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sunmoonandeddie · 4 years

Text

don’t forget to sing

pairing: bucky barnes x reader

word count: 4,973

summary: You meet someone new in the most unlikely of ways during the quarantine in New York City. An alley is six feet apart, right?

chapter warnings: swearing, mention of sickness

masterlist

a/n: Let me know what you think!

This was just fucking perfect.

Of course. Of course you’d move to New York City three weeks before a fucking pandemic. Cities were a cesspool for illness, and the Big Apple was no exception.

Your dreams of going out and exploring the city and finding little spots that you could call your own now that you were a real New Yorker and not just a tourist anymore were gone. You’d been so busy unpacking and getting set up at your new job that you’d only gotten to go out for groceries.

And now all of New York City was shut down. Broadway was closed, for heaven’s sake. You couldn’t remember a time when that had ever happened in your lifetime.

It was mildly terrifying. And by mildly, you meant extremely.

Thankfully, your job was primarily online anyway. You were a playwright and you were basically an intern and assistant for Tony Kushner, possibly one of the greatest playwrights of all time.

But you were lonely. At least before you were ordered to stay home, you could go out and get a little human interaction at the grocery store, even if the cashier was just telling you your total. But now, everyone at the grocery store eyed each other warily. Like you’d infect them with the virus at any second.

Which, it was possible. It was why you only went late at night in order to avoid most of the crowds. And also why you’d sewn a mask out of an old t-shirt in order to protect yourself. And also why you’d stocked up on groceries so you wouldn’t have to go for about two weeks.

“I don’t know,” you said as you held the phone to your ear, wandering back and forth in your tiny little apartment. Your best friend was on the other side, a thousand miles away. “It’s getting really bad here.”

And, of course, she could try to understand, but Hope was all the way across the country. She’d gotten a job in her hometown in California after graduation. “I think we’re starting to head that way, too. Are you going to be okay?”

“I think so,” you said, trying to be cheerful as you sat at your desk, pulling your knees up to your chest. “I’m used to being alone, remember? I’m a writer. All I need is coffee and my laptop and I’m ready to hibernate.”

Hope let out a sigh, and you could hear the creak of her bed as she laid down. “I don’t know. I just think that maybe you should come out here.”

“I can’t. I don’t have that kind of money. And I just got here. I don’t want to run away at the first sign of trouble,” you said as you opened up your laptop. “Besides, I’m probably safer here locked away in my apartment by myself than I would be in your big house with you, your parents, and Scott. Your parents work in a lab with hundreds of other people. They have no idea if any of them have it. It’d probably be safer for you to come stay here with me.”

“Me in that shoe box?” She scoffed. “As if.”

Your laptop whirred to life as you ran your finger back and forth over the mouse pad. “We talked about this. You’re a California girl. I’m New York.” A smirk settled over your face as you cradled the phone between your ear and your shoulder, typing in your password. “Two households, both alike in dignity—”

“Jesus, theatre kids are the worst,” she muttered.

You barked out a laugh as you pulled up your latest word document. “I’m a grown woman, you know.” You reached over your desk and opened up the curtains, figuring you could use a little change of scenery, even if it was just the apartment building across the alley. The red brick was illuminated by the setting sun, the sky painted in shades of orange and gold.

There’s a tense pause between the two of you. There’s a lot of unspoken words.

The both of you know that this is serious. People are dying and there’s nothing the two of you can really do except hope and stay inside as much as possible and wash your hands. And this is the first time the two of you have lived apart since your sophomore year of university. It’s a big change and of course, all this happens right when you’re on your own.

“Are you going to be okay?” Hope asked, her voice cracking.

Taking in a shaky breath, you rest her head in your hand. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be okay. You just worry about staying healthy yourself, okay? And take care of your parents.”

Her parents were both a little older, and they were at risk with everything going around. They’d become your second family in the years since you’d first met Hope, and had even let you live with them for a while after graduation while you saved up for your move to New York City. Hell, they’d paid for you to come spend school breaks with them. They were your family.

And now you were all alone with no way to get to them. Even if you did want to fly, all incoming and outgoing flights were being canceled. They hadn’t officially announced that they’d be closing the airports, but it was coming.

A light in the apartment across the alley from yours flicked on, and your eyes were immediately drawn to it.

“Oh…,” you breathed out, accidentally cutting off what Hope was saying.

“What?”

“There’s a… There’s a man.”

“A man?! We are in a pandemic! There’s no dating in a pandemic!”

You went quiet as your elbow rested on your desk, your chin in your hand. “He’s… gorgeous.”

And gorgeous, he was. He looked like he’d just gotten out of the shower, with the towel swung low on his hips. Dark hair was smattered across his broad chest like some hero on the cover of a trashy romance novel. He ran his fingers through his long, damp hair as he opened up the drawers of his dresser, picking out boxers and sweats.

“God… He looks like he just walked off a photoshoot with, like… Vogue,” you said quietly. Drool was starting to drip from the corner of your mouth, you were so entranced.

“Wait… Really?” Hope said, her voice rising. “I need details! Now!”

Brows furrowed, you couldn’t take your eyes off of him. “You have a boyfriend.”

“Who I haven’t gotten to see in over a week. Scott is the love of my life, but I need to live vicariously through you,” she said. “The most romance we have right now is when his internet actually works and we get to FaceTime.”

You were in a trance, just watching him move around his room. “You know how cute I thought Jimmy Woo was? He was in my Econ class and then we went on, like… two dates?”

“Yeah.”

“I would feed Jimmy Woo to a pack of hyenas if this man asked me to.”

But of course, nothing good could last. Your elbow slipped off the edge of the desk and your face slammed down onto the wood. “Oh, my god,” you groaned as you fell to the ground, clutching your mouth. “Holy fuck…”

Hope was shouting at you through the phone, demanding to know whether or not you were okay. She was more frantic than you’d ever heard her.

Pulling your hand away from your face, you winced as you saw the dark red blood. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit…” You didn’t think you’d knocked out a tooth, thank god. You were sure that you’d be able to feel that. “Yeah… I think I’m okay.” You started to pull yourself up, glaring at the blood that was on the edge of the desk.

But when you found the Most Handsome Man in the World staring at you from his window, looking just as worried as Hope sounded in his towel, you quickly ducked back down, willing him to go away. You don’t think you’d ever been so embarrassed.

“Hope, I’m going to throw myself from the Brooklyn Bridge,” you hissed into the phone as you sat on the floor, leaning against your desk. “He saw me bust my face open! Or he heard it!”

There’s a pause, and then a snort. “You have to admit, it’s kinda funny. And the type of thing that would only happen to you.”

“Gee, I’m so happy you’re having fun with this,” you said.

You stayed down there for an extraordinarily long time, hoping to whatever god was out there that he’d stop looking. When you finally emerged from your hiding place, you found that he was watching a movie with his bedroom light off, his eyes completely focused on the television.

And there was a whiteboard leaning against the window, messy scrawl in blue marker.

Hope you didn’t hurt yourself too bad!! And I’m glad you enjoyed the show ;)

More than a little appalled at how blatant he was, you grabbed a piece of notebook paper and a Sharpie, writing out your reply before sticking it to the window with a piece of tape.

Nothing but a busted lip and broken pride :(

You shut your curtains, carefully cleaning your wound before getting to work on your latest writing assignment. Though occasionally, you could remember the strange interaction and a smile would creep across your face.

Which would then cause you to wince in pain as the cut on your lip came open again.

Right before you went to bed, you peeked out of your curtains to see if he’d replied again.

Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone what I saw :) Goodnight!

You quickly wrote out a reply, taping it up before heading to bed.

Pinky promise? Goodnight!

When you woke up, there was already another note left for you, and the man seemed to be gone.

Good morning! I hope your lips feel better!

You had no idea when he’d be back or why the hell he’d left. It was a pandemic after all.

Granted, a lot of people still had to work in this whole mess. It was ridiculous.

Feeling a little bold, you wrote out a message.

You wanna kiss it better?

But you quickly crumbled up the piece of paper and threw it away. Despite the fact that you’d seen him almost completely naked the night before, you didn’t know him. He’d only said three sentences to you so far, and they were written out.

It was the quarantine equivalent of sliding into someone’s direct messages on Twitter or Instagram.

Should you even reply? He was… He was the kind of guy you saw on Love Island. Too perfect and too ripped and sweet and mysterious and friendly, all at the same time.

You’d been getting into a lot of shows you wouldn’t have watched before while quarantined. You’d watched the entire first season of the American version of the show, and you’d probably start the United Kingdom version sometime that day. It wasn’t like you had anything better to do.

“Have you written back to him?” Hope asked as you set up your laptop on your desk, pulling up Spotify.

“What?” You asked, your phone cradled between your ear and your shoulder. “No. It was a one time thing. It’s done.” Before she could reply, you said your goodbyes and hung up. You really needed to clean and that wasn’t going to happen if you chattered away on the phone with Hope like you usually did.

Music blasted from your laptop’s speaker after you hit play, and you threw open the window, letting the late winter air in. It had started to get really stuffy in your apartment and you needed something to do other than work and binge watching or you’d go insane.

You didn’t even notice that your neighbor that lived across the alley had come home, and was watching you with a delighted smile on his face.

You were half-dancing, half-cleaning, belting out the lyrics without a care as you got more and more into it. “Didn’t even know it! No punches left to roll with! You got to keep me focused! You want it? Say so!” You sang, twirling around with your trash can in hand as you picked up all the various little items. “Let me check my chest, my breath right quick! He ain’t ever seen it in a dress like this! He ain’t ever even been impressed like this!”

Unseen by you, the mysterious stranger took a few steps forward, grateful that he’d left his window open.

“Prolly why I got him quiet on the set like zip! Like it, love it, need it bad! Take it, own it, steal it fast! Boy, stop playin!’ Grab my ass! Why you acting like you—” You turned around, breaking off with a squeak as you saw him standing there watching you, your trashcan and an empty mug in hand. You were completely frozen as he stared at you with a slight smile, leaving you a deer in headlights.

Suddenly, you were hyper aware of just how awful you looked. Your hair hadn’t been washed, or your face. You were wearing a men’s two XL hoodie that you’d stolen from some guy you’d fucked for a few months in college and a pair of sweatpants that you’d had since you were on the middle school track team that were still too long in the feet. You’d done shot put and discus.

Why the fuck were you thinking about shot put and discus? You hadn’t thought about it over twelve years. It wasn’t like you were ever any good at it.

The Most Handsome Man in the World was staring at you, holding a takeout box at a mug of tea. But at least he was fully dressed, even if that didn’t awake away from how attractive he was. “Hey,” he said with an easy smile.

“Hi.” Your voice cracked as you spoke, and you’d never wanted to slam your head against the wall more. How could you be this much of a fucking loser?

“I like your music choice. Who is that?” He asked curiously as he set his food on the bed, kicking off his shoes before sitting down.

Yeah, he was definitely just as attractive fully clothed as he was naked, which was truly a feat in itself. Surely there was some kind of award for that, right?

You realized you’d been staring at him in silence and coughed, replying, “Doja Cat.”

“How’s your lip?”

“Good.”

The two of you stared at each other, him happily munching on the chicken nuggets he’d picked up. You hadn’t moved an inch.

“I’m James,” he said after swallowing. “But my friends call me Bucky.”

You gave him your name as you slowly moved a few steps closer, sitting down in your desk chair and pulling your knees up to your chest. “What kind of a name is Bucky?”

He chuckled, dipping his next nugget into the sweet and sour sauce. “My middle name is Buchanan. My best friend, Steve, started calling me Bucky when we were in kindergarten, and I don’t know… it just stuck.”

“I mean…” You shrugged, wrapping your arms around her legs. “‘S alright. I like James though.”

“You can call me James.”

“Oh. Okay.”

It felt intimate, somehow. Calling him by his first name.

The quarantine was forcing people to revert back to Victorian ways of social conduct. If you were lucky, you’d get your own Mr. Darcy.

But with the sweats you had on, it was more than likely that you’d end up an old spinster.

How did he find it so easy to talk to a complete stranger? Granted, you were a lot less intimidating than he was.

“How’s your lip?” He asked, his head tilting to the side as he peered over at you. “You don’t need stitches, right?”

There was an unspoken worry there. Needing stitches meant you’d probably go without, since all the hospitals were so backed up with those that had fallen ill. And going to the hospital just meant you’d risk your own health by coming in close contact with those going to get treated for Covid-19.

“If you do, I have a first aid kit I keep here in my apartment with the stuff to do stitches,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “But I wouldn’t exactly be able to come over there to help you. You’d have to do the stitches yourself.”

Your brows furrowed as you looked at him. “Why do you have the stuff to do stitches in your first aid kit? I did see this one episode of one of those crime shows where they used safety pins to hold a gash open, but I can’t remember what show it was.”

Mirth sparkled in his eyes as he watched you. “I’m a nurse.”

“Oh,” you said, relaxing. But then you remembered, and your heart sank. “Oh. I… James.”

James looked rather sheepish as he looked down at his feet. “It’s nothing really. But I can’t use the elevator since it would risk someone being in an enclosed space with me. So… you know. I don’t really need leg day, right?” He let out a weak laugh, clearly trying to blow it off. “I’m not allowed to use the gym anymore. Not that I would. I don’t want to risk infecting anyone, even if I don’t have it yet.”

The way he said ‘yet’ hurt your heart. He knew the position he was in, how dangerous it was.

There was nothing you could really say to him. What the hell could you say? Thank you for your service? Technically, you could, but you remembered how your dad had felt about it. He’d been a field doctor over in Afghanistan until he’d died on his fifth tour.

“I was just doing what needed to be done, sweetheart,” he’d said to you when you’d asked. “Trying to save as many people as possible. I don’t need thanks for that.”

But fuck. James was going out everyday to fight an opponent that he couldn’t see.

“My lip is fine,” you said eventually, breaking the silence with a weak smile.

“Good,” he said, clearing his throat. “I’ll let you get back to your solo concert. I’ve gotta shower.”

Things went on as normally. Or, at least, as normal as things could be in a time like that. Only now, you had someone to talk to that wasn’t Hope every night.

He wouldn’t tell you about what it was like at the hospital though. He’d get this far away look in his eyes and his face would pale. “Nothing you need to worry your pretty little head about, darlin,’” he’d croon, a sad smile on his lips. “You let me worry, and you just keep yourself safe and inside, okay?”

Sometimes you’d miss him. He’d be at the hospital for days on end, sleeping in on-call rooms and eating from vending machines. That’s when you’d leave little notes all over your window for him to read when he got back.

But then one day he came home and you could just tell that he was more worn down that usual.

“James?” You called out softly as you pushed the window open. You hadn’t seen him in two days. “Are you okay?” You leaned half out the window, your elbows resting on the ledge.

He took in a shaky breath, his eyes squeezing shut as he willed himself not to cry.

“James?” You’re about to repeat your question when he looks up, staring blankly at the wall.

“Steve has it,” he said quietly, his voice cracking.

Your heart stopped inside your chest. “Oh. Oh, James…,” you breathed out.

A few tears slipped down his cheeks, his hands clenched at his sides. “I went into a room in the ER and there he was.”

You’d heard so many stories about his best friend since childhood that you felt like you knew Steve already. Bucky had met him when they were just five years old, on the first day of kindergarten, and it’d been history from there. But Steve had been sickly and small up until they were about seventeen, when he’d undergone some revolutionary clinical trial. Fixing his heart and lungs had kick started his entire system and it was like everything magically went away.

“Not even that stupid treatment prevented him from getting sick,” Bucky said quietly. “He looked… He looked like he was on his deathbed.”

You paused, before crawling out of the window and out onto the fire escape. “James, take my hand.”

You knew it was stupid. It was really, really stupid. He was around those with the virus daily, but he needed you. You’d risk it to give him a little bit of comfort.

“What?” He said, looking at you like you’d grown a second head. “No. No. I can’t. What if I give it to you?”

“Then we’ll figure it out,” you said, insistently holding your hand out to him. “Take my hand.”

Sniffling, he reached his hand out of his window and took yours, your fingers intertwining. He took in a shaky breath, a fresh wave of tears coming on as he squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted after a long moment just holding your hand. “I’m so fucking scared. I don’t want to go in there day after day. I know people need me but I…” He looked up at you with sea glass eyes. “I don’t want to die.”

“You’re not going to,” you said firmly, with as much conviction as you could muster up. “You hear me? You’re not going to die, and neither is Steve. We’re going to make it through this.”

“Sometimes I just… hold their hand,” he said, so quiet you could barely hear. “They’re dying alone. Their family and friends aren’t allowed in to see them. So I just… stay with them. So they have someone there.” Bucky lets his head fall into his chest, his shoulders slumping. “And then I have to call the family to let them know. And I just hope that maybe… knowing I was there with them helps a little. But it’s not the same.”

You tighten your grip on his hand, not daring to look down because you’re several stories up and if you lean a little too far, it would result in a trip to the hospital you can’t afford. You haven’t been outside in days.

You don’t realize that you’re crying right along with him until you taste the salty brine of your tears on your lips.

“We’re going to be okay, James,” you said, though you weren’t sure if you were trying to convince him or yourself. “This won’t last forever. And I’m going to be here with you, okay? No matter what happens. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

He squeezed your hand once more before letting go, nodding for you to go back inside. “Go wash your hands. Now.”

A smile creeps across your face as you surrender to his wishes, crawling back through your window. “Yes, sir.”

He’s touch and go the next few days. Sometimes he seems upbeat, positive even, about the whole situation. Others… Well. He had plenty of reason to be down.

“You know, you’re a pretty good singer,” he commented one night. He was sitting against the window, leaning his head against the frame. You had climbed out onto the fire escape again with a blanket wrapped around your shoulders. “That night that I heard you singing to that song… The Doja Cat one? You’re good.” His head tilted to the side in the way that a puppy might. “Why don’t you sing more often?”

“I used to,” you said after a deep sigh. “I used to sing a lot. I was going to be a musical theatre actress. But I got told so often that I was better at writing than performing so… I don’t know. I guess I just decided it’d be better to pursue something I was better at.”

His lower lip was caught between his teeth as he looked at you.

You’d never had someone look at you the way he did. Like he wanted to see all of you, like he craved it, needed it, even. It was exhilarating.

“That doesn’t mean you stop singing.” He moved to rest his chin in his palm. “Even if you don’t become a performer professionally, you don’t stop singing. Especially in times like these.”

“What? Like those fake videos of people in Italy?” You asked with a snort. A breeze wound through the alley and you tightened the blanket around you. “The one that Katy Perry retweeted?”

“You know that’s not what I mean,” he said with an eye roll. “My ma used to sing around the house. Hearing you… It made me feel like I was home again. Just for a little while.” He smiled slyly. “And you have pretty sick dance moves.”

Groaning, you climbed back into your window, shooting a glare at him. “You promised not to talk about my dancing!”

“It was cute!”

“Was not!”

“Was to!”

You took in a deep breath as you stared at him with narrowed eyes. “No,” you said, pointing a finger at him. “No, it’s not.” Before he could reply, you started to shut the window, calling out, “Goodnight, James!” The window shut with a definitive click and you winked as he flipped you the middle finger.

Steve came home three weeks later, completely clean of the virus. The quarantine finally ended on May 22nd, 2020, the amount of cases down to maybe a hundred that were contained within the hospital.

In that time, you’d gone outside a total of six times to get groceries. You’d gained ten pounds, even with the basic exercises you were doing in your apartment to keep you active. You’d also saved up two thousand dollars, since you weren’t going out and you’d put a parental lock on your laptop and phone so you couldn’t go online shopping until further notice, but you were lucky in that way. You had an extremely well-paying job that you could do online, and your boss wasn’t an asshole.

Millions of New Yorkers flooded the streets, crying and hugging and touching everyone.

You hadn’t been touched in so long. The last time had been when you’d held Bucky’s hand on your balcony, and that had been the only time he’d allowed it since he didn’t want to get you sick.

He’d been lucky that he didn’t get it himself. Most of those that had fallen ill were healthcare workers. Overworked, tired healthcare workers.

You stepped out of the front doors of your apartment building, feeling an overwhelming sense of elation. You’d already talked to Hope that morning on FaceTime. Her and her parents were celebrating by going to their favorite restaurant that was allowing dine-in again.

Tears pricked your eyes as you watched the people around you. It reminded you a little bit of those pictures of V-Day in New York City at the end of World War II.

But where was Bucky?

He’d been at work yesterday, and since you hadn’t seen him, it probably meant that he’d passed out in an on-call room instead of coming home.

But you needed to see him. You didn’t care if he was all gross and greasy. You just needed him.

You loved him.

Your eyes locked in on a familiar head of long, brown hair sticking a little bit above the crowd. He was awful tall. When he turned his head, it only confirmed it. “JAMES!” You shouted, trying to break through the roar of the crowd. “JAMES!”

His brows furrowed, his head turning a little towards the sound of his voice. When his eyes landed on you they went wide as saucers, his lips forming your name even though you couldn’t hear him over the people.

The two of you pushed through the hordes of people, trying to reach one another. When you finally broke through, you threw yourself into his arms, your arms wrapping around his neck as he twirled you around. The both of you were crying happy tears, wide smiles on your faces.

“We made it,” you whispered, your voice cracking. “We’re okay.” You pulled back enough to cup his face, so many words you wanted to say getting caught in your throat.

But before you could say them, he pulled you into a kiss, one hand on the back of your head and the other on your hip. Grinning against your lips, he dipped you just a little, holding you tight. To passerby, it was a remnant of the iconic V-Day kiss. But you couldn’t think about that. All you could think about was Bucky.

“Hi,” he said softly as he pulled away, breathing heavily.

Your nose nudged against his as your eyes fluttered open. “Hi.”

He stole another kiss, your heart skipping a beat inside your chest. “You better not stop singing now that this is over,” he said quietly as he held you to him, refusing to let go. “Can’t go a day without hearing your pretty voice.”

“You’re a sap.”

“Your sap.”

“My sap?!”

He had a cheeky smile as he looked at you, cupping your cheeks. “Does this mean I can take you on a date now?”

You were lucky. You knew people who got the virus, but none of them had died. Others didn’t have the same luck unfortunately, and it was a tragedy. But you don’t stop singing during dark times. You just sing a little louder.

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x you #bucky barnes x you #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky fanfiction

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theinvisibledreamergirl · 3 years

Text

Has everything changed?

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Klaw Craig)

Words count: ~ 2.5k

Category: Angst

A.N: Sooo I know that I’m late but with everything that happened in the first episode of OH Book 3 I decided to do some changes. I know you’ll hate me. Waiting for your thoughts!

MASTERLIST

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The third year of residency began for our doctors of Edenbrook Hospital. Sorry BloomBrook Hospital. Oops again it’s Bloom Edenbrook ladies and gentlemen. Mistakes happen please.

More like a broom which has cleaned all of what the old hospital looked like.

And it had cleaned people’s character too.

And she knew this was going to happen one day. Before she would sleep her mind would go in the most irrelevant thoughts and think about what rich people can do to the other category.

The middle classes and the poor ones.

Of course she was part of the rich people but never spent her money for her pleasure nor she did accept her parents money to live. Because she wanted to be independent and to show that she could do everything on her own until the day of being a doctor came.

Her friends were the most excited ones to see the big changes of their new (as she would call) “tourists attraction” hospital and the facilities that were put in every corner like it was a casino’s place or a museum with advanced technology equipments. She didn’t share the same thoughts with them. When Jackie, Bryce and Rafael invited her to the massage place she refused it and said the same thing to Elijah for playing ping pong. While Sienna was enjoying the new coffee machine Aurora saw her leaving the rest room with a concerned look.

“Hey.” She took her arm gently. “You okay? You seem to be lost on yourself.”

“Do I really give that impression?”

“Well if we don’t see you carefully then it is obvious. Look... I know that your tensing and I can imagine what’s like but I think we should try to fit into this kind of-“

“Change? No thanks. I don’t think I will... I just need to go Aurora and please tell the others that I’m in an operation room.”

“Sure...as you wish Klaw. But if you need to talk again I’m here. We are here.”

She only nodded with a smile.

Klaw wasn’t mad about this. Of course she wanted the best for the hospital and in many others too. To provide everything in need for the patients. But the thing she worried about was the fact that Leland would be always sneaking into the diagnostics office and reminding her team to work about his wife’s case. She didn’t know how someone like him can be such a deliberate and a money maniac to take over a hospital which he didn’t have any idea how to actually handle it.

Klaw had a fear that his stubbornness and insistence will give serious affects to all of the medical staff and all of this façade would break down (that she really hoped) one day and someone else would direct it.

She was thinking of someone who knows all the struggles, all the concerns and all the medical training staff.

The one and only.

Dr. Naveen Banerji.

He was the best option for her to be not only the chief but the boss of this building. One of the most hardworking doctors in his forty years of experience in the field of medicine- who else could surpass him?

But he was nowhere to be seen and Klaw started to worry if Bloom had done something to him. She could feel a pang on her chest that something wasn’t right.

All of this glorious and masquerade day would be soon vanished and then the real face of Leland Bloom would appear and no one- not even the bravest doctors could face him if he or she didn’t want to lose their jobs.

She had to find the answers.

Ethan.

She opened the door of Diagnostics Office where she finds unexpectedly Harper Emery seated comfortably on her chair, Ethan the same too and also a never-seen-such pensive Baz staring blankly at a point. She could understand his condition right now and she wanted nothing more than to give him a friends comfort hug.

It was really strange to see Harper in the diagnostics team but in the same time she was glad for her presence as with her intelligence could help the team solving the cases. In fact she was hoping if Jackie or Aurora would join the team because they both have worked hard for the place she was holding now. But maybe because June was an attending it had to be replaced by another attending considering that Harper wasn’t anymore the Chief of Medicine. She congratulated her, gave a hug and then began with their first case.

Ethan could feel that even behind of that smile and reasonable face of his resident was something doubtful that he knew very well. Maybe it was about Harper’s appearance. He knew that she wasn’t jealous and never would be. Klaw had such an ego that sometimes had scared him and many times he thought that if her character was really like this. He should’ve told her before Harper would join the team and felt somehow guilty about it considering now that their past was gone for good.

In the meantime a voice interrupted them which definitely made them annoyed. Especially her.

“Well here’s our best diagnostics team working along fighting to beat the impossible things!” He saw their hardened gazes as he leaned on the door. “Am I interrupting something doctors?”

Klaw’s chest was rising and falling from his scrutinised face that asked such a dumb question and couldn’t even hold herself. “Yes you are interrupting us. Are you happy now?”

“Ouch Dr. Craig.” He acted as if he was hurt. “That was really mean. I expected better from you and your leaving during my speech gave me a slight concern.” His voice was playful and didn’t seem to care that much what the young resident just admitted.

Yes- she left. When he grabbed the microphone standing in the center of everyone up in the railway and giving his speech of the new Edenbrook she couldn’t stand it and walked away while digging fingers on her palms whereas her friends were still standing there listening.

Her debate with Bloom when he gave the cheque- that day was still imprinted on her mind and couldn’t forget it. She ripped it without thinking twice. Not even taking her friend’s or Ethan’s opinion because she knew the game of the rich: ‘Once you give your palm, they take your arm.’ And she knew he remembered too- the scene in front of her still fresh on her mind.

“I will never and ever make compromise with someone like you because I know how you are going to treat us. Firstly you’ll just do some cocktails party and you’ll build all the facilities the hospital needs until everyone would be gawked by your marvelous project. Then after seeing these the doctors and the nurses will forget their duties and start to have much more fun with their high wages that a hell knows what will happen next and then all this thing of yours will turn not into a hospital- but into a circus. And you will be the main clown.”

He then admired her witty response and said it was just a testing for her but she could tell that he was pissed off when she left his mansion.

By the way Mr. Bloom your constant trying to make the impossible to possible will be a failure. I suggest to you to spend your time with something much more valuable.

And she hoped he would give up. But no.

“You should be worried.” She replied angrily not breaking her glare.

“Dr. Craig.” Ethan reminded again and gave her a stoic expression to not continue it anymore because it wasn’t worthy. She silenced herself letting him handle it. “Yes Leland do you have any issues that you came here suddenly?”

“Oh nothing at all... just wanted to see how your team selects the cases.”

Is he serious?

“Simple. I review the available cases and select the ones most needing our attention. Why? Are you planning to ‘overhaul’ that process as well?”

“Oh not at all! Your team’s reputation is stellar, so you’re clearly doing something right.” Said with a chuckle. “Rest assured, I want to make sure you still choose cases that interest and challenge you. That part won’t be changed.”

Ethan nodded in agreement or almost in agreement. “Right as I was saying-.”

“I only have one request. I want this team to run more democratically... horizontal leadership if you will. In my experience, hierarchies are the death of good ideas.”

Klaw narrowed her eyebrows to a shocking-but-composing-himself Ethan knowingly as if giving him a message.

‘You wanted to deal with him? Here he is. Right in front of you.’

Harper saw her hardened gaze fixated to Ethan as they exchanged quick glances. She knew they were both stubborn people but never thought Klaw would react such in that way towards Leland. It wasn’t her. Harper knew her limits and she needed a bit of comfort later.

“But...why?” Baz finally asked and it was weird to Klaw that she was hearing his voice now. This was a strange feeling. “Our team has worked perfectly with Ethan’s leadership... and if you’re impressed with your results...”

“Ahh but what if those results could be even more impressive? We can’t know without at least running a test.”

Ethan scratched his beard in thoughts. “I see your point. You’re saying that every team needs its own leadership.” Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea to him he thought even though he didn’t want to agree with everything he said.

“Exactly! I’m glad you understood it! So your votes are-?”

“Obviously I vote for yes. I think there’s no one else who could say no.”

“I’m with Ethan since he’s the expert here. Baz what about you?” Harper asked.

“Oh me? Uhm... yeah I vote the same way.”

“Wha-“

“What about you Dr. Craig?” This time it was Leland who was asking while cutting Harper to do the same. Harper tried to smile even though she was annoyed too.

That seemed to get her attention back to reality. Because she was pretending to not listen to them even though it was disrespectful and she didn’t care.

While they were talking she got a message from Edgar that Naveen hadn’t been in the hospital today altogether with Zaid and Simon. What the hell was going on? Have these men been dusted from Bloom or what? Whatever the reason her suspicions were going to form the puzzle inside of her mind. And she hoped it wouldn’t be an unsolved issue.

“I vote for... No.” She said indifferently catching everyone’s attention. Ethan’s especially while he was parting his lips. “I don’t think that we are prepared well enough to form new leaderships in our new teams. We need to do a lot of training for interns and residents who want to be part of this kind of programme and I think is going to take a lot of time.”

“I see...Well sorry to say it but the most wins Dr. Craig.” His expression was in an amusing way. “And I think you should agree with the new...changes.”

“Of course I will Mr. Bloom.” She said with a plastered smile but surely was cursing under her breath.

With that he left the office when his phone rang giving them now the space the doctors needed. They discussed the case and set the treatment but the resident was not so much interested on it as that rat face wouldn’t get out from her mind. Harper and Baz had already left and she was about to do the same but his voice (as always) stopped her.

“Can we talk a bit?”

“For what? About how I seem to you right now? Jealous to Harper?” She scoffed.

“What? I didn’t say anything and my discussion is n-.”

“You didn’t but yet I can see that. Your eyes are telling me that you still think I am that clueless intern girl right?”

“How can you even think about this? I’ve never called you clueless and I know that you’re not jealous about Harper.”

She looked like she wasn’t believing him and it worried him as how was possible that she had lost it? Did she lost his trust? Then before he could add something else she didn’t let him speak again.

“How could you agree with him?” Obviously the question was for Bloom and Ethan was thinking for mere seconds if she heard his words before or not.

“It was the only way.”

“You think by siding with him everything would go as flowing as it was?”

This was already too much to him. Enough was enough.

“And with your behaviour you think you can solve anything?” He spit back.

“Excuse me?” She frowned shockingly.

“Yes- your snarky, ironic responses are not helping us and we’re just losing our time instead of doing our job!”

“So you think that just because I didn’t agree with you and with the others my opinion doesn’t matter? Oh wait I forgot you are my boss and I should do as you please huh? Well if you are wrong then you are Dr. Ramsey so I won’t shut up my mouth when there’s injustice here!”

“This is not about injustice here! It has been since in the ancient times and no one has ever stopped it!” When he saw where the debate was going he decided to ease it a bit. He didn’t want to fight with her. “Look I’m worried too as much as you are but you don’t have to act like this.”

She said those words before she could stop them. She regretted so much. “Oh you care about me so much don’t you!”

That behaviour.

That cold demeanour.

That selfish character was back and was slapped at Ethan’s face.

He thought she had changed a bit.

From what he remembered from her first year her behaviour was only because of avoiding her feelings but this- was entirely something else.

Egoistic. Which he didn’t except that.

He clearly was disappointed given after everything they’ve been through these past three years.

Something was for sure- she would never change and felt a pang on his chest that now it wasn’t his fault about this.

It was hers.

“Get out.”

“What?”

“I said- GET OUT!” His anger was raised so much that made her jolt. That authoritative voice was back again and her heartbeats accelerated. “Until you don’t get your shit together don’t even try to step in this office!”

She knew she had crossed her limits by her words. She had hurt him so badly that there was no excuse of making up with him so instead she walked out and slammed the door behind it.

He knew he had crossed his limits too. If he could analyse it overall she was right in a way. Leland was trying to be everywhere and meddling with his theories about how a medical team should work and how the medicine should be which was completely out of his league.

Both of them were madly in love but this time the scars of the past seemed to not leave them alone.

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

P. S: Ouch this was damnnnn. Thank you for reading folks. And guess what? Now I have downloaded tumblr on my phone which gives me much more time to edit and write fics. If school gives me time of course 🙄 And if you have seen emojis from me lately yeah it’s because of new iphone 😂😂😂 And do you want a 2nd part of this? Let me know!

TAGS WILL APPEAR IN A REBLOG!

PART TWO

#open heart fan fiction #open heart choices #open heart fan fic #ethan ramsey #my mc #klaw craig #ethan ramsey x mc #klaw x ethan #my writing #OH book 3 rewrite

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nobodyfamousposts · 4 years

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BURN THE WITCH! Part 5

Yes, I WILL finish this.

Lila was soaking wet and didn’t even have to feign how miserable she was when she managed to make it back to dry land and into the first open store she saw.

Said open store just happened to be the Dupain-Cheng Bakery, where none other than Marinette’s own parents were there to greet her.

And fortunately for Lila, they were all too willing to take her under their protection once she explained the “horrible story” of what had happened.

“Oh you poor girl!”

“Come on upstairs. We have a daughter your age. She should have some extra clothes you can change into.“

“Thank you,” She said with a sniffle. “You’re too kind.”

Lila hadn’t even had to do much to get the gullible couple to let her in. She wished she could be proud of that fact, but their determination to help her probably stemmed more from the fact that she currently looked like a drowned rat.

On the plus side, it meant less effort to get what she needed.

On the down side…she did look like a drowned rat.

It seemed that when the owner of the boat had said for Lila to be “thrown overboard”, she meant it literally. The boat residents were rather unreasonably cross with her and hadn’t been feeling patient enough to hold out for the mob to arrive to collect her. And thus the two had cruelly and rather foolishly tossed Lila off the side of the ship.

It was for the best, as unbeknownst to them, Lila could swim perfectly well. And a dip in the cold water was still preferable to being burned alive.

…Except that contrary to popular belief and portrayal to tourists, the water of the Seine is actually rather polluted, not to mention completely disgusting. The mayor’s incompetence and focus on other arbitrary and more self-centered issues (aka: Chloe’s whim of the day) was no doubt part to blame. So Lila not only looked like a drowned rat, but smelled like one, too.

Gross. Gross. Gross!

At least Sabine had been polite enough to hide her disgust as she led Lila to a bathroom to try and clean up. Not that Lila could take full advantage of that, unfortunately. As much as she wanted to, there was too much risk of something happening. Members of the mob could track her down. Marinette could return and out her. And despite her warnings to the parents to keep the TV off or risk becoming more minions of the akuma, there was still the chance that either might get curious and try to get an update on the Ladyblog.

There was also no telling just how the akuma’s influence could spread. Her classmates had turned against her almost immediately after Rose started talking. Anyone close enough to the akuma seemed to fall under her sway—possibly hearing distance? Then the idiots on the boat had thrown her out immediately after hearing the news report showing the akuma, being so enraged that they didn’t even care about the mob searching for her. The mob which, from what she could tell, was steadily growing in numbers and fanfare. Was that carnival music playing out there? Seriously? It was like her torment was entertainment or something!

And where the hell were Ladybrat and her sidekick? On vacation? They should have made an appearance to try and fight the akuma by now.

Lila huffed.

They were probably taking advantage of her situation to enjoy her suffering. She wouldn’t put it past them. Both of them were annoyingly self-righteous. Looking down on her and using their powers to make themselves seem “special”.

If SHE had powers, none of this would even be happening.

She growled in anger.

And what was taking Hawk Moth? Hadn’t he let this go on long enough? He should be trying to rein in the akuma by now! Or at least have it focus on the real job of dealing with the fake “heroes”.

“Dear, is everything all right?” Sabine asked, knocking on the door.

“Yes, I’m fine!” Lila answered quickly. It wouldn’t do for Marinette’s mother to hear her ruminations, after all. She opened the door, making herself appear shy and insecure. The sort of appearance anyone would see as being innocent and not think twice about her true inner thoughts.

“That’s good.” The older woman said with a smile. Lila had to hold back a questioning look at just how…blasé she was.

What kind of parents were these that they’d just let a random teenager into their daughter’s home and allow her use of her daughter’s belongings? Much less one whom their child had clearly been at odds with previously. Did they not even remember her? Or were they just blinded by their need to help?

It explained where Marinette got it, at least.

“Here is a spare shirt and some pants.” Sabine said, placing them on the table nearby as Lila finished drying off as much as possible with the towel.

“Thank you, but I couldn’t possibly.” Lila falsely tried to decline. “I know your daughter and I aren’t exactly friends and I wouldn’t want to impose…” She trailed off and lowered her eyes, the picture of a sad and pitiable.

Sabine frowned at that, her eyes seeming to flare in indignation at the thought of her daughter being so cruel. “It’s for a good cause. She’ll understand.” The tone of voice made it clear that Sabine wouldn’t accept anything less, which made something inside Lila laugh with glee.

“I hope so.” Lila said, making herself sound uncertain. “I wouldn’t want to cause any problems.”

Marinette’s own mother looked at Lila with more sympathy than she had her own daughter when she was accused. “It won’t be any trouble.” She reassured her as she took Lila’s wet clothes.

“Thank you!” Lila said with a smile. “I’ll make it up to you somehow.”

Not.

Really, you would think her parents would have better sense. But she couldn’t say she was surprised given what she’d seen of them so far. If they were so willing to believe the worst in their daughter with a couple flimsy lies, they really weren’t that dependable. Especially when they were willing to let the very girl who framed their daughter into her home.

Oh well. Marinette’s loss.

Sabine smiled back and left the room. As soon as the door was shut, Lila looked at the clothes with distaste.

Ugh. As if she would want to wear anything owned by little miss “Perfect”.

But beggars couldn’t be choosers at this point.

Knowing Marinette, the girl had probably intended to bring Lila here in the first place. Not smart, given that she would be giving access of her home to someone she knows can’t be trusted, but Marinette more than anyone could be foolishly nice, even to her own detriment.

In retrospect, Lila really should have gone with her in the first place. It would’ve made things so much easier. At the very least, she would have been able to skip the dip in the Seine.

If she cared, part of her would pity Marinette.

The problem with being “kind“ and “helpful“ was that the more you did it, the less people actually appreciated it. Because of course the nice person would be willing to be imposed upon or have to go out of their way for others, because they always do and that’s just the sort of person they are. No need to even ask them.

It became common—expected even. To the point where people would easily get upset and react poorly even more on the occasion if you weren’t kind as they would if you were actually mean.

It was why Lila feigned so many injuries. Not only did it get her sympathy and patsies to do things for her for a time, but it cemented the exact impression she wanted people to have of her. That she was “delicate”, which led them to avoid imposing on her as they didn’t want to overburden her. This allowed her to avoid having to do too much while still maintaining The impression of being a kind and sweet girl who would do anything to help them, “if only she could”.

It was why she was able to get free lunches and ice cream while Marinette was overwhelmed with requests and work for her friends. Because if Marinette “always” helps, then of course she can take each request they make of her and handle it all. It’s just expected of her.

And if she ever dares to say “no”? Regardless of her reasons or even just sheer inability to make the time, people would still be disappointed in her. She would even be disappointed in herself.

Honestly, Lila wasn’t wrong when she said she would win. How couldn’t she when she was playing with such an advantage while Marinette didn’t even know the game? Lila probably didn’t even need to do anything to win. Either Marinette would tire herself by working endlessly to appease everyone or risk alienating herself by trying to set limits. Lila didn’t even have to be a factor for that.

Of course, that didn’t mean she couldn’t help it along...

Which was why she decided to take advantage of the opportunity to go snooping through Marinette’s room for something to use.

After all, her charade may be over, but Lila at least still had an escape. She could simply go to her mother and complain of bullying, and the woman would act. She would move Lila to a new school, or even transfer to a new placement in her work altogether. She’d done it before. And it had gotten Lila out of situations that were becoming dicey.

Marinette wouldn’t be so lucky. Even if Lila didn’t get to steal Marinette’s friends for herself, she could still turn them against her before she leaves. At least in that way, she would keep her promise that Marinette would end up alone.

It would be a final present to herself as she says goodbye to Paris.

She didn’t even bother to hide the smirk as she made her way up the stairs to what could only be Marinette’s room. It had to be, since it was the direction Sabine had left in to get the clothes for her and none of the other rooms she’d passed looked were what she imagined the goody two-shoes’ room to look like. Once she reached the top of the stairs and opened the door into the final room…

…Yeah, this was more of what she had thought Marinette’s room would be like. Lila sneered in distaste as she was assaulted with an overabundance of pink, dolls, “cutesy” furniture, and fashion designs. And that was all the obvious details at first glance.

She glanced around the room in annoyance, noting just how big and open it was in comparison to her own apartment bedroom. It was bright. Even without the pink it was cheery and warm, with two windows and a balcony overhead. A balcony with its own garden, too! And a perfect view of the city on top of everything else! How fair was it that a baker’s daughter got to make use of such space?

All the more space to hide things, even. Lila’s hands twitched with an urge to destroy the room and its contents. It would be worth it for the look on Marinette’s face once she saw it. But she wasn’t here for that and there was every chance that Ladybug’s cure could fix it. No, what she needed was something more permanent.

Now where were the more…”incriminating” details?

Lila started a search of the room for anything she could use to solidify Marinette’s isolation from the rest of the class. Something that would make even Adrien want nothing to do with her.

Marinette’s computer was locked and it would take too much time to guess the password. There was no book in sight that could be a diary. There were plenty of designs and Marinette’s sketchbook, but any ideas she had to use those would require her to stick around to complete them.

Nah, she needed something more straightforward. Something like…

Hello. Against the wall closest to her bed was a plethora of Adrien posters that might as well have been her wallpaper.

A pull of a string revealed a scrolled up calendar with Adrien’s schedule.

And what’s this? Hidden in the closet was an entire stack of presents. All labeled for Adrien.

Oh, this was too good. She was practically giddy as she started taking pictures with her phone camera. Pictures of the wall. Pictures of the schedule. Pulling the presents out of the closet and scattering them across the room to take pictures of each of those. She couldn’t have asked for a better opening!

She’d known Marinette to have a huge crush on Adrien. It was obvious from how she acted around him, which was why Lila tried to buy her friendship with false promises to help her win his heart—not completely false though, as she may very well have let Marinette have him…once Lila herself was bored of him. Still, she clearly underestimated the girl’s crush. This was extreme and just ripe for humiliation. An entire wall of pictures of his face to watch her sleep. His daily schedule to always know where he is. Presents for years—as if they’ll even still know each other that long!

It might not have been as good as say a diary or some other dirty secret, but this was just enough for Lila to spin it against Marinette. Imagine how Adrien would feel about all this? Or if his FATHER knew? Ooooh, Marinette’s dreams, whether as a designer or as Adrien’s love would be completely dashed!

And speaking of which, it was perhaps fortunate that Lila just HAPPENED to be on such good terms with the father in question! Surely he would want to know about this.

Why hadn’t she called on him sooner? Gabriel needed her. She was useful to him. So surely he would be willing to help her. He had a private mansion with its own defense system that could protect her from any unruly mob. Honestly, she should have gone there first.

Might as well kill two birds with one stone, she decided as she tapped his contact number. She could ensure her safety with Gabriel and ruin Marinette with one phone call.

“What is it?”

Lila frowned in surprise. Her call had been picked up immediately, but rather than Gabriel, she was stuck talking to his assistant.

“This is Lila Rossi. I need to speak to Mr. Agreste.”

“Mr. Agreste is busy at the moment.”

Lila barely held back a huff of irritation. “This is important.”

“Whatever it is you have to say is not important enough to disturb Mr. Agreste at this time. Or ever, for that matter.”

What was this? The woman wasn’t even listening!

“But it’s about his son!” Lila exclaimed. It wasn’t, actually. Lila needed a safe place to hide and that was priority, but if there was one thing Gabriel cared about that could ensure he would listen long enough, Adrien was it.

“There’s a horrible girl who has been obsessed with him!” Lila exclaimed with overly grandiose affect. “She has invaded his personal space, harassed him in public, and followed him into unsanctioned areas. I think she’s a stalker! Gabriel needs to know!”

“We are already aware of your antics, Miss Rossi. Although it is useful of you to admit them. This will be included in your file.”

Lila balked at that.

“MY file?”

“I assumed you could only have been speaking of yourself, given your history.”

“No! I was talking about Marinette! SHE’S the one who—”

“Did you think we wouldn’t find out what you had been doing? You lied and manipulated your way into the mansion. You’ve been frequently touching and hanging on Adrien in a way he is not comfortable with and is against company policy. And then there are the ‘rumors’ you’ve been spreading of being his girlfriend without speaking to Adrien or clearing it with Gabriel Agreste first. And then there were your outright attempts to use Adrien to get close to the head of the company brand and try to manipulate said head of the company in regards to his own son.”

“I didn’t!” Lila insisted. This was going all wrong!

“Our cameras and reports say differently. Which is why we will request that you cease any and all contact with the company and its employees henceforth.”

Lila froze.

“What?”

“In light of recent allegations, the Gabriel brand has decided it would be in the company’s best interests to cut ties with someone of such…unsavory background.”

“What do you mean—”

“Your contract with Gabriel is terminated. There will be no further communications with Mr. Agreste or Adrien. And a restraining order is in process of being issued.”

“But…” This couldn’t be happening!

“Goodbye, Miss Rossi.”

There was a final resounding click. Then silence. And Lila found herself choking on dread from within a hatefully cheerful and pink room where no bad things should happen.

This couldn’t be it.

This couldn’t be the end!

All her efforts…for nothing?

And…that meant she didn’t have the mansion as a safe house. If she was forced to run again, she had no backup plan. She had to rely on Ladybug to…

Wait…

Ladybug?

It wouldn’t leave her. Ladybug. What about Ladybug? It may have been the shock of everything, but even the thought of the spotted heroine didn’t hold animosity for her for once. Not compared to the desperate hope that the connection and slow realization brought her.

This was…

This was just the akuma!

That’s right! Lila spun back as she realized.

The akuma was controlling everyone. No doubt Gabriel and his people were caught up in it as well. The man had to have spies everywhere. And if the influence spread by word of mouth, it would have been easy for him to fall under its sway as well.

That meant that Ladybug would fix this. Everything would go back to normal and nobody would even remember this. She would still have her contract. She would still have her ties to Gabriel and his influence to serve in her favor. Hell, maybe it would be confusing enough for everyone that she could spin things to her classmates to convince them it was all a misunderstanding or the akuma’s work?

There was still a chance!

She wasn’t finished!

Lila Rossi has not fallen yet!

Except then she did. Literally. By tripping over one of the spare presents she had left out in the middle of the floor to photograph. Unable to regain her balance, she hit the floor with a thud. That thud turned into a clatter as her sprawled form making contact with the ground sent a number of the other packages and a few other objects falling over in a small avalanche of noise that seemed to resound throughout the room and no doubt to the floors below.

Maybe…maybe nobody heard that?

The stomping of feet from below heading in her specific direction told her that yes, her unfortunate tumble had indeed been heard. Stupid! She should have put the gifts back sooner! She only had a few moments to act. Lila barely managed to pull herself up into something close to a standing position before the door to the room flung open.

Sabine entered the room with baking peel in hand, looking wary and concerned. Her eyes scanned the room in seconds. Seeing the presents scattered across the floor. Seeing several objects moved from their proper places. Seeing Lila sitting in the middle of it all.

In an instant, any trace of a sympathetic authority figure in her corner was gone. Instead, she was replaced with a very protective and very ANGRY mother who just found a threat in her home.

“What do you think you are doing?!”

“Oh, Mrs. Dupain-Cheng!” Lila exclaimed, looking relieved. “I’m so glad someone found me!”

“What are you doing up here?” The woman demanded, looking substantially less pleased to see her.

“It’s a bit embarrassing.” She explained, appearing bashful. “I took a wrong turn and got lost.”

The mother’s eyes narrowed.

“You got lost.”

“Yes!”

Maybe she would buy it?

“And took stairs clearly leading UP instead of DOWN.”

Yeah, she wasn’t buying it.

“Yes?” Lila tried anyway.

“And why is the room in disarray?” Sabine continued to question—oh who was she kidding, it was an interrogation at this point.

“I got scared.” Lila stated, only acting slightly more anxious than she actually felt. “I was worried the akuma would find me and I wanted to find a place to hide. Her closet seemed big enough.” She finished, gesturing to the now roomier closet space.

Sabine’s eyes followed her gesture. Her expression became slightly more uncertain. She was considering it at least. While the story seemed suspicious, Sabine had no proof and Lila’s explanation was at least plausible. She couldn’t argue it at any rate.

“Come downstairs.” Sabine ordered, unhappy but appearing to buy her story for now. “We’ll find a place to keep you hidden that isn’t our daughter’s room.”

“Oh, thank you!” Lila cried gratefully. She moved towards the exit with no further hesitation.

She had already gotten what she needed, after all.

But as Lila passed by, the woman suddenly gripped her shoulder. Hard enough that she could very well bruise. Precise enough that pressure points were hit which caused more pain and a sense of numbness in her arm.

“If you take advantage of our kindness to harm my daughter, you’re going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for politicians and people who talk at the theater.”

Lila couldn’t help the wincing. She didn’t need to fake it, but she didn’t even try to hide it, either. “Ow! Yes! I got it! Ow!”

Sabine relaxed her grip but didn’t release it, walking Lila down the stairs and back to the main part of the shop. Tom looked up, a bit confused as they entered. But despite not being the one to catch Lila, even he was looking at her suspiciously.

This wasn’t good.

Lila was already working out what she could say to turn this in her favor. But—

“Honey, I just got a text from Nadja.” Tom stated, seeming worried.

“Oh?” Sabine asked, curious.

“She said that the ‘Witch’ was in our daughter’s room trying to find Marinette’s secrets to humiliate her and ruin her future. Do you know what she means?”

A long pause.

Lila gulped.

“Honey?” Tom asked, though from the silence, he was starting to draw his own conclusions as slowly his gaze started to settle on Lila. His eyes narrowed as his expression morphed into anger.

But even that was nothing compared to the other...

“Really?” Sabine drawled.

Lila felt everything in her freeze as the woman slowly—all too slowly turned to smile at her.

That was not a nice smile.

“How very…special.”

Lila’s eyes widened, catching the meaning.

NOPE!

And she immediately booked it out of Sabine’s grasp, out of the room, and out of the bakery altogether.

#ml fic #witch hunter #lila sucks #tom and sabine #tom dupain cheng #sabine dupain cheng #sabine is the boss

583 notes · View notes

popculturebuffet · 3 years

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The Three Caballeros Ride Again Review!: And Ladies (Ride of the Three Caballeros)

Saludos Amigos! I’m back with yet another comics review! And we’re back on The Ride of the Three Cablleros! Thanks again to WeirdKev27 for commissioning this retrospective. It’s going to get pricey and I greatly appreciate it. PREVIOUSLY ON RIDE OF THE THREE CABLLEROS

In short.. a bunch of short segments of varying quality, a very thirsty Donald hitting on ladies, the first appearance of Panchito and some very good music. A fun time was had by all. Along with a LOT OF drugs by the Disney Animators. The film wasn’t a huge success, but out of the 6 package films, it was a fan faviorite alongside the Mr. Toad and Ichabod movie, and thus was rereleased quite a bit, as well as being one of the first of this era to end up on VHS due to it’s cult popularity. As for Panchito and Jose they’d get plenty of success overseas, with both getting solo series in their respective home countries, Jose himself having just resumed having comics again this year, and being rightfully massive characters. But despite being a hit with fans across the world.. in the US... they were pretty much shoved in the Disney Vault for a few decades. Jose would show up on the Wonderful World of Disney, in it’s various forms, three times after the Three Caballeros while Panchito just vanished aside from reuses of the Three Caballeros footage. Their careers in the US just sorta vanished for a few decades. But as suddenly as they vanished, our boys returned triumphantly. Naturally being the most used out of the duo, Jose would show up for the first time in decades during Mickey Mouseworks, a show full of new late 90′s produced Mickey Mouse shorts, all but two of which would end up being recycled for the much more popular and well loved House of Mouse, which would feature the triumphant return of the Cabs to animation after so long away. We’ll get to that next time, as just a year before the Cabs had already reunited in the pages of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories in one of Don Rosa’s best loved tales. The Ride of The Three Caballeros was something Don Rosa had wanted to do since he got the job writing Duck Comics in the first place. As he explained in the back of the complete library edition named after this tale, Uncle Keno isn’t the biggest fan of the Donald Theatrical shorts. Having experienced the Carl Barks comics first, and having built his career around them later, he just wasn’t a fan of the goofier, angrier, less nuanced theatrical short Donald, often feeling like he was an entirely different character from the one he loved. And.. honestly he’s not wrong. Both were built for entirely different kinds of comedy: While both did slapstick, Slapstick, along with standard comedy shenanigans, was the main weapon in Shorts Donald’s comedic arsenal. Barksian Donald, while not immune to slapstick, was more like a well built sitcom character: Multi layered, sympathetic when he needs to be, but still having tons of faults to be exploited for laughs and to play off other characters. As a result while I like Donald in the shorts I do prefer Barks version of him, and the shorts Barks did are usually the best of both worlds, combining Donald’s everyman schtick with his slapstick schtick. Of course later cartoons would pick one or the other or combine both, but I do get his point and at the time he wrote this story the only cartoon show starring Donald was.. Quack Pack.. which I can only imagine his reaction to seeing that train wreck.

But as you can probably guess there was one exception and it was The Three Caballeros. Don genuinely enjoys the beautiful music and the wonderful chemistry the three have. So after a trip to Mexico gave him the perfect setting and the fire in his belly to finally do it, he finally wrote the story. And since they weren’t Barksian characters and hadn’t had any other apperances in decade, Don also took a dive into their comics. Since Jose was more of a fancifial freeloader in his comics, Don decided to ignore this characterization and go with his own based on the film: A latin playboy and lounge singer. And i’m okay with him doing that, as unlike say with Marvel and DC when they destroy a character, Disney characters are both more fluid continuity wise and his is still rooted in a version of the character, and he’s fully accepting and apologetic that some fans hate him for this. Also for some damn reason they redesigned Jose at some point in his Brazil to look like this:

This is far from the dumbest comic book costume change i’ve seen, but it’s certainly one of the most lame, as his original outfit is dapper, stylish and fits the Brazilian version of him well. And it’s not like you CAN’T update the classic Disney characters with modern appearances. Quack Pack, which has somehow come up twice in this review, did so great with Donald and Daisy, giving them new clothes and a haircut in Daisy’s case but both still look great. Same with Goofy for Goof Troop who just wore a dad sweater and bow tie, which puts him in the small but significant club of “Bow Tie Wearing Characters who have defined my life” with Opus the Penguin and the 11th Doctor. You can update a classic character’s’s appearance without coming off like...

Which given Jose’s outfit there is horrifyingly similar, says something. Anyways, Rosa had more use for Panchito’s stories, which had him as a cowboy protecting small towns with the help of his trusty steed Senor Martinez. Rosa loved both aspects and thus used them here, with Martinez getting a makeover to fit Rosa’s style better. Rosa is also the one to popularize Panchito’s last name, having found it on a scrap of research, not realizing the character’s last name was not at all widespread and thus giving him a canon one that has stuck to this day, and sighing in relief when he finally got conformation from another fan this name was indeed something Disney had used after loosing his research scrap. So with the two boys characters set, a plot set up and a whole sequence planned we’ll talk about on the way “The Three Caballeros Ride Again!” was born. How good is it? Well join me under the cut and i’ll tell you.

We open in Mexico, specifically near the Barranca Del Cobre, aka The “Copper Canyon” of the Sierra Madre, a natural land formation simlar to the Grand Canyon that Don Rosa saw during his trip and thought would make a great setting. While larger than the Grand Canyon, Rosa figures in his notes it simply isn’t as popular because it’s more isolated than the Grand Canyon and that, combined with it having trees inside distracting from it’s rugged beauty, makes it much harder to build a tourist industry around. The four are headed to El Divisadero, because this comic is determined to kill me with it’s difficult to spell names apparently, where Huey, Dewey or Louie spouts off for no particular reason about the currently being built Chihuahua El Pacifico Railway. Seriously the boys might as well be the security guard from Wayne’s World in this comic, their role for most of their brief page time is just to set up stuff for later. I mean i’m fine with setting up your setting but there are better ways than just spouting off tons of exposition apropos of nothing.

Donald has driven the boys here for a Woodchuck Jamboree. I did actually look into Jamborees, as before this it only had ever come up in one of my favorite movies of all time, Moonrise Kingdom, and mentioned occasionally in the Ducktales Reboot. Jamboree was first used for a worldwide scouting Jamboree but has gone on to mean a huge gathering of scouts, with the Boy Scouts of America having one every four years, so odds are it’s just a big yearly or quarter yearly thing for the woodchucks. Still it would be nice to see a big gathering like this in the series, especially since several of our cast are involved in them, including the possible power trio of Huey, Violet and Boyd, and Della and Launchpad could easily be slotted into the plot as seen in this season’s premiere.. as could Dewey and Louie if they really want to since according to Frank their members.. they just aren’t nearly as invested as their brother, and thus don’t do Woodchuck stuff unless he drags them into it, as seen with “Day of the Only Child” in the series itself. It does make sense: Dewey doesn’t have the survival instinct or patience for camping, and Louie hates effort, the out doors, and doing things for anything but profit. Scouting is all of that. So the boys have driven all this way for the Mexican Jamboree, as they’ve been carefully raising their tarantula Tara, and the Tarantula Breeding Badge is only given out in Mexico, which is plausible: Different branches of a worldwide organization would have different awards and what not in different countries. And Tarantula’s are also native to mexico so that makes sense.. and I want you to apricate that I’m afraid of spiders, not cartoony ones, for instance, this is adorable.

Galvantula4Life. But real life ones or realistic looking ones? Yeah no fuck that. So I had to go to the Wikipedia entry and see several horrifying looking sizeable spiders for this one tiny fact. Your welcome. Tara ends up on Donald’s face with the boys assuming Donald is sad to see her go instead of you know FUCKING TERRIFIED A GIANT SPIDER IS ON HIS FACE. This gag does not work.. but probably because as I said i’m afraid of spiders and this is my nightmare, you little sociopaths.

The boys however worry about what Donald will do for the weekend as they prepare to board the bus to the Jamboree... why it’s meeting in an out of the way town like this I have no idea, but i’d guess plot convince. They realize he has no friends, which Donald shrugs off, and they REALLY shouldn’t say to his face, but ruminate on it once he leaves to do whatever after vaguely talking about friends he had in the past.

I like this scene even though it annoys me a bit: Ilike it because it does set up how Donald really DOSEN’T have any friends in the comics. It’s part of WHY Rosa was drawn to the Cabs: Their one of the few equal relationships donald’s ever had, people who treat him as a partner, in both sense probably, a friend, a true amigo. As the boys point out Scrooge is a monster to him in the comics, paying him 30 cents an hour which I actually put into an inflation calculator to get an accurate read on how little that was by 2020 standards.. and it’s 3 dollars an hour. Hence why I call him a monster, why that bit hasn’t aged well, and why Rosa REALLY, REALLY should’ve retired it. It dosen’t help reading that knowing Disney largely treated Rosa the same way is cringe inducing at best, if not for any fault of his own. It being cringe inducing for an employer horribly mistreating and underpaying his employees though is his fault, he’s a grown ass man, even in the 90′s this had to be a problem, be better.

And yes i’m being hard on Don Rosa but just like with the comics thing, I simply expect better from the man given just how much respect I have for the guy. His art is gorgeous, his research is immaculate, his knowledge of old films is wonderful and his love for them so infectious i’m tempted to seek the ones he’s mentioned in notes out. He’s a truly wonderful guy and one of my faviorite comic writers.. but I have to treat him fairly like I do ANY of my idols. Just to prove that, I love Grant Morrison, especially his run on New X-Men, but a lot of it hasn’t aged well including some of the language and the entire subplot with Emma manipulating Scott into having an affair when he wasn’t in the best mental place and she knew that and was acting as his therapist, and treating that as a regular affair REALLY doesn’t play well nor should it have. I love Al Ewing, with all my heart and soul, but his run on Ultimates, while having some great worldbuilding and a spectacular cast, ultimately wasn’t very good after the first arc. Not terrible but not good. John Aliison, of Scary Go Round and Giant Days fame, while impressive has had plenty of stories I just didn’t like for various reasons and will probably get into some day and some parts of his stories haven’t aged well. It’s the hard but necessary part of being a critic: You have to be objective and see all the parts of a creator’s creation, not just the ones you like and call them out when they screw up. To me being a fan isn’t about just blindly loving something, it’s about knowing WHY you love it and being willing to call out faults while still thoroughly enjoying the work. There’s a fine line between being blindly loyal to someone, which has created Zach Snyder's awful cult of personality that I hate so much, and being an overly critical shithead and I hope I’m straddling that line.

Back on the scene after that filibuster they point out Gladstone, who himself is a monster to me for how he doesn’t lift a finger to help his nephews or cousin, and constnatly flaunts his luck to Donald, and is a bit more than teasing especially since he tried to, you know, steal your house once boys. That’s canon.. that’s a barks story so it’s canon here. You.. You remember that right? He tried to steal your house. And we will be getting to that one next month, just you wait. Finally the Daisy part that annoys me slightly. The boys being sexist.. was sadly the style at the time this story is set, the 1950′s, and thus plays better for me than it does in Ducktales, as their just little boys and don’t know better. Them assuming Girlfriends aren’t like having friends, while accurate though does bother me a bit, but only because the way this story treats Donald’s relationship is PRETTTTTYYYY bad and this sets that up. But we’ll get to that. Thankfully this foreshadowing of terrors to come is quickly forgotten as we get a GENUINELY great two panels of Donald lamenting his lack of friends. It just works really well, selling his loneliness and how isolated he truly feels without any, which while I have friends I can relate to as I only really hang out with on regularly.

This is what I was talking about. While I will point out Rosa’s flaws.. their truly outweighed but his artistic mastery. In just three panels he really has a truly emotional and heartrending scene, and just that one close up among them is all we need to get the true depths of Donald’s loneliness. I can be hard on the guy, but it’s because he’s one of the best there is, best there was, and best there ever will be and thus I hold him to a high standard. But with that we transition to...

Or rather first his boss at the hotel, whose pissed his headliner has skipped out on him again to woo a lady, and while he plans to fire the guy, only isn’t throttling him because he figures one of his “Senorita’s” boyfriends will do that for him. And while I do like Jose as a playboy i’m not really fond of him trying to have sex with someone in a relationship, as it puts both him and the person he’s having an affair with in a really bad light. It does fit the character, I just don’t have to like it. As for this particular Senorita, it turns out her boyfriend is a notorious Bandito and is thankfully out of town. So yes, Jose is essentially acting out Come A Little Bit Closer by Jay and the Americans.

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Naturally just like the song, said Bad Man returns, Alfonso “Gold Hat” Bedoya, a machete wielding baddie who while understandably pissed about another man making time with his girlfriend, is less understandably about to murder Jose. Though unlike the song, Alfonso’s Lady, rather than help Jose, encourages her boyfriend to murder him and clearly has a fetish for cheating on her boyfriend with various men and watching as he kills him which.. Jesus. This is why while I don’t LIKE the idea of Jose hitting on women in a relationship it does work here, as he’s still not nearly as bad as either of these two, so it evens out. Jose escapes with his umbrella but crashes.. right into the back of Donald’s car. Rosa, Alfonso’s lady, encourages him to murder both of them for funsies, and being a brutal thug, Alfonso obliges and shoots at the car. And since, to quote the duck himself, Donald doesn’t like being killed “Even a little”, he books it out of there.

Alfonso doesn’t peruse them though. He’s on the trail of a treasure hunter who has a map to the lost town of Tayopa, which contains untold silver, but before he can do that he has important buisness to get to.

I fucking love that gag and that Rosa snuck more adult gags in there knowing plenty of Duck Fans, such as myself, are grown men, women and others who can handle this sort of thing, while still slippnig it past the kids.

Donald, once the fear’s worn off a bit, starts to wonder WHY he’s running when he’s not the one who pissed off the guy, and ignores Jose’s good point about the fact Alfonso really dosen’t seem like a guy who sees nuance.. until Donald sees a wanted poster for Alphonoso and keeps driving. He eventually gets far enough away to feel safe.. and confront the guy who got him into this mess.

Now kiss. While sadly, they do not, we do get a lovely warm reunion between old pals. Rosa keeps their past vauge as, correctly, he pointed out in his authors notes that the Cabs movie really had no plot, accurate, so instead just vaguely alluded to Donald having known the two in his pre-daisy and boys past and likely had similar adventures to the movie, but adapted more for Rosa’s barksian universe. Jose explains he often finds himself cash poor and thus hits the road to drum up some money, and Mexico is a great place for that as it has plenty of tourist money.

Though as Jose talks about their past we get the most uncomfortable running gag of the story.

While Donald’s paranoia here is played for laughs.. it just.. isn’t all that funny that Donald’s relationship with Daisy in the Rosa canon is apparently sooooo deeply unhealthy that just HEARING about him having a romantic past before him, as Rosa confirmed this was pre-daisy in his notes, causes Donald to panic and worry she actually somehow heard this. It just isn’t funny.. it speaks of MASSIVE relationship issues and some form of domestic abuse on Rosa!Daisy’s part. It’s stuff like this why there’s only a handful of Donsy relationships I like: Her treating him like shit is reduced to a punchline, instead of being used for character growth. It’s also why I’m deeply dreading covering “Legend of the Three Cablleros” at the end of this retrospective. I just don’t like when Disney media treats Daisy expecting too much of Donald or being hyper jealous of him as hilarious and while I take this more as the story not ageing well rather than barks fault, as since then Domestic Abuse against Males has become a more widely known and talked about issue, it still doesn’t’t make it plesant. It just makes this not entirely his fault. Just like it’s not Stan Lee’s fault this panel is both deeply hilarious and uses a now kinda racist term.

I named an entire youtube channel after that.. we all have our regrets. I also bring it up since currently Harry’s become terrifying villain Kindred... and thus the current big bad of an entire Spider-Man run and the being hopefully bringing one more day into the light and hopefully leading to it’s undoing.. once had a goofy mustache he genuinely referred to a “Fu Manchu Face Fuzz” that for all we know he regrew under the mask.

Donald fondly remembers the old days of being a badass adventuring team and decides, screw it, let’s go show that Gold Hatted Paloka whose boss.. but being Donald ends up driving them into The Copper Canyon instead. Our heroes end up lost in the canyon and , fitting for Donald get shot at. I can only imagine his thoughts right now.

Their mysterious attacker threatens them.. before revealing himself to be Panchito, whose glad to see his friends having mistook them for Alfonso. Turns out HE’S the mysterious treasure hunter Alfonoso was after, to no one’s surprise. We get another deeply unfunny “Daisy’s only a thousand miles away gag” as the boys reminisce and get introduced to Panchito’s horse, Senior Martniez. He also tells the boy about his map.. but how he’s hit a snag as the lost town where the silver, from a silver mine.. is now buried under pounds of volcanic rock, a volcano having erupted. This is artistic license as Don Rosa admits there aren’t any known volcano’s in Mexico, but that they also still haven’t found that missing town, so this was his explanation. All is not lost as Donald’s globetrotting with Scrooge meant he knows his history.. and thus spots an old mission which, at the time, were used by preists as cover for secret mines. Donald naturally bungles his way in and we get the much better running gag of the Cabs thinking Donald did something amazing when he really just wondered into slapstick. They end up down the shaft, with Jose deciding Donald can’t do all the work, and finding a secret entrance under a sanctum sanctorum.. a religious thing I have no idea what it ii s but is clearly where Dr. Strange got the name. Regardless they find some old kegs filled with pure silver. As Panchito puts it:

And he did ideed. In a nice moment that shows off his character, Panchito has no hesitation for sharing the wealth: He wouldn’t of got this far without his friends, and he wont get the Silver cashed in without their help. He also fires off his guns in celebration.. forgetting their in a cave, a gag I genuinely like.

After some off screen loading and hoisting, the boys are slowly on their way out of the canyon, with Donald’s Car and Senor Martinez pulling the cart with the silver together. With some downtime the three talk about what they’ll spend the money on.

About what you’d expect. A big beautiful music venue

For Jose, and a nice ranch to retire at for Panchito. Both despite being wondering souls would love a simple place to call home, in their own personal styles. While they are BIG goals, their also likeable and understandable ones: Jose just wants to stop having to do all these tours and carouse and party and perform at home. Be his own boss, and live his own dreams instead of working for whoever will put up for him. Panchito just wants to retire from being a wondering hero to a peaceful life of farming, an honest reward he well earned. And Donald?

This is easily one of my faviorite moment’s of Rosa’s, one that really cuts to comic donald’s character: Sure he can be lazy, a trickster, hot tempered, and overconfident.. it’s why we love him.. but at the end of the day he genuinely loves those boys and their his first prority and I can see why the reboot took that trait and made it his defining one. They may annoy and frustrate them and he may pull a switch on them, 50′s after all.. but he loves his boys and knows they’ll do great one day and despite his spendthrift ways when given big money.. their all he can think about. Sure Donald probably has his own personal dreams, but instead of going big and retiring he’d probably just take only a small sliver of that money to open a humble hot dog stand or something, so he could have something of his own to provide them, while still giving most of the money to their college. Scrooge is who we all want to be.. Donald is who we are at our core: Flawed people who just want to do our best. It’s why I love the guy so much. The boys rest in the small town of El Divisadero, which like the town we started in is a real place, though both are much smaller, even as of 2000 when Rosa made his visit, so he had to embelish slightly. THey stop at a local watering hole only to find Alphonso. While Jose is naturally worried, Gold Hat has moved on to Panchito and wants to know why he’s here. However Donald thinking quickly says he’s part of their nightclub act, and we get a rousing version of the three cablleros, which when reading this I synched up to the song. I won’t put it here, as it’s too big for tumblr and it really works more as a whole, but needless to say, it’s the highlight of the comic. While Rosa did have doubts about putting a musical number in a comic, and it’s often trickey, he makes it work with the energy, vibrance and number of gags, that compensate for the music not being there. There’s tons of great gags, from Donald getting thrown out window, to the stone faced crowd who only cheers when Alphonso ends the number by whacking the three with one of their own guitars. Alphonso quickly realizes what’s goin on, finds the silver, and then hyjacks the train. The boys take off after him in the car, as Donald triumphantly states “The Three Cablleros Ride Again!”. The three head after Alphonzo, who finds them when trying to release the other cars to increase speed, and then shoots at them. It seems hopeless... until donald gets launched into the air, into a cactus then back into Alphonzo knocking his guns out in a great bit of slapstick. The Conductor, likely not knowing about the others or not carring, detaches the cars though, so our heroes and villian are now sent rocketing through the world’s most dangerous railway. Which, as you’d probably already figured out, is very real and what inspirited rosa to use this setting and thus indeed wind through dangerous mountainsides and over thin cliffs like a real life Donkey Kong Country level. Eduardo still has his machete though and easily beats Jose’s umbrella, but some more Donald slapstick and him apologizing to daisy about the senioritis as he wishes her goodbye seriously GET SOME COUPLE’S COUNSELING IF THAT EXISTS IN THE 50′S. It puls his sombrero down over his head, and with jose’s umbrella top landing on it, carries him off where he ends up in a lazy asshole sheirff’s jail for a gag. The boys however continue going back.. and the railway is unfinished at this time in history and while they save the silver, their fucked. But Donald has a plan, running to the back of the cars to get his car, and while it has trouble starting, Panchito throws some chilie’s in the tank to get it moving again. The boys find the silver.. but when one barrel spills they find out it’s not actual liquid silver.. but quicksilver, which was used for silver refinment. So while i’ts shiny, and toxic so of course Jose sticks his hand in before knowing what it is, it’s worthless. Probably. The boys.. all have a nice laugh over it. I love this moment. Sure the boys lost their dreams.. but like Scrooge, the three belivie theirs always another rainbow. What matters is the journey they had and the reunion that restored their friendship. Donald also muses the boys are smart enough to get their own scholarships anyway, so it’s no big loss.. but he does have to get back to Disvadero as the jamboree ends tonight and Jose agrees as he now needs a job again. The owner balks, understandably since Jose missed a performance to get laid and then disappeared overnight.. but the Hotel Owner is visiting so as long as he can provide a big act he’s good, and while Jose is worried as he already gave them his best, the boys naturally pitch in to be the cablleros once more. After all

So we close on Huey, Dewey and Louie returning, still worrying about donald, when they find him on stage. We then end on a truly heartwarming and great last few panels.

Final Thoughts: What else can I say? This story is beautifully drawn, as usual for Rosa, well paced, fun and really fleshes the Cabs out from the movie. It has a warm, fun adventurous tone and it’s nice to see Donald in the lead since Rosa usually did Scrooge stories and thus Donald was the justifiably surly sidekick instead of the main man> here he’s in the spotlight and gets to show just what he’s made of, while still being the hilarious mess we all know and love. The story honors the original film well, while forging it’s own path and is beautifully built into history. My only real complaints are the nephews being annoying, Alphonso’s somewhat overwrought accent, and of course the daisy gags.. but it’s all HEAVILY outweighed by one of Rosa’s finest hours and easy enough to ignore. Check this out if you can. It’s a classic for a reason.

If you liked this review, you can commission your own by messaging me on here or at my discord technicolormuk#655 for five dollars a comic story or animation episode. Whenever the ride resumes next, we’ll coming on down to the house of mouse to see the boys return to the screen. In the meantime keep an eye on this space for regular Ducktales reviews every Monday, including once this run ends as I intend to start playing catchup, loud house reviews whenever, my tom retrospective that’s returning soon, and my retrospective on the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, with chapter 2 of that also coming soon. Until then, there’s always another rainbow.

#the three caballeros #jose carioca #panchito pistoles #donald duck #don rosa #ride of the three caballeros #the three caballeros ride again #huey duck #dewey duck #louie duck #daisy duck #mexico #comics #reviews #elmo keep

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truelovevoltage · 4 years

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SITS: Amnesia

“Anonymous said: can you do scandal in the spotlight where mc leaves the guys and raise their child by herself and guy found out after some years ?”

“Anonymous said: I hope this isn't too complicated, but... Could I have a 5 years later story where the SITS guys (Kyo, Iori, Nagi, and Taka) was able to find MC again with their child (you can choose the gender and name) after a tragic accident causes them to be separated while she was pregnant? But the accident causes MC to forget about their relationship, and she is shocked and refuses to believe that a FAMOUS POP STAR is the father of her child (whom she does not even remember/know herself). Thank you! :D”

A/N: Trigger warning. This headcanon may have contents that are uncomfortable or find disturbing for some readers.

Prologue

The tension around between you and your significant other was unbearable. You didn’t know how it ended up like this but the two of you seemed me be screaming at each other at the top of your lungs. The other band members were starting to get worried about the two of you.

“I don’t understand why you’re being unreasonable right now Y/N. Take a chill pill or something.” He said and glared at you.

This made your blood boil once again. He just didn’t understand what you were going through heck you didn’t even know why this was happening to you right now. You’re normally the one that calms down the situation but for some reason, you didn’t want to lose this fight. “Yeah, it looks like you really don’t know what’s happening here since you’re so clueless.” You rolled your eyes. “You know what. I’m done. I’m done with this bull... It’s not even worth it.” You turned your back away from him but then you felt a little nauseous. You felt like your vision started spinning and used the wall as a support to maintain your balance.

He took notice of this too and started to get worried about your well being. You tried to stop using the wall as a support and walk on your own but no avail. It was too much, you felt dizzy and collapsed on the floor. “Y/N!” He screamed your name. This worried your significant other and rushed to your side the moment you collapsed. Although the two of you were fighting just a few minutes ago this didn’t mean that he didn’t care about you.

You were rushed to the hospital, he started to think of scenarios in his head. He knew that you were a hard worker and that you will stop at nothing until you’re satisfied with your job. He was afraid that he pushed you to your limits again and he blamed himself for it.

You woke up in an unfamiliar room, you sighed to yourself because you knew that you were in the hospital. “Good, you’re awake. I can explain what happened to the both of you without talking to you separately.” Said the Doctor. “Miss L/N you should take care of yourself now that you’re carrying for another body in you.” The Doctor smiled. You and your significant others’ eyes widened in shock. “The reason why you fainted awhile ago was due to stress. During your pregnancy, you should avoid any stress or it may harm your unborn child. Stress, not eating and not getting enough sleep can affect the hold of your baby to you and if any of those arise, you may get a miscarriage.” Your significant other held your hand. “Now I’m not trying to scare you or anything but those are the things that can happen if you don’t take care of yourself properly. You can be discharged tomorrow and we’ll have to schedule your monthly check-ups.”

Once the Doctor left your significant other felt guilty. He was happy that you were carrying his child but it broke his heart when the Doctor mentioned your stress and how it can affect your child. He promised himself that he will do everything in his power to avoid those things. He will protect and take care of you and his child. He lunged towards you and kissed you on the lips. “I’m sorry about my behaviour awhile ago Y/N. I didn’t mean to yell at you either.” He looked down as he rubbed his thumb on the back of your hand.

You lifted his chin up, “I’m sorry as well. I didn’t mean to yell at you or anything... It just happened.”

The two of you made up quickly and he happily announced to the rest of the band the great news that the two of you just received. Everyone was happy for the two of you and they made sure you were in top shape. The band members would take care of you when your significant other can’t be there for you and he was thankful to have understanding band mates.

The first three months were the worst, the members of Revance have witness your wrath when you’re mad and made sure never to get in your nerves if they want to keep the band together. Taking care of you wasn’t that hard, it was just your mood swings. The members sometimes don’t know what to do when you have your mood swings, sometimes they think its better for you to stay home but they’d think of possible scenarios that could happen when you’re alone. You were thankful to have them by your side and didn’t know what you’ll do without them.

Before you know it seven months have passed, your belly got bigger and it’s been really hard walking around. However you still needed to do light exercise such as walking or else it’ll be difficult to move around later. It took a lot of convincing and even power point presentation to your significant other why it’s okay for you to be left alone, well not really, you were going to have your best friend keep you company and check up on you. “I swear Y/N if you want me to be your Nanny, I will gladly do it.” There were stars in her eyes. “Don’t be silly Rina, I’m not going to hire you as a Nanny. You’re my best friend, you’ll be the Godmother of our child.”

Whenever they have a shoot they would tell you to stay in the hotel close by because at least then your significant other is close by. This time they had a shoot in Okinawa, which was nice because it’s very peaceful and you could relax. You could probably even sleep all day. Since it was such a nice day Rina invited you out and she even got permission from your significant other to go out.

He’s just too overprotective, he doesn’t want anything to happen to you since you’re two months away from your due date. “I expect a text every hour Rina.”

“Yes, Sir.” She saluted. “Take care, I’ll see you in a bit and enjoy yourself too.” He kissed you goodbye and headed off to the shoot. However he couldn’t get this uncomfortable he was feeling, he hoped that nothing bad happens.

The two of you didn’t do much other than sight see because this was Rina’s first time in Okinawa anyways. She wanted to see all the tourist spots but nothing too much because she knows your situation. Sailing or whale watching was out of the option as well therefore the two of you visited Shuri Castle, try local food and go to the village for today.

Rina kept her promise to your significant other and report your move and where the two of you have gone at least there was a van that you were able to use to go around from places or else that would’ve been a pain walking and looking for some sort of transportation around.

“That was a much needed stretch and having some girl time right Y/N?” Your best friend smiled at you and made way back towards the hotel. The two of you happily talked when suddenly the van started to increase the speed. “Excuse me Sir? Can we slow down a bit?” You told the driver and he listened. He kept putting his foot on the breaks but nothing happened, someone has tampered the brakes. “Sorry Ma’am I don’t know what happened but it’s not working.” He was now in a panic.

Rina was also panicking and texting your significant other, calling would’ve been easier but she didn’t want to interrupt the shoot. You also tried to call him but you decided to call Mister Sasayama instead. “Y/N?” He answered the phone.

“Mister Sasayama! I apologize with the sudden call but we have an emergency. The van that we’re on right now, the brakes is not functioning and we’re just going too fast in the highway.” There was a slight panic in your voice. Before he could even answer you, your significant other already snatched the phone from him. He was telling you that everything was going to be okay, you could even hear the crack on his voice. He was scared, scared of losing you. It already happened just before you found out you were pregnant but he couldn’t bare it if you leave him.

Far ahead you saw a sharp turn and it only leads to the Ocean. Maybe it would’ve been better if the driver just hit a tree or something. The driver though about it at first but considering your situation, he can’t do that. You told your significant other what you’re seeing right now. With a shaky breath you told him you love him. “No Y/N! I know you’re worried about the safety of our child but this will be hard. We can always try for another, but please I need you. You can’t leave me.”

You gripped the phone. You couldn’t believe that he would want to do such a thing. This is your child and no matter what happens you’re going to protect the two of you no matter what. I just hurts to hear him say it. “I can’t believe you right now. You’re basically telling me that I should just abandon my child to stay alive because we can always have another baby. But what if I can’t conceive a child after this huh?” You were now sobbing. You knew that he wanted what’s best for the two of you but you knew that only one will stay alive. “I’m saving the child no matter what, even if means I die.”

Your significant other couldn’t even say anything. He was now realizing what he just said. How can he say such ridiculous things to his unborn child? Before he could even apologize he heard you say goodbye and he heard the car crashing to the railings followed by a huge bang. He could only cry harder hearing those and rushed his way out. Mister Sasayama somewhat knows the situation and tried to excuse themselves.

The rest of the band members have been informed of the situation. They also wanted to go to the scene but your significant other told them to stay and finish the shoot first and then they can come afterwards. They wanted to protest against it but they knew that they didn’t want to trouble the rest of the staff any further and agreed to follow him afterwards.

The drive there was long and he hated it. He hated how he couldn’t do anything, he’s just hoping that you and the baby were alright. He won’t be able to take it if he loses the both of you in a blink of an eye. He was in a crouching position as they drove towards the area, lucky for him you had your location on and he was now getting near.

However there was a commotion at the scene and the police was not letting anyone in but he didn’t care. He wanted to see you and you baby. He just want to make sure you’re okay. He pushed through the crowd and he didn’t care if people noticed him. The policed stopped him, “Let me go! My wife could be there!” He tried to shake the grip on him.

In just a few meters away he saw someone being carried inside the Ambulance. “Rina!” He ran towards her he could see that she suffered some burns on her left arm and leg. “Are you okay? How are you feeling? How’s Y/N? Where is she?”

Rina could only stay quiet and she sobbed. In moments the detective came and asked Rina what happened but the paramedics advised them to ask her once she in the hospital and got some rest. “Excuse me Detective but I’ve only seen one out of three of the people from the accident. I haven’t seen my wife yet, is she already in the hospital?” He was desperate to know what happened.

“I’m afraid that we only saw two bodies. One was male assuming that he’s the driver and in critical condition. He’s badly burned and the other, well just you just saw her get into the ambulance. And since we now know there’s a third person we’ll do our best to look for your wife.”

“Please do so. You need to find her fast, my wife... she’s seven months pregnant. You need to find them as soon as possible, please. I beg of you.” He sobbed once more. The Detective felt bad for your husband, he didn’t have the heart to tell him that they saw trails of blood a few metres away from the land. There were also a lot of blood on the rocks but they weren’t sure if they were yours or Rina’s.

Your husband wanted to help but the Detective stated that he’s not in the right condition for it and it would make things worst and harder. He showed them a picture of you and your outfit today. Thank goodness he took a photo of you and Rina before heading off. “Thank you Sir, this is a very important photo and will help with our search. But if worst comes to worst, you should prepare yourself incase.” He wanted to punch him for saying those things but all he could think of is your safety. The less he talks to them, the faster their search is.

Many hours have passed and there was still no sign of you. Where could you have drifted off too? You couldn’t have gone too far considering your state. The sun was now setting and the Detectives called off the search for now and passed it along the rescue team that’s searching the sea. They could only do so much during this time because soon, they will lose the light that’s guiding them.

Your significant other didn’t even sleep or eat. He wanted to be there once they’ve found you, he wanted to be the first one to hug you. However their search for you failed. They didn’t find your body anywhere, they did find a piece of fabric from your outfit. Even with that small object gave him hope that you’re still out there. He’s worried about the baby and if they’re hurt badly.

More than a day have passed since the accident and they still haven’t found traces of your body. The detectives were able to talk to Rina after she got plenty of rest and it didn’t seem to add up at all. Who would want you gone? “Sir, do you have any idea who could do this to your wife? Any jealous friends or family, maybe even fans?”

Your husband was surprised to hear this. You were a very lovable person even when his fans first found out about the two of you, they were upset but they learned to love you. It wasn’t that hard not to love you when you’re the one that makes their idol happy. “No Detective, not that I know of. Why?”

“We were trying to find connections because the van that was rented was in perfect condition and based on Miss Rina they were able to go to places without any problems with the brakes. It was only when they were going home that it stopped working. We came into a conclusion that someone was following them and tampered the brakes on their way home.”

This made him angry. Who would do such a thing and hurt his family and innocent people? Whoever it is, they’ll pay.

Everyone else was losing hope and he hates to say it but he’s slowing losing that fire in him as well. On the third day they found a body and brought it for investigation immediately. It was hard to believe but it matched yours. This broke his heart a hundred time over and over. He kept denying that this isn’t real and that you were still alive and somewhere out there.

The forensic team mentioned that it was a brutal death and whoever did this to you was not human. They saved the gory details and told your husband that you were indeed gone and that the finger prints matched the ones on the cellphone that you used to call him.

He fell into his knees and cried, this is unreal. “One more thing, although its hard to tell because of the marks left by the fire there a high possibility that your child is still out there. That is if someone hasn’t taken them considering that they’ll be premature.”

This was it, the last hope he has. He was very well aware that there is a low possibility for your child to be alive. Not a lot of babies would survive out there without the pulse oximeter and the incubator. Right now, he hopes that you’d give him strength and guidance to find your missing child, wherever they are.

~ 5 Years Later ~

Five years and there was still no sign of your child he started to lose hope. Everyone has been telling him to start taking care of himself and he need to learn to let things go. Even after the entire world hearing about your death, it broke their hearts.

They felt the pain that your husband was going through because as his fans, it broke them to see him like this. He lost weight, his eyes don’t shine anymore and he’s only breathing and living at this point. Some say he’s like a zombie ever since you left.

“Come on man, you need time to yourself. Why don’t we take a small break in Guam?” One of his band members suggested and as much as he wanted to say no, he thought it’ll give him peace to finally move on. His band mates weren’t really expecting hi to agree and they hand plan B ready in action.

“I guess it won’t hurt.” He sighed.

The flight to Guam didn’t take that long, the reason why he hated being near water is because it reminded him of the incident five years ago.

The people in Guam were more focused on how to make the their small island become more likeable and be able to bring tourist to see their small but beautiful island.

He was able to walk around town without getting bombarded by fans. As he was looking around he saw someone who’s been running through his mind even after all these years. He pinched himself to make sure that he wasn’t dreaming, and he was indeed awake. “Y/N?” He whispered.

Nagito Aoshima (Son Taiyo)

His pace got faster as his feet brought him towards you. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing right now, he knew you were dead but you were right in front of him. “Y/N!” He yelled, you didn’t turn around though because you didn’t recognize the voice.

“Taiyo which one would you like? Don’t be shy let Mommy know okay?” You kissed your son and watching him pick out a souvenir for his Uncle.

Nagito was in shock as he saw you with a child, and not just any child, your child with him. He was overwhelmed with joy and ran towards you and gave you a back hug. This gave you a surprised that a stranger was just hugging you from behind but you could tell that he must’ve mistaken you for his wife. “Let go of my Mommy!” Your five year old exclaimed as he lightly punched the man.

“I’m sorry Sir but could you let go of me? I don’t know you and you must’ve mistaken me for your wife. However, you do seem familiar to me.” You politely said as you tried to loosen his grip on you.

Nagito knew that he did not mistaken you for someone else, he could never forget your face and he can easily spot you in a crowd. “Y/N it’s me! Nagi! I’m your husband.” He held your hand but just like the hug, you tried to loosen his grip. “I remember where you’re from now! You’re from that band Revance right? I’m sorry but that’s kind of hard to believe that you’re my husband.” You picked up your son and excused yourself. “I’m sorry Sir but we must be going soon.”

He stood there in shock. That did not just happen. What happened to you?

Iori Enjo (Son Rui)

While he was looking at you he didn’t notice the young boy standing in front of him and staring at him. Iori felt like time stopped when you made your way towards him. “Rui stop staring. That’s rude.” You pulled away you son to give Iori some space. “I’m sorry about my son’s behaviour.” You apologized and before you could even tell your son to apologize. “Mommy is he my Daddy?” Rui asked.

“No baby he isn’t. I’m really sorry about this sir but we’re in a rush.” You excused yourself.

Iori tried to process what just happened, what did you mean that he wasn’t his. It was bright as day that Rui is basically a carbon copy of Iori, miniature version. Although you didn’t admit it, you knew that he was the father of your child but there’s just no way.

How could he be the Father, why would he show up now? Where was he when you needed him? This confused you even more and just wanted to get out of there to clear your head.

Iori wanted to punch himself for not being able to speak of move when you approach him. It was as if he was trapped under a spell and couldn’t move or talk. Even if he did say something, what would he even say. He had a lot of things to ask you but he didn’t know where to start but now you were gone once again.

Despite that, now he has lead and know where to start. He has found you this time and will find out everything and how come you didn’t reach out to them for the past five years.

Takashi Ninagawa (Daughter Shion)

He knew that you weren’t gone. He didn’t believe them when they said that you’ve died. Yes he was in denial that time and when he was about to lose hope, there was a string pulling him and telling him not to. Now he’s finally seeing you again after five years. But he saw that you looked frantic and came up to people to ask them a question.

Takashi wanted to walk towards you and embrace you but he heard a little girl cry. He didn’t know what but it made him sad, he couldn’t quite grasp how that affected him, he wanted to go to you but there was something pulling him to follow the cries instead.

He walked further down and saw a little girl crouching down and approached her. “Are you lost?” He asked the little girl.

The little girl looked up and met his dark brown eyes, just by the look of her, he knows that she’s his daughter. He was happy that he decided to follow the cries instead of looking for you because in the end, he found a way to look for you as well. “I lost mommy at the market.” She pouted.

Takashi offered to help the little girl, he didn’t her to feel like his a creep at all so he kept his distance. Your daughter however held his hand, once he felt this his grip tightened slightly. However that only lasted for a few minutes. The moment that your daughter spotted you he let go of his hand and ran towards you. “Mommy!” She cried.

Takashi’s hands felt cold but his surrounding felt warmer as he finally found the most important people in his life. “Thank you Sir for finding my daughter. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you for this.”

Takashi was stunned. Sir? Did you not recognize him? Do you not know him? He had a theory that you might’ve lost your memory and took this chance to ask you and suggested something. “How about having lunch? I’m not familiar with the place and I would love some good food to eat about now.”

This is probably the first time in five years that he’ll have a proper meal. He knows that he’ll eat a lot knowing that you’re here with him now. He’ll make sure to find out how you lost your memories and will do everything to make new memories with you.

Kyohei Rikudoh (Son Kanato)

“Mommy hurry up!” Kanato ran away from you and wanted to go to the ice cream shop that you promised him. “Baby wait!” You tried to move around the crowd.

Your son wasn’t watching where he was going and he bumped into Kyohei, not knowing that he was his biological Father. When Kyohei felt the small impact on his leg, he looked down at the little boy and he could immediately tell that this child is his. He’s been searching him for the longest time and now he’s finally found him.

“I told you to be careful Kanato.” You pulled your son away from him. “I apologize my son wasn’t looking and accidentally bumped into you.” You bowed your head in apology. “I’m sorry.” Your son apologized as he copied your action.

He stood there in shock and couldn’t even say anything. He was overwhelmed. He felt like he was dreaming but he already knew that he wasn’t and the mark on his arm is the evidence of that.

He felt a bit disappointed that you didn’t even recognize him anymore, was this what the guys meant that he should’ve taken care of himself because he was not recognizable anymore? He knew that he needed to start looking like himself again but he knew that there was another reason why you didn’t recognize him. Kyohei was going to get to the bottom of this and take you back.

“Oh that’s okay. It seems like he was in a rush, how about I treat this little with some ice cream.” Kanato’s eyes lit up because that was the place that he wanted to go in the first place. “That’s okay, we wouldn’t want to bother you.”

“I insist, take it as me accepting the small apology for him bumping into me.”

That honestly did not make sense but somehow you knew that he wasn’t going to let this go and agreed. At least it was in a crowded place and nothing will happen to you but you felt safe when he’s around. You smiled and nodded as him as you agreed to his small suggestion.

During this time he messaged the guys and Mister Sasayama to investigate you and your son and what have you been up to for the past five years. And once he gets the information he will do anything to take you back.

#Nagito Aoshima #Iori Enjo #Takashi Ninagawa #Kyohei Rikudoh #Scandal In The Spotlight #Scandal In The Spotlight Headcanon #Scandal In The Spotlight Headcanons #SITS #SITS Headcanon #SITS Headcanons #Voltage #Voltage Headcanons #Voltage Headcanon #Otome #Otome Headcanon #Otome Headcanons #truelovevoltage #truelovevoltage headcanon #truelovevoltage headcanons

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nekojitachan · 4 years

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Hi, I love your fic'❤️ and I wanted to know if you could write even a short one about what would happened if Riko didnt find Andrew and Neil in WDWG

Thank you! 💖 Okay, so I did my best to keep this as short as possible, just a glimpse of the boys’ life if Riko had never found them/if they were able to live on undisturbed, just the two of them.

Uhm, I think it’s pretty safe? Just the ongoing burying bodies joke....

*******

Neil had just sold the two tourists from New York a (very ugly) tea set and couple rare blends of tea (Jodi would be pleased) when Massey’s recommendation returned. Neil gave him a stern look to convey ‘not now’ while he waited on a regular, Mrs. Huang, taking the time to let her sniff the lu’an tea they had in stock to ensure that it was up to her high standards before he bagged the requested amount, chatting with her in Mandarin the entire time. It was only after she left (and he was certain that the store was empty) that Neil motioned the anxious man forward while he reached beneath the counter for the wrapped bundle he and Jodi had worked on earlier.

“It’s ready?”

“Yes.” Neil answered in French as he set the bundle on the counter, just out of reach, then slid his phone into view. “New passport, bank account, driver’s license, birth certificate, the works.”

The man, face haggard from stress and freshly bleached hair falling onto his forehead, gazed at the package as if it a holy grail of sorts. “Let me see the passport. Please,” he added, his voice hoarse with need.

Used to being asked such a question, Neil shrugged and unfolded the brown wrapping paper enough to slip free the passport (French) and flipped it open to prove to the man (no names had been exchanged, which he much preferred) that it would pass for authentic (he did excellent work). Some of the tension left the man’s stocky body upon seeing it, as did a quick glance at the other items in the wrapping paper; he pulled out his phone to transfer the agreed upon amount of money to the account number Jodi had given him last night.

Neil checked his phone to ensure the money had been deposited then slid the items across the counter. “Good luck,” he told the man, who snatched up his new life, nodded in acknowledgement, then fled the Jade Leaves tea store.

Neil dealt with a few more tourists (not his favorite thing) and a handful of regulars (which he much preferred, especially when they brought him snacks) by the time Jodi returned. “Bah, it’s raining,” she complained as she pushed back the hood of her jacket; fall in Montreal could be unpredictable, could be an extension of summer or an early taste of winter, and now it looked as if the warm spell was giving way to colder temperatures and rain.

“Be thankful it’s not snow,” he told his boss as he handed over a cup filled with oolong, which he brewed throughout the day for customers and staff (well, him and Jodi) alike.

“Hush, you,” she chided before she took a cautious sip. “Hmm, how was business?”

He held up his phone, and huffed when she gave a pleased smile in return; she’d noticed the money deposited in the account earlier, an account which would soon disappear after she transferred the funds elsewhere (some to Neil). “Steady. I managed to get rid of the awful tea set.”

“The one with the gibberish on it?” Jodi’s pale brown eyes went wide and she laughed with joy as she reached to pat Neil on the shoulder. “Ah, sending you here was the best favor Gabe ever did for me.”

“Hmm.” Neil had to agree; as Aidan’s senior year of high school had drawn to an end, they’d been uncertain as to what to do next. Stick around until Neil graduated? Have Aidan apply to university? Move on to a new set of identities? They’d made a home of sorts in Racine, but Neil worried about his father’s people catching up to them at some point and Aidan was tired of them pretending to be siblings.

It was during a check-in with Durand that the forger had brought up that his cousin in Montreal was looking for help: an assistant who could speak French and if not take part in forging documents, at least keep their mouth shut. Neil and Aidan had debated it for a few days, but in the end they trusted Durand (as much as they did anyone else), Montreal put them farther away from the remnants of Nathan’s gang, and they could start anew.

Instead of half-brothers, they were newlyweds.

(Neil barely managed to not freak out when Aidan told Durand to create a marriage license for them, saving it until they were alone in the car. Only to be stopped mid-rant when Aidan held up a ring and asked him ‘yes or no’.)

Neil kept his first name (he didn’t want to let go of it after keeping it for so long), while Aidan became Andrew once more. Neil and Andrew Keenan, two young fools in love who struck out on their own rather than be apart (or so most people assumed). Neil spent the last couple months before they left Racine learning Mandarin, and was now picking up Arabic as well. He sold tea in a small store in Chinatown, gossiped with the locals, learned from one of the best forgers in North America (Jodi Liu was every bit as good as her cousin), and very rarely had to use the gun hidden beneath the counter.

“I haven’t heard from Gabe or Massey, so we should be good for the night,” Jodi said as she checked her phone for messages. “Go home.”

She didn’t have to tell him twice. He ran back to the small breakroom in the back to fetch the container of pork dumplings Mrs. Dai had given him (she kept telling him he was too skinny) then was out the door after wishing Jodi ‘good night’. Despite the rain, he stopped at Tony’s food truck to get a couple cartons of noodles to complete dinner, laughing at the older man’s retelling of a small group of Americans trying to order with appalling French.

“I guess it was better than them trying in Mandarin,” Tony said as he handed Neil his takeaway.

“Andrew complains about the French thing all the time.”

“Yeah, I imagine he’d get it a lot, working in a pastry shop.”

Neil waved goodbye and, after making sure the food was safe in his waterproof messenger bag, jogged down the mostly deserted streets to where Andrew worked, right outside of Chinatown. The bakery was empty of customers, probably because of the rain and the time of day, but the mostly empty display cases indicated that they’d done a good business earlier.

Andrew arched an eyebrow at Neil’s arrival and popped the petit four he held in his hand into his mouth. Once it was chewed and swallowed, he stepped toward the doorway leading back into the kitchen area, covered with a cloth divider. “Naseem, some riffraff just blew into the shop. I’m going to take it home.”

“What?” Andrew’s coworker, a young man with a closely trimmed black beard and a white scarf tied over his short, curly black hair, poked his head through the curtains and smiled when he saw Neil. “Why do you put up with him?” he asked, just like he always did, while he brushed at the flour which dusted his face; he probably was working on some of the pastries for the next day.

Neil gave the same answer, as always. “He knows where the bodies are buried.”

“Ha, you kids and your jokes.” Naseem shook his head as he glanced around the empty shop. “Just lock up before you go.”

Andrew gave him a two-fingered salute then quickly set about clearing out the register and turning off the lights (it looked as if he’d already done a lot of the closing duties already), then grabbed a small box before he ushered Neil out the door, which he locked behind them.

He gave Neil a pointed look as he pulled an umbrella big enough for the both of them out of his own bag and opened it. “You trying to catch pneumonia?”

“I’m open to new experiences?” Neil smiled when he was given the ‘you’re an idiot’ look. “I got dinner.”

“I know, I can smell it.”

“Are you going to share dessert with me?”

“No.”

Neil smiled the entire way home, especially when Andrew hooked their pinkies together; they didn’t have far to go since they rented an apartment in a building which Jodi’s family owned. It had a balcony where they could sit together as they smoked cigarettes or drank something hot, a bathtub big enough for them both to soak in together, and a gas fireplace in the living room which Andrew spent half the winter in front of, along with the cats.

Aibee greeted them at the door, certain to make the deplorable state of her empty belly known, while Elbee sauntered in from their bedroom and flopped down at Andrew’s feet after he kicked off his boots. He sighed and bent down to give the orange tabby a gentle pet before he prodded him to stand up, while Aibee was quick to run into the kitchen once she realized that Neil was headed that way, her fluffy black tail straight up in the air.

Andrew caught the strap of Neil’s messenger bag, which brought him to a halt. “Go change into something dry,” he chided as he maneuvered the bag from Neil’s shoulder.

“Okay.” Neil leaned in for a lingering kiss then did as he’d been told, pulling his damp sweatshirt over his head along the way. It and his jeans were draped over the hamper, swapped out for a soft sweater (that was Andrew’s) and sweatpants. Once dressed, he went into the kitchen to find that his husband had divvied up the food onto two plates, which had been placed on the table, and was feeding the cats.

“Shut up and eat, you ingrates,” Andrew said as he set down their bowls, his deep voice mild and expression almost tender.

“I thought I was the ingrate,” Neil commented as he picked up his chopsticks.

“You’re the idiot ingrate,” Andrew clarified as he sat down, and sighed when Neil stuck out his tongue.

They concentrated on eating for a couple minutes before they (well, Neil) started talking about their day; Andrew nodded along as he went on about the tourists and the documents he’d created. As expected, Andrew complained a bit about the tourists who just had to try out their lousy French on him.

“Jodi send you your part of the job yet?”

Neil frowned as he pulled out his phone and checked the special account where the money from the forgeries went. “Yes, another twenty-five thousand.” He gave Andrew a curious look. “Do I need to route it somewhere?” They were careful with the remaining money his mother had stolen from his father, most of it still tied up in investments for another couple years but a nice amount available for use – especially after Neil had started working for Jodi.

Their biggest expense to date was Andrew’s brother Aaron; when he’d learned about his long-lost mother dying from an overdose and how she’d allowed his twin to become an addict, he and Neil had arranged it so that Aaron’s cousin, Nicky, was able to win custody of Aaron and that Tilda’s ‘life insurance’ was more than enough to support the two until Aaron graduated high school. A little bit more money, a few more pulled strings had gotten Aaron into a university in South Carolina, and Neil had thought that was that.

Or so he had thought.

Andrew got up to fetch the pastry box (along with two forks) and set it on the table, the top open to reveal that inside was some horrendous chocolate thing and a small fruit tart. “We both have vacation time leftover, I thought we could go somewhere warm toward the end of the year.”

Neil gazed at his husband for a moment before he narrowed his eyes. “You just want to get away from the snow for a while.”

Andrew shrugged as he set the tart on Neil’s plate. “You won’t have to listen to me complain about the cold for a couple weeks.”

“Hmm.” That had possibilities, Neil thought as he picked a blackberry from the tart and popped it into his mouth. “You didn’t happen to research ‘the top ten ice cream places in Bora Bora’ or something like that, did you?”

He was given a blank look in return.

“We never had a honeymoon,” or a real wedding, for that matter, “so I get some say in this.”

“No Exy,” Andrew declared as he stabbed his fork in the chocolate monstrosity.

No, no Exy, Neil thought with a wince. He’d soured a bit on the sport after the whole Edgar Allan scandal. “No burying bodies.”

“Again with that? It happened twice.”

“And twice is more than enough, considering the second time, someone was all ‘oh look, I’m bleeding sooo much, you have to do all the digging this time,” Neil said in a mocking voice.

For a moment, he thought he’d be the one bleeding (Andrew had only grown more impressive with those flat stares of his), until his husband clicked his tongue. “Fine, we’ll go somewhere with plenty of water so we can sink the bodies.”

“Huh.” Neil considered that as he had a bite of the fruit tart. “That’ll work.” Not that he wanted to have to sink bodies into the ocean, but… well, it was him and Andrew. Things just happened.

There was a very slight curl to Andrew’s full lips, which meant he was smug as hell at the moment. Neil narrowed his eyes, uncertain about what he’d just agreed to, then figured ‘what the hell’. It would work out in the end, it always did with Andrew.

*******

Forgive me for any liberties taken with Montreal.

The cats’ full names are Anklebiter and Lazybones. If you can’t guess, Andrew named them, and Neil shortened them.

I figured this is set a year or two after Andrew would have graduated. He may be taking online university classes (more as something to do), but Neil’s happy with being a forger (and damn good at it).

It’s like... trying to figure out what to write next. I’ve one or two prompts I want to get done, the next chapter of Casts a Shadow, wrap up the soulmate fic, and another part of Not in the Stars. Decisions, decisions....

#wdwg #wdwg fic #andreil #neil josten #andrew minyard #wdwg au #Anonymous

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iwannaholdyoutight- · 4 years

Text

SUNLIGHT

Summary: Welcome to Mattina ed Estasi, an art gallery dedicated to show the art of seduction. This story is dedicated to the discover of true sex.

A/n: each day has a painting, please click on the link, likes and reblogged are love and if you come talk to me about it: I’ll love you forever. Please read end notes, it’s important

Find my masterlist HERE

Find the Pinterest page for this fic HERE

Somewhere in Italy, 1978…..

Day 1: Mattina ed Estasi https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Extasy/300907/4211239/view

Lavignia was going to have a syncope. She was sure of it. It was hot, hotter than any other summer she has ever lived in her 25 years of life upon this earth. Her pink loose dress was sticking like glue because of the heat and she was late for her first day at the new job.

Fucking amazing, right?

The bus was late and then she got lost because she should have turned right but she took a left and her Italian isn’t amazing enough to understand what the old lady was trying to explain her, she was speaking too fast and Lav was far too nervous to concentrate.

But finally she saw the brick walls built in an elegant way. She saw the big stained glass with the mermaid. She had finally found Mattina ed Estasi, or “morning and ecstasy” in English. This is going to be her new job - new home- for at least the next 18 months (that was what the contract said, at least).

Having graduated just a year ago from the University of Coimbrã with a major in arts and communication, Lavignia found herself without a job and without the possibility of asking for her folks to help since they didn’t want her to go to college at all (she had one job and that was to marry well…. and that’s clearly not what she did).

But a friend of a friend told her one night about this gallery in Italy that needed someone to work there. This person had to speak English, to communicate with all of the tourist and had to know a lot about art.

Thank god she knew both.

Packing her bags, she dished her job at the bar and went to Italy on the morning train all the way from France. With all of her articles about art and the hope of a brand new start.

Taking a deep breath she walked through the doors, coming face to face with a tall red head: “you must be Vanessa! Mrs. Lovelace told me you would be here.

She was nervous, feeling short when standing side by side with this gorgeous woman. Her hair all messy from the wind and heat. But Vanessa, with a freckled face and very blue eyes, opened a smile and refused her hand shake, going for a hug.

“Hello, Lavignia. Yes, Mrs. Lovelace has told me all about you, she seemed excited, she loved your article about the art movements as protest against the military coups in Latin-America.”

“I’m glad. And please, call me Lav”

“Of course. Ready to begin our training?”

They started to walk around the gallery. An intimate space with golden artificial lights, a crew of men was working with all of the artwork for the new exposition: “Love and Sex”.

“What do you know about our new work? I just need to know everything you were told so I can help you with the rest”

“Well, I received a lot of books to study the theme on the last few days. Love and Sex is all about the the raw emotions of the human body, showing how much they are alike but also not so different. One complements the other but at the same time you can have sex without feeling in love, and you can fall in love and not have sex.” She could feel the embarrassment from talking so much about this subject with someone she barely knows but since it was about art becomes more acceptable.

“Yes. You are very correct. We are getting pieces from the renaissance era till the new paining by erotic artist Joan Semmel, our biggest conquest of this is actually her painting “Sunlight”, but Harry still has to bring that one”

“Nice. But who is Harry?”

“Oh, didn’t Mrs. Lovelace told you about the owners of the shop?”

Lavignia shook her head in a negative but said “only that she was one of them.”

“We have three owners. The first one is Jeannie Lovelace” the one who interviewed Lavignia just 5 days before. She was around her late sixties, beautiful long silver hair and blue eyes. Very elegant lady always using nice bell pants and white shirts. “Well, first, never call her Mrs. Lovelace to her face, she doesn’t like being treated like she is elite, even if she is. Some people say that on her younger days she had an affair with Duke Elligton, can you imagine?”

They laughed together, this beautiful old lady must have so much to tell if given the opportunity .

“Anyway, she was the founding mother of this beautiful gallery. She never got married so her true love is art. She founded this gallery back in 1961 with the money she inherited from her father company back in the U.S”.

“Nice. There is two others right?” She said while pointing to a board with the story of the gallery “This Harry you just told me about and Jesse right?”

“Yes. Let me start with the worse: Jesse Fire. Firstly, I’m pretty sure that’s not his real name. He’s this elite lawyer and a jackass with everyone he doesn’t find worthy of his time. He only puts money on this gallery because it’s a good investment and makes him have a “intelectual image” for the tabloids. Don’t worry too much about him but if he ever appears just try to not talk to him, and you’ll be fine. He is on holiday and won’t return for another three months. And he lives in Rome, so even when he’s in the country he comes here only for big openings and our parties. We are all safe.”

She opened a huge smile

“Now, let’s talk about the last one: Harry. Do you happen to know H.E Styles?”

“You mean the erotic poet and composer? The one people are always talking about his sexual escapades and charming ways”

“That one. Well… that’s Harry. I mean, we all know Harry made his money with art and he likes to spend his money with more art. Shocking, right? He has the biggest collection of sensual masterpieces. From paintings to sculptures and even vintage sex toys: he has it all. Actually this exhibition was his idea. The main pieces will have a poem by him attached to it.”

“And how many pieces are we hoping for?”

“Around 10. He’s going to write new poems for the main events, inspired by a few of the art pieces and will release a book at the end of everything. And that’s the reason why we still don’t have the painting by Semmel. He is struggling with that one and took home last Friday and promised to bring here today.

“And it’s not here today” said a raspy slow voice from the back door. He was using a blue chiffon shirt almost completely unbuttoned with a pair of high waisted white jeans and a glittery boot, with heels that gave him at least 3 inches more. “I am so glad to see my favorite red hair today. It was a tuff weekend”

He got closer and she could finally see his face: green eyes, beautiful wavy brown hair and a nice crooked smile with dimples just to make it more adorable. And he had a mustache. Lav absolutely hates mustaches, but if it’s this handsome fellow that has one…. she wouldn’t complain.

“What happened? Couldn’t find inspiration again?” Vanessa said while touching his arm. Of course a guy that hot would go for a girl like Nessa. They looked like a power couple together.

“First I thought I could get inspiration if I could just stare at the painting. But it didn’t work so I called Daniel and Melissa, maybe with a fun three way party I could feel inspired, wrong. Then yesterday, I thought “maybe I need to see the world with different eyes” so I popped a few acid tablets… didn’t work. So now I’m here, on a Monday morning, asking you PLEASE let me have the painting for a few more days”

It was too much information for Lav to take, in three days he had done more than she has done her whole life. That made her feel quite uneasy.

“That depends, Styles… will you borrow your beach house for the summer so I can have my honeymoon with Cathy there?”

Oh, she has a fiancée, thought Lavignia, how silly could she be, thinking they were a couple.

“I was already going to offer you this and you know it. But of course, my Calihouse is yours for the time you want it for your honeymoon” he finally locked eyes with the brunette who was feeling like an outsider listening to private conversation: “and who is this Dove? Is she the new curator you and Lovelace were talking about?”

“Yes, Lavignia this is Harry. Harry this is Lavignia”

She gave him an awkward smile.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Styles”

She raised her hand to shook his that was already reaching out for her. But, instead of a shake, he took her hand and before giving a kiss he whispered to her hand “please, call me Harry.” He kissed her hand and let her hand go, using the tips of his fingers to caress her arm on the way down from its previous position.

“She is actually going to create the sequence for the pieces and the artistic and historical explanation of the pieces from the the exhibition”.

“I thought I was going to write this”

“Yeah but she has the technical knowledge. So you are going to look at the art, find a meaning behind and she is going to write the explanation for the techniques and whatsoever and to the presentationwould be interesting if you guys worked together”

That’s when it hit Lavignia: they had 6 days till the opening and absolutely zero idea of what they were going to produce.

“Wait….. we have six days to plan this whole thing?”

Harry laughed.

“Yes, we have done a lot but still, we have a lot do. Right now the focus is to create a storyline to exhibit everything and it has to go well with the main theme. Welcome to our gallery” he said with a smile. “But I’m sure it’s going to be an easy job. Because love and sex are so inherent to the human being”

That wasn’t going to be an easy job. She didn’t know much about love or sex.

After their conversation, the day was just a blurry memory: checking the pieces, looking for articles and references about each one. Harry would once in a while come and check on Lav, ask her if she wanted anything and sometimes he would just look at her, like he was trying to memorize her face.

It was already 7 pm and Lav and Nessa were getting their stuff to leave when Harry came up to talk to them:

“Girls, Lovelace just called the office and asked if we want to have dinner at her place. I’m going, care to join?”

“I can’t, have to meet Cathy. We have a dinner date to try and finally find a date that is good to get married” said Nessa “but I think it would be good for Lav so she can get a feel about how we work”

“I can give you a ride if you want” Harry offered with a sweet smile, putting both of his hands on the reception table and getting closer to her face.

“Uh, sure. Let me just get the rest of my stuff”

“Sure, I’m waiting outside”

Vanessa was looking down at her with cheeky eyes and knowing smile: “you are going to have the best fuck of your life” Lav eyes grew wide “oh me and my fiancée once had a threesome with Harry. A one time thing but didn’t he gave us the ride of our lives”

“There will be no fu… mingling with the boss for me. Thank you very much” Lavignia said while getting the rest of her stuff and walking away with heavy steps and wide angry eyes. She was already out of the door but she could still listen to Vanessa’s laughter.

She started looking for a nice and extravagant car but what she found was Harry leaning on a very red Harley Davidson. Picking at his nails, tearing off the nail polish in the process.

“Hey. Ready?” She was shaking she had never walked on a motorcycle.

“Kinda. Never been on a motorcycle before”

“What a pleasure to be the your first ride then” Harry said giving her a blinking eye and a mischievous smile. “First let’s put this thing on you” he got closer to her with a blue helmet with silver stars in hand.

First he caressed her messy curls and then slided the helmet on her head, never taking his green eyes off of her: “you look perfect with this on, like you belonged on a fast ride, just like this ride I’m going to give you”

She didn’t know how to answer that, she could just blush.

“Let’s go?” Nodding with her hand and getting onto the bike with Harry, Lavignia had this nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach: it burned. Every single time he turned a left she would end up brushing her front against his back that was covered by the thin blue shirt. She never felt this spark before, almost like something in her body was screaming for the feel of him. Maybe was the fact they spent the day in the middle of sensual pieces of arts, maybe was the fact that the smell of vanilla on his neck made her think of sex.

And she never thought of sex, never understanding what was the appeal to showcase something it was supposed to be so intimate, and he didn’t have any filter when it comes to it. Maybe the almost 4 years without someone between her legs have finally got her and she was going crazy.

After it felt like an eternity in a war with her own thoughts, they came to a stop on a small circle park with 5 houses surrounding the area . All of them were big and out of a art decor movie. They came to a stop in front of one of the houses: this one was yellow with high walls and a lot of plants all over the entrance.

“This is Jeannie Lovelace house. My house is the other one on the other side of the park” Harry finally said, without taking his helmet off, pointing towards a house with a bright orange tone to it with rounded windows and a balcony that was exposed for the street, full red roses. “She is already expecting us, you can go inside, I’m just gonna drop my bike at my house. Do you live close?”

“No, I live close to the beach, close to that souvenir shop, you know? It’s about 30 bus stops from the gallery.”

“You can stay at my place, if you want” he said in a normal tone but a sparkle was found inside his eyes, maybe she wasn’t the only one that was left shook from their little trip standing so close together.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea” she could admire him, but she couldn't touch. She only knew him for a few hours but she knew it was trouble. And maybe her tone was quite condescending because Harry changed his posture and stopped smiling and just pronounced a small and guilty “okay” before driving towards his house, acting almost like he was feeling shameful. Before Knocking on the door there was only one thing in her mind: this was going to be an extressfull dinner.

Day 2: Woman with the black stockings

(Painting they talk about: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Schiele_-_Frau_mit_schwarzen_Strümpfen_-_1913.jpg )

“Darling, wake up” she could feel Jeannie elegant voice talking quietly “it’s almost 9, if you want to be on time to your meeting with Harry, you have to wake up now”

Meeting? When did she and Harry settled a meeting hour? Lav’s last memory was from getting another glass of the green drink because she was quite overwhelmed with the conversation topics. She didn’t even knew there was so much it could be talked about sex.

“Sorry” she said getting up “my head is killing me. Thank you for letting me crash here, I don’t even remember how I made it to this bed” she looked around, being in a big room with with walls and drawing of flowers all over it, Lovelace was standing right next to her holding a plate full of food.

“Oh, darling there is nothing to be sorry for. You should thank Harry, he was the one who carried you over here” she said while settling the plate on her lap “but a little piece of advice? When it comes to absint you don’t drink more than 3 shots, now eat. Do you remember what we talked about last night?”

Oh God, she didn’t want to hear all of that AGAIN but she had to be honest: “after my third glass my mind is just a blackout. I’m so embarrassed”she said while getting the beautiful croissant and taking a bite of it and it was so good “You only know me for two days, you are my BOSS and I made a complete fool of myself”

“Again: nothing to be sorry for, everybody in the gallery is like family to me. Not counting Jesse, he is just someone that gives us money…. think of him like the awful uncle that everybody has to deal with” laughing at her own joke “We just talked about the opening then me and Harry stared to exchange stories… that was when you started to drink a little too much.”

“I just… I hope this doesn’t get me fired but, you all just treat sex like it isn’t an act it should be kept in your bed and I got nervous yesterday with the topics of the conversation once we stopped talking business and especially Harry I mean…. I met him when he was talking about a menage he had in search for inspiration to write about an art piece” She said with open eyes and exasperated sigh

“Lavignia, sweetie, you know that this gallery is about sex right? We showcase pieces with a sensual and sexual background. Also we hold parties, books reading, music. Look at the name we gave it: MORNING AND EXTASE”

“Oh god, I’m so sorry Mrs. Lovelace, when we talked you only told me about this exposee we are doing and I thought that was it. I know that sensuality and art are two themes that often come together but ….”

“There is no problem, Lavignia” she said in a more serious tone, yeah, Lav was out of a job only on her second day, she was sure of it. “Look, I was so ecstatic to have someone with your resume that I only talked about what we are working on right now. Can I ask you something? Give us a chance, please? Especially Harry, he is a sweet guy who lives and feels everything, he gives himself whole in everything: art, friendship, love, sex. I wish I could have met someone like him when I was younger, I would be married, maybe.” She said with a sweet smile “When we are over with the planning of this, if you wish, you can let us go. But try and immerse yourself with us, there is more to the world than ‘waking up, growing old and dying’. If at the end of this you don’t wanna stay, I will find you a job at the most traditional art gallery. But, give us a chance, there is something behind your eyes that longs for something, I can see it, let us show you there is no shame in living.”

Looking at her hands, Laviginia thought about how she was never satisfied, leaving her parents home when they wanted her to get married to their neighbor, going to college in another country, then going to Paris to find a job and failing and now having this big opportunity in her hands: she couldn’t say no; so she nodded and got a big hug from the elegant old lady.

“Now, I asked Harry to get you a few clothes ‘cause I figured you wouldn’t want to be another entire day with the same ones. He is already here with the clothes I’m going to get it for you. Take a shower. We’ll be waiting for you in the living room” Jeannie said getting up from her sitting down position in bed but before she could reached the door she turned to Lav and said “and another thing: don’t ever call me Mrs again, either Jeannie or Lovelace. Okay?” and with that she left the room and Lav went to shower, knowing she had a chance in her hands and the only person who could mess this chance up.

After taking her shower Lavignia came back to the room to find not only clothes but shoes and underwear and even a perfume, on top there was a note:

Lovelace would not forgive me if I got you clothes and didn’t bought you a perfume. According to her a woman is naked without a scent. I hope I got the sizing right.

PS: I would love to see you wearing the lingerie, this one was all Jeannie.

Of course he would said something like that. The clothes consisted of a black mini dress with red little hearts and a high turtleneck, together with black boots and a thigh high black stockings. The lingerie was pretty, a set with a bright cherry color made of lace and satin. She loved looking at the mirror using such a beautiful piece, there was something about her she didn’t knew it could be achievable: she looked quite sensual. She felt like she was Twiggy herself (even if she didn’t look at all like Twiggy).

Last but not least: the perfume. It was Paris by YSL and it smelled like richness and sex. Of course he wouldn’t give any less than something like this. But she couldn’t lie, she was grateful for him, Lav knew she was quite harsh to him just the night before with her judgmental looks and words, but even then he got out of this way to help someone he only knew for 24 hours.

Getting down the stairs she could ear the light tone of their conversation, something about “opening yourself for love”, it seems like Lav was not the only one that was getting a preach from the one and only Jeannie Lovelace.

With the sound of her footsteps getting closer, Harry turned around and smiled: “glad I got the sizing right. You look nice.” He was getting up and so was Jeannie

“I’m going to give you guys a ride and then I’m picking Nessa up, we are going to the train station”

“I thought we all were working together today” Harry said while walking side by side with both women toward the backdoor that lead to the garage. Jeannie gave them both a big smile:

“Early this morning I got the news: We got the Corregio” in that moment Harry lifted Jeannie up and started to kiss her cheeks while saying “I knew you could do it”.

Antonio da Corregio was an painter from the italian renaissance, being able to get one of his pieces to put on display outside from its home museum in Viena was almost impossible . Lav was looking at the interaction and saw it for the first time: Lovelace saw Harry like a son. They were a little happy family. What she didn’t expect was Harry to put Jeannie down and take her into his arms, giving a big hug and involving her in his smell all over again.

“Now, let’s go kids. You two have to analyse the Schiele piece and me and Vanessa have a date with Corregio”. And so they left in a very lilac mercedes.

Laviginia couldn’t stop sweating, she was standing side by side with Harry in front of a big painting of a woman sitting down, pushing her skirt up so she could show all of her private parts. With very red lips and nipples and black stockings, very similar to the ones Harry got her, and from his face, she was sure it was not a mere coincidence.

“What do you think we should do with this one?” Harry asked

“I think every piece of art tells a story and we have to discuss about this piece, what story does it tells us” Lav said getting away from the painting and closer to the books she had spread all over the table, looking for her bookmarks about Egon Shiele and any piece of information about his painting The woman with black stockings. She looked over at Harry and he looked relaxed with his with long sleeve shirt full of drawings on the sleeves and blue jeans. He was calm while waiting for her to tell him about whatever piece of information she found on the books. Her mind was going crazy, she was sweating through all of her pores, there was the same unfamiliar warmth in the pit of her stomach and there was Harry, changing his attention between her and the naked woman like they were talking about the weather. Finally she found the information she was looking for in one of the many bookmarks she made “This dates back to 1913, he got arrested countless time because of his art…”

“It’s ridiculous being arrested for making his art, especially one so intimate but I understand the time but so be it, I hate it when people make sex such a taboo. But please, continue with what you were telling me”

Cleaning her throat, she continued “according to this the reason behinds his arrests were his nude and semi-nude portrayals of his lovers. It also says those portrayls are so beguiling is quite simple: they have a filth quality to it. He likes to portrait his adoration towards woman and sex”

“Wow, that’s probably the most of dirty talk you have ever made in your life, I’m proud you got to reading all of this only blushing a bit” he looked at her with kind eyes and a smirk gracing his beautiful rosé lips “Okay, he wants to show devotion and rawness to it, right? There is this gorgeous woman spread open for him, longing for him as I hope he was longing to get between her legs and get so deep they don’t know when one ends and the other begins. I think that the theme of this is want, is the disinhibition, not being ashamed of wanting something that is so good” Lav felt like he was talking about her and not the painting “He has a dirty mind freakness, doesn’t only show people what he is seeing, he shows us his desire and let us get into his intimate for one reason: he painted his lovers, people he knew from inside out, people who must have some meaning to him. The fact that he can put together adoration and the most primal act of the human race, takes his art from merely beautiful to widely erotic”

“What does it feel like?” she asked him “being able to see and feel and talk about this without feeling like it’s wrong? Being able to let yourself go”

Harry looked at her and she had no idea what his face was telling her. He was sitting on the floor and pated the place in front of him in a silence request for her to join him. She sat in front of him, folding her legs and looking him in the eye

“I always felt like there was more to life than the one I was leading on, you know? My family came from money, but everything just felt the same, so one day, as soon as I turned 18, I went to Los Angeles, that was 10 years ago, ending of the 60s and beginning of the 70s, David Bowie was still becoming what he is now, Beatles had just broken up Fleetwood Mac didn’t have Stevie Nicks. There I met people who showed me more and more of living and then I started writing, becoming myself. It was with my art that made my own money and got kind of famous but I never actually showed my face to magazines till I came to Italy when I heard that the gallery wasn’t doing very well, offered to help and I gained a second mother in Lovelace, she was there for me all the time and she was the first one to tell me that I didn’t have to be ashamed of who I was, if I like a bit of everything or if I dress quite flamboyant or anything.” Harry smiled “ That’s what she wants for everybody: have a fulfilling life like hers, without any fears. It’s all a learning you know, one day at the time, you get there.” Harry took her hand and gave it a kiss “tomorrow we’ll all be together to look at the Corregio, you can talk about whatever you are feeling, I promise you: no one is going to judge you.”

“You know it would be nice to just be able to talk about this without feeling like I’m going to hell and I don’t even believe there is a hell.”

“If hell is full of people who don’t care about labels and know how to have fun… I don’t wanna go to heaven “ Harry smiled “but you know, I’m a GREAT teacher, I would love to teach you how to be less awkward when it comes to the theme, after all you are working for a gallery about sex”

“I’m not having sex with you”

“God, Lav, don’t be such a pervert, I was talking about being less shy when it comes to talking about it. Come on repeat with me ‘fuck me’ without blushing”

“Fuck me”

“No, fuck me”

“Fuck me”

“No”

“Fuck me”

“Finally! That’s my girl.” Harry said giving a peck to her nose. “Now, how about we go eat a nice gelato, my treat. Then we can come back to talk about the painting”

Day 3: Jupiter and Aphrodite

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Correggio_028c.jpg

“I crave your mouth, you voice, your hair/ Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets/ Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day/ I hunt for the the liquid measure of your steps” the words from the poem left Harry’s mouth like honey. When they both arrived early to the gallery, Harry sat on the floor with a poetry book and asked if she wanted him to read for him. “I hunger for you sleek laugh/ your hands the color of savage harvest/ hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails/ I want to eat your skin like a whole almond”

When Harry said that sentence he stopped briefly and looked at Lavignia, wanting to see her reaction. He didn’t choose that poem with no intend, he wanted her to see how sexuality and love could be show on poem, with such a easy passion, no shame. She was looking right at the pearls he was wearing around his neck, thinking he didn’t noticed the way she was staring at his chest and necklace, he licked his lips and continued: “I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body/ the sovereign of your arrogant face/ I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes.

The more Harry read, the more Lavignia was imagining he was doing all the the things quoted, adoring her body with such hunger, she was thanking God that he was close to finish his reading: “And I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight/ Haunting for you, for your hot heart/ Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue” He closed the book and looked at her:” so, that was the Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda, what do you think of it?”

“It’s beautiful”

“Only beautiful? What do you feel when you listen to those words. Erotism can also come in form of beautiful words, to show those feelings and to have them returned are a bliss, if is a one night or a lifetime.”

She wanted to be like him, like everybody she met during those 3 days, so she trying to raise her voice and finally say something:

“I feel hunger. Hunger for life. I don’t want to feel like it’s wrong to desire someone”

Harry got closer to her, almost touching their knees together. The moment he walked through the door last monday he was captivated by the girl wearing the cherry tree print dress. He couldn't stop watching her every movement, how she would stare at each art piece with a passion observation yet timid eyes, how she would like at him like he was from mars, she had so much inside of her screaming to break out of the coffins of her mind and heart, and Lovelace made him promise he would help her, she saw so much of her in Lavignia.

“Would you like to try and live the life you always longed for?” he asked her.”You will never be judged here, that is a promise I make you, in the name of everybody”

She was hypnotized by his eyes and the thought of finally exploring whatever she felt since she was younger and everybody always told her how wrong it was: this hunger. Ever since she read the Betty Friedan book “The feminine mystique” and was shocked to find out that women also could find pleasure in sex just like men. Never having the courage but each day inside the gallery she could feel the same insistent pit in her stomach always asking for more” So she just nodded and Harry got even closer, so close she could see the blue and golden inside his eyes and could hear his breathing and smell the mint in his breath.

This guy that just this weekend was having threesomes was going to kiss her shamelessly inside their workplace. And she was going to let him.

“Good Morning darlings” said the elegant voice of Jeannie coming from the front door “I’m a little bit late but I got fresh macarons from the french bakery close to Nessa’s place. She is just parking the … oh” Finally looking at the young couple on the floor so close that it was unmistakable that they were about to kiss when the owner of the gallery busted through the door “well…. young passion, always a good feeling when you just can’t wait till you can get home and enjoy each other but please do whatever you were going to do away from the art pieces, we wouldn’t want another incident like the party we threw back in 75”

Harry gave Jeannie a cheeky smile while the only thing Lavignia could feel was shame, absolut and complete shame. Opening her mouth to defend the situation she found herself in:

“But we weren’t going to…”

“Lavignia you know I’m the biggest and most precious work of art from our little gallery” Harry said at the same time she was trying to come up with any excuse, looking at her while getting up and offering his hand.

“Oh Harry if I was 30 years younger you wouldn’t scape me” Jeannie answered. Today she was using a elegant bright red dress and a scarf around her head and by the smile on her face, Lav understood what they were trying to do: they wanted her to feel comfortable so they were joking to show her there was no problem in whatever they were doing.

“Now, enough talking we have two pieces to figure it out today and Harry where the fuck is the Semmel?” Lovelace said taking her heels off and started to walk around, checking everything they had already done. There was still 3 pieces for them to figure out how they would showcase.

They were all sitting on the bench Harry dragged to the middle of the room, with watchful eyes resting on Lavignia that was right in the middle of two art pieces. They all were waiting for her to begin her explanation:

“So, if you look at my right, we have the famous Correggio painting: Jupiter and Io, dated back 1530. So, we all know the Romans saw Jupiter as the equivalent of the Greek god Zeus. According to the tale, he was attracted to everything that was beautiful, especially Io, she was one of Hera’s priestess. Jupiter was always tempted by others beauty and would disguise himself to be closer to them. In the case of the Correggio” she said posting towards the bluish god that was encasing the woman in a sensual way “he took the form of a velvet fog to reach for Io” pointing through naked woman encased by the fog, she took a break, waiting to see if they wanted to add something but Jeannie just gave her a small smile, telling her to continue: “it’s from the Italian renaissance, as we all know and the technique is oil on canvas, it’s height is around 5’4 and is has been in the Austria museum since the XVI century”

Harry raised his hand not wanting to disrupt her talking, he was quite fond of the way she lost all of her shyness and insecurities when it comes to art. When she was done she looked at Harry when he raised from his sitting position to get closer to the painting:

“If we look next to her face, we can see a face form itself on the fog, that’s Jupiter, right? He is there taking her pleasure as his own and giving his pleasure to her as her own. It’s a mutual feeling, she isn’t dreaming about the fog, he is there. This is such an erotic turn, showing us this woman being involved with this fog, her face looks like she was being pleasured. It’s about the feeling of letting go, she was letting herself being encased by this fog, encased by desire” turning his face to the redhead sitting close to Lovelace he asked “what do you think, Nessa?”

Crossing her long legs that were covered by a letter flared jumpsuit she stayed quiet, taking the pairing calmly.

“I think I wanna hear about the Aphrodite before making a decision”

Harry pinched Lavignia cheeks lightly as if saying: come on, we are waiting.

Lavignia was looking at the piece. The three naked woman with no shame, laying together on top of the blue satin sheets: one was laying down with her hands above her head, the other was on her fours atop of the laying girl and the third was encasing the the same girl that has her eyes closed in delight. It was clear that she was the one they were intending to adore, she was Aphrodite.

“Aphrodite is one of the famous goodness, she is the goodness of love and beauty, she was responsible for the perpetuation of life, pleasure and joy…” Lav lost her train of thoughts the moment she looked at Harry.

He looked calm, standing so next to her, listening so attentive, as if every word that came from her mouth was precious to the subject. His eyes were extremely green thanks to the green and blue crochet vest he was wearing together with a high waisted jeans but everytime he raised his arms she could see a bit of his soft belly and what it seemed to be a butterfly tattoo.

“Earth to Lavignia?” said the fant voice of Jeannie. Shaking her head a muttering a small ‘sorry’, she continued:

“Anyway, this illustration on paper was made for the Pierre Louys’s book, the artist is Maurice Ray, we don’t know the date but it’s from the 19th century, so it’s nearly not as old as the Correggio, so if we want to sort by date: we can’t. They are too far apart. We have to find the common ground beside both being created after myth. But we don’t have much on the creator of the illustration to help us built the story. It could be helpful”

“You know” Harry started “it’s good when people don’t know the life of an artist. I mean, I don’t want people to read my poetry and think what inspired me. Like my “cherry” poem, and think “it’s about his last girlfriend who left his heart broken’, I want people to look at my art and take it as their own. The moment I give it to the world, it’s not mine anymore. Each person has their own claim for the piece, their own meaning, their own story. I look at those pieces and I don’t wanna know if the woman in Correggio was the one that got away, I wanna look and see what this makes me feel, how this tells me a story”

Harry had a girlfriend who broke his heart? Does he always write from his own perspective? Where can she find one of his poems? She wants to know more about the boy who seemed to never look anything but a full rainbow with his colours and happiness.

“So, we only have now to work with Sunlight to finish the preparations for the grant opening. Nessa is everything okay with the catering?”

“Yes, I spoke to the cantina owner, you know, Angelo. He invited us to have dinner there today, so we can try everything he wants to bring” then opening her purse and getting a red notebook “I think we have everything covered: food, drinks, journalist to come, photographers, invitations has been send. I think the only thing lacking is the Sunlight… Harry, where the fuck is the Sunlight?”

His eyes opened and he looked a little bit frightened at Vanessa: “shit, Nessa, don’t pull those eyes on me, I always get scared. I promise: it will be here, okay?” nervously he looked at both Jeannie and Vanessa, and then at Lavignia, in a suplic for a little help.

“What time should we be at the cantina?” she changed the subject

“In a few hours, it’s only 2 pm now, maybe at 6, the music is going to start at 6 but we know nothing actually works on time here”

“Okay, so maybe let’s just revise everything? And maybe finally find the order we want to exhibit everything? Lav, do you have any idea?”

“I can only think the cliche: year and technique”

“We have been here for the last four hours searching, reading, talking about those paintings. Can we do it tomorrow” Asked Nessa, raising her arms to stretch.

“Sure, how about you two go and write all that has been discussed today while me and Harry talk business in the office upstairs?” Lovelace said, taking Harry by the hand and leading him to the stairs that stood almost in a hidden part of the gallery.

When they were long gone, Vanessa questioned if she knew that they weren’t going talk business and when she didn’t respond, she continued:

“Harry ex-girlfriend cheated on him and then left with some french preppy guy saying he wasn’t the one because she could never deal with his ways. This was almost a year ago, he was pretty depressed, to be honest, cried a lot, never wanted to sleep alone”

“Does he ever want to sleep alone?”

“You know, you are fast to judge people, when I think you are opening up to us... “ she stopped to get one of the posters for the gallery and pointed towards the front exit, needing help to put the poster in its place.

When Lavignia thought she wasn’t going to hear anymore of that, she finally continued the talk: “he hates being alone. He practically moved to Lovelace’s house for the first month, was always listening to Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide, crying. Actually, I think during those first three months he only took one person to bed and he cried during it. He started to get better when he wrote his book, travelled all around Asia, he vanished for maybe 45 days. When he got back, he was him again. Maybe a better version of himself”

“Why are you telling me all of this, you don’t even know if I’m going to stay at the gallery or I’m gonna take the other job”

“You know… I can see in your eyes, the sparkle when you talk about those pieces, when you let yourself go. But then, it's like something turns it on in your brain, almost like it’s short circuiting, and then… you stop, you blush and you give us judgmental stares”

“You know, I can’t help it”

“I know” Nessa said with a faint smile “but we can help you”

They were all laughing over bottles of chardonnay and pasta, Lovelace was in the middle of telling one of her many stories about the roaring 30 and all that she done back in New York. They got there half an hour ago, the music crew were beginning to put all the instruments over the small stage. The cantina was only two blocs from the gallery. They were sitting outside, in a round table with red and white tablecloth, with fairy lights to illuminate the place, trees that gave the place a certain fairy look.

When they arrived, there was a petite black woman with a sundress and braids on her hair, she recognized to be Nessa’s fiance, but she couldn’t bring herself to remember her name, no matter how much she tried.

When they sat, she was in the middle of Jeannie and Harry. She could feel his arms brushing her back every time he talked.

“Guarda se non sei la donna più bella di tutto il nord italia” said a tall man, he must be around his sixties. Very blue eyes, gray hair and charming smile. He had honeyd voice, and man, she really needs to improve her Italian if she wants to stay.

“Quindi mi ci abituo, Angelo. E come sempre: il cibo è delizioso.”

They continued to talk for a bit, Lavignia ended up losing the conversation, looking at the small stage, that now had a singer, maybe she was finally going to be introduced to some good italian song besides Volare.

“Perdona la mia mancanza di istruzione” he looked at Lav “sei nueva qui, guisto? La tua nuova ragazza, Harry? Che bella”

“Nei miel più grandi sogni, forse” God, Harry’s voice sounded even more charming in italian “Lavignia è il nuovo impiegato della galleria. Ma penso she dovremmo parlare in inglese”

“I am so sorry, my dearest” he said with a very strong accent “ I didn’t knew you didn’t speak Italian. It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Angelino and welcome to my humble restaurant”

“Thank you so much. I know a bit of Italian, but it’s the language I speak the least and with all the noise and people talking at the same time, it gets hard to understand”

In that moment, the song beguin to play “Our music guess is starting now, if you excuse me… Jeannie, mi concede questo ballo?” taking her hand he lead her to the dancefloor, followed by Nessa and Cathy, who she finally remembered the name.

“And then they were two” Harry whispered turning to her

She took another bite of the pasta containing a moan while Harry finished his glass, getting another bottle and pouring for both of them”

“It was my bad Italian or Jeannie and Mr. Charming over there were flirting?” Harry smirked with her statement:

“You are absolutely, right. They flirt all the fucking time. It’s cute but sometimes I just want to push them towards a bedroom with a very big bed and say they can only leave after they fucked their brains out”

The more they talked, the more Harry got closer. He asked about her life before Italy and she asked about his book. She told about how she was trapped with her parents even after she graduated, so she left. He told her about his traveling through Asia, the people he met, how he went to a David Bowie show in Japan, that each city he visited brought him back to himself.

“You know, maybe...can I buy one of your books?” she asked, with a timid glint all over her eyes “I just want to know what type of art you write”

“Oh, my poetry is all about having sex and feeling sad”

“Well, I still want to. I might blush a lot and maybe won’t be able to look you in the eyes on the first few days, but then I’ll get over it”

“How about this, you dance with me and tomorrow I give you my book to read. Deal”

“Deal” shaking hands then getting up towards the dancefloor.

Putting both of his hands on her hips, Harry got closer. They could listen to the calming voice of the singer. Softly singin the chorus of the song, with his mouth close to her ear.

Lavignia could smell his cologne and feel the heat from his body, almost like he was encasing her in a protection spell from the wind.

“You seem to know the words to the song. Who is this guy?”

“Oh, he is Pino Daniele, right now he only performs at small bars, weddings. But all of his songs are so good, give him a few years and I’m sure he’ll be big, at least here in Italy. That’s for sure”

After that they were quiet for a moment, she was trying to catch the words to the song. Feeling distracted by the environment they had: fairy lights, the jazz with a popish sound to it, people dancing without a care, everything so colorful. The heat of the summer night was disguised because of the slightly cold wind that came from being close to the beach. Harry cleaned his throat to get her attention:

“I need your help. The Joan Semmel painting is so hard for me to decipher and I think I know why, she painted from such a tender female point of view. And I know I could ask anyone to help me, but I love how in love with art you are. How you lose yourself describing and talking about the pieces”

“Okay, I can help. But are you sure Jeannie and Nessa won’t be mad?”

“I already talked to Jeannie and Nessa a little bit before we had to leave the gallery, actually” the slower song came to an end but they couldn’t let each other go. There was comfort in this embrace and light conversation. Almost like they had done this a thousand times before.

“You could come by my place tomorrow. We can fix this, maybe I can read some of my poems, since you’re so curious”

“Sure, what time?”

“Around lunch? There is no hurry since it’s close to eight and I don’t think we’ll be going home anytime soon”

She had a night full of dancing and wine ahead of her. She could only wonder what would happen tomorrow when the sun came out.

Day 4: Office Love https://www.phillips.com/detail/A/NY040210/233

The sky was cloudy when Lavignia knocked on the mahogany door. The house from the outside was already beautiful, with vines all over the place, the orange color of the wall and big door.

“Hey” Harry said while opening the door, dressed in just a satin robe “I was drawing, I lost track of time. Would you like to come in?”

The door lead her to his living room, there was a big hello round couch, with red walls and a Indian tapestry. The red walls were full of art pieces - all of them pretty much leaning on the sensual side - the three ceiling to floor windows gave a beautiful view of the street and grey sky.

“Feel like you’re at your own home, okay? Please put your shoes over there” he said pointing towards a small cabinet “I’m just going to put on some clothes and I’m be back”

With Harry upstairs, she was left alone to wander through the living room. There were magazines and vinyls all over the place as well as books about a few of the artists they were going to exhibit. He was doing his homework, apparently.

But then something got hold of her attention: it was a black and white photograph. It seemed like it was an office, a typical American one. With two big windows and a rectangular desk but there, laying at the same desk, there was a barely dressed woman with her breast out and a man -completely dressed- devouring the woman’s chest.

“Do you like the work of Helmut Newton?” She heard Harry’s voice just behind her, when she turned around there he was with a graphic white t shirt full of little watermelons drawings and jeans shorts.

“You scared me, you walked down the stairs really quiet”

“I wasn’t quiet, you were just really paying attention to the photograph. So do you like Helmuts job?”

“I never heard of him ‘till today”

“Well… he is a German photographer and is known for his studies of the female body. He worked a lot with Yves Saint Laurent and that was actually how I met him, I loved his fashions editorials of the brand. Then when I was at the fine arts museum in Boston last year, I saw this photograph. He was touring with his new exhibition when I bought this one. But it only arrived last month, when the tour was done”

He was side by side with her, looking at the piece for a few seconds before continuing his explanation: “the name of this photograph is Office Love. When I had the chance to talk to him he said he wanted his photographs to arouse. And they do, because he so boldly explores his longings. But, in my personal opinion, what makes his art so sexy is his obvious belief that sex in the most important thing in the world” he looked at Lavignia “so, what do you think?”

She looked at him with wide eyes and open mouth.

“You don’t have to say anything to me, okay? But think about this painting when you’re alone. I lost the count of how many times I sat on this same couch looking at her and imaging it was me on the picture. Especially this week” did he said what she thinks he said? “Anyway, would you like to eat something before we start? I brought my book with me, thought we could eat a peanut butter sandwich and I’ll read something”. When she nodded, Harry took her hand and lead her towards the kitchen.

His kitchen was all black and white: black and white tiled floor, black electrical appliance with white walls. Black table with white chairs.

He made the sandwiches and got them a glass full of water. When they were halfway done, he got one his book and asked what type of poem she would like to hear.

“Anything. Just want to get to know your art”

“I’ll just open randomly then…” and when he did, his smile flared a little bit, maybe this poem represents a sad moment in his life. When she was close to telling him that there was no need for him to read if it hurted him, he cleared his throat and said: “this is The cherry sonet”

Along with the cherry trees came hopeless sorrow

The cherry color reminds me that I’ll still hurt tomorrow

Dreams of you erupted in my waking

My broken heart is still yours for the taking

When you met him, did he called you ‘cherriè’?

When you kissed him, did you remembered me?

And when you left me

Did you feel like you were finally free?

But don’t you call him baby

Don’t you dare

To call him what you used to call me

But don’t you call him baby

Don’t you dare

To call him what you used to call him

She felt tears in her eyes, that was the first time he was avoiding looking at her. Closing the book he gave her and whispered “it’s yours. Take care of it”

“Harry, I’m so sorry. No one deserves to feel this heartbreak”

“It was a long time ago. I don’t miss her, I don’t even love her anymore. But every time I remember what she done to me and how much pain I went through my hearts remembers the heartbreak.”

“I understand if you don’t wanna talk about it, but, who was she?”

“Her name doesn’t matter. She lived here for a while, I fell in love so deeply, I don’t think I was ever in love before her. It was like the world gained color and I didn’t have to be so lonely, anymore. I was still trying to figure it out where I stood in the world, and for that to work out, I tried to be the perfect match for her. I think i lost a bit of me when I lost her. But that was never truly me, you know” he paused to drink some water “ She didn’t like how I treated matters of privacy. She didn’t like the theme of the gallery and she didn’t like Lovelace either. Said she was a bad influence. So to prove her I could work with other themes, I made this work with a French gallery owner. She cheated on me with him.”

“Harry… I don’t know what to say to you. I never fell in love and don’t even remember liking someone that liked me back, you know? I don’t know much about you, but I can see that you’re good and you don’t deserve any of that”

He got her hand that was over the table and took in his. Not saying anything but it was like their conversation was happening without needing any words.

“I think we need to work on the Semmel. Do you want me to bring here or would you mind if we go to my music room. I left it there”

The music room consists of a place full of music instruments, more vinyls and more books. With pillows and tapestry all over the floor, there was no couch or chair. If you wanted to sit, you had to sit on the floor. On the far left of the room there was a painting with a purple bed sheet covering everything.

“Ready?” He pulled the sheet and she was left marvelous.

Joan Semmel is a New Yorker painter and writer. Most of her works are about the female point of view. But, even with the knowledge about the artist’s life, nothing could prepare Lav for the pairing ahead of her: it was a woman sitting down on her bed, relaxed and completely naked. She was touching her body and her body was golden from the sunlight. You couldn’t see her face, she was painting from her point of view.

“You know I can write about any perspective but I’m having trouble with this one because it shows such a intimate view of the woman’s body. I called Lovelace to help me as soon as we got the thing but she said “darling I’m too old to remember the feeling of looking down at a younger version of my body”

Lavignia couldn’t mutter a word, she was too much hypnotized by the work. And also jealous: she doesn’t know what it is to be naked on her own bed just taking in her own body. She didn’t knew that could be so much freedom when you’re “normal”. Because one thing is too see Bowie and Jagger preaching sexual freedom. She thought it was made for the ones that had an unusual life. But here she was meeting people that had no problem with showing themselves to her.

“So, what do you think?” Harry asked her.

“She has a classic technique of color mixing and…”

“Darling I know all of that part. I need your take about the painting, what’s the feeling behind that and what it compares to true life, and then, together, we can figure it out how to fit inside the theme, how to display it and finally decide the story we are going to tell with Love and Sex because, I’m sorry, my dove, but we have such an unique gallery and exhibit that I don’t want to waste it with cliche display options, I know we only have two days but if we think something NOW, we have tomorrow and the entire morning of saturday to fix it.”

It was too much. It was too much. It was too much.

This isn’t right. This isn’t right. This isn’t right.

So Lavignia almost screamed without having second thoughts:

“That’s not right, I can’t go on and talk about that! She had her thoughts while doing this piece, but there must exist this lack of control when people make such works. Life HAS to have control, Harry. YES it’s a wonderful piece but I don’t feel anything while looking at it”

“You’re lying. I can tell when you’re looking at me like that” Harry said with a sad yet angry look upon his eyes “your problem is that you never let yourself lose control. You don’t think I notice... but I do. You give everyone the same staring eyes, judgmental eyes when you remember about your ‘lack of control’. When Jeannie asked us to give you a chance, I went with an open heart. I just undressed my soul to you while reading that poem, I thought you were different from her, she judged me and left me. And here you are judging me. How many days till you walk away from the gallery? When we are on the day of the opening and you leave us with all of the work it should be also yours? We are a family down at the gallery and you have no right to fuck that up with your precious control” his voice started to raise “but let me tell you one thing: one day you are going to have a cock so deep in you that you’ll feel it on your tummy, fingers messing with your button and a tongue down your throat and you’re going to find down there is more to life than your precious control”

He turned his back and finally said: “Get out of my house, I’ll call Lovelace and ask her to fix the Semmel for me. I don’t think I will go to the gallery until the opening, I can’t look at you when you’re looking at me like I’m sick. If you want to stay, we all are going to welcome you with open arms. If you still want to learn how to let go of your prejudice like you said it to me yourself: I’m here. But as long as you are judging us and messing with people's hard work: I can’t look at you.” He gave her one final look and opened his mouth one last time: “do me a favor and only go Saturday if you are willing to try. If that’s not what you want it’s not fair to you to continue to suffer what our daily works entails. And it’s not fair to us to be kept on the fence if you’ll stay or not. And it’s not fair to me to be lead on and think I have a chance of you being mine”

And with that he left the room. Letting Lavinia alone with her own thoughts. She had to get of his house. She need to talk with someone.

She needed Jeannie Lovelace.

She knocked one time.

Nothing.

Another.

Nothing.

One more time and Lavignia would go home and pack.

The door was opened.

“Darling, are you alright?” Said Jeannie Lovelace. She was with a beautiful black silk skirt, barefoot and a simple white shirt: “I thought you and Harry were going to spend the day together. Come in, come in”

She went inside still paralyzed. Jeannie lead her towards the nearest couch (the heart shaped one) and said: “Laviginia, do you want a hug?”

She hugged the old lady that smelled like lavender. She felt at home. She cried.

“What happened? Do I need to go and kill Harry?”

“I think I’m the one that needs the killing” and so she begging the story. From the time they met, to all the flirst, how Harry tried to help her to feel at home and more comfortable with her own skin and nature. Told about the flirting and the night before. And then… told her about what happened just a few minutes ago. When she was done, Jeannie looked at her and finally started to talk:

“Lav, I don’t think he was right to say those things, but I don’t think you were right to judge so harshly. You know, we are what life made us” she paused “I can’t talk about you, I just met you. I hired you not only because of your knowledge and because we needed someone with your background, I could easily get somenome from Rome for that. But it was because I trust my instincts and it felt like there was a little fairy whispering to me ‘she’s the one you need’. I don’t know how much do you want to open up, but I’m here”

Lavignia opened her mouth without even thinking “do you know why I was in Paris? Because after I graduated my father told me that now that I could say I was educated and fulfilled my ‘feminist dream’ I should go back to real life and marry. He wanted me to marry the neighbor, by the way. When I said no, he just told me to leave. I still had a bit of money and one of my classmates was French, so that’s where I went.”

“You know, for someone that is so afraid of life, you are quite brave”

“So I’ve been told” she paused “but… how will this fix the shit Ihave done to him?”

“My darling, he is no stranger to heartbreak. He is a free spirit, yes, but he longs to have someone to be free with him. There was something about you that made him feel enchanted, the same way he was some time ago with that girl… but she wasn’t the one for him”

“But I have done the same thing: I was quick to me judgmental with him”

“There is a huge quote by the one and only Anaïs Nin that goes like this: ‘You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken’. Do you understand that, darling?”

“I do. How do you remember so much of this big quote?”

“Because it was thanks to this book that I woke up. You see, my family had same expectations for me. But imagine that 40 years ago… women barely could go to university. It was - still is, sadly - a man’s world. But, day by day, we can get our space. And that’s in everything, including sex. Don’t be ashamed to own your power. Own your body. Give your life everything what it deserves. Think of you first. And… when you find out who you are and if that person wants people like us as your friends, will be here. If you want Harry to be with you, he will be. And he will take you on your craziest adventures because come on… he’s an aquarius”

“I’m a Libra”

“It’s a good match” Lovelace laughed “would you like some wine? I was about to drink some rosé?”

One hour later they had bruschetta and one bottle of wine almost finished. She was listening to Lovelace talk about her adventures and, unlike last Monday, she was lovin’ it. That woman had such good stories.

Maybe was the wine but Lavignia finally had the courage to ask: “Do you think Harry will forgive me?”

“Darling, the moment you said yes to the wine, I know he will forgive you”

“Why?”

“Because you stayed”

Day 5: sunlight

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Semmel#/media/File%3AThe_Jewish_Museum's_Wikipedia_Edit-a-Thon_20.jpg

Lavignia woke up with the rays of the sun hitting her face. She looked at the window and it was completely opened. Didn’t she close it last night?

After all the drinking and talking with Jeannie, she called her a taxi so she didn’t have to ride the bus alone and slightly intoxicated.

Looking at the clock she had beside the mattress on the floor - she really didn’t have time to make her complete move just yet so her small loft was quite simple: off white walls, a dresser, a kitchen, her mattress and a little door to the bathroom with a a bathtub. There were boxes all over the floor, the Sunday after the opening she would fix everything, maybe paint the walls and get a few posters: one of Stevie Nicks, one of Frida Khalo and one of Bridget Bardot: her most divine life examples.

Looking at her door, she saw her blue knee high boots and her purse and inside her purse she could see just a little bit of the light pink and blue book cover.

Maybe … she could?

She really didn’t want to get up so she crawled towards her purse and got the book. She could imagine his reaction to her crawling for something of his.

Back to her bed, Lavignia was lost looking at the book cover, trying to catch all of the details. One side was blue and the other pink. The front cover he had the name “Fine Line” and there was a drawing of him laying down, naked. But you couldn’t see nothing, just the contour lines. Nothing else. At the back of the book there was a simple quote:

This is a story about my journey.

The one where I found and lost love.

But I found myself.

Do you know who you are?

As soon as the book was opened, Lavignia found the dedication, it was for his mother and Jeannie - who he calls his American mother. Then, there was a list of 15 poems and prose with the number of pages next to it: the cherry tree sonet, I saw an angel; from the hallway I write you this poem; don’t call me baby, again; the fruits of your body; the lights; golden as the sun; adoration; sex is medicine; summertime and butterflies; from Tokyo, with love; the little gallery.

What was better? Reading the book from the beginning or do just like Harry did not even 24 hour ago and choose randomly. Lavignia went with the later. This time it was a little prose:

Adoration

I like the love language our eyes share. When we are so together laying in bed with the sounds of the city having a conversation behind the windows. We are so close that I can feel our lashes touch. Do you know I adore you?

There are words you can’t say yet. And I understand, darling. You don’t have to say you love me. But I have to tell you: I adore you.

Please, let me adore you

I adore you

I love you

Reading this made her understand more about him. Lovelace wasn’t lying when she said Harry feels everything to its maximum. He was so pure when it comes to the matter of the heart. She felt so guilty for how she treated him. But she knows that at the time she was a different person than she is now, just a day later. All thanks to Jeannie and her Anaïs Nin quote. Wanting to read another, she opened the book in a random page, this time it was a poem:

The fruits of your body

From the tangerine smell of your body

To the dreams I have of your lipstick

It’s strawberry lick, isn’t?

From the way you hold my body

To the way you make me love it

It’s sultriness, isn’t?

From taste of watermelon

That slips all the way down your legs

I suck it all up. Don’t I?

From the way you make me grow

To the way you make me shiver

I’m at your feet

Yours.

Yours while you’ll have me.

Yours.

As long as the fruit season lasts.

I hope it lasts forever

The more she read, hotter she felt. It was never like this. She ripped her dress off. She ripped her underwear off. She wanted to get off. For the first time.

But how?

And then she remembered something a certain curly haired man with a mustache told her: “think about it when you’re alone”.

That painting. That damn painting. All of the art pieces she looked this week. The smell of him. The way his body moved. The way he looked at her. She was on fire. The sunlight coming from the window ignited the fire on her body. She was finally on fire.

Looking down at her body, knowing she was treasure map, ready to be discovered. So her journey begins:

A light touch to her neck, with the tip of her finger. The heat grows inside. Her breast so full of desire: she grabbed them. Massages them. Pinching each one of her nipples. Changed the pressure. Moaned and arched her body. She needed more but she didn’t want to stop her exploring, so she raised to her knees, getting one of her pillows.

Right between her legs. With her hands getting acquainted with herself she rolled her hip and thought of green eyes watching her. Would he have a smile on his face? She hopes so. Because she is so fucking proud of herself. She was a queen in search of the pleasure she never had the right before.

Her body. Her pleasure. Her orgasm.

When she got tired from riding the pillow she laid down again. Her hands went to her heat. And she touched and touched and touched.

And then… sunlight. She was covered in light. She was the sunlight. Her body reactions is like a morning light: beautiful and so unique.

When she had finally calmed herself she looked around. And something just clicked.

Getting up and taking a shower was the first thing she needed to do. Then… Lavignia would run as fast as she could to the gallery: she knew what to do about the opening.

Day 6: perfume https://fineartamerica.com/featured/perfume-1910-luigi-russolo.html

Lavignia was going to have a syncope. She was sure of it. The sun was finally setting but it was still hot. Hotter than ever. And if she didn’t hurry she was going to be late for the opening.

The silk white dress Lovelace gave her was from her own wardrobe. “From my peach days” she called. The dress had thin straps and it reached mid thigh with a fringe assuming the rest of the outfit till it reached her ankle. It was a true fastidious dress from the 30s. And she felt in character.

Just the day before Laviginia stayed back at the gallery till almost 3am together with Jeannie and Vanessa (and Cathy, she got there with dinner for them and stayed to help).

It was hard but the moment she told her idea, Jeannie and Vanessa fell in love with it. It was original and so in touch with everything the gallery stood for.

Sitting on the bus she looked at the the street. It was almost night time and people were starting to begin their Saturdays festivities. Lavignia felt her stomach turn and turn, the closer she got to the bus stop the more her nerves were making her crazy.

She was going to do the presentation. Yes, that was Jeannie and/or Harry’s job. But well… it would be a miracle if he showed up today and Lovelace said it was all Lavignia, so she is the one that making all the talking.

Getting out of the bus was easy. Finding her around the streets that lead to Mattina ed Estasi was easy. There was music and people talking loudly. From the window of an old building she could see the shadow of a couple making love.

But the moment she saw the red Harley, nothing was easy. Her heart was beating fast. Harry was already there. He probably saw the way they fixed everything. Just the paintings with a small description to it. The order didn’t offer any technical logic. Maybe he was mad. Maybe he was curious. Maybe he was just as anxious as she.

But Lavignia knew she wouldn’t get her answer if she just stood there. She had to walk through those doors and face everything.

She was ready.

The moment she was inside the gallery she felt so proud of herself. Looking at all the pieces circling the space. Forming a cycle. A love and sex cycle. And four of those pieces where on the center stage: first is Sunlight, followed by Correggio and the Aphrodite, the gods and goodness deserved to be together. And, finally, the one she was so afraid on her second day of work but became one of Lav’s favorite art pieces to ever exist: the women with the black stockings.

When she dressed today, she was inspired by the painting. But, instead of black, it was white. White lace and see through lingerie her friend from France gave her but she never had the courage to wear - till today - with white stocking. A little innocent gif, if Harry was willing to open when the night is over.

And by the way… where is Harry? The opening was only for another hour and she knows she was the last one here.

“Oh, you’re finally here. Good” she heard Nessa’s low voice. Dressed in a black glittery jumpsuit with wide legs and a heart shaped cut in the chest area. Looking like the disco goodness she was “Lovelace was getting worried. You look beautiful, by the way” giving her a small kiss on the cheek she continued “I have to go and see if all of the catering is ready but Lovelace and Harry are upstarts. Any second now… okay?”

And she was alone again. But not for long.

She could smell him before she could actually see him. The same vanilla and tobacco. But if Lavignia thought she was feeling a little bit woozy with his smell. Nothing could prepare her for the outfit he choose: white trousers and tank top with a white blazer. Something John Travolta would wear. He had a bit of scruff but his mustache was still the first thing she noticed in his face, together with the pink sunglasses.

Harry was looking at her, frozen at the top of the copper stairs.

“We match” she said about the all white assembly they both were wearing.

“You came”

And he gave her a small smile. Maybe not everything was lost.

Even with their little exchange, Harry hasn’t talked to her. The opening was keeping everybody busy. There was photographers and journalist to entertain. A lot of people from the villa, too.

From the corner of her eye, she could see Jeannie in her bright pink spaghetti dress talking to Angelino. He was wearing a blue velvet suit. They fitted together.

The clock read 8:47 pm, more 13 minutes and she would go to the little stage and do the presentation. She was nervous. Lavignia was in need of a drink.

As if he heard her thoughts, Harry got closer to her for the first time in the evening with a champagne glass:

“You look nervous. Everything is perfect, you can relax” he said, with a faint smile. Up close she could see the birds tattooed in his chest “and don’t you look quite dazzling tonight”

“Thanks. You look quite handsome yourself” accepting the glass and taking a big gulp, her shoulders finally relaxing a bit “I’m nervous about the presentation”

“Don’t be. Lovelace always dazzles everyone. And I’m quite curious to find out why she chose this order to present the works”

He didn’t know.

“She didn’t. I did. And I’m doing the presentation. I’m so nervous” Harry looked at her with shocked eyes. Then he looked around. Then back at her, finally taking his glasses off and looking right inside her eyes:

“Then can you help me make sense of everything?”

“I think I’ll let you find out with the rest of the people here”

“Why are you teasing me so much? I wouldn’t do that”

“No, you would do worse” she looked at him with a glint inside the honey color of her eyes “actually, I think you will do worse to me, one way or another”

“Depends, if you’re a good girl then it won’t exist any teasing. So come on… enlighten me. Tell me why everything is organized like this”

“It’s a story. And that’s everything I’m gonna tell you right now” even with their light conversation, Lavignia felt like there was an elephant in the room, so she finally decided to talk about it “can we talk? You know… about what happened?”

“After this, maybe?”

“Why aren’t you upset with me? I thought I would have to get on my knees and beg for you to talk to me today”

“You stayed. The moment you decided to stay, I decided to give you a little bit of my heart. But after the presentation, we can steal a bottle of champagne and go to the office upstairs” he took the bit of her hair that was loose and fixed behind her ear “about getting on your knees: you still can, darling” smiling he gave her his own glass “and there is my favorite embarrassed little girl. Now drink, Jeannie is going to the stage right now, your presentation will start soon.

The anticipation she felt about the promise of an “later” with Harry was only bigger than the wheels that were turning inside her stomach. Lovelace was getting up on the stage, god she was going to die.

“Ladies, gentlemen and everything that is in between, good night and welcome to our new exhibition: Love and Sex” people were clapping and shouting “Before telling the story behind those pieces, I wanna thank Angelino, from Villaggio dell’amore, for making such a delicious dinner for us. Also I would like to thank Vanessa, she works for the gallery since 1975 and since she got here, we only got better the same goes to Harry “she said posting her glass towards Nessa then Harry “you not only came here and invested in our little gallery but you gave us so much more, most of the pieces from today wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. You had this idea and with our little help, we created this magic. So thank you” he raised his glass and say something in Italian that she couldn’t quite pinpoint with all the clapping.

“Now, not long ago our family got a new member. She came here with her doubts but the moment she allowed the pleasure behind the art envolve her completely, she changed this exhibit for the better and today she’s going to be the one to talk to you. Graduated in Arts in Communication and my new adoptive daughter: Lavignia”

Harry gave her a small pat on the but like saying “you’re up”.

When Lavignia climbed the three steps to the little stage, she could feel like she was shaking. When she hugged Lovelace, she was shaking. The moment she saw all of those people faces, she was shaking. But when she saw his smile, she wasn’t shaking. He gave her peace of mind.

“Thank you, Jeannie, for the lovely introduction” he gave her a not “Welcome to Love and Sex, today, we are going to tell you a little story”

“From the start of the day, we have this huge Sunlight, a piece from Joan Semmel. Sunlight here isn’t only the signal of a new day that begins. When we talk about Love and Sex, we also talk about the discover of yourself. Know your pleasure, own your pleasure. Make love to your own body. You will never get the meaning of true love or sex, unless you become acquainted with yourself. Inside out. That’s what Sunlight is about: is the vision of the artist upon her own body. When she loves what she see and knows each part of her; what makes her quiver and long. When she makes her own body shake with love and sex is when she is ready to discover the world. Because the moment you understand yourself, you can understand others without any prejudice or pride. The moment you allow yourself is when you can finally deliver yourself to the fogs of pleasure, so well represented by Correggio’s Jupiter. Because here Jupiter is desire, is temptation, it’s the deliver. It’s when you embrace the feeling of bliss. That’s actually why we put gods and goodness together, because when you look at Aphrodite, you want to be inside the piece, you want to be this woman that not only represents beauty but also love. It’s when the pleasure you search it’s at its peak. Orgasm. High. Whatever word you might want to call it”

Harry was looking at her with attentive eyes. A proud smile. A promise of an later. Everything about the way he looked at her made her feel anything but ashamed for the things she was saying. She had a speech prepared. But she remembers nothing of it because the moment she was on stage nothing else mattered beside her feelings towards the pieces, at the end everything is about feelings.

“And then, we finally have The woman with the black stockings; because sometimes you have the chance to find people whose intensity matches yours and you just want that person. You dream and you desire, because now, sex is not only sex but is also love. You fuck at 10 am but have slow sex in the evening. Whatever this person wants, is theirs. You are opening yourself. Not only literally but metaphorically, as well. And you can only hope this person doesn’t get scared only because you’re so open”

The whole moment she was talking, people were walking around the artworks. But now, they were all looking at her. Now was the time to close her explanation and kiss her man, the same man that was so attentively looking at her and helping her since the first day.

“If love is a prose, sex is poetry. From all the artworks I just told you all about it, they all share the same theme but are shown in a different way. From the fog that encapsulates the young woman in Jupiter to the woman with her open legs showing to her lover that everything that is hers is also his. Giving him the privilege to see her in such a tender yet sensual way. Because love and sex are privileges. You can have one without the other, but together they are powerful. Is a privilege because you can’t find that in others so easily. The ones that can see what pleasure is all about, that there is no shame in longing, in wanting, in quivering for someone but also recognize than when you do it all of this with love: Is irreplaceable”

Looking around she saw people with tears in their eyes. Lavignia was so proud of herself.

“Is a privilege because not everybody can find that. A few people spend all of their lives without knowing the true pleasures of the flesh and others spend their lives wanting to be loved, waiting for someone to fit inside of them just like a puzzle. But, sometimes, all you need is you. The world is quite boring but some people know how to make it colorful, just like those artist that shows us the most inherent sentiment of the human race with the most primal desire of the human race.

This, is love and sex. Enjoy your night. Thank you.”

Lavignia could hear the applause. Lovelace went to give her a kiss on the cheek, Nessa and Cathy were hugging her, welcoming her to the family. Journalist wanted to talk to to her. She could see cameras flashing and unknown faces congratulating her. But her focus was in looking for him, and she found him: at the top of the stairs, with a bottle on his hand, he gave her a nod, pointing toward the office door. Lovelace, that was standing right beside her told her to go.

The office had baby blue and white walls. That was the first thing she noticed. There was a bathroom and a big window showing the hot Italian summer night. In the middle of the room was a desk and sitting on that same desk, there was a man picking at his nails with a champagne bottle next to him. When he heard the door, he gave her a smile and stood up.

“I thought you were going to ditch me”

“No. Just had a lot of people wanting to talk. Sorry”

“Nothing to be sorry for” he took a step closer to her “can I just start by saying how I’m so fucking proud of you? You gave such a nice speech and you made the theme so much better than what we initially thought. Cheers to that” he gave her a small smile and the bottle. Taking from his hands and drinking a big gulp, the sweet taste of the champagne that had notes of cherry filled her tastes buds. She gave him the bottle back so he could drink and asked him:

“What was the message you took from everything?”

“That love and sex is to let yourself go. As you said, it’s a privilege… and what a nice privilege” they were standing in the middle of the room, the sound of the party downstairs was nothing compared to the silent conversation that was happening behind every word they exchanged.

Harry thought Lavignia looked beautiful with the lights from the night sky illuminating her beautiful face. It was only then and the moon. Their only witness was the moon. He wanted to get a paper and write everything he was thinking. Maybe he would named Her and the moon and would say something among the lines: even the moon takes chances in betting that our love begins tonight. Strong or weak. Happy or sad.

But they still had so much to talk. So Harry decided to begin: “why were you so harsh to judge? Not only me but everybody here, actually”

“I think I was intimidated by you. You came telling about your weekend and I could only think ‘he has done more in three days that I have done my entire life. And I don’t know I think when you mix that with the unknown, I ended up misjudging you. More than once. Even when you were always so open to me” she got the champagne, drinking some more “I’m so ashamed for how I treated everybody here. You and Nessa and even Lovelace that first night, drinking everything and passing out.”

“You don’t have to be ashamed, we are family here. And family forgives, right?” he pinched her nose “And yeah, I understand what you mean, we tend to fear the unknown. Were you really discussed by me? And the fact I like a little bit of everything?”

“I think I was jealous,actually. And I hated myself for the feeling you gave me since last Monday when I saw you walk through the door. But I don’t think I was actually discussed, you know? Not at you, at least. Maybe at myself. It was hard to understand all the feelings I was having and also understand that feeling all of this is okay”

“I thought you were beautiful, you know? I was captivated by you since the first day. And we were always on and off during the week. There were days I thought you were finally understanding us and days I was sad because you looked at us as if we were monsters... exept when you start talking about art. That’s beautiful. You lose yourself in it.”

She was so closer to him now, playing with his rings. Harry noticed little lines on her forehead, like she was thinking about something.

“You seem like you want to ask me something”

“Do you still want to get to know me? Or have I missed my chance?” He laughed at that.

“Of course I wanna get to know you.”

In that moment, both of them let go a relieved breath. It was crazy to think about how much could change in one week. Lavignia always thought you could only feel like she was feeling was you know someone for years, but sometimes you have the privilege.

It was a brand new start, the Sunlight was a reborn for her. And now they were on the same page. They were both open. They both wanted a real chance.

“Will you be patient with me?” She asked him

“Always.”

“When are you going to kiss me?”

“When I’m finally inside of you”

“And when is that?”

“In a few hours from now, when the party has died down a little bit”

“I was thinking you were going to kiss me now.”

“Well... we can do other stuff, you know?”

“Like the painting at your house? It’s quite sensual”

“Look at you. How do you managed to be able to talk like this in just two days”

“You can’t see it because of the lack of light but I’m blushing right now but... you are right. I had to discover myself. Actually one of your poems helped me, and all of those paintings, they created a good picture in my head.”

“Are you saying you got off to one of my poems?”

She nodded her head. Affirmative.

“Which one?”

“The one about the fruits”

“Fuck... you are making real hard for me not to kiss you right now”

“Why don’t you?”

“I’m going to. Just not now. If I’m going to kiss you I’m going to do it right. Laying on my bed, with me inside of you. But it doesn’t mean I can’t do something to help you. I can see you’re squishing your thighs.” getting closer to her, he looked right inside her eyes, making her feel dizzy.

“Tell me, darling. Ever heard about voyeurism?” Harry asked with his deep voice just above a whisper.

She was feeling dizzy. His perfume was increasing all of her nerves. The smell of vanilla marking her melt while the notes of tobacco was igniting a fire within herself she never felt before”

He got closer again and grabbed her hips “I’m not going to ask again... ever hear of voyeurism?”

She nodded her head. A negative.

“Well...it’s when you have satisfaction of watching people engage in sexual situations” he said in a low whisper close to her ear, she was shaking. Harry was walking her backwards till her back was against the desk “I would love to see you hump this pretty table till you get lost in the feeling of a delicious high. And then I’ll take your wet panties from you and put it on my front pocket, close to the part that is aching the most to get to know you” he raised her to sit on the desk, opening her legs in a position her clit was resting on the cold and hard surface “then we are going to mingle. People are going to come to you and talk about how good your speech was. Cathy and Nessa are going to want to take photographs. Poor them, little they know my little girl is without any underwear, wet and waiting for us to get home” he started to help her move her hips on the desk. The first few waves of pleasure passing through her body like little flicks of energy “and then I’ll take you home and fuck you properly for the first time in your life, would you like that, darling?” She nodded her head and he gave her a peck in one of her eyelids “good. But, for all of that to happen I need you to do me a favor and come”

“Won’t people hear me?”

“And what’s the matter of that. We are not working anymore. We are enjoying a very sensual party, just like everyone else. And I can promise what we are doing here... everybody down there had done at least two times worse” she was hypnotized by him and his damn perfume “fuck it, right?”

Fuck it

Lavignia felt her hips moving more and more. Her toes were turning inside her boots. Harry was whispering dirty nothings close to her ear, leaving light kisses across all of her neck and chest. Holding her tights open, helping her move, sometimes moving his hips closer to her just so she could feel the promise of later.

Harry let go her trembling body so he could watch her. Taking two steps back he admired her, her body was moving like an erotic dance, one of the straps of her dress was falling of her shoulder, showing him a little bit of the left breast that was covered by the thin fabric of the bra. And then… that was when he saw it: the white stockings.

“Aren’t you a work of art.. I wish I could paint you right now, make Shiele quiver with jealousy that he didn’t get to capture you”

She could feel her orgasm approaching, the little flicks of pleasure growing stronger the harder she rolled her hips on the hardwood table.

“When we get home, I’m going to spread you open, I’m going to kiss and lick every single part of you. I might have to sell my soul just to not come to soon because my body it’s so hot for you. So so hot. Come on, little darling. Come for me”

And she came.

Like an avalanche starting from between her legs and making her whole body treble, forming incoherent words and losing its strength. But before she could fall off the desk, his body was back, holding her close and telling her to breath. Taking care of her.

When she came down completely of her high he took her panties off. She was wide eyes when he smelled and said to himself something among the lines of “delicious”.

This was only the start of tonight.

The wind was hitting Lavignia in the face, getting closer to his neck. His Harley was running around the Italian streets. She no longer felt ashamed for the thoughts going round her head in comparison to their first ride together.

After their little encounter at the office they went downstairs holding hands. Getting funny looks and a thumbs up from Nessa and Cathy and a smile from Lovelace.

They danced with people, looked at all of the artwork together for the billionth time, Harry introduced her to a designer that was at the opening and a few other people. When they noticed it was close to 2 am and people were leaving.

They stayed to help to dismount the stage and be sure nothing happened to the pieces but Lovelace told them to go home.

So now it was 3 am and Lavignia was taking advantages of her position behind Harry to stuck her nose in his hair and take in his smell. Maybe she needed to see a doctor. She was addicted to his perfume.

When they finally reached his place, Harry gave her his key to open a little gate so he could park the motorcycle. She noticed that he had a very yellow BMW.

“Not that I don’t like the Harley but how come you never drive this beauty?”

“The gallery is so close from my place that I don’t see a reason why. But, I’ll take you for a ride anyday. How ‘bout that?”

She nodded her head while still looking at the car but the moment Harry touched her back, indicating to go in through the backdoor, she stopped everything to follow him.

They were back to the black and white kitchen. Harry took of his white blazer, now only with the white tank top and the trousers. She could finally see his tattoos now. The naked mermaid, the ship. Lavignia was so hypnotized by him that she didn’t move from the door.

“See something that you like, darling?” He asked putting the pink glasses on the table together with his blazer. Lavignia didn’t answer anything, closing the door, she walked towards him. Taking off her shoes and putting her purse on the table as well.

“Can I get you anything?” He asked “some wine” she hugged his middle and nodded her head in a negative “or maybe water? Something to eat?” She noticed his smirk, he was living to tease her, but it was a week long teasing “little darling, if you don’t say anything I’m just going to keep asking. Put those pretty red lips up to good use and tell me what you want”

“You made me a promise early tonight…”

“Hey, come on… to be shy on me now” he was so close, the heat of his body could be felt in her back, he was closer and closer till… oh, he was already hard?

“You said you were going to kiss me…”

“I was going to kiss when…”

“You…” she could do it, she could say it “when you are finally inside of me”

“That’s my girl, come up”

He lead her towards the stairs. Lavignia wanted to see every artwork he had around the house but she was too focused on him (and his damn perfume). Soon enough they were in front of a dark wood door.

His room had light pink walls, tall floor to ceiling windows and in the middle of the room a huge bed with a canopy. He told her to feel comfortable and she went to sit on the bed with her feet barely touching the ground.

“Don’t you look pristine sitting all straight and proper. You can get more comfortable darling, I swear the bed isn’t going to bite you”

He was kneeling in front of her, with both arms at each side of her body.

“Why are you on your knees?”

“Because I’m going to pray”

“I didn’t know people prayed before having sex” she joked

“Darling you can’t be serious” she laughed and he was stuck admiring her but then she stopped at looked at the painting he had on the wall

“Is that the 1910 painting by Luigi Russollo?”

“Yeah, I like the way he uses his synesthesia to make the most sensual paintings” he kissed her cheekbones and started making his way down her neck, using his hands to fiddle with her dress. But he wasn’t done yet, we wanted to make her blush a little more “so… can I begging my prayer?”

When she nodded her head he attacked her left breast over the dress, she was lightly moaning and he was getting dizzy. She was the best type of drug, every little thing seemed to me a new feeling for her and he wanted to watch her while she discovered more and more of the pleasures of the flash.

“It’s too hot” she said is a whisper

“Can I take of your dress?” Giving him a small yes, she helped him take of her dress, now, only in her bras and white stocking. She looked like a goodness, deserving its place with next with the Aphrodite back in the gallery.

Harry used his hands to make her lay and opened her legs. He they started to kiss her legs, going up to the inside of her thigh, when she could feel his breath, he went to her other leg and made the same path.

When he felt like both of her legs were full of loving, he kissed just above her little point of pleasure, just to see how she would react. She whispered a little “stay” and he couldn’t wait anymore, he has to pray, he couldn’t delay it anymore so he just gave a full lick from her opening to her mound. Playing with her labia but never touching her clit, he wanted her swollen for him. Anxious for his lips, longing for his cock.

Using the tip of his fingers, he was playing with her opening, but never actually penetrating her. When he thought she was getting loud enough, he started to suck at her clit the same moment his middle finger entered her. Using a come here motion, he found the button inside of her.

Lavignia felt like she was in heaven, she was being adored by this man’s mouth and hands. She wanted more, she needed more. Trying to move her hips towards his mouth to get an even better feeling.

Normally, Harry would hold the person down, but Lavignia looked like an angel and she had such a sweet taste. He just couldn’t so he gave her everything he could and let her take anything she wanted from his mouth and fingers.

It didn’t take long till she was a trembling mess. Her release was sweet like honey and the most enjoyable thing to watch.

While she was calming down from her high, Harry got up and took of his shirt, he was sweating too much. Then he help her up the bed and started to kiss her eyelids and comp his finger through her hair.

“Hi” she said

“Hey” he gave her a peck on the tip of her nose “do you want anything? Maybe water?”

“No” she used her leg to press the tent that was appearing in his crotch area “I want what you promised me”

“Are you sure? We can do it tomorrow, I don’t mind if you’re tired. You came pretty hard”

“Please, I want to feel you”

“Okay”

He was hers. Anything she wanted, he would give to her. So, her wish was his command. He stood on his knees and opened his pants never taking his eyes off of her.

Lavignia was feeling her body burn so much. She was close to the point of hyperventilating, the moment she saw his member spread free.

“No underwear?”

“It gets in the way”

When they were both fully naked (with the exception of her white stocking, “this one stays” he told her) and he was on top of her, he took one of her hands and asked if she has done that before.

“A few times, almost five years ago”

“I’ll go slow. Please, hold my hand and tell me if it hurts too badly”

When she nodded, Harry got hold of himself and started to massage her with it, her clit, her labia, trying to get himself wet with her moisture. That’s when he remembered “on that nightstand I have a lube, it’s water based and smells like orange. Would you mind if I used a bit on both of us? It might help to ease myself into you”

“Sure” she said with har breath starting to pick up again. So Harry for the bottle and warned her it might be a bit cold.

Using the gel with both of his fingers, he got in easy, making the same come here movements and sliding his finger out with a “pop” sound.

When he went to pass on his own dick, she stopped him and with a shy voice asked if she could do it for him. And he said yes.

So she used both of her hands to be able to get his entire shaft and massaged him, up and down, squeezing when she got to the base and using the top of her finger when it was the head, all following his instructions.

“Stop” he told her “if you continue I’ll come before we even start and I don’t think I can’t handle anymore”

So, they were back to the same position as before, he on top of her, both of her legs were intertwined with his, his left hand on her right hand and they mouths finally close to each other.

When he started to enter her, she felt a small burn. It wasnt bad, but she isn’t didn’t knew if it was good. He was slowly easing himself and after a while she decided that it was a good type of burn.

When Harry was all the way in he finally said: “I’m gonna kiss you now, okay?”

It was a weird first kiss, but it was perfect. He was inside of her in more ways than he could explain. People say that when you have sex, even if it’s a one night stand, your essence connects with person, and they were connecting in a way that it was rare in any galaxy.

Then he started to move, painfully slow, they didn’t have anywhere to go, that was no reason to rush.

“You know, it’s not going to be good for my ego if I come too soon” he told her

“After a week of reading I was hope for you to blow my mind not to blow your shot too soon”

“Heeeet, that’s mean”

He was loving it, he was having sex with the most amazing girl and they were still able to have that banter he loved so much. God, he was going to fall in love with her. He could feel it.

After that, they let their bodies to the talking. She was moaning and so was he. It was sweet. It was hot. It was everything love and sex is all about.

When they were done, Harry got them water from the kitchen and a banana. Then she wanted to do it again, so they did it, this time against the bedpost. When they were done, they talked for hours, finally getting to know each other. They feel asleep the sun was already high in the sky and there wasn’t any worry or shame for her neither any pain for him. They were cured and were ready to begin another journey, this time with one another, another day, another sunlight.

Day 7: a balcony in Italy https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Paintings-Bedroom-Balcony-In-Italy/1131921/4490457/view

She woke up alone inside the bed, completely naked with the exception of the satin sheets. There was a single sunflower resting on top of the tiny desk next to the bed with a simple paper that read:

Good morning, bunny

Get out of the room and take a left. You will find a round wooden stairs that will lead you to the balcony. I’m waiting you for breakfast.

Getting a purple robe that smelled just like Harry she went upstairs, finding a suspended garden with all types of flowers she could think. There was an old table that looked from 1930, on top of the same table there was fruits and pancakes. The sunlight was shining from the big balcony, letting the Italian summer fill their lungs and eyes.

She found Harry sitting on one of the chairs, wearing a green and white striped shirt with washed blue jeans. She could see he had shaven because there was no scruff but his mustache was still there. Just from looking at it she feels a chill running down from her back till it reaches her most private parts at the memory of the same mustache passing across all of her body in his always there teasing manner.

Harry didn’t see Lav at first, but he did listened to her footsteps. Writing something in his journal, not touching his food. Waiting for her.

“You know... how long are you planning on staring at me? Should I get naked to make it better for you?” He said with a smile on his face, finally looking at her with a shine inside his eyes. One that hasn’t left since they made up yesterday.

“Sorry I didn’t...”

“Bunny you can stare at me all you want. But I bet you’re hungry, so why don’t you come here and eat with me?”

Lavignia started to walk towards Harry but he stopped her:

“Naked” that made her pause all of her movements. “Take of your robe love, and come and sit on my lap. Let’s eat together, shall we? I wanna be close to you” Messing with her tangled curls she looked around and at the balcony: what if someone sees me?

But it only took one look at Harry to know that there is no problem because even if someone sees them: fuck it, right? Isn’t that what she learned from this crazy week?

So she took off her robe, trying to look Harry in the eyes, no matter how much she wanted to look at the ground. Walking towards him, she won a beautiful smile as a present for her courage.

Now, on his lap, with her back against his front, she relaxed. Maybe was his smell - the fant reminder of the perfume and sex - or the way he kissed the back of her neck and passed his hands through her hair.

“So what do you want? We have coffee,orange juice. Bread and eggs. Pancakes and fruits.”

“Isn’t a bit late to be eating breakfast? It’s almost 3 pm”

“I mean... we did go to bed almost 8 am. And I see there is nothing bad with having breakfast for lunch”

With that Harry served her first (she wanted strawberries and pancakes) and then choose a slide of watermelon to start his meal - god knows how much they needed to eat after the night rolling around the bed.

“How did you have the time to make such a big breakfast?”

“Oh, I only made the pancakes” he said using his free hand to caress her right thigh “was planning on getting you breakfast in bed, and all of that. You know how smitten I am with you, bunny” he gave her a pitch on the cheek but continued talking: “But Lovelace sent this big breakfast as a thank you for the success that was the opening night yesterday. So I thought: change of plans. Organized everything here and left the note for you. But it didn’t take long because I don’t think I waited more than 20 minutes till you showed up using the robe even if I was very clear that you should come naked” he said giving her a funny look, pretending to be disappointed.

“Well... I don’t see you being naked”

“That can be arranged in 30 seconds, if you want”

She laughed and they continued to eat, the only sounds they could listen was the birds and the faint radio from someone outside, playing a romantic yet cheesy Italian song none of them ever heard.

Harry was using his free hand to tease her. Pressing his leg upon her mound. She was getting wet, feeling the heat of June so much hotter than actually way, like she was inside a stove.

“So, is here that you and your...” Lavignia was curious about his miscellany in bed, but she didn’t want him to feel mad or think she was jealous, she was just curious “guests “yeah, she choose the right word “here to refresh?”

Harry laughed: “my guests never actually even been here or my bedroom”

“Oh, so I’m different from all of them?”

Harry turned her around on his lap, with both of her legs each side of his waist. He took her head in both hands with a serious look:

“From the moment I saw you I was captivated. When I noticed how different you were I was so afraid you wouldn’t give me a chance because I have had my fair share of broken heart: from being cheated on to people who just said I can’t imagine the father of my children dressing the way you do all of that hurts, you know? I always give everything of me to the world but I never see the return of something that could be meaningful. And I think you mean something. I know you for only a week but there is a piece of me that wants to get to know you, fuck, even if you didn’t wanted to try and open up for life I would still find a way to be in your life either way. There is something inside those honey colored eyes that made me get so lost inside of them that I started to talk so much nonsense the day we met” he shook his head in a sign of denial “ I know I am a bit out of the usual guy but the first thing you heard from me was about a three way I had just the weekend before, that is no way to met someone you would wanna take out on a date, right”

“No. I was intimidated. I still am. There is so much I don’t know about the world and I only found out when I walked through that gallery door.”

“I think we balance each other and I can’t wait to figure it out more of us. If you want”

“I would like that”

“So, can I take you out on a date?”

“Isn’t this a date?”

“No, I wanna proper wine and dine you. Maybe take you to the movies. Fleetwood Mac is coming to Rome next month, we can have a little weekend getaway together”

“Okay. You can take me on a date”

He kissed her with fire in his soul after this. He was so used to being used just for his body or people with the dream of being one of his muses. And now he finally had a chance to start something amazing with this shy girl who is thrust so much in him.

“Good. Now that is settled, I wanna try something.”

He raised her up to her feet, opening his pants just enough to free his semi erect cock: “come and sit on me”

She looked at him with questioning in his eyes: “what about breakfast?”

“We are going to eat breakfast, come on” and with that she carefully sat on him. Both of them growling.

He took her plate and gave her a bite of the pancake. Everything seemed surreal for her: he was growing bigger inside of her and she was getting wetter. Every time she tried to move to get a bit of friction he would stop her. So there was only one thing for her to do: accept the food in her mouth and watch when he took bites of his watermelon looking at her. There was just something so erotic about everything.

“You know” Lavignia said when they were done and Harry rested their plate on the table “you are stuffing me full both ways right now” with that joke they started to laugh together

“One week ago you wouldn’t say this” Harry noted “I’m proud of you bunny. So proud that I’m going to give you a reward.

She looked at him, questioning. But he just took his hand and tapped her lips saying:

“Open up” she opened her mouth “tongue out”

And he did what she wasn’t expecting but it wasn’t a surprise at all: he sucked her to the inside of his mouth. Using his right hand to pull her hair while the other was getting down her body.

“Tastes just like strawberries, so fitting for this summer evening” He said before going in for more.

They started to kiss and his fingers were playing lightly with her clit. Never giving the pleasure necessary but always there... remembering her of the feeling of him inside and outside of her.

The more they kissed faster he would move his hand in her intimate parts while the other was manhandling her, with a strong grip on her hair, she couldn’t move. She was completely at his mercy.

When they both couldn’t take it anymore, Harry got hold of her hips, lifting her up and slamming her down his body, sending sparks through both of their bodies.

In that moment, she was stuck with the feeling of him he was the only thing that mattered. If someone could see them from the balcony: so be it. Even being on top, he was the one making her move. She couldn’t wait till the day she’d have the courage to be the one in charge.

“I’m not gonna last long” said Harry “sorry”

“It’s okay...” she said moaning. She was close to coming but from the sounds and the beating of Harry’s heart against her own: he was closer. Following her instinct she started to roll her hips every time he slammed her down, biting his neck and moaning in his ear: just for him.

It didn’t take long till Harry’s movements got a bit out rhythm so she said: “fill me up, come on. I need to feel you, to see you”

Harry was a goner. Closing his eyes and opening his mouth. He looked like an angel, if angels could be naughty as him.

When he opened his eyes, there was this adoration inside the way he looked at her. It was so loving that Lavignia said a little “oh” when he simply got up with her on his lap,used his hand to get whatever was on his way and her threw her on the desk, in the middle of the food, books, flowers.

He got down on his knees, looked at her through hooded eyes, mouth close to where she needed him the most and said: “second breakfast”

And third.

And forth.

The end

Oh, God, this was almost one moth of work and I’m so glad it all turned out just like I wanted, but first, i need to thank someone.

This fic exists thanks to the book “Woman, myth and godness”, it’s a book about the represetation of the woman inside arts, literature. It was how I found out about Sunlight, and fell in love with the concept.

And last but not least: I decided to use an OC because she had such a strong personality I needed to give her a name. If anyone is curious the faceclaim is a south american singer from the 70s called Gal Costa, so yaaay for poc charecter.

Anyway, I hope you guys like it!

#majorharry20k #harrry styles #harry styles fic #harry stykes fanfiction #harry styles blurb[harry styles blurbs #harry styles smut #harry smut #harry x reader #harry styles x reader #imagine 1d #harry styles blurb #harry styles blurbs

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soyforramen · 4 years

Text

Anyways, here’s part one Sunday:

It had been seven long years away from the only home he’d ever known. Away from the heartache and death and depravity. Seven years in the real world, where parents didn’t try and kill their kids; where drugs weren’t rampant on the streets; where people didn’t pretend like their small town hadn’t descended into corruption years ago. Seven years to mend and try to heal from the scars this place had carved out of his flesh.

Archie looked through the windshield at the sun clawing through the sky, steam rising from the river below to cover Sweetwater Bridge in an ominous fog. He wanted to turn back, put his back to this hell hole of a town. After everything they’d been through, after all the pain, grief, and heartache, they both swore they’d never go back. Riverdale was no longer theirs, if it ever had been. It’s innocence had long been dragged down under the dark, rushing currents, taking their youth with it.

But, as Romeo Void always said, never say never.

He glanced over at Betty, still curled up in the passenger seat asleep, and wondered. What would have happened all those years ago if he had said yes to her? If he’d lied, and said he loved her the same, would they have ended up like his parents? Separated by half a country, filled with bittersweet memories and regrets of what they could have been? Or would they have turned into her parents, forcing a smile, married with kids and miserable, the perfect couple to everyone but themselves?

It didn’t matter. Not really. One what if lead to a thousand, each a domino lined up against the others, ready to topple a mountain with a simple touch.

They were here now. Together. And that’s the only thing that could matter right now.

Archie pulled the visor down to block out the sun and turned the old Ford’s engine over - newly rebuilt by his traveling companion - and pulled onto the old wooden bridge.

Back to where they’d started.

It was strange to see one’s childhood, once so precious and simple, changed so completely. The old Southside High was now littered with shops selling cheap tourist t-shirts and even cheaper urban legends. Sunnyside Park had been forgotten altogether, now nothing more than a run down jungle of rust and flora, a faded ‘For Sale’ sign crying out for salvation. And they gym, the one he’d risked his life -

- and those kids’ - god he’d been so stupid - nothing had been worth that, especially not his pride what had he -

- had been converted to a used car lot, Reggie’s face beaming out from an overly large billboard with blinding veneers and thinning hair.

Pop’s was the only thing that hadn’t changed, its neon light guiding him home, still a beacon to wayward travelers in need of a place to call home. Wary of the woman asleep beside him, Archie kept driving. His weren’t the only memories he had to be careful of disturbing. This return was hard on the both of them -

- Memories can take you back, home sweet home, You can never go home anymore -

- a necessary strain on the future of their relationship. They’d stayed up for months arguing about it, voices raised and doors slammed. She claimed it was necessary for her future; he disavowed the past in that place. They’d both lost their parents; their youth; their innocence; their sanity there. Neither wanted to admit how badly they needed to stay away.

He didn’t want to admit how badly he needed to return.

It didn’t matter, in the end. He knew it was a fight he’d end up losing. A twenty round TKO with determination like hers. Nothing could dissuade her from going; nothing could keep him from going with her. Because it was Betty who was asking him. Betty his lifelong friend; his soulmate; his other half. The one person who knew him inside and out. He’d only ever told her no once in his life, and it had broken both their hearts so badly it had taken half a decade to heal.

Kintsugi, she told him when they’d come back together again. Mending things with gold so the scars never went away. Instead, they were made more beautiful by having survived the break.

“That’s the last of it,” Archie said, his breath coming quick.

With a clang, he set down the last box - a mishmash of utensils, pots, and pans. They’d lived minimally for so long it was routine to load everything up into the bed of the Ford. Military transfers had convinced Archie he really only needed a change of close, a pen, and a piece of paper to make it through. Betty, though, had taken the opposite tack and had her entire lifestyle planned out to the minute.

“The furniture should be dropped off tomorrow afternoon, if we’re lucky.” He stretched his arms up to hang his hands on the doorframe and watched as she moved to the newest box.

“Portland all over again,” Betty said.

She cut into the packing tape, her hands constantly on the move. Nesting, she’d once called it. Settling into a new space and making it hers as quickly as possible. Every where else, she’d been able to relax upon arriving. But here every movement held a nervous, frayed energy. He worried what would happen when she ran out of things to do.

Betty had been quiet since yesterday, refusing to leave the house until everything was settled. Distracted by unpacking she barely acknowledged him. Every call was sent to voicemail, each text left on read. He’d had to prompt her throughout the day to eat.

Ever since they’d arrived, her eyes had been haunted, trapped in the past. No doubt reliving every moment and analyzing what she could have done differently.

Archie reached for her when she passed him. Betty went rigid, but relaxed as he smoothed down the stray hairs that had come loose from her ponytail. They’d talked about this. About how easily she got stuck in the eddies of memories, her streams of thoughts unable to sweep her back to the present. It was how her mind worked, the lines of thought etched deep into the ground with time and practice. Just as he had to focus on the present to make it through, she had to relive the past to move to the future.

She slipped her arms around him, her fingers worrying at the fabric. In times like these she likened him to her anchor in the storm. Archie never saw himself as that; she was too strong to ever really need anyone. Time had proven that.

“Pop’s for dinner?”

Betty shook her head, her hair tickling his nose. “I can’t. Not yet.”

He kissed her on the forehead and they rocked together a moment, a primitive soothing gesture for the both of them.

“But I could do with take out.”

For all the things that had changed, at least the bell above Pop’s door was still there. Everything else - the formica tables, the jukebox, the old Polaroid's - had all disappeared, replaced by the same modern kitsch found in every other family restaurant across the country.

“Eating in?”

Archie turned to find a young woman standing in front of him, an apron around her hips. She was dressed all in black, with nothing to distinguish her from her patrons. It was dizzying, this old imposed on the new.

- the more things change, the more they stay the same, we shouldn’t have come, this isn’t for us -

“Picking up, for Andrews.”

She nodded and turned to the line of plastic bags behind her as soft jazz played above him.

First days were always hard. Never knowing what to expect, Archie never felt as if he was enough. That he’d fooled everyone into thinking he was capable enough to do the job. Once push came to shove, though, he’d trip over his own feet and show the world just how useless he really was. A disappointment to the end.

The first day of school - the iguana got loose and wrecked the cafeteria. The first day of football - half the team were sent home with broken bones. The first day of training camp - half the squad were lost in the woods. The first day out in the field -

- oh god raj, the blood, i’m so sorry, it should have been me, where’s the medic, the blood, stop th-

“Andrews?”

Archie blinked the sun out of his eyes, back in front of the fire station. Its sign gleamed bright in the morning sun, washing away the dark memories. Forcing a grin, he turned only for his grin to blossom into a genuine smile.

“Mad Dog?”

They embraced, arms tight around each other, laughing, saying everything words never could. Archie had lost touch with almost everyone but Betty after high school, friends drifting away on the currents of time and distance. Every now and then he’d hear about weddings and babies, deaths and divorces. Each a tragedy in their own way, celebrations he’d never know of.

He’d never truly regretted any of them, at least not until Munroe was in front of him again.

“Man, I haven’t heard that name in years,” Munroe said. He stepped back, hands still clasped around Archie’s shoulders. “What graces you upon my door? Don’t tell me you remembered about that twenty dollars I owe you. Last I heard you were slumming it up in San Francisco.”

Archie laughed at the (in)accuracy of it. “Riverdale was in need of a new fire captain, and for some reason Sheriff Keller thought of me.”

“Chief Keller, Red,” Munroe said with wink. “Old man gets testy when you forget. Maybe seeing the prodigal son return will lighten his mood a bit.”

The warm feeling of home, the one he’d almost forgotten entirely, returned easily, a rising tide that almost made this trip worth it. Archie threw an arm around Munroe’s shoulders as they walked into the firehouse.

“Good day at work?” Betty asked.

She handed him a bowl of ice cream - Neopolitan - and tucked herself against his side, her own half-eaten pint of strawberry ice cream in her other hand. In return he tucked an old knitted throw around them and turned the tv volume down.

“Yeah, really good actually. You?”

Betty dug out a chuck of ice cream too big for the spoon, and bit half of it.

“That bad?”

“Yeah,” she mumbled through the mouthful.

“No questions?”

She shook her head. “No questions.”

The sounds of a muted space battle filled the silence around them. Sometime between when the movie ended and the next began, Betty fell asleep against him, her empty ice cream carton tucked against her side like a teddy bear. It was a moment of normalcy he’d been afraid to lose. Domesticity in all its comforts.

He knew it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t, not here. Normal was a smokescreen, ebbing and flowing among the darkness that fueled this town. Solving one small case couldn’t fix that. They both knew that.

But it was nice to pretend it could.

A few minutes past midnight, Archie cradled Betty into his arms and took her to bed. When he knew she was settled, he shut the door behind him and went to his own room.

“No. Fuckin’. Way,” one of the probationaries said, his mouth hanging wide. “You two were vigilantes? Like The Red Circle?”

Archie blushed and looked away, uncomfortable with how close he was. Munroe, though, smiled, revealing in the shock and awe he could procure.

“And this one,” he jerked his thumb at Archie, “wore spandez.”

“We both wore spandex,” Archie reminded him.

“You realize that’s worse, right?” Chief Keller, nee Sheriff Keller, said as he walked into the break room.

A half-dozen chairs hit the floor at once as the probates stood quickly. A snicker cut through and soon the whole room was cracking up. Archie smiled, not knowing what else to do other than scrum under all this attention. He’d been stupid enough -

- so stupid, why hadn’t anyone stopped him, he was just a kid, jesus they were all kids, what the hel-

- and the last thing he wanted to be remembered for was wearing spandex.

“Alright, now that we’ve broken in the new guy,” Keller said. He poured himself a cup of coffee, taking his time to scrutinize the room. “Sanchez, Gilbert, Edison. You’re on rotation for fire safety training at the school. Pickens, Cho - Mrs. Green need help with that damned ramp of hers. If I have to listen one more time to how she can’t get her wheelchair over those rotten out boards I’m giving her your personal numbers. Andrews, Munroe - Sheriff wants somebody to look over a small fire at the old Twilight. Probably nothing, but they need a stamp of approval for an insurance payout.”

Groans came from the younger firefighters, but they didn’t hesitate to get a move on. In less than a minute the break room had emptied, leaving Munroe and Archie to bring up the rear.

“Just like the gym, huh?” Munroe asked as they followed Cho into the parking lot.

“Only better trained,” Archie replied.

Munroe unlocked an old white suburban, R.F.D. written along the side in bright red and gold letters. On their way to the Twilight, Munroe pointed out the little things that had happened in Archie’s absence - new residents, car accidents; minor high school pranks, major vandalism; and one case of a loose alpaca. All small town quirks that hit Archie with a sudden homesickness.

Despite all the bad that had taken root here, it seemed there was still life in this town.

Munroe parked near the old projection booth, now nothing more than a few loose boards held up by a decade of graffiti. He reached behind the seat and pulled out a pair of boxing gloves.

“One more for old time’s sake?”

Archie took them from him, the oily, cracked leather like old friends. On the cuff was the El Royale logo, faded almost to nothing in some places. A choking sensation rose up in his throat and he had to swallow hard. Of all the things to keep, and Munroe had unknowingly chosen the only thing from Riverdale Archie still held close to his heart.

“You’re on.”

“I saw him yesterday,” Betty mumbled when Archie woke up that Saturday. “He had a woman with him.”

She spun a spoon through her soggy Cheerios, eyes dark and downcast. From the sweatshirt and slacks she worse Archie knew it had been another all-nighter. Betty also had an obsessive drive when it came to work, but this was going too far. Not for the first time he wondered whether her insistence on taking this case was a way to gain experience and attention, or whether it was just another way for her to prove - to herself or to him - that she was over it. Over them.

Over that two syllable word that hadn’t been spoken in years.

It cut deep to see her like this. And Archie didn’t know if he could pick her up off the floor again, if he’d be able to put together all those pieces that had shattered years ago. He’d lost so many pieces, filled her with so much gold, that he was afraid that there wouldn’t be enough to keep her together for a second time.

“When was the last time you slept?”

She shrugged and dipped the spoon back into her milk. Like a child Betty lifted it up only to watch it rain down again.

Archie sighed and picked up the coffee pot. He’d been against her going into the FBI from the start, and he’d said as much when she’d been accepted into the Academy. She had her own trauma to deal with. And working on some of the worst cases - kidnappings, murders, rapes - was too close to reality for her.

That was a lesson he’d learned the hard way.

But this was Betty, after all, the most self-assured, stubborn person he knew, determined to prove she was stronger than the white-noise of the past, desperate to push memories just past the edge of consciousness. And now they were back in this place tinted by the ghosts of their past.

“Betty -“

“I’m fine, Archie,” she snapped.

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. The last thing either of them needed was another blow-up.

“Look, the cookout’s today. How about we eat junk food and watch that awful movie channel you like so much?”

Betty frowned, her lip pursed in a way he knew he’d won. At least it wasn’t that awful, plastic smile of hers, the one she’d spent hours perfecting in the mirror when they were eight.

“Fine, but only if you get wontons and dumplings.”

“And who is this lovely lady?” Cho asked.

Betty turned, the picture of suburban perfection she’d been raised to be, and held out her hand. “Betty Cooper.”

Cho’s eyebrows lifted in delight and they bowed over her hand to kiss it. “Teddy Cho, at your service.”

Their eyes met Archie’s, and he shook his head at the unasked question. Betty bit her lip at the exchange, tickled at Cho’s obvious interest. With a grin, Cho lead her towards the rest of the probates, their arms linked together as he tried out one of his new jokes on her.

Munroe handed Archie a cold beer as he walked up. “The All-American couple. You two are a big hit tonight.”

Archie shot him a confused look, and Munroe nodded towards Betty.

“No, we’re not…” Archie stammered, finally realizing how it looked when they showed up together. “That’s….”

How did one explain what they were? Friends, more-than-friends-but-less-than, family, what-if’s, drunk and lonely nights spend on the sofa, thank-god-we-never-did,-wouldn’t-that-be-so-weird?

“Funny, I would have pegged the two of you as a couple.”

“You and a bunch of other people. But it’s not for us.”

Archie took a sip of his beer, a cool relief from the lingering hot summer sun. The sounds of the barbecue brought back memories of his own childhood, memories of better times when his family wasn’t broken, when his father…

- mr. andrews, regardless of what you continue to think, none of what happened to your father was your fau-

Neighborhood cookouts were kids played long after dark, and dads drank beer and shot the shit about football while moms talked small town politics. It would be nice to go back to this, he realized with a start. Only this time he was part of the older group, a single man in a swathe of couples enjoying their lives for one more day before the return of the inevitable Monday morning grind.

“So, got a girl back home?” Munroe asked. He sat down in one of the lawn chairs and kicked his feet up, the picture of American prosperity. “You keep checking that phone a lot while we’re at the station. I just figured out it was Betty, but now…”

Archie shook his head and settled in on the grass. “Nah, nothing like that. Last time I dated anyone was almost a year ago, and he’s been married almost two months now.”

Munroe raised an eyebrow, a question that could easily be side stepped, ignored as nothing more than a muscular tic. After all, it had once been an El Royal running joke that Archie was the Casanova of the group, the one who could jump from one woman to the next without a beat between. Munroe especially had given him the hardest time about it, constantly throwing out bad pickup lines for Archie to rate. It was that strange sort of camaraderie only a group of men, posturing and posing, their masculinity fragile at that age, that needed to be reassured in their ability to pickup barbells and broads.

But Archie had never been uncomfortable with Munroe. He’d always been the most easy going, non-judgemental man he’d ever met. And besides, he owed him a sort of honesty, now that they relied on each other in the grips of life and death.

“Jake wanted kids, marriage, the whole thing. Only once we dated for three years, he realized he wanted it with someone else.”

Munroe let out a whistle. “Harsh.

Archie nodded. They finished their beers in silence, moving onto the next one with talk about college rankings and score spreads, the mood still light between them.

“So…”

Betty let the words hang in the air, that gleam of curiosity in her eye. Archie ignored her and turned onto Old Ash Road, the radio crooning an old country ballad about love, loss, and whiskey. He made the mistake of glancing over at her and she fluttered her eyelashes in expectation.

“So?”

“You and Munroe seemed pretty cozy.”

“You and Cho seemed pretty cozy too,” he shot back.

Betty’s lips pursed and she settled back into her seat with a pout. “I was being nice since you didn’t seem too keen on hanging out with your coworkers.”

“I hung out with them. Hahn and I played cornhole for an hour with Roxie and -“

“Munroe.”

Betty echoed him with a pointed look.

“It’s been over a year, don’t you think you should -“

Archie shook his head. “We agreed. We’re here as long as you’re working on the case. No roots.”

“Yeah, but -“

“We’re friends, and it’s going to stay that way.”

She chewed her lip, her mind going a mile a minute. He’d have to be wary of any of her scheming, especially now that he knew Jughead was back in town. Meddling in other people’s lives had always been Betty’s go to to get her mind off of her own problems, and while it had been worked out in the past now there was no way it would ever work.

It would be nice, though, to have someone like Munroe to date while he was in town. But it wouldn’t be fair to either of them, not when Archie was dead set on leaving Riverdale the minute Betty's work was done.

After all, it had been Munroe he’d turned to in highschool, whether he needed help or just wanted to shoot the shit. He’d been the second person Archie had wanted to spend time with, after Ronnie, of course. Their bond had always been close, and it was more than just a bond formed through shitty circumstances. They watched the same movies, loved the same sports, and Munroe could argue musical theory like no one’s business.

So why couldn’t they at least be friends while he was in town?

#archie andrews #munroe moore #wip #not a #six sentence saturday

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chickensarentcheap · 4 years

Text

Best Part of Me -Chapter 31

Warning: Profanity

Tagging: @c-a-v-a-l-r-y, @innerpaperexpertcloud, @alievans007, @ocfairygodmother

Two days later he finds himself on a chartered plane to The Kimberley; paying handsomely and out of pocket for the privacy and security that a flight of that nature could...and would...provide him with. Contacting an old buddy from his SASR days that had started his own travel company flying people throughout the northern territory of Australia; mostly tourists wanting to spend their time roaming the remotest of places. Thrill seekers who wanted to try their hand at cliff diving or getting up close and personal with the prolific wildlife; exploring the waterfalls and the gorges and getting a taste of life in the outback. When Tyler had called and offered triple what one day of flights would bring in plus a bonus for fuel and for a vow silence, his buddy had jumped at the chance. Clearing his schedule for twenty-five hours and offering at be at Tyler’s beck and call, promising not to ask any questions or expect any answers or explanations. He was on a need to know basis, and he simply didn’t need to know.

He rents a vehicle in Broome under a fake name; paying cash and giving extra when he fails to provide any identification verifying who he is. He barely speaks; simple yes or no answers, never giving too much or too little. Keeping his sunglasses over his eyes and his ball cap on his head; beard trimmed close to his face; hair tightly cropped to the scalp. He wants to keep things on the down low just in case he is on someone’s radar. The less people who know his business, the better. Fewer bread crumbs left scattered about means he has a better chance of keeping things off the grid. If someone IS watching him and his family, it’s of dire importance to keep things quiet. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Don’t arouse suspicion. And most importantly, don’t put an even bigger target on your back.

He sits in the car rental parking lot; behind the wheel of a Range Rover that’s used to the roads and can handle the rugged and sometimes unforgiving terrain, checking his text messages and emails. The mystery of who Salena actually is continues to deepen; there’s no record of anyone with that name -first or last- having ever attended college of university anywhere in Australia within the past twenty years. Nothing found through the department of transport; no record of a driver’s license issued through them, no vehicle ownership, no tickets or other driving infractions. It’s going to take long than Tyler had anticipated or hoped; his contacts needing time to hack into government databases. Years on the job have left him a wealth of ‘friends’; people who respect and trust him ,who he in turn can rely on to not ask too many questions and he knows won’t turn him away when he shows up out of the blue asking for help.

There had been no luck on the Jeep; other than learning that the plates had been stolen three days before from a grocery store parking lot in Victoria. How they’d ended up on a vehicle in Cooktown presents an even bigger question. He’d wanted to avoid confronting Salena himself; hoping he’d get the answers he wanted -and needed-without resorting to calling her out. He plans to give it three more days. If he hears nothing by the end of the week, he will go over to the house and demand she tell him what the fuck is going on. No one puts his family in jeopardy. Perceived or not. And if he doesn’t hear what he wants, she will find out the hard way just how savage he can actually be.

He calls home. One of the ‘rules’ they’d adopted years ago -and stuck to - when they’d first gotten married was to always call when you reach your destination; so the other knows that you’ve arrived safe and sound. The other is that you never leave the house without saying ‘I love you’. Life is too short, and if Dhaka had taught them anything. it was how quickly and drastically things could go wrong; your entire existence dramatically -and permanently- altered. And although he hadn’t seen the Jeep or the driver in the past forty eight hours, the lack of leads and solid information have left a bitter taste in his mouth, along with the even more speculation and suspicion. Things are NOT what they seem. He’s one hundred percent sure of that. It isn’t paranoia or hypervigilance or a case of him being an overprotective husband and father; it’s fact. The neighbour and the Jeep driver both sounding the alarm and kicking his instincts into high gear.

He hasn’t said a word. Not wanting to spook her or the kids. For now he simply plays his cards close to his chest. Keeping an eye on everyone and everything; coming up with a game plan for every possible scenario.

“But when will you be home?” Tanner asks, sounding dangerously close to tears. He’d expected Millie or TJ to be the emotional and sensitive ones; they’ve always taken his absences a lot of harder than their brother. Tanner had always been the strong and stoic one; the emotional and moral support for his siblings. But since Tyler’s return from New Zealand, the dynamic between them has changed. Their relationship tighter and stronger than ever.

“I’ll be there when you get home from school tomorrow,” Tyler assures him, his own lump of emotion sitting squarely and solidly in his throat. It’s so fucking hard. Leaving them. Even when it’s just an overnight trip.

“You promise?”

“I promise. I just have a couple of things to do. An old friend to see. Then I’m coming right home.”

“”You’ll be here when we get off the bus?”

“I will. And I tell you, I’ll pick you guys up. We’ll go out and do something before going home. Just the three of us. Okay?”

“Okay daddy,” Tanner swallows noisily.

“You tell Millie and TJ what I said. That I’ll meet you guys at school. And you help out your mum, yeah? You do whatever she saw and whatever she asks. No giving her a hard time. Promise?”

“I promise. You promise, too? That you’ll be there to pick us up?”

“I promise, mate. I’ll be there.”

“I love you, daddy.”

“I love you too. And I’ll see you tomorrow. Let me talk to mommy.”

“Okay,” Tanner sniffles noisily, and there’s a slight rustling as the phone is passed from one person to the other, followed by Esme giving gentle yet firm orders about starting -and finishing- homework before anyone is allowed time on the beach.

“You got there okay?” She speaks to him now, voice quiet and tired.

“Safe and sound. It’ll take a couple of hours to get there. I don’t know how good the reception is going to be when I get there. It used to be shit when I lived there.”

“That must have been so disappointing for you and your harem of women,” she teases. “Hard to sext with unreliable reception.”

“You’re a smart ass, you know that?”

“So you tell me.”

“If the signal is decent later, I’ll sext you later.”

“Yeah?” she laughs. “I think I’d rather it happen over the phone. So I can hear your voice. I’d much rather hear you say disgustingly dirty things than type them. You’re a master of naughty talk. And in that voice, ” she sighs happily, then turns serious. “You sound tired.”

“I am. It wasn’t a good night last night.”

Another nightmare; a new one this time. Of masked and heavily armed men breaking into the house and binding him to a chair and forcing him to watch as they raped and murdered his wife. Then shooting him -non fatally- before taking off with the kids. He can still hear their voices; his children...his flesh and blood...screaming in terror and pleading with him to help them. He’d woken up with a choked sob; bolting into a sitting position, body covered head to toe in sweat, tears streaming down his face and his heart pounding and his chest aching. Somehow he’d managed to not wake Esme up, and for an hour he’d laid beside her watching her sleep. Marvelling in the way the moonlight bathed her skin in an ethereal glow and how her lips were curved into the smallest and softest of smiles; the ends of her eyelashes brushing against the top of her cheeks and her body rising and falling with each slow, steady breath.

And when she’d mentioned at breakfast how restless he’d been through the night, he’d lied and placed the blame on his shoulder and knee. She didn’t need to hear that; the horrific and grotesque details of some fucked up night terror. In the same way he’d never tell her about Gaspar’s real offer and the things Asif had planned for her.

“You’re okay now?” she asks. “Is it any better?”

He wants to tell her that physically he feels pretty damn good; nothing more than a dull ache in the shoulder and a stiff knee. Mentally he’s struggling. The cravings for the Oxy have diminished, but the ones for booze are powerful and nearly all consuming. It’s the stress of not knowing what’s happening; the worry of the unknown. Just exactly who is the new next door neighbor? Who was it that had been watching him and the kids? Is his family going to be safe while he’s gone? Ovi and Kyle are there; and while it gives him some piece of mind, they don’t stand a chance against the type of people that Tyler has faced.

“It’s better,” he replies. “Knee’s a bit stiff but that’s nothing new. I’m always going to hobble like I’m eighty. I’m used to it now.”

“Well for what it’s worth, I think your hobble is kind of cute,” she says.

“I’d like to tell you that that makes me feel better, but when you use the word cute…”

“You ARE cute though. In a lot of ways. And you can’t convince me otherwise. You call me cute.”

“Because you ARE cute. You were especially cute this morning when you were looking up at me while waking me up by sucking my…”

“Okay,” she interrupts with a giggle. “We do not need a play by play of this morning. Because it will only get me all hot and bothered and now is not a good time to be hot and bothered. Behave yourself, okay? Don’t get into any trouble.”

“I promise I will not get into any drunken bar brawls.”

“I’d like you stay sober, please. I know how much Koen likes his beer and he’s going to want a drinking buddy and he hasn’t seen you in a long time and...”

“I know how to say no. I’m forty years old. I won’t give in to peer pressure.”

“I just worry about you. I know you’re in a bad place right now and being away from home might make the urges stronger and…”

“ I’m not going to lose you. Or my kids. I’ve got this. It’s not going to beat me.”

“You’re a strong man, Tyler Rake. Regardless of what you think.”

He smiles. “I love you, baby.”

“I love you, too. Come home quick, play? We miss you. I miss you.”

“That soon?” He grins. “That’s gotta be a record.”

“Well I’ve gotten used to you being around. I know I sometimes bitch and moan about you…”

“Sometimes?”

“...but I still like having you here.”

“Yeah? Well I like being there. You make it pretty easy to stick around.”

“Even with all my bitching and moaning?”

“Even then.”

“Drive safe, okay? And don’t tell me not to worry about you because that will never happen. If you can get a signal, call me later. Just so I know how you are. I kind of like hearing your voice before I go to sleep.”

“I will,” Tyler promises. “I’ll be home tomorrow. My flight gets in at noon.”

“I’ll pick you up.”

“Esme, you don’t…”

“I’ll pick you up,” she insists. “Don’t give me a hard time about this. Just me do something nice for you, alright?”

He smiles. “Alright.”

“We’ll talk soon. I love you, Tyler.”

He’s always loved the way his name has sounded coming out of her mouth. Whether it’s sweet and loving like just now, or soft and sleepy when he wakes her up after she’s falling asleep against him on the couch. Or when she’s in the midst of a round of hysterical giggles when he’s tickling her mercilessly or when it’s interspersed with moans and sighs during more intimate moments or she’s screaming it loud enough to wake the dead.

“I love you, Esme,” he says in return. “So much. I’ll see you when I see you.”

She gives a small laugh. “You haven’t said that in a long time. That used to be our ‘thing’. Whenever you’d leave for a job, you never left without saying that. I’ve missed it. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

With that she disconnects the call. And for several minutes he sits there in that dusty parking lot, tears stinging his eyes as he stares down at the phone clutched tightly in his hand.

****

The road is ragged and rough, but there’s a familiarity to it that Tyler has missed. The way the SUV rocks and slides; the crunch and pop of stone and dirt under the tires and the patter of pebbles against metal and the windshield. The plume of dust that is kicked up behind him. It’s been years since he’s been out this way; returning once shortly after he’d finished his stint in rehab after Dhaka. His counsellor convincing him that it would be beneficial to his progress if he visited one last time; the act of saying goodbye to that part of his past giving him a sense of closure, and making it easier for him to get on with the present AND the future. But he’d felt nothing upon his return; he’d never formed any kind of bond with the place, using it primarily as just somewhere to eat and lay his head. And drink himself into oblivion nearly every night.

His mind is much clearer now. It’s been years since he’d last taken Oxy, and six months since even a drop of booze. He feels a little more nostalgic; the mountain range and the sparse treeline coming into view, spying the rusted old gate that’s still standing after all these years.

He immediately thinks of that afternoon seven years ago when he’d returned home to find a helicopter sitting in his front yard and Nik waiting for him on the porch. He’d been irritated at first; all he’d wanted was to be alone and to wallow in his own self pity and maybe even drink and drug himself to death. Then he’d realized that Nik was likely bringing what he needed the most: an escape. That she had something big for him; a job he couldn’t -and wouldn’t- refuse. And he remembers standing in the kitchen as she sent into a spiel about one drug dealer snatching another drug dealer’s kid and how he was being held in Dhaka. The front door had been open and he’d let his mind wander as she spoke and that’s when he saw her: a tiny brunette with an impossibly tight and toned body in jean shorts, tank top, and flip flops, climbing out of the helicopter. Chatting and laughing over her shoulder with Yaz as she headed towards the shack. Pausing on the porch as Maggie -his old and faithful canine companion- happily greeted the newcomer; immediately flopping over onto her back and demanding stomach rubs.

He’d stood there watching; barely hearing a word Nik said as he noted all the tattoos and the piercings in her nose and and just below her bottom lip. The way one strap of the tank top kept slipping off her shoulder. Knowing that his life was about to change, but never imagining just how much.

Koen is standing on the front porch when Tyler steps out of the SUV; an Australian cattle dog with a yellow bandana tied around its neck sitting patiently as his friend’s side, tail wagging in excitement. Koen’s one of his oldest -and dearest- friends; serving together throughout their years in the SASR. Walking through hell together in war zones like Kabul and Kandahar; dodging bullets and escaping death and shedding blood, sweat, and tears. He’s a decade older than Tyler; grittier, weathered. Several inches shorter; stocky and wide, his youthful and more muscular days behind him. But he’s rough; tough as nails and fearless. And even now Tyler would still trust him to have his back in even the most dire and dangerous of situations.

“Jesus...Christ…” Koen grumbles as Tyler approaches, and then ruffles the scruff of the dog’s neck. “...Sadie, get the shotgun. We’ve got a sketchy bastard in our midst.”

“Is Sadie your right palm or your left?” Tyler inquires.

“Always were a smart ass little prick. You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“Nope. But I kiss yours.”

Koen smirks, and in two strides he’s off the porch and embracing Tyler warmly; a tight, affectionate huge that comes with years of surviving the worst together. “Holy shit…” he drawls, and gives Tyler’s hair a tussle and then holds him out at arms length. “...you’re a big bastard now, ain’t ya.”

“Two thirty, two thirty five. Maybe a bit heavier.”

Koen squeezes Tyler’s shoulders, then his biceps. “Like a fucking brick wall. What the hell she been feeding ya?”

“Lots of good shit. She treats me right. I can’t complain.”

“Can’t believe she’s still putting up with the likes of you. I gave her the chance, you know. When you were all laid up in that hospital with a tube in your dick. Told her if she wanted a real man, I was ready, willing, and able. She wouldn’t take me up on it, though. Already attached to you for some fucking reason. How you keeping? Things are good? You look good.”

“I feel good. What’s this?” He slaps the back of his hand against Koen’s stomach. “When ya due?”

“I oughta slap that shit eating grin clear off your face. And I would if I hadn’t missed your sorry face. Good to you, mate. Damn good to see you.” Koen embraces him once again. “Wasn’t sure you’d make it. Didn’t look too good for a while.”

“That was almost seven years ago,” Tyler points out.,

“Been that fucking long?” Koen gives a long, low whistle and shakes his head. “Sometimes feels like it was just yesterday. Getting that call. How she ever tracked me down while you were in a coma, I’ll never know.”

“A nurse gave her my phone. She just went through my contacts, picked a name, and hoped for the best.”

“You’re a fucking lucky bastard, you know. Having a girl like that. Any lady that will stick by your side like that...do the things she did...well that’s a lady worth keeping. You’ve been treating her right, I hope. Because I’m not above calling her and finding out. Or kicking your ass if she’s got bad tales to tell.”

“We’ve been through some shit,” Tyler admits. “But she’s still hanging in there. For some reason or another.”

“Needs her goddamn head read, if you ask me. Why should she be stuck with that,” he nods at Tyler. “When she could have this?”

Tyler just chuckles, and Koen slings an arm around him and leads the way inside.

****

The shack is more habitable now; the living area, bedroom, and kitchen are still open concept, but a wall now separates them from the bathroom. There’s insulation and sheetrock; no rickety wooden planks with gaps and holes that used to let in the rain and dirt when the wind storms picked up. It’s plain yet bright; light beige pint, a wood floor glazed over with a natural stain, hand constructed butcher block counter tops in the kitchen and a toilet, sink, and tub in sparkling condition. The roof is still tin though, and Tyler can vividly recall the sound of rain hammering against it; lonesome and depressing on the darkest and emptier of nights.

Koen gestures for him to take a seat at the kitchen table -the same one that had been there when Tyler had given him the place nearly seven years ago- and he takes a seat in one of the weathered and wobbly chairs. Watching as his old friend moves to the cupboard above the sink and takes out two glasses and a half empty bottle of whisky. Tyler doesn’t say anything at first; silent as Koen pours the amber coloured liquor into the glasses and then places one in front of him before taking a seat across the table.

He considers it; just ONE drink. Something to take the edge of. His fingertips against the cold, smooth surface of the glass; smelling it, tasting it on his lips and his tongue. The craving gnaws at his belly and preys on his mind; telling him he needs it. Deserves it. And the rim of the glass is pressed against his lips when the sunlight streaming through the kitchen window catches the white gold of his wedding band. The glint capturing his attention; a proverbial kick in the ass for even considering what he was about to do. And he sets the glass down on the table without taking a single sip.

Koen frowns. “Something wrong?”

“I don’t do this anymore,” Tyler says. “Drink. I haven’t for six months.”

He expects some kind of trash talking, or at least a laugh and incredulous shake of the head. But Koen just gives a nod of understanding and then stands up, carrying the glass to the sink and dumping the whisky down the drain.

“Why the fuck didn’t you say something?” He asks, then grabs a bottle of water from the fridge and then sets it down in front of Tyler before returning to his seat. “Sober, huh?”

“Half a year now.”

“Must have been hard.”

“Still is,” Tyler admits. “But I made a promise. To stay clean. To my wife and my kids. And that’s a promise I intend to keep.”

Koen grins. “Good man. About time you cleaned yourself up. You were on a pretty dangerous path there. Didn’t like the way you were headed. But you’re a stubborn bastard and you wouldn’t listen to a damn thing I had to say. Go figure it took a pretty girl to get through to you. She’s good?”

“She’s good,” he confirms. “Very good.”

“And the kids?”

“Getting big. Every day I look at them and I notice things changing about them. And they’re smart. Crazy smart. Especially Millie. So much like her mom.”

“Well thank God she got the brains from her momma because if she got the looks and the smarts from you, I’d pity the poor child. And the new one? How’s she doing?”

“Growing like a weed. Still tiny as hell though. Looks just like Esme.”

He reaches into the side pocket of his cargo short and takes out his phone; bringing up the photo gallery and then passing the cell to his friend.

“Now ain’t she a teeny thing,” Koen smiles, as he scrolls through the pictures. “How does something that small come from the likes of you? And Jesus, look at the twins. Spitting image of you. Especially this little bloke…” he holds the screen out towards Tyler, showing him a picture of Tanner taken just minutes after he’d gotten Tyler’s old hair cut; the one he’d been sporting when he’d met Esme. “...which one is he?”

“That’s Tanner. The youngest of the two.”

“Fucking looks just like you. Especially with that hair. That’s how I remember you looking. With that hair. Now you got a mini me wandering around out there. Hope all the parents lock their daughters up. Especially if he’s anything like you. You’re very fortunate, you know. Never thought I’d see you like this...a husband...a father...but I’m glad I did. If anyone deserved to get their shit together and deserved to have a second chance at life, it was you. And this…” he holds the phone out once again; a candid photo of Esme on the beach. A close up that Tyler had taken after he’d tried to teach her how to surf; her hair wet and dangling down the sides of her face, freckles of sand on her forehead and cheeks, a slight sunburn on the bridge of her nose, eyes sparkling as she smiled.

“You lucky fucker,” Koen scoffs. “You better keep on the straight and arrow, ‘cause I reckon there’s a lot of blokes that wouldn’t mind taking your place beside the likes of her.”

“She’s definitely a keeper,” Tyler agrees. “I’m not letting her go anytime soon.”

“Or ever,” his friend says, and he nods. “I was surprised when you called and said you were taking a trip out here. Didn’t expect to you see until next weekend when I gave up the place up for a couple of days. What’s going on? Everything okay?”

“I’ve got something I want to run by you. An idea. A business proposition. I thought it was best if I didn’t wait until next week. And that we should talk about it face to face.”

“Sounds pretty serious. You okay?”

“I’ve got some shit going on.” Tyler admits.

“The PTSD still?”

He nods.

“That shit is a fucking nightmare,” Koen mutters, and takes a long swallow of whisky. “So what’s this about? This idea? This business thing?”

“I’m getting back into the game.”

“The mercenary gig? Why the fuck would you want to do that? Didn’t learn your lesson the first time you took a bullet to the throat?”

“This won’t be like the last time. This is different. I’m different.”

“You’re fucking crazy is what you are. Wanting to get back into that shit. You’ve got a family now. Think that’s the best life for them? For a wife and kids? Especially five little ones. Why would you want to put them through that? Going away and leaving them to wonder if daddy’s ever coming home?”

“Leave my kids out of this. It has nothing to do with them.”

“It has everything to do with them,” Koen growls. “I can see why you’d want to do this if you were alone and had nothing to lose. But fuck, mate. You’ve got everything to lose. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Tyler scowls. “You going to listen to what I have to say or are you just going to keep lecturing me?”

“I should be beating your ass is what I should be doing. For being so fucking stupid.”

“You done? You going to let me talk or…”

“I need another drink to put up with the likes of you,” Koen mutters, then gets up from the table and pours himself another.

“I’m starting my own business,” Tyler tells him.

“Your own merc business?”

He nods.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Koen knocks back the whisky in one gulp. “Why the ever loving hell?”

“I’ve already started getting the word out. Reaching out to people I’ve done jobs for, guys I’ve worked with, contacts I’ve held onto. Once things really start spreading around, there won’t be a shortage of jobs. And guys willing to jump ship to come work for me.”

“So why you here? Why come talk to me?”

“I’m offering you a job.”

Koen’s eyes narrow. “As a merc?”

“A well paid one.”

“Holy...shit…” Koen chuckles and shakes his head. “What in the blue hell?”

“You and I go back a lot of years,” Tyler reminds him.

“A hell of a lot,” his friend agrees.

And I wouldn’t come to you if I didn’t trust you. With my life I know a lot of guys...a lot of experienced mercs...and I still would want you having my back over any of them.”

“Don’t try and sweet talk me, blue eyes. Your pretty face won’t work its magic on me.”

“You’ve got the experience. You’ve put in a fuck of a lot of years with the SARS. Even more than me. So you’d be able to do this. You’re a hell of a good shot, you’ve got tons of combat experience, and you know your way around a tons of different weapons. Your hand to hand combat leaves a little to be desired, but…”

“A little to be desired, huh? How about we go outside right now and I show you how good my hands are.”

Tyler scoffs. “You wanting me to fight me or are you offering to jerk me off?”

Koen smirks.

“I know your military benefits are shit. Probably not much more than mine. You can’t live off that forever. I’m offering you a chance of a lifetime here. We’re talking big money.”

“How big?”

“These would be big jobs. High profile clients. You know that gig I had in Ireland? Right before we moved back here?”

Koen nods.

“I got five million for that. And that was only part of the job. I didn’t even need to see it through. Imagine the kind of payouts we’d bring in from big spenders?”

“Are you telling me I’m sitting across from a millionaire right now?”

Tyler just smiles.

“Jesus fuck. Are you serious?”

“I won’t tell you who paid me. That doesn’t matter. But we’d be attracting people with even more money and even bigger scores to settle. You can’t tell me that doesn’t sound like something you’d go for.”

“How many of us are there?”

“I’ve got three so far. An ex Marine, Ovi…”

“The kind you pulled out of Dhaka?”

“...and Rata.”

Koen’s glass is pressed against his lips. “You already talked to that rat bastard? Before me? When?”

“Last night he came by the house. He was in Cairns with that new girlfriend of his. Didn’t take much to get him to come on board.”

“Yeah, he’s always been a few bricks short a load, though.”

“I need you in on this,” Tyler insists. “You’d be the perfect fit. I know the things you can do. I saw them...for myself...in Kabul and Kandahar. This is right up your alley.”

“How the hell are you going to pull this off? Get everything you need? Guns, ammo, whatever the fuck else a merc uses.”

“You don’t spend years as a mercenary and not make contacts. Reliable ones. I’ve got a guy stopping here in the morning. He has a haul of stuff for me. Rifles, handguns, utility vests, grenades. You name it. And there’s more where that came from. A lot more.”

“You’re fucking insane, you know that? Getting mixed up with this shit again.”

“Maybe,” Tyler admits. “But it’s what I know. It’s who I am. Why piss away an opportunity like this?”

Koen sighs, then shakes his head and gets up to fetch himself another drink.

“So,” Tyler says, as he leans back in his chair, legs stretched out in front of him, arms crossed over his chest. “You in or out?”

“Fuck it,” Koen growls, then downs his drink and slams the empty glass down on the counter top. “I’m in.”

#tyler rake #tyler rake fan fiction #tyler rake fan fic #best part of me #extraction #chris hemsworth character

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arolla-pine · 4 years

Text

Fake Dating - p.13

(13) - Sun King

Next morning Marinette run out the house with excitement she couldn’t hide. Yesterday had been full of positive experiences, so she couldn’t wait the next trip.

“Good morning, M’Lady!” Adrien greeted her.

“Good morning, Kitty!” she smiled in reply. “Did you sleep well after our walk?”

“Perfectly! I oxygenated, so I slept like a baby. And you? Didn’t a summer breeze affect you?”

“Geez, what the hell that small talk means?” groaned Nino who got out the car. “Just dance a minuet to kill me faster.”

“It’s quite possible we’ll dance a minuet.” Adrien laughed.

“Really?” Marinette asked in surprise.

“I’m taking you to Versailles.”

“What an idea!” she snorted. “There will be crowds in the palace!”

“We’re going to the gardens. No chance to find us in such an area. We could even get lost in one of mazes and make plans.”

“Yeah, I know exactly what you would like to do in mazes…” Nino muttered, and Marinette laughed although she knew that pretending of not hearing that would be more reasonable.

“We have two days left.” Adrien continued undiscouraged. “We have figured out the beginning of our relationship, now we have to learn as much as possible about each other.”

“And you’re boring again…” Nino commented. “It’s good that at least your girlfriend has a sense of humour, because there’s no fun with you…”

Marinette giggled. She had already got used to Nino’s taunts, especially after his yesterday contribution to the process of preparing ‘their story’. He was very helpful when Adrien or she had started to indulge in creating more and more incredible circumstances of their fake first meeting. Marinette liked how they had been working in the d’Auvers park on the counterfeit past. In result they had quite a possible story of meeting of two celebrities in a café. She felt a hint of jealousy that it hadn’t happened for real. Somewhere deep in her heart she wished to meet Adrien that way…

“Just imagine Alya Césaire’s face when she gets known that you run into me by accident in a café and didn’t recognise a popular model in me!” Adrien had laughed, when they were going back to Paris yesterday.

“She’ll roll her eyes and won’t believe in that. She got used to that I’m lying to her.”

“I’ll convince her.”

“Yeah, right… She’ll look at you with her X-ray eyes and she’ll ask suspiciously: ‘And you just fell in love at the first sight?’” Marinette tried to imitate the journalist’s voice and look. Nino chuckled amused by the girl, although he kept his attention to the road.

“Of course, not!” Adrien joined the game. “I assumed that it’s just another fangirl! But Marinette didn’t behave like a fangirl. Rather like someone who didn’t recognise me at all.”

“Damn, you’re good…” the girl muttered. “I’d buy it.”

“See? The plan is perfect!” he smiled satisfied. “Leave it up to me and we’ll be good.”

Yes, she really wanted to believe him.

They kept laughing and joking all the way back home. They had had great time for the whole day and they made significant progress in the preparations. If they managed to work on details today, only trivia would be left for the third day. Marinette still felt terrified when she was thinking about the set-up planned by Plagg, yet she began to believe that with Adrien by her side everything would go smoothly.

“Versailles, folks!” Nino informed suddenly.

“Already?” Marinette was surprised.

Was it possible that she had been silent for the whole drive here? How could she miss the opportunity to learn something new about her boyfriend? Instead she was staring out of the window and thinking about yesterday, not paying attention to the fact that Adrien was holding her hand for the entire way and stroking her palm with his thumb.

“Let’s go dancing the minuet, M’Lady.” He smiled letting her hand go.

“Yeah… Minuet��” she muttered, feeling her cheeks burning.

Damn it. Damn, damn, damn… It wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all! The more, Nino noticed her flush. That made her even more embarrassed.

She knew she had to regain her composure as soon as possible. First, she needed to drown out those strange emotions awakened by Adrien’s warm smile. That was a complete nonsense! She’d known him for two days! She knew nothing about him. That was illogical, irresponsible and absolutely unacceptable!

“So, what’s the plan?” she asked when they got out the car.

“Gardens, My Lady. To avoid crowds of tourists.”

“They will be in the gardens too.”

“I hope they’ll be more interested in nature than in the other walkers. Besides, I must admit that today you look totally unlike LadyBug again.”

“Yeah, I’m unrecognisable in this hat…” she muttered ironically.

“No, it’s not that…” he shook his head and came closer to her. Then he reached to her hair and touched it softly. “Maybe it’s because of hair down…” he whispered rather to himself than to her.

For a moment Marinette forgot how to breathe. Did he do it on purpose? Like yesterday with breaking a touch barrier? Or like today with stroking her palm for the whole drive to Versailles? She had no idea what the answer was. And she wasn’t sure she could ask him about it.

“I explained that yesterday that my everyday look differs from my professional one.” she said finally, when she remembered how to speak. “It’s quite useful, especially on days like this.”

“I wish I could do the same.”

“You didn’t have Tikki. She would take care of organising you some privacy. I’m so grateful that she thought about it in good time. I wouldn’t even think that I’d need it in the future.”

“That’s why some people are singers and some other are their managers. You don’t have to think about everything.”

Suddenly, Nino appeared from nowhere and patted his friend in the back. Then he put a black cap on Adrien’s head.

“Don’t thank me, dude!” he muttered by the way and then he withdrew to a standard distance.

Marinette glanced at Adrien’s cap and burst out laughing. Nino probably had bought it in one of souvenir shops, because for sure it was one of Versailles gadgets. Where else could he buy a cap with inscription saying “Sun King”?

“What’s on it?” Adrien was intrigued, so he ripped the cap off and glared at his friend. “Very funny, really!”

“Bu-But…” Marinette was laughing. “It is…”

“What’s so funny?” he glanced uncertain at her.

Marinette calmed down immediately. She cleared her throat and explained:

“When I saw you for the first time, you were standing at the window and the sun was shining in your hair. You looked like your head was in the sun. And now you’re wearing a cap with inscription ‘Sun King’. Please, don’t tell it’s not funny for you.”

Adrien smiled in reply. For a moment he’d thought she was making fun of him. Meanwhile it was an inside joke thing.

“Does it mean I’ve been promoted from a prince to a king?” he asked.

“You were a frog in between, remember!” she gave him a wink.

“Only if you kiss me, remember…” he smiled meaningfully, and she blushed again.

“Beware, frog!” she answered back, then turned her back and ran away in a direction of the gardens.

He laughed, put his new cap on his head and followed her. He found her quickly in the entrance to a maze, where she was standing and laughing so hard that she was bent in half. He had to wait for a moment until she calmed down enough to explain what was so funny for her.

“Well… You know what Nino said this morning about what you wanted to do in the maze…” she said finally. “But this maze is a fake. Look, you can’t even hide or get lost there. You can see the other end through!”

“Maybe it’s more complicated somewhere inside?”

“Do you want to lose your shadower?” she asked in whisper.

“He’d break my both legs when he finds me… I’m not taking that risk. Besides, we should work first before we start having fun.”

“Nino was right. You’re a terrible bore.” She joked. “But… I have an idea how to combine fun and work.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll learn something about me, and we’ll visit the maze.”

“I’m in.” he nodded.

She took his hand, as if it was something quite natural for her now, and she led him to the maze. Nino followed them, but he wasn’t too enthusiastic about this trip. Too many shadows, corners, risks. Damn celebrities with their whims… In such moments he liked his job much less…

––

@marinettemarch

Day 10 - Alter Egos

––

Fake Dating p.12 <- Previous part | Next part -> Fake Dating p.14

Start reading from the beginning

#marinettemarch #marinettemarch 2020 #marinettelove 2020 #Fake Dating #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Adult Marinette #Adrien Agreste #Adult Adrien #Nino Lahiffe #adrienette #adrinette #AU story #AUstory #au

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aire101 · 4 years

Text

Ferrum Intro

My brain absolutely, positively refuses to focus on romance atm, which means I have made no progress on my WIP and instead my brain ended up producing this concept which I will probably continue at least until I get it out of my system. So here’s the beginning of a post-Endgame MCU/SAO Irondad fic that I went online to read, discovered it didn’t exist yet, and so could NOT GET OUT OF MY DAMN HEAD.

-------

It had been a long day.

Then again, every day seemed like a long one lately.

It had been a relatively beautiful November day for New York City, and with the approaching holidays Peter was starting to see the usual uptick in petty crime begin this season. Within his five hour patrol he had helped eight lost tourists, found one lost pet, caught two armed burglars and tied up a ridiculous number of petty thieves. Nothing too problematic, just another day in the life of our friendly neighborhood Spider-man.

Peter sat crouched on a roof looking over the newest Iron Man mural to pop up, this time right on the edge between Queens and Brooklyn. There were several around town already, but this one was especially heart-wrenching. Most were either of the armor mid-action or of Mr. Stark in his trademark press look. But this one was different in the best and worst way.

In this art, Mr. Stark was still in his armor, but the helmet was retracted, allowing the viewer to see the blood crusted on his face, the lines of worry even deeper than they were before everything had gone to hell. There weren’t many pictures of Mr. Stark from the five year period now known as the Blip, but in the ones there were Peter knew he had looked like this— tired and worn in a way Peter had never seen, but could well understand. All in all, it looked uncannily similar to the last time Peter had seen him. When—

Anyway—

And on the shoulders of this mural’s Tony Stark rested an enormous orb holding dozens of galaxies spiraling around a central point— a tiny arc reactor in the shape of a heart.

There was still a little while before he would be expected at Ned’s tonight, but the more he tried to convince himself to hit the streets again, the heavier his limbs felt.

He couldn’t do it. Not like this. Experience told him it was a recipe for disaster, likely to get himself or someone else badly hurt. Himself he could handle, someone else… his conscience couldn’t take another body added to its count right now. Besides, he had promised Ned he’d be there tonight.

Peter sighed and swung away from his rooftop perch to head back towards Ned’s, not sparing the art a backwards glance.

No matter how good it was, no reproduction could ever duplicate what he had lost.

----------

“Whoa, you’re early,” said Ned with a mild tone of shock. Which honestly… was probably fair. “I wasn’t expecting you for at least another thirty minutes.”

“Yeah, I decided to call it a night early. It was actually pretty quiet tonight anyway. Didn’t want to get too wrung out on the web considering we have plans tonight,” said Peter as he stepped into the Leeds’ apartment, slipping off his shoes and hanging his coat on the rack. “Where is everyone?”

“Dad has to work tonight, and mom and Angelica went to Laser Bounce earlier, but they should be back before too long. I stayed home to finish some stuff up before the launch tonight. Plus, I wasn’t sure when you’d be getting here, so…”

“Sorry, I should have messaged earlier.”

“You’re alright man. Like I said, I had some stuff to wrap up. I plan to be in-game as much as possible tomorrow,” said Ned as they moved into his bedroom.

“You sure you don’t mind me getting the first run tonight? They might have some secret opening event planned for the first few hours…” asked Peter.

“I am absolutely positive. I am going to have plenty of opportunities to lose unhealthy amounts of sleep to this game. Besides, between the two of us I think you need the break more than me. On a related note— you look terrible man. Have you been sleeping at all?”

“I sleep,” said Peter defensively. “I don’t really need much though, you know?”

“Physically, sure. Mentally? You’re still just as human as the rest of us Peter. Have you talked to May about it? Or Happy?”

“Can we please drop this? It’s just been a long day, alright?”

“What happened? I thought you said it was mostly quiet?” asked Ned, confused.

“I meant it was quiet for New York, I was still busy pretty much all evening,” said Peter, falling backwards onto Ned’s bed.

Ned sat down at his computer, spinning around to face Peter. “Fine, but I’m definitely going to harass you later, and you better actually sleep after we trade off in a few hours. Anyway, I am SO PSYCHED or this! God I hope its worth all the hype.”

“I can’t imagine it being a flop. The tech behind it is revolutionary, and the head developer has been working on the game for like a decade,” said Peter, as he scrolled through the GameSpot special coverage from that day.

“Wasn’t SI contracted to consult on it, too?” asked Ned.

Peter felt his throat begin to constrict. The nails of his right hand bit into the flesh of his palm as he forced himself to take a slow breath—hold—and release…

“Yeah, Mr. Stark consulted on it himself. Some of the engineering on the headset is similar to the BARF technology. I think he might have worked on a couple system AI’s as well.”

“That is so cool man. So this is almost like his last tech contribution? Last gift to the world…”

“I doubt that. It was just a consult job, most of the work was done by Argus. Plus, Mr. Stark had years worth of projects and updates on file. We’ll probably see things he had a hand in being released for the next ten years at the least,” said Peter.

“Still pretty cool though,” said Ned with a shrug.

At that moment, Peter heard the sound of a key being inserted into the lock of the front door.

“Looks like they’re back,” he said, continuing to scroll, this time through discussions on Reddit.

“Have you had dinner yet? You know if you haven’t she’s going to force you to eat before you dive.”

“Nah, I didn’t get a chance to stop off earlier. What kind of leftovers do ya have?”

“I think there’s meatloaf and some chicken adobo left at the moment.”

“Yaaasss… Chicken adobo…”

Just then Ned’s bedroom door opened, and Mrs. Leeds poked her head in, a large smile on her face.

“Peter! I thought I saw your coat by the door! I’m glad you were able to make it tonight! Edward has been excited about the sleepover for weeks,” she said.

“Oh my god, mom! It’s not a sleepover! I doubt we’ll even sleep much!”

“Isn’t that what sleepovers are about?! You’re ridiculous… Anyway, have you eaten?” Mrs. Leeds asked, looking at Peter.

Peter had to bite back a smile, but shook his head.

“Hala ka, you’re going to waste away into dry bones! I don’t care how busy you are these days, you shouldn’t be skipping meals. You’ll blow away in a strong breeze. Come, I’ll heat something up. I know how bad you boys get about eating when its a normal game. A full immersion VR? You’ll forget you even have a real body that needs sustenance.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Peter, dutifully following her into the kitchen.

“You are in luck. We have some leftover chicken adobo from last night. I know you like that recipe. Did May ever give it a go?”

Peter flashed back to the gloopy, slightly charred mess that was May’s attempt at cooking the dish. “Eh… Yeah but it wasn’t quite the same. Still needs a bit of work.”

“Huh,” Mrs. Leeds said, sounding confused.

“Peter!” shouted a voice from behind him.

“Hey Angie,” said Peter, before he felt arms wrap around him from behind in a bear hug.

His heart throbbed in his chest. His breath caught and wouldn’t come.

Thanos was coming for the gauntlet he couldn’t let him have it he had to run the aliens were grabbing him he had to—

“You never come around anymore! It’s been months—!”

“Stop that Angelica. It’s been a crazy year, and Peter stays very busy between school and an internship. Shouldn’t you be getting ready for bed? It’s already way passed bedtime.”

Angie rolled her eyes dramatically but stomped back off towards her room to do as she was asked.

“Sorry, dear. She just missed her big brothers, you know.”

Peter did his best to force out a grin, but he wasn’t sure just how well it came off because the next thing he knew Mrs. Leeds was giving him a tender kiss on the head and muttering about making some cups of cocoa.

It was moments like this that he truly felt the strange reality of the fact that he had lost five years of his life. On the surface level everything felt mostly the same— Aunt May along with the majority of his friends had also been snapped, as well as several of his teachers. But while they were gone, Ned’s little sister aged from an innocent five year old, to a ten year old girl who had grown in a world in more confusion, pain and desperation than Peter could really comprehend. Freshman he had helped tutor in school had graduated. Families he had known were irreparably torn apart, seemingly overnight.

It felt like while he was still the same, the rest of the world had tilted slight to the left, leaving him unbalanced and unsure where to step next. He’d always felt a bit out of place anyway after the spider bite, but now it was so much worse. Sometimes Peter wanted a taste of what normal used to be like, without freaky spider powers, world protecting responsibilities and the guilt of looking around him and wondering if he deserved to be here at all.

He glanced at the clock that hung on the wall— fifteen minutes till midnight.

“I should probably go brush my teeth too and get settled in. The server will open soon,” said Peter as he stood.

“Yeah, though there shouldn’t really be much to do other than to actually connect since we calibrated your account the other day,” said Ned.

Within ten minutes Peter had taken care of his nightly necessities and given Angie and Mrs. Leeds both a hug goodnight, settling in on the upper bunk of Ned’s bed.

“Last time I’m asking— are you sure you don’t mind me giving this the first run?” asked Peter.

Ned sighed and spun around from his computer to send Peter an exasperated look. “Do you not want to take it on its maiden voyage?”

“That’s not what I said,” Peter rolled his eyes.

“Then stop worrying. Just have a good time for once. Also, I downloaded a couple files to the gear. Not sure how reliable it is yet, but a few beta testers put out some first floor tips on the DL as a downloadable in game file, so check that out once you dive. It might help out a bit.”

“Will do. Thanks.”

“No problem. Now get going, and be sure to take plenty of notes in your journal to send me later.”

“See you around, kid.”

“I am older than you are by two months. Shut up and dive, loser.”

Peter smiled as he fitted the Nervegear onto his head, laid back and said, “Link Start.”

———————

In a remote, nondescript server room a certain file kicked to life. It’s programming had been remotely accessed, a mere accident of oversight. The digital pathways that connected it to the Argus servers, while known about, had been forgotten in the chaos of the last few years. The file was not one created within the system, but one created to interact within it. The Cardinal system downloaded the precious data, implementing it in the category that best described its form and function.

Program designation: Client

System ID: Ferrum Vir

Administration level: GM

. . . .

Installation Complete

————————

At 12:00 am EST on November 5th, 2023 (1:00 pm JST), Peter Parker joined 10,000 others in the world’s first full dive MMORPG— Sword Art Online.

And so did a very confused Anthony Edward Stark.

#tony stark #peter parker #irondad #irondad and spiderson #marvel cinematic universe #iron man #spider-man #MCU #sword art online #mcu/sao #fanfiction #crossover fanfiction #ai tony stark #post endgame #mostly canon compliant #im not even sure what to tag this #i have no idea where im going with it #aire101 writes #not ffh compliant

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rynhaswritersblock · 4 years

Text

midtown morning announcements | p.p.

a/n: in this story YOU are a reporter in the announcements and betty is NOT!!!!! sorry betty love you bae <3

summary: as a reporter for midtown tech's daily announcements, it's easy to get carried away with ideas. especially ones involving the newest superhero from queens.

warnings: cussing, some chaotic energy, 5.6k words because i POPPED OFF, messy epilogue but just roll w me

+ + +

"Oh my god, she's crushing on Spider-Man."

You tried. You really tried. Sure, you were friends with Betty and Liz, but god, if some of their conversations didn't make you want to scream.

Nevertheless, you whirl around. The statement was too absurd for you not to. Liz, the pretty, popular girl, had a crush on a hero whom she'd never seen the face of.

Now that was a story.

You spin back around, snatching the book out of MJ's hands and ignoring the look she gives you.

"How soon do you think I can convince Mr. Harrington to give me an extra segment in the announcements?"

+ + +

"I'm sorry, Y/N, but I just don't think there's enough time to-"

"Mr. Harrington, please," you plead. "We can cut the segment about.. what's it called? What's New in the Teacher's Lounge? Trust me when I say this: talking about the new coffee filters and low stock in the vending machines only loses everyone's attention."

A sigh falls from the mans mouth. He scratches his beard thoughtfully and you bite back a grin at his dramatically thoughtful expression.

"Okay, fine, Madam Reporter. You can have your segment on Spandex Man," he says.

A smile pulls the corners of your lips. "Thank you, Mr. Harrington, you won't regret it."

He just nods his head, an awkward silence filling between the two of you. He eventually catches the hint and turns around, beginning to walk away, muttering.

"I swear, teenage girls and their obsession with men in tight clothing."

Your eyes widen and your face explodes into an expression of defense before you turn around, face-to-face with MJ.

"So?"

"I got it."

A smirk breaks on the girls face. "Ready to shoot?"

Your eyes widen and move over to the wall of the reporting room, the clock reading 7:29 am. One minute before filming time. You look back at MJ and shrug hopelessly, jogging over to the setup in front of the cameras and sliding in next to Jason.

"Hey, Y/N-"

"We're cutting the teacher's lounge segment and I'm replacing it with a different one," you blurt, then turn to the camera as the red light turns on and begins blinking.

"Wha- Good morning, students of Midtown Tech!"

You suppress a laugh.

"Today is Wednesday, September 21st. Happy Fall," you smile. While you were never anxious in front of the camera, you were completely unprepared. The change in segments was made literally two minutes ago, and the only ones with that knowledge were you, MJ, and (kind of) Jason. Thankfully, MJ was a quick scriptwriter, but this was something you wanted to make perfect. Your perfectionism wasn't easily controlled, and with a new segment like this, you wanted to make it just right.

You and Jason swapped reporting different details about events, the weather- the sort of stuff a lot of students didn't really care about. But, as soon as you saw the words "Y/N: INTO SPIDER-MAN SEGMENT" on the screen, you knew this would grab everyone's attention. You also knew that you would kick MJ later for not even giving you a script when you knew she was capable of at least writing a few things.

"Ohhhh-" Jason gasps, understanding what you'd meant earlier. You hit him in the arm before mentally preparing yourself as quickly as possible.

"Word about the new hero, known as Spider-Man, has taken over Midtown Tech, and everyone seems to have the same question: who is the man under the mask? Well, Tigers, I've decided to take it upon myself to discover this upcoming Avenger's identity. In this segment, you'll see interviews and videos of the hero, as well as a link in which you can scan a QR code on the screen and submit guesses, and later vote on who you think it is!"

"Yo, that's dope," Jason nods, looking at you, impressed and surprised.

"It is," you smile at the camera. "Now onto Cindy, who is with the Mr. Harrington to talk about the importance of, um, kissing your pets at least 10 times daily..?"

The filming session wraps with you and Jason doing your signature sign-off (putting on sunglasses and playing Midtown's anthem on kazoo's). You slide out of the chair, setting your glasses on the table behind you and walking over to MJ with a sigh.

"Dude, what the hell?"

"Hey man, you did fine without a script," she retorts, raising her hands in defense.

"I'm aware," you raise a brow.

From across the room, you can hear the editors grouping around the computer, laughing at all the memes and sound effects they're gonna put in.

+ + +

Not good. Not good not good not good not good.

Peter Parker stood frozen, feet away from one of the multiple TVs in the hallway, jaw slack as he stares at the screen.

Not even the chaotic memes and crappy video effects could make him laugh (the boy had a weak spot for Comic Sans).

He knew who you were. Peter'd occasionally see you in the hallways, and you'd always smile or even just give him a small look of acknowledgment. Still, never talked. Which, now that he thought about it, was probably a good thing. The second you figure out Spider-Man's voice, it'll be engraved into your brain, and there'll be no hiding if you approach him.

"Hey, Peter!"

The boy jumps, spinning around to see Ned, about 20 feet away, bright smile painted on his face as he waves a bit aggressively. Peter mentally prepares himself before walking over, plastering a (hopefully convincing) grin on his face. Ned, of course, is oblivious and falls for it.

"Dude, did you watch the announcements today?! That shit is crazy! I mean, Y/N's so smart and stuff, she's probably gonna figure out who it is in, like, two weeks," Ned babbles.

Peter looks around cautiously, feeling as though all eyes are on him, despite the fact that he was most definitely on the bottom half of the popularity list.

"Yeah, weird."

Just then, he sees you turn around the corner with MJ, waving to someone he didn't know, and catches a smile on your face.

His prior neutral opinion about you began to shift.

+ + +

By the end of the day, you were practically floating. The entire school was buzzing about the new segment- hell, it almost creeped you out how excited everyone was. At lunch, people couldn't stop glancing over at you, whispering about who they thought Spider-Man might be. At first, the looks were different, interesting, but now they just made you plain uncomfortable. Nonetheless, when you stepped outside after the final bell and everyone's mind shifted from the segment to the idea of getting home, you felt proud.

And, although the two of you were apart, both in terms of distance and relationship, you and Peter felt the same feeling as you flopped onto your respective beds in your respective apartments:

You now had the weight of the world on your shoulders.

+ + +

The FBI agent in your phone was probably terrified. You went from being an average, phone-using teen, to being a complete stalker, notes and news apps taking over your storage- all to make sure you'd never miss a story. Moreover, you'd done all this within the last two hours.

With the exponentially rising expectations from your classmates, you made a promise to yourself that you wouldn't let anyone down. That started today: the day of the Spider-Man's Secrets debut.

Just as you lay back on your bed, back sore, you come to the realization that all of these precautionary apps would only give you the scoop after the incident. AKA: not soon enough. You groan, rolling off your bed and slipping on your shoes, grabbing your keys and making your way out of the apartment.

While hadn't necessarily wished to be walking through the streets of Queens as the sky darkened, part of it was kind of peaceful. If you ignored your paranoid thoughts.

Nonetheless, you thought, if you were to get attacked, the man of the day would show up, right?

A sigh falls from your lips as you round the corner, figuring you'd go to Delmar's and get a sandwich. And pet Murph.

Your plans are foiled when you stop in your tracks at the sight of Spider-Man battling some robbers in the bank. Even though your eyes widened, you let out a small laugh- the robbers were wearing Avengers masks. How nice for Tony Stark's image.

The whole situation looked like one of those weird money-tornado things you'd seen at arcades. You rip your phone out of your pocket and begin recording just as a purple beam shoots out of the bank, streaming in a haphazard circular shape and nearly hitting you. A yelp elicits from your mouth as you duck. When you rise, the robbers are gone, and Delmar's is on fire.

"Holy shit," you gasp, checking to make sure your phone is still recording.

You felt a little stupid as you ran over to the building, phone in the air like a goddamn touristic maniac.

"Ma'am, I'm gonna need you to get out of the way, it's-"

You feel a pair of hands wrap around your waist, pulling you back. You begin to wriggle out of the grasp before you turn your head and meet eyes with Spider-Man. The large white eyes of the mask widen, as do yours.

"It's, um," he clears his throat, lowering his voice and using a Jersey accent, "too dangerous."

In a flash, he's gone, leaping through the broken window and yelling for Mr. Delmar, voice back to its high state. You're stunned, not having expected to have gotten that lucky on your first night, as well as from the state of the building you had loved so much. You stay there, standing at the edge of the sidewalk, chewing nervously on your nails as you wait for Spider-Man to run back out, hopefully with Mr. Delmar and Murph.

You had a job to do.

A relieved sigh leaves your lungs at the sight of the hero helping Mr. Delmar out, handing him Murph with such a careful and cautious demeanor that gives the hero so much humanistic personality that it practically knocks you out.

You knew you were one to notice body language, but watching someone without being able to see their face only amplified them. You watch silently as Spider-Man hangs his head as he walks away from the scene, looking tired, ashamed almost. People begin gathering around the building, videoing and a few going over to Mr. Delmar and lending him support. A ping of guilt rings through your veins before you remind yourself of your job.

"Excuse me?"

He stops, turning around. Reporters begin pulling up in large news vans.

"I have a few questions."

+ + +

The only time you'd ever flown was at the airport. Or in your dreams. But never this way.

Your heart was still racing, despite having landed on the roof of some building almost a full sixty seconds ago.

"Sorry, but could we hurry this up? I kinda, uh, need to get home," he says, hints of paranoia lacing his words.

"Yeah, sorry, just, you know, have never swung on a fucking web multiple stories up before," you nod, pursing your lips and instantly regretting your harshness. "Sorry."

He nods. You pull up the voice recorder app on your phone and hit the button. A rush of awkwardness hits you.

"So, uh, Spider-Man: tell me about yourself."

"Well," he scratches the back of his neck nervously. His voice is deep, with that same rich Jerseyan accent. You don't buy it at all. "I'm, well, I'm Spider-Man. I like.. helping... people?"

"Uh, yes-" you blurt, nodding your head. You didn't want to completely bombard him, you wanted to just intro him and get some exclusive information. "How did you get your powers?"

He goes on to explain that he was bitten by a radioactive spider. Luckily for you, he goes off on a tangent, ranting about how weird it was and what exactly his powers were. You smile every time you notice his accent and deep voice slip into something that sounded more natural- higher, but natural.

Based off of the hints of his voice alone, you'd guess he was anywhere from 12-18 years old.

"And then I would wear like super big shirts to school to try and hide it because I didn't want to look suspiciously stronger--"

"School?" you interrupt.

"Oh, uh.. yeahhhumIgottago!" he blurts before awkwardly backing up, jumping off the building and swinging away.

A smile creeps onto your face. Enough to satisfy your classmates.

+ + +

"Luckily, I was able to catch the hero right after the incident, and he swung me with him to the top of a building for privacy from other news stations and police officers," you smile, ignoring how Jason was bouncing excitedly next to you, eager for information. He was a prime example of the excitement going on around the school.

"Spider-Man received his powers from a bite from a radioactive spider, and gained his new skills over night. Reportedly, he woke up with defined and large muscles, giving him the physique you can catch while he swings by. He has super senses that can detect any form of danger, 'sticky' hands and feet, and crafts his own webs that have been incorporated into his suit, given to him by Tony Stark, aka Iron Man. Here's a vocal clip from our interview!"

Normally, the sound of the announcements would be substantially muffled by the sounds of kids moving everywhere and chattering, but not anymore. Now, students grouped around the TVs, whispering. Peter had tried so hard to ignore your voice while not seeming suspicious.

But, as soon as he heard his own voice through the speakers, the announcements had his full attention.

He was relieved that you'd used a clip in which he'd been lowering his voice and using an accent, but there was a second in there where your masked voice slipped. Not good.

The boy suffered through the school day, ignoring the gossip of students, including Ned. Not to mention MJ suspiciously eyeing him during lunch. Either she had a crush, or she knew something. Peter suspected the latter.

As soon as the bell rang, he darted out of the doors, going to his usual hiding spot and changing, swinging as quickly as he could to the Stark Tower. The boy landed at the front steps, bending over and panting for a second before mustering up more energy and running up to the door, ringing the buzzer as many times as he could.

"Welcome to Stark Tower," F.R.I.D.A.Y. said, monotone. "Identification, please."

"Peter Parker," he pants, pulling up his mask and looking into the camera.

"Unknown identity. Access denied."

A buzzer rang off and the boy frowned.

"Let him in, F.R.I.," Tony yells from inside, walking over and opening the doors. "Hey, Pete."

"Hi, Mr. Stark. Why wouldn't it let me in?"

The two walk into the main entrance.

"No reason."

"What?"

"I just have a different name for you in the program, that's all. If the name doesn't match the face, the doors don't open."

"What name do you have for me, then?"

Tony sighs, hints of mischievousness in his eyes. "Underoos. Can't believe you wouldn't think of that."

"Got it, sorry," Peter nods, clutching the mask in his hand. "I need you to put a voice changer in my suit."

+ + +

You were starting to get a bit worried. Spider-Man had started using a voice changer in his suit, and when you asked about it, he said he'd heard about you using his voice in a school announcement, and he needed to maintain anonymity.

Of course, this had taken a toll on you.

Not only did it lessen your chances of figuring out who this kid was, but it made you feel bad. After all, you were disrespecting a hero's privacy, trying to expose them to a mass of teenagers. And all he was doing was trying to protect the very place you lived in.

You'd managed to catch him at just about every incident he'd been in, but each time, he got less and less open about everything. You were running out of questions that you deemed fairly respectful, and he became very closed off, and for good reason.

If you exposed him, he'd be much more susceptible to attackers, who'd then be able to hurt the people he loved. You sigh as you begin your walk home from school, wracking your brain for more questions. You'd dug yourself into some deep shit.

A flash of red and blue pulls you out of your thoughts.

"Spider-Man!" you yell, eyes widening when you notice a few people look at you and then divert their attention to him, gasping. You mutter a profanity before jogging over to where he'd landed on top of a traffic light. "I have a few questions."

"Yeah, of course you do."

As if the deep and robotic voice wasn't cold enough already. You hear a loud sigh at your perplexed expression, and before you know it, you were flying again, landing a bit harshly on the roof of another building.

"Ouch, okay."

"Sorry," you hear him mutter. "Off the record?"

You nod and watch as he presses a button on his wrist.

"Look-"

A smile begins creeping on your face at the sound of his normal voice, but you bite it back.

"- I don't know why you're doing this. What I do know, though, is that you're trying to expose my identity to a large group of highschoolers. Do you realize how much trouble that could cause me, Y/N? I mean-"

"Shut up-" you interrupt harshly. "You know my name?"

"What? No, I, uh-"

"You just said my name."

"It was a wild guess!"

"The fuck do you mean a wild guess?! Do you go to Midtown?"

Even the mask can't hide his panic. Holy shit.

"Look: exposing me would literally ruin my life. I need you to shut this down. All of it."

"I would if I could," you say, exasperatedly. "I don't know whether you go to my school or you somehow stalked me and found my name, but: I'm a reporter for the Midtown Tech daily morning announcements. I made a promise to my classmates that, given the craze about you, I'd try and discover your identity. It blew up, way more than I expected. I have the weight of the world on my shoulders now; I can't give this up! Everyday, at least one person comes up to me and asks about you."

"You do realize that, by exposing me, you'd cause more trouble than by just letting it go?"

You're silent for a moment. He's right.

"I'll figure something out."

+ + +

"Yesterday, when I approached him yesterday, Spider-Man swung us onto another rooftop for another private discussion, in which he answered more questions."

Lying stung you like a bitch. Off the record, you remember.

"The hero claims that he's working on becoming an Avenger, training with the current members so that he can be on the team. Unfortunately, that's all he was able to tell me last evening, as he claimed he had something to do and swung away."

You sigh when the red light turns off, slipping out of your chair and over to where MJ sat. You grabbed your bag and began walking away.

"Was all of that true?" she asks as she follows you out. You nod. "You sure? Because something was off about it."

"It's all true, MJ, I'm just tired."

Peter's face was scrunched up, confused as he watched you on the screen, explaining about Spider-Man's supposed plans to join the Avengers. And then it clicked.

You were actually helping him.

After everything that'd happened, he'd half expected you to just full out expose him. To take your assumptions and spill them all over the school, telling everyone that Spider-Man was a student at Midtown Tech who knew your name. Peter hated how good at correctly assuming you were.

Thankfully, though, everyone bought it.

"Yo, did you hear that?"

"Hmm?" the boy hums, raising his eyebrows and looking over at Ned.

"Spider-Man's going to be an Avenger!"

"Yeah, that's, uh, that's really cool," Peter smiles, trying to match Ned's optimism. The smile drops slightly when he sees you walk past.

+ + +

You found a loophole. Upon reading all the comments on your Spider-Man link from announcements, you decided to start interviewing random students to get the content you needed.

All throughout lunch, you'd been pulling kids aside- Cindy, Liz, Betty, Flash. A sigh falls from your mouth as Flash walks away (with a bit too much pride for having just gushed about the hero), and you look around the cafeteria for more people.

You meet eyes with Peter Parker.

"Peter," you call, waving him over.

He mutters a word May wouldn't approve of, patting Ned on the back before trying to mentally crush his anxiety. He begins to sweat.

"Can I interview you for my segment on the morning announcements?"

All he does is give you a slight smile and nods. You knew Peter was quiet, but you'd think he'd be a bit less cold.

"So, Peter, have any guesses as to who Spider-Man may be?"

He was trapped. The boy stood in front of you, silent, mouth slightly ajar.

"Peter?"

"I don't know," he blurts. You freeze.

"What was that?"

He trips over his words. "Oh, uh, nothing, I didn't-"

"Holy shit," you whisper. You could've been making a complete fool of yourself acting so dumbstruck, but you'd be damned if you didn't just crack the code.

"Y/N, I-"

"So, Peter," you clear your throat, giving him a look. "Who do you think it is?"

"Flash."

An ungodly-sounding laugh bubbles out of your chest, causing him to laugh too. The two of you share a knowing look.

"Thank you for your response."

+ + +

You hated the dark. It always made you paranoid. And, while the lights from all the stores and streetlamps helped, it wasn't the same as daylight. Anything could happen in New York.

You also hated how right you were about that.

You were on your way back from doing some brainstorming about how you'd continue the segment at Delmar's when you heard a rustle in the bushes. While it was your stereotypical horror movie sound, it still creeped you out. You couldn't out-walk it, though. A pair of hands wrapped around your body and began pulling you backwards.

Shit.

A loud yelp elicits from your mouth before a hand wraps around it too, and you try to wriggle out of the strong grasp. You manage to get a hand free, wrapping it around their wrist and twisting it off of your face before spinning around, meeting a dark pair of eyes underneath a generic "robber" mask.

"HELP," you yell, kneeing the guy in his crotch, finally freeing yourself as he falls to the ground. You'd never run so fast. The sound of footsteps behind you gets closer, but stops with the sound of hard impact and a groan. You stop and turn around.

Spider-Man is there, giving the guy a final punch in the jaw before webbing him to the wall and backing up, pressing a few buttons on his suit before looking up at you.

"How predictable and cliche," you sigh, rubbing your arm.

The sound of sirens begins wailing in the distance.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I think so-"

"Here," he says, wrapping an arm around you and pulling you to a rooftop, coincidentally, the one belonging to your apartment building.

"You sure have a knack for swinging me onto rooftops, don't you?"

"There's never anyone on them, so," he shrugs. You smile slightly- his voice masker is off. You were right.

You walk over to the edge, sitting down and dangling your legs over the edge. He joins you.

"Hey, um, if you could maybe not-"

"Don't worry, Peter. I won't," you say, looking over at him reassuringly. He sighs.

"Guess I can take this off now."

You watch as he pulls off the mask, taking a deep breath and shaking out his curls. You don't let yourself stare and instead just smile, looking down beneath the two of you.

"That's my apartment," you point down, slightly to the right at the fire escape.

He looks up at you in surprise and the wind gets knocked out of you. You'd never seen Peter Parker the way you did right now. He'd always been this mellow kid, yeah, cute, but sort of... in the background. A nerd (but that wasn't a bad thing). Now, though, he was in his element. The moon hitting him just right, his curls messy from his mask. He wasn't afraid of being judged because nobody was around, and he was wearing a suit that made him who he always wanted to be: a hero.

"No way! My apartment is literally right across from yours!" he says, excitement and facial expressions reminding you of a puppy. He pointed his window out, and sure enough, it was just about right across from yours as far as you could tell.

You don't know what to say, so you just smile instead, letting a little laugh out.

"So, uh," you breathe, "I'm not sure exactly what I'm gonna do about the whole Spider-Man's Secrets thing, but I won't expose you."

"Thank you," Peter sighs, voice accompanied with relief and a crooked smile.

"Maybe I can tell everyone that you're just too good. Like, you've got titanium walls all around you."

"Heh, yeah."

He looks over at you and smiles.

+ + +

EPILOGUE - NOTE:: some of the details of this may not make complete sense, nor line up with the plot of the movie in which this takes place. the point still gets across, so please don't make any rude comments lol- i did the best i could!

"I managed to send the Elemental back into the dimensional rift, but I don't think I'm gonna make it off this bridge alive. Spider-Man attacked me for some reason. He has an army of weaponized drones, Stark technology. He's saying he's the only one who's gonna be the new Iron Man, no one else."

"What the fuck?" you mutter. Peter would never say that.

You gasp at the video. Sure enough, Peter's standing there, confirming a fatal drone attack. Screams ring off in the distance and you practically choke.

"There you have it, folks. Conclusive proof that Spider-Man was responsible for the brutal murder of Mysterio!"

You sneer at the screen, the sight of J.J. Jameson making you angry. That man always got angry over the smallest things. You get on your phone to text Peter but stop. More footage from Mysterio begins playing.

"Spider-Man's real... Spider-Man's real name is... Spider-Man's name is Peter Parker," he chokes out.

You jump as Peter's school picture fills your TV screen.

"Holy fucking shit," you mutter, heart racing.

This is not right.

+ + +

He didn't answer you at all. None of your texts, none of your calls. Hell, you almost went over to his apartment, but you didn't remember his new address, since he and May moved after the Blip.

The two of you had become extremely close ever since you'd found out his identity, hanging out whenever you could. It was beyond unlike him to not answer you.

You sprinted into the news room. It was less than 24 hours after Peter had been exposed, and he was everywhere. Social media, news stations; hell, his picture was all over Times Square. And everything they were saying was all wrong.

"Mr. Harrington!"

The man spins around, startled.

"Oh! Good morning, Y/N-"

"I need you to start taping right now. Abe! You know how to hack, right? Broadcast this all over Times Square and every news station you can," you pant. The kid sits up in his seat, brushing Pop Tart crumbs off of his jeans and nodding with a smile.

"What is this all about?" Mr. Harrington asks as he moves over to the camera, cautious.

"You'll see."

You sigh as you sit in your seat, looking over at Abe. It takes a minute, but as soon as he gives a thumbs up, Mr. Harrington hits record.

"Hi. My name is Y/N L/N, and I am a student of Midtown School of Science and Technology, as well as a reporter for our daily announcements and an affiliate of Peter Parker. As I'm sure you all know, it was reported yesterday by the Daily Bugle that Spider-Man's secret identity is a boy named Peter Parker, and that Spider-Man is a so-called 'selfish murderer.' Well, I'm here to tell you that none of this is true. I know, I'm just a highschooler, but having to write several research papers for this school has taught me how to provide a statement with legitimate backup. That's what I'm here to do today.

"Mysterio, who's real name is Quentin Beck, was introduced to the world as a hero, fighting off creatures called Elementals that wrecked havoc throughout Europe. When one of these Elementals reached London, the footage shown yesterday was of Spider-Man and Mysterio on the London Bridge amidst chaos. Not only was that video altered to turn the blame on Spider-Man, but a creature called a Skrull is actually Spider-Man. Upon speaking with the head of SHIELD, I was given information on these creatures- they can shapeshift into whatever they want to be, as long as they've seen the organism before.

"Now, how do I know all this? One: after doing some light research on Quentin Beck, I discovered that he'd been fired from Stark industries in the past for his controlling and manipulative behavior. That'd explain his reasoning and desire for power. Two: upon asking a classmate of mine- who's an absolute prodigy in the field of computer technology and video- to review the given footage, they were able to find two small glitches in the footage that revealed the real video underneath, and further, unmask it completely. Abe, the video should be in your inbox. Pull it up and broadcast it, please."

You let out a deep sigh as you hear typing, then the sound of the real video.

"EDITH, turn off the drones."

The video clip finishes and the camera focus returns to you. "Now, I don't have complete proof on me about the identity claim I've made. But, as soon as the head of SHIELD gets back to me, I can prove it. What you do have confirmed, though, is that Mysterio was the problem. Spider-Man did nothing, other than do what was best for the safety of others. I have all the evidence lined up for you, and it's up to you to believe it. A message for you, Mysterio- if you're still alive- and your affiliates: don't mess with kids from Midtown Tech. We know what Spider-Man stands for, and so does the rest of the world. Trying to mess up his reputation from the grave doesn't help anyone. Sincerely, Y/N L/N and the students of Midtown Tech. As well as Peter Parker, who feels pretty attacked right now for no good reason. Have a great day!"

You smile into the camera before Mr. Harrington turns it off. You hadn't noticed them come in, but everyone on the news team had come into the room, all of them silent, dumbstruck. And then they started clapping.

You give them a tired nod and grin before grabbing your bag, saying hi to MJ and walking out. Thankfully, school hadn't started yet, but students were starting to arrive. You enter the bathroom and stare into the mirror, hoping you didn't just fuck everything up even more.

Your phone buzzes and Peter's contact picture (one of him in Hello Kitty pajamas, sticking his tongue out at the camera) fills your screen. You hurriedly answer.

"Peter! Where are you? Are you okay?"

"Janitors closet, 300 hall. Knock when you're here."

Butterflies flutter through your body as you run through the hallway, ignoring the weird looks from the couple that always shows up early to makeout against the lockers. You find the closet and knock, looking around to make sure nobody could see. The door opens and a hand wraps around your wrist, dragging you inside.

You gasp, balancing yourself, and Peter shuts the door behind you.

His appearance surprises you. He's the face of depression and hopelessness. Dark bags fill the space beneath his eyes, which are red from tears. The look makes you hate the world.

"Are you okay?"

"I am now," he breathes. "the news is buzzing about what you did. They got confirmation from Nick about what you said and, sure enough, every news station is broadcasting your claims with full evidence. Everyone's believing it and apologizing. Thank you."

You smile weakly and wrap your arms around him. "I did what I had to do."

"I don't know what I'd do without you," he mutters into the crook of your neck. The scent of your perfume makes him feel all tingly inside, the softness of your skin making him never want to stop holding you. You felt the same way.

"Ditto."

+ + +

akdjxfbavdgkjnwrjk i hope you guys enjoyed !!!!! tbh i'm not sure how to feel about this imagine lol

#peter parker #tom holland #peter parker imagines #marvel #mcu #spiderman #peter parker x reader #spiderman x reader #fanfic #fluff #writing #peter #parker #thomas holland

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