the 1950s which he regarded as a golden age of motorsport by many. Reflecting on his time with Edgar and the 410 Sport Spider, Carroll Shelby would later tell John Edgar’s motor racing journalist son, William Edgar, “Racing in the 1950s was really and truly some of the best times of my life, and it’ll never be replaced. It was an era that’s gone and won’t ever be back.”

1959 signalled the last year of competition for John Edgar, as financial pressures increased and resulting sponsorship concerns began to cloud the landscape. Edgar made his last-gasp attempts to win the USAC Road Racing Championship but failed. It was the sign to pack up and leave the sport with some level of pride and satisfaction at his team’s racing achievements.

Following its stellar racing career, John Edgar sold 0598 CM to Luigi Chinetti in 1960. The car was pulled out of retirement and prepared for the 1963 Daytona Continental 3 Hours for NART driver “Fireball” Roberts. Racing regulations, however, had changed since the last time 0598 CM took the track. The rules now stated that cars were required to have a fixed roof, which necessitated the fashioning of a crude hardtop so 0598 CM could compete. After practice laps proved the improvised hardtop was slowing the car too significantly to qualify, 0598 CM went back into retirement.

Chinetti hung onto the 410 Sport for over two decades until he sold it to private collector. From there it passed through a few private owners.

During its illustrious history, Maranello has built several very significant sports-racers that started life as Scuderia team cars and later became legendary in American privateer circles, but very few of these can compare to 0598 CM. As the car that propelled Carroll Shelby to national attention, and the most successful racer of the respected John Edgar team, this 410 Sport may be regarded as nothing short of a legend. It is indubitably rare, being one of just two factory-campaigned examples that were fitted with the more powerful twin-plug-per-cylinder version of the large-displacement 4.9-litre Lampredi long-block V-12.

Driven by a who’s who of the era’s greatest racing drivers, including Juan Manuel Fangio, Eugenio Castellotti, Carroll Shelby, Phil Hill, Richie Ginther, Masten Gregory, Joakim Bonnier, Bruce Kessler, Jim Rathmann, and Chuck Daigh, 0598 CM is without exaggeration one of the most important and colorful Ferraris to compete in racing during the 1950s.

The Ferrari 410 S 0598 CM may have been retired from active competition for several decades but it had enjoyed a pampered retirement over the years since it earned itself the legendary nickname, the ‘Modena Monster.’

As a postscript, in August 2022 the Ferrari 410 S 0598 CM, long forgotten by the public, but not by petrol heads and racing fans, came out into the public glare again. The ‘Modena Monster’ was put up for an auction sale by RM Sotheby’s in California. It was sold for around $22 million.

While the memories of the incredible World Sportscar Championship have gradually begun to fade, still-salient names like Fangio, Moss, Bandini, and Shelby provide a tangible link to the past. What makes those links stronger are these magnificent cars themselves that will always carry the memories of these iconic drivers in their engines and coach work design from the leading carrozzerie of Turin and Milan.

As one of a select few Ferrari models with coachwork both designed and built by Sergio Scaglietti and the iconic drivers who had driven her, the Scaglietti-built spider was a unique, powerful, and complex character that cannot be copied. As such its achievements will always have a place in motorsports lore amongst racing fans and petrol heads.

Six years before his death in 2012, Shelby was reunited with 0598 CM at the Fabulous Fifties Concours in Gardena, California. It was there that the iconic American driver added an unforgettable inscription to its 195-litre fuel tank: “Mr. Ferrari told me that this was the best Ferrari he ever built.”

Perhaps no higher praise could be envisioned for 0598 CM.

[graveyard-stray]

Hey pookies, in honor of over 100 followers I’m gonna be taking a ton of requests so leave some requests, as detailed or vague as you want, in my inbox!

You can find a list of characters I take requests for here!

Thanks for 100 followers, love you all! <3

[hearteyesandviolence]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Wilds (TV 2020) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe Characters: Shelby Goodkind, Toni Shalifoe, Martha Blackburn Additional Tags: Spider-man/Spider-Gwen AU, Photographer Toni, Model Shelby, Angst, Happy Ending, mild violence, Spider-Shelby Summary:

Elsewhere in the Multiverse...

As a fashion photographer, Toni Shalifoe takes pictures of model Shelby Goodkind. As a photojournalist, she takes pictures of the superhero known as Spider-Woman

What she doesn't know is that she's not the only one with two jobs, and that she's been getting more pictures of Shelby than she thinks...

 Shelby as Spider-Woman/Spider-Gwen

[inthecityofgoodabode]

September 2022: The Rest Of Sunday

Our buckeye is preparing to go to sleep for the season. Buckeyes are deciduous which means they sleep in the nude during the Winter: 

Out at Plot 420: 

I didn’t notice it when I was taking this but there is a crab spider on the petal on the left side of the photo: 

After working at Plot 420, my queen & I didn’t feel like cooking so we stopped by a local restaurant for some piping hot... “wangs”: 

Oh, the cheeky kids meant “wings” but were being cute about it: 

Today’s Plot 420 harvest. I’ll be honest. The tomato plants have been slow (insanely so) to produce. I didn’t know if we’d see any this year so I was glad to see so many: 

[sonaos]

Sometimes I think about finding arachnid tumblr pages but as much as I love the lil fellas, I know some of my followers do be really arachnophobic and I don't wanna subject anyone to that, especially since I tag nothing anymore

But boy I love arachnids and have two absolutely lovely tarantulas and one vinegaroon

[sl-newsie]

Me: feels guilty for not spending time with family

Also me: shut the door leave me alone and let me write fanfics while watching TV

✍️

[motherofdogs1010]

Masterlist

I write with chubby-coded/plus sized, racial inclusive readers in mind; very rarely do I mention anything about a reader's physical appearance, all are welcome and are written in mind for everyone to enjoy!!

Must be 18+ to join taglists

I also take frequent mental health breaks since I do suffer from poor mental health, BUT writing is my safe space so I will always come back to you guys ❤️

Key:

💋 18 + Smut

😊 Fluff

💔 Angst

🖤 Dark Storyline

😉 Omegaverse

Laurel Sickness (Sonny Carisi x Reader) 🖤

Summary: Laurel Sickness is an case of extreme case of obsessive love that is sweeping the globe with no explanation. People are becoming just as mad as Apollo once was when he first set his godly eyes on the virgin nymph, Daphne.

Warnings: 18+ only, dark!fic, toxic behavior, gaslighting, dystopian society, dark!Sonny Carisi, stalking, stalker!Sonny Carisi, the world's messed up in this story, age gap relationship, forced relationship, eventual non-con/dub-con, Stockholm Syndrome

Part I Part II TBA

Need to Know (Peter Parker x Reader) 💋

Inspired by Doja Cat's "Need to Know"

Summary: When she was ready to get back out on the dating scene after dumping a certain Winter Soldier, Y/N was a woman ready to get back out there. She just never expected to find herself in a relationship with a certain nerdy spider.

Warnings: older woman/younger man, age gap relationship, heavy smut, drinking, swearing, daddy kink, mentions of cheating, toxic ex behavior, eventual pregnancy

Part I Part II Part III COMING SOON

Little Darling (Thomas Shelby x Reader) 💋

Summary: Birmingham has received a new club, one that is showcasing a exotic type of dance that is drawing in crowds, but it is one particular dancer that catches Thomas Shelby's eye... one that goes by the stage name: Little Darling

Warnings: 18+ only, eventual smut, stripper!reader, mentions of prostitution/sex work, canon Peaky Blinders violence, swearing, drinking

Part I Part II Part III Part IV COMING SOON

Letters to Juliet & Romeo (Thomas Shelby x Reader) 😊💔

Inspired by 'Letters to Juliet' film...

Summary: Heartbroken and in the midst of the Great War as a nurse, Y/N L/N writes to a person she never expected to write to before... her brother's friend, Thomas Shelby... But the war's over now and it is time to face the letters...

Warnings: angst, wartime talk, fluff, reunion, pre-Peaky Blinders Tommy, solider!Tommy, nurse!Reader, chubby!reader, age gap (everyone is of age)

Part I Part II

Of Messiahs and Seeds (Dark!Paul Atreides x Reader) 🖤💋

Summary: Emperor Paul of House Atreides has set forth with expansion of his empire on the planets that have resisted and has now come across the last stronghold that resists him: Terra Millennium...

Warnings: 18+ only, eventual NONCON/DUBCON, eventual forced marriage and pregnancy, violence, language, drinking, chubby!reader, dark!Paul Atreides, spoilers for Dune Part 2

Part I Part II Part III COMING SOON

A Jedi in Arrakis (Paul Atreides x Reader) 💋💔😊

Summary: While on the run from Empire troops, Jedi padawan Y/N comes to find out that hyper-driving in a compromised craft can have some major setbacks when she discovers not only is on a new planet but a whole new galaxy as well...

Warnings: jedi!reader, eventual 18+, NSFW, angst, fluff, eventual smut/pinv!sex, oral sex, talks of questioning the Force and teachings, spoilers for Dune Part I and II, eventual marriage

Part I Part II Part III TBA

Solar Flare (Feyd-Rautha x Reader) 💋

Summary: Chosen as the bride of na-Baron Feyd-Rautha, Y/N finds herself at the hands of the sadistic na-Baron who seems keen on having his bride on their wedding night...

Warnings: 18+ only, NSFW, arranged marriage, DUBCON/ pinv sex, fingering, loss of virginity, brief knife kink, small breeding kink, crude language, forced arranged marriage

Dividers by @firefly-graphics & me

Banner by @vase-of-lilies

[madlittlecriminal]

MADLITTLECRIMINAL'S MASTERLIST

hello! welcome to my masterlist! this is the new & improved version as I figured the other ones that i had were getting old and frankly long. anywho, i hope you find this one easier to navigate! happy reading! :)

RULES

KO-FI

Criminal Minds:

Spencer Reid Masterlist

DC Universe:

Bruce Wayne/Batman Masterlist

Dick Grayson/Nightwing Masterlist

Jaime Reyes/Blue Beetle Masterlist

Jason Todd/Red Hood Masterlist

Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow Masterlist

In Time:

Raymond Leon Masterlist

Kingsman (2014 & 2017):

Gary "Eggsy" Unwin Masterlist

Lucifer:

Lucifer Morningstar Masterlist

Marvel:

Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier Masterlist

Charles Xavier/Professor X Masterlist

Eddie Brock/Venom Masterlist

Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto Masterlist

Hank McCoy/Beast Masterlist

Hobie Brown/Spider-Punk Masterlist

Jake Lockley Masterlist

Joaquin Torres Masterlist

Layla El-Faouly Masterlist

Marc Spector/Moon Knight Masterlist

Matt Murdock/Daredevil Masterlist

Miguel O'Hara/Spider-Man 2099 Masterlist

Miles Morales/Spider-Man Masterlist

Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow Masterlist

Peter B. Parker/Spider-Man Masterlist

Peter Parker/Spider-Man Masterlist

Scott Summers/Cyclops Masterlist

Stephen Strange/Doctor Strange Masterlist

Steven Grant/Mister Knight Masterlist

Peaky Blinders:

Alfie Solomons Masterlist

Thomas Shelby Masterlist

Sherlock:

Mycroft Holmes Masterlist

Sherlock Holmes Masterlist

Star Wars:

Kylo Ren/Ben Solo Masterlist

Poe Dameron Masterlist

Triple Frontier:

Francisco "Catfish" Morales Masterlist

Santiago "Pope" Garcia Masterlist

Video Games:

-Alejandro Vargas Masterlist

-Astarion Masterlist

-Halsin Masterlist

-Karlach Masterlist

-Kyle "Gaz" Garrick Masterlist

-Leon Kennedy Masterlist

-Peter Parker (Spider-Man) Masterlist

-Rodolfo “Rudy” Parra Masterlist

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Comet Donati [Chapter 6: No Control]

Series Summary: Sex, drugs, boy bands. You are a kinda-therapist recruited (via nepotism) to help Comet Donati through a recent crisis. Things are casual with Aegon, very not-casual with Aemond. Loosely inspired by One Direction.

Chapter Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+), drugs, alcohol, smoking, mental health struggles, all-you-can-eat sushi, bodily injury, violence, hungry deer, Selena Gomez, angst!!!

Selected Chapter Quote: “He can’t see on that side, you fucking snake!”

Word count: 9k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: ​@doingfondue​ @catalina-howard​ @randomdragonfires​ @myspotofcraziness​ @arcielee​ @fan-goddess​ @talesofoldandnew​ @marvelescvpe​ @tinykryptonitewerewolf​ @mariahossain​ @chainsawsangel​ @darkenchantress​ @not-a-glad-gladiator​ @gemini-mama​ @trifoliumviridi​ @herfantasyworldd​ @babyblue711​ @namelesslosers​ @thelittleswanao3​ @daenysx​ @moonlightfoxx​ @libroparaiso​ @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics​ @mizfortuna​ @florent1s​ @heimtathurs​ @bhanclegane​ @poohxlove​ @narwhal-swimmingintheocean​ @heavenly1927​ @mariahossain​ @echos-muses​ @padfooteyes​ @minttea07​ @queenofshinigamis​ @juliavilu1​ @amiraisgoingthruit​ @lauraneedstochill​ @wintrr13​ @r0segard3n​ 

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist! 💜

Your last day waking up in Singapore: lying in bed and watching the shadows of birds shoot across the ceiling like falling stars. Your wrist aches in its splint. The door to the balcony is wide open. The wind blows in hot and damp off the South China Sea. You hear him before you see him: the swipe of a keycard, the swinging of the door, the clop clop clop of undoubtedly neon Crocs against the hardwood floor.

You look over at him, not moving from the bed. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Then Aegon notices something in the tiny trashcan beside your nightstand that’s cluttered with souvenirs. Nestled between empty soda cans and Starburst wrappers is a mostly full pack of birth control pills. He stares at it for a while before he says, tentatively: “Trying for a little bundle of joy? With anyone I know?”

“Definitely not.” You sigh, turning back to the ceiling, morose. “Baela and I did 23AndMe like a month ago, and we just got our results back. She’s distantly related to royalty. I have a defective gene that makes me extra susceptible to blood clots. So if I take hormonal birth control I could have a stroke or something.”

“Damn, that sucks,” Aegon says.

“Yeah.”

“But it’s good you found out, you know? I wouldn’t want you dropping over dead.”

“Yeah,” you say again, flatly, ungenerously.

“Hey, no big deal, Stargirl. You know I’d use condoms anyway.”

“Well I might at some point in my life want to have sex with someone who’s not you, so.”

Aegon steps closer; he appears upside down as he studies you from above, sunburned forehead knit into thoughtful grooves, smelling like Tiger Beer and Axe body spray and…you think…chicken wings. His hair is in disarray, his aviator sunglasses tangled in blond knots. He’s wearing a lavender tank top, like dusk, like a bruise. “Ohhhh, I get it. This is an Aemond and Shelby thing.”

You hate that you’re so transparent, like a window wiped clean of fog and fingerprints. You hate that he’s right. “Why are they even together? What the hell do they have in common?”

“Now or before?”

“Both, I guess.”

“Well, before…” Aegon scratches at his cheek. There is a bug bite there, a tiny pink welt left by the venom of a mosquito or a spider. “It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. Aemond got the satisfaction of boning the kind of girl who would have screamed if he touched her back in high school. Shelby got a massive career boost. She had 900,000 Instagram followers when they met. Now she has over 20 million.”

That recurring, futile refrain: I hate her, I hate her, I hate her.

“And I won’t lie. They had some good times.” Aegon grins down at you. “Just like we did.”

“What about now?”

“Now…” Aegon ponders this. “Now I think they’re both lost. Neither of them knows what comes next. Aemond leaving Comet. Shelby hitting that age when people like her start checking off the husband and kids boxes. When you’re thrown off a ship, you cling to the life raft, even if it’s small or ripped up or half-deflated or whatever, right? You try to hold on to what you have left. You return to what’s familiar. And that doesn’t make it right, but it’s what people do.”

“It is,” you agree mournfully. “So Aemond was the one who broke it off.”

“Yeah.”

“And then he took her back.” She called and called and called, he finally answered.

“He had a moment of weakness. Now we all have to live with it.”

“I didn’t know that.” Then you sit up on the bed and look at Aegon. “When the label wanted to get rid of Aemond, why didn’t you fight for him?”

“That’s just the way of the world, Stargirl.” He shrugs, an inevitability, good weather, bad weather, sun and clouds and storms. “He couldn’t stay in the band the way he is now. And the problem isn’t what he looks like. The problem is in his soul. But I have no idea how to fix it.” Aegon smiles, warm like summer. “I thought maybe you would. That’s why I called you.”

“You didn’t even know me,” you tell him. “I was just some girl from a bar.”

“No,” Aegon says softly, and he does not elaborate. And then, bright and cheerful again: “You’re really going to earn your paycheck at our next stop.”

“Where are we going?” You recall the names you’ve heard bouncing around since Comet arrived in East Asia, the cities you’ve seen on banners and t-shirts and Instagram posts. “Bangkok? Kuala Lumpur? Manila? Jakarta? Seoul?”

“Tokyo.” Aegon is still smiling, though in an off-kilter way now, uneasily, his murky ocean-blue eyes somber. The scene of the crime. Where the accident happened. Where Aemond believes his life ended. “We’re performing at the Budokan.”

~~~~~~~~~~

White clouds turn to sapphire waves, then emerald green fields and forests, then buildings in a million different shades of grey that stretch on forever, steel and concrete and asphalt and glass. Tokyo is the largest city you’ve ever seen, the largest city imaginable. It is a labyrinth that makes you think of the hay mazes that farms back home set up each autumn; it beckons you in and then dares you to leave.

As the band hurries through Haneda Airport, you are pursued by paparazzi and hyperventilating fans. The usual suspects—Aegon, Daeron, and Jace—can be relied upon to high five, smile, flash peace signs and hand hearts, blow kisses, pass out crochet astronomical objects, and shout such endearments as (woefully mispronounced) “Konnichiwa!” and “We love you, Japan!” Shelby waves like she’s goddamn Princess Diana. Aemond bows his head, his eyes enigmatic behind his sunglasses, his steps swift. Luke holds Rhaena’s hand; Baela walks with them. You hide behind Cregan. He casts quite a large shadow.

“I look real rock and roll now,” you joke, gesturing with your splinted arm.

Cregan replies in his rumbly subterranean voice: “I think I have you beat.” He pulls up one of his sleeves—floral print, silk, Valentino—and shows you the underside of his right forearm. Bisecting the flesh from his wrist to the crook of his elbow is a long, faint, moon-white scar that you’ve never noticed before, never even heard anyone mention.

“Oh, ouch! You broke it?”

“Compound fracture.” He covers his forearm again with his sleeve.

“When? How?”

Cregan hesitates. Suddenly, he no longer wants to be having this conversation. “Years ago.”

Just outside the airport waits that trusty fleet of black, tinted-window Escalades; but Aemond has requested that his 1960 Gold Star be there too. He takes his keys, helmet, and jacket from one of Comet’s hulking security guards. Shelby’s detail is notably more subdued since that night in Singapore; the man who dislocated your wrist has been exiled from the tour. Aemond climbs onto his motorcycle and starts the engine. The sound takes you back to Rome: when your hopes and spirits were high, when you and Aemond were still living on the light side of the moon.

“You in the mood for a ride, Shelby?” Aegon asks, smirking unkindly, taunting, chomping loudly on cotton candy flavored Bubble Yum. “Don’t forget your helmet. We’d all be lost without you.”

Shelby combs out her beachy blond waves with her artful fingers, tan, reedy, nails turquoise and adorned with golden koi fish. “You’re psychotic if you think I’m getting on that bike.”

“Jesus,” Jace mutters. He is as shocked as anyone by his abrupt demotion to only the second most villainous person in Comet’s retinue.

Aemond doesn’t react, doesn’t say anything to Shelby, doesn’t even look at her. But he does glance over at you. And the words rise in your throat like a burning sun at dawn: I’ll go, I’d love to go, I trust you, I want you. But before you can say anything, Aemond has knocked the kickstand out of the way and is weaving through thick afternoon traffic towards the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. And as the Escalades roll and the band chats around you—indistinctly, abstractedly—you keep staring out the window and searching for glimpses of Aemond like the rare flash of a meteor in a city sky; but you can’t find him.

Criston knows he’s brought Comet to dangerous ground, peppered with quagmires and landmines. So he has planned a ruthlessly hectic itinerary. As soon as you’ve received your room key and unpacked, it’s time for dinner at an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant down the street. Criston herds the band there like the rugged Australian cattle dogs that your parents have back in Kansas City nip at the heels of snorting, intractable Black Angus bulls. You sit between Baela and Aegon, who is wearing his neon green tank top, matching Crocs (per usual), and khaki cargo shorts. He’s also gulping sake bombs until they dribble down his sunburned face. Countless varieties of sushi and side dishes rotate by on a conveyer belt, colorful little plates waiting to be snatched up: salmon, tuna, eel, octopus, shrimp, miniature omelets, fried tofu, Wagyu beef, squid, yellowtail, veggie rolls, chicken and pork dumplings, seaweed salad.

“You okay over there?” Aegon asks, grinning as he watches you stab at your eel sushi, topped with some kind of mayo-like sauce and delicious but tragically challenging to eat.

“I didn’t know how to use chopsticks before my dominant hand was put out of commission.” You glare down the row at Shelby. She glowers back. Since that night in Singapore, you circle each other like snarling undomesticated animals, wolves or coyotes. Now you’re on her radar. Now she knows there is something—that mysterious, ever-shifting, worrying something—between you and Aemond. She just doesn’t know what it is. Neither do you, neither does he, neither does anyone.

“Want me to feed you?” Aegon slurs flirtatiously. He plucks up a piece of your eel sushi with his chopsticks and promptly drops it in your lap. “Oh. Fuck.”

Baela presses the button on the counter to summon the server. “I’ll get you a fork.”

“You are a saint,” you tell her. “Patron saint of initiative. Or drive, whichever you prefer the sound of.” Aegon is mayhem, Aemond is lost causes. What am I?

“And you are an uncultured hick from Kansas.”

You smile at her. “Missouri.”

Your fork soon arrives. A few seats down the row, you hear Shelby ask innocently, like it doesn’t mean anything: “How old is Louis Tomlinson’s son now?”

Aemond shrugs. He’s watching the conveyor belt for vegan options; he keeps missing them when they pass by. “I don’t know, five?”

“No, Freddie?!” Luke says. “He’s gotta be like seven now. We saw him last summer at Niall’s pool party.”

“He was so cute,” Shelby says. She’s sitting on Aemond’s good side, as always. She rubs his back and you fight the urge to break her fingers one by one, snapping them in half like dry autumn twigs, lifeless and hollow. “Wasn’t he cute, honeybunch?”

“Sure,” Aemond replies distractedly. And of course Shelby is the type of person who believes that becoming a father will heal a man, rather than just dooming his children to be collateral damage.

Aegon peeks over the conveyer belt at the chefs who are preparing plates in the middle. He lurches and wobbles. Criston covers his own face with his hands, mortified. “Hey, hey, can I get a Crab Rangoon please?”

A chef says something in Japanese, soft and polite but clearly imploring him to sit back down.

Aegon repeats slowly: “Crab! Rangooooooon!”

“Hey dumbass,” Jace says. “That’s Chinese. We’re in Japan.”

“Oh. Right.” Aegon sighs, retreats, and orders himself another sake bomb.

You grab a plate of veggie rolls and another of fried tofu sushi off the conveyer belt and pass them down the row to Aemond. Shelby sends you the most venomous of glares, but Aemond mouths when she’s not paying attention: Thank you.

~~~~~~~~~~

Two shows in Tokyo, two performances on the stage where Aemond was mutilated. Of course, you don’t see mutilation when you look at him. You never have. You see the way the light hits the angles of his jaw and nose and cheekbones and think of marble faces in museums, generals, kings, saints, angels. You see the crystalline blue of his right eye and think of rivers, cool and rushing and clean. You see the ethereal haze of his left eye and think of other planets. You don’t know why everyone else reads his scar and blindness as a tale of unspeakable ruin. You can’t imagine seeing Aemond that way. It would be easier, less painful, simpler for you if you could. Maybe you could stop wanting him. Maybe you could stop dreaming about him, wisps of longing and memory that escape you as soon as you wake.

Aemond does not attend Comet’s concerts at the Budokan. They’re the only ones you’ve ever known him to miss. He rides out on his Gold Star instead, and then reappears to join the band for their post-show ritual in Jace’s suite, grim and quiet and scribbling in his black-paged notebook, smoking his cigarettes, sipping his Brambles. You cannot blame Aemond. You weren’t here last December when a piece of rigging collapsed during soundcheck and nearly killed him, and yet you can’t stop thinking about it; you can’t stop yourself from glancing up at the rafters during shows, wondering exactly how it happened, picturing Aemond bloody and unconscious on the stage, half-blinded and robbed without knowing it yet.

Tomorrow night is Comet Donati’s final performance in Tokyo, but today Criston has a day trip planned. He has filled every spare second of this tour stop with distractions. The band travels by bullet train (or shinkansen) and then local railways to Nara, the city that served as Japan’s capital in the 700s. Criston hires a tour guide—an 80-year old man called Toru-san, who possesses an incalculable amount of knowledge and also a very, very thick accent—to lead you all around Nara Park to see Isuien Garden, the Kasuga Taisha Shrine, the Nara National Museum, and finally the Great Buddha. Nara Park is full of food and souvenir vendors, as well as 1,200 sika deer that you can pet and feed, albeit at risk of being trampled by overenthusiastic herbivores. There are signs posted with warnings to exercise caution, complete with cartoon illustrations of deer gone rogue.

It’s 95 degrees outside with 80% humidity. You are drenched with sweat and guzzling boba tea. The handle of your bag from a gift shop is slung over your splint. Toru-san, despite his long pants and cardigan sweater, is looking spry as ever and is deep in conversation with Luke and Rhaena; he is regaling them with a bottomless well of Nara trivia. Cregan and Daeron are still browsing through gift shops, mostly for the opportunity to escape the heat and hover, sighing with relief, in front of every electric fan they come across. Aegon, lobster-level red—you aren’t sure if he’s more sunburned or flushed—is snoring under a tree as deer nibble at his cyan tank top and white cargo shorts. Aemond purchased probably $200 worth of deer crackers and has attracted a sizeable crowd of furry new friends. He’s like he always is around animals: beaming, immersed, at peace. Shelby is capturing pictures and video clips of him from a distance.

Nearby where you stand under the shade of a black pine tree, Baela is dressed in a crop top and yoga pants and stretching in the middle of a patch of grass. She keeps having to stop to shove deer away from her as they tiptoe close, searching for snacks. Jace is using Google Translate to flirt with a crowd of Japanese fangirls who have recognized him. They are giggling so loudly you can hear them from across a field. Baela is trying to ignore this. She falls out of a pose and sighs irritably, then walks over to you. Together, you watch Jace for a while, you slurping on your boba tea, Baela frowning with her hands on her willowy waist.

At last, she says: “Sometimes we love people who we know don’t deserve it. But that doesn’t make us love them any less. We just hate ourselves for not being stronger.”

“I think you’re incredibly strong, Baela.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. Strong enough to leave him. Strong enough to begin living your own life again.”

Her expression is suddenly uncharacteristically vulnerable, fearful. “I don’t know if I can do it. I’ve never been an adult without him.”

“You’d figure it out. And you wouldn’t be alone. You’d have Rhaena, and Luke, and ballet, and all your friends and family—”

“And you too, right?” she asks. “You’ll still be my friend? Even after you go back home?”

You are stunned into a silence that Baela first mistakes for rejection. Her face falls. “No no no, I’m not hesitating, you just caught me by surprise. Of course I’ll still be your friend after the tour is over. I’ll be your friend forever.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“And you’ll visit me in prison if I snap one day and throw Jace into a meatgrinder?”

You laugh and hug her, your sweat dampening each other’s clothes: her orange crop top, your Backstreet Boys t-shirt. “Absolutely. For sure.”

“Okay. I gotta go practice some more.” She spends long hours down in the hotel gym while everyone else is sleeping or partying or preparing for shows, running and stretching and yoga and repeating the same dance routines over and over again. You applaud and whistle as she leaves. “Stop,” Baela complains, but she’s grinning.

You procure another boba tea. You find a nice shady spot on a bench. You check your phone; there’s maybe fifteen more minutes until the band is scheduled to leave for the train station to begin the journey back to Tokyo. Naturally, Criston has dinner already planned: kaiseki ryori, a traditional multi-course meal. You wonder if there will be vegan options for Aemond. Your eyes drift back to him. They always seem to. He’s dragging his palm down the face of a ten-point buck as he feeds him a crumbling brown cracker. There’s a fawn curled up in Aemond’s lap. His blond hair is slicked back off his forehead, his black shirt mostly unbuttoned. Sweat gleams on his chest. Your fingertips ache to draw sloping lines and lazy circles in it.

“I never worried about him,” Criston says. He’s appeared beside you, arms crossed guardedly. You move over so there’s room for Criston on the bench. He sits, distant and troubled. “I always worried about the others. Aegon and Jace especially. But not Aemond.”

“Because he never needed you,” you say quietly.

“He didn’t,” Criston agrees. “And so I wasn’t there to protect him that day.”

The day of the accident. “From what I understand, it wasn’t something you could have prevented.”

“No, I couldn’t have stopped that piece of rigging from falling. But I could have made it so he wasn’t standing under it.”

You wait for Criston to explain. That’s an element that people often underestimate: the power of waiting for someone to be ready.

“It was soundcheck,” Criston says. His voice is strained, hushed. He repeatedly touches the stubble of his beard, a nervous habit. “Aemond was on time, as always. Aemond was exactly where he was supposed to be. But no one else was. Aegon and Jace had gone off to a strip club or a burlesque show or something, I don’t remember. They came back to the hotel and were absolutely hammered, they were crawling around on the hallway floor and puking in corners, laughing hysterically, completely out of their minds. Cregan and Luke were there trying to get them cleaned up. I was on the phone with Cregan, he was pissed, probably the most angry I’ve ever heard him, he kept pausing to yell at Aegon. He’d dragged him into a cold shower, but Aegon was fighting, trying to bite and kick him and whatever the hell else. So eventually I decided to go to the hotel and deal with it. Aemond offered to go with me. I told him no, you stay here, I’ll bring the other four even if I have to get the security guys to toss Aegon and Jace over their shoulders and carry them. Then I left.”

“And that’s when it happened,” you realize. “While you were gone.”

“Yes,” Criston says. And he gazes across Nara Park, here in body but his mind trapped in the maze of the past.

“You had no way of knowing what would happen, Criston. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I should have told him to come with me back to the hotel. Or I should have stopped Aegon and Jace from getting wasted. If they’d been on time, if soundcheck had happened as scheduled, no one would have been standing where that piece of rigging fell. Aemond would still be the leader of Comet. He would still have his face, his sight, his life.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” you say again.

“Alicent blames me,” he confesses. And you only know who she is because you’ve asked Aegon: the wife of Viserys Targaryen, the mother of his three sons. “She’ll never forgive me.”

Is that really why she avoids you, Criston? Or is there another reason? “If that’s true, it’s only because she’s feeling a lot of horrible things—grief, pain, regret, guilt—and she’s directing them at you. You haven’t earned them. You’re just the person standing in the line of fire. They’re a reflection of Alicent’s inner turmoil, not of your own worth. I think you’ve done a phenomenal job trying to keep this band safe and happy. And I know it’s not easy. I know it’s damn near impossible.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” he says, looking at you with large, dark, truthful eyes like a dog’s.

And you imagine a world in which you’d never seen Aegon after that night in Kansas City, never met Aemond, Baela, Rhaena, Luke, Cregan, Daeron, Criston. “I’m glad I’m here too.”

Criston reaches over and—for a moment, so briefly you could have imagined it—rests his hand on your shoulder like he sometimes does to Aemond and Luke. Then he leaves to collect Cregan and Daeron from a shaved ice vendor. Shelby has strolled over to consult with Toru-san, presumably so she can add his trivia to her Instagram posts and TikTok videos. You go to Aemond.

“I have a confession to make,” he says solemnly as you approach.

The oxygen vanishes from your lungs; you try to hide this. “What is it?”

Aemond smiles up at you. “When the tour guide was leading us here, I thought he kept saying that the park was full of bears. And I didn’t want to kill the mood or anything, but I was definitely concerned about going on a field trip to feed over 1,000 uncaged bears. I am very, very relieved that he was in fact saying deer.”

You chuckle and sit next to Aemond on the grass, petting the fawn in his lap. It blinks sleepily at you, its fur soft and spotted, its ears pricked up and curious.

“What’s your souvenir for this stop of the tour?” Aemond asks.

You pull it out of your bag to show him: a small stuffed sika deer complete with floppy felt antlers. “Isn’t it adorable?”

“It is,” he says. “Are you going to have room for all these keepsakes in your apartment back home?”

“Already fantasizing about me leaving, huh?”

“No,” Aemond says, seriously now. Deadly serious. “No, I’m not.” And then Criston is shouting through cupped hands for everybody to huddle up so you can all head to the train station.

It’s not until the band is trekking out of Nara Park towards the blissful promise of air conditioning that you realize someone is missing. When you look around, you see Criston, Aemond, Shelby, Aegon (rubbing his eyes and yawning), Baela, Jace, Rhaena, Luke, Cregan, and a smattering of security guards dressed in black.

“Wait,” you say. “Where’s Daeron?”

A chorus of confusion: “What?” Huh?” “He’s not here?” At last, Criston spies him sitting alone on a wooden park bench, glumly eating through his mountain of shaved ice.

“What the hell is he doing?!” Jace says impatiently, swiping perspiration from his forehead.

Aegon massages your shoulders. “I think this might call for your particular area of expertise, Stargirl.” And when Aemond’s eye flicks to Aegon fleetingly, resentfully, you think for the first time: And where were you, Aegon, when Aemond was waiting all those months ago? Whoring, drinking, self-destructing in ways that take other people down with you? Then you leave him.

Through the heat that lays thick over the city like a tangle of vines, you trudge to the bench where the youngest Targaryen brother is lingering. “Daeron? What’s wrong?”

He stares gloomily down into his shaved ice: blood-colored, strawberry, ichigo. “Everyone thinks I’m always joking and optimistic, but I’m not.”

You ask gently: “What are you really, Daeron?”

“I don’t know what to be. That’s the problem. I worry about it all the time. I can’t win. If I’m sad, then I’m ungrateful for this tremendous opportunity. But if I’m happy, it’s like I’m dancing on Aemond’s grave.”

“He’s not dead, Daeron,” you say.

“Well, yeah, obviously.”

“But a lot of the time people talk about him like he is. You speak around him, over him, through him. Do you think he doesn’t notice?” Do you think he can’t feel the weight of that dark gravity that roots him to the earth? Do you think he can disentangle who he is from the wreckage that has buried its shrapnel in his bones?

Daeron isn’t insulted by what you’ve said. Instead, he seems fascinated. He seems grateful, like you’ve sat down to help him with an especially baffling puzzle. “What would he want from us, do you think?”

“I think he wants to know that his time in Comet wasn’t wasted. That even if he leaves, he will still be a part of this family. I think he wants to be acknowledged. He doesn’t want pity or awkward silences, he doesn’t want to pretend that the accident never happened. He wants to know that his life will go on in spite of it.”

Daeron ruminates on this, taking a bite of his towering mound of shaved ice. “If I said something about him at the last Tokyo show tomorrow, do you think he’d mind? I’ve had this idea for a while, but I didn’t know how he’d take it.”

“That depends on what you say.”

Daeron asks, peering up at you with large pale eyes: more translucent than Aegon’s, more harmless than Aemond’s. He has been shown more kindness than either of them; he is perhaps less deep, less singularly brilliant, but also less burdened. It is a trade many would happily agree to. It is a trade they would pay for in blood. “What should I say?”

You smile at Daeron. “The truth.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“I’d like to take a moment to share something with all of you,” Daeron says into his microphone as soon as Comet finishes The Worst Way To Be. The audience lowers their cheers to a reverent, intensely attentive murmur.

“Wait, what?” Baela whispers to you and Rhaena as you stand in the front row. Shelby, who had been looking rather bored, whips out her phone and begins a live stream. Aegon, Jace, Luke, and Cregan are upbeat and beaming—as is expected of them, as is required—but they pass each other nervous glances like folded paper notes in a high school classroom. This is not in the script.

“I just want to say thank you,” Daeron continues. His voice reverberates off the walls of the Budokan. “Thank you to all of you guys, of course. Our amazing, incredible fans. Thank you for letting us live this dream of a life.” There are claps and whistles, shrieked declarations of undying adoration. Daeron takes a deep breath. His hands are shaking; you can see the microphone tremble. “And thank you to my big brother Aemond.” Instantaneously, the crowd goes as close to silent as it is possible for a stadium at max capacity to be. The others are gawking at him openly now, unable to paper over it with masklike smiles. “I had been following Comet around for years before I got the offer to officially join. So I know how much work and talent Aemond poured into this band. I’m beyond honored to be up on this stage tonight performing for all of you, but I wish it could have happened a different way. I wish Aemond could be here too. And no matter where he goes in the world or what he does next, he will always be the person who made Comet Donati possible. And he will always be my greatest inspiration. I love you, man. We all love you.”

And the audience erupts into deafening cheers and applause, all for a soul who could not bring himself to attend the show. There are chants of We love you, Aemond! that go on for more than five minutes. Aegon is shouting as loudly as anyone; Jace, Luke, and Cregan are running around the stage and encouraging the crowd. They are a little shellshocked, but they are genuine.

Even Jace, you think, you marvel. Even Jace is honoring him. He doesn’t hate Aemond after all. He provokes and he taunts, sure, and he crosses lines on occasion, but Jace doesn’t hate Aemond. He might even miss him.

For their last night in Tokyo, Criston has grander aspirations for the band than the usual wind down in Jace’s suite. He gets everyone—Aemond included, fetched from the bar of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, already several Brambles deep—into the Escalades to drive to Club Camelot, where Criston has reserved one of the three floors for Comet. It swiftly fills like a flute of champagne: women in sparkling gowns, men with baiting smiles, security guards and label executives and friends and acquaintances and models. The tiles on the floor are black and white, but bathed in sapphire luminescence that covers everyone like rain. Empty hands are filled with frosty bottles and glasses clinking with ice. The song that thunders out of the speakers is a throwback: Butterfly by Crazy Town.

Cregan has acquired a harem of sorts; you look once and he’s flocked by three gazelle-like companions, you look again and there are five of them. Jace is mingling freely. Aemond is talking to Daeron—thanking him, it appears, offering heartfelt gratitude—while Shelby greets a pack of influencer-types as they arrive. They squeal and jump up and down with her in their clicking stilettos, then take turns snapping each other’s pictures. Criston actually appears to be somewhat relaxed. He sips on a Sapporo Premium and chats with one of the guys from the label, gesturing casually with his expressive hands. Aegon is curled up in a booth with Selena Gomez. Yes, Selena freaking Gomez. He keeps playing with her glossy dark tresses and making her giggle, propping his sunburned face up on his knuckles, glowing in that way that he does. It’s not just for you. It’s never been just for you. And sometimes he’s close to you and sometimes he’s not, and right now he’s on the other side of the solar system, he’s out in the Oort cloud, he’ll be back to visit earth in a few hundred years. Aegon disappears into the bathroom every few minutes. You see smudges of white powder on his hands, under his nose. If he tried to talk to you right now, you wouldn’t know what to say to him. He would feel like a stranger.

You’re watching Aemond. You wish you weren’t, but you are. He’s in all black, the top three buttons of his shirt undone. You nurse a Bramble and follow Baela, Rhaena, and Luke around the dancefloor, barely able to hear them over the music. Luke is lightheartedly making fun of Baela for something. Her earrings? Her shoes?

“I’ll have you know that I’m very important around here!” Baela cries over the music. “I’m the patron saint of drive!”

“Patron saint of driving herself to the Gucci store, maybe,” Luke says.

They’re all laughing. You feel like you’re observing them through a transparent wall, like you’re at the aquarium and they’re a dazzling rare species and you’re some grubby kid with your palms pressed to the glass. What am I still doing here? Why did I ever think I belonged here?

You break away from Baela, Rhaena, and Luke and drift by Shelby and her fellow influencers, not intending to eavesdrop but catching a few fragments of their conversation like Jupiter and Saturn capture moons. As Aemond talks to Daeron across the room, Shelby is lamenting her love life. She thinks she’s being discrete, but she’s had more than a few gin and tonics.

“No, he still…he probably doesn’t want me looking at him…he’ll let me blow him, but he won’t actually…you know…?”

And you remember what you told him on that balcony in Reykjavik: I think you haven’t fucked anyone since the accident, and you’re terrified to.

You were right. You’re still right. And here you are, like mirrors: Aemond not fucking Shelby, you not fucking Aegon, and there’s no especially good reason for either except that it just doesn’t feel right. After a while, Shelby and her entourage leave to check out another nightclub down the block. More photo opportunities, you suspect. A change of scenery.

“How’s your wrist?” Jace inquires. He’s found you loitering on the outskirts of the dancefloor. He’s wearing a black sequined blazer with nothing underneath except skin and ink. He’s unsteady on his feet, a Vesper sloshing in his glass. Now the song that’s playing is Ed Sheeran’s I Don’t Care, featuring Justin Bieber. In the booth she’s sharing with Aegon, Selena Gomez audibly groans.

“Great. It actually feels better when no one talks to me.”

Jace cackles, far too loudly. “You are hilarious. Hey, hey, listen.” His free hand skates around your waist. Instinctively, you jolt away from him.

“Nope.”

“Listen.” He grips you more adamantly. “Let’s do this.”

“No, no, that’s a very kind offer but I’d rather chew off my own limbs, thank you.”

“Look, I don’t care if you’ve hooked up with Aegon,” Jace purrs into your ear, sweating out vodka and gin, his curls brushing against your cheek. “Hell, I don’t care if you’re still hooking up with Aegon. I’m better than him. I have to be, right? That fat drunk. I’ll show you.”

You try to pull away from him again. You’re wearing the short sparkly dress you bought in Reykjavik, black velvet and silver stars. “Jace, don’t touch me.”

“Come on, Stargirl, give me a shot—”

“Jace,” you say harshly, your eyes blazing. “Do not touch me.”

“Okay,” he sighs; and, to his credit, he releases you. He holds up his palm in surrender. “Okay, fine, but when you change your mind—”

Aemond soars in out of nowhere, a comet, a meteor, the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. His fist connects with Jace’s jaw. Jace’s Vesper goes flying; blood spurts from his mouth, split lips and lost teeth. “Don’t you fucking touch her!” Aemond is roaring. He has Jace pinned to the floor, black and white and sapphire and red. “When she says not to touch her, you don’t, you hear me?!”

People are screaming and descending upon them, trying to pull them apart. Your Bramble shatters against the tile floor. Criston is here, and security guards, and Baela and Rhaena and Luke and Aegon. Everyone is talking at the same time, so it’s almost like no one is. Jace is striking at Aemond from the ground. Aemond hits him again, and again, knuckles into defenseless flesh and bone, blood vessels bursting, nerves on fire. The music stops, the lights come on.

“Aemond, stop!” you shout. “Aemond, Aemond, you’re going to kill him!”

“Let him go, Aemond, please!” Baela is yelling, and there’s raw terror in her voice.

Then Jace lands a solid punch at last, a hook that comes in from Aemond’s left. Blood pours from Aemond’s nose, it’s on his face and his throat, it’s running down his chest. Cregan arrives, locks his arms around Aemond’s waist, and heaves him away. Before Jace has a second to recover, Aegon wrenches him up by the collar of his blazer and slaps him open-handed across the face.

“He can’t see on that side, you fucking snake!”

Criston bellows: “Aegon, back up, back up, back the fuck up!” He finally gets a good look at Jace: bleeding, bruised, teeth missing, blinking dazedly at the spectators, too stunned to feel the pain yet. “Oh my God!” Criston whirls to Aemond, who is struggling against Cregan’s grasp. “How’s he going to perform in five days, huh?! Jesus Christ, he looks like he’s been butchered! How am I going to cover that up?! How is he going to sing?!” Criston pulls Jace to his feet; he practically has to carry him. Baela follows after them, more distressed than you’ve ever seen her, flowing tears and strangled sobs. Rhaena and Luke go too.

You, Aegon, and Daeron rush to Aemond. He’s bent over and spitting blood onto the floor so he doesn’t choke on it. “Not broken,” Cregan pronounces after examining his nose. “Just gonna bleed real bad. Needs pressure on it.”

“Are you okay?” Aegon asks you, a hand careful and tender on your face. He’s back again, for a minute, an hour, a day.

Your voice quakes. “Yeah.”

“What did Jace do…?”

“Nothing, nothing that bad, I mean he grabbed my waist but—”

“Aegon?” Selena Gomez says tentatively, waiting nearby and hugging her arms around herself.

“Yeah, one second, love. Give me a second.” He appraises Aemond and whistles. “Man, you are wrecked.” And not just physically. He’s incensed, he’s in shock. You reach for Aemond’s hand and he lets you take it.

“You got him?” Cregan asks you.

“I’ll clean him up. I’ll take care of him.” And as blood continues to run down his face, you draw Aemond towards the bathrooms. You lead him inside the women’s room and lock the door, blue walls and white florescent light. Somewhat ungainly—relying mostly upon your non-dominant hand—you press a pile of paper towels against his nose and tell him to hold it there. Then you wet more paper towels and wipe down his knuckles, his face, his throat. The blood on his chest has run beneath his glossy black shirt. We match, you think randomly. “Can I…?”

He yanks the shirt over his head, then returns the mass of crimson-stained paper towels to his nose. Fortunately, the bleeding appears to be slowing. You erase the smudged trail of scarlet that runs all the way to the waistline of his dark jeans. When you reach the end of it, Aemond flinches away from you; not a pained flinch, but a fearful one. He turns his back on you and walks to the other end of the small and shadowless room. He braces one palm against the wall and sighs deeply. He throws the wad of paper towels in the trashcan and then covers his face with his hand, shaking his head.

“Aemond,” you say. And you wait for him to look you in the eye. It takes a long time. “What do you want?” Why were you watching me and Jace? Why did you lose control?

“Nothing,” he replies immediately.

“That’s a lie.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” you insist, your voice fracturing. “It does matter. Just tell me what you want.”

“Why, so you can let me down easy? Or worse, pretend to be into it to make me feel better, to help piece me and my fragile little ego back together? I don’t beg for anything. You really think I’m going to beg you to want me?”

“No, you’re too fucking proud, you’d never even ask for it. You’ll beat people half to death for things you’re too much of a coward to say out loud, and I’m supposed to feel sorry for you?!”

“Then why are you even in here with me?! Just go back to Aegon, I know that’s what you want. I guess you’ll have to wait in line behind Selena Gomez, but he’ll work his way back around to you eventually.”

“Jace stole something from you, right?” you say. “You feel like he stole the band from you after you were kicked out, and then tonight you felt like he was stealing something else, and that’s why you freaked out and almost murdered him—”

“No. No, because you’re not mine.”

“What do you want, Aemond?” you ask him again, tears of exhaustion and desperation in your eyes.

“I don’t want anything from you,” he says, coming in closer. “So you’re absolved, you’re free to go, I don’t need your goddamn charity—”

Your good hand juts out, and what you plan to do is plant it against his bare chest and push him away. What you do instead—as if by muscle memory, a reflex, an instinct—is reach up to plunge your fingers into his hair. And then his palm is cradling the small of your back and his lips are on yours, moving seamlessly like how currents thread through the ocean. He helps lift you up onto the counter; there is just enough room between two of the sinks. Your legs link around Aemond as he presses himself to you, lips still tinged with coppery blood, bare chest, his waist, his hips. Your back hits the mirror—cool and unyielding, the ink of his lyrics flat against the glass—with enough force to make a thump.

“Are you okay—?”

“I’m more okay than I’ve been in years.”

He tilts up your chin and kisses you deeply, dizzyingly, his tongue darting between your lips. He tastes like his Brambles, sweetness cut with the bite of gin, and smoke, and something else too, something that’s just purely him, something you could drown in like the river of his clear right eye. Gently, you bring your fingertips to his face, to his scar. “Don’t,” he pleads softly, pained.

“There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Don’t—”

“Aemond, look at me.” And you hold his face still so you know he hears you. “There’s nothing wrong with you. There has never been anything wrong with you.”

You watch it hit him like a stone into water, ripples that wash away everything he’s felt before. He knows you mean it, he can feel it, the same way you can feel the care with which he caresses you, not just lust but engulfing warmth, wordless veneration. He whispers between kisses: “Tell me what to do. Tell me what you want.”

Your lock your gaze with his, then reach down to unbutton his jeans. It’s difficult with the splint, but you manage. You think he might stop you, you prepare yourself for it, but he doesn’t. Instead, Aemond’s hands vanish beneath your dress and slip off your panties, black lace you hadn’t planned on anyone seeing tonight. As you kiss his face—jagged scar, flushed cheek, the slope of his jaw—his fingers slide into a pool of staggering heat and wetness.

He moans. “Oh fuck, that’s for me?”

“I’ve wanted this from the start.”

“Show me…show me how you like it…”

You guide his hand to exactly the right spot and give him a rhythm, a pressure, a pace that rolls a euphoric shudder down your spine. He’s barely touched you, and already you’re shaking all over; you’re throbbing, you’re dazed with that delicious needful aching, you’re gasping into the sweltering, salt-strewn dampness of his neck. His fingertips stroke you in commanding circles—only a few times—until you’re on the precipice, until you stop him. You’re ready, even though he’s huge: long and thick, revealed as he tugs down his jeans and boxers. He pins your uninjured hand against the mirror and kisses and bites at your throat as he eases himself inside you: a stretching that is intense but not unpleasant, hunger being satisfied. And when he thrusts—carefully at first, waiting for you to tell him he can be rougher—there are so many layers of pleasure that it stuns you, it leaves you speechless. Has it ever been like this before? Never, never, never, not once, not for a moment, not with anybody. His future was stolen from him, but he’s taken your past from you; he’s carved it out like a gemstone from the earth and locked it away in a vault no one remembers the passcode to.

“I’m so close,” you whisper, you beg. “Aemond, please, please, I want to come for you…” And you gasp as his fingers skim down your belly again, stroking you forcefully as his thrusts become deeper, quicker, impossibly powerful.

His voice is low and murmuring. His scent is everywhere; it’s all you know how to breathe. “You okay, baby? You alright?”

“Yes, yes, oh God, Aemond, don’t stop, please don’t stop…”

“I won’t stop, baby. You’re doing so well, you’re almost there.”

“Aemond…yes…I love this…”

“I love you.”

He what…? He WHAT…??

And it doesn’t just drag you over the edge; it pushes you, it propels you, you go plummeting off the cliffside and freefall for miles. There’s no disguising it. You have to bury your face in his chest to keep from crying out, clinging to him, your fingernails leaving indents like crescent moons. Aemond, fighting his own climax viciously, lasts just long enough to fuck you through the aftershocks and then empties himself not just physically but also of the shame and aimlessness of the past seven months, of his fears, of his suspicions.

“Wait,” you say as he pulls away from you. You yank a paper towel out of the dispenser and wet it with cold water. First you cool his forehead and the back of his neck with it, then you wipe his fingers and his cock. Still perched on the counter, you wet another paper towel for yourself.

“No,” Aemond tells you. “Let me.” He takes it from you, opens your thighs, and kisses your mouth—teasingly, biting and sucking your lower lip—as he spreads your folds and cleans them of his seed, abundant hot white fluid that you can feel dripping out of you. As he passes over where you are most sensitive—where you can already feel longing for him rebuilding brick by brick—you jump a little, and you both laugh. I could go again, you think. I could do this with him forever. And then, as Aemond descends from the chemical high like a plane gliding down towards a tarmac, you watch as those old familiar poisons—shame, aimlessness, fear, suspicion—begin to fill up in him again, slowly but unmistakably.

He throws out the paper towels and takes several steps back. He starts putting on his clothes, staring at the wall, then at the mirror, not at you but past you, at himself, his clear river-blue eye wide and vacant. He looks horrified by what he’s done; or perhaps, rather, by what he’s said.

You grab your panties off the counter and step into them, readjusting your dress. “Look, uh…if you didn’t mean what you said…that’s totally cool. I get it, sometimes people say things in the moment that aren’t real, there’s the oxytocin and the dopamine, and I don’t want you to feel…uh…you know…like you have to keep up a false pretense or anything…”

Aemond turns around and walks out of the bathroom, the door slamming behind him.

“Okay,” you say to yourself. “Okay. I can fix this.” You use the toilet quickly—UTIs are not welcome here—and then head out onto the dancefloor.

The lights are dim again, and thank God for that; your makeup is smudged, your hair unruly, your eyes glazed, your dress rumpled and stained. Cregan is the only person still waiting. “Hey,” he says flatly, then squints at you. You avoid his astute greyish eyes.

“Hey. Where is everyone?”

“Criston took Jace to the hospital. Baela is there too. Rhaena and Luke are back at the hotel. Aegon is presumably balls deep in Selena Gomez. Aemond just sprinted out of this club and I’d guess he’s headed back to the hotel too. Daeron went after him. I think that’s everybody.”

You shift your weight from foot to foot uneasily. “Shelby?”

“Oh, right. Haven’t seen her. Still out with her friends.” His eyes sweep over you. “On a scale of one to ten, how homicidal would she be if she found out about whatever happened in that bathroom?”

“Nothing happened.”

“Uh huh.” Cregan strides towards the stairwell that leads down to the front door. “Let’s go.”

Back at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, you swipe your keycard and flick the lights on in your suite. You stand there alone, feeling the evidence of what you’ve done: sore muscles and bruised skin and pooling wetness, both yours and his. You are absorbed with thoughts of what you’re going to say to Aemond when you confront him, how much of your truth you are willing to bare. And then your eyes catch on the small trashcan beside your bed, which reminds you of the one back in Singapore, which reminds you of your pack of birth control pills discarded on a pile of crumpled soda cans and snack wrappers.

I haven’t taken a pill in days. How many days? A week?

“Oh my God,” you breathe. And then, more frantically: “Oh no, oh no, no no no…”

What do I do? What the hell do I do?

You race out into the hallway and knock on Baela’s door. Nobody answers. You try Rhaena’s next. She appears in her pajamas, pink and dotted with tiny green Tyrannosaurus rexes. “Hi,” she says agreeably enough, but she’s rubbing her eyes drowsily.

“Hi. I’m really, really sorry to bother you, but it’s an emergency.”

She perks up considerably. “Okay, how can I help?”

“Where’s Luke?”

“In the shower.”

“So he can’t hear us right now?”

“No, he can’t.”

“Good. Do you know when Baela will be back from the hospital?”

“Not anytime soon,” Rhaena says. “She messaged me that Jace needs stitches and has a concussion. They’ll be there all night, at least.”

You exhale, a defeated little squeak. “Is Aegon around? With or without Selena Gomez?”

“No, they haven’t come back yet. I have no idea where they are.”

“Okay.” You swallow noisily.

“What’s going on with you?” Rhaena asks, concerned.

“This really is not a Rhaena situation. This is a Baela or Aegon situation.”

“Alright, but neither of them are here. So I’m who you’ve got.”

You stare at her. “I need Plan B. Do you happen to have any Plan B?”

“Plan B…? Like, you just had unprotected sex with someone Plan B?”

“Yes, exactly, that one.”

Rhaena gapes, scandalized. “With who?!”

“Confidential,” you say briskly. “Do you have any or not?”

“No, I definitely don’t have any Plan B lying around.”

“No,” you groan. Tears are welling up in your eyes. “What am I going to do? How do I get Plan B in Japan?!”

“We’ll figure this out,” Rhaena says. She dashes to her nightstand to grab her iPhone. “Don’t panic. It’ll be okay. Let’s Google 24-hour pharmacies in Tokyo…”

You don’t have Criston here to summon an Escalade—nor would you willingly risk him finding out about this—but Rhaena uses Google Translate to ask the hotel’s front desk to call a taxi. She shows the taxi driver an address, figures out how many yen you owe him, and then asks him very politely (if haltingly) in Japanese to wait ten minutes while you’re inside the pharmacy so you can take a return trip as well. He seems to agree.

Rhaena accompanies you into the pharmacy and repeats these steps: Google Translate, an exchange of yen, the receipt of a service. She tells you that based on her quick research, Plan B is usually by prescription only in Japan, but pharmacists will sometimes be willing to prescribe it on the spot to a patient in need. Rhaena spends a long time typing out a message for the middle-aged, bespectacled pharmacist, then points to you. This is my friend, the maybe-pregnant slut from Missouri, you imagine her saying. She needs emergency contraception. It’s really in all of humanity’s best interests for her not to continue her bloodline.

“You have to show him your ID,” Rhaena tells you.

You give your passport to the pharmacist, and then he hands you a small package. You and Rhaena purchase a bottle of Coke Zero as well. You gulp down the single tablet as the pharmacist watches with bushy raised eyebrows, amused. You are pleased to discover that the taxi driver has waited, and within fifteen minutes you and Rhaena are back at the hotel.

“You’ve talked to a lot of people tonight,” you tell Rhaena matter-of-factly as you ride the elevator back up to the band’s floor.

“Oh, yeah. I guess I did. I mean, I’ve been practicing. And you needed me.”

“I’m proud of you,” you say.

Rhaena smiles sheepishly. “Thanks.”

“And I’ll be even more proud of you when I get my period.”

She giggles, she trots off to her suite, you retreat into yours. You collapse onto the floor and gaze up at the ceiling, studying the specks and grooves in the tiles like constellations.

“It was only one time,” you say to the ceiling. “I was on the pill for years. That takes a while to leave my system, right? I mean, what are the odds? It’s fine. It’s totally fine. Nothing’s going to happen, right?”

Right?

[hearteyesandviolence]

Chapters: 1/4 Fandom: The Wilds (TV 2020) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe Characters: Toni Shalifoe, Shelby Goodkind, Leah Rilke, Spider-Toni, Dave Goodkind Additional Tags: spider-man au, multiverse au, Mentions of Violence, Angst, Happy/Bittersweet Ending, Hurt/Comfort, this is gonna get meta, No beta we die like Uncle Ben Summary:

On the day the love of her life is getting married, Toni Shalifoe, aka Spider-Woman, is looking for a distraction. She gets more than she ever could have dreamed of when she's recruited for a mission to defend the multiverse. Toni isn't sure her short superhero career has prepared her for this, especially when she learns just who's responsible for the threat..

Essentially, Spider-Verse, Toni Shalifoe style.

[lavender-romancer]

The Bug Collector

Tommy Shelby x Reader

Tommy's obsession with thinking something is always out to get him begins to manifest in an irrational fear

”*°•.˜”*°•. ˜”*°•. ˜”*°••°*”˜.•°*”˜.•°*”˜.•°*”˜

You tried your best to create the best environment for Tommy to feel safe in your little small heath terrace house. He often felt safer there than in the lonely halls of Arrow House where any number of wrongdoers could be hiding. There was hardly enough space for two people at your house, let alone someone out to get Tommy. But regardless, he developed a...fear unrelated to the situation. You were convinced it was a way to regress into some kind of juvenile state of safety, the fears were usually childlike. Unlike anything else in his life, you could protect him from these inconsequential things inside your own space.

"Y/n!" Tommy yelled from the next room and you ran in, ready with a mug in your hand.

"What is it?" You asked and he pointed to the corner of the room near the gramophone.

A small bodied spider with spindly legs was inspecting the area and whether it would make a good home. The innocence of house insects always amazed you, they never bothered you, not really anyways. They make their homes, feed off nuisances like flies and add a very aged feeling to a home. Spiders were probably one of your favourite insects of them all, the variation in the type of webs they create was enough to amaze you. You smiled softly at Tommy who looked terrified before gently scooping up the spider.

"Open the front door for me," you asked him and he almost ran past you to open the door (to get past the spider as quickly as possible.)

You walked down the road a little before placing the little spider down on the pavement. It stayed there for a moment, gazing up at you in fear or awe- you were never sure. Whilst Tommy would sooner shoot the bugs that surrounded your home, you wouldn't have it. You always wanted an insect for a pet when you were younger so killing them would be unacceptable but if it made Tommy happy you didn't mind. He deserved to feel comforted as much as possible after everything he had done for you.

"Come on, my love. Let's go inside." You said as you walked back to your front door.

Tommy sat down on the sofa and you perched next to him, kissing him on the temple and rubbing his thigh. He lent his head on your shoulder and sighed.

"If you ever reveal the insanely emasculating fact that I'm scared of bugs, I might just have to kill you." He joked and you smiled before putting an arm around him.

"Don't worry lovely, I won't ever let you feel like something is out to get you." You kissed his head and cuddled him closer to you.

Peaky blinders taglist: @queenofkings1212 @severewobblerlightdragon @cl5369 @fairypitou @stressedandbandobessed7771 @shadow-of-wonder @hipsternoionlylikeunicorns @curled-hair-red-lips @lucystivinsky1315

[inthecityofgoodabode]

August 2022

I’m not positive but I think this was a honeybee queen in our lemon squash blossom: 

One of our lemon squash plants at Plot 420 made green fruit: 

Tuesday’s Plot 420 harvest including one cherry tomato... we didn’t plant any cherry tomatoes: 

[justasimp1]

Master List:

A guide to my work <33

My Wattpad: justawriter_1

My Hero Academia

Shoto Todoroki

Keigo Takami

Slashers/Killers

Vincent Sinclair

Micheal Myers

Brahms Heelshire

Kurt Kunkle

Ghostface

Jason Voorhees

Leatherface (Thomas Hewitt)

Good Girls

Rio

Fnaf (Five Nights at Freddy's)

Glamrock Freddy

Micheal Afton

William Afton

The Umbrella Academy

Five Hargreeves

Moon Knight

Marc Spector/Steven Grant

Daredevil

Matt Murdock

Detroit Become Human

Conner

Celebrities

Finn Wolfhard

Joseph Quinn

Stranger Things

Steve Harrington

Eddie Munson

Haikyuu

Ushijima Wakatoshi

Kuroo

Bokuto

Tsukishima

Attack on Titan

Eren Yeager

Levi Ackerman

Hange Zoe

Harry Potter

Harry Potter

Beaststars

Legoshi

Death note

L Lawliet

Hunter x Hunter

Chrollo

Euphoria

Fezco

Spider-Man

Peter Parker

Sally Face

Sal Fisher

Big Mouth

Judd Birch

Peaky Blinders

Tommy Shelby

The Black Phone

Vance Hopper

[witchthewriter]

𝐁𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐖𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐚 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐍𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞

⤷ gender neutral, ambiguous race, and any size reader. Requests are open, thank you for reading!  

a/n: okay now this actually is my ALL TIME FAVOURITE post that I’ve ever done ... I was literally kicking my feet and giggling while writing this ...

ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ

SFW🌿

Wanda is such a sweet partner. She has so much love and she just needs a person to give her love to. What better idea than to have two people to love?

Nat felt hesitant at first. But got more comfortable with the idea when she saw you and Wanda interacting. 

You have Mummy issues? They’re healed. They’re gone.

Wanda is the type of person to call you out of the blue, even when you’re at work.   “I just wanted to hear your voice!”

Whereas if Nat called you out of the blue, you’d start to panic

The amount of support and encouragement in this relationship is out of this world. 

Whenever you have a bad day, there is always someone ready to make it better

You guys have favourite tv shows and movies that someone will put on randomly, even if no one is watching it. All three of you agree that it’s for comfort; background noise is a must in the household. These are: → Gavin & Stacey: a british tv show that Nat originally thought was ridiculous but now you all do the accents → Modern Family: Wanda LOVES this show, she likes the family dynamics and that they’re always there for one another → Peaky Blinders: This is Nat’s favourite, she loves Tommy Shelby. There are certain aspects of the show that she can connect with → Vikings: all three of you like this show! Especially Lagertha; all of you have a crush on her.  → Elf: yes, Wanda knows it’s a Christmas movie, but when she first saw it, she couldn’t stop. So Nat had to put a ban on it unless it’s near Christmas (which Wanda said was November 1st) → Mamma Mia: All three of you know the words to EVERY ABBA song. Once Yelena slept over and you had the movie playing and she became OBSESSED.  → Every single Harry Potter movie: Wanda sees herself as a Hufflepuff (is actually a Slytherin), Nat knows and accepts she’s a Slytherin → Practical Magic: comes on during the start of Autumn/Fall and stays playing until the 1st of November

Wanda is an amazing cook, especially when it comes to baking. She usually makes a different sweet at the beginning of the week. 

You literally don’t have to lock your house up because you’re protected by the two most formidable women on the planet 

Nat’s love language is acts of service and secretly words of affirmation. She absolutely DIES whenever you say “I’m proud of you” or “You did a great job!”

And Nat is always the one to fix tires, lightbulbs and get rid of spiders

You might think that Nat would be against living in a cottage, but she absolutely adores it. It was your idea, and Wanda fell in love with it

There are many pets in your household, Nat felt like they were liabilities at first. She wasn’t used to a breathing thing continuously dependent on her

Wanda was a tad unsure as well, but she folded almost instantly 

Your pets are:  Trix: the newest addition to the family, she’s a little black kitten who is absolute chaos. She runs up and down the hallways, doing those weird little cat stances. It makes all three of you laugh. Malachi (nicknamed Mal): An Irish wolfhound who had been at the pound for years and was about to be put down Alf: grumpy ol’ fluffy cat who likes to sleep in the sun all day every day. funnily enough, his favourite human is Nat. 

Alf bit Sam Wilson when he came to visit and he was so offended because usually animals LOVE him. 

There are so many panic buttons around the house in case it becomes a target 

Yes, you guys have your own rooms. But they’re basically where you keep your belongings. 

Nat works a lot at night, so it’s usually you and Wanda at home by yourselves. When it’s bedtime, you sleep together

Nat’s pet names for you are: ‘sweetheart’, ‘darling’, ‘honey’

Wanda’s pet name for you is: ‘moja ljubav’ meaning ‘my love’. It’s in Serbian which is the official language in Sokovia, where she grew up.

Wanda hums a lot, it’s usually a lullaby from her childhood. It calms her down, especially when she’s worked up

Nat and Wanda like to slow dance in the kitchen. Wanda’s head gently leaning on Nat’s chest, their arms wound tightly around each other. The pots and pans on the stove completely forgotten. 

Yelena visits often! She loves Wanda’s cooking, talking with you, and getting to see her big sister. You always beg her to sleep over, and most of the time, she does!

Wanda’s love language is physical touch and quality time. She loves when you kiss her face; peppering small kisses over her nose, cheeks, chin, and forehead.

When Sam comes to visit, he usually brings Bucky and although he starts off as moody, he soon comes to love staying over. He and Nat have a lot in common and chat about their pasts. 

Wanda does your and Nat’s nails. She begs Nat to let her do pink but never wins 

As a joke you bought everyone matching pajamas, and although it was very funny, you all wear them unironically

Wanda uses her powers for a lot of things, and you absolutely love it. It’s so handy! If something breaks, Wanda can fix it, if you’re out and guys are harassing you, she has the ability to LITERALLY CONTROL THEIR MINDS. 

Nat is the least likely to hold grudges, then you, then Wanda...

You’ve all decided that you want to travel the world together. Nat may not appear as excited as you and Wanda (she’s already traveled the world, but that was for missions.)

Wanda wants to go to Disneyland. Can you imagine Nat and Wanda with the mickey ears on?!

Theme Song: 

Gimme All Your Love by Alabama Shakes

Relationship Tropes: 

  ✧ Moon (Nat) x Sun (You) x Eclipse (Wanda)

  ✧ Tragic Past x Ray of Light (this goes for everyone)

  ✧ The Impulsive (Wanda) x The Hyperactive (You) x The Unheeded Voice of Reason (Nat)

[pherelesytsia]

Will you come home…? 2

Pairing: Thomas Shelby x female/sister/Reader

Summary: A rumour turned into truth, and the brothers are incapable of forgiving the youngest among them.

Warning: fear, anxiety, Angst, swearing  

Word Count: 1.8k

Part 1 Part 3

Autumn was lingering in the air, fresh and loving, gentle as a lover's touch, but no hand clasped hers as she strolled through the rows of laughing and chatting people. Vendors at the booths were shouting, urging the people to draw closer, to taste the dried fruit and the popped corn.

Fallen leaves, yellow as molten gold and red as crimson escaping a deep wound coloured the wind. The hem of the dress slightly longer than the brownish coat, danced, swayed back and forth in the gentle breeze. The hair did not stick to the lips, which could only speak fondly and tenderly. Startled, her eyes widened. No gunshot echoed. Agony expanded in her heart. Desperately, Y/N searched for an injury, but crimson did not seep through the white button-down adorned with a large ribbon. Y/N rooted into the ground, turned into a tree of hundreds of years, millennia and decades. The faces were familiar, summoned tears and banned memories. Fear feasted on her heart, swallowed her body and mind. For a moment, Y/N thought she could not breathe, yet her chest rose and fell rapidly. A low prayer escaped her lips. What was I thinking, Y/N thought to herself, felt like a fool for genuinely believing she could avoid her family. She hoped it was a terrible dream, wished to wake up, but the pain in her chest deepened and Y/N realised she was not asleep, caught in the webs of a spider.

Gazes met and voices called out, called her by her name, told her to come closer, to stay and not escape. She heard despair in the breaking voice and the need to help sprouted in her soul, remembering the children were not responsible for anything the parents had done, what the fathers had said in seething anger. Inhaling the fresh evening air, Y/N adjusted the belt, hugging her body, and repressed the desire to slide her hand over the barely noticeable bulge in a soothing gesture to calm her mind.

            "Aunt Y/N." Karl sang joyfully.

Swiftly he ran, beamed and laughed, missed his aunt dearly after the countless moon of departure, and pulled her into a hug. The fear faded away and slowly she knelt in front of Karl. He clasped her trembling hands, and it soothed the pain and healed the unhealed. His eyes inspected the woman with kindness, and Karl talked, spoke like a roaring waterfall, needed to tell Y/N everything that had happened in the last months and it made her smile.

Charlie did not make a move, stood tall and firm, had heard too much about his aunt and stared in distaste at Karl, talking to Y/N as if nothing had happened. Disgust flared in his eyes, ragged like fire, screamed like wood swallowed by flames fed by air and folded his arms in front of his chest.

The smile was gone with the wind. Her heart cracked and the loathing within his eyes shattered what Karl had cured. She swallowed, glad Charlie had no weapon in his possession, saw it in his gaze, cold, murderous, ruthless, something Y/N was convinced children's eyes could not bear, but she was wrong.

            "We're lost. We were walking to the swings." continued the boy, babbled.

Y/N nodded.

            "Where are your parents? Shouldn't you be home? It's getting late." Y/N interjected in a motherly tone, stern yet lovely with a hint of fear

Shaking her head, she tried to find her brothers, unable to comprehend how the fathers could leave the children alone, but the men were nowhere to be found.

Ashamed, Karl looked into the distance, did not want to answer the question, searched for the right words, but he realised it would be better to speak the truth, couldn't find a plausible explanation. Mischief mingled with remorse. Y/N had seen this expression hundreds of times and a strange warm sensation causing her heart to beat quicker brought a smile to her lips, recalling her childhood in the almost all-boys household of pranks and shenanigans.

            "Karl? Don’t lie to me. I will not punish you; I understand, I was once your age and believe me you cannot imagen how often I snuck out with your dad and uncles.” Y/N spoke.

His eyes sparkled.

            "But sneaking out is bad and I hope you know it, young boy, and you are lucky that nothing happened to you." Y/N swiftly added.

Memories returned, and Y/N dared to close her eyes, remembered the forgotten, the evenings she secretly disappeared from the house with her brothers to sneak around town, to visit the bar in boyish cloth so nobody could notice a woman was among the Shelby's. The sun faded as the smile on her face, and the dark clouds curled above the fair and obscured the beautiful memories.

            "I can take you to the estate if you wish." Y/N breathed. "But I can understand if you don't want. I really can." she continued.

The words were not directed at Karl holding her right hand, but at the fierce boy whose eyes pierced her soul like a double-edged sword.

            "We will be fine on our own. We don't need your help. Father told me why you left." Charlie sneered.

The words hit her like a poisoned arrow, but she didn't fall to the ground. The wound was aching, but the pain did not cloud her mind, saw clearly and advanced with Karl by her side. The boy clenched his hands into fists, braced himself, and he dared not to reconsider his father's words, to question them or twist them in a different way. Charlie grimaced and Y/N thought her brother was standing in front of her, telling her to get lost, to crawl back out of the hole she had come out of, but Y/N smiled.

Karl led the way, frowned, and noticed his aunt wasn't following him and time seemed not to pass, but the clouds were wandering.

            "Come, I will take you to your father. He is certainly worried about you, Charlie. I don't care that you think I betrayed your family. I did nothing and if Thomas had listened to me for a moment, he would know the truth. Thomas did not let me speak as you do this very moment. You can curse me, but I will not leave you alone and you, as his son, should know best. I don't think I need to explain this matter to you." Y/N spoke in a calm tone.

            "Come on Charlie, Aunt Y/N/N will take us home. She won't tell your dad," Karl interjected, but the words did not reach the boy wrapped and sheltered in a dark aura.

Charlie wrinkled, chuckled bitterly, and couldn't comprehend how Karl could be so close to the traitor, the treacherous woman, a serpent lurking in the grass.

            "Okay." Charlie gave in, but he did not let his guard down, stayed prepared.

            "Come on, Charlie, give me your hand. I don't want to lose you in the crowd." Y/N spoke.

            “I am not a little boy.”, “Even a big boy can get lost, Charlie.” Y/N reasoned.

Charlie flinched, didn’t offer his hand to the stranger, not wanting to, tried to get away from her as quickly as possible, was disgusted by her mere presence, but when the eyes met, he thawed and hesitantly reached for her hand and clasped it tightly.

            "My car is a little further away from here, come we must hurry.", "Of course and are you coming in too?" Karl asked.

Her heart shattered, wished to say yes, missed her siblings dearly, but she couldn’t, not after what had occurred.

            "No Karl, I can't. It wouldn't be a good idea, but thank you very much for your offer, but I must decline. I have to hurry afterwards." Y/N answered.

No words fell, and an almost pleasant silence descended. Y/N drew the two boys away from the crowd, holding onto their hands, refusing to let go of them and merely shaking her head at the question of whether they could look at the horses. Charlie eyed his aunt dressed in a coat and a long dress in dark green hues critically. Calmness flooded his mind, saw her gentle eyes, the joy and happiness, but he hesitated to question his father's words in any way.

            "I suppose you are married; you have a ring on your finger," Charlie said.

Thomas can't deny that you're his son, Y/N thought, and the grin on her lips was the answer Charlie needed.

            "I don't remember a man asking one of your brothers for your hand in marriage," Charlie said.

Y/N was speechless, was a woman of many words, unfearful of guns and blood, a Shelby, but she couldn't speak but remembered whose blood was flowing through his veins.

            "In this case, it was an exception and my beloved, most importantly, asked me for my hand in marriage. He is a dear, a very kind man and I am glad to have him by my side. We met a few years ago. I have always been fond of him, but he eventually asked me to join him for a walk around town and then we visited a museum in London.” Y/N revelled in the wonderful memories of romantic dinners and long walks beneath the starry sky.

            "Aunty Y/N/N, where do you live? I wanted to visit you, but no one would tell me where you are. I want to send you letters. Dad said you are in London, but London is a big city." Karl asked.

            "I am looking forward to reading your letters, Karl. I gave your father my address when I moved to London, and if you ask him kindly, he will certainly tell you the address." Y/N explained.

The sun escaped the fangs of the gloomy clouds and the rays were caressing the faces. Karl laughed, excited to be back in his room to write a letter to his aunt, not noticing how she tensed as her dark blue vehicle appeared behind the next corner. The unavoidable drew ever nearer, and she longed for an embrace, for her husband, for loving words to ease the fear, but her husband was not among the many men in dark suits.