#this took me so long to do SOBBB

[flakatita]

Panchito is the realest one

[nerves-nebula]

i scrolled through your Entire TM(N)T Tag and i simply adore it!!! as a kid i was a less intense version of leo (golden child) but i soon grew out of it and now i’m a lot more like mikey (craving violence) and it’s so interesting to see the two parts of myself coexist in separate people. if you wanna, could you expand on mikey and leo’s relationship and dynamics, both before and during the farmhouse arc? they just scratch my brain <3

(also sorry if the purple text is an issue tumblr won’t let me send it normally?? idk it’s [tumblr] lmao)

RIGHT SO!! buckle up cuz this gonna be a long one :P (part of the reason it took so long to answer sobbb. its too complicated so i kept putting it off)

before farm house:

Mikey found leo very frustrating, Leo got on his nerves with all his boasting and special treatment from Splinter. He also hated how Leo tended to boss them around after getting his Leader role. So Mikey tried to get on Leo's nerves as well (even if Leo wasn't doing anything to intentionally antagonize Mikey at that moment)

this means there's a lot of bad blood between the two, and they might be more antagonistic than is really warranted towards each other. this often ends up with Raph dealing with the brunt of Leo's frustration, cuz despite his anger, Leo wouldn't be able to justify attacking Mikey most of the time.

this is because Leo believes Splinter when Splinter rants to him about how disappointing his weaker siblings are. Leo doesn't think it would be fair of him to beat up on Mikey, even if he believes Mikey is lazy and rude and has no sense of self discipline. But Splinter always talks about how strong Raph is, so Raph is the one Leo feels ok with fighting. Leo fighting with Raph doesn't make Mikey like him any more, lol.

another aspect of their relationship is their competitiveness. Leo and Mikey are the most outgoing and competitive. A lot of raphs theoretical competitiveness has kind of been stripped from him in this iteration due to the sheer amount of stress and responsibility he's been given. it's kind of hard for him to have fun pretending a video game is super important when the slight stress of that makes him feel like he's in a life or death situation. Raph can have fun playing a game, but he'll drop it like a hot coal if it gets too stressful. And Donnie is just generally conflict avoidant, so competitive games aren't great for him.

So Mikey and Leo really only have each other to compete against, the others might tag along in whatever game they've devised but most of the time it's really just Mikey and Leo competing against each other. but since they also have a very REAL rivalry/grudge against each other, these competitions and games can get a bit out of hand or a bit too serious.

a third thing is that Mikey will often lose his temper and call Leo stupid. usually for believing in something Splinter told him. Leo finds this annoying because he sees it as Mikey lashing out because he's not as good as Leo. Cuz Leo's whole worldview is based around the hierarchy Splinter has built.

Meanwhile, Mikey is irritated that Leo can "fall for" Splinters abuse tactics so easily- mind you mikey is a bit more emotionally intelligent than his brothers, so it's not really their fault. but imagine how frustrating it is to see someone you love fall for textbook manipulation over and over. And then act horribly towards you because of something that YOU WARNED THEM AGAINST BELIEVING!!

like that's not really how manipulation works, and they're all kids so its not entirely Leo's fault, but it's hard not to resent someone when you see that the reason it works so well on them is because they benefit from it. it's hard not to feel like they value that privilege more than they value you.

shredder arc (leading into the farm house):

So by this point, Mikey's kind of tried more to be less outwardly cruel to Leo, since he's now gone through Leo's mind and knows Leo is so manipulated that he doesn't even realize Splinter is abusing him. They fight a lot less in the years leading up to/before the farm house, since fighting enemies as a team had kind of forced them to trust and understand each other a lot more.

still, the events leading up to the farm house have kind of brought up old wounds- specifically, the split between Leo and his brothers. Leo spent months trying to convince his brothers that Shredder was evil. Mostly for selfish reasons, and in doing so was incredibly insensitive to Donnie and his other brothers pain at the realization that Shredder was, in fact, up to some suspicious shit. His brothers felt more at home with the foot clan than with Splinter, so they're really hurting, and they hate the idea of going home and having Splinter and Leo rub it in even more.

Donnie in particular feels like he just lost another chance at a better family, like he just brought his brothers into another trap, like no one would ever actually genuinely want to be his family. like he's stuck with splinter. forever. so he's (not for the first time) seriously suicidal. Which Raph and Mikey are concerned about, and Leo doesn't really get the seriousness of at first.

farm arc:

SOOO after Leo begged to be allowed to come to the farm house, things are tense. Leo now understands that his relationships with his bros are worse than he realized, and he needs to be on his best behavior around his brothers. He ends up treating all of them with the same level of deference he would treat splinter, which is really weird.

BUT THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT HIM AND MIKEY, SO TO GET BACK ON TRACK- Mikey kind of regresses back to being more childish, trying to get a rise out of Leo, which doesn't work at first. he does eventually end up provoking Leo into snapping at him, and Mikey gets even more aggressive in response (because none of them are in a good headspace at the moment) basically saying that Leo will always be like this if he doesn't stop faking being a better person.

Leo is frustrated to the point of tears because he's exhausted from walking on eggshells for weeks and he can't figure out why Mikey won't just let him act the way he was told to act !! Eventually, after a few rough confrontations, Mikey manages to explain that they don't want Leo's submission or anything- they just want him to be LESS MEAN ALL THE TIME. which includes un-learning what Splinter has told Leo about his brothers.

and, even more important than that, includes Leo talking about his own feelings. AND EVEN MORE IMPORTANT THAN THAT!! includes Leo accepting that Splinter isn't always right and has, in fact, REALLY HURT his brothers!!

and this is a lot, but it mostly only happens because Mikey is willing to try (in his own messy, imperfect way) to confront Leo. Donnie is too emotionally hurt to do anything but dissociate and run away, and Raph doesn't have the energy to try to facilitate change within the family this way. He can help the discussions progress, and help the turtles communicate with each other, but Raph doesn't have the emotional will to force Leo to take that first big emotional step.

after farm house:

funny enough, their competitive nature facilitates a lot of camaraderie with each other once they stop treating each other as ONLY adversaries. they can safely be aggressive in a joking way with each other, they can compete without any hurt feelings, it's pretty nice. Leo also feels comfortable asking Mikey for his opinion on stuff, cuz he knows Mikey won't sugar coat things too much.

there are a lot of small issues they gotta deal with every now and then though. for example, Mikey's habit of irritating Leo led to a bit of transphobia growing up. Not because Mikey had transphobic ideas of gender (he's agender himself, he never really understood gender and never will) but because he noticed it irritated Leo and he was a kid and didn't understand the rhetoric he was parroting.

so a lot of Leo's internalized transphobia doesn't just come from Splinter, but also from his brother, who he lives with. and that's rough.

and the way that Leo will still catch himself either implying, thinking, or straight up just saying that he thinks Mikey is dumb. even if he 's saying it in an offhanded way like "lol your so stupid" it's still really hurtful to Mikey, who was told his entire childhood that he was dumber and lazier than his siblings, and that's why he didn't matter. it bothers Mikey a lot more than most of them realize and takes Mikey a while to voice his discomfort, because he feels like even being insulted by it is, in and of itself, trivial and dumb.

but outside of those unfortunate issues, they get along really well! Mikey encourages Leo to indulge in silliness more.

SOOO thats the gist of things. i think.

[witchqueenofthemoon]

BODY AND SOUL Part 3 (Duncan Shepherd/Mackenzie Stone Millory AU)

BODY AND SOUL MASTERPOST

Author’s Note: Y’all, wow, your response to this fic is continually amazing, THANK YOU SO MUCH. I feel so inspired to continue with it, I plowed through this part as soon as we got back from Brooklyn today. Despite my dislike for DC (I’ve spent a lot of time there and it drives me nuts) I’m becoming an expert in high-end DC businesses (tailors, florists, restaurants) thanks to this fic! There’s a lot of logistic details I needed to get through in this part, so pardon its plottiness, I PROMISE we are getting back to the smut very soon. Madeline Stone, Mackenzie’s mom, a character I invented for this fic, is basically Carrie Fisher if she were a journalist (and still alive :’( sobbb) in my eyes, so think of her as Carrie, visually and temperamentally. I think I’ll keep switching between POVs as the fic goes on, so Part 4 will be from Kenzie’s perspective, 5 from Duncan’s, etc etc. Wait till you see what Duncan’s gonna do with all those roses.

Duncan stared from the window of the backseat of his private car, out onto the National Mall where Sunday tourists were snapping photos of the Washington monument with their smartphones, children screaming and running, blue sky mirroring his blue gaze, clouds skirting over the bright May sunlight, clouds passing over his eyes; the clouds of his thoughts, the darkness of them, whirling in his mind. 

He still felt dizzy and disoriented from the last 15 or so hours; felt the cold quelling in his heart that he couldn’t push down entirely, trying to convince him that Mackenzie had indeed been a very vivid, very beautiful, very soft figment of his imagination. He stretched his fingers absently, longingly, trying to trap the memory of the feeling of her small hand in them; trying to recall as clearly as he could the soft ache of her lips against his mouth. God, if only he could bottle feelings into tight containers, safe and hidden to open when he wished to breathe them into his lungs; if only memories, however recent, could be recalled into reality whenever you wanted them to be. He wanted to recall every tiny detail of her; her cascading, shimmering hair, her impossibly deep eyes with their long lashes, her small mouth and her dazzlingly sincere smile, her throat with its quartz, the jewels of a goddess, the round hardness of her nipples in his lips, the sweet scent of her down between her thighs, the ridges of the outline of her ribs under his hands, a map he wanted to memorize in minute exhaustion.

He thought of her wearing his tee shirt, the fall of her damp hair over her shoulder, the way she stared at her plate, a light blush on her cheeks, her look of doubt as she stared into his eyes, disappointment and sadness flickering there as she stood up, saying she would leave; he thought of how his heart had lept in his chest in horror at the thought; the idea of her leaving, of her vanishing into the void of the world when he’d finally just found her this way, when he had held her in his arms so entirely, had made him want to scream. He would have begged her to stay if need be; would have gone on his knees and kissed her fingers and fucking begged. The knowledge of this shook him to the core; when and how and whereby could this small gold goddess, stepped out of the ether itself it seemed, make him feel so entirely unraveled, unhinged? He shook his head lightly, closing his eyes, bringing his hand up to his chin and over his lips again, the way he always did when he was troubled in thought, lost in confusion. He didn’t know how, he didn’t understand any of this, but he knew one thing: he knew he couldn’t wait to see her tonight, the thought of seeing her again was bringing that warm-water-over-a-glass-cascading-into-a-black-hole feeling into his veins again, filling him up, causing his nerves to tingle, the back of his skull to vibrate with sensitivity. He felt overwhelmed in the feeling; the memory of their bodies pressed together in ecstatic sensation, that hidden brightness inside her eyes, her voice moaning his name, her little mouth around his cock, god, god, Mackenzie.

Madeline goddamnfuckingshitfuck Stone’s daughter.

He still couldn’t believe that; it was as if there were a brick wall in his mind that was preventing it from really settling, really sinking in. Annette Shepherd and Madeline Stone had once been classmates at Georgetown University; but it wouldn’t be accurate to have ever called them friends. While Annette had chosen the path of power wherever she could find it, Madeline had channeled all her energies into journalism and feminist theory, earning her a Pulitzer at 23; a feat that gained her worldwide notoriety and a permanent position with the Washington Post, a position she’d kept through a pregnancy (Mackenzie, Duncan thought, hand still wrapped around his chin, and his mind moved unbidden to the feeling of her velvet dress under his fingers, the dip of her neck between his lips, the moans of ecstasy falling from her lips as his mouth worked at her clit), two divorces, bipolar disorder, and a benign lump in her breast.  Madeline Stone was un-fuck-withable, had written candid bestselling memoirs about her mental health struggles and her failed marriages and love affairs, as well as two bestselling books on feminist theory that were now considered essential literature in college women’s studies courses. She was a hero of modern feminism; a powerful force in Washington, as revered a figure as Gertrude Stein, a hero to millennial women. 

And oh, how Annette Shepherd hated her. “Fucking Medusa,” she’d called Madeline once in Duncan’s presence, the words slipping between her teeth in a hiss. “High on her femdom shit looking down on the rest of us. A thorn in my fucking side, splashing her harlotry all over my fucking city.” Stone and his mother had had several very public arguments on C-SPAN and CNN; in one, Madeline had called Annette “an absolute viper of white, privileged, colonizing complicity,” the clip of which had made the rounds on YouTube to the tune of 1 million views when Annette had stormed out in a fury.

He imagined the look of cold shock on his mother’s face at the theoretical admission from him that he had slept with Madeline Stone’s daughter last night; imagined the blood draining from her cheeks and the twist of her mouth if she knew a modicum of the truth of his thoughts. Those thoughts were still swirling in his head, glowing and fervent and warm and tender, thoughts that pulsed with longing, with desire. If Annette Shepherd knew that not only had her son and Madeline Stone’s daughter fucked each other’s brains out last night in a frenzy of lust, but that her son, her fierce pride and joy, whom she trusted implicitly and demanded complete loyalty from, was, dare he say it, dare he even think it, already, somehow, insanely, and with total abandon, falling hopelessly in love with Madeline Stone’s fucking daughter.

“God fucking damn it,” he muttered, biting his lip. “Fuck me.”

“Okay,” the memory of Mackenzie’s voice rang in his ears, echoing through the recent past, her invisible lips brushing his ear. “I’ll fuck you, baby. I’ll fuck you so good.”

He shivered, the fine hairs on the back of his neck tingling and standing on end, goosebumps rising on his arms under his immaculate black cashmere sweater. He hooked a finger around the band collar of the perfectly ironed shirt under the sweater, feeling too hot. God damn, but I really don’t care deep down, I really don’t, still. Even if Mom started to spit fire. I don’t think I could stop. I have to see her again. What’s happening to me? Who is this girl, how am I feeling this way? God, I need a drink. What the fuck time is it?

He glanced at his watch; today it was the round black Movado he usually wore on regular days. 11:24 AM. He was shocked to see his hands were shaking a little; the bourbon and too much coffee, he insisted to himself. But he thought of her mouth again, her soft little hands on his cock, and he knew better.

He thought back on how they’d parted.

--------

He’d thrown her underwear into his silver, round Miele dryer; it took an average of ten minutes for it to dry practically anything, but for the first time since he’d bought it he wished it would dry slower; he had hated to stare at the thought that soon she’d be leaving, the smell of her lingering on his old Led Zeppelin tee, vetiver, geranium, roses, the heady smell of her already ground into the lining of his skin, haunting, bittersweet. She’d gone back into his room while he was at the dryer, slipped on her little velvet dress, her hair mostly dry now; he noted with a sad, low thump of his heart that the tee she’d worn was folded neatly on his nightstand as he went into the bedroom, gazing over her and the bed where they’d embraced so unforgettably a few short hours before, gold light all over her body, and he’d gone up behind her as she leaned to fix the hem of her little dress, wrapping his arms around her hips, bringing his hands up tenderly around her arms, pressing his face into the crook of her ear and jaw. She had sighed; the sound of it slinging bursts of light along every nerve of his body.

“Give me your phone number; please?” He’d reached his head forward a little, lips brushing her cheek, which was cool and smelled of the jasmine soap from his shower. She’d let out a little burst of a laugh, a sort of ha!, as if at the silly reality that they had been wildly intimate and didn’t have each other’s phone numbers yet; he silently agreed that modern life was constantly bizarre, but didn’t move his arms from her body; he felt loathe to.

“I’ll leave it on the nightstand with a receipt for my fee,” she joked.

“You know, I should have known you were Madeline’s daughter. She can’t stand to be serious either.”

Her elbow jabbed him softly in the stomach and he let out a little choke of laughter. She turned around, her face held up to him, the sunlight glowing around her head from his tall bedroom windows, dark damask curtains pushed aside, like a halo, this angel, angel baby, his mind murmured in a rush, and he was struck with a terrible tender feeling of longing; their lips connected, soft, suddenly reverent; and Duncan felt as though the air was abruptly sucked away from the sphere of matter that surrounded them. I could kiss this girl forever, forfuckingever, everlasting, his hand came up and buried itself in her hair again, holding her mouth against him, insistent. And he was overwhelmed again, again, again.

“Let me give you one of my jackets to wear home,” he had insisted. “It’s chilly today.”

She had smiled sweetly at him, her hand coming up to her mouth absently, biting her nail shyly. “I don’t need to, Duncan--”

“I want you to. I want you to wear my jacket. Please?”

She’d nodded, the blush spreading over her cheeks, and he wanted to cover her face with tender kisses, he ached to hold her face in his hands again, but he resisted with all his might; she might not want to be touched so much, and he was loathe to do anything she didn’t want. God, she looked so beautiful in this light; ethereal in a way that was different from the night before, like a Bouguereau to last night’s golden Waterhouse; he imagined flowers in her hair suddenly, imagined her dancing with sunlight on her shoulders, and he felt lost in her, speechless, thoughtless, struck dumb at her wondrousness.

He’d wrapped a black wool Brooks Brothers’ cardigan around her small shoulders; his favorite cardigan, he silently admitted to himself, warmth pooling in his mind, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Thanks, this is lovely,” she’d whispered, and he loved how big it was on her small frame, loved the way its hem fell behind her knees, the arms falling past her fingers, enveloping her.

“Let me get your underwear,” he’d whispered with a mischievous grin, and she’d smiled and nodded, her little fingers playing with the zipper on his hoodie. He’d brought them back to the bedroom to her with her clutch which he’d retrieved from the floor by the front door where she’d discarded it the night before in their passionate distraction; he turned away modestly as she stepped into the panties, but he felt her hand on his arm and turned back around; she roughly pulled his face down to hers, her tongue slipping into his mouth, thrilling him, and she had said “Duncan, you’re wonderful,” and he’d shook his head a little without pulling his mouth away, whispering “fuck, Mackenzie, you fucking are,” into her. She pulled away and he felt empty and too full at once, leaning toward where she had been, and he saw the way her eyes glinted with approval, happy with his obvious want.

“Phone numbers.”

She’d taken his sleek black iPhone from his hands, swiftly opening his contacts and typing in a new entry with fast fingers; she turned it around and presented it to him, that luminescent smile playing around her mouth; Kenzie Stone, she’d typed, digits below. “Kenzie,” he verbalized. “I love that.”

“I’d call you Dunc, but I don’t know if it has quite the same ring,” she giggled, and he was lost again for a moment in her dancing gaze. He laughed; he saw her grin widen. She liked to make him laugh, and that invisible hand squeezed around his heart again. He pressed the ‘call’ button; Mackenzie unbuttoned her clutch and pulled her phone out (which was on silent, though Duncan could see it vibrating in her hand), smiling at the phone number on her screen. “Infamous Playboy and Cutthroat Duncan Shepherd,” she said aloud as she typed, hiding the face of her phone from him; he snorted and pushed it down to gaze at what she’d written; just “Duncan Shepherd”, thankfully. “I’m not a fucking playboy,” he said, hand coming up to her arm, pulling her close with just a hint of roughness. “You have a fuck shower,” she countered, smirking, gold rings dancing in her hazel gaze, her sweet breath grazing his neck as he pressed her to him. 

“Well, thank god for that, now that you’re here,” he hummed, mouth hovering over hers, relishing the softness of her skin under his grip. “That investment finally seems to have been worth it.” He captured her mouth, hand holding her neck gently once more, and she seemed to melt into him and the sun emerged from behind a cloud in that moment and bathed them in radiant splendor, a heavenly glow akin to the brilliance of daylight skewed in stained glass and there with her wrapped in his arms beside his bed, he thought this moment could be my last and I’d die happy, here with you, Mackenzie Stone.

-------

“Can I pick you up at 9?” He’d asked, an uncharacteristic shyness creeping into his words again, still taking him off guard though it had happened so often over the past 12 hours, his hand coming up behind his curls, absent-mindedly, self-consciously. He suddenly felt like he was 16 again, asking a girl to prom, but with a whole undercurrent of intensity that prom never brought on to any teenager in all human time; the weight of destiny was pressing on his psyche, he could feel it, and it was intoxicating and terrifying. “It’ll be my private car.” She was stepping into her strappy heeled sandals, about to lean down to tie them again when he kneeled to her as he had last night, wrapping them expertly around her tiny ankles, tying them in double-knots. He looked up at her from where he knelt before her, and he could see the reticent rosiness of her expression as she gazed down on him there, a sort of satisfied apprehension in her eyes. I’d do this for you every day, he thought. I’d kneel to you always.

“Okay, sure,” she said, her quiet voice ringing across his immaculate wood floors and stone countertops and in the empty space of his penthouse, filling it with her energy. “Yes.”

“Kenzie,” he said.

“Duncan,” she replied, her hands fumbling against her clutch, nervously.

He stood up, his height towering over her once more, her small frame outlined against his much larger one, and he thought of the way she fit against him, folded into his arms, the feeling of their bare skin against each other, a haze of desire washing over him again.

“I can’t wait to see you again. This has been…”

“So amazing,” she finished, boldness bleeding into her eyes as she looked up at him. “This was so wonderful.”

“Yes.” His hands found one of hers, grasping it tightly, reluctant to release her. “I feel exactly the same way. I...I don’t think anyone has ever made me feel this way before. You’re--”

She’d hushed his mouth with a hot, fervent, lightning-quick kiss. His words had bled into a groan into her, and he’d tried to grasp her, but she’d flitted away from him then, out the door, and she was running down the hall to where the elevator flew open to receive her, as if by some strange magic, and she’d called out “I’ll see you tonight, Duncan Shepherd,” over her shoulder, and oh, fuck, how his heart had ached to see her go, his cardigan wrapped around her, her hair shining in the warm light of the hall, the smell of her lingering all over him with a terrible ache, and he felt a breeze that seemed to come from nowhere fall over him; the wind of fate, closing in, claiming its prey.

-------

Duncan’s driver pulled up to his mother’s opulent four-story home, the vast Colonial-esque mansion he’d grown up in, and he pressed a deep, apprehensive breath out of his lungs, hands raking along his thighs. His mother was good at needling his moods out of him without him saying anything; clearly she would notice his strange temperament and question him about it. He needed to steel his nerves against Annette Shepherd’s almost supernatural second-sight.

“Samuel, I won’t be long,” he said to his driver, a handsome older black man of indecipherable age with a shiny bald head and a closely-cropped white beard and rectangular glasses. Samuel had been working for the Shepherds for over 30 years; he was faithfully discrete, as any employee of the Shepherd family was required to be. Duncan trusted him implicitly.

“Right, Mr. Shepherd,” Samuel replied, staring at him through the rear-view mirror. “Are you feeling alright today, Mr.Shepherd?” Samuel was unfailingly loyal, but he was also extremely observant. Duncan hesitated. Samuel had the night off yesterday; hence Duncan arriving at and leaving (with Mackenzie, oh Kenzie) the party via Uber. He wondered how much he should tell Samuel about her. He’d have to say something; they’d be picking her up tonight, after all.

“I met someone.”

He saw Samuel’s eyebrows raise in the mirror, a small smirk coming into the corner of his mouth.

“Oh, now. When do I get to meet them?” Samuel was aware that Duncan had had intimate relationships with other men before--a fact Annette still was not factually aware of, though he sometimes wondered if she knew and just didn’t want to acknowledge it-- and Duncan silently appreciated the discretion of his word choice. His bisexuality was one of those things Samuel was silent as the grave to his mother about, though he knew its reality quite well.

“Her. Tonight. I made reservations for Le Diplomate. And I need to stop at English Rose Garden after I’m finished with Mom.”

He could see Samuel grinning at him, his happiness and interest immediately obvious.

“Whatever you need, Mr. Shepherd. I look forward to meeting her.”

“Samuel...she’s wonderful.”

“I can tell that much just by looking at your face.”

“Believe me, anything I say would not be enough to describe her. Just wait.”

He opened the car door, taking a deep breath again. Into the lion’s den.

He quickly ascended the three wide front steps and turned the embossed gold knob, stepping through one of the opulent double doors that led into the entrance hall of the Shepherd mansion; “Mom?” he called into the house, eyes searching. “Mom, where are you?”

“Up here, Duncan,” he heard her silky voice call; he took the winding white staircase with its familiar gold-lined banisters (the left side of which he’d crashed off of when he was five years old, breaking one of his front teeth) two at a time, towards where he knew the exercise room off her office was; as he entered the room she glanced up from where she was walking quickly on her Peloton, sweat glistening from her forehead, her perfect hair swatting from side-to-side in an impossibly neat ponytail. She hit a button to slow the machine down, stepping off it with a sigh; grabbing a white towel slung over the side, pressing it to her slender neck.

“So, what do you have for me, darling?” She asked expectantly.

“Senator Howell will do everything in his legislative power to press the bill through, but of course, it’s Claire who we have to press hardest once it gets to her,” he replied in clipped, business-like tones, the kind she preferred he use with her, the kind she’d taught him to use for leverage since he was in middle school. “Uncle Bill can do more there than I can, but you know that.”

He bit his lip; a vision of Kenzie’s eyes had passed through his mind, and he rubbed his hands together absently, his right thumb pressing into the palm of his left hand to quell any shake that tried to threaten his voice.

Annette looked at him with satisfaction for a moment, and then her eyes clouded with concern--concern for the bill no doubt, Duncan thought bitterly, she thinks my obvious discontent has something to do with that, not with the angel who fell into my bed last night.

“What is it, Duncan. Tell me.”

“It’s nothing. I just didn’t get as much information out of him as I wanted, that’s all. I wanted confirmation of all of his PAC donors, but he only gave me two.”

She gazed at him and Duncan tried to keep his expression neutral. His mother was just too damn good at getting things out of him. He was reminded of a time when he was a boy when he’d stolen Valium from her purse and had lied to her when she had asked, though he knew that she knew he’d taken it. The dark cloud that went over her expression was one he’d never forgotten; you either told Annette Shepherd the truth or you paid dearly. His mother never hit him; her anger was far deeper than that, her grudges unshakable and unrelenting. He’d learned that day that it simply wouldn't do to lie to his mother. And yet here he was, on the edge of doing so for the first time since he was a child.

She seemed to be about to ask him something else, but her gaze shifted indecipherably, and she moved the conversation somewhere else; from what he couldn’t be sure, but he didn’t want to know. He hadn’t convinced her. She knew already he wasn’t telling her something.

“Fine. I’ll see that paunchy fuck at the Gala. I’ll make him tell me the rest. We have evidence of his mistress in Clarendon, but we only got confirmation last night after the party had already begun and I was tied up with the cable coverage. It’ll be the leverage we need. The bill will be on Claire’s desk by the end of the week for certain. Your uncle won’t accept anything less.”

Duncan rolled his eyes, “Oh, of course, because Bill Shepherd’s will is the will of God.”

“It might as well fucking be, Duncan.”

She looked at him strangely again, and Duncan tried to maintain his composure. His mother’s eyes had always made his blood run cold when she looked at him like that. His stomach turned over. Madeline Fucking Stone’s daughter.

“What are your plans tonight, dear?” She toweled her neck again, throwing it back over the side of the Peloton rail.

“I have some information to go over with Melody for the next show,” he rambled, “and I need to look over that report Seth was compiling.” More lies, he thought with a nervous edge. If she asks Seth about the report my cover’s blown, he gave it to me two days ago.

“Fine, dear. Let’s have dinner tomorrow. I miss my boy.” She came up to him, hands pressing into his shoulders, smiling her familiar smile, somehow both warm and terribly cold at once, her eyes two orbs of void, staring into him, deciphering him. Always knowing.

“Of course, Mom.” He leaned down to kiss her cheek, and he saw the strange expression come over her face again as he brushed against her. Oh god, she smells Mackenzie, he thought.

“That’s an interesting scent,” she murmured into his ear, unnerving him with her confirmation of his fears. “Vetiver, is it?”

“I’ve always liked it, thought I’d try something different.”

“I don’t think it suits you,” she replied in a low voice. The edge in her tone made a cold sweat break out under his shirt, clammy on his skin. She turned away, stepping back onto her Peloton, hitting a few buttons, putting her earbuds in, looking down to the screen, her attention sliding off him like water in that familiar way. He knew that was his cue to leave.

----

At the florist Duncan bought three dozen roses, dark red like the roses that had lined the balcony last night when he’d seen her standing there in her little black velvet dress, her hair shining like starlight, her face gazing into the distance like Artemis bathed in a pool of moonlight, surrounded by her does and hounds. He had an idea, and he was determined to get Kenzie to stay the night again tonight, any work to be done tomorrow in the cold grey light of Monday be damned. He would do anything and everything he could. He’d woo her for as long as it took. Kenzie, Kenzie, Kenzie, he thought in a daze, thought of her hands and her ankles wrapped in the heeled sandals, the curves of her hips (god, I got to see what they look like, they’re fucking gorgeous), the tiny crystals dangling from her ears, the delicate rise of her breasts, the hairless moisture between her legs in the glow of the lamplight over his bed.

His heart was shaking; god, this feeling was so strange, so different from anything he’d ever felt for another person before; now that she wasn’t in front of him in the flesh, he did truly fear he’d dreamt her. But the smell of her clung to him like a dream that he couldn’t shake off. Even his mother had smelled it. And oh no, his mother, who definitely knew he wasn’t telling her something. He didn’t know what in the fuck he’d do about that; he couldn’t imagine a scenario where his mother’s face wouldn’t take on the pallor of death. Madeline Stone. I fucked her daughter, I kissed her daughter’s neck and kissed her clit and I kissed her mouth two dozen times in rapture and I’m enchanted with her, I think I’m in love with her and I’m seeing her again tonight and I can’t think of anything else, she’s all I can think of, I want to call her right now and beg her to come to bed with me again, beg her to let me press my mouth into her body again, and I’m not fucking sorry, not sorry at all, not at all, at all--

“Samuel, Geoffrey Lewis please.”

“Of course, Mr. Shepherd.”

Tailoring was an area of comfort for Duncan. If his clothing was well-tailored, he felt more confident in everything. And he felt in dire need of courage tonight. The idea of seeing Kenzie again was filling his blood with a razor’s-edge of sensation, and everything had to be perfect. It had to be perfect because it was for her.

[amxndz-blog]

South China Normal University Team

Jinan University Team

  I procrastinated for so long before finally getting to this. I have been back from China for 3 days now and editing the pictures brings back great memories but I’m glad to be home! 🙂

Day 1    Our flight was scheduled at 8am which means we had to reach the airport at 6am for our group check-in. I took a GrabHitch at 5.30am, struggling to hold a conversation with the driver as I battle the Z-monster. All I could think about was “STARBUCKS SOY LATTE”. That morning I had also packed oats, bananas and cacao powder in an Adam’s Peanut Butter Jar. Little did I know, it was the last “healthy”/ “(purely) Vegan” meal I was going to have for the next 5 days. The warm oats with a tinge of chocolatey goodness mixed with the gooey leftover peanut butter that sticks to the roof of your mouth when you take a big bite made my morning so much better.

As a team, we checked-in our luggages and had time to kill. We settled at BurgerKing where some had their breakfast while Tin and I tried our luck on the Starbucks Goodie Grab. Tin, Bu and I shared a 2 for 1 promotion! We absentmindedly went for the Venti sized drinks which was a bad idea knowing that we had to board the plane in less than 15 minutes.. Our morning brain has not registered the fact till we arrived at the boarding gate with a Venti drink in hand, gulping down as much caffeine as we can. (Not a good idea, my stomach felt funny for the whole plane ride)

My very first (vegetarian) airplane meal was BeeHoon with Tofu and some vegetables. It was really delicious but the venti coffee was still sitting uncomfortably in my stomach. I also soon realised that I forgot to pack a book to entertain myself during the flight (3 hour 50 minutes) and I did not pre-download my Spotify playlist which meant I had ZERO songs to listen to. I alternated between sneakily playing iPhone games (they did not allow mobile phones to be switched on) and sleeping. I also played a few rounds of Big Two with Tin, Shan and Jing. My plane buddies, Bu and Yingjie (which will soon become my roomies for the next 4 nights) entertained me from time to time but we mostly slept.

Arriving at GuangZhou airport, we had to take a bus for an hour to reach Jinan University where we were greeted at the on-campus hotel by our exchange friends and teacher-in-charge(s).

Our hotel – the room with the blue shirt was ours

They blessed us with packet lunches which caught us by surprise because we each had 2 boxes (1 box of rice and 1 box of dishes). I on the other hand had 1 box of white rice topped with tomato and cabbage). The mountain of rice they provided was definitely a shocker to fellow Singaporeans.

Within an hour of resting and having lunch in our room, Yingjie wanted to leave the room to dispose of our lunch boxes but instead broke the door which left us in fits of laughter which echoed down the corridors. We tried to fix the door but to no avail. (We even thought of buying superglue/duct tape)

We then had a tour around their campus where we first visited the library which was huge and very spacious! The library was very technologically advance and the lady (I suppose she was a teacher) introduced us to the different rooms in the library but my command of mandarin left my interest in the hotel room. Next, we visited an on-campus history exhibit of Jinan University and surprisingly they were once located in Shanghai! (Semi Shanghainese pride because of Feng) It was only after 3 relocation that Jinan University is where it is today which I find so amazing!

They allowed us time to go back to our rooms to put our bags down but we decided that since our door broke, we would just wait on the rest. We then left for the Welcome Dinner. I cannot describe in words how generous the Chinese are! We had an almost 20 course dinner which consisted of prawns, chicken, mutton, coconut-chicken soup, and an abalone EACH. Obviously I had little to eat there but I was so filled with the delicious long grain brown rice with pumpkin, sweet potato and yam dish.

After dinner, we were able to visit the on-campus supermarket which sold SO MANY THINGS. Fruits were so cheap and there were so many interesting food items but I settled for a bunch of bananas and a 4.5 litre bottle of water.

Day 2   This day started early because we had training from 9am-11am. It was definitely too early to function.. They provided us with an indoor court which they painstakingly measured and stuck red tape on the floor to demarcate the court lines which they would then remove after our trainings. I am immensely grateful for their hospitality!!!

After training, with the lack of time, we had lunch in their campus canteen. I honestly, should be more grateful in the aspect of food, in no way am I complaining because some people do not even have the choice/opportunity to eat. BUT, well.. to the best of my ability I have tried so hard to stay Vegan. In China, it’s pretty much crazy to socialise and eat. They tell me the dish is fully-vegetarian BUT heck I ate minced meat and dried prawns which I then tried so hard to separate from the dish but probably failed… :’-( O WELL.

We then took went back to the sports hall for a friendly match between us and Jinan University Girls Team. I was still pretty disappointed with my performance.. it’s something about volleyball that I can no longer get. I just don’t know.

BUT HECK, DINNER WAS AWESOME. Since I was on a roll and had to “close-one-eye” for every meal.. we had Mala Xiang Guo. One picks ingredients and it gets weighed then stir-fried with Chinese spices according to the spice level. Tin and I shared a bowl and it was THE BEST THING EVER.

Our Mala Pot

That’s us being smelly in our jerseys!

Day 3  Training on this day was cancelled and we went for Dimsum instead. Another round of crazy eating and battling with sneaky meat. After which, Tin, Van and I spent quite a while in the arcade shop next to the Dimsum place. We raced cars, shot hoops and spent a fair bit of our time in the Mini K cubicle where 2 people put on earphones and can sing along karaoke style to the song of their choice.

We then had to walk 1.1km to a nearby mall which we found only when we “gave up” and wanted to cab back and settle for Starbucks but the Starbucks was connected to the mall we were looking for. It was not a mistake. We found our teammates in Miniso and…..

HAUL

HAUL

the rest was history.

Miniso was our go-to. We bought probably 90% of all their We Bare Bears merchandises and they were so worth it! We shopped till we forgot about the time and had to cab back to the sports hall where we collected our shoebags and boarded the chartered bus to another University for a friendly match.

For dinner this day, we had it at a restaurant called “Grandma’s Place”. Another meat battle which was lost. Initially, some of us intended to have Mala for supper but soon scraped the idea because every meal in China left us feeling SO FULL. We slowly made our way back to Jinan University and called it a night.

Day 4   REST AND RECREATION DAY. Van, Tin, Bu, Yingjie and I had breakfast at the same Dimsum place which was amazeballlls. (I grew numb to the sneaky meat..) We had so much to eat!

We then left to look for the rest. At the mall that they were in, there was Abercombie & Fitch but I stupidly forgot my associate card :’-( SOBBBS.

Taking the public train down to BeiJing Lu was a feat. If you ever think boarding the train in Singapore is difficult, think again. If you ever think that Bishan Platform is crowded during peak hours, THINK AGAIN. It was crazyyyyy and people were literally RUNNING to grab the next train so that they could board. Nonetheless, we managed and with no regrets because I had the best drink ever. I ordered a coconut milk with red bean after checking with the lady that no dairy was used.

We travelled by train to a massage parlour where Jia Le and I shared a room. it was her first time getting a massage. She was asking me how it was going to be like and I told her that usually the same gendered masseuse would be available but at that moment… 2 males came in. Shrugging it off thinking that every other pair had male masseuses as well, we laid down and had our massages amidst awkward conversations held in bad mandarin. it was only after did we realised that we were the only pair with males…. LUL

Dinner was across the road, the Mala restaurant we had on the second night. AMAZEBALLS.

fwens

walking the 1km

we tried on crazy dark lipsticks

Day 5   This day was mainly travelling and bidding our China friends goodbye :’-(.

Ah Jing

Ah Song

Their hospitality and generosity has definitely overcame all language barriers. They were amazing throughout that 5 days, trying their hardest to accommodate my diet (I was a burden, yes, whoops). I’m super grateful and I hope I’ll get to see y’all soon!!

MA ROOMIES

A picture with the roomies to commemorate our success in not having to pay for damages that we have caused on our short stay. We blessed the entire hotel (yes, block 1 & block 2) with our laughter and screams when we encounter gross friendly buggies.

8 of us wew

HongBin Coach!

And the eight of us that ate so much our stomachs ached, thank you for the trip because the 5 days were amazingly filled with so much goodness and love from everyone of you. We bonded and possibly will continue fighting in upcoming competitions together? 😉

This trip has been nothing short of amazing! Miniso was amazing :-p

Jinan Volleyball Exchange Trip I procrastinated for so long before finally getting to this. I have been back from China for 3 days now and editing the pictures brings back great memories but I'm glad to be home!