#also v aware i never did answer my asks from the other week - haven't been on tumblr for a while | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

x-avantgarde-x · 5 years

Text

You can have as many as you want.

(Because my Tumblr is a bad bitch it:

1. Sent the answer before I had finished writing it.

2. Deleted the ask.

Tumblr, why do you hate me so much?? Any way. I'mma post this, and I give 0 fucks if you do or do not want me to.)

aAaAaAAAAHHHH. Thank you v much, gosh you are so sweet!

Touch starved Erik is the best Erik! Prompts used where "I don't deserve you." And "Don't leave me." From some list I had saved. This turned out a little angsty at some point, but our Erik is just a complex boy who needs his time to work things out, so the fluff is still in there. Hope you enjoy it!

Couple: Erik (The Phantom of the Opera) x reader. Mainly Lerik and Kerik ksks.

Summary: Erik it's just too edgy to admit to himself that he's longing for for being touched gently and when the reader does so for the first time things go kinda wild.

————————————————————

You sat at the couch at Erik's house, you still weren't so sure if his underground den in the middle of a lake fitted the concept of a (common) house, but the longer you spent down there the less you cared. By now it all had already acquired a sense of familiarity and homely feeling.

You had met Erik a year ago. A few days after what happened with Christine Dae you heard the sceneshifters talking about how they believed to have heard someone wondering down the basements of the Opera the same night The Dae had been abducted and that the whole Opera went crazy. Usually you were a really quiet person, and prefered to stay out of trouble but that day curiosity took the best of you. And by the sunset you were already under the fifth basement of the Opera Populaire.

You got lost many times, and many others you almost got killed by a trap, but at some point you came across an underground lake with a jetty where a small boat was tied. Without much thinking you got inside the boat and started rowing, not really knowing where you planned to get to. To your surprises after what seemed like a few hours of rowing aimlessly you could get a glimpse of some faint lights in the middle of a cave. Suddenly your strength came back to your already numb arms and you got to land in less that ten minutes.

You glanced around curiously. A voice inside your head was wondering what were so many candles doing down there, and most importantly, how they had gotten there but another voice onside you, the curious one who seemed to had just awakened today, told you to follow the path they seemed to mark.

As if in a dream you started walking, not really aware of what your body was doing. You felt like floating. It seemed as if you were in between a dream and reality,and that the glimmering candles told your body to follow them to wherever they lead to.

Eventually you got to what seemed to be a door and opening it, still not being completely responsible of your actions, you walked into what seemed to be a living room. You snapped out of your slumber because of the state of the room. Furniture had been flipped and pushed to the ground, the floor had vanished under a layer of what seemed to be shattered scores and glasses. Every room you walked into looked exactly the same.

Your heart almost escaped your chest when you found what seemed to be a room with a coffin laying at the floor. With fearful steps you finally made it to the casket where a beautiful cat laued inside. You kneeled in front of it and tried to pet it, but the animal simply held your glance for a few seconds before storming out of the room. Fearing for it to get hurt you chased it to one of the rooms that you hadn't already looked at. The first thing that you noticed was that next to the doorframe there was a switch, and you cursed yourself for not looking for them sooner. When the light turned on you couldn't believe your eyes.

There was what seemed to be a corpse laying at the floor. By how it looked you would have given it for dead, if it wasn't because the closer you got the more noticeable it became that the "corpse" was breathing, with some difficulty, but breathing.

It all hit you in a second. The Corpse Like Man that everyone had believed to be the Opera ghost, the spectrum that had hunted the Opera Garnier for years. It was alive, even if it did look dead. It was a living man who lived under the Opera and who had played with you all this whole time. A man who coughed violently and seemed to be bleeding out of a wound at his body, who wouldn't make it much farther if you didn't help him out at that moment.

When you finally came out of your thoughts you went to assist him. Despite the seriousness of his injuries and the apprehension that you felt about touching him the first times eventually you got him patched up. You also carried him to the bed you had found in one of the rooms without much of a trouble once you figured out that whatever it was the reason behind his looks, it wasn't contagious.

It took you some weeks to get him to be fully conscious and for him to have enough strengths to stand up for himself. The moment that happened he was furious with you. He shouted and yelled, cursing you for saving his life and making you leave the lake house, threatening you with your death if you ever came down to find him again.

But that didn't stop you. And eventually you didn't just come to make sure that he was okay and that he hadn't killed himself but because you enjoyed his company. At the same time the man, who responded to the name Erik had began to open up to you, allowing you two to become closer.

It all felt so far away in time now. As if it had taken place years ago. Erik and you became friends eventually and you felt like the two of you had developed some kind of unspoken relationship. But you never dared to speak with him about it, not after knowing what had happened with Christine. You didn't want to bring back any painful memories to Erik, and he had many.

Talking about Erik, you hadn't heard him nor seen him in the whole evening. You thought as you started to pack your things in your bag. You wished you had been able to spend more time together today, but he must have been busy to ignore your presence so abruptly.

As you got ready to leave you heard one of the many doors behind you opening up and turned around to see the man you had been thinking about walking out of a room, who was priming the sleeves of his suit. Erik looked up to you and his face seemed to have lightened up under the mask that he stubbornly kept wearing around you, even after you had told him several times that his face didn't disgust you any longer.

-My beloved- he spoke, opening his arms in a welcoming expression -what brings you down here at this lovely evening? Have you come to visit your poor Erik?

You shook your head when you heard how he addressed himself, it pained you at your heart. Holding your bag in your hands you swung slightly on your tiptoes in a playful way before answering him.

-Truth is I've been here the whole evening. But you seemed to be busy and I didn't want to disturb you. Actually, I was getting ready to make my way out.

The smile on Erik's lips faded away and a pout took it place. Erik did not let his disappointment go unnoticed and looked straight at your eyes before speaking in the saddest voice he could find -Oh, but why must you go? Don't leave me this early, my dear.

You chuckled at his manners, even when upset he was extremely theatrical. It may be the same with every men that advocated their life to their Opera's and music, you thought. The theatrical manners were a part of them.

-I'm coming back tomorrow, and you know it. No need to throw a tantrum over my departure.

You joked. Erik played along and placing a hand to his chest, as if he had been incredibly offended he went on.

-You insult me, miss. A man like me, throwing a tantrum as a mer infant?

-It wouldn't be the first time, would it darling?- you pointed out with a giggle.

-Touché- the masked man answered, accepting his defeatment with composure and dignity.

Your cheeks turned a soft red because of the playful flirting, which took place whenever you spoke to eachother. You placed one of your locks behind your ear nervously. The butterflies inside your stomach making you feel once more as if you were back to being that young teen who would snick out with all the other ballerinas to watch the handsome actors getting changed for the shows.

Without thinking twice you walked closer to Erik, who's look of surprise you didn't seem to catch, and placed a soft peck at the corner of his lips leaning on his shoulders to get to his face. You left Erik startled by your actions and it wasn't till you were back in front of him, looking straight at his eyes, that you realized what you had done.

-Oh! Erik I- you tried to excuse yourself, but the damage was already done, and you felt his anger rising and increasing as seconds passed by.

-Damn you!- he screamed- DAMN YOU, YOU LITTLE VIPER! Oh how funny of you. Haven't I've been hurt enough for you to play such tricks on me!?!- he said, pacing around you like a hunger lion over his prey.

-Erik, darling, I didn't mean to- you attempts of calming him down fell on deaf ears because Erik headed against you with all the rage he had locked inside.

-How cruel of you! Playing with a broken man's poor heart! You know fully well that poor unhappy Erik doesn't deserve you! But still you choose to play with my feelings. Only to end up leaving me behind, just as that Swedish girl did!

Tears had formed at your eyes as he spoke his hateful words. It was not till he stormed out of the room and locked himself that you allowed yourself to cry. Collapsing at the sofa where you had been sitting not so long ago and crying your heart out.

Hours had passed by when you heard a door opening. You did not need to open your eyes nor to stand up from the sofa to face the door in order to know that it was Erik the one who had come out of it. You heard his slowed down steps as he came closer and closer to you, like a frightened child about to confront his mother after having misbehaved. When he was finally standing in front of you, head down to the floor, he dropped to his knees, tugging at the hem of your dress while crying over your lap. You hands found their way to his head, where you started playing with the few strands of his hair in an attempt to calm him down.

When Erik had finally stopped sobbing and you two were now laying together, him on top of you, at the sofa. Erik's masked face was hidden at the croock of your neck as he clinged to your body with all his strengths, as if he was scared that you would disappear if he loosened his hold on you.

Whe Erik dared to cautiously look up at your face, in case that you were still mad at him.

-(Y/N)...- he asked, almost in a whisper. You looked back at him

-Yes?

Erik swallowed, he swallowed hard, doubting if he should go on with what he had thought.

-I- I wanted to ask you for something...

It was the first time since you had ever met that Erik was asking for something for himself. So you stood up slightly, making sure that Erik was still laying over you, wearing the softest smile you could to encourage him to keep going. Oh, you were so eager to get him whatever he asked for.

-What is it, dear?

Erik let out a shaky breath, and bitting his misshapen lip he found the courage enough to speak.

-Can you give me two kisses?- he asked a child like ring at his voice -one for now and one to save?

Tears made their way to your eyes once more. The fact that all he was asking for so fearfully was nothing more but a kiss tore your heart open.

With watery eyes you knelt on the stomach and pulled Erik up with you to later throw yourself at your poor man, taking his lips between yours without hesitation. The kiss took Erik by surprise, but even if he was a little astonished at the beginning he ended up melting down in your touch, kissing you back with the same fervour.

When you had to pull apart because of the air loss you took Erik's face between your hands, his blissful eyes looking at you in pure adoration. -You can have as many kisses as you want, my love. Now and ever. No need to ask for them.

Erik's mouth formed a big o, and his eyes looked watery behind his mask. A soft smile spread across his features before he pushed you against his chest, were you buried yourself, hugging eachother lovingly.

#poto #phantom susan kay #phandom #phantomoftheopera #the phantom #phantom of the opera #phantom of the opera imagine #the phantom of the opera x reader #leroux erik #gaston leroux #erik destler x reader #ask #request #anon ask

521 notes · View notes

chasholidays · 5 years

Note

Hello! I would love to read a Bellarke "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" AU. There are extensive plot synopsis in Wikipedia for both the book (absolutely delightful and hilarious, but very obscure epistolary historical novel) and the film (it was released about a month ago, I haven't seen it yet, but it looks interesting). Regardless of whether my prompt gets picked, I look forward to reading your holiday fics, thank you for doing them.

also in space! I love space

new fic will be up when I wake up around 6 am EST

When Clarke’s data pad informs her she has a new message from an unfamiliar contact, she almost swipes it into her reader mail folder without looking. It’s usually the right choice; Clarke gets a lot of messages from fans who just want to tell her how much they enjoyed a piece she did or how much they appreciated her writing about wherever they live. Once a week, she’ll grab some alcohol and go through and respond to them or not, depending on the specific message and how long she has, but they aren’t a priority. Most of the time she doesn’t know what to say.

But before she can do the same thing to Bellamy Blake’s message, the subject catches her eye: Library inquiry.

It could be a speaking engagement, but even the word library is jarring; she’s not sure when she last saw it outside of historical texts. Archives are still common, of course, but even as a term for a personal collection of literature, library is archaic.

If it is from a reader, she can always move it back to the correct folder later; for now, she clicks to read it.

Dear M. Griffin,

My name is Bellamy Blake and I’m writing on behalf of the Geurnsey Society for the Preservation of Print. We recently acquired several books with your name on their nameplates, apparently from your collection (see attached). I was hoping you might be able to give me more information about how the books came to you. Also, if you have any other print books that you’re willing to part with for our library, we would be interested in those as well.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Bellamy BlakePresident, Guernsey Society for the Preservation of Print

Clarke reads the message over several times, trying to put together the pieces. M. Blake has books of hers, but not any of the books she’s written. Somehow, he’s gotten his hands on some of the print texts she had as a child, the ones that were sold off with the rest of the family estate after her father died. She’s held onto a few, her favorites, but print texts just aren’t practical. No one wants them, nowadays.

“Beca?” she says.

The computer lights flick to attention. “Yes?”

“What can you tell me about Guernsey?”

There’s a second of mechanical humming, and then she returns, “Guernsey is the second moon of Argonia V, diameter 3011 kilometers, population 532 at last census. Thirty-four percent of the planet is habitable by humans. Terraforming in progress for additional habitable land was halted in 347 SE due to the planet’s occupation during the Argon/Praxis War. Rebuilding is still in process. Guernsey is self-sufficient with no notable exports. Does that answer your question?”

It answers parts of her question, namely what it is and why she hasn’t heard of it. “Yes,” she says, absent. “Do you have any information about a Guernsey Society for the Preservation of Print?”

“You have an email from its president, but you’re aware of that.”

She smiles. “That’s why I’m asking.”

“I don’t find any information on a surface scan. Do you want me to do a deep dive?”

“Yeah, see if you can find anything. Thanks.”

She pulls the message back up, scanning it again. There’s no harm in sending M. Blake a message back, letting xem know about the books, maybe asking a couple questions. She’s not so famous as a writer that she really thinks this is a ploy to gain her favor, and even if it is, it’s a good ploy. Xe deserves to be rewarded for xyr efforts.

Dear M. Blake,

I’m amazed my books came to you. They’re from my family’s collection, which was sold in 340 after my father’s death. I’m attaching information about the broker who handled the sale, I hope she’s able to help you with where the others might have gotten to.

Which books did you get that were mine? The nameplate doesn’t include titles. Also, would you mind telling me more about your society? What print are you preserving and how? Why are you starting a library?

Let me know if there are any other questions I can help with.

Clarke Griffin(she/her/hers)

She proofs the message once before sending, and then she puts it out of her head. Beca confirms the society has no real presence in the greater galaxy, but that Guernsey is also fairly isolated with spotty connections to the informational hubs, so it’s not surprising. And it’s going to take a while for M. Blake to get her message, and once xe does, xe’ll either write back and tell her more or be done, and either way, it doesn’t matter much.

Clarke has more pressing things to worry about; it’s not a big deal.

M. Blake’s reply arrives six standard days later, when Clarke is on Ganymede, meeting with Nathan Miller about her next project.

“I’m your agent, not your boss,” he says. “I can’t tell you what to do. Hell, you don’t need to do anything. You want to be done, you can be done. But this thing where I give you ideas and you tell me no but don’t have any better ideas isn’t working for me.”

Clarke sighs. She made her name as a writer doing front-line reporting on the war, and once it was over, she turned her experience into a series about a battlefield medic who slowly became more and more involved with the actual combat. The series finished a few months ago to near-universal praise, and it’s time for her to find a new project.

Miller’s not wrong that, so far, all she’s doing is saying no.

“I don’t have to do anything,” she points out.

“You? Not doing anything? No way.”

“Maybe I just need to wait for inspiration.”

“So, you’re firing me and going off alone on your ship?” He sounds more resigned than surprised.

Her data band pings on her wrist, and she glances down to see the message received from Bellamy Blake. “I have some ideas I’m working on,” she says, even though it’s barely an idea yet. Just a curiosity. There are all sorts of things M. Blake could tell her about xyr society that would lose her interest, too. “Maybe going back to some of the places I went in the war, writing about how they’re doing a few years out. What recovery looks like. Checking back in.”

“Huh. That could work, actually. I could probably find you some speaking engagements while you’re out there. You’re pretty popular on the Argon front lines.”

Speaking still isn’t her favorite thing, but money and visibility are good, and it’ll make Miller feel better.

Thanks for the broker’s contact, she sees, scanning M. Blake’s message covertly, so Miller won’t notice. Communications are slow out of Guernsey, but I’ve sent her a message.

“Yeah, take full advantage. Give me a month or two to get ready? And I want to visit Guernsey.”

“Where now?”

“One of Argonia V’s moons. Small population, but it was one of the Praxis-occupied territories during the war, and they’re still not recovered enough to resume terraforming. I think it would be an interesting place to focus on.”

“Never heard of it,” says Miller. He holds his wrist up to his mouth, speaking into his data band. “Reminder, research Guernsey, schedule for Clarke’s front line tour.”

The data band beeps its agreement, and Clarke says, “So, we’re good?”

“You in a hurry?”

“Messages to read.”

He gestures with his mug. “Go ahead. I’ll still buy you lunch even if you ignore me.”

“This is why you’re the best agent.”

The society is relatively new, but we’re working on taking advantage of some of Guernsey’s climate features to preserve more texts. As you said, print books are difficult to store, especially older ones, and they’re going out of style. Your father’s collection isn’t the only one that’s been broken up in the last few decades, and there are fewer and fewer buyers. Our goal is to obtain, restore, and house as many texts as we can. We’ll be calling the collection the Guernsey Library.

The texts we got of yours are Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I also got a few other texts from the same seller, but they didn’t have nameplates so I don’t know if they’re from your collection. I’m attaching an image; if you want any of them back, let me know and we can try to work something out. I don’t know how involved you were in sales of the estate.

Thanks again for your help.

Bellamy BlakePresident, Guernsey Society for the Preservation of Print (he/him/his)

It’s not a message that requires Clarke’s response. Some of the books in M. Blake’s image are from the family collection, but it’s not as if she wants them back. She took five print books with her when she left home and made sure she had the rest in digital, but even that had felt like an indulgence. Like her father, she loves the feel of paper, the weight of texts in her hands, but it’s been hard finding room for even those five books over the years, with all the places she’s gone. With her own ship, she might be able to take more, but she doesn’t want to take them away from a library.

Mostly, she just wants to know more.

So she asks M. Blake what kind of climate Guernsey has that he’s taking advantage of, how he goes about finding books, if they take all books or there’s a requirement for a certain edition or quality level they require.

And M. Blake doesn’t seem to mind the questions. He explains the natural cave structures that lace the surface of the moon, how the humidity and heat levels are perfect for preserving paper. In addition to whatever other duties he has, he has a facility where he can print and bind his own books, as well as repair damaged ones, so if he finds something in poor condition on his weekly searches for new materials, he can always obtain it and fix it up himself.

She asks Miller to make Guernsey her first stop on the tour, but he points out that she’s passing two planets interested in having her speak on her way there, so she might as well stop, and it’s hard to argue with that, even if she really wants to.

She gets a message from M. Blake after the second event, which isn’t noteworthy in and of itself–he has to go to Argonia V to send and receive messages, which he does twice a week, and while the time it takes for the messages to get to her shortens as she gets closer to the planet, the schedule is still fairly predictable.

The content is disappointing, though: I saw that journalist and author Clarke Griffin is touring the planets that were the front lines of the war and has a speaking engagement on Argonia V in a few weeks. Any relation?

Obviously, she was going to tell him, but the fact that he hadn’t found out about her yet gave her hope that he might not find out about her until she actually got to him and could tell him in person.

Surprise, she writes back. I’m planning to spend a few weeks in Guernsey doing research. So I hope I’ll see you soon.

His reply comes in a few days later, and she tries not to let herself read into it: It’s a small town, I’m hard to miss.

Not exactly a red carpet. But she’ll take it.

There’s a shuttle port on Guernsey, but no dock, so Clarke has to leave her ship on Argonia V and take the single shuttle that goes out to Guernsey daily. It’s about a third of the way full, but Clarke gets the sense that she’s the odd one out, the only tourist on the whole shuttle. She definitely catches sidelong glances and soft conversations surrounding her, but none of the men there show any particular interest, so she has to assume M. Blake isn’t among their number. He probably found a picture of her; she would have found one of him, if she could.

“So, where are you going?” asks a woman who falls into step with her as they leave the ship. She’s pretty, dark hair, sharp eyes, with a slight limp from what Clarke assumes is a war wound on her leg. “We don’t get a lot of visitors here.”

“I’m a journalist,” she says, although it feels like a lie. She might write about Guernsey and she might not, but she’s not really coming as a journalist. She’s coming as a woman at loose ends who thinks this will make her feel less lost.

But that sounds silly.

“Oh,” says the other woman. “The one who’s been writing to Bellamy?”

Clarke can’t read her tone, but it makes something warm curl in her belly that this woman knows about her, that M. Blake has mentioned her. Given she’s never talked about him to Miller, she wouldn’t be offended if she was a secret, but he’s been telling people about her, and that’s nice.

Hopefully he’s been saying good things.

“Clarke,” she says, with a nod. “Is M. Blake happy I’m coming?”

The woman snorts. “Raven Reyes. He’s freaking out. But in a good way, so I think yeah. You think there’s something worth writing about here?”

“You don’t?”

“I guess it depends on what you’re trying to write about,” she says with a shrug. “And how popular you want it to be.”

“In theory, I’m looking at how frontline planets are doing after the war.”

Raven’s eyes flick to her. “What about not in theory?”

“I needed a break and I wanted to see M. Blake’s library.”

“Well, that’s one thing to write about. You staying at the hotel?”

“That’s the plan.”

“If you want to drop your stuff off, I can take you to meet Bellamy after.”

Her heart flip flops and then starts beating too fast, and she wishes she could blame the slight change in gravity, but she knows it’s not that.

Still, Raven is offering, so she smiles. “I’d like that.”

Clarke knew that M. Blake must do something besides restore old books, but she hadn’t really know what that something might be. She assumes most of the residents of Guernsey are former terraformers who are now at loose ends since the company that sent them has apparently decided it’s not worth restarting the project, but if M. Blake is among them, he’s never mentioned it.

The place Raven takes her is a small farm on the edge of the terraformed land, surrounded on all sides by bamboo groves. There are a few animals outside snacking on ground cover, and while she doesn’t know what they are, they look domesticated and mammalian, so she assumes they produce either meat or milk, possibly both.

The door opens and her heart skips, but it’s a girl, probably five or six, with long brown hair and a bright smile. “Aunt Raven!”

Raven sweeps her up in a hug. “Hey, Madi, where’s your dad?”

It’s as if someone dumped a bucket of cold water on her. Clarke and M. Blake have never discussed personal lives; she had no idea how old he was or what kind of a family he had, but there had been a flicker of interest in her stomach, this small, curious thing. She liked him, from his letters, and she thought that if he was–

But he’s not. He has a family, and he’s not for her.

“At the press,” says Madi. “Who are you?”

“Clarke.”

“From the books!” She beams. “I love Alice. Dad’s read it to me a thousand times.”

“I’m so glad,” says Clarke, a little surprised. “I liked it a lot too, when I was your age.”

“You don’t know how old I am,” Madi points out. She’s slid out of Raven’s arms now, but she’s still following as they make their way around the back of the farmhouse. There’s a steady, repetitive noise that’s getting louder as they get closer, and Clarke’s mood recovers some when she realizes it’s probably the printing press. She’s almost as excited for it as she is for M. Blake.

“How old are you?” she asks.

“Five.”

“I liked it when I was five too.”

“And you had more books? Paper ones?”

“I did.” She hesitates, feeling a little strange telling Madi before her father even knows, but she doubts M. Blake will be offended. “I brought some with me.”

Madi’s eyes go huge. “Really?”

“Just a couple. I couldn’t take many of them when I left home, just my favorites.”

“Donation for the library?” Raven asks.

“Depends on how much I like the library.”

That makes her laugh. She knocks twice on the door to what must be the press, calls, “Bellamy! Get out here!” when there’s no response.

The sound stops, and a second later the door opens and M. Blake’s head sticks out.

Clarke’s first thought is that his hair is a mess, but it’s not a bad thought. He has the kind of disheveled hair that makes her fingers itch to sink into it, all thick and black and curly.

The rest of his features fill in after that, dark eyes, freckles, broad shoulders, a confused expression that clears after a second, when he realizes, inevitably, who she must be. They clearly don’t get a lot of visitors out here.

“M. Griffin,” he says, eyes sweeping over her quickly. His voice is deep and a little rough, and it suits him. She’s going to read all his letters in his voice now. “I didn’t know you were coming today.”

“I didn’t tell you. Sorry to show up unannounced, but Raven offered to bring me over.”

“No problem,” he says, but there’s tension in his shoulders that suggests it is something of a problem.

Maybe she shouldn’t have come.

“She brought more books!” says Madi, which at least breaks the ice. M. Blake’s eyes cut to her.

“You did?”

“I saved a few from my personal collection, I thought you’d want to see them.” She pauses. “And I want to see your library too. I thought I might need to barter.”

He laughs, surprised, the smile lighting up his whole face. He’s partnered, she reminds herself. His daughter is right here. It doesn’t matter what you think of his looks.

“That’s not really how libraries work,” he teases. “Anyone can look around. But maybe not today, dark comes on pretty quickly here.” He glances around, clears his throat. “You’re at the hotel?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you can stay for dinner. Raven, you staying too?”

“I never say no to your cooking. You need me to do anything?”

It feels like code, so it’s not a surprise when M. Blake says, “Can you and Madi go get some water?”

Raven nods and takes Madi, leaving Clarke to follow M. Blake inside. It’s a small, cozy space, warm and surprisingly lived in, given how short the history of habitation on Guernsey is. It’s a home.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, back to her as he leads her in.

“Which part?”

“That you were coming.”

“I didn’t want you to tell me not to.”

He snorts. “I would have told you it’s not worth coming. It’s not much of a library yet.”

“But it’s growing, right?”

“Slowly but surely.” He glances at her sidelong. “Did you really bring more books?”

“I did. I might not give them to you, though.”

He lets out a soft huff of a laugh. “So you just brought them here to brag about them?”

“I don’t know anyone else who appreciates print books.” She bites the corner of her mouth, watching him as he starts to pull things down for dinner. “Tell me the truth: is there anyone else in your society but you?”

“A few, yeah. But no one else thought it would last.”

“Last?”

His hand pauses on the door of the preserver. “We formed during the occupation. You weren’t allowed to meet in groups of more than three unless it was an official organization. So we made an organization.”

“And you’re still going?”

“More or less. Can you grab the big bowl on your right?” She does, and he starts scooping stew from a pot into it. “I already had the printing press. We grow bamboo for oxygen, I was already making it into fabric. But I had more, so I make pulp too. And once I had that, I figured I might as well print books.”

“And buy them.”

“That’s new. But yeah, they’re junk to most people. Not worth the space they take up. But we have more space than we need here.”

“You don’t think they’ll come back to terraform it?”

“They say that Eligius shut down the project because of the occupation, but it’s not true.”

“No?”

“The way they operate is that they send a crew in, terraform a little, and then sell more land once buyers see what the area looks like. Guernsey wasn’t getting any buyers. Too remote, climate wasn’t right, and then an occupation before it was even a real settlement. Eligius cut their losses and left.”

“And abandoned you here?”

“They would have sent us to another site if we wanted, but most of us like it here.”

“And it would be hard to move with Madi,” she observes.

“Yeah, I grew up planet-hopping. I don’t want her to.”

“Is it just the two of you?” she asks. It’s a small place, without much sign of other occupants. There could be another adult in the picture, but it doesn’t feel like it.

“Yeah.”

It doesn’t make any difference, obviously. She’s here for a few weeks and the she’ll be gone, so M. Blake’s relationship status is of no interest to her, nor is the broadness of his shoulders or the warmth of his smile.

None of that matters at all.

The library is amazing.

It takes almost a week for Clarke to make it there, but she doesn’t mind. Despite M. Blake’s warnings (which are echoed, in one way or another, by almost everyone she meets, none of whom can believe she really wants to be there), she likes Guernsey. The lack of connection to the greater galaxy is frustrating, but the shuttle to Argonia V leaves in the morning and returns in the evening, making it an easy day trip, and Clarke doesn’t really want to see Miller’s polite-but-firm requests for the pieces she’s supposed to be writing more than once a week or so anyway.

M. Blake shows her how the printing press works on her second day, and he doesn’t mind it she comes by to see what he’s working on so long as she knocks. Madi is bright and enthusiastic and happy to show Clarke everything about her home too, so Clarke learns to take care of their animals–kungoats, apparently, native to Argonia V and brought to its moon when the terraforming started–and tend to the bamboo and other crops and also learns about Madi.

She’s never had anyone but M. Blake, apparently, no parent who died in the war or left for greener pastures, but Clarke can’t believe she’s a clone. Her skin is so much paler than her father’s, and M. Blake doesn’t seem like the type. Especially since she would have been made during the war, and Guernsey doesn’t have the facilities. No one would let him leave an occupied planet to go and make himself a child. And there does seem to be some unspoken secret lurking around the two of them, something no one in the settlement is saying, something everyone but Clarke knows. There’s more to M. Blake and his child, but it’s not a story, not the kind she would write up for Miller and sell to the newsfeeds.

She just wants to know.

“Do you want to see my favorite room?” the child in question asks Clarke, pulling her back to reality. She’s joined the library tour because she loves it here as much as he father does, and Clarke’s grateful for the company. She thinks she should probably try to avoid being alone with M. Blake as much as possible.

“I do,” she tells Madi.

As M. Blake said, the library is in the planet’s caves, which are cool, dark, and dry. Guernsey’s atmosphere has always contained oxygen, but not enough to sustain human life, so they have respirators, but the books are fine with the native conditions.

It’s something of a miracle.

“There’s bamboo growing outside, with no people around I’m hoping it’ll slowly raise the oxygen levels,” M. Blake explains as Madi leads them out of the main chamber and into a smaller cave. There aren’t many books yet, but the cave is ready for more, empty metal shelves waiting for something to fill them.

There might not be enough books left to fill this cave. But that’s probably why M. Blake is making more.

“And here’s Alice, see?” Madi says, skipping into the chamber. “And your other book.”

“The children’s section,” M. Blake explains, with a wry smile. “I’ve got some picture books coming for it too, from the Sol galaxy.”

“How do you afford them?”

“I sell clothes on Argonia V,” he says. “I get more wool and bamboo fiber than we need for the colony, and I’m a decent tailor.” He shrugs. “I’ll never get rich from it, but I don’t need to be rich yet.”

“Yet?” Clarke asks.

“I’m collecting books that no one wants,” he admits, running his hand up the spine of Through the Looking-Glass. “But someday we might want to start getting the valuable ones. We need money for that.”

“I’m going to write about this, you know,” she says. “It might not do much good, but–once you start getting publicity, you might start getting donations, too.”

“You think anyone wants to read about the library?”

“I’ll wrap it up in a story about a community recovering after the war,” she teases. “Trick them into it.”

He laughs. “That should do it, yeah.”

“Do you want to shelve your other books too?” Madi asks. “I like shelving.”

It doesn’t take long, but Madi is very firm about putting the books up herself, sounding out last names of authors, figuring out the correct alphabetical order while M. Blake watches, face warm with pride.

Clarke wants with a tug that’s almost painful, wants in a way she hasn’t in a long time, maybe not ever. She’s fallen in love before, but always with people, and while M. Blake–Bellamy–is the focal point here, it’s like falling in love with a life as well. She wants him, but she also wants to be a part of this place.

She wants to belong, and she wants to belong with him.

Madi insists on taking Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban–the only one in the series Clarke brought with her–out of the library, following a checkout protocol she apparently made up herself, and they take it back to the Blake farm with them. Bellamy cooks while Clarke reads to Madi, and after dinner, he joins them for a few more chapters before sending Madi up to bed.

It’s the natural time for Clarke to leave, but she lingers, the air feeling heavy. A conversation has been coming for a while about why she came and what she’s still doing here, and now feels like the time for it.

Bellamy pours two glasses of his friend Monty’s homebrewed alcohol, gives her one. “So, you’re really going to write about Guernsey?”

“Do you not want me to?”

“I’m not used to people being interested in us.”

“You’re interesting.” She takes a sip of her drink, letting the taste burn down her throat. “Can I ask you something that has nothing to do with my story?”

“Sure.”

“Where did Madi come from?”

He considers her. “Why?”

“Because I’m curious. You don’t feel like–I don’t think you would have asked for a daughter, and I want to know what happened so I don’t put my foot in my mouth. Did her parents–did something happen to them? In the war?”

“Yeah, something did.” He takes a much longer drink. “She’s my niece, not my daughter. I started working for Eligius to support me and my sister after our mom died. I was pretty young, nineteen, I think? We just hopped around planets until we got here. Octavia started working for them too once she was old enough, but she never liked it. And when the war hit–” He sighs. “She fell in love with a Praxian officer. She didn’t mean to get pregnant, and we didn’t have facilities to get rid of it. She kept it secret, had the baby, and we just figured we’d hide her until the war was over, say she was someone else’s if we had to.”

“So what happened to your sister?”

“Honestly? I have no idea. She disappeared a few months before the end of the war, I never got a straight answer what happened to her. Some people think she defected, went to join the Praxians, some people think she got taken, some people think she just managed to escape.”

“What do you think?”

He wets his lips. “I think if she escaped, she would have told me she was okay. Honestly, I hope she joined the Praxians. Argon never treated her that great, we had to leave Argonia II when she was born because she violated the one-child law. Praxis were assholes during the war, but everyone was. So if she defected and doesn’t want to tell me because she thinks I’ll be disappointed–I have to believe that’s what happened.”

“I’m sorry.”

He smiles a little. “She’s the one who came up with the preservation society. I’d been telling her about how I wanted to start printing books, so when we needed an excuse to be out in a group, she just blurted it out. So–at least she left me that. Without the society and Madi, I don’t know if I would have made it through losing her.”

Clarke reaches over, puts her hand on his. He startles, but his eyes soften, and he puts his other hand over hers, squeezes.

“I feel kind of bad now,” she says, careful.

“Yeah, it’s a downer of a story, sorry.”

“No, not that.” He cocks his head, and she smiles. It’s a downer of a story, but it’s not new for him. He seems–content. He can live with this. “I was asking because I wanted to know if you were single.”

He laughs, bright and surprised. “You could have just asked that.”

“I didn’t want to be obvious.”

“You weren’t, trust me. I had no idea. And I didn’t have any good way to ask you.”

“Well, I am. Single.”

“And you’re leaving soon.”

“I am. I promised Miller I’d finish my tour. But I don’t have anywhere I’m going home to. Not yet.”

“You have a ship.”

“I could keep it here. Besides, I want to see what happens with the library.”

He looks down, his smile small and warm and perfect. “Then I guess you had better stay.”

“Yeah,” she says. “I think I will.”

Recovering the Front comes out two years later, a collection of Clarke’s essays from her tour, including the one about Guernsey and the library. As soon as Miller sends her the text, Clarke passes it along to Bellamy, and he prints it off, binds it, and Madi brings it to the library, shelves it in the non-fiction room, one of only three texts there so far.

“It looks a little lonely there,” Clarke observes, and Bellamy puts his arm around her, kisses her hair.

“So we’d better get some more.”

She leans into him. “Yeah, I guess we better.”

#mostlyreacting

43 notes · View notes