#too hard for the bbc apparently

[booasaur]

Vigil - 2x02

[naturalblue22]

Chuu has a deeply angelic and serene mind for not telling the CEO to kill himself

[paintedpigeon1]

Bc I have polls now:

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

02/02/2024 Daily Recap

TLDR; SaveOFMDCrew Tumblr Updates; How To Help; Twitter Hashtags; Daily Lists; Reminders: Appreciation Events; Live Rewatch OFMD Party with Q+; Operation Auxiliary Wardrobe; Cast & Crew Sightings; New Watch Partys; Actually reasonable Articles; Stats; Petition Status; Morale; Love Notes; Daily Darby/Tonight's Taika

= Save OFMD Crew Tumblr Up =

The SaveOFMDCrew Tumblr is finally up and running! Due to some weirdness with accounts they'll be under @saveofmdcrewmates as opposed to the regular name. This will have the same news as the other platforms so feel free to give them a follow.

== How To Help ==

Twitter folks: looks like @SaveOFMDCrew as well as several other people who've been leading the charge on twitter wanted to remind everyone on when to use what hashtags. Apparently there's been some cross pollination and they wanted to try and clear it up. Thank you to @havethisonelife for summarising.

Haterade Posts:

#OhBloysHeMad , #TheNumbersWereThere, #FinishOurStories Avoid: #DontStreamOnMax

When Advertising ourselves:

#SaveOFMD #AdoptOurCrew

Horny Posts:

No tags (Edit: @SaveOFMDCrew said it was ok to use #OurFlagMeansDeath on horny posts, just no other tags).

Suggestions for How to Help

Looking for ways to help? There are still daily ideas for you here: How To Help Save OFMD Task List - US How to Help Save OFMD Task List - Outside US

==Reminders!==

Cast Appreciation Events!

Tomorrow is Day of Damien! A day to shower Damien Gerard (Father Teach) with support and kindness for all he's done for our fandom! He has been hitting #SaveOFMD events pretty hard trying to support us! 

When to start: Saturday February 3rd, 6 AM CST, 7 AM ET, 4 AM PT, 12 PM GMT  Hashtags: #DayOfDamien

His Social Media Accounts:

Linktree (has his cashapp, etc) / Instagram / Twitter / Twitch / Tiktok

== Live - Rewatch Party with Q+! ==

This rewatch party is particularly important because the crew is really trying to get people hyped for the BBC launch of s2 on Feb 5. Everyone is hoping that if the s2 launch in the UK shows huge interest it'll be a huge boon for the potential for s3 with the networks.

Sunday Feb 4, 2 PM GMT / 9 AM ET / 6 AM PT

Watch Party Hashtags:

#OurFlagMeansRewatch

#AdoptOurCrew

#SaveOFMD

#OurFlagBBC

=Operation Auxiliary Wardrobe=

Do you do applique, crochet, cross stitch, embroidery, knitting, needle felt or any other textile-based OFMD Art? Wanna join a fun group of participants? Starting next week there will be a recruiting drive for a new fabric+thread project mid-month if people are interested! If you want to jump in now you can message @ForceMonument on twitter, otherwise other avenues will be opened sometime in the coming weeks!

=Cast & Crew Sightings =

This is from 01/26/2024 but I missed it and I feel like it needs to be shared. Dominic Burgess being a goofball badass as Jeffrey Fettering singing a 18th century version of the Friends theme song. <3 (Apologies for the quality of the video, I had to record it off my screen so people didn't have to go to Twitter). Twitter Post.

Wee John Wednesdays Mondays are back!

Mon 5th Feb, 10.30pm on Kristian Nairn's Instagram

=NEW WATCH PARTIES =

You can see a running list of current/upcoming watch parties here.

Thank you @libbyroseitm for the new Watch Party!

Uncle Season 1 watch party on i-player. Thurs 15th + Fri 16th Feb (GMT - 8 PM , ET - 3PM, PST - 12 PM)

Catered specifically for the UK crew, but we'd be thrilled for anyone else using VPN's to join in too! Here's an article on how to join via VPN

WatchParty Hashtags:

#ForTheNewUncle

#SaveOFMD

#AdoptOurCrew

== Articles ==

Finally! The Q+ Article is wonderful and very uplifting.

Our Flag Means Death: Why It Deserves to Find a New Harbor

The 10 best TV shows to watch this week, from Mr and Mrs Smith to One Day

Hairy Bikers Go West, Death In Paradise and Wheel of Fortune: TV highlights this week

The Uncertain Fate of “Our Flag Means Death” Season 3: A Closer Look

Every show canceled so far in 2024

Netflix adds one of ‘the best shows of 2022’ after it was dropped by HBO Max

== STATS ==

Thanks to @Seven_Sugars over on twitter for this info and analysis.

Also, as always, more fun stats from @meowzawowza on twitter from the Netherlands.

== Petition Status ==

Almost to 84K signatures friends!

== Morale ==

I know we're ending day 24 of being the Gravy Basket. It's been a lonnnnng several weeks. We haven't heard from chaos dad in around a week now, so it may seem again like things are slowing down again. As several folks have mentioned before, not every day can be ground breaking, but seeing everyone in the community getting together, having fun with watch parties, discussing ofmd meta, making new art and fanfiction, it feels like the momentum is still there. We often don't see many updates on the weekend so take this time to relax, take a break, maybe do the rewatch party if you have time on Sunday. I did want to bring up, this article on The Tourist is cool because it highlights that HBOMax has cancelled some very highly rated shows in the past and Netflix has picked up on them-- and while we didn't see anything from the 2024 Netflix announcements (as @poison-into-positivity mentioned, even if it was picked up it wouldn't be for 2024) that doesn't mean it's not still a possibility. So don't give up hope. It's going to take some time to get through to the networks, and we'll keep keeping at it.

If you are feeling down or concerned, be sure to reach out to your fellow crew, we're all here for you.

== Love Notes ==

Hey lovelies. You are so incredibly strong, do you know that? No matter what's going on in your life, you're still here. Every single day you get back up, and you keep going. That is incredibly powerful, and incredibly strong, and don't let anyone tell you any different. Do you think our buddy Rhys let's anyone tell him he's not the baddest ass mf on the planet? Nope.

If all you did today was get out of bed, or take a shower, or walk your dog, and nothing else, you kicked today's ass. If you wrote fanfiction, or watched a tv show, you kicked today's ass. They say that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and while I see where that phrase is coming from I like to think of it a bit differently. What doesn't kill you, gives you a glimpse of just how strong you already were. You are the reason you are kind, you are the reason you are strong, you are the reason you continue to grow. You. Outside forces can help shape you, but you have always been strong even when you have felt your weakest, it's just not always easy to see. That strength is so important, and so is your need to rest. Remember to take a break from all the stressors of your life, whether that be a shower, or a 5 minute walk, or a day or a week away from the internet, whatever works for you. Even the strongest bridge in the world can break when there's too much weight on it. That doesn't mean the bridge is any less strong, it means something extremely heavy pushed it past its limits. Anyway, enough of my ramblings, just please know, everyone out here in the crew are so incredibly proud of you, we're rooting for you, and we're so very grateful you're still here with us.

===================================

Speaking of resting....Reminder! No recap for 02/03/2024 unless someone else wants to do one! Please feel free to, obviously! I will be off drinking after taking a dip in some hotsprings and then watching OFMD with two friends who have yet to see it. So if I show up lurking and drunk-tumblr you all, I sincerely apologize, but I hope if I do that drunk Abby is at least amusing. Love yall <3

===================================

== Daily Darby / Tonight's Taika ==

If you wanna see someone else other than these two in these gifs from OFMD let me know, we can switch it up a bit.

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 4

Joan Watson

How were BBC Sherlock shippers so rancid about a WOMAN who wasnt even in the SAME SHOW?????

Martin Freeman of BBC Sherlock insulted Elementary and specifically Lucy Liu in the press. He straight up called Lucy Liu a "dog" in an interview APPARENTLY as a joke, because calling female actors ugly is hilarious. Benedict Cumberbatch was more measured about it, but he still said he was cynical about Elementary because it would lose the "male friendship" dynamic, which of course Johnlock shippers used against Joan Watson fans. Even the lead BBC Sherlock actors got in on the yaoi victimization of Joan Watson... 😔

she wasn't even in the same SHOW as the yaoi I've been convinced she deserves to win the entire poll. I was a Johnlocker but I did watch the first season of Elementary and it was fine????? It was totally okay????? Especially in hindsight given how hard Sherlock season four flopped. Also Lucy Liu is a queen and deserved zero vitriol for *checks notes* playing a character???? A fucking fictional character???????? Oh my god we were all SO mean to this show and we (or at least I) thought it was like The Good Fight™️, like we were defending BBC Sherlock against copyright infringement and straightwashing and Jonny Lee Miller's bizarre scarf, (it wasn't a good scarf I do stand by that) but then Elementary didn't make Holmes and Watson a couple either???? And also it didn't insult its audience constantly etc etc we've all seen the Hbomberguy Sherlock is Garbage video. This is really long sorry hashtag justice for Joan Watson.

Misa Amane

she gets treated in-canon the way fandoms treat female characters that Threaten an m/m ship. it's like, "oh why don't you go sit in the corner and be pretty, misa, while the Men have intelligent conversation and pretend they aren't ten seconds from fucking each other, doesn't that sound nice?" it's infuriating. and MAYBE it's better now but i remember her getting treated the same way in fanfiction too, like we all need to do just as badly by our female secondary characters as fucking tsugumi ohba, but with the added insult of making her be alternately oblivious of the relationship between light and L or actively trying to sabotage it—incompetently, of course, because god forbid misa be allowed dignity or moments of cleverness.

she's one of the first characters I think of when I consider old school fandom misogyny. The annoying bitch and clingy crazy gf allegations were AFTER HER ASS. She's also a lot more intelligent than people gave her credit for, but most seem inclined to take the Very Biased word of our unreliable, narcissistic narrator and his homoerotic arch nemesis and claim that just because she's bubbly and into romance that she's also a complete moron. Which is blatantly untrue. Everyone was afraid of Misa girlbossing too hard. Killing people and devoting yourself to the deranged twink of your dreams even though you know he'll never love you back??? Having a hardcore goth aesthetic and being so Hot even literal Death Gods are into you?? God forbid women do ANYTHING!

Not only is she the victim of yaoi culture, she is the victim of early 2000s misogyny by an author that wanted to introduce a girl character because he knew his male rivals were getting too homoerotic. She is a goth bimbo icon who portrays what I think is one of the few callouts for stan culture and what parasocial relationships can do to both the stan and the idol. The fact that she is a toxic fan of Kira and also hot, funny, sociable is tragic in its own way, which I think the author did try to touch on but was too misogynistic too really get through. Of course, she was reduced to villain status by the fandom and anime alike because she got in the way of the supposed romance in their psychological horror anime.

[dresshistorynerd]

I think we can all agree that this is dumb, right? Though the title is highly misleading and the quote marks around "ban" do a lot of work here. These companies just no longer requires actresses to wear structural garments. Still a dumb and bad solution to the problem of badly made costumes.

Couple of my issues with the article:

The purpose of the corset or any other similar structural garment wasn't to reduce waist, but to provide support and shape the silhouette. In the article someone from Netflix commented that they shouldn't promote that women should make their waists smaller, apparently it's "bad optics". And from Neflix the main series where corsets are no longer required is Bridgerton, because one of the main actors had bad time with her stays. But if you take just one quick look at the Regency silhouette you will see the waist is far from reduced. Literally there is no waist. Completely covered. They have been doing something terribly wrong if they have made Regency stays that pinch down the waist. Some actors also seem to think the waist is supposed to be reduced all the time. I remember that one actor in HBO's The Gilded Age complained about the corset, but then in the same breath admitted that she had asked the costumers to make it purposefully a little too small so she could be tight-laced all the time (a practice some fashionable rich Victorian women did for high society events, and definitely not all the time). But beyond the inaccuracies in the article, there is an issue here. Structural garments supported the bust yes, but also in many periods they supported the weight of the dress. In 17th and 18th centuries and Victorian Era the skirts of rich women especially had a lot of heavy fabric which would be hard to deal with and move around with, if all the weight is only on the waist. But with a structural garment it distributes the weight to the whole torso, especially on the hips.

A structural garment needs to be fitted well and worn with with a shift underneath. It absolutely can be uncomfortable, create bruising and restrict breathing, if it's not well fitted. If you have ever used too small jeans that contain no spandex at all, you know how nasty the effects can be on the skin. Especially TV sets often have very little time for creating costumes and they might have just one fitting or at tops two or in worst case scenario none at all, which very easily leads to ill fitting costumes. That is a huge issue with structural garments. I've been making transitional short stays for myself and I have never made a garment like that so I'm still struggling fit it well (it's unfinished), and I can say it's not comfortable when it doesn't fit well. I haven't watched Bridgerton but I have seen couple of screencaps of different scenes with characters wearing stays and no shift to be seen anywhere. I really do hope they actually are wearing shifts when they have the full outfits on and just didn't wear them in these scenes for aesthetics or something. Because, yes, that will absolutely give you bruising, if you wear any type of fitted and structured garment against your skin without any fabric between it and the skin, against which the structural garment can slide against. It would be irresponsible to put your actors in such garments without shifts. I don't blame the actors for complaining about the "corsets", since I can believe they are uncomfortable if they are not well fitted or god forbid if they aren't wearing shifts.

I don't know how many times this needs to be said: corsets are not torture devices. While I don't blame the actors for complaining, reading comments like this kills one brain cell every time: "Women existed in that for such a long time, which does give you a lot of sympathy for that time period and what they were going through. For the first month, I couldn’t breathe." I'm sorry, but women literally did physical labour in corsets. They climbed mountains in corsets. (I have a whole post related to this.) Do these people really think so little of women in the past that, if corsets really were torture devices, they would have just endured them quietly for centuries? Of course the most fashionable clothing in a lot of the periods were uncomfortable and hard to move in, even restrictive, but those were the court gowns and ball gowns the young fashionable elite wore for the special evening occasions to show off to the high society. But does that really differ from today? If you look at the MET galas and stuff, do these actors really claim the outfits are comfortable? The everyday clothing and the clothing of the working class was fairly comfortable, and yes, they all wore corsets.

Yes, you can make properly fitted, comfortable supportive garments for costumes in any production. The proof is in opera. Opera singers wear corsets in a lot of productions. I have read many accounts by opera singers who talk about how their corsets are well fitted and actually makes singing easier, because you can "lean" on the corset (I don't know anything about singing, but that's what I have seen them say). Also they tend to wear those large and heavy period dresses and as alluded earlier moving on them on stage without corset would be very hard. Singing also would be harder as the singers could easily become breathless from moving the heavy dress without using the muscles on the whole body. Operas have much smaller budget than these big tv and movie productions, so there's really zero excuses for making badly fitting corsets.

So yes, it's dumb, it's inaccurate and kinda infuriating. But it's also actually pretty sinister. The issue isn't actors wearing corsets for many hours, that's what people have done for ages and still do in re-enactments, opera etc. The issue is that there's too little time for fitting and sewing the corsets in modern tv and movie production. And this is part of a much broader issue. Costume designers and makes are unionized in Hollywood and for a while now Hollywood studios have tried to cut the amount of unionized behind the scenes labour they employ.

Making profit from a movie or a tv show is not good enough anymore. Now productions that don't "perform as expected" are seen as flops. The production companies make predictions of profit and green light projects they have calculated to make most profit, and if they don't make that high profit, it's a flop and it won't get the planned sequel or the next season. To achieve those high profits they also do everything they can to lower the production costs, and one way is by employing as little unionized labour, to whom you have to pay fair wages, as possible. So costume departments are then very often understaffed and they have way too little time to produce the costumes in proper quality. This can be seen very blatantly in the clear drop in quality of movie costuming during the past couple of decades. So the reducing of structural garments in costumes seems like yet another attempt to reduce unionized labour disguised as feminism.

Obviously the good and smart solution to the problem of uncomfortable structural garments is to hire enough costumers for long enough time so they can have multiple fittings and make them better.

[pilferingapples]

ask game: original french revolutionaries haunting les amis (canon era)

-For years Grantaire thinks he's the only one who can see or hear them; he is trying very hard to ignore everything about this and sometimes he almost succeeds but also sometimes he gets into huge looping arguments with one or more old Conventionist (however since it is Grantaire, everyone just assumes that these apparently unprompted rambles are par for the course. Classic R. They are not Wrong.)

-They are very opinionated about the other Amis. They admire Feuilly endlessly, they respect Combeferre's philosophy and learning, they are wildly divided on (Grantaire's biggest arguments with them tend to happen when they are, to his mind, trash talking his friends, because how dare they. HE is the one who gets to trash talk his friends!!)

-It takes Grantaire a long time to realize that Bahorel hears them too, at least sometimes . Bahorel at least says that it took him a long time to realize he was hearing them, too. His life is usually full of a whole lot of extremely loud people making what is to him a pleasant background hum; it wasn't until he was trying to stealth his way to little bit of Extrajudicial Resource Management that he realized the voices around him were not tied to corporeal bodies. And then went back to mostly treating it as background noise.

-Prouvaire does NOT see or hear them. He is incensed. He didn't talk to Bahorel or Grantaire, in turn, when he found out they had ghosts and he didn't they hadn't told him immediately. (then he realized he could make them record or recount what the ghosts were saying and started badgering them for word from those Beyond The Veil.

-They know they're dead. They have a BBC Ghosts-level comprehension of the metaphysics, though, to the considerable frustration of many .

-They do not comment on Enjolras. They do not seem to be Present around Enjolras. They just sort of fade away into the glow Grantaire always sees around him. This is one more reason he likes hanging around Enjolras. (He is resolutely refusing to consider any further meanings of this. If Bahorel or Prouvaire try to raise the issue, he will fight them. He will lose. But he will fight them.)

[myemuisemo]

With April showers, Letters from Watson brings us the first installment of The Sign of the Four, a prospect that makes me quake. When I was a tot of eight years, reading the library's copy of The Boy's Sherlock Holmes with a creeping sense of guilt because I was not at that time (and have not been at any time before or since) a boy, I found The Sign of the Four... long. Very long. I was obviously too young for the concepts, even though I could make sense of the words. (That sums up a lot of my reading in that era.)

I'm also reeling from last week's "The Man with the Watches," an utter tragedy of "be gay, do crime."

What's striking me this time -- what with the introduction of Holmes' cocaine use and also the watch deduction that raises a wince and a shudder from anyone who remembers that BBC Sherlock happened -- is how Watson is being positioned (and I don't mean "positioned in the path of which bullet," though apparently he got hit by more than one while in India).

Cocaine

Watson is progressive! His objections to cocaine sound so mild to us in the twenty-first century, but in 1890, scientific opinion was just barely starting to turn away from seeing cocaine as a wonder drug. It was used for local anesthesia as well as for general pep. Queen Victoria drank Vin Mariani, a wine fortified with cocaine, and so did the Pope. Coca Cola contained cocaine until 1906. Sigmund Freud was a vocal proponent of cocaine for improving mood and performance, until he botched an operation in the early 1890s while high.

A couple hair-raising reads on this topic are Cocaine: The Victorian Wonder Drug and A Cure for (Anything) that Ails You: Cocaine in Victorian Medicine.

So Holmes' original audience would have seen him as an up-to-date scientist using a socially approved means of moderating his mood. His shooting up a 7% solution of cocaine is about equivalent to a 21st century person taking nutritional supplements that are meant to boost brain power.

After all the "say no to drugs" education in the American school system, that's so hard for me to get my brain around, but there we are. Holmes is doing something no more troubling than pouring a glass of whiskey and much more scientific.

Watson, therefore, can be read either as being right at the edge of shifting scientific opinion or as being a fussbudget.

Tinge it with romanticism

I'm firmly Team Watson when Holmes starts criticizing A Study in Scarlet:

He shook his head sadly. “I glanced over it,” said he. “Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.”

The reader is being positioned here to view with contempt the exact features of the work that we probably enjoyed. Poor Watson!

Is it possible that some reviewers commented on the melodrama of the Lucy portions? Yes, and it'd be a valid point. Nonetheless, having experienced a good many math classes, I think the fifth proposition of Euclid might be improved by a rom--

wait.

Doyle, you magnificent bastard.

Flatland: A Romance in Many Dimensions was published in 1884. It wasn't a huge success, but it seems likely Doyle could have known it, and it did, in fact, mention a love story in a discussion of angles. Back when I read it in college (because if you "liked math," someone would inevitably give you a copy of Flatland), I missed the social satire but appreciated the geometry.

Watson is canonically an effective popular writer, and I refuse to denigrate him for that.

The Watch

First, Holmes substantially invents forensic science with his monographs on tobacco and on callouses.

Then we learn that Watson is a second son, which fits with his his training for a profession and choosing the army to help make his way.

Watson was not on great terms with his brother before his brother's death. Holmes doesn't explicitly deduce this, but it's there to be deduced. Holmes knew Watson's father was long dead, which could have come up in any number of casual ways. Holmes had no idea that Watson had a brother, so Watson:

Didn't mention the brother in any context, ever.

Didn't set up any framed daguerreotypes from his childhood nor any modern photos made with the collodion process. Having a posed family photo would have been so completely normal, as would being sent new photos by family members.

Never interrupted his routine to visit his brother while living with Holmes.

Did not attend his brother's funeral (unless it took place while Holmes was away) and did not wear a black armband for mourning in Holmes' presence. Neglecting mourning for a relative would have been a sign of serious estrangement.

Holmes is possessed of some level of tact in not expanding on this topic.

Watson is also nobody's fool: he knows there are ways to fool a mark with apparently miraculous knowledge.

The question in my mind is this: did Watson deliberately distract Holmes from asking what was the subject of the telegram?

[jotun-philosopher]

So, I was listening to this video recently (apparently it's Gneil's favourite song from the Span, which is a strong recommendation in and of itself) and it got me thinking...

The song being in Scots dialect and making references to France (in combination with the Gneil connection above) instantly associated it with Good Omens in my mind, and the speed at which Maddy Prior sings puts me in mind of birdsong (not a knock against Maddy in the slightest, she's a bloody amazing vocalist) -- and that reminded me of a thing I saw on Springwatch yonks ago!

Springwatch is an annual BBC thing looking at British wildlife reacting to the changing seasons, where wildlife experts gather to be super enthusiastic about it all; one year there was a segment about the structure of birdsong, where they slowed some samples of birdsong down to show that they were made up of discrete pulses of sound a bit like 'words', and they demonstrated the principle by having one of the presenters doing a tongue-in-cheek 'come on if you think you're hard enough' speech (the sort of thing birds use their actual songs for) and speeding it up until it sounded like a snatch of birdsong.

The Good Omens connection is this: what if the Ineffable Husbands use something like this as a means of covert communication in S3? It'd work nicely with their pre-existing bird symbolism and isn't too far removed in principle from the layered covert language they already use (as chronicled by @vidavalor -- go check out their blog for an epic crash course in frequently horny ineffable linguistics!)

Also, show of hands, who else can see Crowley rocking a dress like the one Maddy Prior's wearing in the video?

[eveningepiphany]

bestie i definitely want a part two of the mistletoe!

Mistletoe | H.S, part 2

my masterlist <3

if you have any requests, send them in here

summary: Y/Ns flight gets canceled last minute after their morning BBC show, and without anywhere to go she calls harry— and it’s their first time alone together after the kiss they’d shared under the mistletoe.

warnings: smut, soft/bestfriend harry, oral f receiving, PIV unprotected, riding, praise kink, fluff, and dirty talk.

a/n: thank you all so much for your support on part one! I hope you enjoy this just as much, and thank you for your patience in waiting for this— hope your holiday season was filled with fun. I <3 soft harry.

———

The morning show had gone great, despite the mountains of tension between you and Harry. Maybe no one else picked up on it, and you were just hyper aware of his every glance and touch.

Hell, maybe you were even reading into it. Maybe last night was just a one off thing. A spur of the moment—never to be talked about— kind of thing. It could’ve meant nothing.

You’d woken up together, his alarm blaring from his phone further down the his mattress. You’d groaned together, collectively complaining about how fucking early it was. But not once mentioned last night, or the fact you woke up together.

But you didn’t have another chance to talk about it— when he and Anne dropped you all off at the airport he hugged you last out of the boys— it was a tight hug, paired with a whispered, ‘I’ll call you when you’re home.’

So you are unsure where everything stands. And you’d been left to mull it over in the uncomfortable airport chairs that you’d already been in for far too long.

You’d been in this damn airport far too long.

You suppose now though, the whole thing with you and Harry is the currently the least of your problems.

The rest of the boys are probably home by now.

“Assholes.” You mutter, cursing them for that exact reason.

Your gate had begun to quieten down since the announcement of the delay.

The boys flights were hardly an hour after you got to the airport, yours on the other hand was about 5.

Within those 5 hours, a storm had came crashing over this part of the UK.

Now you were without accomodation for the next 16 hours, which was apparently the earliest they could reschedule.

It was already 9:30pm– so you didn’t know what to do with yourself, it’s a long time to wait around in the airport.

You knew it was gonna be hard to get a hotel room, given how many flights had been delayed this last minute.

So, you sat for a minute and contemplate it. Without many other options you opened your phone and rung the only person who you could think of. The only person you had been thinking of.

You pressed your lips together as it rung, and on the fourth ring his voice came through.

“Y/N, love?” He sounded a little raspy, tired.

“Harry, im so sorry— you weren’t asleep were you?” You say, quickly feeling apologetic.

“No, no— jus’ laying down on the couch watching friends, why? It’s like 9:30 shouldn’t you be on your flight?”

“Yea uh… I am supposed to be.” Your voice faltered a little at the end, you just wanted to go home. You were already emotionally exhausted, and this on top was proving to be a bit much.

You glance outside the airport windows trying to distract yourself— not wanting to start having a mental breakdown in the middle of the airport and draw unwanted attention your way. It had got dark hours ago but it was clearly bucketing down rain.

“What happened?” He asked, immediately sounding concerned at your wavering voice.

“Is it not raining at your place? It torrential here, my flight got delayed.” You laugh a little, without humour.

“No it’s not— how far back was it pushed?”

“16 hours, not till 1pm tomorrow.” You sigh.

“Holy shit…” He audibly gasps through the speaker.

“I hate to be asking, but is it ok if I catch a taxi or an Uber back yours? I don’t think I’m gonna find anywhere to st—“

“Y/N, you are not catching a taxi or an Uber, I’m coming to get you.” He states, and you hear him shuffling in the background. Keys getting pulled from a drawer.

“You don’t have to come get me, I’m fine to get there—“

He cuts you off again, “Nope, I’m getting in the car now, I’ll be there in about an hour.”

“Harry, I swear I’ll be ok!” You feel terrible, knowing he is probably just as tired as you are.

“See y’soon, stay warm. Buy somethin’ to eat and drink while you wait, love. Call you when I get there.” You hear the engine start, you don’t even have time to protest anymore because he hangs up on you.

You groan aloud, frustration mixed with gratitude coursing through you.

Standing from the chair you’d been sitting in, you stretch. Sunglasses and beanie pulled over your face to try and prevent people from recognising you.

Even though you felt guilty he was driving all this way to get you, you were also relieved. trying to get an Uber somewhere, especially with your status is anxiety inducing to say the least.

You just hoped he drove safe in this weather.

You decide to go and buy food, sourcing a place that served your favourites.

The hour dragged on after you’d ate, and you felt drowsy. You were sitting at one of the tables closer to the exit, charging your phone when it rung.

When you answered, Harry of course was on the other side of the line.

“Hey sweet, sorry for the wait. I’m out the front.” You smile with relief, glad he was here safe.

“Thank you so much, H. I’m coming out now—“

“I parked in the 5 minute ones, you’ll see my car.”

You quickly chuck your charger into your bag, grabbing your suitcase and head straight for the sliding doors.

A blast of freezing wind hits you as you walk out, and you feel it to your bones.

True to his word, you spot Harry’s car a few metres away, and you were grateful he got such a close park.

He gets out the moment he sees you, popping the trunk.

“Are you ok?” He asks the second you’re close enough to hear him over the wind and rain, grabbing your face between his warm hands.

“Mmhm— just emotionally burnt out. Thank you for coming to get me.” You smile, his concern endearing.

He nods, relief thrumming through him. He picks up your suitcase, placing it into his trunk.

You both hurry into his car, trying to get out of the cold.

It’s perfectly warm in there, and you strap into the passenger side.

“You didn’t have to come all this way. I appreciate it though.” You whisper.

“Yes I did. I know you’re safe, and that we’ll get home together in one piece. That is worth endlessly more than an hour drive.”

You feel his words seep into the centre of your chest, warm and soft. You reach your hand over to grab his, squeezing it.

You don’t move it and he starts to drive, and you both talk about random stuff as you usually do together. It half lulls you to sleep, your head leaning against the window.

This hour went much faster, the highway was quiet and his home town even quieter.

You pull into his childhood home, and he turns the engine off.

You force your head up, shaking your limbs out. “I’m awake.”

He laughs at you trying to convince yourself. You slide out the car door, legs feeling a little numb as they try to hold you up.

He grabs your suitcase out for you, wheeling it to the access door and unlocking it.

The lamps are dimly lit, and the TV not properly turned off— it was clear he had left in a moments notice.

“Thank you.” You say, for what had to be the 12th time.

“Stop thanking me, Y/N.” He chuckles.

It was nearly midnight now, and he walked over to flick everything off.

“Is Anne asleep?”

“Yea, mum went to bed pretty early— was too early a start for her this morning. Or yesterday, seeing it’s nearly midnight.”

“I’m feeling her, I could’ve fell asleep at the damn airport.”

You trudge towards the stairs, carrying up your suitcase.

He quickly follows you up once everything downstairs is off.

You stop at the top, placing your bag down with a quiet thump and a pant— it was physical workout, considering how much your bag weighed. It baffles you how Harry carries it like it weighs nothing.

Your eyes flit over to the window without even thinking, straight to where you’d shared that kiss. The one you’d been replaying in your head since it happened.

Your first, and very perfect kiss together.

He’s standing behind you quietly, clocking where your eyes are looking. And he’s reliving the exact same memory as you.

He draws in a breath, trying to stabilise his emotions— his fingertips burning with the pure need to touch you.

You swallow at the thought of stumbling into his room last night, realising you just assumed you were staying in there tonight as well.

“Forget where you’re going, sweet?” He runs his hand down your back.

The touch leaves goosebumps in its wake.

“No… just- distracted.” You mumble, allowing him to slip past you and lead you into his room.

It smells just like him as you walk in, and it will never fail to overwhelm you. How perfect his scent is.

“Mmm, I bet.” He says ambiguously.

“What is that supposed to mean.” It slips out of your mouth shyer than you intended.

He turns, locking eyes with you, “I think you know exactly what I mean by that.”

“I don’t.” You say, defiantly.

He moves carefully closer, “you don’t?”

It’s a challenge when it comes from his mouth, you can only shake your head.

He kisses the pulse point on your neck, just how he had under the mistletoe— except this time he takes the skin between his lips, giving it a harsh suck.

“Remind you at all?” He pulls away an inch, and the blood has rushed into your cheeks— so much so they felt like they were on fire.

You don’t say anything. You don’t know how. Your lips move, but nothing comes out.

“How about this…” he trails up to your parted lips, ghosting over them.

You were awake now. Your whole body pulsing with the thoughts of where his hands— and lips— could touch.

“Harry…” you whined, and the noise was enough to have him seeing stars.

He slid his hands down to the small of your back, tugging you as close as possible.

“I swear, you are unreal, Y/N.” He sighs into your cheek.

You push your lips back into his, and he parts them for you straight away.

You slip your tongue into his mouth, savouring the feeling of it. Allowing yourself to map it out with gradual strokes.

He’s panting already, and he pushes you back, both of you stumbling into the middle of his bed.

He ends up taking the lead again, sucking your bottom lip between his teeth— knowing the kind of reaction it spiked in you last time.

You moan into his mouth, and glide your hand into his soft hair, pulling at the roots.

His have found their way up your shirt, cupping your breasts through the bra you’re wearing.

“If you want to stop—“ he says, breathlessly, “now is the time, because I don’t know if I can do this again.”

The room around you falls quiet and you cautiously look to meet his gaze.

“What do you mean?” You ask— little to no clue what he’s implying, a little panic rising in your chest.

He stares at you, serious, hands roaming down to your lower back.

“Kiss you like this, have you moaning like this— and not have you come because of me atleast twice.”

“Leaving you to fall asleep next to me— wet enough I could feel it through your sleep shorts, and not have anything done about it— is something I am not having happen again.” His words made you shiver, and his admission last night to how bad he wanted to make you finish on his face was ringing in your ears.

“What about Anne?”

“To hell with it.” He huffs, peeling his tshirt over his head, “She’ll be dead to the world at this hour— just try to keep quiet.”

“If this is what you want to do, anyway?” He clarifies, “And if y’wanna stop at anytime y’know y’can.”

“God, Harry you don’t understand how bad I want to feel you.” You affirm, pulling your own sweatshirt off, “I promise I’ll be quiet.”

“Thank you, darling. As much as I’d love to hear your pretty moans…” his sentence trails off, kissing the top of your breasts as he lays you down.

“Want your mouth on me.” You plead, the thought of it being enough to have you clenching around nothing.

“I’m sure you do, ‘specially after I put it in your head last night. Have you been thinking about it all day, hmm?” He teases, shifting down your body.

“Yea— yea I have.” You confess with a whine.

He raises his brows, trailing wet kisses down your stomach.

“What about before? You ever got off to the thought of my tongue in your pussy?” He smirks, knowing he’s venturing into uncharted territory— admissions of want, prior to your first kiss.

“Your ego would love to hear a yes wouldn’t it.” You tease a little, even though it would be a lie to say you haven’t conjured up small fantasies of him late at night. Ones where he’s got more than just his head between your legs.

“Oh, it would. But I think I already know the answer, going off how hot and bothered I’m making you.”

Which is true, you’re squirming beneath him, unconsciously arching up your lower half trying to get any kind of friction.

“Can I take these off?” He asks with warm hands tucked into your waistband, waiting for your curt nod before he shucks your pants down, your panties half going with it.

The energy shifts, his hands coming to a halt.

Like the realisation of what he’s doing and who he’s touching like this has come crashing down, just from seeing your lower half laid bare for him.

Harry is your best friend, your bandmate. Someone who you never thought would actually have their hands on you like this.

“Fuck. Look at you.” The sight of you looking up at him like that, all doe-eyed and shy had his cock aching.

His hands slip back into motion, but this time with less urgency.

He pulls both your pants and underwear off your legs, tossing them somewhere on his floor.

He pushes a finger through your slit, “This why you’re so wet? Been waiting for me to get my mouth on you for longer than you admitted.”

“Please, Harry.”

You push your hips into his touch, groaning into the sheets of his bed as he draws slow circles on your clit.

He leans to press a kiss into the crease of your thigh, so close to where you want him most.

Licking a stripe along the same spot, you begin to plead, “Please just touch me. Need it…”

“My poor girl is so needy. Cant even wait a second for me to get my tongue on her.” He coos, but gives in either way, letting his tongue push through your wet slit.

You’re trying so hard to hold back the moans as he flicks and sucks your clit, but fuck is this the best oral you’ve ever had.

Most guys you’ve been with rush through it, wanting to get it over with because it does nothing to please them. But Harry is clearly a giver, and gets a lot out of pleasing someone like this.

“Jesus Christ, you’re gonna make me come so fast.” You cry, an arm getting thrown over your face as you arch into every movement he makes.

He smiles into you, moving his mouth to your entrance, pushing his tongue in a bit before dragging back up to you clit— his nose bumping it in just the right spot.

Another moan comes out of you, unbridled as your cunt flutters in sync with the licks he’s placing against you.

He swaps between your clit and entrance, making sure both are getting the attention they deserve. Fast firm strokes along you— paired with kisses and sucks — are having you come undone faster than you’d expected.

“Shhh, baby, been doing so well f’me, can feel how close you are.” He pushes a finger into you, and you have to bite down on your lip to try and keep yourself quiet.

Pushing in another finger, he grunts, “God, you’re tight.”

“Been awhile…” you spoke, voice wavering— it sounding distant in your own head.

He hummed into you, the vibration of it pulsing through the whole of your body.

Curse words were flying out your lips, which you were trying so hard to keep shut. But every lap of his tongue against you had your resolve to keep quiet slipping through your grasp.

“I’m going to come, H. Hard.” You moaned— it was tearing out of you loudly, and you tired to muffle it with the crook of your arm.

“You can come, darling, ‘round my fingers and mouth like a good girl.”

His permission and praise was all you needed to tip over the edge, your cunt spasming around his fingers that were still pumping in and out of you.

He licked through your slick until you couldn’t breathe, your legs closing around his head trying to get him off your sensitive nerves.

Your breath was laboured as he pulled back, placing a final kiss on your stomach before making his way back up your body.

“Thank you…” you tiredly said, laying with your eyes half-lidded on his bed. And although you felt like you could fall asleep, there was no way you could not let him fuck you properly after that.

You pushed yourself up, and moved onto his lap.

He watched you carefully, a question in his eyes.

That was answered as you ground your hips carefully into his, the fabric of his sweatpants sending a zip up your spine.

“We don’t have to, sweet. Not if your tired.” His hand fell to your hip.

But when his mouth is still glistening with your arousal and cock is so hard underneath you, how could you not?

“I know, Harry. I really want to though.” You sigh into his neck, arms wrapped around his shoulders as you rubbed yourself along his fabric-covered boner.

All of the little noises coming from the back of his throat were sounded into your ear, and knowing how good this must be making him feel charged you to keep going.

“That’s right. Rub yourself through it Y/N. Over my cock, dripping all onto my pants.” His tone was deep, dipped in honey as he spoke to you.

You moaned as he snapped his hips upwards to meet the movement of your own.

“I’m clean and on the pill.” You say into his ear, shuddering. You have never wanted anything more.

He pauses, realisation at what your insinuating.

“Are you a hundered percent sure? Because I trust that you’re clean. And so am I.”

You start moving your hips again, “a thousand percent.”

“Can just imagine how easy m’gonna slip into you.” He traces patterns along the base of your spine.

“Just want to make you feel good, H.” You kiss the warm skin of his neck, taking it into your lips and biting it gently.

“Fuck, well y’already doing a good job of that.”

Your hand travels to his waistband, and he allows you to pull him out of his boxers.

He’s thick in your hand, heavy just as you’d imagined. But it’s so much better than you’d thought. He’s warm and smooth, head of him as pink as his lips.

You stroke along it, thumb brushing over his tip, dragging the pre-come that had leaked out down his shaft, indulging in his grunts that are sounding in your ear.

You shift up on your knees— unable to wait any longer, rubbing the head of his cock through your folds with a mutual gasp.

You rub a few circles on your clit with it, until your knees feel like they’re going to buckle. Which no better a time to line him up with your entrance.

“God— are you going to ride me?” He moans, holding you still with his hands for a moment.

“Is that ok?”

“That is so fucking hot.” He states, eyes pinching closed.

You sink yourself into him, feeling the stretch of your cunt as it tries to accomodate his large size.

You scrape your nails down his back as you get to the base of him, moaning in sync with one another.

“Oh my god.” His stomach muscles are clenching, “don’t move.”

The walls of his room seem to be spinning around him, and he inhales a deep breath in attempt to ground himself.

His hands rest on the peak of your hips, as he shudders out the same breath he just took in, “Sorry— you’re just so fuckin’ warm and tight.”

“You’re huge.” You whimper in response.

“Taking it so well. Knew you would, knew you’d be so snug around my cock. Always wanted to have you moan like this for me.” The words spill like a lust-drunk confession from his mouth.

You can’t even find anything to say back, just a passionate kiss over his lips.

“Can move now.” He says into your mouth.

Your hips gradually begin to move, starting with slow and precise rolls that have you both panting against each other.

His cock twitched inside you as you picked up the pace, bouncing up and down on him— your fingers finding their way down to your clit.

All you could feel was the hot burning pleasure in the pit of your stomach, and so much was coming from your mouth but you couldn’t even tell what it was. Just a mixture of swearing, moans and his name.

“Shh, sweet girl— fuck— know it feels so good but you have to stay quiet.” He cups your jaw, sealing your lips with another kiss.

The heat radiating off both of your bodies was searing, paired with the fiery pleasure in your stomachs, it could fight off even the coldest of December days.

His other hand replaced your own, and worked your clit better than you ever could. His long fingers swirling your bud in fast circles that matched your every bounce.

His bottom lip was caught between his teeth, desperately trying to hush his own groans. It was a sight to see him, his flushed face and messy brown curls— how he was trying just as hard to hold back.

“You’re so warm. Riding me so well.” He praises you with a grunt, stroking your clit with more pressure. You couldn’t even manage to respond, your thoughts were beyond muddled, and they only got worse as he increased the speed of his fingers.

The feeling of his cock sliding through your walls had your jaw fall completely lax, your hot breath fanning across his damp skin.

His only free hand travelled to your breast, kneading the warm flesh there, tweaking your nipple with gentle fingers.

“Oh god, oh god— Harry!” Every touch was clashing together into one euphoric feeling, your whole body shaking.

Your muscles were clenched taut, like a rubber band getting pulled tighter and tighter— and you were about to snap.

“Fuck, come around my cock— wanna feel it.”

His hips are bucking up to meet your bounces, he’s hitting every spot inside you.

“Harry— I’m going to— I’m gonna come.” You cried into his shoulder.

Praise is pouring from his mouth, and all it takes is a final flick of your clit too have you knocked of all your air.

Your jaw drops, teeth hitting Harry’s sharp collarbone, mantras of his name coming breathlessly from your mouth.

“God you’re perfect— squeezing so perfectly around me.” He moans, still playing with your clit.

“Please come, baby. Want you to fill me up.” You plead— tugging the roots of his hair, trying to keep up the pace of your bounces despite the blinding pleasure.

“Fuckk.” He comes within seconds of hearing you beg for it, his hips stuttering to meet your thrusts— his abdomen flexing under your fingers.

You ride him to the point your eyes are tearing up with the overstimulation, ensuring you get every drop of warm come you can from him.

Eventually you come to a halt at the base of him, now that both your orgasms have dulled out and he’s softening inside you.

You kiss his temple, hands coming up to wrap around his shoulders.

“You were so good for me, love.” He whispers.

You slip out of him, missing how he filled you up immediately. He rolled you both over before you could think about it too much, and your legs wrapping around his middle.

You looked down at the moth tattoo situated between your legs, and boldly you state, “I’d ride this too if I wasn’t so tired.”

His brows shoot up as you say that, your fingers beginning to outline the tattoo gingerly.

“You’re gonna give me another boner if you keep this up.” His voice falling a tone deeper.

A laugh sounds from you, and you cuddle up into his chest, “Sorry, but not really.” You say.

He plays with your hair, “Asshole.”

Your falling into a drowsy state, “Are you plaiting my hair?”

He hums a yes, “d’ya have a hair tie for it?”

“On my wrist.” You huff out a laugh, and you pull your hand from around his neck so he can pull it off.

He ties it, and kisses your forehead.

“Goodnight Y/N.” He whispers, seeing your shut eyes.

“Goodnight Harry.” You whisper back, pausing for a few seconds— then daring to say what’s been lingering on the tip of your tongue all night.

“I love you.” It’s a hush confession, one your too tied to care if you’re gonna regret it.

He looks down at you, through his own half-lidded eyes, “fuck, I love you too. So much.”

———

[just-a-sleepy-idiot]

Vivarium Martin Drabble: Changing his mind on trapping you

Ok so fun fact he is played by the actor who plays Anderson in BBC Sherlock, and he has that neurodiverse rizz so. If you don’t know him but would like to, I highly highly recommend you watch the movie. If you don’t mind spoilers and want to read this now go watch this clip of him!! He’s so cute like-

Content/Warnings: Gender neutral Reader, Height difference, Spoilers for the movie

Martin was good enough at being human, at least his understanding of their behavior was sufficient to lure couples like the Thompsons into their assigned housing units. It was important to coax them into a house viewing, it took practice to say the right words and often enough the humans had left beforehand, promising they would come back another time. He had smiled, drumming his fingers on the desk in anticipation of their visit but found himself confused when they didn’t return. Why didn’t they return?

The quicker they agreed to come along and view the house the better it was, he found. Because he didn’t spend much time with them, but it was apparently enough for them to start finding him ‚off putting‘. He heard them well enough when they went to look at the back yard, and that phrase was like an echo to him like the seemingly indistinguishable houses all around them. Off putting. Off was wrong, wasn’t it? ‚Your sock is off Martin‘. ‚Fuck off kiddo‘. ‚She ran off.‘

He doesn’t have a deep understanding of the things they said to him back then, they talk differently from his species. But they have the same facial structure and that makes him understand what it meant when they furrowed their brows at him. Or when they grimaced and shouted.

Martin tries to do his job right and he feels like he is getting better at it. Being a Salesman seems to work better than being perceived as a person, they accept it much more than citizen-him when he closes the shop. Every shop closes at some hour so they have to do that too.

Never before since he took over the office did only one person come in. They always came in two. Yet there you came in without a partner who looked with you.

You looked around a bit, he watched you from his seat for a moment longer than he usually did before approaching the clients. You were young and you didn’t wear a ring. Most who came here wore a ring in different variations, but always on the same finger. Your hands were empty though except for a shopping bag.

„Hello!“ He exclaimed after a few moments and stood up to walk around the desk. Your head turned to meet his eyes and you replied with a enthusiastic hello of your own. Your pupils widened, he recalled possible reasons for this in his head such as benign episodic unilateral mydriasis, migraines or attraction.

„Do you have a migraine?“ You slightly tilted your head to the side and raised your brows in wonder, „No, but the heat outside might honestly work up to one. Do you?“ You answered, to which he nodded thoughtfully. „No.“ He seamlessly transitioned to offer you his hand for a handshake, „Lovely to meet you!“ You laughed and took his hand, „Lovely to meet you too, I‘m Y/n.“ He noticed how easily his hand engulfed yours. You were a shorter one. At least much shorter than him.

You squinted your eyes when you laughed and slightly opened your lips. Unlike other animals this was the opposite of a threat in humans, smiling so broadly that the other person could see their teeth was a sign of real friendliness.

Martin introduced himself as well. He used the last name of the family who fostered him, Bailey. His Nametag didn’t say so, but he liked to introduce himself as such regardless.

„This neighborhood is really something special, we already sold most of the houses to some lovely couples.“ He recited. „We are hoping to build a strong diverse community.“

You approached one of the miniature houses, you didn’t have to bend down as much to look into them. There was something hard to read in the way you looked at it. It was one emotion distilled clearly into this moment, one that he had seen before, but blurred by other things. This thing his parents had in their eyes when they said they wanted to go home. But you did not look sad or angry. Just that.. third thing, that he couldn’t name.

He came to stand next to you and eyed the miniature. „I grew up in a home like this.“ He went to houses like the one he was fostered a lot but it was not his. It started to drizzle outside, the humid air tearing from the rain. He didn’t know why he told you that. You looked up to him again. „You grew up in a house from this company?“ Well, that was technically correct. What you didn’t know was that it was this exact setup too in front of you, because nothing ever really differed from the design. „Yes.“ You hummed and looked at the miniature again. „Was it nice?“ Was it nice? He wanted to repeat but managed to hold it back. When he was in the presence of humans it was hard not to do it.

„I don’t know.“ He said truthfully, for once, because neither did he know what would be appropriate to answer to specifics about his personal experience nor did he even really know what he felt about it to begin with. When he took over this office he looked up human data on the word as well, the variety of definitions were confusing but nonetheless enlightening. Because Hotels were also supposed to make you feel ‚at home‘ even though you didn’t permanently lived there. Apparently it was about being welcomed and being around like minded people. He did not have that experience there, so did Home still qualify for it?

„I understand. It’s not as easy as perfect or awful, a home is always kinda both.“ You said and nodded at him. Martin blinked. He didn’t even have to scramble for words to explain it any better, you seemingly understood what he meant just like that.

His species mimicked their words and behavior, but expressions were something that he genuinely seemed to share with them in a way. It was clumsy and sometimes less attuned, but it overlapped to an extent were it wasn’t just mimicry. So he felt a smile further tug at his salesperson-friendly-welcoming-human-attitude, something from inside, when you send him an understanding smile.

Your eyes caught sight of the rain, and turned slightly to look outside. It was really starting to pour now. „Oh finally, look how lovely.“ You exhaled with relief. „The rain is lovely?“ He asked, because when someone came in while it rained they would usually very verbally complain about it. They didn’t like to get wet except for cleaning.

„Yes! It makes everything much cozier, and it smells so flowery in the spring.“ You explained. „I used to work in a small shop like this too, not real estate, but it was always nice when we had a rainy day. It gives you more privacy, you can make yourself a coffee and just watch people walk past.“ He watched you intently as you talked about it, it seemed to be something that makes you happy. „You used to work in a small shop like this too.“ He repeated, „We have that in common.“ He noticed, because truly everything else about him wasn’t alike anyone, it was just copied off everyone- except this thing right here. „That’s true.“ You said, and you didn’t even seem weirded out by the way he recited your words.

Martin found it interesting that you also watched people go by. He knew why he did it, but he didn’t know why actual humans wanted to observe each other. Yet there you were, also observing him back when you looked back up at him. „What do you like to do on the job?“ You wanted to know, and it felt like you were more on a common place now. Because you weren’t asking the representative of this company in front of you, you asked Martin the Person who was also in sales like you.

He genuinely needed to think about that. „I like learning new things about people.“ New phrases, new gestures, it was exciting. He especially appreciated this thing he saw the other day, where two people walked and they unnecessarily entangled their arms with each other. Why did they do it if it meant that they could only use one arm now? It was funny. „Thats true, coming by so many different customers every day is really interesting!“

He looked outside as well now, hearing the rain drum against the glass. The clouds darkened the sky so much that the contrast to the light inside became stronger. It never rained where he grew up, there was no weather at all. Seeing Humans enjoy different kinds of weather was unknown to him. „We could drive to Yonder right now if you’d like! It’s only half an hour drive away.” He offered now, eyeing you from the side. “Do you have a car?” You shook your head, “I don’t have a car, would you mind if I come along in yours?” “Certainly, let me get my keys.” He went to the back for a moment and you took out a small umbrella from your bag. When he came back he really only got his keys, no bag, no jacket or umbrella of his own. When you both stepped outside you unfolded the umbrella while he locked the door, turning a sign that said that he’d be right back.

Then Martin found himself in yet another unexpected moment, because you shuffled close to him and held the umbrella over both of your heads. He blinked down at you, you were ducking your head towards him so you wouldn’t get hit by the rain. The umbrella was quite small and probably only meant to fit one person, but you tried to make it fit anyway. You were trying to protect him from the rain too? “Ok, lead the way.” You said, and smiled up at him.

Martin didn’t say anything as he was still surprised by this gesture, and first he walked way too fast, but as you paced up as well he understood that he needed to be patient and match your smaller steps. He curiously looked at you from the corner of his eye, your arms were touching. When you stood so close it was even more obvious that you were shorter than him, you even struggled to extend your arm to make sure you didn’t accidentally hit his head. And then you.. did that thing, your hand came up to gently loop itself under his arm, holding onto him. “May I?” You asked, making sure he was comfortable with you getting a bit closer in the moment. It was.. restricting, but somehow comfortable? Like the compression of a hug but on a smaller scale.

He smiled slightly and nodded yes, eyes flickering to your hand on his lower arm for a moment. He felt your warmth through the fabric of his dress shirt, it was strong against the cold from the rain. “May I?” He repeated now, offering to the take the umbrella from you and you nodded with a smile. Martin took the handle from you, hands slightly brushing against each other as he did so.

You walked like that together for a while until you reached the car. He opened the door for you to get in before going around, quickly figuring out how to close this thing before getting into the driver’s seat next to you. When he looked over you were smiling, looking out of the front window at the rain. „We should listen to some music.“ You said, „Let’s turn on the radio!“

He obliged, this one took more calibrating, but eventually some tunes came out as the engine came to life and he exited the parking spot. It was a soft melody, and you seemed to recognize it because you started to sing along the words. Martin hummed along, trying to mimic the melody as well, because he didn’t know how to sing. You drove through the street and he couldn’t help but enjoy the way you were both mimicking the music. And you smiled widely and glanced at him while doing it, squinting your eyes once more in this disarming way.

He never thought he could do these things with a human.

You kept on listening to music for a while, traffic was holding you up quite a bit. You yawned a bit and snuggled yourself further into your coat, but to no effect. The cold from outside was still crawling into the car the longer the traffic jam continued. You closed your eyes and laid your head back. „I hope I‘ll like it there. I hope there are people I can sing in cars with too.“ You said, just like it was a sidenote, but it made Martin look at your tired form. He didn’t really know how this made him feel. But the fact that there was something he felt about it to begin with was making him insecure in a way. You yawned again without opening your eyes, „When we drive back you gotta show me the music you like too.“

He gripped the steering wheel harder. You were so casually.. everything that he never had before. Humans were cautious not to show that they didn’t care, he was mostly being tolerated to some extent by every one of them up to now. He was only aware of a lacking because he saw them interact with one another, how much more authenticity there was to their relationships. How did everything you said to him feel so fully different from the way they interacted with him before?

Martin didn’t do anything different, no matter how hard he tried to discern the reason why someone would actually like him now this time. He had only told you something about him, the fact that he grew up in a house like that, because you were also candid towards him. You evoked him to differ from the script, but was it all that more significant than what he did before?

He didn’t say anything for a while and neither did you, and at some point he found that you had fallen asleep. Martin glanced over at you and blinked, his eyes then drifted to the backseat. If he remembered correctly.. and he most certainly did then- he pulled a blanket out of the stuff that was crammed in the back from the previous owners of this car. When he stopped at a red light he carefully placed it over you. It would help with the cold. During sleeping periods the body temperature of humans became even lower and you already seemed to be shivering before.

He remembered how his foster parents tucked him in even though it wasn’t cold there. It was neither particularly warm or cold, there was no weather to shelter from but they insisted to do that with him and themselves as well. It was one of the many rituals they participated in even though there was no outlying reason for it. So he did this to you as well, and he was careful to put the fluffy fabric over your shoulder so it wouldn’t fall. You let put a small sigh but did not awake, and his eyes flickered over your face. You looked.. nice. You looked as nice as you were as a person.

Martin turned towards the steering wheel again and drove further, but when he saw the sign for Yonder he stopped the car. He did not enter the neighborhood.

He didn’t want you too live and die in there, never to be seen again. He didn’t want to drive someone else to the house that you had died in. He wanted to drive back with you now and show you the music he liked like you said.

And he let you go, would he be able to see you again at all?

He heard shuffling from the blanket and looked to the side, seeing how you sleepily opened your eyes again. When you caught sight of him you smiled, even though there was no social prompt for you to do so. You just did. „I fell asleep goodness..“ you mumbled and straightened yourself again. „Are we there?“

Martin looked at you, his eyebrow twitched and he breathed in before closing his mouth for another moment. „Yes. But. I was called just now which is why I stopped the car. And the agency informed me that another real estate agent has just sold the house that I was going to show you. And unfortunately the other ones are already reserved.“

You slightly weighed your head to the side, „Oh.“ you slightly bit your lip, disappointed. „Well, I was too slow then I guess. But.. well this was still fun enough don’t you think?“ He raised his brows, you chuckled. „Singing along to music with someone I just met and taking a nap in a real estate’s company’s car isn’t an ordinary experience, I like it.“ You explained, amused despite the rejection of a viewing.

Martin couldn’t help but smile himself too. The way you were, how you acted and spoke and were so forward and positive towards the things around you was something he didn’t want to disappear and be covered up by the trap that was this neighborhood. It was something he wanted to be around more, not just observing but partaking in as a person. Because you saw him as such.

The rain drummed loudly on the windshield. He swallowed as there were no specifics for him on what he was trying to say now. „Would you like to drink coffee and watch people together when we come back?“

Your smile grew wider. „Yes! I‘d love to.“

I hope you liked it! Idk if this will get any notes or comments because thats one if the mist niche characters I‘ve ever written for but I still really wanted to write this. I‘m so endeared with this guy

[novelmonger]

I just finished The Silver Chair and thought I’d pop over to let you know I enjoyed it this time through (you said it’s your favorite, recently), and also that I figured out why it was one of my least favorites as a kid. It’s a sort of middle-aged book. I am, of course, referencing Screwtape’s advice to Wormwood that “The long, dull, monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather. You see, it is so hard for these creatures to persevere.” Of all the Narnia books, it’s the one that requires the greatest perseverance from the characters (and thus from me, the reader), with the least “reward” along the way. There are no respites at the Beavers’ house or bright days of sailing in fair weather or rides on a winged horse to break up the slog through marsh and moor and underground maze. Every apparent respite is just more danger and discomfort in disguise. Even the season is the grimmest, hardest part of the year as the tail end of autumn slides into the bleakness of early winter.

And then there are the adventures. I am petrified of snakes, and a serpent plays a prominent role in this story. I am terrified of heights and can’t even watch characters in a movie stand on the edge of a cliff without nausea clawing up my throat, so Eustace falling over the edge of that cliff and Jill flying through the air on Aslan’s breath provoke a deeply uncomfortable physical reaction for me. And I, like Jill, also cannot bear being shut up underground. I identify a little too strongly with her POV to enjoy their trip to the Underland—especially since Lewis keeps emphasizing her discomfort!

But! This time through, I found Puddleglum a hoot. The parliament of owls too, with their odd, backwards view of humans. Jill is incredibly relatable to me, not only because of her fears, but also because she is so ordinary and she bickers with Eustace and she wants a warm bath and a hot meal so badly. That’s exactly how I would feel in a like situation. Her negligence in reviewing the Signs is also more relatable than I like to admit. The enchantment scene with the witch is a brilliant presentation of how secular culture tries to reduce faith to something ridiculous and imitative through denial and mockery. And it’s presented in a way that children can see the flaws in the witch’s words.

As for the “middle-aged” atmosphere—well, I’m old enough now to have hiked my own Ettinsmoor and Underland. I can appreciate the virtues endurance and patience in a way I didn’t as a teen. So all that is to say that I guess I’ve finally grown up enough to appreciate this book. It’s still not the volume I’m most likely to pull off the shelf, what with the physical and emotional discomfort, but I definitely see more in it now.

To clarify: The Silver Chair is my favorite of the BBC miniseries. Of the books, my favorite is The Horse and His Boy.

I think a big part of why I love Silver Chair so much is because it was the first of the BBC adaptations we owned, so I watched it over and over (as well as the animated LWW, which I love aspects of but also recognize that the animation is...special).

But I also identify with Jill most out of all the children, I think. She just seems so normal. She doesn't become a queen. She almost feels like a hero by accident, because she was showing off and ended up being the only one to hear the Signs. I mean, it's all part of Aslan's plan, and none of the children were chosen because they were particularly special (other than that Aslan chose them!). But Jill just feels a bit more relatable to me. Also, everything about forgetting the Signs was really convicting to me as a kid who often thought of Scripture memorization as boring and pointless.

Then there's the climax, with the Queen of Underland almost convincing them there's no Narnia, no sun, no Aslan! But Puddleglum comes to the rescue! His dourness and pessimism, which seemed like little more than a funny sort of character quirk before, turns out to be exactly what they needed at that moment to save the day. And what he says about how he'd rather believe in Aslan, even if he's not real, than the Queen's depressing "reality," has always struck such a deep chord in me.

And then there's Prince Rillian! That whole part where they're all suspicious but then he says Aslan's name sends chills down my spine to this day.

And then, specifically from the BBC version...I honestly can't imagine anyone better than Tom Baker for Puddleglum, and Barbara Kellerman is a fantastic Green Lady/Queen of Underland (and White Witch, but that's a whole other post).

Anyway, I never thought of Silver Chair as being "middle-aged," though I see what you mean. Maybe I've just always been an old soul or something XD Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

[captainlynxx]

After reading “something in the water” here’s everything I highlighted (and any notes I added because I did this at 3am and cannot remember my thought process when I did this:

> Ianto Jones’s soft Welsh voice came through loud and clear: ‘Gwen and Toshiko have made it through alive.’

‘Alive?’

‘It was a close thing, apparently. They nearly died of boredom.’

> ‘You never yawn. I’ve never seen you yawn, not once, ever.’

> ‘She dug it out herself with claws as hard as iron and decorated it with the skins of the children she ate.’

‘That’s nice.’

> ‘I always am. I have two perfect marriages and two perfect divorces behind me to prove it.’

> ‘Oh, yeah, dead as a cardboard cut-out with two bullet holes in it can be…’

> If the rift was a blade, then the wound it had made bled problems- flotsam and jetsam and alien life forms from across time and space, all washed up on the South Wales coast.

> And, if possible, use what they found to arm the human race against the future. The only trouble being that the future was already here: this was the twenty-first century, when ‘everything changes’ as Jack liked to put it.

> ‘Blip? Is that a technical expression?’

‘Yes. As opposed to a spark.’

‘Now you’re just kidding me, right?’

‘Activity surge,’ Ianto explained patiently.

> ‘Just bollocks.’

‘Is that a technical expression?’

> ‘So what have you found, Sherlock?’

Ianto pushed a slim Manila envelope across the desk. ‘The strange case of Saskia Harden.’

> ‘Ianto’s got me chasing some pretty young blonde-‘

‘He knows you so well.’

> ‘Well, that’s where I had to be extremely clever as well as amazingly handsome,’ Ianto said.

> ‘Or maybe it’s just something in the water.’ (Title drop)

> ‘I’ll do my job, Ianto, and you do yours. That way we all get job satisfaction.’

> ‘That’s why I work for Torchwood. Uncanny is our business.’

> ‘There is a doormat upstairs, you know. Several, in fact.’

> ‘Thanks, Ianto. You are a treasure, you know that?’

He smiled. ‘As a matter of fact, I do.’

> ‘So unimportant in life that no one even notices when you die.’ (AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH)

> Toshiko had staggered backwards at the first scream, grabbing hold of Gwen instinctively.’

> ‘Men can never look after themselves properly when they’re ill.’ (Mate you fell in love with your mother…)

> BBC News 24 (Hide from the TV license man)

> He smiled. ‘Oh, I’m really a genius in disguise. Haven’t you worked that out yet?’

> ‘Yeah - like if she finds a cure, I’m the first to know.’

‘Actually she’d be the first to know, technically. And I’d be second. That would make you third, at best.’

> ‘Y’know I kind of prefer it when the dead stay dead.’

‘Pot. Kettle. Black,’ Owen said.

‘Yeah,’ agreed Jack with a shrug. ‘The difference is I do it with style.’

> ‘That’s because you’re a man,’ said Toshiko weakly.

> ‘Bitch,’ said Gwen.

> Ianto, unbelievably, was in shirtsleeves - bloodstained and open necked, and, clutching the gun, looking more like an extra from a die hard film than an immaculate butler.

That was longer than I expected but this goes at 3 on the Torchwood novel rankings (4 if I’m included audiobooks but I’ll decide that later I’m too lazy rn)

[nowiamcoveredinyou]

Scoop of ice cream

BBC Sherlock x reader

Fluff

Word count:- 483

"well then" said john while raising himself from his chair, that was situated infront of Sherlock's, "I'm sleepy, we'll see about it tomorrow".

"okay good night John" said Sherlock, his eyes were shut as he sat on his chair thinking, fingers clasped together.

"nighty night" I said coming out of the kitchen with a bowl of ice cream. John smiled and nodded before wishing me the same. I came to the living room and sat in his chair, watching Sherlock engulfed into his mind palace. It was a rather interesting scene, to guess when will he come out of there and eventually he. As he opened his eyes his face suddenly held a kind of baffled expression. I mean who could blame him, anyone would be so if the person sitting infront of him is having a bowl of tasty chocolate chip ice cream that's on her chin and the corner of her lips while she's biting the spoon staring at him.

"ice cream?" he said still a bit confused, "at this hour?"

"yeah so?" I replied still biting the spoon for no reason, which I wonder may have made it hard for him to understand but he got it anyway.

"it's late at night, hope it's not too cold though" he said now finally sitting a bit comfortably, maybe his case hangover is fully out now.

"it's not that cold" with this I dig the spoon in my ice cream and scooped some, then looking at Sherlock I said, "you want me to get you some too?"

"no" he replied shaking his head and shrugging my shoulders I took a bite of that delicious ice cream.

"I'd rather share yours" I stared at his remark. But he's like that anyway, he doesn't get anything from himself, he likes sharing from me.

"as you wish.... husband" I replied with a smirk and putting the bowl down I went to fetch a spoon. As I was about to return I felt I've scooped from the floor and that's what exactly happened when I saw the two big arms holding me in bridal style.

"SHERLOCK?" I exclaimed, "what was t-"

Before I could finish he interrupted while taking me out of the kitchen to our bedroom, "I'm sleepy I need my doll".

"what?" I said looking at him with surprise.

"I need you little wife. I need to hug my doll to sleep" he said not even stopping for once. However before entering I remembered something important,

"my ice cream!" I said loudly as if I forgot my diamond necklace or something. Sherlock apparently rolled his eyes and put me down so he could go and take the ice cream bowl.

"happy?"

"yes" I said taking another scoop and raising my bowl and my spoon to offer him. He smiled and took a bit. After all he can't disappoint his doll wife can he?

[evergreen-writing]

Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've?) || JD (Heathers) x British!Reader

Cross-posted on AO3

CHAPTER ONE : I Can't See Much of a Future

11AM in Sherwood, Ohio, so 4PM back home, and you were watching ever-so-painfully as the classroom clock ticked down to 12, when you could escape around back with a mediocre American sandwich from the cafeteria and your copy of Sylvia Plath’s Ariel to fuel your lamenting. Sure, this quick dip across the pond (as it was first proposed to you) has helped your family financially, that couldn’t be denied, but God, did it make you lonely. Last July, you were ever-so-politely begged to accompany your twenty-five year-old brother to his exciting yet confidential new science job for a few weeks while your parents ‘sorted something out’, but then the weeks turned into months and now you are approaching your 6th month in redneck America with excruciating lethargy.

Sure, you made friends, but you’ve had it up to here with them; with the only name people use for you being ‘Redcoat’, with constantly being asked if you want tea, with incessant comments about British girls being more ‘polite in bed’ than American ones from two certain jocks who you are far too dignified to name. You’re smart, yes, but you find it hard not to be when comparing the two school systems you have been enslaved to, and pretty, apparently, but you’re unsure if that is just due to the novelty of your nationality messing with people’s heads. Despite your personal qualities and the privileges they bring, you know that you hate it here.

So, once you step outside that classroom, you go through the motions. Your most often-seen acquaintance, Ivy, immediately pounces on you, fresh off a period of smoking in the third floor girls’ toilets, and bombards you with news of a ‘rad party’ the weekend coming, and asks where you got your lipstick before deciding it must be from ‘one of those London brands’. You are not from London. However, you have tried to play upon people’s assumptions, and have adopted a far posher accent than usual to quell any commotion surrounding the fact that England does in fact, have a North. Then, two unfortunately familiar boys, towering proud in their letterman jackets, approach you, their chests puffed out in a manner that you can only relate to birds during mating season. They ask you your plans for the weekend, with a barely understandable guffaw lacing their tone. Upon being told that they’ll have to ‘wait and see’, they admonish you for being ‘such a tease’ and in turn, ‘so British’ and move on to a girl far less world-weary and far more susceptible to their advances. Ivy grabs you by the arm and pulls you around the corner, into an empty classroom far from other people’s prying ears.

“I, personally, cannot ‘wait and see’. My entire schedule this week revolves around who will be where, when, and I cannot deal with showing at that party and not having anyone to tell Kurt and Ram to ‘shove off’.”

Each time she quotes you, she does so in a cheap imitation of your accent, and you find plenty of opportunity to roll your eyes. Desperately putting off the decision, as it will inevitably be to go somewhere where you’d prefer to be six feet underground, you decide to laugh at her.

“Why have you dragged me into an empty classroom, Ivy? Planning something nefarious?”

It’s her turn to roll her eyes, now.

“It’s because I’m your friend, and I know you like to do the whole aloof British girl shtick around the boys, so I’ll help you preserve your image, but, God, do I need an answer.”

You sigh.

“Imminently?” You try.

She nods once, determined.

“Imminently.”

You sigh, and turn your head away from her to hide your disappointment, as you were honestly planning on staying in this Saturday and watching Doctor Who on that illegal, pirate TV channel you’d found that somehow manages to hijack the BBC signals right to your home television. You suppose you will have to wait until it is released on VHS.

“Look, unless something comes up, I’ll come. Can’t have you facing those big, mean boys all by yourself, can I?”

When you finish, she envelops you in a hug, resting her head on your shoulder and wrapping her arms so tightly around you that you earnestly cannot breathe for a few seconds. In these seconds, your slightly oxygen-starved brain surveys her, and you honestly don’t know how she survived without you: she’s petite, crudely so, her head barely reaching your neck in the hug despite your lacklustre height of around 5”6; she’s all curves and no edges, wrapped up in whatever Madonna was wearing last week and most worryingly, every emotion she experiences is immediately on her face as if you were watching some sort of hammy pantomime. You feel as if you must go to the party on Saturday, only to bring all the attention and undressing eyes off her.

Still clinging to you like some sort of overgrown toddler, she whines, pouting.

“What would come up that would make you leave me all alone?”

You laugh slightly at the carping, high pitch of her voice and you murmur something not truly thought out, just something to make sure you don’t develop tinnitus.

“I don’t know, if a guy asks me out or something.”

She pulls away from you and her face quite literally glows, as if she is being lit from behind.

“Is there a guy who would ask you out? If so, I need to meet him.”

You laugh truly now, if not slightly incredulously.

“You’re not my mother, Ivy. Plus, there isn't even a guy! That was a hypothetical!”

She hums, shaking her head vigorously.

“I’ll get to the bottom of this, Redcoat, just you see.”

Just like that, she bounds through the classroom door, a blur of a low-cut shirt and tight black trousers, leaving you all alone, surveying the ‘ALGEBRA IS FUN!’ poster of the classroom that you now know contains maths lessons. Irritated, you correct your inner monologue that you have to say ‘math’ now (why - it’s not mathematic, is it?) and calmly debate grabbing some food. Twelve to twelve-twenty is Kurt and Ram’s demon time, and although their torment isn’t enacted on you in such an obvious way, you find it incredibly difficult to sit through the literal bullying of random, helpless American kids and act like you find it funny. It is slightly, but your fun ends when you remember that these aren’t cartoon characters from the American TV shows and instead actual, real-life kids. So, you decide that your best train of thought is to pull out Ariel, which you cling to like a security blanket and paw feverishly to one of your tabbed and wildly annotated pages and read Lady Lazarus, whispering the lyrical lines to yourself like some sort of maddened prayer to an ancient Goddess. You’ll grab some food at some point, you decide.

Around the last couple of verse paragraphs, sometime about the commanding of ‘Herr God’ and ‘Herr Lucifer’, you hear a dry voice leering near the previously unopened door.

“Sylvie, huh?”

You look up to see a teenage boy, his gaunt yet lanky frame cloaked in a deep black trenchcoat, fluffy, tawny fringe nearly covering his eyes, which you can vaguely see are a dark brown, seemingly containing multitudes. Immediately, something seems wrong about him. Unfortunately, this only intrigues you more and you decide to amuse him.

“Mhm, she’s my patron poet.”

He takes this opportunity to stride forward, his pace not suggesting he’s aware that he’s intruding, letting the door swing then slam behind him. His face doesn’t even react to your accent. He doesn’t give away much, actually, just simply nodding his head in response and vaguely smirking as he comes over. He slides onto the desk facing the one you’ve claimed as your seat and his intent gaze implies that you cannot just flip over to Tulips.

“I’m new”, he says, “I’ve been told to find the registry office, yet never been told where the registry office actually is.”

You sigh, in a performative manner that is unusual for you and slide Ariel back into your backpack.

“Follow me. I arrived in September, so I’m pretty sure the way is still in my memory.” You trail off for a moment, but when the boy barely replies, only mirroring you by propelling himself off the desk, you say more. “I’m not from around here.”

He laughs slightly at this, as you can hear a slight, dry chuckle from behind you.

“Somehow, I could tell. Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I’m not from around these parts either.”

Due to your place of origin, you can’t distinguish different American accents apart, unless those accents are rootin’ tootin' cowboy or valley girl, so you are genuinely shocked by this reveal, and you think the boy can tell, as that endearingly miniscule laugh repeats itself.

“I couldn’t have guessed,” You beam, before shock settles on your body and you whip your head around. “God, I have been so rude. I’m Evelyn.”

He makes an attempt at a polite smile, and only says: “Nice to meet you, Evelyn.”

Silently, you continue walking.

Trying to shake off your slight horror at his unwritten-rule-breaking behaviour of not sharing his name in return, you try to make yet another quip.

“I still don’t know why they need another office just for admissions. Surely, they could just use the regular one.”

You cast your eyes behind you, careful not to slow your stride, but you notice that he’s not even smiling, instead, his lips flatten into a straight line.

“They’d get overloaded, Evelyn. Highschool makes kids crazy: they quit, they die, they kill themselves, whatever. Then, another worker drone comes to take their place - rinse and repeat. If you aren’t pulling your hair out by now, you’re stronger than most.”

You, to be completely frank, are stunned. Unsure about whether that was even a joke or not, you let out a muffled, half-laugh before deciding that being candid is your best bet to keep this conversation afloat.

“I’m just waiting to get on that plane back home, to be honest. I was only meant to be here for a few weeks, then the weeks turned into months and then… I don’t know.” You trail off, slightly taken aback at how honest you are around him.

It wasn’t too long ago that you decided that who you are at school is a front, a character to pull you through. Now here you are, expressing actual emotions and being an actual person in front of a literal stranger who you don’t even know the name of.

You turn fully around now, meeting him in the eyes and you notice that he is fully considering your statement, his eyes not even meeting yours, instead unwavering straight ahead.

Suddenly, he speaks.

“I want to get out, too. I think everyone does, really.”

This lulls you into a rather placid silence, you somewhat cocooned with the revelation that you think, deep down, you already knew. Keeping up a steady pace, you soon reach the registry office and the boy begins to leave you, turning his back. You hear your voice escaping your mouth before you even realise you’re speaking.

“Will I be seeing you around?” Your voice sounds distant, yet hopeful.

Swivelling to face you, he smiles in a way that is actually genuine, in a tone which is the lightest you’ve ever heard from him, you hear:

“Hopefully.”

And then he is gone.

(P.S.: Reblog with the word 'taglist' to be added to the taglist)

[raceweek]

Alex Albon: Williams driver says ‘you need to be a fighter to be a driver’

BBC SPORT: Andrew Benson

Alex Albon knows what it's like to think he's at the end of the road.

"You're right on that mental edge of panic and worry," he says. "I sat on that worry for so long that you start to not care. You can't panic forever. You can't worry about it forever.

"And I think: 'Well, l've only got to give it my all. I've only got to put everything on the table.'

His story is one of resilience - of numerous knocks through his life from which he has drawn on remarkable reserves of self-belief to bounce back each time.

On his respiratory failure and being dropped from red bull:

"In terms of setbacks, it's a small one really," he says. "I've had very good doctors around me, who were in Italy, to get me back into a good place. I feel very fortunate."

Two years ago, it looked as though Albon's career was coming to an end before it had really got going.

The decision was tough to take.

"I would be lying if I told you I didn't expect it," Albon says. "I felt like I didn't perform that season. I knew there was a strong chance of it happening.

"I had dreamed of being in F1 since I was four years old, almost completely obsessed with it. You inevitably hit this heartbreak where it is like, almost: 'OK, is this the end? And you've only spent two years in it.'

"It's a brutal business - and how quickly everything came about. It was a true fast-track from Toro Rosso into one of the very top teams in the sport and then out. And it was like: 'Wow, OK. It did hit me hard, as it would anyone."

Albon's voice falters as he talks, and his eyes well up a little.

"I remember the meeting," he says. "I remember everything as clear as day. And I have to say, first, I have a very strong network of people. My family. My friends. And people around me that you see today.

"Very quickly, I was back to work. I was in the simulator very early in January. 'OK, what's my job, how am I going to get back into F1?' And I kind of had a goal and a plan to do that.

"I would say I want F1 more than any other driver. Everyone will say that. But I genuinely believe it. And I knew I had to really do what it takes, in a way that was quite strange because I can't actually prove myself. It was almost like, what can you do without driving the car?"

On 2012:

This was far from the first setback of Albon's career. For many years, he had struggled to keep things on track.

Born to a British father - former racing driver Nigel Albon - and a Thai mother, he'd been a Red Bull-backed driver early in his career, but lost their support after an indifferent season in Formula Renault in 2012, caused by a major personal upheaval.

His mum Kankamol - with whom he is particularly close - was jailed for fraud, leaving a 15-year-old Albon to look after his younger brother and three sisters.

He still doesn't like to talk about it. But in the first series of Netflix's Drive to Survive series, he admitted it was "by far the hardest year l've had in my life", recalling how he "saw her get locked up and taken away".

Albon says now the difficult road "helped" when it came to rebuilding his career. "It's just because l've gone through it," he says.

"I've had it before, personal stuff, as well as I had it in Formula Renault, where I wasn't going to race the year after and we scrambled along and pretty much got a budget together within, like, two weeks of the first race.

On his personality and determination:

In person, Albon is modest and unassuming. It's hard to square such an apparently gentle character with the steel he must have required to get where he has.

"The general public get me wrong," he says. "They think I'm this happy-go-lucky kid constantly, and that I'm not hungry; maybe too nice.

"They will never see the fiery side because they don't have a headset. They don't listen to me when I'm driving. I am naturally quite happy. I do love what I do. It's the reason why I wanted to be in F1 so much. And I felt like I've learnt to enjoy and relax about it. But you definitely need a fiery side if you want to be in F1."

I tell him that what got him to this point seems more like steel than fire, and he says: "It's both. It's the resilience and at the same time it's determination.

"As a driver, you almost need to be a fighter. When you have a helmet on, you're fighting other drivers. And I am fired up. I really am not a nice person when I have my helmet on. Speak to the engineers here and they'll tell you that."

On fighting for his return to the grid:

Albon's answer was to throw himself into work behind the scenes with Red Bull. There were weeks, he says, when he would spend six days out of seven in their simulator.

He prepared a data sheet that proved, he said, his results at Red Bull were better than the general perception and "well in line with the people who I took over from or replaced me".

Albon said they showed the 2020 car "wasn't that easy".

At the Austrian Grand Prix in July 2021, he met Williams chief executive officer Jost Capito and gave him the data as he made a pitch for the drive. The sheet, he told Capito, "showed not just what I can bring but also on a pure performance side, I'm a good driver and you should take me".

Williams knew they would need a replacement for Russell, who was being promoted to Mercedes for 2022. In the background, Russell was making Albon's case to the team.

"He played a part for sure," Albon says of his close friend. "He got my name on the map.

"I've raced against George for a lot of my career and I'm in a very thankful position where he does respect or believe in my ability. He did mention my name a few times to Jost and the board; I joked about it but it is true, almost a bit too much, to the point where they said they wouldn't listen to him!"

Marko and Red Bull team principal Christian Horner also weighed in for Albon. "I know that they both also convinced Jost to take me," he says. "I'm sure - I know - that they also told Jost the job that I was doing.

On his support system and marketing:

Outside the car, Albon has revamped his support structure, taking on a manager, and forming a new relationship with a performance coach.

With them, he says he can "talk about offloading marketing stuff as much as I can".

Williams have turned Albon's distaste for marketing activities into a bit of a running joke on their social media channels. He smiles and agrees, but adds: "It's a genuine thing. There is a lot of noise in F1 and I think I most probably got caught up in it a bit too much in 2020. There was a lot of firing going on and I was trying to avoid all the bullets.

"Red Bull were very good to me and were trying to help me and support me, but having that circle around me has allowed me to really focus on the driving side - the thing that I really like.

"I'm much more of a quy who is comfortable with the engineers than in front of a TV camera and that kind of thing.

"With stuff like Daniel and Oscar, to be able to drive with so much talk going around, it's not an easy thing to do," he says. "I think as a rookie, even in 2020, I wish I could tell myself the stuff I know now. But you can't, so hindsight is a wonderful thing."

On 2022:

His performances have been so good it's almost as if Williams have lost Russell and replaced him with the same driver. Albon's advantage over team-mate Nicholas Latifi is almost identical to the one Russell had.

Albon says his focus right from the start at Williams was getting himself back to being the driver he always believed he could be.

"I had a vision of the areas I wanted to work on from back in 2020," he says. "I was like, 'OK, I want to fix my areas almost first and really understand. I've got to get comfortable with the team and all that kind of thing.'

"That's almost slightly separate to the performance of the car and where it was at. I've got to look at myself and really... I wouldn't even call it shake off the rust, but really focus on my development."

In the end, all this introspection and hard work has paid off.

"I can only say that I feel comfortable," Albon says. "I feel confident in the car. I feel confident with myself in the team and I know for a fact that I'm driving better than I did in 2020.

"If I look at it almost selfishly, independently, I feel like the year has gone as good as I could have hoped for."

He hopes, he says, he has proved a point.