#spinster’s workshop

[shesthespinstersimmer]

✏️Hello from development world

Made it over to the other side (finally), and I had the perfect sim to test out this pack. (Spoiler: you’ll find out more about her in season 4 of W&W)

First Impressions:

CAS: Meh (except for that one cute hairstyle, you know the one)

B/B: I’m into it

GAMEPLAY: Interesting so far, but I don’t see a much longevity

STORYTELLING: Useful

✏️ All I got for now 🖤🤘🏾

[mygreenknittedsweater]

nothing like remembering entire stories and characters you made up and cared a lot about when you were younger and they're actually good and all the care you felt for them comes back and now you're drawing them and piecing together half-remembered plotlines

[starlightshadowsworld]

Thinking of Pride at Beacon

Qrow strutting in a ridiculously long rainbow cape.

Oz making a speech about how love is love, this kingdom was forged in war and if we wish to live in peace we cannot do so without love and kindness.

Blake sharing stories of Faunus tales, how love has always existed in many forms.

It's Weiss's first true pride because Atlas isn't big on the whole, having your own identity and being proud.

Yang and Jaune wearing free big sis/big bro hugs shirt and hugging and comforting those who come from unsupportive families.

Nora taking names to punch homophobes and squeezing Rens hand who squeezes hers back.

Oobleck talking about how burials have been found of two women curled up in each others arms, of letters that spoke of loving a man and diaries of "spinsters."

Port doing safe sex workshops, also giving flirting tips.

Him and Qrow teaching how to tie ties, dress masc, how to apply make up, how to shave.

Glynda and Peach giving tips on how to dress femme, how to walk in heels, changing your name and pronouns on official paperwork, self defence.

Oz guiding students to safe places, both social and for healthcare.

Signing documents there parents won't.

Teachers holding students who come out, who can't go home and finding them places to go after graduation.

Who fight tooth and nail for these kids because they are their kids.

Beacon being illuminated in rainbow lights because it is a Beacon of hope.

[womenhelpingwomen]

Welcome to the Women Helping Women blog! We are the public face of the private Women Helping Women group chat. Follow for helpful resources, networking opportunities, and practical advice.

Why We’re Here

Given the overrepresentation of men in the majority of spaces to discuss skilled trades, STEM, survivalist/homestead, and general life skills, I thought it was time we carve out a space for ourselves. I know that when I want to learn something, the first thing I do is try and seek out the women who are talking about it. The reason for this is two-fold; for one, I know I’ll get information more pertinent to me if it’s coming from another woman, and secondly, it helps to build my own confidence in myself to think of women as the ones with knowledge I want to learn. I hope to build that confidence in other women as we realize we truly can do anything we set our minds to, especially if we work together.

We’re also all aware of the general harassment women face in mixed-sex spaces both online and in person. We deserve space that is exclusively for us and caters to our needs and concerns as women. Keeping in mind the risks of online networking, we are striving to be at the cutting edge of privacy technology. One of the perks of this community is access to women who know what they’re talking about with tech. **This is why we will not be using Discord to host the group.** We aren’t doing anything wrong by creating these groups, but there will always be those that see women networking with each other as a threat. There will always be men trying to gain access to spaces women build for ourselves. With all that in mind, if you’re interested in building this community with us, we are so excited to have you.

How to Join

Send a DM or an ASK to us here on Tumblr at the Women Helping Women blog letting us know you’re interested. Feel free to ask questions about the group if you have them. We will be vetting at this stage based on social media presence alone. If you are new to Tumblr but can prove you’re an active part of the feminist community on a different platform, such as Ovarit or Spinster let us know that and we’ll confirm your presence that way.

Use the instructions provided in the response to sign up for the secure email service as well as the secure messaging service we use. Note: You will need to sign up for the email and the messenger in order to have full functionality of the group. If you have questions about how to do this safely, let us know.

Send a DM with your new username to us here, and a mod will reach out to you on the chat app linked in the instructions.

Participate in further vetting on the messaging app to ensure we’re women-only.

Then you’ll be added and be free to participate in the conversation, share resources, or lurk until you feel inclined to jump in!

FAQ

Q: Is this group on Discord?

A: No. Due to security concerns with Discord we are hosting our chatroom on a more secure platform. This platform may change if/when needed to maintain the privacy and security of members.

Q: What is the criteria for joining?

A: We’re looking for motivated women (preferably radical feminist) who want to learn as well as share knowledge. All the better if you’ve got some sort of project you’re trying to get off the ground, or would like to chip in to make another women’s vision come alive. We check blog history or ask various questions to assess prospective members. If you seem like a good fit, you’re in.

Q: What is the Ask a Woman button?

A: If you’ve got a question you’d like to pose to the chat, but you are unable to join yet or would like to maintain anonymity, use the Ask a Woman button and we’ll pose your question to the group and publish the answer on the blog. This gives you an opportunity to see what we offer, as well as gives us an opportunity to spread more knowledge.

Q: What type of posts are you looking for with Submit a Post?

A: The types of posts we’re accepting are Resource posts, Networking posts, and Workshop posts. This could include recs for media (podcasts, You Tube, bloggers, etc.), links to online workshops lead by women, or posts promoting other women’s networking groups.

[thisisnotthenerd]

anyway back to bells hells in the regency au:

laudna was born matilda bradbury, the only daughter of the bradbury family who stood to inherit a barony at the outskirts of whitestone. accused of trying to usurp the briarwoods as one of the only nobles who didn’t fall under their sway, basically atticwifed for it. pale skin and wide eyes from being locked up for years. i imagine that the atticwifing happened when she was like 20, and she’s not fed well/treated well in any way, so this affects the way she looks--slight, tall, a little more bones than flesh, even as she retains an aristocratic face and affect. 

after the debacle is settled, she keeps to herself on her land in a little cottage, taking elaborate commissions as a seamstress. ooh maybe she’s the one to dress the de rolos. anyway, she’s viewed as a spinster basically, but if anyone marries her they potentially gain a foothold into whitestone, which is otherwise fully under the de rolos by the time she can inherit her family lands. after some time she decides to travel to marquet to get away from the site of her trauma and leave the stigma of her experiences behind. starts her own little atelier of Tal’dorei-based fashion in jrusar, basically running it out of zhudanna’s house.

orym is still a bodyguard of the tempest blades and serves the Voice, the queen keyleth of the air ashari before the death of his husband will. this functions as his military accomplishments--he personally protected the queen from assassination. in his downtime he makes friends with the rest of bells hells. it’s interesting to think about, but potentially with the structure of this au he would know laudna peripherally before he meets the crown keepers, especially if she was the one to make keyleth’s wedding dress for her and vax’s wedding.

fearne was raised by nana morri to the calloway family. maybe she’s a countess or something in the ashari territory. both she and dorian (would have debuted as bronte but ended up leaving his family and becoming an independent musician and composer working up to scanlan’s scale) ‘debut’ for the queen keyleth around the same time and that’s how they meet orym. actually maybe that’s how the crown keepers meet--a year pre bell’s hells season, opal, fearne, and dorian are being presented to the queen keyleth, while dariax (and deni$e) and orym all work in and around the ashari kingdom. it’s actually funny as hell to think about orym going with fearne and dorian on an ambassadorial trip to marquet and coming back to deni$e being like i don’t know where dariax is but when i find him i will kill him,

ashton is raised on the streets, finds out they’re titled and is awkwardly shunted into a debut season after years spent robbing people blind. no one knows what to do with him. he hates the stifling, repressed, privileged nature of high society. maybe fcg is a steward or something in dancer’s household who tracks genealogies, finds out about this, and tracks ashton down after everyone in dancer’s household dies. how? i don’t know yet. we’ll find out. anyway it’s basically just the two of them and milo, who was patching ashton up after their final heist.

bertrand served in the military with percy, plays up the connection to vm all the time but basically is just an older man reliving his glory days. no kids, so he’s buried in the whitestone graveyard after bh show up at his deathbed. maybe he sponsors them in the marquesian court in conjunction with eshteross in this au.

chetney runs a wood carving workshop and does custom commissions for a lot of marquesian nobles. i guess this would be the mahaan houses if they’re primarily in jrusar. also peripherally knows laudna since they’re running their businesses in a similar circle. i’m imagining her commissioning him for little wood button details and other such trinkets that go along with dresses.

imogen is set to inherit a barony in the taloned highlands that she doesn’t really want--she goes to jrusar to find out about her long lost mother, which is how she ties into ludinus’ nonsense. i imagine she makes arrangements to stay at zhudanna’s, which is how she meets laudna. full on soft infatuation from the start, and as they live together for awhile they both fall in love.

[mymoonagedaydream]

Home (Part 2)

Summary: As you got closer to Bucky again, some kind of emotional crescendo was inevitable.

Pairing: Bucky x y/n

Word Count: 2.3k

Warnings: Language

Author’s Note: I got one more part after this, so let’s call it a mini-series

---

You slept in the next morning, getting out of bed only to traipse down to the living room and lounge around in your pyjamas on the couch for the rest of the day.

It was the holidays- you were allowed to be disgustingly lazy if you wanted.

Evening came around before you knew it, the smell of your mother’s cooking filling up the house as you stared dead-eyed at the Hallmark Channel, all the white couples wearing red and green sweaters slowly blurring into one.

You were only awoken from your hypnosis by your dad leaning over the back of the couch, jingling some car keys at you.

‘I need to take your mother’s death-trap to Barnes’, you wanna come along?’

‘Really?’ You frowned, eyes darting to the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘It’s almost seven, surely they’re closed?’

‘They are, but Bucky offered to work on it out of hours.’

You gave an impressed nod, adopting your best impression of your mother. ‘What a nice young man he is.’

‘You know it, skip.’ 

He grinned as you hoisted yourself up from the couch and shoved a coat over your pyjamas, figuring that getting dressed this late in the evening would just be an absolute waste of time. 

The two of you hopped in the car, both cringing at the metallic scraping sound the engine made when your dad turned the key. 

After a tense few death-defying minutes, you finally pulled up at the workshop. Your dad honked the horn and the shutter door began to rise, slowly revealing what you could only deduce to be an extra from the music video for Uptown Girl.

Oh wait, no, it was just Bucky.

His choice to sport a tank top mid-December was definitely a bold one, but Jesus fucking Christ you weren’t complaining. Glistening with sweat and covered in grease stains, he looked like a page from a raunchy calendar hung up in an office full of middle-aged spinsters.

He waved the car in, greeting your dad with some kind of bro-hug ordeal that immediately confused the hell out of you. 

Those two were buds now? What else had you missed?

‘Hey, Lilypad.’ Bucky looked you up and down, raising an eyebrow at the plaid pyjama pants peeking out from underneath your coat. ‘Nice outfit.’

‘Thought I’d make a bit of an effort.’

‘For little old me? You shouldn’t have.’

You gave him a playful shove on the shoulder as you strolled past, taking yourself for a little tour of the shop floor while he started searching under the bonnet.

The place was surprisingly neat and tidy, you were quite impressed. The only questionable thing you found was a scantily clad centrefold torn out of a magazine and pinned to the corkboard, upon which some comedian had scribbled the words ‘Bucky’s girlfriend’.

You’d be having words about that.

Completing your journey, you re-joined the boys just in time to see your dad reach his wallet from his back pocket and wave it towards Bucky.

‘How much?’

‘You're joking, right?’

‘Let me give you something. I insist.’

Bucky chuckled, pulling a dirty rag from his pocket and roughly wiping his hands. ‘Honestly, it’s fine. It’ll be ready in the morning.’

‘Ah, you’re one of the good ones Buck.’ Your dad clapped him on the shoulder before turning to you. ‘Come on then, squirt. Dinner should be almost ready.’

For some reason, you found yourself very reluctant to leave. Jesus, you’d actually prefer to spend the rest of the evening in this cold, halogen-lit grease pool with budget Billy Joel than at home in front of a warm fire. That boy had magical powers or some shit.

‘I don’t mind sticking around, if you want?’ Bucky shot you a slightly confused frown. ‘I could go out and pick us up some food.’

‘You sure? Passing up your mom’s cooking for this place seems crazy.’

‘Least I can do, we’ll count the company as payment.’

His frown slowly melted into a warm smile. ‘Sounds great.’

You looked back at your dad, who was absolutely beaming, eyes flicking between the two of you like he was at Wimbledon. His excitement was sweet, but you knew he was only invested in your relationship because it had the potential to give him a lifetime of free car repairs.

‘Well, you kids have fun.’

After loitering around for a few minutes, you eventually headed out to pick up dinner from a nearby takeout. It was freezing and your pyjamas got pretty soggy, but your good mood didn’t waver for a second. You were really excited to have an evening alone with Bucky.

When you got back, he’d ferreted out some old car seats for the two of you to sit on while you ate.

‘So I saw the photo of your girlfriend hanging up back there.’

‘Oh, that’s just a stupid joke.’ He immediately went bright red, tripping over his words a little. ‘The guys here keep trying to set me up on dates but I always say no, so they found me a “paper girlfriend” instead.’

‘Maybe they’d leave you alone if you sucked it up and just gave it a try.’

‘I think you’d take that back if you’d seen some of these women.’

You raised your eyebrows at him. ‘Never had you down as shallow, Barnes.’

‘Oh, c’mon. I’m not I just-’ He chuckled slightly when he realised you weren’t being serious, eyes flicking back down to his food. ‘I have a pretty specific type.’

‘Maybe too specific?’

‘You could say that, yeah.’

There was that weird atmosphere again, it kept creeping up on you at the most inconvenient times. 

You just changed the subject.

Once you’d both finished eating, you watched him work for a while, quickly flicking your eyes away from his bare arms every time he looked up but definitely getting caught a few times. Oh well.

It must’ve been getting close to midnight when you started dozing off, full to the brim with junk food and warmed up by the space heater Bucky had pointed in your direction. You were almost completely asleep when you felt him softly shaking your shoulder.

‘Home time, Lilypad. You need a ride?’

You peeled your eyes open, yawning as you stumbled to your feet. ‘Ugh, that’d be great. Did you drive here?’

‘Nope.’ He turned around and crouched down a little. ‘Hop on.’

‘For real?’

‘For real.’

Still pretty dazed, you did your best to clamber up onto his back, settling your head into the crook of his neck whilst trying to ignore the all feelings that his strong grip around your legs was provoking.

He somehow managed to lock up the garage while you were clinging onto him like a baby monkey, the cold night air waking you up a little more as he started on the short walk home. 

You were only expecting a lift as far as his house, but he seemed to deliberately miss the turning.

‘We just passed your street.’

‘I wouldn’t be much of a public transport service if I didn’t take you the whole way now, would I?’

‘You never were one to do things by halves.’ You pressed your cheek against the side of his head. ‘But you know I’m not paying you for this, right?’

‘I’m sure we can come to some kind of arrangement.’

‘In your dreams, Yucky.’

‘You’re damn right about that.’

He took you all the way to your doorstep, refusing to drop you until you were inches away from your front door. After gently setting you down, he spun round, a goofy grin plastered across his face.

You chuckled, trying to find your key. ‘I probably won’t see you now until after Christmas, so I hope you have a really nice one.’

‘Yeah, you too.’ He paused for a second, his hand feeling around in his pocket, looking as though he was building up to something important. ‘I’ll see you for games night though, right?’

Oh, apparently not.

‘Right. Night, Buck.’

Stepping forward, he placed his hand on the back of your head, gently pulling you towards him and pressing a soft kiss just below your hairline.

‘G’night, Lilypad.’

---

Christmas came and went, your family had their usual two day lock-in. You ate until you couldn’t stand, played so many board games that you had them all down to a perfect science and didn’t change out of your pyjamas for two days.

Spending so much time with your parents made you realise how much you’d missed them, and how much you’d miss them when you left again.

Aside from all the warmth and loveliness of your family, there was another big highlight to your day- a text from Bucky that you woke up to on Christmas morning.

Merry Christmas, Lilypad. It wasn’t the same last year without you.

---

The evening of the 26th was games night. 

The doorbell rang and you leaped up, yanking it open and immediately pulling Bucky into a hug. You tried to greet his parents too, but it was a little difficult while you were being squeezed like a vice and carried towards the living room.

Everyone settled in while your mom made up the drinks. It was so reassuring to see that the end of your relationship with Bucky hadn’t tarnished the firm friendship that’d formed between your parents, the relaxed atmosphere between everyone made it felt like nothing had really changed since you left.

A little while after they’d arrived, you scuttled off to the kitchen for a snack, not noticing Bucky hot on your heels. You jumped out of your skin when you spotted him in the corner of your eye, a nervous laugh escaping his lips.

‘I was just, uh- wondering if we could-’ He took a deep breath, steadying himself. ‘Could we go upstairs?’

You studied him for a second before answering. He was struggling to keep still, shifting back and forth on his feet while also seemingly unable to find a comfortable resting position for his arms. He was tense and anxious, you’d never seen him like this before.

‘Is everything alright?’

‘Yeah, all good. I just thought it’d be nice to talk in private for a bit.’

‘Sure.’ You gave him an apprehensive nod and gestured for him to follow you. ‘We can go to my room.’

Dread started to churn in your stomach as you slowly ascended the stairs, his heavy footsteps clunking up behind you. Bucky was the most laid-back, carefree guy you knew, what the hell could have him so jittery?

You led him into your bedroom, hearing a low chuckle as he closed the door behind him. ‘This place hasn’t changed a bit.’

‘I think my mom likes to keep it ready in case of surprise visits.’ You sat on your bed, patting the space next to you, giving him a warm smile as he took the invitation. ‘So what’s up?’

‘I haven't had a chance to give you your Christmas present.’

‘Oh, well it’s too late now.’ You teased him, trying your best to ease some of his nerves. ‘You’ll have to try again next year.’

‘I don’t think I’ll be able to wait that long.’

Digging a hand into his pocket, he pulled out a small, clumsily wrapped present and quickly handed it to you.

‘Thank you, that’s really sweet.’ You felt it in your hands for a second. ‘Insert good-things-small-packages cliché here.’

Eagerly tearing off the wrapping paper, you felt your heart drop into your stomach.

It was a ring box. 

Your eyes shot up to him.

‘Open it.’

‘I don’t think I can Buck, I-’

‘Just, before you say anything, let me explain.’ You nodded faintly, feeling tears pricking your eyes. ‘You remember our last year together, how I told you that my dad was making me work all those hours? He wasn't. I asked him for them, cause I was saving up.’

You felt like you'd been shot in the stomach. ‘You bought it before I left?’

Flashbacks of your break-up conversation flooded into your mind. You’d been the first one to suggest separation, but you vividly remembered Bucky agreeing without hesitation, so quick that it made you think he’d lost interest in you.

‘I thought you wanted to break-up?’ Your words got a bit tangled in your mouth, the wave of emotions you were experiencing making it difficult for you to string your thoughts together.

‘I didn’t want to hold you back. I knew what the job meant to you.’

Your gaze darted back down to the box in your hand. ‘And you kept it all this time?’

‘It's not mine to give away, it's yours. It's always been yours.’ He placed his hand on top of yours. ‘I just couldn’t let you go again without it.’

Your mind went completely blank, the only sensations you could focus on were the sting of hot tears rolling down your face and the feeling of his rough skin against yours. You let your gaze slowly rise back to his face, the sight of his wide, blue eyes fixed on you making it even harder for you to untangle yourself.

Before you could even try to speak, he leaned towards you, cupping your face in his hand and softly pressing his lips against yours. 

You let your eyes flutter closed, the only tangible thought rolling around your mind was how much you’d missed this, how much you’d missed him.

It was only a few seconds before he pulled away, letting out a heavy sigh and resting his forehead against yours.

This was too much, you felt your breathing becoming more frantic as you tried to pull yourself together. You turned your head slightly, roughly wiping the drying tears off your cheeks, doing everything you could to just think without being overcome by emotion.

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘You don’t have to say anything. Just stay.’

‘I’m so sorry, Buck.’ You felt yourself beginning to crumble again as you carefully placed the box back in his hand. ‘I can’t.’

---

Part 3

---

Permanent taglist: @nnuree @tcc-gizmachine @emmabarnes @somewhatasoftbaddie @juenenfeu @ddowii @rebekahdawkins @x0xchristine @maevemarethyu @thechaoticargonaut @yayrainday @linkpk88 (Italicised names are untaggable)

Story taglist: @shawnie--jo 

Join my permanent taglist here or let me know if you’d like to be tagged in the last part of this story.

---

[silent-era-of-cinema]

Lady of the Night (1925)

Chris Helmer (Lew Harvey) is sentenced to 20 years in prison by Judge Banning (Fred Esmelton), and has to leave his wife and baby girl. By coincidence, the judge has a daughter about the same age.

Eighteen years later, the two now motherless young women (both played by Shearer) graduate, Florence Banning from an exclusive private school, Molly Helmer from reform school. Molly and her two friends become taxi dancers. One day, Molly rejects the advances of a stranger at the dance hall where she works. When her boyfriend, "Chunky" Dunn (George K. Arthur), tries to defend her, he gets knocked down. She is rescued by Chunky's friend, inventor David Page (Malcolm McGregor), and falls in love with him. Page is oblivious to this and only sees her as a good pal. The more perceptive Chunky becomes increasingly jealous.

Page perfects a device that can open any safe. Chunky tells him that he knows a gang of crooks who would pay a lot of money for it, but Molly tells him that crime does not pay. Page shows his invention to the directors of a bank, Judge Banning being one. They are impressed and purchase it. As he is leaving the meeting, David bumps into Florence. She too falls for him. Soon, they are dating, much to the displeasure of Florence's spinster aunt. However, when Florence meets Molly by accident at David's workshop, she can see that Molly also loves David. She tells David that Molly has a greater claim to him and breaks up with him. When she gets into her limousine however, she finds Molly there waiting for her. Molly urges her to marry David, thinking only of his happiness. To fool David into believing she never loved him, Molly accepts Chunky's standing offer of marriage.

[livvibee]

In Public

Pairing: Starker

Rating: Explicit (E)

Notes: This fic was written for @theonlyceeceej​ as part of the @starkerkink​ Exchange 2020 Event. 

Length: 4.7k~

Warnings:  Exhibitionism, Daddy Kink, Anal Play, Butt Plugs, Shibari/Rope Bondage, Vibrators, Verbal Humiliation

Read here or on AO3.

The blaring alarm cut through the music blasting in the workshop, startling Peter from repairs to one of his webshooters.

“Okay Fri, message received!” Peter shouted over the sound. “You can cut it out now.”

Peter stood up from his workstation, twisting and stretching all around to relieve his tight muscles, and took a few moments to tidy things up. Across the room Tony was still deep in thought, manipulating the holographic schematic for a new suit in the air, completely unaware of his surroundings. Peter crossed the room, dodging around piles of discarded parts to reach his lover.

“Daddy…” Peter purred into Tony’s ear, before nibbling playfully at the nape of his neck.

Tony groaned and batted weakly over his shoulder. “Hang on Pete, I’m almost done.”

“Daddy…” Peter repeated, drawing out the word like a soft caress. “It’s time to get ready.”

“You go on ahead baby,” Tony replied, voice still far away. “I’ll be up in a minute.”

Peter huffed and ruffled the older man’s hair, missing how quickly Tony’s attention shifted at the playful touch. “Ugh, fine,” he sassed, “but you’d better be upstairs by the time I get out of the shower.”

Tony spun around on his stool, ready to ask his boy “exactly who he thought he was speaking to,” but Peter was already hustling out of the lab. The affronted expression quickly melted into a calculating grin as Tony considered their plans for the evening.

Peter padded out of the bathroom with a towel slung low between his hips, exposing his defined abs and the vee of his adonis belt. The young man stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of Tony, who was half undressed and planted firmly on the edge of their bed, carefully coiled ropes draped over his arm.

“Well kid,” Tony said, soaking in the startled look on Peter’s face with a sharkish grin, “I’m upstairs by the time you’re out of the shower. Any other demands you’d like to make for the evening?”

Through a supreme act of self control, Peter suppressed the “oh shit” that threatened to fall from his lips, unconsciously straightening up from his relaxed posture as he responded. “No Daddy, I don’t have any demands.

Tony hummed noncommittally. “Are you sure? Because you sounded awfully demanding down in the lab, and you know how I love to accommodate my baby’s desires.”

Peter swallowed involuntarily as he thought of all the ways his desires had been accommodated in the past, often in ways and directions he could barely admit to fantasizing about, let alone directly ask for. He managed to squeak out a quiet “I’m sure!” as he eyed the lengths of hotrod red rope and tried to analyze the flash of gold peeking out from a fold in the blankets.

“Good boy...” Tony purred, before beckoning Peter over with a crooked finger.

Peter crossed the room on suddenly unsteady legs, helplessly drawn forward by that single finger. As he reached the bed, Tony reached out and tugged at his towel, dropping the damp fabric carelessly to the floor. Peter fought the urge to hide as a wave of shyness ran over him, letting his hands fall loose at his sides as Tony preferred.

A proud smile played around the corners of Tony’s lips as he reached out and placed a hand on Peter’s hip. “I’m thinking tonight we could try something new.”

“S- something new?” Peter asked, gathering up his hard wrought communication skills, overriding the shyness gathered in his chest in favor of the growing spark of interest. “I could be up for something new Daddy.”

“Remember when we talked about wearing my rope out on date night?” Tony asked, rubbing gently at Peter’s flank. “Why not tonight?”

Peter paused to consider before responding. “Won’t you be able to see the lines under my tux?”

“There’s my analytical baby,” Tony cooed. “This stuff is thinner than what we usually use, you won’t be able to see under all the layers.”

Peter nodded brightly and smiled. “Sounds good to me Daddy.”

“I have one more plan,” Tony said with a grin stretched across his face, “and it’s one I think you’ll enjoy.”

Tony held up the gold object Peter had seen peeking out from the covers. It was a buttplug, not particularly large, oddly shaped with a bulbous head, just long enough and thick enough to make an impression. There was a wicked curve to the toy, ensuring that it would prod relentlessly at Peter’s sweet spot, above the flared base.

Peter eyed the toy with trepidation and excitement warring in his gut. “I would wear that all night?”

“Unless you needed to use your safeword and take it out, yes.”

Peter curiously reached out to touch the toy, and Tony handed it over easily. He was surprised by the weight of it, and the coolness of the metal in his palm.

“Want to see the surprise feature?” Tony asked, a wicked smile firmly etched across his expressive mouth.

Peter nodded, watching Tony fidget with his watch. Suddenly the plug started vibrating, thrumming strongly in his hand, making him tingle from fingertip to wrist. Peter was glazing over as he considered being so naughty underneath his flashy tuxedo, dancing with all the rich old spinsters with a vibrating plug stuck in his ass. He fidgeted slightly, feeling heat begin to pool in his stomach already.

“Sounds uh- sounds like a good time to me Daddy,” Peter muttered, feeling his blush creep up his chest across his cheeks and even into the tips of his ears. “Won’t- won’t I get hard?”

“Oh,” Tony cooed, “you’re definitely going to get hard. You’ll just have to be… creative. Maybe you can hide behind an autumnal flower arrangement.”

Peter squirmed at the man’s mocking tone. “Al- alright Daddy,” he said, raising his chin slightly, “Green, I can handle it.”

“Good,” Tony nodded, “now go get ready.”

Peter returned a short time later from the bathroom to find Tony standing by the bed, with the plug and lube all laid out, coiled rope waiting at the side.

Tony patted the bed gently. “Get up here, on your hands and knees.”

Peter did as he was asked, as eager to please as always. He was half hard already, and waited impatiently for Tony's touch. Peter gasped when he finally felt those calloused hands firmly grasping at his cheeks, spreading them apart and exposing his furled hole. One hand left his ass and Peter could hear the click of the lube bottle opening, then felt a warm, slippery finger gently prodding and massaging against his puckered ring. Peter laid his head on his crossed arms and tried to relax all the muscles in his body that were tense with anticipation.

“That’s it baby,” Tony purred, “let Daddy in, gonna loosen you up.”

Tony’s swirling fingertip slowly breached Peter’s tightness, making the younger man moan in delight at the first stretch of penetration. Peter sighed happily as prickles of pleasure skittered down his spine and straight to his rapidly filling dick. Tony moved his digit slowly in and out, gently prepping Peter before rapidly slipping in another finger with a wicked laugh, curling them across his prostate. Peter hissed at the accompanying burn, gritting his teeth even as he humped backwards on Tony’s fingers, trying to keep them where he was most sensitive.

“Fuck, Daddy-” Peter cried out, whimpering in displeasure as Tony pulled his fingers back out abruptly.

Tony tapped lightly at Peter’s hole. “Hush now, let Daddy take care of this.”

The frigid touch of metal replaced the familiar warmth of Tony’s hand, making Peter hiss as the bulbous tip of the plug circled his rim, barely having time to pick up the warmth of his skin before Tony pushed it slowly against Peter’s reflexively tightening hole. Peter took a deep breath again and consciously relaxed, letting Tony begin to slide the plug into him. The older man pushed the frigid metal toy in slowly, then drew it back out a fraction of an inch each time, slowly making his way to the widest point of the plug. Peter had never felt something so cold inside his warmth before, and moaned loudly with each push, humping fruitlessly into the air and feeling wrecked even though they’d barely begun the evening.

“Ah, hgn, fu- Daddy!” Peter wailed as his hole stretched around the toy’s flared tip and pulled it in greedily, snapping around the thinness before the base.

Tony swirled the toy slowly, listening to Peter’s hitched breaths, finding the point where it would prod relentlessly against Peter’s prostate for the entire night.

“There you go baby, is that your sweet spot?” Tony asked mockingly, pressing rhythmically against the base of the plug with clever fingers, jolting Peter back into moans.

“Ye- yes!” Peter gasped as the heavy toy bobbed inside him.

“Good!” Tony slapped sharply against Peter’s upturned ass. “Now, up.”

Peter’s head was spinning from the sudden change of pace as he slowly slid into a standing position by the bed, dick bobbing in the air. Tony grabbed Peter’s hand and drew him across the room to the large mirror by the closet, positioning him facing the mirror, but leaving enough room to circle Peter’s body. Circle he did, leaving Peter flushing and needy under Tony’s scrutiny.

“Hands behind your back tesoro,” Tony said as a calculating look passed over his face. “Now, what to do, what to do.” Tony stood back and placed a hand under his chin, arguing with himself under his breath before seemingly making a decision. “Stay just like you are.”

Tony stood and let the coil of rope unroll before folding it over to find the center. Peter shivered, hands clasped behind his back, feeling the caress of the soft rope across his skin as Tony draped the rope over his shoulders and let it hang to the middle of his back before tying a series of well practiced knots down the front of the rope to just above Peter’s throbbing cock. Karada, Peter’s brain supplied helpfully, the hazy memory rising of a long afternoon where Tony explained and demonstrated basic shibari on Peter’s oh-so-willing form.

Peter automatically shifted his hands to rest behind his head, keeping his arms up and out of the way for the harness Tony was tying around his body. The sibilant whisper of the rope against the floor and skin was the only sound in their bedroom, besides their quiet breathing and Peter’s whimpers as the rope slid across his skin. Tony wrapped and tucked the ropes back under themselves, looping them securely into a pattern like diamonds across Peter’s chest. He was already halfway floating, feeling the gentle pressure snaking around his ribs, tightening slightly with each adjustment of the rope.

“Doing okay there baby?” Tony asked, breaking the silence as he checked the tie with confident fingers.

Peter took a deep breath, relishing the way the rope held him securely as his chest expanded. “I’m doing great Daddy,” he replied dreamily, watching in the mirror as Tony bent down, separating the ropes to surround Peter’s still hard dick and balls, and pulling them up securely behind Peter’s back between his cheeks.

Tony pulled on the rope, grinning as Peter gasped aloud as the pressure moved the metal plug in his ass against his sweet spot. “Hmm,” he mused before snapping the fingers on his free hand. “Spread 'em,” Tony commanded, leaving Peter scrambling to widen his stance as he moved behind the boy.

Resisting the urge to twist around and see what exactly Tony was doing, Peter waited helplessly, feeling the controlled movement of rope sliding against itself, being tied into a new knot. Tony pulled up again on the ropes, this time jolting the plug even more firmly, forcing a sharp squeak out of Peter.

“What changed?!” Peter yelped through the fuzziness building in his head, shifting his weight from foot to foot but not otherwise moving from his position.

Tony laughed archly as he spoke. “Just a little knot in an opportune place.”

Peter wasn’t floating too high to resist swearing under his breath about “little knots in opportune places my ass,” and received a stinging swat across one cheek from where Tony was still bent behind him.

Tony stood up before securing the remainder of the rope in a careful knot just above the small of Peter’s back. “There!” He said, quiet satisfaction evident on his face as he tugged and ran his fingers under the rope, making sure everything was the correct tightness.

Looking back into the mirror, Peter admired the vivid red of the rope against his skin and squirmed slightly where he stood, hands slowly drifting down from behind his head, following the contours of the lines and knots secured across his body.

“How does it feel?” Tony asked. “Actually, before you answer that, try sitting down.”

Peter scurried back across the room and sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed, failing to suppress a small, high pitched moan as the knot pressed against the plug.

Tony grinned evilly at the sound. “Now,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “back to the question at hand. How does it feel?”

“It feels… perfect…” Peter breathed. He could feel the gentle pressure surrounding his core, increasing with every inhalation, surrounding him with a buzzing layer of securesafetight, and the knot was a firm reminder of the plug and the game they were playing tonight.

“Not too tight?” Tony asked, watching Peter’s headshake of denial. “Good!” Tony crowed before grabbing at the knot in the middle of Peter’s chest and pulling him up slightly for a savage kiss, swallowing the moan that ricocheted from his throat and moving Peter’s entire body back and forth. Pulling his lips back from Peter’s searching mouth, Tony whispered, “Time to get ready.”

That sensation of whiplash came crashing back to Peter, who was still dazed from the kiss and the manipulation of the ropes surrounding him. “But-”

“Shhhh,” Tony said, placing a finger against Peter’s lips. “We still have the whole night ahead of us.”

Later that evening, Peter was astoundingly grateful for Tony’s consideration of his enhanced senses as they made their way through a back entrance to the historic mansion where the auction and gala were occurring, avoiding the red carpet entrance and flashing lights of the paparazzi. With rope tight against his skin under his tux and his ass firmly plugged, he was happy to escape any added attention. The media had been sniffing like hounds around their newly announced relationship, and the clamor outside would have been immense and overwhelming.

Peter was on tenterhooks as he and Tony mingled with the other guests, keenly aware that the plug in his ass could begin to vibrate at any moment. He had never noticed before just how often Tony checked FRIDAY’s notifications on his watch, but with every upward motion of Tony’s wrist that had Peter tensed and waiting, he was beginning to get an idea.

Peter excused himself from the excruciatingly boring conversation between Tony and some senator or other, appropriating the auction paddle to fan his heated face as he headed to the bar for a refill on his club soda and lime. Peter dipped and weaved between clusters of people, his natural grace coming into play as he finally began to relax. They’d been at the event for ages already, maybe Tony would be so distracted that he would forget about the plug entirely.

Refill achieved, Peter began to make his way back to Tony from the bar. As he crossed the room, he was caught by a group of sneering Upper East Side socialites, all hoping to talk to the mysterious young man who managed to bag The Tony Stark. Peter found himself unwillingly drawn into the conversation, inexpertly dodging questions about their personal life with stammering redirections. He flinched as he felt the first vibration rumble slowly against his sweet spot, disguising his small moan as a sudden cough. Peter began to desperately look for a way out of the conversation as the plug shivered and trembled inside him. He could already feel his dick chubbing up, responding to the delicious tingles shooting through his body. Peter focused his genius brain on ignoring the sensation, and shifted slightly to hold his auction paddle in front to hide his rapidly growing hardness.

Suddenly, the plug in his ass roared to life with a great and terrible vengeance. Peter jumped, almost spilling his drink across the haughty woman in a hideous gown who was still rudely clutching his sleeve. He looked frantically around the room, finding Tony across the dancefloor, still deep in conversation, innocently toying with his watch as he spoke. Peter was outraged and turned on beyond belief; that jerk wasn’t even looking at him! Making his excuses to the entire couture cabal, he extricated himself and ducked into a nearby curtained alcove.

Peter leaned with one hand out against the wall, and took a moment to breathe. “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath. The vibrations were way stronger than anticipated.

Peter shifted minutely, trying to control his shivering, clutching the auction paddle in his free hand. His slightly bent position was pulling on the ropes surrounding his chest, tugging on the line wedged firmly between his cheeks, and rubbing that diabolically placed knot against the base of the plug. The toy inside him changed from a predictable low thrum to a series of intermittent bursts, shifting in length and intensity between blessed moments of reprieve. Peter stifled his whimpers, acutely aware of the sounds of civilized society just beyond the curtain.

Wait… Was that? It was! Long, short, break- N, long long long, break- O… Peter bit back an incredulous laugh as he translated the rest of the Morse code message. “No hiding.” No hiding? How was Peter supposed to get through the night?

Peter’s dick was a line of fire where it was trapped down the leg of his pants. He took a few moments to adjust, tucking his cock into the waistband of his pants and grimacing slightly at the pressure of the button right below the head of his cock. The young man took a series of deep breaths against the constant stimulation of the plug vibrating merrily away in his ass, feeling the tightness of the harness against his skin as he steeled himself to return to the crowded ballroom. Suddenly the curtain drew back slightly, and Tony swirled into the shadowed space, leaning toward him with a predatory smile and proprietary air.

“How’s it going Petey?” Tony asked, pushing Peter against the wall and insinuating a hand beneath his tuxedo jacket, trailing it across the diamonds of rope beneath his shirt. “You enjoying the evening?”

Peter softly gasped his response as Tony’s strong fingers closed around one of Peter’s pebbled nipples. “Ye- yes Daddy, I’m ha- having a great time.”

Tony responded by crowding his body against Peter, grinding his hips against Peter’s throbbing cock and whispering with menace. “Are you hiding in here, little slut? Didn’t I just tell you no hiding? Are you gonna be my brilliant boy tonight or my dumb little cucciolo? You’ve already got the harness, maybe I should have brought you on a leash?”

Peter gasped and whined, dropping the paddle entirely as his nails dug into the plaster, words trickling through his body and the image of being paraded around, bound and leashed before the who’s who of New York City fluttering through his head. “Daddy! I can’t- You can’t-”

Tony pressed his hand against Peter’s mouth and licked a lurid strip up Peter’s neck from the edge of his collar to his ear. “I see you’re going to be my little cucciolo then, whimpering where anyone could hear you. I’ll let you in on a secret baby... I’m Tony-Fucking-Stark, and I’ll do whatever the fuck I want. If I wanna bring you to a charity gala naked but for my rope and drag you around like a dumb puppy, I will. I can buy every wagging tongue in here.”

A hot dribble of pre welled out of Peter’s tip and stuck the crisp cotton of his shirt to the sensitive head of his dick as Tony ground his hips against Peter and whispered filth into his ear. The wall began to chip underneath Peter’s bracing fingers, he squirmed in the harness holding him securely under his bespoke tuxedo, panting harshly through his nose and relishing the repeated pull of ropes across his ribs. Watching him quiver with an indulgent grin, Tony unbuttoned Peter’s jacket and slithered his arm around beneath the jacket to grab at the knot at the small of Peter’s back through his shirt. Carefully and firmly he tugged up, stifling Peter’s moans with hand over mouth as the knot between his cheeks pushed against that infernal plug, rubbing it firmly against Peter’s prostate.

Peter was caught between that sensation of the plug thrumming against his sweet spot, pressing against it even harder as Tony manipulated the rope, and the grinding of Tony’s hips against Peter’s, sandwiching his throbbing, leaky cock between them. Peter was almost riding the edge already, shivering and emitting muffled whimpers and groans from the depths of his throat, feeling the waves of heat swell dangerously high in his core as the vibrations shook through him. He screwed his eyes shut as the waves began to crest, rocking his hips harder into Tony’s solid strength, hands fisted at his sides so he didn’t leave craters in the plaster.

Tony’s watch chirped quietly in the muffled alcove and the vibrations stopped, interrupting the spectacular orgasm that Peter had been seconds from reaching. As quickly as he had begun, Tony tucked Peter’s shirt in at the back and buttoned his jacket, but not before rubbing his knuckles firmly against the aching line of Peter’s cock. Peter submitted to the treatment, helpless and aflame with desire as Tony straightened Peter’s bowtie and smoothed his mussed hair.

“Alright cucciolo, it’s time for the speech and auction. We better get back to our table before we’re missed.”

Peter stared uncomprehendingly at Tony. Go? In this state? He kept staring as Tony grabbed the paddle from the floor and held Peter’s hand, peeking outside of the alcove through the gap in the curtain.

“C’mon dumb puppy, no need to talk, you just have to heel,” Tony said, ushering Peter out into the warm lights of the ballroom. Everyone was gathered at the tables at the opposite end, watching the raised stage, the only witness to Peter’s flustered blinking being the bartender polishing glasses behind the expansive mahogany surface. Peter blushed furiously as the man eyed them both and winked, mimicking a zipper closing his lips with one hand.

As Tony and Peter reached the edge of the clustered tables, the lights began to dim and a spotlight appeared, pointed at the podium on the stage, drawing the room’s attention to the speaker who was walking out, cue cards in hand. They discretely slipped into their seats at the two person table near the edge of the group, Tony pulling back Peter’s chair and plopping him securely in the seat, making Peter suppress his moan as the plug jolted inside him.

Peter tuned out the speech completely, sitting ramrod straight in his chair, trying to avoid pulling the harness in any particular direction or pressing that devious knot any harder against the plug. He was staring off into the distance, cock still trapped and pulsing, trying to school his face into some semblance of order in anticipation of the lights being turned back on soon. Peter’s head snapped over to stare at Tony as the vibrations started back on, just a whisper compared to the earlier thrum.

“Da- Tony!” Peter hissed urgently, leaning toward the older man.

Tony leaned in as well, whispering into Peter’s ear. “Yes cucciolo? Something you need to say?”

“There’s people here, all around us… Anyone could see...” Peter trailed off, not understanding why he had to explain his alarm.

“What, haven’t practiced your poker face lately?” Tony grinned against Peter’s hair. “None of that sounded like a safeword to me.”

Peter suppressed a reedy whine as he realized that Tony was right, fidgeting slightly as the vibrations increased in intensity. He didn’t want to stop. Tony hummed in satisfaction, leaning back into his seat, stretching his legs out and to all appearances, idly checking the notifications on his watch.

The plug inside him burst into a flurry of earthquaking vibrations, the chair creaking slightly as Peter wrapped his hands around the edge of the seat to anchor himself. Peter tried his hardest to keep his face neutral and his eyes open though they were glazed unseeingly toward the stage. He said a quiet prayer of thanks that his jacket was hiding the front of his shirt that was now soaked through with pre, his dick back to throbbing and leaking profusely. To his delight and horror, the vibration was still increasing in intensity, slowly ramping up, and up, and up. Peter was frozen in his seat, biting his lip to stifle the intense moans that threatened to burst from his throat. He couldn’t help the slight rocking motion of his hips on the chair, looking for all the world like a bored twenty-something fidgeting, rather than one melting down from intense pleasure.

The vibrations were almost numbingly strong now, jackhammering against his sweet spot as Peter ground down on the knotted rope between his cheeks. Humid prickles of sweat were forming against Peter’s flanks and on the back of his neck, around his hairline and above his lips. The room felt scorchingly hot as the tidal wave of pleasure rose within Peter like molten lava dripping in his veins. Peter could barely unfurl his hands from around the chair, which was starting to dent under his grip. He folded them to press against the hardness in his lap, which was demanding attention beneath his tuxedo jacket, resisting the urge to hump wildly against his fingers with an iron will.

Tony leaned in from his careless sprawl to speak softly in Peter’s ear, his own voice tight with desire. “You gonna cum cucciolo? In front of all these people? Who knows who might be watching, you’d better keep that dumb puppy pokerface up while you make a mess.”

Peter’s entire body started to quiver beyond his ability to suppress as the words penetrated the haze surrounding his brain. Tony crowded in closer and pushed his arm beneath Peter’s jacket, wrapping it around Peter’s waist as if to steady him, while really shifting the line of rope between Peter’s cheeks. It was just a fraction of an inch higher, but it ratcheted up the coiled tension in Peter’s core. He was teetering on the edge and just couldn’t fall over. Peter turned toward Tony, resting his head on the man’s shoulder to disguise the tears of need pooling in his eyes.

Tony chuckled knowingly into Peter’s ear and unbuttoned Peter’s jacket, using the now relaxed fabric as a shield for his actions. “You want me to touch that hungry dick, puppy?” Tony cooed, “Of course you do, dirty boy, you always need a little help, don’t you?”

Peter nodded emphatically against Tony’s shoulder, not trusting his voice to reply. Tony navigated above Peter’s tightly pressed hands with deft fingertips, unbuttoning a single button and sliding his fingers into the gap in the soaked fabric. He circled Peter’s slick cockhead with his calloused fingertips, gently rubbing and smearing the sticky pre around, soothing and inflaming all the same. It was so good, oh- oh- oh God it was so good! Peter realized distantly that he was whispering these words fervently into Tony’s shoulder, so he pushed his head down harder. Biting into Tony’s shoulder to suppress the muffled wail of “Daddy!” as the waves of pleasure finally crested, Peter flew over the peak. The tension coiled in his body snapped, whiting out the world as his eyes squeezed shut, his whole body shuddering, shooting out endless blurts of hot cum across Tony’s fingers into the confines of his shirt.

The sound of clapping slowly penetrated Peter’s post orgasmic haze, and he dimly recognized Tony’s competent hands buttoning him back up, disguising the evidence of what they’d done, and rubbing soothingly at his back. Peter blearily raised his head as the lights began to brighten, leaning back onto his own chair with an exhausted and content sigh.

[aroace-avenue]

I need to come out as aroace to my mom. But I'm so fucking scared.

I've been calling myself ace for 6 years now and I've never once told her. (The aro time line is a lot more nebulous)

6 years!!!!

It's not like it's a small part of my life either. I love ace and aro stuff so much. I care about it so deeply. I connect it to almost every other aspect of my life.

I spend fucking time on it! I host a monthly ace/aro discussion at my old uni. I facilitate larger more formal ones sometimes. I wrote the aro 101 pamphlet our group brings to events. I've tabled at pride and dyke marches. I've organized little zine making workshops for ace awareness week. I've gotten buttons printed for everyone. I hosted a workshop on making lgbt+ education more ace and aro inclusive. I'm an admin on the local facebook group. I got fucking paid to be an RA for the first academic ace conference.

My everyday bag is a tote from that conference with ace and aro buttons on it. I have rubber stamped "spinster" stickers in my bedside table. I have made embroidered patches of that.

This is not some small private part of my life. It's a big fucking deal to me.

And I haven't told my mom, who I live with, about it at all for 6 years.

[etherian-affairs]

Archae’s Bad Day.

An OC Story about @strawberryoverlord‘s T h e m OC Archae and our favorite murder girl Nihila. 

Written on Discord in portions and compiled here in one solid piece. Small mention of @helila‘s T h e m OC Jim.

T h e m Stories Masterpost

"Intelligence shows this vessel holds the rebel forces bio labs."

That was how Archae was roped into this. Yes she specializes in biological weapons, yes she is great at what she does, yes she was the only one of her caliber in the region of space this operation is taking place in.

But that did not mean she was happy at all about being pressured into cramming herself into a boarding pod with the common soldiers and being catapulted across space to some enemy vessel so she could ascertain the threat level of any biological agents aboard the ship and if needed neutralize them. In fact she is quite unhappy about this. Also a bit scared but that is not to be admitted to the world.

Yet despite all her displeasure here she is. Sitting in this pod and taking deep breaths. On top of all of that the armor she has been put in is rather unflattering. Not a problem you would think someone would give much thought to but Archae was already grumpy enough that this was just a huge insult on top of the rest of this.

This is basically a public outing and it frankly sucked to be in unflattering attire during public outings. Especially when you already are slightly uncomfortable with public outings. 

As Archae puts on her helmet one of the soldiers in the pod with her leans down. "First time doing one of these?*

Feminine voice. Tall. In specialized armor unlike the others here. There is no rank or division insignia, just the emblem of the Horde. An ESS most likely, or some other form of special forces. Though the top of her helmet is blank and featureless while the lower half seems to be some sort of breathing mask. They are connected completely, likely the seals are quite high quality. Classy. Archae can appreciate the find craftsmanship of protecting isolation gear.

Regardless of any appreciation however Archae frowns while she checks the straps on her seat. "Shouldn't you be sitting?"

"No I'm good. It is your first time though I can tell." The soldier laughs lightly. "Don't worry just stay in the shock seat and you'll be fiiiiine."

"I am not concerned about the ride." Archae huffs.

"Oh you should be that's when most deaths occur. Once we're in the ship it'll be easy, just stick with me!"

Archae feels herself blanch under her armor. That is not reassuring.

Suddenly the lights in the pod go green and she feels acceleration. "Really though shouldn't you be sitting?" She finds herself asking.

"As long as I'm in before impact it's fiiiine!"

Archae finds herself clenching the straps of her shock seat tight. Not only is she on a dangerous mission but the one person here who's talking to her is clearly insane. Wonderful.

"We call these boarding pods in kind of a generic way but actually this kind is called an assault ram." The ESS continued talking to Archae. Even as the engine thrummed heavily, as the sound of rock and debris clinking against the hull of their metal coffin rang out. She was still talking. "I normally get sent over in an individual scale torpedo and those use a gel solution for helping you survive deceleration. it's very gooey."

"Please." Archae speaks, she feels sick to her stomach. Anxiety, acceleration sickness, both? Likely both. Archae isn't made for this sort of thing she's a good woman who does good work. Good work that is definitely not this sort of work. "Why are you talking to me?" It comes out exactly as rude and harsh as she wants it.

"Oh! The Marines won't talk to me and I'm supposed to protect you anyway. So I thought we could get to know each other before we never see each other again."

Archae looks up with an expression that screams 'are you fucking kidding me?' unfortunately it's under her helmet. She likes to think the specialist feels it though.

"Oh!" The ESS suddenly says! "Impact soon!"

"Impact??" Archae doesn't like the sound of 'impact'

"Oh did you not read up on how these work? We only decelerate at the laaast moment, and use the forward laser to cut into the targets hull! So we go deep!" The insane woman laughs a bit as she hops into a shock seat. Archae gapes. She knew that was done sometimes, she did not think they'd put her in such a craft.

Someone must want her dead.

Before she can really think about that it happens. Impact. The crashing sound of metal on metal. The whine and screech of the stress of impact.

All coupled with the massive g force pressing Archae into the shock chair. Triggering her panic response, making her mind fuzzy. She can do this. She went through training. She can resist this.

Blackness creeps at the edge of her vision. Then they're stopped. She doesn't black out.

"Hey you did it!" Her mad compatriot calls out. "You're still awake! Now's the part where you stay with me and I take you to the target!"

Archae's head shoots up. The madwoman is already standing and readying one of her many weapons. "How are you already up?!" She hisses out

Then she hears some of the Marines with them laugh and feels the vague combination of embarrassed and murderous that leads one to consider placing a mostly non lethal bacterial agent in people's foods. Not that Archae would ever do such a thing herself. 

"Oh don't mind them! You're a science type!" The ESS readies her weapon, pointing it at the front of their boarding pod, assault ram, whatever it is. Then. "Contact."

The front explodes off and all of the soldiers inside begin firing out through the smoke, the rams sensors painting targets for them through their helmets. Archae can see the display in her own but would barely know where to begin with parsing all of that information.

Archae takes a deep breath, and once the initial sweep is done gets herself up. The sooner this is done the better. Then she can go home, see her cat, read, and poison some marines. Archae nods to herelf, sure of that plan, and steps forward to follow the ESS that is apparently escorting her. 

Of course the specialist continues to try to make small talk with her. Archae can only half listen, only able to partially focus on the incessant banter. She does get confirmation that this is in fact an Executive Solutions Specialist. Number 1172 apparently. 

"So that is how I taught Madame's Hounds to wield knives!" The Specialist shouts over weapons fire as she strides through the corridors of the ship. Her aim is eerily good, sort of horrifying. Her weapon of choice seems to be some sort of customized high powered energy sidearm. It's putting holes in people that's really all Archae knows about it.

She knows much more about this monsters love life though and that's somehow making this entire adventure go from harrowing to frustrating. Apparently this Executive Solutions Specialist is in a romantic relationship with a woman of high standing, lives with her, and they have dogs? How is that even fair?

She's a murder machine!

There is also another issue to address. "Why exactly did you teach the Hounds how to use knives?" Archae's frustration cannot overcome her curiosity about this.

"So they could stab people." The specialist says without missing a beat as she shoots a door panel to trigger the emergency release and expertly murders the crew members hiding inside.

Archae frowns slightly. "Must we stop at every door?"

"I don't want anyone coming in behind us!"

That... Makes some sort of sense. Archae relents on that subject. Then she sighs as they continue their forward March. She has to ask. She needs to know this monsters secrets.

"So how did you and 'Madame' meet exactly?"

"Oh! That's a fun story!"

It also turns out that it is a rather long and detailed story, one that the specialist remembers with almost enviable clarity. Who remembers things this well? All the while they make their way toward their objective, the ships bio-lab. 

"So I killed the terrorists and saved Madame and afterwards she took me into her employ more properly. Which of course I was excited about because she's very attractive." The specialist finished her story as she fired into the lab. That actually made Archae wince, firing into a lab with a high powered energy weapon, but by the screams and sounds of meat hitting metal floor it seems the specialist was hitting her marks just fine every time she popped out from cover to fire.

Archae could appreciate that at least. The lab was going to be intact if a tad messier than she prefers. What she doesn't appreciate is how useless that story of terrorist plots and mass murder is. If anything it just sounds like this Madame is equally as insane as the specialist for falling for this madwoman.

Actually that could be it. Unless things somehow got more romantic between them later, which seems unlikely. Archae doesn't care to ask at this point. It’s starting to make her feel sad and self conscious about her own spinster lifestyle. 

Archae files that whole story away right as the specialist impales one of this ships crew members coming around the corner that they're using for cover with her talons. A knife drops to the ground. "Did they just try to enter melee with you?..." The bio warfare expert asks. She admits that seems wildly stupid even for a rebel species.

"Yep! There's always at least one!" The ESS says as she curls her talons and ruins the stupid aliens internal organs. Then drops the gasping sputtering thing on the ground.

Archae finds herself watching it twitch and die with impassive interest. She doesn't know this species. Maybe she should request specimens to be taken back to her ship... Who knows what they could yield. Sometimes even the dumbest and weakest creatures have biology that can be learned from, and weaponized. 

Her thoughts are interrupted by the specialist. "Labs clear. Let's go."

The two enter the biolab and Archae is less than impressed. A crude workshop with improper safety mechanisms. Sure enough bodies litter the floors. People in hazmat suits and some guards in armor. All with limbs blown away or holes in there torso. "You do not aim for the head." Archae notes.

"Oh not with something with this much stopping power." The ESS replies as she scopes the room and sets herself up into overwatch at the door. "Center mass will be a kill and is a bigger target. Always aim for the largest thing that will ensure the kill."

That is again a potential nugget of actually sage advice taken from the insane ramblings of a killer, and in many ways can apply to much of the weapons Archae produces. Perhaps warfare at any scale has similarities.

With a breath the scientist nods and moves to the lab computers to try and discern what is going on here.

Archae is in her element now. Her bodyguard manages to get the lab door sealed and she has gained access to the lab systems. Data poured out, translated into Horde Standard via the access virus implanted into the ships computers

The specialist is now sitting on the floor near the door. Relaxing and bobbing her head to some beat that Archae cannot discern. Music in the helmet maybe? Oddly enough the so far incessant talker had fallen quiet the moment Archae got to work. Training to allow ‘science types’ to do field work unperturbed perhaps?

"What even..." Archae caught herself expressing her thoughts out loud after the fact. She hears the specialist shift at the words. Briefly Archae ponders if it's even worth it to elaborate to a blunt instrument like an ESS.

Then she decides she wants to speak regardless. It should be her turn to get to talk about something.

"They're not... Making a disease." Archae notes. "These genome maps are for a multi-cellular construct, and they've taken from all over."

"They're making super dogs aren't they?" The ESS replies.

Archae turns around to stare for a moment. "No. No they are not making super dogs."

"Oh. That's what I would make."

There is a long silence as the two stare at one another. Finally Archae takes a deep breath and replies. "Yes. I am sure you would." She then turns back to the computers. "No it's some sort of... Maybe a terror weapon? It is an... idiotically complicated genome map. It is not a pathogen I can tell us that much."

"Why is it idiotic?"

"It's too complex. I can see some of what they're doing and there are such simpler sequence combinations to get the results. This entire map is a mess and they've barely left any notes to work from." Archae actually groans. "There is nothing here for the Horde. This was pointless. I wasn't needed for any of this."

"Well yeah duh." The specialist stands now. Archae looks back again. Surprised at that comment.

"Excuse me?"

"You're a lab scientist. There are field technicians for this stuff. You were sent here to die." The specialist shrugs. Incredibly nonchalant.

Archae sputters. She suspected but to just have it said. So plainly. By this woman nonetheless. "And you know this how?"

"I kill people like you for sport it's really obvious. Also I did tell you I was assigned here to make sure you don't die."

"Wait wait... So I am-"

"Caught in the middle of a power struggle you have no part in! Isn't that fun?"

Archae takes a few deep breaths. Anger starting to well in her chest. She had managed to keep out of these petty power politics for so long and now suddenly this.

Then something impacts the door. Archae actually lets out a yelp of surprise. A scythelike talon suddenly punctures through the door to the lab. ESS-1172 is on her feet and raising her hand cannon immediately.

"That's generally not a good sign!" The specialist declares.

"You think?!" Archae snaps as suddenly the door is forced open and a horrible creature made of scything limbs and large mandibles launches itself at the ESS. A shot is loosed, taking one of the creatures arms clean off.

Unfortunately that doesn't stop it. Archae can barely track what's happening. Horror filling her as the thing apparently knocks 1172s weapon aside and the two enter melee.

A super predator and a macro scale bioweapon clawing and tearing at once another..

Briefly her brain sarcastically notes she can't be sure which is which.

It becomes apparent the creature is going to win this melee if nothing is done. The specialist is a honed killing machine but in this proximity most of her advantages are lost.

She'll die, and then Archae will die soon after.

Just like whoever got her sent here wanted.

The rage boils again. She won't die here. She refuses.

Archaes eyes search for a weapon, something, anything that she can use to turn this fight around. The gun? No it’s on the other side of the fight. Some of the tools in here? Can she grab them fast enough. Her mind spins, undecided on her course of action. Until she catches the specialists claws slashing through the creature.

Archae is the weapon.

In her anger and desperation Archae launches herself at the creatures, onto it's back. Her claws digging into it neck.

It howls and Archae realizes she may have made a mistake as it bucks her off of it. Roaring as it's attention is turned to her.

Fear again, dread. This is how Archae dies. In some terrible lab in an alien spaceship at the talons of some stupid monster. She is sure this is how it all ends. 

Until the grey-purple talons of the ESS suddenly wrap around the things skull and one of its arms. Roaring and throwing it into the computer nearby.

The sidearm maglocked to 1172s hip comes off and she fires at the thing. A quiet pop of a 'silent' weapon. Her thumb playing with some sort of interface on the back of the weapon as she fires again and again.

The creature howls, stumbling. Welts forming. Flesh starting to visibly necrotize. It falls. Whimpering in pain as it dies.

"Well! That was a thing that happened!" 1172 says loudly. "Good thing the needlegun toxins worked huh? Some of them anyway." The specialist notes as she holsters said weapon and retrieves her hand cannon.

"I jumped on it..." Archae says as she stares at her own blood coated trembling hands. "I jumped on that thing."

"You sure did! You saved me!"

Archae pauses in her existential crisis. "... I did... Didn't I?"

"Yep! Which makes all of this pretty awkward actually!"

She saved this specialist. Archae, a lab junky, saved this trained soldier from some monster. She did that all on her own and- wait. Awkward?

"Excuse me?" Archae glances up, then her eyes widen as the specialist levels the hand cannon at her

"Surprise! I'm actually supposed to help make sure you die! Isn't that fun?" She remains so cheerful. Like the entire nature of their situation didn't just drastically change. Like they didn't just spend this whole mission talking.

Archae finds herself... Just about done with this. "NO!" She suddenly yells. "it's not fun! That doesn't even make sense! Why did you protect me this whole way then?!"

"Well you were already here so I thought it would be best if you did actually check this lab." The ESS states matter-of-factly.

"I hate you." Archae suddenly says. Almost hissing it out. "I hate you, this ship, everything going on here."

"But I haven't even reached the best part yet!"

Archae just growls, trying to think of what she can do to escape.

Then the specialist tells her the best part. "I'm not gonna kill you." And lowers her weapon with a laugh.

Archae stares, somewhere between dumbfounded and even more pissed off.

"I like you! Plus you saved me so that makes it awkward. Plus! Madame doesn't even want you dead herself!"

Archae takes a deep breath. "THEN WHY DID YOU EVEN TELL ME?!" She shouts, as loud as she can. She’s angry, and the fact ESS-1172 just laughs at her outburst just makes it worse.

“Just because! I thought you’d like to know!” The Specialist shrugs, and Archae almost loses it. Unfortunately instead she suddenly jolts in surprise, and then winces, as the specialist suddenly turns her hand cannon to annihilate the computers in this room.

"We should be going though! Before the Marines find us and try to kill you!" Ever cheerful the ESS starts to walk out.

Archae has to take a moment to compose herself and follow. "If your Madame does not want me dead then why would you be here to ensure I die?" that wasn't adding up.

"Oh! Well see someone asked her for my services as a favor! The person who actually wants you dead!"

Archae frowns. "And would you happen to know who that is?"

"I do! What was his name...." The specialist hrmms as they walk along now. Wracking her brain for the knowledge she needs. Archae waits, patiently considering if she could maybe take the specialist by surprise and kill her. Probably not. Assuming the Specialist is telling the truth that would be a pointless endeavor anyway, and assuming she's lying Archae might just be dead either way. This sucks, for lack of a better way to put it.

Finally the ESS speaks again. "Oh right! Jimmothy Jimjamin Jimchael Jimfrey Jimpulk Al Kordajim Jimberly Jimbecka Jimantha Jimima Jimmanuel jimessica Jimthina Jimbert Jimila Jimmarie Jimimah!"

Archae stops mid step.

"JIM!?"

[shesthespinstersimmer]

How tall are your sims?

Got tagged by @mysimsloveaffair (hiiii friend!), so any excuse to pull out my girls, I’m gonna do it. Besides, I miss them terribly when WEIRD & WONDERFUL is off-season 🖤

(Jude’s hair makes her seem taller tee hee )

I can never keep up with who’s been tagged and who hasn’t, so take this as your open invitation to do this if you wanted to play with your OCs!

Now I shall throw out a bunch of names that came to mind – if you’ve already done this/don’t want to/you know the drill , do with this what you will :

@ellemant @wannabecatwriter @someone-elsa @ladybugsimblr @vay2008 

Here’s the link

[incendiaglacies]

Arranged Marriage AU

1. It’s Victorian Era. Rip is recently widowed and has a son Jonas, Gideon is becoming a ‘spinster’ and so he marries her for someone to look after Jonas.

2. Rip is Captain of the Navy, he’s away a lot and whenever he comes back, his first priority is Jonas. And he’s pleased to see that it’s Gideon’s as well.

3. They fall for each other slowly. Little things like how Rip always cooks when he’s home even though ‘it’s a woman’s job’ or how Gideon always stays up after he’s put Jonas to bed so that she can keep him company as he eats.

4. Some of the townspeople gossip about how Gideon hasn’t given Rip a child yet, so really, what good of a wife is she? Rip brandishes his sword and shuts them up.

5. All of Rip’s flirting and wooing attempts are absolute failures. He gets her flowers, she’s allergic. He tries to help her out in her workshop, he accidentally injures her with a tool and now she needs stitches. He plans a romantic picnic on a boat to stargaze, she gets seasick. But Gideon falls in love with him because he’s a good man that never stops trying.

And they live happily ever after

[lowbrowanthro]

Maud Wood Park: Forgotten Feminist, Proto-Anthropologist, Bad Bitch

In the summer of 2018, I spent three weeks in the Library of Congress researching twentieth-century women political leaders (think suffragettes, early legislators, etc).

Mostly I skimmed workshop pamphlets and stared, unblinking, at indecipherable handwritten correspondence. But one woman in particular had me rapt.

[Extremely Stefon voice] Maud Wood Park’s story has everything - suffragette drama, a trip around the world, and a secret (second! Post divorce! That scandalous queen!) marriage that *definitely* disappointed her dad.

(Photo from: https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/collection/papers-maud-wood-park-in-womans-rights-collection)

Born in 1871 in Boston, Maud Wood Park was a no-nonsense activist ahead of her time. I call her “forgotten” even though she’s well-known to scholars of women’s suffrage (NERRRDS), because she’s largely left out of public school lessons featuring big names like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Yet her work as a lobbyist with the National American Woman Suffrage Association and as the first president of the League of Women Voters made her a centrally important figure in the struggle for American women’s suffrage.

(Maud pictured 4th from the right. Photo from: https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/collection/papers-maud-wood-park-in-womans-rights-collection)

Even more interesting than her activism (lol sorry, women’s rights) was her personal life.

Maud did her own damn thing - she chose not to have children, eschewed religion, traveled around the world without a male escort, and never stopped fighting for women’s rights. She married her first husband after meeting him in college (she went to Radcliffe, A.K.A. ~Lady Harvard~ because She Smart And She Fancy), and then divorced his ass when she was 35. Two years later, she ~secretly~ married Robert “Bob” Hunter Freeman.

(Above: Bob and his bowler hat. Photos from the LoC collections)

Bob was ~an actor~ and theatrical agent (yes Maud, I feel you, who among us has not pined for a sensitive artistic type). They both traveled so often for work that they were never able to officially, publicly settle down and cohabitate. Instead, their marriage remained secret to all but a few close friends, and they met clandestinely in hotel rooms during Maud’s lecture circuits. They also shared a robust (there are SO MANY LETTERS, you guys) correspondence. Many of their letters focus on their interpersonal drama and semi-tempestuous but deeply-loving relationship, and you bet I read all that shit. 

They had serious differences and disagreed constantly. Bob gave Maud shit about her temperament and lack of religion, and she gave him shit about his lack of logic.

In the 1915 letter to Bob below, Maud openly and unrepentantly admits to being a stone-cold bitch (my heroine..!), describing herself as “a cold, hard, self-contained, self-centred, ambitious and extremely critical woman.”

(Maud’s a Slytherin. Obvs.)

Maud knows herself. Maud accepts herself. Maud does not care about your feelings.

Bob, on the other hand, was a total Hufflepuff. In the funny 1915 letter below, Maud writes to him about how much her “man-hating” spinster friends love him, seeing him as more of a womanly kindred spirit than a man. Their high praise even inspires her to (grudgingly, poorly... Maud is all of us) embroider Bob’s initials onto some handkerchiefs, even though she “hadn’t done anything of that sort for over 20 years.”

Ah, ~True Love~ :’)

(Above: Maud and Bob, basically)

Maud was an independent thinker, and her lack of religious belief troubled Bob at first. She explained her outlook on life to him in a 1908 letter: 

“I feel a sort of responsibility to myself and to others, irrespective of God’s existence or non existence. I think it is the effect of my keen perception of the rights of all other living creatures, black, white or brown, animal as well as human. It explains my passionate democracy and my sense of outrage at the injustices that women have to bear. It does not rest on love of God or recognition of Him; not even on love of men, but rather on the craving of my whole nature for justice. It’s the best thing in me, my only effective weapon against my egoism.”

Clearly, humanist ideals fueled her activism at a time when many involved in social reform movements held beliefs rooted in Christianity.

(Above: the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, for example! Photo from: https://sites.google.com/site/orangewomenstemperanceunion/background-on-women-s-christian-temperance-union)

Maud was also kind of an amateur anthropologist - she traveled around the world to study the conditions of women in various cultures. 

Funded by a wealthy sponsor who supported her work for women’s rights, she struck out on a two year journey in 1909 to investigate women’s lives in far-flung locales including Singapore, China, India, Australia and New Zealand, New Guinea, Bhutan, and elsewhere.

(Above, postcard of Chefoo, China, circa 1908, from: https://www.hippostcard.com/listing/street-in-chefoo-china-postcard-c1908/16726374)

Her views reflect the times and an understanding of universal womanhood that’s been deconstructed by postcolonial feminist scholars, but she recognized the importance of cultural differences.

Before women could even vote in the U.S., Maud was going around stressing the need to understand the various ways women lived around the world.

Rather than just exoticizing foreign tropical locales, she described their complexities. Maud talked about the widespread poverty in Chinese villages in the wake of nineteenth-century British imperialism and described India as “huge and enormously complicated” in a February 9th, 1920 letter written on a train from Darjeeling to Calcutta, for example.

She exhibited an anthropological curiosity (even if she lacked a little tact), writing this detailed description to Bob on June 18th, 1909:

“This afternoon I did get off by myself in a rickshaw in a town I never heard of and poked around for an hour in unimaginably dirty and crowded streets. The Yang-tse-Kiang is a beautiful broad river, but almost deserted on the banks except for occasional cities of large towns where the foreign “Concession” is nearly opposite the landing. If we can we get away from the Concession in these places and into the Chinese town, usually enclosed by a wall. There indeed everything is different: muddy, smelly, narrow streets, swarms of men, some children and fewer women, (those who are well-to-do stay in the “Inner Apartment”) endless little dingy restaurants half on the street where the cooking is all in plain sight, ramshackle one-story houses leaning against each other in order to stay up at all. Most foreigners are disgusted and flee as soon as possible, but I enjoy it all and want to go poking up every lane and into every courtyard.” 

Maud also recognized the pervasiveness of Western culture way before scholars started theorizing about “globalization.” In 1909, she wrote:

“Fate seems always to pull at my skirts and drag me back to the surroundings of the inescapable West. It’s marvelous how pervasive that is out here in the Orient – the trace of the West. –I begin to believe that there isn’t a village in Asia where you can’t buy bottled waters and find at least one Englishman. I may have to go to central Africa to get the unadulterated East; and even there I suppose I’d find T. Roosevelt or his remains.”

I choose to believe that she would have made a good intersectional feminist activist and anthropologist had she been born a few decades later.

Maud stressed that women deserved freedom above all in both her personal and professional life. She lobbied for women’s rights tirelessly both to legislators and to Bob, who started out skeptical but was eventually won over. 

In the 1915 letter below, Bob wishes Maud success and writes that he’s come around in favor of women’s suffrage once and for all, finally convinced “of something which perhaps should always have been obvious, but wasn’t.”

(That’s f***ing right Bob, get it together)

Maud Wood Park - world traveler, legislative expert, and even playwright - was a fierce feminist. She seemed to foreshadow the third-wavers of the future. In a 1912 letter (one of her many extended arguments with Bob), she considered the future of the women’s movement and women’s ultimate place in society:

“I resent so bitterly the arrogance of men who attempt to say that what men want is the measure of what women should be – or the added insult of attempting to interpret Nature or the Creator for women. Certainly if there is any record of what nature intended it is to be found in the powers that she has given women. If a woman has a beautiful voice it seems likely that nature meant her to sing, etc., etc.

The moral of all this is – don’t spend any more time or words or ink in trying to show what women were meant to do. Spend your energy in giving women themselves a chance to show what they were meant to be.”

Amen.

[wolfie-dragon-rider]

Bursts of Light, Day 23: Arguing

Hey everyone, I'm back with another drabble. This one takes place during the first half of their honeymoon! Next day's drabble, Making Up Afterwards, will be a sequel/conclusion to this one, so don't worry: They'll realize how dumb they're being and figure out how to live together.

------------------------------

Day 1

Astrid woke up at dawn as usual, though she instantly felt on alert. The blanket she was lying under had a different texture, and a sunbeam hit her face at a different angle than it normally did. She kept her eyes closed, groaning softly at the ache in her thighs when she shifted. What was going on? Her brain was too sluggish for this.

All of a sudden something moved behind her, and then something cold and rough touched the back of her leg. Her naked leg. She yelped loudly, jumping away from the freezing thing behind her. Cold air all over her body told her she was naked, and she instinctively grabbed the blankets and wrapped them around herself.

"Astrid? What's wrong?" Hiccup's voice mumbled, and it was only then that Astrid realized that he was in the bed with her.

Just as naked as she was, everything on display now that she snatched the blanket.

Everything came flooding back. They got married yesterday. They moved into their own house, made love, and this was the first day of their new life together.

"'Strid? Are you hurt?" Hiccup asked again, clearly still sleepy.

"No, no, it's… sorry, I'm not used to waking up with someone else. I panicked. But it's okay now," she told him, pressing herself against him and pulling the blanket back over them. "Your feet- Uh, foot, is freezing cold, by the way."

He chuckled awkwardly, and memories of last night came flooding back. That explained the soreness. But it was a good soreness. Like the ache she got when she did a new training exercise.

"I guess we'll have to warm up then," he mumbled, pulling her a little closer to him (oh gods, he was cold everywhere!). She turned her head to see his smirk. Huh, that's a different attitude from last night. But not an entirely unwelcome one, despite the fading soreness. She'd had worse pains.

"Oh, getting cocky, eh? Ready for more?" she asked, climbing on top of him. She was about to kiss him when her leg brushed his foot again.

"Okay, seriously though, I really hope that foot won't always be this cold," Astrid said, before they stopped talking for a while.

------------------------------

Day 3

"Astrid, where is my whetstone? I put it on the workbench yesterday but now it's gone!" Hiccup shouted, blindly digging through the pile of scrap metal and chips of wood that was stacked in his workshop.

"I don't know! You probably misplaced it! You know, it's been two days and the place is already a mess!" she shouted back as he dropped a sheet of metal he had been looking under. It clanged loudly as it hit his prosthetic, echoing through the house with an angry chime.

"Kicking it won't help!" Astrid said, entering behind him. Her words made him want to actually kick something.

"I didn't- It fell, okay. And it's not a mess. I have a system. A system that you interfere with," he said, breathing heavily in an attempt to keep his temper.

"Oh really, I always figured the system was that you just put stuff on the pile closest to you. And then when you inevitably forget which pile you put what in, you ask me to find it for you," she said in a teasing tone, but it stung all the same.

"It's not like that! You never pay attention-" he forced himself to stop there. Finishing that accusation would lead to nothing good.

"Look, it's right here, in between these very precariously stacked piles of jagged metal. Real safe there, Hiccup," Astrid said, pushing him aside to take something from the bench.

"Says the girl who nearly threw an axe into my head this morning," he muttered, remembering the terror he had felt at the cold iron grazing his cheek when he walked outside to get some water.

"Oh, come on, you know the backyard is my place, I train there, even when we're cooped up in this house!" she said, slamming the whetstone into his open hand. He flinched, nearly dropping the small tool.

"Well, this room is my place, so how about you stop complaining about my stuff in here, and I stop talking about your axe throwing out there!" Hiccup shouted, turning away from her. Some part of him wanted out, wanted to run as far away from this stupid argument as possible. But isn't this what married life is supposed to be? Always being together, happy in the same space all the time?

"Fine! But don't call me next time you lose something," Astrid shouted, leaving the room.

"And I won't fix your axe when you hit the rocks again!" he shouted back. The only response he got was the door slamming hard, shaking in its hinges. He felt like a complete idiot. But surely this was over, they established their boundaries for some personal space, and now they could move on.

Just 24 days to go until the Honeymoon was over.

------------------------------

Day 8

Astrid flinched, dropping the soap she was holding when the loud crack of shattering earthenware rang through the room. She turned around to see shards all over the floor of what had been her mug just two seconds ago.

"Hiccup!" she shouted, taking the soap again and putting it away as he stood there sheepishly, surrounded by the broken shards.

"Sorry! I didn't know it was there! The counter was empty a minute ago so I wanted to put my plate away!" he said defensively, not moving to clean it up. His dirty plate sat on the counter where the mug had been, and for second she got the ridiculous urge to smash it as revenge.

"Yeah, I put it there to wash it. Like I was gonna wash your dirty dishes," she snarked instead.

"Hey, you have a dirty plate too, it's not just my mess," he said, still not doing anything about the shards on the floor.

"Funny since I always seem to be the one to do the dishes. You just put them on the counter and expect them to magically clean themselves!"

Astrid didn't know what it was about this honeymoon that made her just so… annoyed at everything Hiccup did. Things that had been endearing or cute while they were just dating, like how he never dared to get in her way, or his bumbling when he broke something, were now infuriating.

Maybe it was the fact that they had gone so suddenly from living separately with their families to being forced to be in the same house together for literally an entire month. Before Astrid had been able to get away and cool off if he did something annoying, and she didn't have to endure the stupid habits he had that she never noticed.

Like how he kept making this ticking sound with his tongue, or would roll over constantly in his sleep, or barely offered to help her with housework.

It was so confusing. Astrid still loved him so much, still wanted him so much. Despite their fights they could barely keep their hands off each other, taking advantage of every flat surface in the house.

Sometimes it was like everything Hiccup did either infuriated her or turned her on. It was a confusing whirlwind of emotions that she just hadn't expected three years into their relationship.

"I don't do the dishes because the last time I tried, you complained I missed spots I couldn't see!" Hiccup shouted, and she was brought back to their current argument.

"Fine, just go and… do your thing. I'll clean your mess. Again," she sighed, grabbing some big shards and throwing them in the trash. For a second Hiccup looked really sad and guilty, and she thought he was going to say something, but then the moment passed. He turned and left the kitchen, slamming the door to his workshop with a loud bang.

She knew it wouldn't last, that in a few hours they'd be all over each other again and declaring their love amidst heavy sighs and deep moans, but that didn't mean she wasn't worried about these fights. What if they'd get worse?

------------------------------

Day 13

"Hiccup, come to bed!" Astrid shouted as he sketched his newest invention: a sewing machine that could do the work of 8 spinsters.

"Just a minute," he mumbled, ignoring her long groan.

"That's what you said an hour ago! That's it, I'm going to bed now. You better not wake me when you finally get tired."

"That's the first time you complain about my inventing at night," he chuckled. There was a short silence that suddenly ended with a smack when Astrid threw a pillow at him.

"Because back then we didn't get to sleep together dammit! Gods, I thought it was the men always trying to get their women into their bed, not the other way around!" she shouted, and Hiccup wasn't entirely sure if she was actually angry or just joking. Either way, the remark stung, and he couldn't help stinging back.

"At least this way I'm not freezing you with my cold feet."

He almost instantly regretted the words, but Astrid's growl only made him want to dig in further.

"Fine, have it your way. I'm going to sleep now and if you wake me later, I swear to Thor…" she muttered, grabbing the pillow from where it had bounced off to and getting in bed with a loud huff.

"Good night," he said, more sarcastic than really necessary.

"...G'night" eventually came from the bed, very softly like she didn't really want him to hear it. It made him feel guilty. Still, this machine he was sketching required his focus, so he refused to listen to Astrid's breathing slowly turning to snoring.

Even when her snores quieted Hiccup had a hard time focusing on the invention. His thoughts kept turning back to the past two weeks they lived together. Before he hadn't expected it to change their lives much. They already spent a lot of their waking hours together; marrying just added their non-waking hours. And yet something had shifted, and he wasn't sure what it was.

Maybe the source of his frustrations and snarkiness wasn't really her, maybe it was just being stuck in this house for the honeymoon. He missed Toothless, and their morning flights. But no, the council had decided that the honeymoon isolation included their dragons. So he didn't get to fly, didn't get to play with his best friend.

And yet it wasn't just that either. Astrid could be so overbearing, so imposing, and that gigantic presence was hard when they were stuck inside such a tiny house. He felt like he was suffocating at times, like he couldn't even breathe without her noticing something that would lead to a fight.

Maybe that was why he was still awake now, long after she had gone to sleep. He felt free somehow. Alone.

Could there be such a thing as 'too much Astrid' in his life? Just two weeks ago he'd have said no. Now he wasn't sure. His thoughts kept going in circles, veering between annoyance at some of the things she had said and guilt over what he had shouted back.

It was only when he crawled into bed behind her hours later, as gently as he could to avoid disturbing her, that he whispered "I love you, and I'm sorry," in her sleeping ear.

[janephillipsblog]

Babette’s Gift

I recently closed my first semi-professional theatre experience with Fire Exit Theatre. It was quite a journey and a very rewarding and challenging one at that.

Back in August, I auditioned for “Babette’s Feast”, a play adaptation of the short story by Isak Dineson, conceived and developed by Abigail Killeen and written by Rose Courtney. It turned out to be a very unconventional audition as the venue was not open during my time slot. We auditioned in groups and my group ended up auditioning outside in a residential area. We worked on scenes from the script as well as doing group performance exercises for the director, Jeany Van Meltebeke, to see how we worked together as an ensemble.

Several days later I received an email from Artistic Director, Val Lieske, offering me a role in the ensemble, with the note that specific roles would be assigned at a later date. A couple of weeks later, another email was sent with assigned roles. I would be playing Babette as well as a little bit of ensemble work in the first part of the play before Babette makes her first entrance. 

Photo Credit: Andrea Cross Photography. With Kyla Ferrier and Sarah Haggeman.

���Babette’s Feast” is set in a small Norwegian town called Berlevaag and centres around two sisters, the children of a dean to a religious sect. The two sisters, Martine and Philippa, despite their beauty, offers of marriage, and for Philippa, a chance to be an opera singer, remain in Berlevaag as spinsters throughout their life, carrying on the work of the dean after his death. In their autumn years, they take in Babette, a French refugee from the Paris Commune, as a housekeeper. Babette was once a celebrated chef at the Café Anglais in Paris and had fought as a communard, alongside her husband and son, both of whom were killed in the civil war. The story culminates in Babette’s gift to the sisters and the community – a fabulous feast of French cuisine.

We had about a three-month rehearsal period before we moved into the Engineered Air Theatre at Arts Commons, throughout which, Jeany gently pushed us to “tell good story,” paying attention to the details and working on the subtext of the script. Looking back it was incredible how much we gleaned from between the lines of what at first appeared to be a simple script and story. Rachel Peacock, as well as being a part of the cast, was the composer and musical director for the production and her compositions enhanced the show no end, with the music performed with a harp, violin, glockenspiel, our vocals and even toy wooden blocks!

I made some personal discoveries as a performer during the process. Jeany would often tell me to work on being neutral emotionally at certain parts in the play. Well, people have always been able to read me like a book and I am a terrible liar as it simply shows too much on my face. Poker player I am not! For acting there is so much to work on within to achieve what the audience will eventually see. Part of that skill is learning to live in the present, moment by moment. What human doesn’t wander emotionally into the past or future? In the many years of doing theatre, I have learnt that this mental wandering out of the present can trip a performer up in a performance.

During the rehearsal process, imposter syndrome also raised its ugly head on occasion. This was my first production out of the community theatre world where most other fellow cast mates have other careers and acting is a hobby and a different way to socialize for a lot of people. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it is a fantastic hobby and there is nothing wrong with not wanting to pursue it as a career and a person can still strive for excellence in a pastime. From the day of the first read-through, I discovered that I was among kindred spirits. I was with people working in some capacity within the industry and who wore many hats like myself, often with many projects on the go at the same time. I felt at home, however often my anxiety would whisper negative things in my ear that I didn’t belong.

The biggest challenge for me was the fact that Babette was French. Whilst it wasn’t a goal of the production for the performers to have impeccable accents, I did not want Babette to sound English. I also did not want her to have a stereotypical French accent. There were also a few lines in French within the script which presented another challenge. During high school in Ottawa, probably in Grade 11 or 12 (I have moved from the UK the summer before I started Grade 11), I was kicked out of Grade 10 French for struggling with the work in the class. My mother is still angry about it and I realize now that it was probably more to do with the teacher wanting to keep her class averages up than my learning ability. I was a shy and self-conscious teenager who hated speaking aloud in class and had always been very self-conscious about the way I spoke even in English, let alone a foreign language, as we had moved around a lot and I always had a different dialect. Those early days in high school in Ottawa usually meant I had to repeat sentences about three times to my friends before they understood what I was saying! The result was that I no longer had confidence in my ability to even learn to speak a second language. I seem to recall that in the UK, I had quite enjoyed French and German classes, but in Ottawa, everyone was so far ahead in French. The last French course I took was in first year of university as a degree requirement. My inability to speak Canada’s other official language was one of the reasons I ended up moving to Alberta.

There is a section in the script where the ensemble repeat some of the French words spoken by Babette. At the first readthrough during which I most likely pronounced the French lines incorrectly and with limited understanding of the meaning, having the words repeated caught me by surprise and in a moment of self-consciousness, I honestly thought some of the others were correcting my pronunciation! This was not the case! Though certainly down the road, Caleb and John, other cast members (Caleb was also the assistant director), helped me with the pronunciation. Google Translate also became a good friend! I talked about my hang-ups with speaking French with Caleb about two weeks before we moved into the theatre. He asked me when I was going to let them go. Right now, was my reply! I had already upped the ante for myself by inviting French-speaking friends to the show and at this point it was time to really put in some work. I would record myself speaking Babette’s lines to ensure they sounded like Babette and not me.          

Photo Credit: Andrea Cross Photography

By the week of our final rehearsals, I felt that Babette had really arrived. I felt confident in my ability to portray her on stage. I was super-excited to be in a show at the Engineered Air Theatre. I had been in the venue once during the Festival of Animated Objects in March (I love the retro décor) and on the first day we were in the theatre, I remembered the intention I had set through a selfie on Facebook in May during the Bouffon workshop (held in the ATP rehearsal hall) that I hoped to again enter and exit the stage door of Arts Commons many, many times in the not too distant future. Well it came true! That is the power of manifestation, folks – I also manifested a free transit ticket that day.  

Opening night was on a Wednesday. Fire Exit has a tradition for everyone to wear red shoes on opening night (started by Val and her red boots). I found a really nice pair that day in the WINS thrift store and they went really well with my green Christmas leggings. We had a talk back after the performance, my first ever. There were a couple of complimentary comments about how humble Babette was. In the lobby after, a lady asked if I was French! All our performances went really well, despite sickness making its way around the cast (par for the course for a December show – I was lucky as I had been sick a few weeks prior). Once we had an audience, we discovered that what had seemed like a serious play for the most part, was actually quite whimsical and fun throughout. Our audiences were great, very loving and kind. My French-speaking friends told me that they understood every word and joked how they were going to converse with me in French now.

Photo Credit: Andrea Cross Photography. From left to right: John Moerschbacher, Kyla Ferrier, Daniel Kim, Caleb Gordon, me, Sarah Haggeman, Rachel Peacock, Kendra Hutchinson and Ainsley Daumler.

“Babette’s Feast” was over too soon after a run of only seven performances. It will be an experience that I will forever treasure and remember. Thank you to all involved for sharing this incredible journey with me! 

[not-close-to-straight]

Stetsons/Schoolteachers (Eighteen)

SAS MASTERLIST HERE

**********************

Sunset’s private train had only four cars behind the engine-- the sitting room the Beta’s had tossed Tony into the first night, a sleeping car complete with a bathroom, a dining room with a small kitchen, and a fourth that Tony wasn’t allowed in.

“You don't get to know all my secrets, darling.” When Tony asked about the fourth car, Sunset only waved him off. “I use this track for most of my business and I know you wildly disapprove of most of my business, so there’s no need to peek behind door number four, hm?”

“Door number three it is.” Tony muttered, and headed for the bathroom in the sleeping car, giving the bed a wide berth as he went, eyeing it uncomfortably.

Tony hadn’t been a virgin when on his wedding day, or at least not really. He was an Omega, after all, and the constant need to touch and be touched was one that he had soothed over and over in the arms of other Omegas, working through their heats together, snuggling in bed, doing the sort of things he and Clint did with their tongues and their fingers and toys.

Sunset had been his first Alpha, though, the first knot he’d ever taken and their wedding night had been… it had been fine. She had been gentle when she took him as mate, and gentle every time after, but it hadn’t been very long before Tony realized something was… missing.

And as time went on, Tony had realized what was missing was love.

When he was with an Omega friend or two curled together in bed, there was always an element of genuine affection between them, snuggles and quiet talks, easy laughter and teasing smiles, but that was missing from his marriage to the Alpha. Sunset didn’t love him, probably didn’t even like him much, and the longer they were married, the more painfully obvious it became.

She was always willing to tumble into bed with him if he was feeling amorous or needy, but unless he was in heat, she left the bed as soon as they were finished, rarely even undressing all the way, and never initiating their moments together. Her touches were satisfactory but perfunctory, the bare minimum needed to bring her mate to pleasure, and each emotionally empty encounter left a hollow ache in Tony’s chest.

At first Tony had been confused, thinking that he wasn’t as attractive as he should be for his mate, that maybe he needed to do more to entice her, so he started buying and wearing lacy things, lower cut shirts, showing off the bonding mark on his neck in a clear attempt to woo his Alpha to his side. It might be an arranged marriage, but it was still something Tony had been willing to try at. 

But Sunset hadn’t wanted to try, and he had been hurt, watching her so blatantly admire other Omegas while all but ignoring him. When he confronted her, Sunset had laughed in his face, teasing him about being a petty, jealous Omega and telling him he was adorable when he was oblivious.

Tony Stark was anything but oblivious, and after he got over his hurt, he was furious with her for going through with the arranged marriage, for not only marrying him but trapping him with a bond that she so obviously didn’t care about at all. As wealthy, powerful Alpha she could have stepped back, released him from the arranged engagement and they both could have survived the resulting social condemnation before stepping back into their usual roles. 

But she hadn’t. Sunset had gone through with it anyway and Tony had been trapped and furious. 

It was then, faced with his anger, that the true side of Sunset had come out-- all malicious smiles and cutting words and manipulative conversations. She was ice cold one moment, and then flirty and playful the next. Demanding absolute obedience in public, then telling him he was too meek when they were in private. His snarky, sassy, bold side-- the one that had delighted Steve so much-- was crushed beneath her snide remarks and blatant disapproval until he barely spoke around her at all, choosing to be silent instead of mocked.

His love for flashy clothes and pretty underthings, originally attempts to get her attention, were things she laughed at, so Tony wore them just to be rebellious-- just because she wasn’t looking didn’t mean that he couldn’t still love them. 

She locked the doors to his library when he did something to make her angry, and then the doors to his little workshop when she was especially displeased. On a whim, she would refuse to let him leave the house to see his friends, and then for reasons Tony never really understood, one day she would change her mind, encourage him to read, to tinker, to spend the night with one of his Omega friends, to do the things he enjoyed.

Except he could never really enjoy them, not anymore, not when he wasn’t sure when she would take them away again.

It was a game that only the Alpha knew the rules too, and one that Tony got tired of playing, so eventually he was just relieved that she didn’t seek him out, that she didn’t come to his bed, that she took no interest in him physically at all.

They ate breakfast together every morning and avoided each other until dinner, and dressed up together to go out in public, and slept in separate beds and it worked just fine for almost two years, worked just fine until Sunset had decided to take it all a step further.

Tony stripped to his waist in front of the mirror, folding his torn shirt and disheveled vest carefully since it was the only clothes he had, and stared at the mess he had made of his body.

The scars on his chest were thick and raised, some still red along the edges even after all these months. Smaller lines, branching off to the side where the stitches hadn’t held right and ruined him even more. There was a long one that traveled from over his heart up to his bonding mark, the silvered imprint barely recognizable beneath the myriad of cuts across it.

Rhodey had been furious over it all-- furious that Sunset had been treating Tony so badly when he had been gone on a detail with his unit, furious that she had had Tony branded like property, furious that Tony had gone through such lengths to erase it. 

The Alpha had cried when he found Tony with the knife, bandaging him up and cursing under his breath and Tony had cried too, partly from the pain, partly from disbelief over how awful his life had become so quickly.

From marrying a beautiful if not aloof Alpha and trying to make the marriage work, to almost bleeding out in a hotel in St. Louis after having to be rescued from his own home by his best friend-- two years, and his life had gone to shit, and here they were less than a year later and he was in a shit situation all over again.

Tony grimaced, touching gingerly over the mottled skin. 

The only upside to hurting himself so badly was that now there was no evidence of Sunset’s claim on him anywhere on his body. Not the mating bite on his neck, not the family crest she had inked over his sternum. Nothing physical was left of her, and that was worth the pain he had put himself through.

“It's too bad really.” Tony startled badly when Sunset spoke from behind him, and when he lowered his brows in confusion, she held up a key in the mirror. “I have a key to every room and closet on this train, Omega, surely you didn’t think something like a locked door would keep me out.”

Tony set his jaw, and didn’t answer, reaching for his clothes to try and cover back up.

“It’s too bad.” she said again, gaze not even flickering as she watched him put the torn shirt back on. “How ugly you are now, I mean. No more sheer insets and low cut tops for you, hm? You’ll have to wear all those horribly boring clothes the spinsters wear, buttoned to your neck and all that.”

“Tell me, Sunset.” Tony’s fingers were shaking as he buttoned his vest, but his voice was steady. “Why did you feel the need to brand me?”

“Why not?” She shrugged carelessly. “You are mine and I wanted everyone to know it. Everyone was surprised that I didn’t brand you on our wedding night, but I thought it would be a little much for you just then.” Her lips twisted in smirk. “You’re welcome.” 

“The mating bite wasn’t branding enough?”

“Well, now if you’d like me to be completely honest.” Another smirk and Tony’s heart sank a little. “I thought you and that Rhodey were fucking behind my back and I wanted him to have to stare at my mark every time he took your shirt off. If it also reminded you to keep your mouth shut--” a flare of red in her eyes. “--when you felt the need to talk about my business, then all the better.”

“You thought Rhodey and I--” Tony gripped at the edge of the sink. “Not ever. Rhodey is my best friend, and beyond that, I wouldn’t ever cheat on my mate, no matter how--”

“No?” The Alpha cut him off, cocked her head to the side. “Then why did I hear him telling you multiple times that he would bond with you and take you away from me?”

“Because he knew I wasn’t happy.”

“And why does that Alpha Sheriff stare at you like he’s had you, hm?” she snarled under her breath. “Have you been sharing yourself with the Sheriff, little Omega? It’s cheating whether you’re stuck on his knot or down on your knees!” 

Tony flinched away and her eyes glittered. “Want to take back your passionate declaration about never cheating?” 

The Omega didn’t answer and after a moment, Sunset shrugged that particular part of the conversation away and motioned towards Tony’s chest. “Anyway, even though you managed to cover it, any Alpha who sees you naked will know you belong to someone else just because of the scars. Honestly, Omega, what were you hoping to accomplish? Erasing a physical mark doesn’t change the fact that I can use an Alpha command and as my mate, you have to obey it. What good did mutilating yourself do?”

“I almost died, you know.” He whispered, and she made an unimpressed noise. “The tattoo wasn’t cleaned properly and I got an infection while you were off working a business deal. I nearly died.”

“But you didn’t, did you?” She frowned. “I heard all about it, you know, how Rhodey showed up out of nowhere to save you, though carrying you from the house was a tad dramatic don’t you think? You would have been fine if you’d stayed long enough to see a doctor.”

“And if I hadn’t been fine?” Tony stared at her in the mirror. “Would you have grieved? Is there anything in you that cares about me at all? That ever cared about me? I know we were arranged, but I cared for you a great deal until--”

“You’re sweet, Tony.” she interrupted. “Sweet and pretty and wealthy. Well spoken, well educated-- you have every quality that a desirable Omega should. Our times in bed together were pleasant, and there is no reason why our marriage couldn’t have continued on the way it was, affection or no affection between us. If you had been a good mate and--”

“A good mate?” Tony threw his hands up in the air. “You were planning to hurt people! To probably kill people, or at the very least destroy their lives to get what you wanted, and you expected me to be quiet about it? Why would I ever--”

“A good mate would have trusted his Alpha’s decisions!” she snarled. “You-- You were always poking your nose where it didn’t belong and ruining things! Tiberius and I worked for months to secure that deal and--”

“You would have destroyed an entire Indian community!” Tony shouted. “Damming that river would have flooded the valley! You would have destroyed them for a little bit of money and to give some rancher water rights! I will not have the Stark name--my name--attached to anything like that!”

“But it wouldn’t be your name attached to the project, would it?” Just that quickly, Sunset’s voice dropped to a quiet, dangerous, register. “It would be mine. Because with that brand on you, you are no longer a Stark, you are Sunset Bain’s mate and Sunset Bain’s property and you wouldn’t have a choice, would you, little Omega?”

Tony was silent, clenching his fists and turning away.

“Such a spiteful Omega.” she mocked. “So fiery about what you think is right that you would ruin your own mate in the process, because what? I didn’t fawn over you like the other Alphas? Because I wasn’t enamored with your intelligence and quick wit? Were you jealous that I preferred female Omegas, is that why you tried so stop all of it?”

“No.” Aware that he couldn’t win the fight, not with the way she twisted her logic and used his words against him, Tony shook his head, backed down. “No, it wasn’t because I was jealous.”

“You’re sure?” she prompted. “Because I would have been more than willing to spend some time with you. All you had to do was ask, you know. You are such a prideful little thing, won’t even ask your Alpha to hold you.”

“Right. I had to ask my Alpha for any and every sign of affection, any and every touch.” He nodded wearily. “I remember.”

Tony went to push past her, but the Alpha straightened until she filled the doorway, a hand at his shoulder so he couldn’t move away.

“Omega.” she murmured, sweetly, softly, and Tony was instantly on guard at the change in her tone.. “How about we make a deal, you and I?”

“....A deal?”

“Mmmm.” she nodded, running her fingers through his hair. “What if you come home with me for the winter, no more than six months? And if by the time spring comes, we haven’t learned to love each other I’ll let you go, and you can come running back West to play school teacher again.”

“Wh-What?” Tony knew better than to trust her, not after everything she’d done. “What do you mean?”

“Six months, darling.” she crooned. “That’s all. Give me the chance to be a good Alpha for you, to treat you the way I should have treated you all along. I have no money, so I won’t be involved in any dealings you don’t like. I know Tiberius makes you uncomfortable, so I won’t let him near us at all. We can go to your favorite concerts, we can take carriage rides through the park, we can spend the evenings reading in your library….”

Tony didn’t answer, still unsure of what she was trying to say.

“Your heat will come on, being with me again.” Sunset added, and rumbled coaxingly, “Needy Omega, don’t you miss me taking care of you when you want me the most? I’d be good to you darling, so good to you.”

He still didn’t reply and she sighed again, pressing her palm over the ravaged mark on his neck. “And if after all that, if after six months you still don’t want me, you will be free to go. It would break my heart, but I’d let you go if that's what it took to keep you happy.”

The Alpha leaned in and kissed his forehead, ignoring the way the Omega tensed and tried to pull away. “Don’t break my heart, my mate, hm?”

She left without another word, and Tony sagged against the door frame, folding his arms to try and calm his trembling, mind racing as he tried to process everything she had said.

Six months around his mate would bring his heat on because regardless of their emotional estrangement or marital issues, his biology was still very closely linked to hers. The heat would no doubt be stronger than usual, especially after not having one for a while, his body desperate to make a connection and his risk of pregnancy would be--

Oh.

OH. She wants a baby.

Tony’s knees gave out and he slid to the floor.

A baby meant that he could never leave, because he wouldn’t ever leave his child to be raised without him and Sunset knew it. He would be effectively trapped at her side, linked in an irreversible way and worse-- worse than even that-- any children they had would be automatically entitled to any and all money Tony had, all the properties, his businesses, his patents, everything.

As Alpha of the family, Sunset would control her mate, her children, and have access to everything they owned, to do with as she pleased, and once she had it, there would be no reason for Tony to be around at all.

In a flash of realization, Tony knew why she had never been tried to deepen their relationship, to be anything more than roommates sharing a home and occasionally a bed.

He was a tool, a footnote in her plan, a step to getting her everything she wanted, and once she had everything, he would be useless. Disposable.

His stomach twisted violently, and Tony scrambled for the toilet so he could be sick.

I’m disposable.

I’ve always been disposable.

******************

******************

Steve, Sam and Clint left Wildrock and ran the horses as fast as they could for as long as they could, tearing across the country while there was still daylight to see.

They found the rail lines exactly where Pepper said they would, and took off down the line for as long as possible, only stopping when darkness fell and it was too dangerous for the horses to continue.

They built a fire and laid out bed rolls, wiped the animals down and gave them extra to eat before trying to settle in for a few hours of sleep.

“Are we going to talk about how unexpectedly amazing Ms. Potts is?” Clint asked as he put his mat out next to Sam’s. “Because I gotta say, staggeringly wealthy, prim and proper and gorgeous, and a little blood thirsty? I might be in love.”

Sam grinned over at his mate as he warmed some dinner over the fire. “I was a little surprised, sure. I knew she owned a lot of land, but I didn’t realize she owned all the land. Weird to realize a woman who would blow away with a stiff breeze is probably the most powerful person this side of the States.”

“And Happy?” Clint pressed. “He’s a blacksmith! Huge! Dirty! Loud! And they’re in love? How!?”

“I think it’s cute.” The Alpha shrugged. “Opposites attract, right? Worked with us, didn’t it?”

“Because I’m beautiful and you’re not?” Clint nodded wisely. “I agree.”

“Brat.” Sam tossed a pebble at his mate. “You are beautiful.”

“So are you.” Satisfied with their sleeping arrangements, Clint joined Sam at the fire and bussed a kiss onto his cheek. “Gorgeous Alpha.”

“Come here.” On edge after everything that had happened, after finding out about Tony, after the shoot out, after the desperate dash to try and catch the train, Sam needed his mate close, needed to breathe him in and know that he was safe, so he pulled Clint into his lap and cuddled him tight.

“I’m right here.” Instinctively knowing what the Alpha needed, Clint mouthed along the silvered mating bite on Sam’s neck, purring and trilling comfortingly. “I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere, I’m safe, no one’s going to take me away.”

“I know.” Sam breathed in Clint’s scent, nuzzling at his cheek. “I know you are. Still need to hold you though.”

They sat quietly for a few minutes, reaffirming their bond with gentle touches and soft words until Steve joined them at the fire, spreading the map out on the ground and taking out a pencil to start mapping their route out for the next day.

“Steve?” Sam spoke up when Steve didn’t say anything. “Alright?”

No answer from the big Alpha, and Sam turned his mate around in his lap until they could both see Steve, fixing the Sheriff with a knowing look. “You’re not alright, are you? Worried about Tony?”

No answer.

“Steve, he’s fine. Thanks to Pepper’s map we found the track before the sun went down and she told us there’s so many switch backs that as long as we go straight as the crow flies, we should meet or even beat the train as it pulls into Littlehill.” Clint said confidently. “Day after tomorrow at the latest, don’t stress about it Sheriff.” 

Steve didn’t look up from the map and Sam clicked his tongue. “That’s not what’s bothering you, is it? You know we will catch up with him, so what’s the problem?”

Clint whined sympathetically, and Steve tilted his head towards the noise with an anxious growl.

“Oh.” Sam’s eyes softened with understanding. “I see.”

“What do you see?” Clint started to scoot off Sam’s lap, a hand held out cautiously towards Steve, a low purr vibrating in his throat. “Steve, you alright?”

“No, my mate.” Sam shook his head and dragged Clint back. “Stay away from him.”

“Sam--”

“Clint.” The Omega froze when his Alpha’s voice dropped. “Don’t.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Do you remember our bonding heat?” Sam nipped at his mate’s ear. “And I couldn’t be there when you started, I was a day late?”

“I remember it vividly.” Clint wiggled his ass invitingly just to hear his Alpha groan. “Why do you ask?”

“Because the day that I was away from you?” Sam nudged him to look over at Steve. “That’s what I looked like. I could barely talk, I couldn’t keep the red from my eyes, I couldn’t be around an Omega at all-- not even the mated one that owned the ranch we were chasing the rustlers from-- anytime she got within fifteen feet of me I was growling and starting to snarl and Steve and Bucky had to drag me away.”

“So Steve--”

“He was trying to tell Tony that he loved him, right? Or at least that they should move forward with everything, right? Before Colonel Rhodes showed up?” Sam closed his teeth over the bonding mark on Clint’s neck, digging in enough to make his mate groan. “And he never got the chance to tell Tony, because first it was Rhodes and then Tony didn’t want to want to be around anyone because he was so upset and then Sunset showed up and--”

“Oh.” Clint dropped his head back onto Sam’s shoulder, baring his neck so his Alpha would bite him again. “I see.”

“That’s an Alpha right there--” Sam lowered his voice. “That’s an Alpha who had every intention of claiming his mate, even if it was just with words, and he never got the chance and now his mate is being claimed by someone else. Taken away from him in the middle of the night and we’re running a desperate sort of race to hopefully find him?”

“He’s about to lose everything.” Clint finished. “Before he even ever had it at all.”

“Everyone rolls their eyes over the way Alpha’s choose a mate.” Sam wove his fingers into Clint’s short hair and tugged. “But when we know, we know. It doesn’t have anything to do with needing to get a knot off--” Clint giggled and Sam pinched him. “--it doesn’t have anything to do with that. It’s a soul thing, my mate, soul deep. When we meet the Omega that is meant for us, we know almost immediately.”

“It takes more convincing for us.” The Omega teased, and Sam nodded in agreement.

“And it should. I knew in an instant that you were meant for me, but you deserved to be wooed and courted and spoiled and loved before you made up your mind, and that’s the way it should be.”

“That’s an Alpha--” he looked back at Steve, nearly whispering now. “That’s an Alpha who knows who his mate is, and might never get the chance to even say it.”

“At least when I was away from you, driving myself mad with wanting to get back to you, needing to claim you, I knew you’d be there waiting for me.” The Alpha rumbled deep in his chest, standing to his feet and bringing his mate with him, drawing them away from the fire for some privacy. “I knew the minute I walked into the room you’d be anxious to see me, wanting me, needing me--”

Clint sucked in a harsh breath when his Alpha stripped off his shirt, tossing it onto the ground before lowering him down carefully. “I knew you loved me already, my sweet mate, I knew you inside and out and every single perfect inch and I knew you were mine whether I’d marked you yet or not.”

“But--But-- Steve doesn’t know if Tony will even--”

“No he doesn’t.” Sam sealed their lips together, working at his mate’s belt. “He doesn’t know how Tony feels, but he’s going after him anyway.”

“Would you do that for me?” Clint stretched out and smiled when the Alpha groaned in appreciation, heavy hands tracing the lines of his body like they’d done so many times before. “Chase me across the country even if you didn’t know how I felt?”

“Chase you across the country?” Sam laughed and rolled them so Clint was straddling him. “I'd tie you to a chair and not let you go until you told me you loved me!”

“So close to being so romantic.” Clint sighed dramatically and leaned down to lay a searing kiss on his mate’s lips. “And then you went and talked about tying me up.”

“You love to be tied up.” Sam eyes blurred red and even though Clint could barely see it, he could feel the change when the Alpha part of his husband surged forward in want. “Admit it.”

“I do love when you tie me up.” He breathed. “Alpha.” 

*******************

*******************

Steve didn’t really notice when Sam and Clint left the fire, and when the Omega cried out in pleasure somewhere in the dark, he didn’t bother looking up.

He stared down at the map on the ground, tracing the railroad track with his finger, then the path the horses would take with his pencil, shaking his head to try and clear the red from his eyes, forcing himself to breathe evenly, not letting himself think about what might be happening to Tony, if the Omega was being hurt or coerced or--or--

“I’m coming, Omega.” he whispered, but it came out as a snarl, desperate and brittle. “My Omega, I’m coming, sweetheart. Hold on for me.”

******************

******************

Even after months of dating, Happy hadn’t gotten used to just being able to walk into Pepper’s private parlor, so he rapped on the door and waited just outside the room for her to see him.

“Oh, hello darling.” The pretty red head looked up from her notebook with a smile and waved him in, lips turned up for a kiss he gladly gave. “I wasn’t sure if you would make it over today, not with the Sheriff and the others out of town.”

“I can’t stay long, have to get back to look after things.” Happy sat next to her on the dainty sofa, feeling large and clumsy and distinctly out of place until the Omega moved right onto his lap, snuggling against his chest and going right back to writing as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

“How are you?” Happy tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and left a gentle kiss at the base of her neck. “What are you writing?”

“I’m sending a telegram back East, and am just trying to get my message correct.” She shifted back further, and Happy wound a thick arm around her tiny waist. “Have I ever told you about my friend back home, the one all the families use to take care of problems?”

“The families?”

“The wealthy ones, my love. My family, the Starks, the Stanes, all those types. The old money. We all grew up together, you see, attending the same parties, the same finishing schools. Tony and I were particularly close when we were young, and even though we grew apart for several years, when he contacted me needing help, I couldn’t turn him down, could I?”

“No of course not.” Happy raised his eyebrows. “And, no you’ve never spoken of this… friend… before.”

“Hm.” She tapped her pencil on her lip as she thought about what else to put in her note. “Well, all the families are friends with another very specific family, have been for as long as anyone remember, and this very specific family is one who helps problems disappear, do you understand?”

“Problems.”

“Such as an unwanted suitor who won't take no for an answer and was getting violent, or someone who was sabotaging the business but couldn’t quite get caught by the law… that sort of thing. This specific family takes care of those sort of problems when no one else can.”

“I...see. And you’re writing them a letter?”

“Sunset Bain fell out of favor in society years ago.” Pepper signed the letter and put it aside. “Her business practices are shady at best, she has contacts in dear old England that are very worrisome, and that friend of hers, Tiberius? He was a slave trader when it was legal, and he is a slave trader now. In fact, I’m sure it's one of the things she uses her personal rail for and it's abhorrent.”

“So you are writing the family to have them deal with Sunset?”

“It should have been done years ago.” Pepper turned and curled into her Alpha’s arms, nuzzling close with a happy sigh. “And after I found out how she had treated Tony, I should have done it then, but I had no idea where she was. I tried to keep tabs on her after Tony came here, but none of my contacts could find her. Now that I know where she is, I’m messaging the family to connect with her in St. Louis and deal with the situation.”

“Huh.” Happy ran a hand up and down her back, tangling in a few strands of hair before sliding back to rest low on her hip. “And she will be dealt with properly?”

“In a rather permanent fashion, I’m sure. This friend is one of the most brutal I’ve ever met. He trained my body guards, did you know?”

“What’s this friends name?”

“I couldn’t tell you his real name.” The Omega laced their fingers together and started purring when Happy kissed her cheek. “But we call him Jarvis.”

“Jarvis? He sounds like a butler.”

“I suppose so, if a butler could kill you with a piece of paper and make your body disappear.”

“That’s… horrifying.”

“I saw him kill a man with a hatpin once.” She said mildly. “Some Alpha slapped a little Beta serving girl when she refused his advances, knocked her right down the stairs and nearly killed her, poor thing was in the hospital for a few days. The next day my family and I were in the park and the same Alpha came by. Jarvis appeared from behind a tree, snatched a hat pin from a woman’s hat, stabbed the Alpha in the jugular, and then wiped the hat pin clean and walked away without saying a word.”

“That doesn’t scare you?” Happy pushed at her lightly so he could see her expression. “Pepper if he didn’t hesitate to kill in front of you, how can you trust him to--”

“My sweet Alpha.” Pepper patted his cheek. “I might be beautiful but I am no fainting damsel. And if I ever see Sunset again, I might use my own hat pin to stab her. I’m sure whatever Jarvis will do will be quick and painless.”

“Well--”

“Or not.” Pepper yawned and pressed her nose to his shoulder. “Either way, Jarvis will take care of it, and Tony will be safe. Then I think I’ll take her little personal rail for my own use. Would you like that, darling? A private train for us to travel in? Think of the things we could do together when there is no one to hear how loud we are being.”

She was grinning, and Happy chuckled lightly, but his eyes were wide.

Blood thirsty little minx.

He wasn’t ever getting on her bad side.

*************************