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azuisreading · 3 months

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Fated Tides: A Metaphysical Love Story by Sarah Faeth Sanders

Zander Sutton never believed he could have the adventure he dreamed of—until one day, when a strangely familiar pirate captain dropped into his life, and adventure found him. Following the inexplicable call of his heart, Zander leaves his life as the village tanner behind and chases the mysterious pirate captain across the sea, just as he has chased her in countless lives before. Fated Tides follows the story of Zander and Ace through more lives than one as they search for each other across time and space. In this epic reincarnation romance, Zander and Ace are joined by first mates Theo and Yarrow and a loveable crew of misfits on a journey of romance, love, and danger on the high seas. As Zander discovers strength he never knew he had in his life as a pirate, the secrets of his soulmate’s past threaten to destroy their earthly bond. Fated Tides is the second installment in the Metaphysical Love Stories series, a series of reincarnation romance novels with interconnected storylines that can each be read as standalone novels.

Review

Roughly two years ago, the first book of A Metaphysical Love Story series, Soulmates, came into my life. It was fun, an angsty, but incredibly beautiful story, a modern-age introduction to a love that spans lifetimes. The only thing missing for me there to enjoy it to the fullest was my own soulmate. Because, even the most tender, happy moments, made me sad. They were together, always fighting to find each other; I was alone. Not anymore, at least for now.

Having the opportunity to enjoy the second installment (which, by the way, in no case you need to read them in a particular order, they work as great as standalones) as part of Sarah Faeth Sanders’ ARC team was a joy I can’t describe into words. It was my pleasure, and will continue being so, when stories like this one are the ones warming me from the inside.

Did you know that Fated Tides came to life because of the big uproar we, the fans, had with one of the glimpses from their previous lives shown in Soulmates? When they were pirates. Who would want to miss a piracy tale full of adventures, sea battles, always life-threatening encounters, and, of course, love? Certainly not me. I was oh-so-hyped when I was told this book was going to be about that. I don’t even know why I love pirates that much, but I don’t mind even a little bit.

And what I found between those pages? Much more than what I could have imagined. Much more than everything I expected. Fated Tides is my favorite book so far, but it wouldn’t have had its opportunity without Soulmates. Those pirate tales you heard so much everywhere? It’s a lot better. And the crew of The Valerian? Mostly, really decent.

Not only A and Z, the protagonists of the first two books, also T and Y, my beloveds since the first one. I ate everything there was about them. But I guess just the soulmate mark, the fact that they’re always together or in their midst to be together in each and every lifetime, is enough to get me. Love stories are my Achilles heel, even more if they have all these components.

And this time… This time I was able to enjoy every tiny bit to the fullest because I have the best company on my side, letting me feel and fueling all the love Sarah is gifting us with her words. Because, mate, we’re made of love, to love, and for love. And the best part is that it doesn’t even need to be romantic.

If you don’t feel like these words resonate with you just yet, don’t worry. Love is in the way. If not in this life, in the next. I believe the universe is forever expanding because of love, and for that alone you’re granted to have it, just because you live within. So, bear it a bit more, please. I swear it will all be worth it.

If you do have it already, take great care of it. And never, never, let it go.

Phrases that I liked so much that I marked them while reading

«As he falls, a sense of impending loss fills Z that makes him reach out, grasping for his soulmate. A mass of souls rushing toward the earth blind him, obscuring her brilliance. She reaches back, the tendrils of her being barely brushing up against him, pushing inconsequentially against the incredible force that propels them. But she continues to reach, desperate to draw him near, to touch him one more time. Stay with me, she calls to him. He wishes to call back, to tell her he wouldn’t dream of leaving, but in an instant, she is lost. His cries of protest burn away as he is ignited, consumed by a fire meant to reduce him, leaving but a kernel that will grow into a man.» — Prologue.

«“I tried to go home,” he continued. “But… I just had this awful feeling about walking away from you. Like I was walking toward nothing… and away from everything.”» — 1.

«“I’m with you,” he said. “Where are we going?” “Everywhere.”» — 1.

«So, he kept mainly to the crew, hoping to learn all he could before he made a lovesick fool of himself in front of her.» — 2.

«“How long have you and Yarrow known each other?” Zander asked Theo. “I stopped keeping track long ago, mate,” Theo replied. “The day I met Yarrow, my life began. Time hasn’t had much meaning since then.” He paused to drink again and then met Zander’s eyes. “I was young, though, I’ll tell you that. Young and stupid.”» — 2.

«Theo’s arms had been moving animatedly as he told the story. They settled now over his heart, as if he had to still its rapid beating all over again simply thinking about the first time he saw his other half. “Their eyes met mine for only a moment, but it was long enough for my entire body—my entire being—to lock on to theirs. It was over for me then, mate. “’Parles-tu français?’ they asked the man. And when it was clear neither him nor his friends understood them, Yarrow began speaking rapidly in French, waving their arms, crying, occasionally screaming nonsensical words.” Theo chuckled. “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, mate. ‘What the fuck do you pompous elephants think you’re doing here?’ they said. ‘Your stinking perfume can be smelt from the docks; it overpowers the fish.’ And then, without looking at me, they said, ‘I hope my friend here understands French, because if not, this distraction will be for nothing.’ And all the while, they chattered hysterically. “Thankfully, I’d picked up several languages in my young life. It’s a valuable skill to have in a port town, especially when you’ve got nothing but your wits to feed you. As I listened, Yarrow gave me step by step instructions about what would happen next and which direction to run when it did—calm and controlled, just like the Yarrow you see here on the ship. But all the while, they shrieked and screamed and cried enough that all four men surrounding me couldn’t make heads or tails of what was going on. And in the midst of the confusion, they struck.” Theo had a gleam in his eye now, and his hands were again waving in the air as if he were regaling Zander with the tale of Achilles at the gates of Troy. “Yarrow’s blade came from nowhere, and before I could so much as blink, two of the men were on the ground, clutching at their wounds. Another was unconscious by the time I started running. I’ve never run so fast. But soon I stopped, and something churned in my gut as I thought about my rescuer. I couldn’t just leave them there. I wasn’t much with a blade back then, but I was cunning, and strong. So, I turned back, but as I twisted around, I nearly ran straight into them. “It took my breath away, mate. There they stood, not a single scratch or bit of dirt on them, and in their outstretched hand was the gold I tried to steal. ‘I believe this is yours,’ they said.” Theo did a perfect impression of Yarrow’s subtle French accent, a contrast to his Chilean one. “We’ve been by each other’s sides ever since.”» — 2.

«It confused him, the effect she had on him. It made him feel crazy. They barely knew each other, yet Zander spent an unsustainable amount of energy each day consciously trying not to fall mindlessly at her feet in worship, and thereupon be thrown overboard. He was crazy… wasn’t he? For he dared not trust his eyes, which thought they had caught hers glancing his way each night as the crew shared a meal. He dared not trust his ears, which registered the slightest tension in her voice when he approached. He dared not trust his heart, for he did not know what lay within hers.» — 2.

«Once, he was a scoundrel. Frivolity was his namesake, debauchery his legacy, and a life lived fast, hard, and reckless was his only goal. He sped toward death as fast as his feet would take him, moving from place to place, the very picture of a man on the hunt. He chased the next dollar, he chased the next scheme, he chased the next warm bed—at least that’s how it appeared to anyone else. The truth is, not even he knew what it was he chased. But a desperation ran beneath his skin, a fire that grew too hot if he stayed in one place too long. He moved, flitting from one place to the next, always searching. Though he knew it not, he was searching for her.» — Scoundrel.

«The opening turned sharply into a path, which led to a tiny room containing a single cage sitting on the floor. And in the cage was a fairy. She was pulling desperately at the tiny chain attached to her leg, wincing with every movement. She startled when he approached, dropping the chain and dragging herself across the floor of her cage to the far side. It was then he realized her chained leg was limp and bloodied, broken either by her captors or her desperate attempts to wrench herself free. The faint glow of her skin in the darkness illuminated tiny, sharp features. They scowled at him beneath a mop of bright green hair that matched her eyes, and those eyes shot daggers at him despite her helplessness. And suddenly the fire burning beneath his skin died, the itch in his feet diminished, and he felt rooted to the ground for the first time in his life. He wasn’t here for treasure or schemes, he realized. He was here for her.» — Scoundrel.

«Something deep inside him sighed happily as the ire left her eyes.» — Scoundrel.

«His head had been filled with ideas of how he would spend his treasure when he escaped. But now, the images of fine clothes and rich food were quickly replaced by the image of a ship, and a small cabin in the woods, far enough away that no one would ever find him—or her. He would take care of her, at least until she was healed. And afterward, if she wished to leave him… he shook his head. Inexplicably, the thought caused him pain. He would cross that bridge when it came.» — Scoundrel.

«Zander knew it wasn’t only the impending raid that was causing his hands to shake. It was an unfortunate side effect of being within spitting distance of the beautiful pirate captain.» — 3.

«When he turned toward Ace, she was looking at him—assessing him—with a small frown. She was standing so close and looking at him so openly, he couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. He stood there, allowing her to look, hoping what she found would be satisfactory.» — 3.

«He wasn’t embarrassed by naivety, but he would surely be embarrassed by cowardice.» — 3.

«His companions—the supposed bloodthirsty pirates—looked remarkably similar to kids in a candy shop as they made to search the ship for loot. Kids with guns, and knives.» — 3.

«Zander did as he was told and stuck with Yarrow, which meant he was with Theo, too—the two of them never strayed outside of one another’s sight during the raid.» — 3.

«Zander dared to look at Ace then. A quiet laugh escaped her when Jan fell. From where he stood, her profile was thrown into stark relief from a nearby lantern, the brilliant night sky a barely-worthy background to her full lips and rounded cheeks. Zander struggled to look away, suddenly painfully aware of a sense of longing he’d never felt before.» — 3.

«“But the longer a story is told, the more truth it often loses.”» — 3.

«“So you didn’t chase down my boat in hopes of fame and fortune?” Zander shook his head, looking into his cup. “What were you chasing, then?” He looked up at her, daring to meet her eyes again, and it was like a door opened, suddenly and inexplicably. The words were falling from his mouth before his brain could reign them in. “I was chasing you,” he said softly. A tender look flashed across Ace’s features, and he wondered if she was thinking about the kiss they shared on the island. A kiss so perfect, so life changing, Zander no longer knew how he fit into the world if he wasn’t near her. Which is why he’d jumped into the ocean.» — 3.

«Zander doubted he had any business being on a pirate ship. He had no clue if such a life was for him—if this adventure was his own, or one he’d borrowed, like a child wearing their parents’ clothes. But when he looked at her, a small voice whispered from deep inside him. This is where you belong.» — 3.

«Zander almost scoffed at the idea. In the face of the whirlwind that had been the last two weeks, everything else in his life paled in comparison. He felt as if he’d been wandering aimlessly for 26 years. Now here he sat, looking into the face of his very own North Star. And rather than being blinded, he felt like he could see for the first time.» — 3.

«“All I left behind in Barbados was a shack full of tanning tools and my favorite shoes.” “Oh no,” Ace said, chuckling. “Not your favorite shoes.” “The very ones,” Zander teased, nodding somberly.» — 3.

«“Honestly, I think they were somewhat relieved to see me leave England.” “Quite lucky for us, I’d say,” Ace said, smiling gently at him. Zander simply smiled back, thinking he was most certainly the lucky one.» — 3.

«“I was born Alexander, but I didn’t know it until I was sixteen. Everyone always called me ‘Zander’, or ‘Z’ for short.” Ace scoffed. “You didn’t know your own name until you were sixteen?” Zander nodded, smiling. “No one ever had need of my real name before then. […] To my siblings, I was Z. To my mother, Darling. To my father, Boy. That is, until the day my apprenticeship started, and my father brought me a document to sign with the name ‘Alexander’ printed on it. When I told him he’d printed my name wrong, he looked at me as if I’d lost my head.” Ace threw back her head and laughed, prompting Zander to laugh as well. He’d never really considered how funny it was.» — 3.

«He made an effort as she spoke to keep his expression composed, lest he start grinning like a maniac.» — 3.

«“And what is a pirate, exactly?” “A pirate can be many things,” she said. “A villain. A deviant. A treasure hunter. But in the end, a pirate is just someone who doesn’t fit. They don’t fit into the roles others make for them, the expectations—whether it’s their family, or their friends, or goddamned high society. Take this group, for instance.” Ace gestured toward the main deck. “Most of us don’t want to be rich. We aren’t looking for fame or fortune, and we certainly aren’t out for blood. We just want to be… free.”» — 3.

«“I live for no man. And I’ll die for none.”» — 3.

«Ace threw her head back and laughed, the full, boisterous sound filling his head like the most wonderful music and making him smile.» — 4.

«With every conversation they had, each one deeper, richer, more irreverent than the last, Zander felt a slight weight shed from his mind, like he’d been born with shackles he didn’t know existed—until he found her, and her crew of pirates.» — 4.

«When Zander inquired as to when he and Ace would cross blades, Ace simply chuckled and said he wasn’t ready for her.» — 4.

«It would take around five days to sail to Bermuda, then another two weeks to sail from Bermuda to Azores, a small chain of islands in the middle of the ocean whose relative isolation on the map gave Zander a jolt of anxiety. He peeled his eyes away from the tiny dots on the map to look at Ace, whose face showed nothing but level-headed confidence. She met his eyes and smiled, and the rest of his anxiety melted away.» — 4.

«Zander was ready to march through the gates of hell and back if that’s where Ace and the crew were going.» — 4.

«For some reason, she still didn’t trust that he wanted this—that he wanted her.» — 4.

«What came next had Zander struggling to remember how to breathe. Ace’s voice filling his body like a siren call, and he wanted nothing more than to jump into her ocean and swim there forever.» — 4.

«The truth is I knew he held me But held no love inside We gave it our all for happiness’ sake Lord knows, lord knows, we tried» — 4.

«Zander’s breaths came quicker, and the tips of his fingers tingled, but not from anxiety. It was more like a compulsion, a desire to move, to do something. It spread through his body like a phantom, begging him to close the distance between them, wrap her in his arms, hold her tightly against him for the rest of his life.» — 4.

«Her mouth turned up at Zander’s bashful smile, but rather than lower his hand, he reached forward and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Perhaps I can get two or three songs a year out of you, too,” he said quietly. Ace’s eyes shone, and she nodded. “Aye, you can.”» — 4.

«And so the two went on like this, bringing each other gifts, conversing in languages neither could understand, and playing upon the waves of air and water that made each of their homes in a synchronized dance, until the waves no longer brought her to his shore.» — Raven.

«“Are you scared of small spaces?” she asked. Zander considered this. He’d been crammed into many small spaces as one of eight children in a small house, and though he couldn’t say they were his favorite things, he’d follow this woman into the mouth of a volcano if she asked him to.» — 5.

«“I’m right here.” I’m right here.» — 5.

«“Follow me. Okay?” she finally said. “Yes,” Zander said. Always. Anywhere. Yes.» — 5.

«He held her against him like she was the only thing rooting him to the earth. She was water, and he was dying of thirst. She was air, and he’d nearly suffocated these past 26 years.» — 5.

«Two months’ worth of tension poured into their kiss, along with eons and ages of love. Their bodies pushed against one another as if their souls could touch, desperate to connect like they had in so many lives before.» — 5.

«He swallowed her moans like they were ambrosia.» — 5.

«What good luck he had, to have fallen in love with such a sly pirate.» — 5.

«date with clear meaning, yet so profoundly meaningless.» — No one.

«“ever since I got here, you’ve been deviating significantly from your programming. Soon people will think you’re allergic to me or something.” “I cannot have allergies,” he explained gently. “I have no biological components.” The woman laughed—a light, airy sound. “It’s just a joke,” she said.» — No one.

«“I feel as if…”—he leaned in, his voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper—“I feel as if… I am.”» — No one.

«”Wait here, Z-423,” she said. “I’ll be right back.” He nodded, straightening. “You will come back?” “Yes,” she said, her expression thoughtful. “I promise.” “Then I will wait.”» — No one.

«Zander was pulled briefly out of his existential crisis at the sight of her.» — 7.

«What would he kill for now? Survival? Yes. He’d certainly kill to save himself from death. Ace? Fuck yes. The surety with which he knew he would kill for her actually scared him a little in its intensity. Theo? Yarrow? Yes, and yes. They’d acted like family toward him. They were family, a fact he’d known deep in his bones since the moment he met them.» — 7.

«Hell be damned. No God worth his salt would make creatures with such a great capacity for love without expecting some violence.» — 7.

«Perhaps he was playing at being a pirate, he thought. Perhaps this wasn’t his adventure at all. But that no longer bothered him, because it was hers.» — 7.

«If his choice was to live alone, each day tedious and predictable, or to sit on the sidelines and watch the woman he loved be the main character in her own adventure, he would choose the latter. Even if death beckoned at every turn.» — 7.

«Everyone was eager to spend time on land, and to spend the considerable sum of gold they’d recently acquired. Zander heard all sorts of plans from the men about what they would do. Some envisioned fine tailored clothes and good food. Others daydreamed about brothels and endless cups of wine. Zander dreamed of nothing but Ace.» — 8.

«As he gazed at her now, her feet up and her eyes focused on the book in her hands, he imagined how luxurious it would feel to have her to himself, no matter how briefly.» — 8.

«“What happened to them?” “It was a fire,” she said quietly. “They both died in a fire, and within weeks of their deaths I’d run off and become a pirate.” Zander leaned in so he could kiss Ace’s temple, then her cheek. “Quite lucky for me you did,” he said softly, squeezing her hand.» — 8.

«It was the most noise Zander had heard in months, and it filled every corner of his head. Good, he thought. He planned on being very loud tonight.» — 8.

«He lowered her to the bed, his body covering hers, and she tangled her hands in his hair, pulling hard. He moaned. Pulling his hair was something she did when she wanted more, when she didn’t have the patience to wait. He wouldn’t make her wait.» — 8.

«“I was wondering what it would be like if I met you in London, when I was younger. But the image didn’t fit. It was like imagining the ocean resting comfortably in a glass jar.”» — 8.

«He wanted to go back to her.» — 9.

«“Stay with me,” Zander said. “Stay right by me, okay?” He couldn’t bear the thought of dying without her nearby. Ace nodded, her eyes filling with tears. “I’ll stay with you,” she said, her voice breaking.» — 9.

«But as he approached her, he struggled to find anything familiar about her face. The draw to her came from the inside, as if his very soul tugged him toward her, recognizing something he couldn’t see. Indeed, it did.» — Alzheimer.

«From the corner of his eye, he noticed a nurse shaking her head. Her beehive hairdo trembled slightly as she shot him a sad look, like she knew he was wasting his time. Irritated with the look, he persisted, shifting his weight slightly so he was directly in the woman’s line of sight. “Hello there,” he tried again, giving her fingers a gentle squeeze. Her eyes focused then, blinking several times as she took him in. He knew that look of dawning recognition. He’d seen it many times before. He was not, however, prepared for the smile that slowly lit up her features, like a candle melting in reverse. Every inch of her face lifted, brightened, like she was coming back from the dead.» — Alzheimer.

«Her eyes met his with an intensity and longing that shocked him, and as her body softened, her hand brushing along his shoulder in a familiar way, he was filled with a sudden warmth. “Oh, how I’ve missed you,” she whispered. And then she retreated within herself, her eyes clouding over and losing focus, her shoulders hunching slightly, her feet becoming unsteady. As he braced her against him to prevent her from falling, he resisted the urge to shake her. A baffling desperation overcame him. He wanted her to come back. He couldn’t explain why, but he needed her to come back.» — Alzheimer.

«He stood there, his arms limp at his sides, and watched helplessly as she took his soulmate away.» — Alzheimer.

«Zander recoiled at the idea, an unfamiliar rage kindling in his belly at the thought of being left behind—of leaving Ace behind.» — 11.

«Zander had a hard time imagining Ace being flattered. The idea of attempting something like flattery in her presence intimidated even him. Then again, she’d been young.» — 11.

«“Her hair was flattened on her head with all these tiny fucking… needles.” Theo pinched his fingers together in the air to demonstrate their miniscule size, his face twisted in frustration at the phantom needles. “They were pins, dear,” Yarrow said. “They were teeny, tiny torture devices,” Theo said adamantly. “You should have heard the noises she made when I helped her take them out, mate. It took ages. I felt like I was torturing the poor thing.”» — 11.

«Zander now knew two things for sure. One—he knew where Ace was, or at least where she was headed. And two—he knew he would do anything to get her back, even if he had to defy God himself, before whom Ace had been married. He had jumped into the sea to chase her once. Now he’d jump right into the jaws of a monster to find her again.» — 11.

«“We’ll find her,” he whispered to the compass. She was his North Star. He had to find her.» — 12.

«He said a silent prayer of thanks that so much was left behind. Ace’s money, a few jewels, even some clothing had all been taken. But the important things—the things Ace truly loved—had been left behind, discarded as trash. Zander spent the next hour carefully collecting Ace’s treasures and putting them back in their places.» — 12.

«“I’m okay,” Zander said, shaking his head. “You warned me.” “I did,” Yarrow agreed.» — 13.

«Yarrow stood automatically at the sound of Theo’s cry, earning a punch to the head from a large man with wild blonde curls. Zander stifled the urge to scream as Yarrow’s body fell limp to the ground, unconscious. He saw a flash of panic in Theo’s eyes as he watched his lover fall, but he showed no other reaction as the men marched him away.» — 13.

«And when she laid in bed at night and cried, wondering where her true love was, wondering why he hadn’t saved her, he tried to call out to her from the space between worlds. I’m here, he would say. I’m right here. Hold on.» — In between.

«But one day, when her body was weary and old, he found the barrier between them growing thinner. It thinned until he could push his way through, reaching across to take her hand. And then he saved her. When she awoke on the other side, she found the love she’d always dreamed of, waiting.» — In between.

«Once, he spotted Yarrow slipping a flask from the pocket of the red-haired pirate who took Ace’s cutlass, clearly pushing their luck now. He caught their eyes, his brows furrowing in a manner that said, Really? Do we need that? They simply smiled back at him.» — 15.

«But if there’s one thing that’s true about Z, it is the power of his persistence. This would not be the first nor the last time he surprised himself with his tendency to find a way when there seemed to be none.» — 15.

«He would make this ship turn around, and he would find Ace, or he would die.» — 15.

«He hit the water feet first, his body straightening into an arrow on instinct as he fell (he did a lot of falling into the water his first month on The Valerian).» — 15.

«And then he heard it. A small voice, whispering in a language he didn’t know, a sound he heard more with his chest than his ears. Time seemed to slow as the water whispered to him, wrapping around his heart in a familiar tug. He knew then that Ace was alive, as sure as he knew the sky was blue. And he was going to find her.» — 15.

«“Mate!” Theo exclaimed, and the excitement in his voice made Zander pause for a moment to smile at him.» — 16.

«He wouldn’t sleep until he found her if that’s what it took.» — 16.

«Theo was wiping his hands on a piece of cloth when they emerged. Blood stained the rag, but there were no wounds on Theo’s hands—the blood was someone else’s. “Trouble?” Zander asked, looking pointedly at the rag. Theo shook his head. “Just taking care of a problem.” One of Yarrow’s eyebrows shot up. “He wasn’t exactly a problem. He was asleep.” “He punched you and knocked you unconscious, my heart. Him continuing to breathe was a problem.”» — 16.

«He was only completely sure of one thing as the ship barreled toward the shore—he was going to find Ace again if it killed him. But you and I both know that even death can’t interrupt this particular love story.» — 16.

«Then, like a vision from the pages of a storybook, Yarrow crouched, balancing on the balls of their feet, before jumping up and grabbing the reins of the horse Theo led beside his own, swinging themselves expertly into the saddle. The whole thing happened in a matter of moments, and Yarrow was spurring the horse forward before it even had time to slow down. The three pirates rode past the open gate at a furious pace, veering North, away from the ocean. Zander looked back to see the pirates chasing them reach the edge of the fence surrounding the stable. They drew their weapons, but before they could shoot, Theo had turned himself around in his saddle. With the calm focus of a man standing at a shooting range rather than riding backward on a stolen horse, Theo drew the pistols from his vest one by one, ringing out seven shots in the direction of the pirates. One by one, seven pirates fell to the ground. Theo shot until they were out of range, whereupon he holstered his pistols and turned himself back around on the horse like a trained acrobat. Zander marveled at him. His mouth hung open slightly as he beheld his two remarkable friends, riding proudly side by side against the glorious backdrop of rolling Spanish hills, like two gods among men. Theo, fully aware of the aesthetic appeal of he and his partner’s many talents, looked sidelong at Zander and winked.» — 17.

«Yarrow began removing various herbs and flowers from their pockets, then got to work on their satchel, from which a veritable abundance of green things were produced. Zander had no idea how they fit so much in that little bag.» — 18.

«When they didn’t go on, he made an impatient gesture with his hands. “Well, go on. You can’t just casually mention some underground society and not tell me more.” Yarrow chuckled and continued scrubbing at the roots.» — 18.

«“I wanted to spread my wings, to apply my new skills elsewhere. There was something else out there, something calling to me. I could feel it in my bones.” “What was it?” Zander asked. Yarrow looked up and smiled. “It was Theo.”» — 18.

«Zander winked, his crooked smile a welcome sight to Theo and Yarrow, who’d traded several silent glances during their journey pertaining to Zander’s well-being. Alas, the two of them had watched him pull himself apart many times in the pursuit of his soulmate, in many different lives, though they didn’t remember that now. Still, on top of the deep worry they felt over Ace’s well-being, they shared a growing dread that should they fail to save her, Zander would unravel yet again.» — 18.

«“I thought you’d only been there once?” Zander asked, looking at Yarrow in disbelief. Yarrow looked at him as if the question was completely irrelevant. “I have.” Zander looked at Theo, who shrugged as if he was used to Yarrow memorizing the exact layout of every place they’d ever been to.» — 18.

«Once, he was a hunter. And she was not only his prey—she was the bane of his existence.» — Hunter.

«But for years, every good tip brought them to her doorstep only for the trail to suddenly go cold, like she disappeared into thin air as soon as they entered the planet’s atmosphere.» — Hunter.

«But it was more than that. It was like some invisible force connected them, pulling them across the universe behind her.» — Hunter.

«He didn’t know who he was without her.» — Hunter.

«“And then the two of you can go to Lfthos Market and spare me the trouble.” “You mean spare you the embarrassment,” Yuna said. Zed pushed them playfully as he walked by, ruffling their hair in mock anger.» — Hunter.

«He was finally going to catch her. Then what? said a small voice in the back of his mind.» — Hunter.

«“One explosion means everything is going according to plan,” Yarrow had said. “Two explosions means I had to improvise.”» — 20.

«Theo finished his food and sighed contentedly, wiping his hands together to free them of crumbs. He looked at Yarrow and Zander, who were gazing silently and seriously into the fire, a pair of statues. In contrast, Theo could barely sit still. He repositioned himself a few times, first leaning back on his elbows, then hunched forward with his legs folded. He made little noises with his mouth. He drummed his hands on his knees. He tossed bits of grass into the fire, then poked at them with a stick as they burned. Finally, he shot to his feet and held his hand out to Yarrow. Yarrow looked at him, an eyebrow raised. “I can’t take the silence anymore,” Theo said. “I’ll die of boredom before we rescue Ace. Dance with me, my fortune.” Yarrow smiled, but their expression was dubious. “You want me to dance with you?” they said. “Now?” Theo’s smile widened, and he nodded. “There is no music,” Yarrow observed. In response, Theo reached down and took Yarrow’s hand in his, pulling them up gently. “Oh, there isn’t yet,” he said. “Theo,” Yarrow groaned. “This is not the time for serenades.” “I disagree, my heart,” Theo said, pulling Yarrow close to him and kissing them tenderly on the nose. “We are on the precipice of a great battle.” Theo put his hand on Yarrow’s hip and turned them around gracefully. “We will march to war in mere hours, risking life and limb to save our friend, our captain.” He carefully dipped Yarrow, and their left foot popped up gracefully as their head tilted back, a reluctant smile on their face. Theo gazed into their eyes. “And here I am, still in love with you. There has never been a better time for a serenade.”» — 20.

«“Be safe, my love,” Yarrow whispered. “I am never safe,” Theo answered. “But I will return to you whole.”» — 21.

«Eventually, they emerged into blinding day at the top of the temple. There was nowhere else to run. She’s mine now. But she didn’t stop. She ran across the open roof toward the sacrificial platform. Would she jump? It would make his job easier if she did, but the thought disturbed him for some reason, and he choked back a cry of fear.» — Hunter 2.

«He felt his hand drop a fraction of an inch, as if gravity itself was begging him to put the gun down.» — Hunter 2.

«They kissed like the meaning of life lay just beyond one another’s lips, like they’d been starved for each other far longer than five days.» — 22.

«“All I had to do was say, ‘No.’ All those years ago, I could have prevented all of this if I’d just said, ‘No. I won’t have you.’”» — 22.

«“A monster dropped into your life. You were very young. You did what you thought was right, and it didn’t work, but not because you were wrong. It didn’t work because he played by his own rules, rules someone as good and kind as you would never have considered to be in play. And yes, you ran, as many perfectly good and sane people would do after such a trauma.”» — 22.

«“Don’t fucking move,” Zander growled, shifting the blade for emphasis. “Unless she tells you to.” As he spoke, Ace rose from the ground like a wrathful spirit. Her cutlass dragged along the ground as she moved. He removed his dagger from Ignacio’s throat and stepped aside, holding his head aloft like a gift. “My lady,” he said.» — 23.

«Finally, she looked up at Zander and gave him a wry smile. “My lady?” she said. Zander chuckled. “It sounded quite dashing in my head.” Ace’s smile widened. “It was dashing,” she said.» — 23.

«As they approached the horses, Ace reached out and touched Zander’s arm, stopping him. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for coming to save me.” Zander smiled. “There isn’t a force in the world that could have stopped me.”» — 23.

«as he followed Ace up a set of tiled stairs toward their room, he ruminated on the depths of his love for the wild, mysterious, tenderhearted pirate captain who had barreled into his life one day out of the blue.» — 24.

«It was a love that wrenched open the deepest parts of him, a love that made him feel vast and seen, a love that had no room for anything but bold-faced authenticity—a love that spanned lifetimes.» — 24.

«And he knew if he found out she didn’t feel the same, it would shatter him beyond repair.» — 24.

«When he fished a handful of gold coins from his pocket and dropped them on the table, followed by another, her eyes widened. “Where did you get those?” she asked. Zander took off his coat, winking at her as he did. “I stole them,” he said. Ace’s eyes narrowed mischievously, her grin widening. “Pirate,” she said. She sauntered toward him. “Oh, you have no idea,” Zander said. “Not only did I steal those coins”—he removed his twin daggers from his boots and placed them on the table—“I commandeered an entire pirate ship, killed a quarter of the men on board, and ran it aground.” A mixture of emotions flitted across Ace’s face. At first, humor, when she thought he was joking. Then, shock, tenderness, and admiration. “Scoundrel,” she said, her voice filled with lust and pride as she closed the distance between them. “Aye,” he agreed, his voice rough with emotion as Ace gripped the front of his shirt and pulled him toward her.» — 24.

«Ace made a soft sound against his lips, and he nearly came undone.» — 24.

«“I love you, Ace. Do you know that?” Ace nodded, a tentative smile forming on her face. “I mean, I really love you,” Zander clarified. “Like, run away and become a pirate kind of love. Like lay down my life kind of love.” Zander’s voice broke, and he took a moment to breathe deeply before continuing. “Before you knocked me unconscious with the handle of that cutlass”—he pointed accusingly at the cutlass in question, still hanging from her hip, and she grimaced—“you said you loved me, too. And before you say anything, hear me out. From the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew you were the only one for me. Something deep inside my soul reached through bone, muscle, and sinew, pushing through every layer of who I thought I was and bursting from my body just for a chance to touch you. That feeling hasn’t gone away. “The air I breathe feels stale when you’re not sharing it. The last few days have been torture, knowing you’re in trouble, knowing you could be hurt, or dead. Ace, I want to spend every moment with you for the rest of my life. I want to fall asleep with you each night and wake up with you each morning. I want to know everything, all of it, even the deep, shameful parts of you. Little by little or all at once like a flood, I’ll take whatever you can give me, and I’ll give you whatever you want in return.” Zander steeled himself for the next part, trying not to let the tears running down Ace’s pretty face discourage him. “But I would rather die than be another man who keeps you when you don’t want to be kept. I want to know—I need to know. I need to know if you feel the same about me. I need to know if you see us as something that could last forever, or if I’ve just been convenient to have around.” Ace gasped softly, her face taking on a pained expression. “Convenient?” she whispered, taking a step toward him. “Zander. You have been anything but convenient.” Zander’s brows shot up, but Ace raised her hands in a silent plea for patience before she continued. “Before I docked in Barbados the day I met you, I had committed myself to never, ever falling in love. It was a way to keep myself safe. I had Theo and Yarrow—my family—and the crew, and that was enough for me. But then you showed up, and god damnit if you didn’t mess everything all up by chasing me down when I ran away.” She laughed, a sputtering sound through her tears. “And you know, if you hadn’t chased me, it would have only been a matter of time before I came back and found you again. You were stuck in my mind like a splinter.” Ace took another step toward him, so they were nearly touching. She took his hand and intertwined their fingers, holding their hands between them near their hearts, and looked boldly into his eyes. “I bless the fated tides that brought me to your shore. If I could, I would kiss the very stars for guiding me to you, my love, my Zander. I’m sorry I haven’t said it before. In every life I will find you. No matter how far I may travel, no matter the winds that push me this way or that, know this- I have always been on my way to you. And now that I’ve found you… and you’ve found me”—she smiled ironically—“I am never letting you go again.”» — 24.

«“Now, with that out of the way,” he said, narrowing his eyes, “where were we?” “Right here,” Ace said, gripping his erection over his pants and gently squeezing. A sound escaped Zander’s mouth that was something between a moan and a surprised squeal not befitting a pirate of his caliber. As he leaned forward to capture her mouth with his, Ace leaned back teasingly so that all he could do was groan into her mouth as she continued to caress him.» — 24.

«“Wait.” “God, not again,” Ace said. “What?”» — 24.

«“I kept it in a glass bottle that once held perfume—smelly, awful stuff Ignacio tried to get me to wear.” She shuddered at the thought, and Zander leaned in to smell her natural musk appreciatively, making her smile.» — 24.

«“You are clever as you are brave, my love,” Zander said, pulling her closer.» — 24.

«Ace placed her hand on top of Zander’s, and their eyes met. As Theo and Yarrow continued to laugh, peppering each other with kisses, Ace and Zander simply stared at each other. The world narrowed, for each of them, to one blaringly bright and beautiful point. Two souls—one hopelessly wandering, the other running for her life—yet they’d somehow met in the middle and become each other’s solid ground in which to grow roots. Their lives until that point had been but a series of fractal paths leading ever inward, toward each other. “Tomorrow,” Zander echoed, squeezing Ace’s hand in a promise. “And the next day, and the day after that,” Ace said. Forever.» — 24.

«He instinctively reached his hand out and touched the other side of the bed, but found it empty. Then he heard it. A voice, mingling with the still, small voice of the water with which he’d become so familiar. Her voice. He walked to the deck of the ship in a haze, sweat soaking through his clothes, his fever raging. The water was still, and the moon hung high in the sky. He followed her voice to the forecastle and peered out onto the water. And there she was, like his own personal siren. She was standing on the water, her hand stretched out, inviting him. Sighing contentedly, he smiled at the apparition. “I’m with you,” he said, and stepped off the edge into the arms of the ocean below. And they lived happily ever after—again, and again, and again.» — Epilogue.

#fated tides #a metaphysical love story #sarah faeth sanders #book blog #booklover #book review #review #reading

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crossover-enthusiast · 5 months

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It may seem strange that in spite of the continual anxiety occasioned me by the rivalry of Wilson, and his intolerable spirit of contradiction, I could not bring myself to hate him altogether. We had, to be sure, nearly every day a quarrel, in which, yielding me publicly the palm of victory, he, in some manner, contrived to make me feel that it was he who had deserved it; yet a sense of pride upon my part, and a veritable dignity upon his own, kept us always upon what are called "speaking terms," while there were many points of strong congeniality in our tempers, operating to awake in me a sentiment which our position alone, perhaps, prevented from ripening into friendship. It is difficult, indeed, to define, or even to describe, my real feelings towards him. They formed a heterogeneous mixture -- some petulant animosity, which was not yet hatred, some esteem, more respect, much fear, with a world of uneasy curiosity. It will scarcely be necessary to say, in addition, that Wilson and myself were the most inseparable of companions.

It was no doubt the anomalous state of affairs existing between us which turned all my attacks upon him, (and they were many, either open or covert) into the channel of banter or practical joke (giving pain while assuming the aspect of mere fun) rather than into that of a more serious and determined hostility. But my endeavors on this head were by no means uniformly successful, even when my plans were the most wittily concocted; for my namesake had much about him, in character, of that unassuming and quiet austerity which, while enjoying the poignancy of its own jokes, has no heel of Achilles in itself, and absolutely refuses to be laughed at. I could find, indeed, but one vulnerable point, and that, lying in a personal peculiarity, arising, perhaps, from constitutional disease, would have been spared by any antagonist less at his wit's end than myself; -- my rival had a weakness in the faucial or guttural organs, which precluded him from raising his voice at any time above a very low whisper. Of this defect I did not fail to take what poor advantage lay in my power.

Wilson's retaliations in kind were many, and there was one form of his practical wit that disturbed me beyond measure. How his sagacity first discovered at all that so petty a thing would vex me is a question I never could solve; but, having discovered, he habitually practised the annoyance. I had always felt aversion to my uncourtly patronymic, and its very common, if not plebeian praenomen. The words were venom in my ears; and when, upon the day of my arrival, a second William Wilson came also to the academy, I felt angry with him for bearing the name, and doubly disgusted with the name because a stranger bore it, who would be the cause of its twofold repetition, who would be constantly in my presence, and whose concerns, in the ordinary routine of the school business, must, inevitably, on account of the detestable coincidence, be often confounded with my own.

(Stopping so ya can read)

plebeian mention

#Sunny Tag

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sunspray-peak · 1 year

Text

Ch. 23: A Bombardment in Generosity

SUMMER 15-19

Achilles knew word spread fast through the Valley, but even so, he hadn’t expected to receive this much attention this fast. Small town hospitality… And of course, it couldn’t have been under more embarrassing circumstances, he thought, huddled like a sad little waif against the mound of pillows he’d constructed to soften his headboard. Nevertheless, despite both his protests and his shame, the townsfolk didn’t blink twice in their bombardment of generosity.

His first visitor had been the most surprising—M. Rasmodius himself had sauntered through not the front door, but the fireplace, with no warning. Of course, an early morning visit from the wizard was better than sending Achilles sprawling down that black tunnel, especially in his current condition…

“I had heard you were weak and vulnerable,” Rasmodius rumbled from the foot of the bed.

“‘Weak’ and ‘vulnerable’ aren’t precisely the words I’d use—”

“—I had felt a disturbance in the air yesterday afternoon, and rushed over as soon as I could. I apologize. I should have been here sooner, and I would have, had I not been in the middle of a force battle on the Astral Plane.”

“…right…”

The Wizard began to pace, one ring-bedecked finger tapping his purple goatee-d chin. “It seems other, more, shall we say, malicious spirits are becoming aware of your presence in the Valley and possibly seeing you as a threat. Tell me, what triggered this? It is unusual for someone of your inconsequential caliber—”

“—right—”

“—to have attracted their attention without your own visit to the Astral Plane. Tell me, boy, how have they found you?”

“Found me? I don’t know what you mean—”

Rasmodius pivoted on his heels and threw his hands theatrically in the air with an impatient tut. “The disturbance in the air—the doctor informed me that you had visions yesterday.”

“No, I was just hallucinating. I had a fever, this has happened all my life—”

“Bah!” Heavy bootsteps stalked over to the side of Achilles’ bed and a finger was shoved into his face. “Those were not mere hallucinations caused by your sad, sickly state. No, in your fragile condition, your mind was more susceptible. It must have drifted through to the Astral Plane while you were dreaming—as can happen for those with the gift—and attracted attention of the most abhorrent kind. No, you bore witness to spirits! The question is… why. As I said, it is most unusual for your mind to wander on its own to the Astral Plane without having been guided there previously, and even more unusual to have attracted so much malicious attention from those that have never smelled your scent before. You had told me your dealings with the arcane were minimal. Were you a liar?”

Now that was just too many words for Achilles’ clouded, sickly mind to comprehend. But if he knew one thing—he wasn’t a liar.

“Now how dare you—hell if I should know what—wait.”

M. Rasmodius perked up with an aggressive lift of his head.

“There was a day…” Achilles grimaced. “I… had stopped by your tower, actually, was hoping to talk to you about something, and you weren’t there…”

He told the Wizard about that strange, smoke-filled summer day when time had passed at startling speed. Rasmodius reacted little, listening intently, waiting only until Achilles had finished the story before clucking like a chastising mother hen.

“You should not have disturbed me without an invitation—I was doing important work in the Astral Plane myself the day, and due to my prodigious power, your puny mind must’ve been swept up alongside mine. The spirits must have become aware of your presence then, and now that they’ve gotten a taste for you, they’ll be able to track your scent much easier. You’ll have to be on your guard, now. You must never visit the Astral Plane again.”

“Can’t be too hard, I don’t know how I did it this last time.”

“Dreams, Achilles, your dreams! Your abilities gift you an above average aptitude for traveling between the Planes and communicating with spirits—it is why you are capable of communicating with the junimos. But now that you have been in the Astral Plane twice, it will become easier and easier for you to slip through at night without proper training. If you do so again, you will have to fight back.”

“Fight back? How the hell am I to do that?”

“It is a battle of the mind… To be frank, I’m rather impressed you were able to withstand yesterday’s assault so well. It requires quite a bit of focus.”

“Well… what can I say, I’m good at focusing…”

The Wizard clucked again and then walked him through a few, very basic meditative exercises that were also supposedly to help him keep his mind grounded in the Physical Plane at night.

“Now, I suppose those fellows may have had a hand in your triumph over those malicious spirits, as well.” He turned and nodded at the latest trio of junimos resting in the corner. “Remarkable, their attachment towards you…

“You must listen to me. These malicious spirits—they are dangerous. They can corrupt your mind and your thoughts and your desires if you let them in. You must be vigilant. I myself have been more concerned than usual lately… they have seem extra agitated these past few weeks, and I haven’t yet found the answer why—”

But as Rasmodius spoke, he seemed to come to a sudden realization. A shadow crossed his face as he cut his own words off and straightened himself up. “We made a deal…” he hissed under his breath, moustache twitching as his gaze rested on an empty patch of air to Achilles’ right.

After a beat punctuated by low, angry mutters and a deeply furrowed brow, he turned back again to Achilles with a new glare in his eyes. “You. You keep your nose out of the Astral Plane and spirit affairs, hear me? No matter who comes knocking, you stay out. The consequences are grave if you don’t.” And he promptly disappeared in a puff of lavender smoke.

*****

Leah had been his first lifesaver, dropping by shortly after the Wizard with a tea from Pierre’s, plus a bevy of essential oils, candles, and homemade bath bombs.

Alex had waltzed in after lunch without either knocking (as, Achilles would quickly realize, most of the townsfolk were apt to do when a door was unlocked) or announcing himself, but Achilles thought he recognized his footsteps and the jangle of Dusty’s collar.

Lo and behold, a minute or so later, it was indeed Alex who peeked his head around the corner of Achilles’ bedroom before fully stepping remorsefully into frame. Even Dusty’s tail was in between his legs.

“I’m so sorry, I should’ve taken you to Harvey’s straight away—”

“No, no.” Achilles rushed to lift himself up to a more dignified position against his headboard and took a sip from the tea. “Let’s just agree to blame Harvey for taking so damn long to answer the door, shall we? Seriously, what was the man doing…”

“Grandpa got pneumonia last year and we got him one of these.” Alex gave the humidifier he had dragged in a smack and set it by the window before heading for the bathroom sink with a cup. “Figured you could get some use out of it this week.”

“You should keep an eye on yourself, could’ve passed it on to you.”

“Nah—Grandma and I both got vaccinated after that happened, so hey, I’m on top of the world. Let me know if there’s anything we can do to help. Harvey says you gotta rest up!”

Did doctor patient confidentiality not exist in the Valley?

Alex returned from the bathroom, humidifier now adequately humidified, and plugged the machine in. “Glad you’ll be forced to take your ‘Summer of Rest and Relaxation slash Recreation” seriously now—I had originally just said ‘relaxation,’ by the way. I have to ask though… ’Be hot, do crime? Nice post-it notes.’”

Achilles made a mental note to get Robin to add a guest bathroom.

*****

Emily and Gus could be counted upon to drop off two hearty meals per day, leaving Abigail to take the mantle every morning of delivering breakfast, his usual tea, and, apparently as a bonus, the latest town gossip.

“Folks are saying you talked Shane off a cliff,” she said, perched at the end of his bed, a little too closely to Achilles’ cough attack radius, with absolutely no concern for herself. “Whatever you told him, it must be working. He hasn’t purchased any beer from us the past two days, and, like, even going one day without a purchase is a big deal for him. Just Joja cola and sparkling water. Good for you!”

“Good for Shane, really, it’s not easy…”

He blew his nose, a gross, honking noise, into an already slimy tissue. What a contrast they were—James had been right at Alex’s party, Achilles couldn’t help but notice. Abigail was looking good—strong, healthy, toned. Except—

“Everything okay? What happened there?” Achilles gestured vaguely in the direction of her cheek, where a thin but long cut had begun to scab.

She waved his concerns aside, and in fact made a point to crawl even closer to Achilles, her knees parallel to his own on top the covers, to better show him additional scrapes, cuts, and purple bruises scattered across her arms and legs.

“Nah, I’m all good. You want to see a really gnarly thing…” She rolled her shirt up slightly to reveal what seemed to be a four inch long burn. “You know… just been exploring the woods and thangs, there’s some pretty crazy stuff out there!

“You should join me again some time—once you’re all rested up, of course, because right now, no offense, you look terrible, I’m surprised you can even, like, walk to the bathroom. I mean, you are walking to the bathroom, right, like you’re not wearing an adult diaper—”

“I can walk to the bathroom, Abigail.”

“Speaking of which, you need any help with those bags of mulch sitting by the entrance? Happy to carry them over to the flower beds if you need…”

*****

Even Lewis had stopped by, waltzing in through the door that Achilles figured he should probably get around to locking now. He took it upon himself to move the various half-finished (the drugs had made it difficult for Achilles to focus; a blessing in disguise, for for the first time in his life, he had seemed content to do… nothing) crossword books on Achilles’ nightstand aside to make space for an edible arrangement that was 90% honeydew.

Oh dear lord…

The mayor took a moment to look around the bedroom—his face was impassive, but Lewis’ eyes lingered a bit too long on the very bare walls. Zero photographs, no paintings, no potted plants. In fact, the only piece of decor outside of the full length mirror was a vase of flowers that Maru and Sebastian had dropped off the other day and a plush bok choy Achilles had been gifted years ago that he occasionally used as a neck rest.

After scrutinizing the place, Lewis, like Abigail, took a seat on Achilles’ bed. Gross.

“How are things, Achilles? It is, of course, my duty and honor to check in on Stardew Valley’s finest members of the community!”

Lewis leaned over to pat Achilles’ hand. Even grosser. He had to fight the urge to wipe it.

“I’m glad to see you’re doing better—I thought I would let you know the first order of books you placed for the museum library has been delivered. Gunther and I are incredibly grateful for your generosity. I was curious, perhaps, if you were interested in potentially sponsoring a renovation for Pelican Park as well?”

*****

Elliott, loyal friend that he was (and unemployed friend that he was), made sure to stop by every day to help clean and declutter. Get well soon cards and take out boxes were scattered about the bedroom, and as much as Achilles loved Gus’ fish tacos, the containers did typically start to smell after half a day.

He also made sure to bring Achilles some reading material. After Rasmodius’ visit, Achilles had been more eager than ever to learn about the history of spirits in Stardew, but had failed to find much online. Unfortunately, Elliott was at an equal loss.

“Nothing in the museum here, nothing in the libraries in Moonmist or Zuzu, either! Not even a footnote! It is most mysterious… but I have found you some general materials on the arcane, if you were interested…”

He might as well—he hadn’t much better to do while lying in bed, though the aforementioned materials turned out to be nothing he hadn’t already learned in school. Then again, there was nothing wrong with a little review…

“…first is the Physical, the plane with which we humans are most familiar and call home; then comes the Spirit Plane, in which spirits of all classifications reside after the Spirit Wars; and finally, there is the Astral Plane, also known as the Border Plane. Arguably the most vital of the three, the Astral Plane houses the Elemental Walls, which serve as both bridges and barriers between the planes. It is these Walls, constructed in the aftermath of the Spirit Wars and the destruction of the Portals, that prevent everyone but the most powerful individuals, man and spirit, from traveling freely amongst the three planes…”

Portals? That wasn’t something they had ever been taught in school. He’d have to add it to the list…

*****

Achilles was enjoying the eucalyptus scented steam of Leah’s labor, when a pitch perfect, hummed rendition of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor announced today’s Elliott Visit.

“In the bath,” he shouted thickly through the phlegm still in his throat. Nasty, though he’d take it over Lewis sitting on his bed any day. He glanced at the post-it notes still stuck to his mirror—unlike Alex, Elliott surely wouldn’t roast him for them… probably wouldn’t even notice…

Elliott appeared in the doorway, a bag of donuts and two teas in his hands.

“Good morning, my friend,” he said, taking a hurried seat on the toilet without invitation. “Young Abigail asked me to drop these off in her stead. She sends her condolences, but she is currently occupied with matters of the most importance! I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“Well…” Achilles glanced at the bubbles he had been herding to form a rather impressive bubble beard, and scooted himself up slightly to get a better look at Elliott’s perpetually eager face. “No, of course not. Just taking a bath.”

With a thick “thanks very much,” he took one of the cups gingerly from Elliott, wiping his wet fingers on the towel hanging nearby.

Elliott repositioned his long legs, crossing them as he scooted around the toilet seat.

Achilles waited for Elliott to speak—the man always wore his emotions melodramatically on his sleeve and was clearly here for more than the usual chat. The only trouble was, the anguish that was so clearly brewing behind his hazel eyes could be explained by quite a number of factors of varying urgency. Even the little things were big things when it came to Elliott.

Achilles took a little sip. He wasn’t usually a chai man, but the lavender chai wasn’t bad, not bad at all…

“Achilles, I must confess… I also came here for advice.”

No surprises there. “Oh, for sure, what’s up?”

“But if you are feeling too ill…”

“No, no, not at all. I’ve been feeling a lot better.”

Elliott nodded, savoring Achilles’ consent.

“Friend to friend, writer to writer… I need your advice on overcoming writer’s block.”

Achilles frowned, just slightly. Damn. Back to writing advice, huh? Although, to be fair, Achilles wasn’t quite sure what other advice Elliott would be so desperate to seek from him. But writer’s block? Achilles had a unique relationship with that little pest of a condition.

“I’ll be honest, I’m not sure if I’m the right person to ask—”

“I must confess, I have been at my wit’s end—my inspiration has dwindled. I sat at my desk for hours and hours yesterday, but scarcely wrote 1000 words. I tried to blame the tourists at first, but even after I replanted myself in Cindersap—still, nothing! What comes next? You’ve written a wealth of novels, my friend, you must have had some experience! You must understand how much I respect you, both as an author and as a friend!”

“‘Wealth of novels’ is pretty generous, they were third grade chapter books—“

“Anything, anything you can share. I have simply been in such an insurmountable rut for the past week—“

“Wait, hold the phone,” Achilles said, pulling himself up again (he had been slowly descending back into the blanket of bubbles). “This has been going on… for a week? You’ve had writer’s block, for a week?”

“Yes, a true tragedy —“

“Elliott… actually, let’s talk on the porch, I can’t sufficiently yell at you from down here.”

*****

Fifteen minutes later, he met Elliott on the porch steps, dressed in some fleecy blue pajama pants with “Joja” written on the side (a holiday gift from the corporation during his BRLO days that, no matter how much he wanted to burn, were just too cozy) and a robe.

He took a donut from the bag and took a seat.

“Elliot,” he began after a swallow. “A week is nothing. Stop stressing over the book, go for a walk—go for a swim, you live right there. Take a break, you’ll be back in business in no time.”

“Is that what you did? Take a break?”

A hiss of air escaped from Achilles’ lips. “Ah, well you see…”

“A ha!”

“No, it’s not what you think—ok, first, I just want to reiterate that being stuck for a week should barely constitute as writer’s block.

“And second, if I’m honest, I… never really had writer’s block, at least, not when I was writing Henry Spector. I know that’s incredibly annoying to hear, but I don’t know. Like sure, I’d have a week or so where I wouldn’t write, but it was never anything sustained. But, to be fair, I mean, they were also just silly little middle school books, not like, literature literature, not what you’re writing…”

He looked over at Elliott, whose long face was still utterly despondent as he sorrowfully munched a donut of his own.

Achilles sighed. “Ok, I’ll give you two pieces of advice.”

Immediately, the forlorn writer looked up from his donut, a renewed earnestness glimmering in his eyes. “Yes! I will take anything, my friend.”

“Some of my old writer friends did genuinely benefit from taking breaks. Sometimes it was a day, sometimes it was a month—they’d just go out and do something completely unrelated to writing. The key was giving themselves enough time to really ‘step out,’ per se, of their writer brain, and just let themselves forget about their work. I don’t know, perhaps that’s worth exploring for you. Why don’t you… go on a camping trip with Leah or something? I’m not saying it’s going to solve the problem, but it could be nice to even just get out for a week. Take the time to learn more about yourself beyond your writing—let yourself be more than a writer. Take some time to let go, to detach and live in the real world.”

To Achilles, the advice seemed rather banal, but Elliott seemed to be taking a methodical minute to soak it in, nodding slowly as he rolled the suggestion around in his head.

“And did you find this tactic of use? Even during those week or so’s you wouldn’t write? Stepping away? Distracting yourself?”

Achilles snorted, licking some donut powder off his fingers. “I mean, no. I never tried that little tactic out, I never had writer’s block long enough to warrant it, really. But it does bring me to my second piece of advice, I suppose—to be clear, I truly think everybody has different solutions. Some people just need that distraction. Other people just need to force themselves to keep putting words on the page, hoping they’ll uncover something worthy, and knowing they’ll just edit out all the unnecessary shit later. I guess I fell more into the second bucket.”

“But inspiration—“

“Inspiration is great. I get that—when you find some idea, a character, whatever, that you just can’t stop thinking about, that you have to put on the page—great. Some people are just capable of reaching inside themselves and drawing from whatever pain, or unearth whatever story, that’s begging to be let out. But writing can have its honeymoon period too, when you’re far enough in that the glamor is gone and you realize that it’s a job like any other. How I see it, you can’t depend on inspiration just coming to you. Sometimes you have to find it yourself. Or, shall I say, make it yourself. Put your nose to the grind or whatever the phrase is, explore a million avenues, even if they’re all terrible, to eventually mine and commit to what’s actually worthy in the heap of trash you threw on to the page.”

Once again, Elliott took a silent minute to thoroughly process Achilles’ rather basic advice. His follow-up question this time, however, Achilles found unpleasantly unexpected.

“If that’s what worked for you, if I may ask, why did you quit writing? I suppose I always assumed you simply had a exceedingly long bout of writer’s block.”

“Ah…”

Donut long eaten, Achilles was forced to gnaw on the lid of his cup of tea as he debated how exactly to answer the question. Would he even answer it?

“It wasn’t writer’s block that made me stop writing. I still had some ideas for… things. Ideas were never really the problem.

“I know I said I didn’t really get writer’s block, and that wasn’t a lie. But Apparition was still a pain in my ass to write. I was passionate about the story, but the actual writing of it all—the literal pen to paper—it just didn’t come as organically. I don’t know if that’s because I just wasn’t… a strong enough writer for adult literature or what, or if a part of me just legitimately didn’t want to write anymore. But, you know, I was too far into it to let myself quit and just made myself see it through. I mean it ended up being a load of shit, so, moral of the story is, take all my advice with a grain of salt…

“My problems with being a writer were more about the why, I guess, instead of the what. Especially after Apparition, I just… it became clear I wasn’t getting what I wanted out of writing anymore. I didn’t really see a future there, and eventually just… stopped wanting to do it.”

After a long beat, Elliott looked over to Achilles.“Maybe I will… take a break… take your suggestion. Would you be interested in camping with me?”

“Me? I don’t know if Harvey would be OK with that, he told me to take it easy for the next few weeks… why not ask Leah?” Achilles eyed him closely for a reaction.

Elliott frowned—such a small sad, but innocent little frown, a tiny tilt of his lips, his brow just the slightest bit furrowed.

“I fear a camping trip would be too suggestive. I wouldn’t want to make her uncomfortable.”

“If I get the OK from Harvey, we could all go together. So it’ll be clear it’s just as friends. How does that sound?”

A sunrise dawned on Elliott’s face as he clasped Achilles’ hands. “How blessed I am to have such a generous friend! That sounds like a splendid idea—I’ll talk to Leah this week! We’ll stay close—we could drive to Sunspray, they have some wonderful camping grounds, and some exceedingly gentle hikes. How is early next week, my friend?”

“Sounds great to me. Always easy when none of us have real 9-5 jobs.” Achille couldn’t help but drily add the second sentence. He still wasn’t sure how Elliott even afforded food; luau leftovers only carried you so far.

“Splendid, splendid. Thank you, my dear friend, for your offer and your pearls of wisdom. Please, if there’s every anything I can assist you with, you know I am but a mere 40 minute walk away.”

“You want to help me by taking this edible arrangement off my hands?”

“Oh—I couldn’t.”

“Don’t be polite, I’m allergic to honeydew.”

“Oh, well in that case…”

*****

Shane appeared the very last day of Achilles’ five day prescribed bed rest. Marnie and Jas had stopped by earlier in the week to drop off some sugar cookies (which Achilles had promptly given to Elliott—he hadn’t much of a sweet tooth to begin with, and Evelyn’s vanilla and snickerdoodle were far superior anyway) and Abigail, of course, brought the occasional tidbit of information, but by and large, Shane himself had stayed away. Until Friday evening.

Unlike most everyone else, this visit began with a knock at the door. Achilles, who, contrary to Abigail’s observations, was capable of walking about, if slowly, opened it to see Shane, eyes glued to the ground per usual, a plastic bag in his hands.

“Hey. Come on in.” Achilles waved him inside, but Shane shook his head.

“Just wanted to drop these off.” He handed the bag over to Achilles. A cursory glance revealed two frozen pizzas, a 6 pack of lemon flavored sparkling water, and a very random assortment of paperbacks likely nicked from the shelf at Joja.

“Oh, sure. Thanks.” Achilles dug out Pleasures of the Pirate King which featured a scantily clad woman being held at cutlass-point by an equally scantily clad pirate. “They really have these on the shelf of that grocery store? Like, in plain view and everything? Fuck, I should tell BRLO, we were advertising the wrong shit…”

Shane didn’t laugh.

“Also wanted to let you know I’ve been… doing better.”

Achilles dropped the second erotic paperback back into the bag and looked up, forgetting Shane wasn’t making eye contact anyway. “Oh. That’s… I’m glad to hear that.”

“The therapist is good. I’ve cut back on the beers some… Joja still sucks but can’t fix everything right away, right?” Shane attempted a smile.

“Hey, you’re taking steps, and that’s important. I’m glad you’re getting help.” Yoba, had these words felt this hollow to say for his friends back in the day?

“Yeah…”

Shane shifted his weight, his Joja cap pulled taught between his fingers—they were already looking less red, the joints less swollen.

“Well… that was it. Have a good night.”

*****

After dinner, Achilles had planned to spend the evening reading A Scandal in Baccharia (Sherlock Holmes with a twist? Nope. The title had betrayed him, he should have judged the contents by the lusty white-robed and laurel-crowned figures on the cover instead), but found Shane’s visit, in combination with Elliott’s hunt for writing advice, had instead spurred an overdue trip down memory lane. Especially now that the brain-fogging antivirals were more or less out of his system, Achilles found himself able to sustain a thought uninterrupted for the first time since Alex’s birthday party.

The thought unfortunately happened to be in regards to the steamy synopsis and “Ferngill Times Bestseller!” badge scrawled on the back of Unmasking the Merman—although rather than turning him on, it had only made him vaguely uncomfortable. And then it made him anxious. This was the sort of book he was sharing accolades with, huh?

He had been honest with Elliott, but it hadn’t been the whole truth. He could’ve shared more, but the full details were too embarrassing. Immature, really, his overblown reaction to the whole affair that would ultimately end in the conclusion of his writing career.

On paper, it had started with—who else? That damn Eddie Bloomsbury—but the writing had been on the wall the moment a part of Achilles decided he’d write for his pride rather than for his heart. A small distinction, but a significant one. He had bound his definition of success to the judgement of others. And, of course, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, what Achilles had always wanted more than anything else in this world was well-deserved success and notoriety, and so it shouldn’t have been surprising that the association of his name with any hint of “failure” (as he had been apt to describe it) had, like Shane’s, resulted in his own (coincidentally also very wet) crisis of sorts, as well as a two year venture into therapy. He’d driven himself mad and had subsequently never known a day’s peace since.

If he were in the same position today, he likely would’ve reacted differently. He was older. Wiser. More mature. But still too stubborn. And he had since moved on.

But to what? Strangely enough, his week battling pneumonia had calmed his anxiety. It had given his brain a simple task, but a task all the same: rest. And now that that was pretty much over, was he not right back where he was seven years ago? Just one season ago? No plans, no goals.

This was supposed to be his Summer of rest and relaxation. Well, he had had plenty of rest… surely it was time he got himself together. Was this all not just another form of writer’s block? Was life block a thing? He simply had to keep exploring, keep trying, keep plowing forward…

#llnks #sunspraypeak #stardew valley fic #stardew valley fanfic #stardew fanfic #stardew valley alex #stardew valley oc #stardew alex #stardew farmer #sdv oc #sdv fic #sdv farmer

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abimess · 2 years

Text

Blurb Collection: Red (Taylor’s Version) #01 - State Of Grace

Wanda Maximoff x Reader

Summary: Wanda and Y/n talk about their feelings

Pronouns: not used || Warnings: none

Hi, guys! I've been thinking about writing something for Red (Taylor's Version) and so I decided to make a Blurb Collection (inspired by the Blurb Collection my talented friend @randomshyperson is starting, you should definitely check it out) and this will be the first one. I hope you enjoy it!

You do NOT have permission to repost or translate my work on any platforms (even with credit)

Masterlist | Library Blog (Read on: Wattpad)

───── ⋅ ✮ ⋅ ─────

Today is a quiet day. One of the days when you and Wanda have some free time to yourselves, away from the other Avengers and the chaos that the job brings.

You both lie on your bed in silence, basking in each other's presence, your hand entwined with hers between your bodies. Out of the corner of your eyes, you see Wanda's gaze fixed on the ceiling, barely blinking.

"What's going on in that beautiful mind of yours?" You ask as you turn sideways to look at her, your index finger meeting the frowning space between her eyebrows and she lets out a low chuckle. Wanda shakes her head then.

"Life is so strange." The brunette says after a while, her eyes still fixed on the wall. "Everything happens so fast, hectic. Busy streets, busy lives... Next thing you know, a year has passed and a million things have happened." She rambles on and you remain silent, giving her the freedom to air her thoughts.

"I've had my heart broken so many times. So many times that I promised I wouldn't let anyone else in, for fear of getting hurt again." She speaks ruefully, her face contorting in sadness, and takes a deep breath, remembering all the things she has been through. You just wish you could ease her pain somehow.

Wanda turns over in bed as well, facing you, and you offer her a small reassuring smile. She smiles back. "But then you come around and the armor falls." She continues, her hand coming up to caress your cheek. "I never saw you coming and now you're my Achilles heel."

"Yeah, I get what you mean." You agree, your heart warm inside your chest at the sincere words and the caress on your skin. "Life has never been easy, for either of us." You continue, and Wanda nods, also knowing all the traumas your past brings you.

"But we learn to live with the pain," you say hopefully "mosaic broken hearts." You add humorously and Wanda lets out a soft chuckle, nodding afterwards. You bring your hand to the brunette's waist, drawing gentle circles there.

"I'm just glad you came into my life. You've changed me completely, for the better." You confess, and seeing Wanda's cheeks take on an intense shade of pink makes your heart beat even harder for her. "I never saw you coming and I'll never be the same."

A wide smile makes its way to Wanda's lips at the confidence and the brunette leans forward, capturing your lips on hers. You sigh against the kiss, your body immediately relaxing.

"I love you, Y/n." She whispers as the kiss ends, her forehead resting against yours, and you smile. It's not possible that happiness like this exists, a true state of grace.

"I love you too, Wanda."

───── ⋅ ✮ ⋅ ─────

And that's it for today! I hope you enjoyed it, thoughts and comments are always welcome ツ

Blurb Collection || #02 - Red

Taglist: @yuhloversxx @madamevirgo @an-evergreen-rose @helloalycia @wandas1mp @cantcontroltheirfear @diaryoflife @cristin-rjd @ensorcellme @aimezvousbrahms @natasha-danvers @purplemeetsblue @randomshyperson @peggycarter-steverogers @b0mbdotc0m @ethereal-pxradise @stephanieromanoff @tomy5girls @gingerbreadcookieforlife @imapotatao @musicinourlips @xxxtwilightaxelxxx @allfiguredout @olsensnpm @magicallymaximoff @nothing-isimpossible @mionemymind @itsmionet @xastrydx @sxfwap @nicole-rayleigh-hot @wellsayhelloaagin @midnight-lestrange @1-800-depressedlesbian @b-5by5 @blackwow34 @nervoustrack @somewhatgreatexpectations @yeetus-thyself @chelleztjs18 @franfineashell @mrromanoff (if you wanna be tagged check the form on my BIO)

#wanda maximoff x reader #Blurb Collection #Red (Taylor’s Version)#Spotify

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kiritella · 3 years

Text

Stunt Double

Pairings: Bucky x Reader

Words: 4.6 k

Request: (@tom-hlover) Bucky X non avenger shy reader where reader is a new lab assistant and was a stuntwoman before and never stated it in her resume and surprised the team when she got in action when they were attacked in the tower. For the reader, if possible, introvert, short hair, the type who does not initiate conversations with strangers but when needed can speak in front of people (for presentations) and when you get to know the reader, she is quite bubbly and is comfortable in being weird?

Warnings: mentions of blood, shooting, stabbing (nothing too graphic), attack, mentions of death. IT IS MOSTLY FLUFF!!!

----

It was too quiet.

You cautiously stepped farther into the engineering lab as the unusual silence prolonged, “Tony?” No voice returned but your own as it echoed off the walls, but as you delved deeper into the room, the sight of Tony Stark hunched over his desk made you sigh a breath of relief. A snore broke the silence and Tony shuffled a little in his seat, but he remained lost to the conscious world. A soft smile coated your lips as you grabbed the blanket from off the back of one of the chairs and tossed it over his shoulders, allowing the man to get some severely needed sleep.

Tony had probably been in there the whole night, you presumed as you watched the morning routine of New York bustle in the streets below Stark Tower. The rising sun was casting a golden reflection on the newly snowed landscape, and the buildings were almost picturesque in the frozen atmosphere. Frost collected on the windows, and your breath fanned against the glass in a cloud, fogging up the image. With a sigh, you turned from the view, taking a sip of the hot coffee in your hands as you approached your workbench, setting your bag down beside your chair.

The computer system hummed to life as you switched on the device and soon a blue holosphere lit up around you, presenting a cascade of folders of your latest projects. Many of them had yet to reach completion, mostly just half-hearted specs when you were high on caffeine and sleep deprivation, but one day you would finish them. On your own time, most likely. Tony recently had you working on something of a bit more substance than what you usually do. There was something about this project that had you excited though. It was tiresome, and it had taken what seemed like an eternity, but it was nearly complete, and with it, it could change so much for the Avengers. It was exhilarating to have created something so powerful and meaningful, something that would have an impact. It was different from your last job, which didn’t give that spark of satisfaction when it was nearly complete. Working as an actor stunt-double had its admiration and qualities, but this, you felt, was where you belonged.

Opening the desk drawer, you pulled out a few bobby pins along with the holo-manipulator bracelets, and only after pinning your short hair back out of your eyes did you begin to work. Music played in your headphones as the morning grew later and within the hour, the lab doors opened once again to admit Bruce into the room. He chuckled as he passed Tony’s desk, the owner of whom was still sprawled out in a deep sleep, then nodded a good morning to you. With a soft smile, you whispered a cheerful good morning. It was still strange working with them, despite it having been several months now, and you weren’t sure if the high of being around them was going to leave any time soon. The high or the consequences.

Bruce was always kind enough, and Tony added a little personality to the lab, so it was never uninteresting, but there were also outside influences that made the job more difficult. Reporters, who you were always used to, shifted gears when you switched professions. Everyone wanted to know what the latest and greatest Stark technology was going to be, and people began to get more heated in their questions and methods. Things had gotten out of control more recently when the project you were currently working on got leaked to the public. It wasn’t the whole project, thankfully, however it was enough to cause some suspicion and enough eyes to turn in your direction that things began getting dangerous. Stark didn’t seem to mind too much until you were attacked getting into your apartment one night. After that, he became more cautious, offered for you to live in the Tower until the project was over and to help you find a new home after. Security was tightened, especially around the labs, and no one was allowed into the lower levels except authorized personnel. These were the things that came with the job, you supposed. Besides, it wasn’t like it was the worst thing in the world to be living in a multi-billion-dollar corporation in your own flat with a gym downstairs, completely free of rent, and with a five-minute journey to your workplace. Yeah, most certainly not the worst thing in the world.

---

You were about to resign yourself to a typical and uneventful lunch break consisting of eating at your work bench while pushing numbers for your project when Bucky barged in through the lab doors. His easy smile relaxed the tension in your posture and infected its way over to you.

“You look like shit,” Bucky said, tossing a bag of something smelling absolutely divine in front of you as he propped himself up on your desk, leaning over it with a teasing glimmer in his eyes. You laughed, a chuckle-snort sort of thing as you reclined back in your chair.

“Well, thank you. Should I take that as a complement?”

“No. You should take that as a ‘get the hell out of your office’,” he said, “And you’re in luck, because I brought lunch and we’re gonna eat it somewhere that is not here.”

You rolled your eyes, closing and locking up the holosphere and laptop. “Jerk.”

“Workaholic.”

“Workaholic,” you mocked in scrutiny, scrunching up your nose in defiance. “I am not a workaholic,” you pressed, snatching the food Bucky brought from off the desk as you followed him out the door. “I’ll have you know I slept five full hours last night.”

“Oh~~” Bucky teased with facade impressiveness, “Five whole hours. I slept nine.”

“Showoff.”

“Zombie.”

“I’m just so close to finishing the Achilles Heel project,” you said, laughing as you pressed for the elevator, scanning your ID on the screen. “Then I can sleep, and get my own place, and relax for a little while.”

“Oof, so ready to just escape this prison to be on your own huh?”

“Okay, maybe not too ready, I mean, there are some perks to being around more,” you said, nudging him in the side and he chuckled.

“Yeah, well I am decent company.”

“I was talking about the showers, but yeah, I guess you are a bonus too,” you teased, and Bucky gasped.

“Fine, I see how it is. I’ll just take this,” he said, grabbing the food bag from your hands as the elevator doors opened and he backed out onto the abandoned floor.

“Wait I—I didn’t mean that,” you said, jumping after him.

“Oh, no, I’m going to eat by myself now. Go on,” he said shewing you away as you came at him, trying to grab the food. “Go scurry back to your dreary little office and punch some numbers while stuffing your face with last night’s leftovers.”

“Bucky,” you whined through a laugh, “I’m sorry. You are most certainly a very big bonus to living at work.”

“Nope. You’re only here for the food,” he persisted, but his beaming smile broke through his act and held the food up above his head. You glared at him as you pushed closer to him, chests brushing up against each other as you reached up on your tippy toes trying to grab the bag.

“I. Am. Not.”

Bucky chuckled, wrapping his free arm around your waist as your balance began to waver, pulling you tighter against him as his lips brushed across your ear, “Really? Because it seems like that’s the only thing on your mind.”

Your body froze as you realized your proximity, his arm snug around your waist, his breath fanning against your ear and neck, the gentle rise and fall of his chest against yours. Slowly, your hand fell back down to his shoulder, fingers trailing to his chest as he angled up to meet your eyes. There was laughter in them, blissful freedom in the dip of his smile and damn, that was beautiful. To say you were in a romantic relationship would have been a slight misconception. The feelings were no secret, but you remained behind the line of friends, however as his eyes met yours, hardly a hair’s breadth apart, you began to wonder where that line was in all the haze.

“It’s not the only thing on my mind,” you whispered in a soft chuckle, a shy smile. Your heart flipped in your chest as his gaze flicked to your lips, hesitant and unsure, and heat tickled up your cheeks.

“Yeah? Had me fooled,” he said as he tilted closer, the brush of his nose along your cheek, and you remembered, friends don’t do this. But then again, when have either of you been wholy and truly just friends? His gravity pulled you in, the earth to his sun and a moth to his flame. It was a force of two strings being tied together, red scarlet between your chests, binding you to each other. It wound tighter as you sought each other, but as his lips barely brushed your own, Bucky’s phone blared in the empty hallway and the string snapped. Your eyes shot open as you both jerked in surprise, pulling back, but remaining frozen in time, staring, and searching. His gaze held an ounce of disappointment as he slowly released his grip around your waist. His eyes followed you even when you could no longer bear their intensity, the fire burning in them reaching out to consume you. Turning aside as he answered his phone, you grabbed the food from his hand, motioning to the office you usually ate in and he nodded.

When the door shut behind you, you gasped for breath to steady your raging, wild heart, steadying yourself onto the sheet-covered couch. A soft laugh bubbled from your chest as you replayed the moment over and over, your fingers pressed to your lips to conceal the smile breaking through, but it still insisted on being seen. As emotions swirled in you, you began to unload the bag Bucky brought, pulling out buckets of Chinese food and set them on the table.

“That was Sam,” Bucky started quietly as he entered the room. “He got a lead on the extremist group I was telling you about…”

You nodded, but when he didn’t move from his spot at the door, you rolled your eyes, waving him over to sit beside you. “Get over here so we can eat before it gets cold,” you said, a teasing glimmer in your tone, and a smile peaking on your lips. A sigh left him, relieving the pressure in his lungs no doubt as he came and sat beside you, picking up a box of orange chicken.

“What’s the lead?”

“Just an informant…It looks a little shady, but it’s all we’ve gotten in a while, so we don’t want to risk leaving it alone.”

“When are you heading out?”

“Tomorrow evening. Apparently, the guy doesn’t want to risk being seen in the daylight or in town, so he’s meeting us just outside the city after dark.”

“It certainly sounds weird,” you chuckled, but then silence overtook the room, creeping in from the cracks of unspoken words and pushing as the tension thickened. And when the pressure rose, it crushed your heart, and so you spoke, “Hey, Buck?” and still, you froze again, but he understood the question in the air, in your eyes that refused to meet his. Bucky’s fingers reached across the little space between you, taking your hand into his own and brought them to his lips, caressing them with a kiss.

A sigh escaped you as you relaxed. His hand released yours and wrapped around your shoulders, encouraging you to lean back into the couch and rest your head against him. As you fell into his embrace, the tension eased.

A gentle kiss was pressed to your forehead before he spoke, “We both saw this coming for a while now…”

“Yeah, well…I guess we never really were just friends. There was always something else.”

Bucky snorted, “Like when you were drunk and told me one day you were going to jump my—”

You screeched, shoving your hand over his face, “Why did you bring that up?! You were not supposed to bring that up ever,” you shouted, slapping his chest as he laughed, “I finally burned that from my memory!”

“I didn’t realize you were such a lightweight,” he laughed.

“I don’t drink that often, so of course I’m a lightweight.”

Bucky could only shake his head, press a kiss to your temple, and pull you closer. “How about when I get back from the job, finish all the paperwork and shit, the next night I’ll take you out?” he mused, “A proper date, just the two of us—”

“I’d hope it’s just us,” you joked and he laughed, knocking you in the shoulder with his knuckles.

“Shhh, don’t interrupt, I’m trying to be sweet.”

“Oh okay, please continue…”

“Just the two of us somewhere nice, but not too quiet so we don’t get awkward, and we can talk about everything…”

“Sounds perfect,” you said, craning your chin up to meet his eyes and smiled.

~~~

There was something in the air the next evening. It was thick enough to choke you, and the shadows lingered on the walls a little too long only to be cast away sharply. The moon reflected off the pale white walls in the eerie silence and cast a frozen-like nature around the room. You should have gone up to your apartment hours ago, but with the inspiration and drive to finish your project, sleep evaded you. Besides, the coffee helped.

Music streamed from the speakers, but it wasn’t enough to drive out the anxiety welling in your stomach. Since the attack at your apartment, being alone had bothered you, left an uncomfortable feeling crawling on your skin and it didn’t seem to want to leave. Instead, the anxiety built up until you were jumping at every noise, every shift of the shadows in the room. Bucky’s presence or voice had always helped, but he was still out with Sam checking in on the extremist group informant.

When you first heard the popping, you were certain it was your mind playing tricks on you. It wasn’t until they got much louder did you pause the music.

“Tony?” You called out, “Bruce?” You thought they had gone home for the night. Pepper had dragged Tony out about two hours ago, and Bruce had dinner plans with Natasha so he left early to get ready. There shouldn’t have been anyone but the night shift there, but as a high pitch scream echoed and the laboratory's glass wall shattered, realization hit you ten fold. You hit the floor as you dropped, a scream dying on your lips as you scrambled to get under your desk. People marched into the room, several by the sound of the boots on the crushed glass.

“Secure,” a voice said, feminine and cold.

“Find Achilles Heel, then wipe the system. You’ve got six minutes before the security system comes back online.”

You shook under your desk, heart beating erratically, the holosphere containing your Achilles Heel program right above you, and if you could just—

A loud crash of tools had you jumping out of your skin and your head rammed into the top of your desk, and you froze just like the rest of the room. The silence echoed, and you swore your breathing was too loud, your heartbeat bouncing off the walls as loud as a train. A few words, then footsteps approached, glass crunching under their feet until their boots were directly in front of you. Your teeth dug into your lip as you fumbled the pocketknife from your pocket, only a second to spare as the person reached under the desk and seized your ankle. A sharp yank and you were pulled out with a scream, but the smirk on the woman’s face sunk as you barreled the knife into the back of her foot, straight for her Achilles tendon. As she began to drop, you twisted your hips, braced your leg up and kicked her throat. Not what you were aiming for, but that works.

She collapsed to the ground, choking and gasping for air, but more footsteps pounded toward you and when you looked out from the side of the desk, two men appeared and you were staring down the barrel of a gun. Instinct took over and you knocked the handgun from your face, grasping his wrist, spinning as you stood until his arm was twisted backward and using your back for the brace, rolled him over your shoulder. A distinct pop told of his displaced arm. Or a broken one, you weren’t sure.

A gun went off, and you jumped out of your skin as the breeze of the bullet swept across your cheek. Screeching as the soldier grabbed your arm, cursing an absurd vocabulary list at you, the palm of your hand shot to his nose, and to put it lightly, his list of obscenities increased dramatically.

“Son of a Bitch,” he shouted as blood trickled out of his broken nose, tears forming in the edges of his eyes as they began to water.

“So I’ve been told,” you said as you struck his throat and he began to choke, but as you delivered the final blow to a place the sun didn't shine very often, the cock of another gun set you frozen in place. Across the room, the last soldier stood with a semi-automatic, a bullet with your name ready in the chamber and your breathing stopped.

“We only came for your program, Y.n,” the man sneered, “But I’ve really got a mind to put you six feet under now.”

You couldn’t help the small smile that was peaking on your lips, though you couldn’t even begin to fathom its reason for existing. “What do you want it for?”

The man chuckled, “Who wouldn’t want a program that could tell them the weakness in any building? Given the right specifications of course.”

You shook your head, an idea sparked, but the warmth of the trails of blood on your fingers made you sick. The sound of the man’s shoulder popping out of place from earlier is ingrained in your ears. The feeling of crushing someone’s windpipe, breaking their nose is still searing your skin. It was agonizing.

“Where’s Achilles heel?” he asked, his patience for your antics ran out, and he raised his gun, aim centered on your chest. You turned back to your desk, your hands trembling as the little holosphere sat daintily there on the wood. Your projects, your life, everything you’ve worked for in the last several months. It held your secrets, your future, everything you were striving to create, all right there in that little damned box. Reaching for it, it was heavier than you remembered. You supposed it was the consequences that was weighing it down. Or maybe it was your life.

The woman from earlier was out cold on the floor, but her gun was still at her feet. As your breath shook, you gripped the sphere in your hands and turned back to the last man standing. You waved it in the air, and he laughed.

“Thank you. You’ve been of great service,” he said, lifting his gun and as he pulled the trigger, you dropped to the floor, hands scrambling for the woman’s gun and as the man cursed, he ran for you. The second he came into view, you fired. The jerk of the gun burned your wrists, and something snapped, but you shot again, and the look of pure surprise on his face was enough to make you puke. He fell to his knees and onto his side, blood seeping from his shoulder and stomach. Your hands trembled as you scampered back, bile on your tongue as you watched in horror.

The sound of your name died in the echo of the room, the panic in the voice, the rushing feet and the sound of glass being crushed. Everything faded out except for the man in front of you and the fear etching into his eyes. You were paralyzed to watch. When another hand gripped your shoulder from behind, you screamed, tossing your hands back and clawing and scratching at their face until both your arms were seized and you were forced to see your attacker.

Bucky sat there, his hands holding your arms as his eyes searched you wildly, and you stilled. Your breaths were ragged and sharp, but his cerulean blue eyes were much softer than you remembered, but that could have been the tears welling in the corners. His lips moved as he spoke, but no sounds hit your ears. Everything was drowned in a ringing ocean of nothing, but when he pulled you against his chest and lifted you up, faded whispers broke through.

“You’re gonna be okay...I’ve got you...It’s alright…” It was all chopped and scattered, but it was still his voice. It was James. The lights faded in and out as he carried you out of the room and down the hall. Your vision blurred, but even in your disorientation, you saw them. A night guard sat motionless on the floor, another further down, and eventually you couldn’t bear to watch and hid yourself in James's neck. The next thing you saw was the med bay as Bucky placed you on one of the beds and a doctor came rushing over. The look of pure fear in Bucky’s eyes as you remained motionless on the bed struck straight to your heart before everything went dark.

~~~

When you woke, Bucky sat on the edge of your hospital bed, your hand in his as he traced gentle patterns into your palm. “James?”

Bucky’s eyes snapped to yours, and a smile broke through, “Hey sleepy head. How’re you feeling?”

“A little weird, but okay,” you mumbled as you say up with Bucky’s help. It took a moment before everything came flooding back to you, and the blood drained from your face. “H-how long was I out?”

“Just a little less than an hour. The shock pulled you under,” he said. In a moment of silence, his fingers traced your cheek, curving along your skin until he cupped your face. His breath shook as he leaned in and pressed his lips to your forehead, then another kiss to your temple, another to your cheek, and you leaned into his touch, your hands raising to hold his. Your wrist was bandaged with gauze, and it hurt to move, but still, you melted in his touch. His lips brushed against yours, tantalizing and soft, a peck, a promise, a future held with the love in his chest, shown with his lips upon yours. I love you. I'm glad you're safe. You scared me. I love you. Unspoken words were passed from his lips and seared onto yours with a single peck, and it made you realize just how infinite he was.

“When we got here and the lab was broken into, I —” he said, pressing his forehead to yours, but his voice cracked and you softened.

“I’m alright,” you whispered, “I think, anyway,” you added with a soft chuckle.

“Doctor gave you a clean bill of health for the most part,” he said, pulling back. “Fractured wrist, small cut on your cheek, a little bruising. Nothing too bad.”

You nodded, but a rock dropped in your stomach when you recalled the events. “The man I shot…” you whispered, “Is—is he…?”

“He’s alive,” Bucky said, a sneer in his voice as he held your hands, “They all are.”

You sighed in relief. A life on your head wasn’t a weight you were sure you could bear. However, as Bucky began to speak, the door opened and in came Tony, Bruce with Nat, and followed by Sam.

“Since when can you fight?” Tony asked, a light smile in his voice after he saw that you were okay. “I don’t remember martial arts being one of your talents,” he joked, holding a tablet with the camera footage of the lab.

You shrugged, a smile peaking on your lips, “I was an actress before I came here. Stunt-double for some action movies. I had some training.”

Sam perked up, “What?! An actress?”

You laughed at his confusion and awe, “Yes.”

“That was not on your resume,” Tony added.

“I wanted to be taken seriously!” you defended, “I figured it wasn’t important to add acting to a resume I was sending to Stark Industries.”

“Okay, fair, but look at this,” Tony said, holding the tablet for you and Bucky to see the video.

Bucky hesitated, turning it from you, “I don’t think that’s—”

“No, I wanna see, it’s alright,” you said, and Bucky played the video. It shocked you to watch it over again, the scene unfolding from a safe distance and with people you trusted. What took you by surprise though, was how the entire event unfolded in a matter of a few minutes. You were swift on camera, quick and unflinching, completely unlike what you felt in the moment. It had lasted an eternity then, fear capturing every muscle and resisting every movement.

“I mean look at that,” Tony praised as you took down the third guy. You pushed the tablet away before you got to the last part, and the others said nothing to oppose. The video was stopped and the others teased you.

“I thought you were just brains, but damn,” Sam said, “You’ve got tricks up your sleeves.”

“Didn’t feel like it in the moment,” you chuckled shyly, and Nat stepped up.

“It never does, not in situations like that. But running on pure instinct with what you knew, that was pretty awesome. We’re all just glad you’re okay though.”

You smiled and the others relaxed on their praise and asked for your condition. Bucky answered with ease as you relaxed back in your bed. The questions all seemed endless, but eventually, they all left to let you rest, and with a clear from the doctor, Bucky walked you back to your apartment upstairs.

“So, an actress, huh?” Bucky said and you laughed.

“Yeah,” you said, brushing your short hair in the mirror above your dresser as Bucky sat on your bed, watching from a distance. “I doubled down in homework while I went to college. It was an accident really. A promotion here, a YouTube video there, next thing you know I’ve got a call and I was on stage performing. I never quit school though.”

“You’re just one wild mystery,” he smiled and you walked over to the bed and sat beside him, leaning your head on his shoulder.

“Intriguing, I hope.”

“Always,” he said.

A heavy silence filled the room, and you sank further against him. His fingers brushed along your hand as he took it to rest on his thigh. “I’m gonna teach you some more offensive attacks though. I can’t...” he said and his breathing wavered slightly, “I can’t go through that again.”

You nodded, nuzzling his shoulder, sighing heavily. “Could you—could you stay with me tonight? It can be just until I fall asleep, but I don’t think I can be alone right now.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, turning to kiss the top of your head.

“Promise?”

“Always.”

———————————

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candidhart · 3 years

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Made this one some time ago and had the HONOR of collabing with my dear friend @royai who wrote this AMAZING piece!

Love u Katie :3

After Dark

by @royai

It came as a surprise to Riza Hawkeye that the light could be as fearsome as the dark.

It never occurred to her that trouble could exist in the thin space between the two, that it should preserve itself there for a hundred years, maybe longer, and wait. She imagined herself as a girl asleep in her bed, moonlight slanting through her four-paned glass window, a ferry for the monsters and the things that were worse than monsters. Children checked under their beds and inside their closets, refused to venture into cellars and attics, thought of warding off the unknown with fat oil lamps and candles melting into their brass candlesticks. That things with spindly arms and bodies blacker than ink could use light as a conduit for their demented games…

That they could touch her, even…

Nightmares took up residence in Riza’s sleep. In her waking too, they lingered there, limned her mind with the briefest flashing of tendrils. She curled into herself at night, closed her eyes on the horrors. The blackness found her, though. A million spider’s legs on her body, ghosting the flesh, raising the hairs, and that line on her cheek where the monster had touched her would weep. And she would weep, too, because it had been so long since dread had forced its way in. The tendrils brought strange, frantic memories to the forefront. A panic as familiar as church bells.

Riza’s father, a monster in his own right, in the way that men become monsters and in the way that she had become a kind of monster too. He never minded her but to be those tendrils in the dark. Never in the light. That was her comfort, her safety, her promise.

The light.

A betrayal.

***

Central reached for her like a beggar. Grimy hands, oil-stained, gunk under fingernails chipped and jagged, it closed its hands around her and she was reminded, again, again, again, about the stories her father would tell. He would tell them in his sleep, and make promises of them in her ear, and he would tell them, even, through mouthfuls of blood. That Central was a bastard city. Its towers, spires, and cobblestones bathed in storefront lights bleeding from ornate windows, in the yellow glow of street lamps.

Riza left her apartment and slipped off a curb, first thing.

She remembered her first night in the city. Automobiles flicked light into her windows, made shapes out of the lamp she kept on a pile of boxes in the living room. Shadows in the dark. There were sounds all the time. Movement like tree branches.

Back East, back home, Riza could wander into the fields when she couldn’t sleep. She took a military vehicle into the countryside, an hour or so west, just a bit further inward. It parked fine on the dirt roads. Headlights would go black, melt into the darkness all around, and the hip-high grass cradled her as she sank down, down into the cottony earth. Most people counted sheep to sleep; Riza counted stars, stalks.

She always woke before the sun. Home in time to rinse the sticks from her hair and brew coffee on her electric stove.

Central did not exist to afford her any of that. Central was alive like hordes of flies are alive. Incessant buzzing, a whirring in your ear that you can’t see, that you worry might bury itself in your eardrum. Even before the tendrils and the monsters Riza would lie awake in her bed, books unearthed from boxes, clothes folded in neat squares over her dresser, a chest of drawers not quite filled yet, her apartment unpacked and unsettled, and fret over the whole of it: Central.

She slipped off the curb and scraped her achilles on the concrete. Her teeth crashed together with the force, and she massaged her jaw as she reached down to rub her wounded ankle, fingers coming away wet and red.

A car beat over the cobbled street, spewing dampness from its tires. Riza wasn’t aware that it had rained but she smelled it now, acute and intense, like a single pinprick on the skin.

Out east, that smell was earthy, ancient: soaked stone and evergreens, swollen carriages and damp horse hide, wetted dirt and a choked fire.

Riza took Longmont to Leander, cutting her way through the city via back alleys where moonlight and street light was caught on brick corners and cordoned off by severe angles. She read the stories of women assaulted in Central well past dark, and had seen all the headlines he placed strategically at her desk, a tiny dog-shaped paperweight holding the newspaper steady until the moment Riza could read it and be properly warned. But it was never the people of Central who made her uneasy.

It was several blocks to his apartment. Riza folded herself into the dark. The creature could follow but he could not show himself here, not without a conduit, not without the light. Everything black, nothing inside of it, a void.

A rectangle of light exploded over the ground. Riza stopped, terror seizing her hard. A woman with greying hair hummed and whistled as she sprinkled water out over hanging potted plants. Riza’s chest bounced frantically as she watched the shadow of the woman’s hands in the light, the shadow of the watering can wandering back and forth across the chasm of yellow, methodical as a pendulum.

It happened so suddenly that Riza had little time to react. A mist, a gathering shadow, one red eye peeked out at her from the fluttering darkness. Then, like snakes, tendrils crept out of the line of black and into the little patch of light. Riza willed the woman to close the window, begged her, thought for a moment that she might shout or cry, but it was likely that the woman would only become curious and the window would remain uncovered as she came to watch from her lighted perch.

The monster was an ancient child and yet, in this form, none of his features were childlike. His smile was wolfish and cruel, thin like a knife’s blade, and his tendrils sharp as barbs. They thrashed up against the liquid dark where Riza was hiding, attempting to gather her by the ankles.

The child spoke using a dozen voices.

“Where are you going, Lieutenant Hawkeye?”

Home, she thought. An impulse, the truth, spoken so carelessly in her mind. To him. To the stars or the stalks, that tall grass and damp earth. Somewhere known.

“You have made a rather purposeful attempt to evade me.”

“Forgive me,” she bit, “but our last meeting was less than enjoyable.”

The monster smirked.

“Do I trouble you so much, little Riza?”

The nickname, familiar in sound, comforting in its use, was a bitter poison on his tongue.

“I’ll ask again for transparency.” The tendrils clawed at the ground, raked it. “Where are you going?”

Away from Central.

Away from the light.

To him. To him. To him.

He’ll shut off all the lights, pull all the curtains closed, feed her hot tea and leftover lentil soup and summer sausage. His apartment will smell like cologne and the candle with petals baked into it, and they’ll settle into the down of his bed and see nothing, and the monster will never even realize he has lost.

“You have only as long as the window stays open,” she said, gaining confidence. “I am not bound to you. I can go wherever I want.”

As she said it, the woman in the window started to stir. Her footsteps grew closer, the sound of the humming rising, rising, rising into the final closing of the curtain. The monster’s frown was washed away by the night.

Riza ran.

His apartment was several blocks east of Central Headquarters. The storm’s eye, the quiet, the massive, white and oppressive thing. Riza wound her way past it without managing to sneak a glance. She didn’t need to. She could feel its gaze on her, what all of it represented. And the squared coach lights were tiny pillars of threats, waiting for her to come closer and be beckoned.

She thundered past several shuttered windows; an older man on a stoop hunched close to the ground; the sounds of women chattering together like preening birds, their heels clicking over cracked brick and concrete.

Riza took the stairs two at a time, lunging forward through the hall light, praying nothing would lurch out from the darkness and drag her away. She learned at a young age to fear the sudden jerk of the unknown.

“Lieutenant Hawkeye,” he said. He must have heard her coming, because his door was wrenched open, and he stood there in pajamas and holding a cup of tea, the bag still soaking.

“We’ve had an emergency at the office, sir.”

His brows trundled downward.

“Please, come in,” he said, and moved aside as she nearly tripped her way into his apartment. “Excuse the mess.”

There was no mess, not quite like someone would expect. The Colonel’s apartment was better kept than hers, although she had just moved and he had gotten to stay. Things were collected together in neat piles: alchemy books gathered at one arm of the couch, on the floor, an old mug sat atop them, and there were coats strewn about too, though placed strategically, two on dining chairs and one on the lounge by the front door. Pots hung together in clumps along his kitchen walls, white-tiled, much nicer than Riza’s tan wallpaper; and on his floor, beneath the coffee table, several sewn blankets, all gifts from the Madame’s girls, as far as anyone knew.

Riza reached for one as she folded herself into his couch. “Please, sir. Can you turn off the lights?”

He set his tea on the counter. Again, he looked at her with concern, but the lights started to fall away the closer he came to her. First the kitchen, the six squares of dining space, the hall light he shut off as he sat opposite to her on the couch. The lamp was last. And finally, with the lights of Central thoroughly shut out, Riza could breathe.

It was much like how she would lock herself in the bathroom as a child, plugging the bottom of the door with a wet towel, the waxy shower curtain a flimsy barrier between herself and her raging father. Eventually he removed the locks, and then the knobs. Even now, she felt the cold, hard press of the tub’s porcelain on her back.

“Thank you.”

Silence, and then: “What are you doing here, Lieutenant?”

Coming home.

“I’m not sure myself, sir.”

The Colonel shifted his weight. He was a full cushion away from her, but his heat radiated all the same.

“What happened to your cheek?”

“I cut it on a bramble while fetching a lost toy for Hayate at the park.”

Fingers pressed to her skin, a thumb ran slanted along her wound.

It was reminiscent of childhood, for sure. Riza had always courted this quiet, contemplative darkness. It was when she was a little older that she invited Roy into it, and he welcomed the invitation, and he was a kind, treasured guest. But tonight she was feeling particularly fragile.

She took his hand and fit his knuckles under her chin.

The monster had allowed her to be here, that much was certain. There was no other reason that he wouldn’t have stolen her from those stairs.

She crushed Roy’s hand into herself.

What was he after?

What was the motive?

Was it… afraid?

Roy leaned closer to her. His fingers squeezed hers. He wanted to say something, she knew, or ask her why she had come to him and begged for the dark.

She would not tell him. Tomorrow, maybe, but tonight she was fragile.

Riza found his mouth in the dark. She set his hand free and it wrapped itself around the curve of her neck, tipping her head back. His other hand gave her hair a gentle tug.

“Are you all right?” he managed to ask around her lips, while she occupied herself with tracing the scars on his hip and in his abdomen. She gripped the hem of his t-shirt and pulled him toward her until she was on her back and he had to brace himself against the arm of the couch. “Lieutenant,” he said, though the sentiment was weak, ill-willed. He was attempting and failing at control.

“I’m all right,” she said, and kissed him again. He tasted like his tea. Again his fingers brushed the cut on her cheek, and as they did she was shocked, jolted. She broke away from him and sat upright. “I’m, uh…”

“I really just need to know if you’re all right.”

“I’m going to go.”

“Lieutenant— Riza.”

The name was too much, the break in her skin was too much, the darkness was not enough. It was not enough. The curtain hadn’t been enough. The porcelain. All the nights cascaded in the dark, the world pulling itself to a close around her, fitting like a glove.

“I have to go.”

The Colonel kept to his place on the couch as she stood and put her hand on the door and wondered again about what the monster wanted.

She hadn’t known as a child, and she had survived anyway.

She had survived.

The light swallowed her whole.

#royai #riza hawkeye #roy mustang #selim bradley #fma #fullmetal alchemist #LOVE U KATIE #so nice to do a collab....#AND ITS SO GOOD #also yes I have a lot of feelings about the whole Pride situation #myart

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bestworstcase · 2 years

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Most Penny revival people I've seen didn't like the "turn to flesh and blood" development. They thought that the story was saying Penny wasn't a real girl until that moment and felt that betrayed her arc. The most positive spin I've seen from a bring back Penny person was that it did save her life and restored her bodily autonomy, only for that to amount to nothing when she dies 10 minutes later.

yeah and my point is that i think both of those takes are a really strange way to read what happens to penny in 8.12 (as is the also-common “why even bother making her a real girl then?” argument); she dies in 8.14 as a direct consequence of the manner in which team rwby saved her from the virus, because the whole sequence of events is equivalent to crawling out of a sickbed onto a battlefield. every time i’ve seen this come up in yes-resurrection circles it’s with a tone of “it was weird to make penny a ‘real girl’ and then kill her fifteen minutes later”—regardless of the poster’s personal feelings re: the body switch on its own merits—but…no?

there’s an immediate line of causality from “let’s give penny a vulnerable flesh body because it’s the only thing we can do to save her life” to “penny dies in battle after cinder fall rams her through the chest with the grimm arm.” the way the body switch scene plays out invites us to feel at once relieved that penny survived and saddened and worried about how much it cost; later her friends urge her not to join the fight because they know she’s so vulnerable, and when she leaps into the fray we get beats like her moment of uncertainty when she realizes she’s unarmed because part of her is missing now. even her disorientation right before cinder grabs her suggests that penny’s struggling to keep pace without the benefit of the tactical software she relied on before. there’s. a lot of little things rwby does to illustrate how the body switch is the reason cinder is able to kill her.

saying “the body switch made her human but amounted to nothing” is like saying the heel thetis gripped when she dipped achilles into the styx “amounted to nothing.” reading into the body switch scene a message about penny “becoming a real girl”—an idea rwby never implies and in fact explicitly rejects—obscures the actual intended horror and bittersweetness of that scene.

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pedros-mustache-main · 4 years

Text

i want your last name

summary: it’s only a year...

word count: 16k+ (holy crap i’m sorry)

warnings: idiot-strangers to lovers, suggestive moments (not 18+ but be mindful), frightening situations & suspense, alcohol consumption and drunkenness, language, innuendo, timeline inaccuracies

a/n: please bear with me as this is my first time writing rog and i’m relatively unsure about it. anyway, have a vaguely spooky fic just in time for halloween! xoxo! also: big thank you to @ineloqueent for helping with this fic! y’all, she literally held my hand and walked me through every paragraph what a saint

january, 1982.

“you’re off your rocker if you think i’m going to go through with this, jim.”

from his place on the couch, john snorts. “what? afraid she won’t be pretty enough for you, rog?”

roger levels john an uncharacteristically dark look, jabbing his finger through the air like a knight brandishing his sword or a cowboy his gun. “watch your mouth, deacon.” john holds his hands upwards in surrender, and roger returns his piercing gaze to jim. “i’m not getting married. that’s absolutely out of the question.”

long-suffering band manger and unofficial rockstar wrangler, jim beach drops his face to his hands with a harsh groan. roger cringes in his seat, shifting uncomfortably. he knows what this is about; they all know what this is about.

the end-of-tour party in montreal.

god, he’d gotten so wasted. even now, two months later, he can barely remember that night.

brian, ever the diplomatic, is the first to break the tense silence. he leans forward from his place on the couch beside john and offers roger his most sympathetic look. it does nothing to ease the growing knot of dread in roger’s stomach. “maybe we should leave you and jim to talk, rog.”

jim lifts his head. “i think that might be best, yes.”

roger huffs and falls slack against his chair. he drops his head back, and the ceiling turns topsy-turvy. if jim and the rest of management get their way, his life is bound to feel the same: flipped upside down, all that he knows turned on its head.

john squeezes roger’s shoulder as he slides by, a silent expression of solidarity, but it doesn’t feel like much. john’s got a wife, a parcel of kids. he’s happy at home. roger—he’s never been that way, never seen the point in all the domestics. he isn’t about to join the bloody women’s institute just because a little fun upset a few highbrow jackasses who can’t tell a party from a funeral.

the door to jim’s office shuts with a soft click, and roger imagines the lid of his coffin closing with the same resolute noise. he sits up and runs a hand through his hair. from behind his tinted shades, jim stares across the expanse of his desk. he drums his fingers, worrying his lower lip. roger’s nose twitches to the side. jim isn’t playing around. the proposal typed and printed in the manila folder under jim’s hand is serious, deadly so.

roger removes his sunglasses.

“it was just a party, jim.”

there’s a heavy beat of silence. jim blinks once. “roger, you went streaking through a group of nuns and priests.”

roger squeezes his eyes shut against the words, thankful, for once, that he has no memory of the event. “did i?” he lifts a hand to rub the back of his neck. “honestly couldn’t tell you what i did or didn’t do that night.”

“you did.” jim opens the manila folder and reads from a crumbled newspaper article. “queen’s roger taylor bared all this evening after the explosive conclusion to the game tour, filmed before thousands in montreal’s biggest arena. in a rare display of vulnerability, taylor stripped naked and exposed himself in the hotel lobby where queen resided. he stood on a table and beat his chest like a wild gorilla, chanting about the success of the evening’s filmed concert. lookers-on included none other than a group of nuns and priests recently arrived to canada on special assignment from the vatican. john deacon, bassist for queen, could also be seen laughing in the background.”

jim’s hand thumps against the desk as he drops the article, his stare decidedly unimpressed. “do you have anything to say for yourself?”

running his tongue over his teeth, roger hesitates. not his best moment, he would give jim that. but if he remembers anything about that party, it’s that he wasn’t the only sinner present that evening. john had gotten into his fair share of antics; crystal, too. it seems arbitrary that he should be the one singled out for punishment—and with a strange, archaic, probably-unethical punishment at that.

he shrugs, tossing his hands up in defeat. “i’m not going to be able to say what you want me to say. it was just a party. it got a little out of control. that’s all. i’m sorry if i gave the nuns a little show. i’ll—i dunno—write a letter if you want me to.”

jim scoffs. “write a letter if you think it’ll make me feel better—which it won’t—but that’s not the issue here.”

“then what is the issue? and where the hell does marriage come into it? because i’m not seeing the connection.”

jim sighs. his desk chair creaks as he leans back. taking off his glasses, he pinches the bridge of his nose before meeting roger’s eyes again. “this isn’t the first time something like this has happened, rog. remember new orleans?”

roger holds up an accusatory finger. “you were in new orleans too, jim, so you can’t attack me on that front.”

jim leans forward, his glasses between his hands. he runs his finger back and forth across the top of the frames. “i’ll be blunt. some other people in the office think you’re becoming too—how shall i say it?—explicit for the band. you’re not twenty any more, and raucous parties don’t fit queen’s image. they’re concerned that if more incidents like this hit the press, there will be a drop in sales or concert attendance because nice, suburban families don’t want to go to a concert with a drummer who flashes nuns. do you get what i’m saying?”

roger itches his temple and pushes against the sudden pain behind his left eye. “yeah. yeah, i do.”

“the marriage thing—that was barnaby potter’s idea. if you have beef with it, take it up with him.”

it’s roger’s turn to scoff. he throws his head back on the sound and curls his hands against the cool wooden arms of his chair. when he looks back at jim, he is surprised to see the older man rifling through a filing cabinet in the corner, his back turned.

roger surges forward with his ire anyway. “of course i have beef with it! slap my ass and scold me, sure, but hitch me to a woman i don’t even know for publicity? you’ve got to be joking.”

“personally, i think it’s an idea that will work if you give it a chance.” jim returns to chair and hands roger a sealed packet. “we’ve already got it all lined up, picked the lass and everything. it’s just for a year or so, until the tabloids calm down. then you can get divorced and go your separate ways.”

“wait, hold on—you picked her? without telling me? before even approaching me with the idea?”

“roger—” jim’s tone borders on a warning, but roger ignores his better judgement and cuts the other man off.

“you won’t even give me the option to choose the woman i have to shack up with? god, jim, i’m getting fuckin’ railroaded here!”

jim clenches his jaw. “i’m sure it feels that way, and i’m sorry for that. but it’s this—well, to be frank, it’s this or you’re out. the montreal party was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.”

roger can’t be sure but he thinks he sees red. never in his life has he so badly wanted to wring someone’s neck. it takes every fiber of his being, every molecule in his body, to keep from lunging across the room and tackling jim to the floor. he bites his tongue hard enough to draw a thin line of blood. it coats his mouth in a metallic taste, but it’s nothing compared to the rage boiling in his stomach.

still, he knows what his answer must be. it’s this—a sham marriage, a year of hell—or losing the life he’s worked so hard to build.

he rips the envelope from jim’s hand as roughly as he can when he stands from his chair. he hopes he gave the man a papercut.

“i’ll do it, you bastard,” he mutters. “but i damn well won’t be happy about it.”

“you look beautiful, [y/n].”

with a playful roll of your eyes, you offer ivy a smile. “thanks, love, but you and i both know this is just part of the job.”

ivy laughs and steps closer to adjust the puffed sleeves of your dress. “it might be a job, but damn, if it isn’t a comfortable one. i just about fell out of my seat when you told me you were quitting the agency to marry roger fucking taylor.”

you slide ivy a bemused smirk in the reflection of the long, oval mirror before you. “we’re not really getting married, ivy. you know that, right?”

ivy frowns and jabs her thumb over her shoulder, confusion awash on her round face. “unless i’m mistaken, we’re at a church, you’re in a wedding dress, roger taylor is the groom, and there’s a priest waiting for you right outside. did you read the memo wrong or something? feels like a wedding to me.”

sighing, you turn away from the mirror and reach for your bouquet of flowers. the white roses interspersed with springs of green leaves smell sweet, their stems tied together with a long white ribbon. you adjust one of the wayward petals then sit on the edge of a cushioned chair to slip on your heels. ivy leans against the door, her arms crossed over her chest.

“are you happy?” she asks, her voice soft.

you look up and pause. the heel of your white mary janes squeezes around your achilles’ tendon, and you wince as you shove your foot into the shoe. “what do you mean—am i happy?”

“i dunno.” ivy shrugs. she picks at an invisible piece of lint on the shoulder of her blue bridesmaid gown. “when we were kids, you always used to talk about your wedding day. now it’s here and—”

“ivy.” you rise from the chair and cross the floor to grab her arm. when you speak, you keep your tone firm and stare into her wide, brown eyes. “i’m doing this for the money and nothing else. it’s not a big deal. i don’t even consider today my wedding day. when roger and i get divorced i’ll find some other chap and make my childhood dreams come true, but that’s not today, and i’m okay with it. so yes, i am happy. this is what i want.”

ivy doesn’t appear convinced what with the way she continues to gnaw at her lower lip and shift her concerned look about your face. but she relents when someone knocks on the door, moving to allow you to grab the doorknob.

“wait, [y/n].” you turn at the door, eyebrows lifted in expectation. “how much are you getting paid?”

you press your pointer finger to your lips. “handsomely,” you whisper, dipping your head as though you are about to spill a secret. ivy leans in. her eyes sparkle with interest, and you inwardly smirk. she’s always been a sucker for drama and intrigue, your cousin. “but,” you continue. “that’s for me to know and you not to know.”

before ivy can respond, you pull open the door to see none other than your future husband waiting for you in the vestibule of the chapel.

he stands poised to flee the premises. he’s half-turned toward the closed chapel door, his hands worrying before his waist, his gaze hinged on the flurry of life outside the chapel, visible through the windows on either side of the door. you realize he’s fiddling with an unlit cigarette, not merely rubbing his hands together in an external sign of nervousness. you can’t make out whether or not his eyes are wild with fear or anger or some other emotion; the black tint of his sunglasses obscures the majority of his eyes. he’s handsome in his suit, but, then again, he’s roger taylor. you would be surprised to find a time in which he isn’t handsome.

when you clear your throat, his head whips to face you, and his fingers stop fidgeting. “sorry,” he mutters. “i was just—” he rubs a hand across the back of his neck and sighs. “they’re ready for you.”

“okay.” you nod with a smile and hope the gesture will ease whatever consternation plagues him. “i’ll be up in a moment.”

“right.” he nods once.

from behind his shades, you see his eyes trail from the top of your head to the soles of your shoes. it’s not sexual, not lewd; he’s just inspecting you, and you don’t blame him. who are you to him other than the model pulled out of a catalog, prepared and willing to be his wife until his time served is complete? you’ve spoken only once before this moment, and that phone-call was terse at best. roger made it perfectly clear his opinions on the arrangement, and he wanted to be sure—no, he needed to be sure—you understood his feelings on the matter. you assured him you had heard him loud and clear; your ear had rung for the next hour if only to remind you of his extreme distaste.

“roger,” you say, pulling his attention back from wherever his mind has drifted off to, his stare gone vacant but hardly serene.

his eyelashes flutter as he struggles to focus. “hm?”

“i said i’ll be up in a moment. you can go in now.”

he nods again, this time his chin smacking his collarbone in his urgency. he rubs his jaw, mutters something unintelligible beneath his breath, and turns on his heel, slipping back into the chapel sanctuary with heavy footfalls. your brows rise on your forehead in the wake of his exit. ivy hovers behind your shoulder.

“that’s him?” she squeaks. “that’s roger taylor?”

“yes.” your mouth twists in pity. “poor dear. he really doesn’t want this.” after waiting the appropriate amount of time to be sure roger has made his way to the front of the church, you step towards the entryway, but not before you can ask ivy one last question. “do i look okay? the pictures taken today are bound to be published in the papers.”

ivy chuckles and shakes her head as she lightly pushes your shoulder. “you look gorgeous and you know it. now go get married to a rockstar, you lucky bitch.”

the actual wedding ceremony itself is a formality. truly, it cannot be called a ceremony. there’s no wedding march, no attendees gently dabbing their tear-filled eyes, no heartfelt vows or kiss to signal the joining of two souls. instead, there’s you and there’s roger and there’s a red-faced, balding priest who points to the solid lines on which you must affix your signature to make the marriage certificate valid. roger signs first, and his knuckles are white against the ballpoint pen. you sign second, and the pen feels overly-warm against your cool palms. the priest blesses you with a sign of the cross and promises the certificate will be notarized and sent to your home address within the week.

then it’s done. you’re married. you feel largely the same as you did this morning. if it weren’t for the giant rock on your ring finger and the recent transfer of seventy-five-thousand pounds into your bank account, you might wonder if this was all a product of your over-active imagination, run away with a plot stolen from a b-list film.

the most vital part of the day, the reason you’re here and dressed in a gown with your hair crimped and nails painted, comes right after the priest scurries away to tend to his more important duties. jim beach stands from his place in one of the pews and ushers a photographer forward. he points between you and roger.

“all right, get snug, you two.” jim chews on a large wad of gum, and his words are slurred with an excess of saliva. “just a few pictures and then we’ll go eat. we all know that’s the only reason john showed up today.”

lounged against a pew, john raises his finger in agreement, and his wife elbows him in the chest. he sputters, doubling over in pain, while freddie laughs in amusement. beside you, roger watches the interaction with a back as straight as the pew benches, his jaw tight. you push your arm around his elbow and tug lightly. he inhales before turning to meet your eyes.

“what?” his voice is not cruel or unkind; it’s just tired.

“try and look happy, yeah?” you say, offering him a gentle smile similar to the one you’d given him in the vestibule. it’s the only thing you have to give him other than your hand in marriage and a chance to salvage his reputation; yet, again, it does not alleviate the tension pinching his brow. “the faster we smile the faster we can eat.”

roger shifts, as though he wants to pull away from you, but knows he shouldn’t. his feet dance back and forth on the carpeted stairs leading to the sanctuary state. “i should be telling you to try and look happy. this is just as much an inconvenience for you.”

you shake your head with a chuckle. “hardly. i make my living pretending to be happy, or moody, or sultry. whatever the director wants. i’m a pro at this. and besides,” you add. “it’s my job to make you look good. though, to be honest, that’s not very hard. you look good all on your own.”

roger sniffs and rubs the underside of his nose. he ignores your compliment and keeps his eyes trained on the photographer setting up his equipment at the base of the stairs. “maybe i could use some tips…”

he’s being glib but you take the opportunity to try and break the ice—the rock solid, absolutely frigid, polar ice-cap style ice—between you both. holding up a finger to the photographer, you slide to stand in front of roger. he’s taller than you, not by much, but enough that you have to tilt your head slightly to maintain eye-contact. his blue eyes very much resemble the ice with which he’s surrounded himself. you can feel the chill on his shoulders, even as you smooth the wrinkles on his tailored dress-shirt.

“whenever i have to fake a smile,” you say, adjusting his thin tie. “i always think about the thing that makes me happiest.” he doesn’t ask you to expand, but you do anyway. “for me, it’s when my cousin ivy moved in with my mother and me. i was seven and she was six and it’s been one giant slumber party ever since.”

“is that your cousin?” roger’s eyes flick to the girl sitting across the aisle from the band and management. ivy has her hands beneath her thighs, her head dipped, her dark black hair covering a curtain over her face.

you nod. “mhmm.”

“she doesn’t look like you.”

you lift an eyebrow. “she’s adopted.”

“right, sorry.” roger exhales deeply, and the weight of the world slips from one of his shoulders to the other, tilting his body in a stiff hunch. “i’m feeling out of sorts today, as you can probably imagine.”

“just think about what makes you happy, roger.” you dare to lift a hand and press it against his cheek. his skin is smooth beneath your fingers. he must have shaved his morning. he looks boyish up close, and you wonder if, like you, he had ever dreamt of what his wedding day might look like. you wonder if, like you, he had given up those dreams to make today a reality.

the photographer takes a picture of your hand against roger’s cheek, and the sudden flash of light has you blinking in surprise. you look over your shoulder, mouth slightly parted and eyelashes fluttering to clear the white spots over your vision.

the photographer just shrugs. “ready now?”

the shrill of a ringing telephone wakes you the morning after the wedding, and you groan, pulled from a heavy slumber by the incessant and high-pitched tone. there’s a dull ache at the base of your skull, and your tongue feels like it’s coated with a fine layer of sand. beside you, a man snores softly, his face pink and eyelashes soft on his cheekbones.

oh yes, that’s right. you’re married to roger taylor, aren’t you? you’d drunk so much at the celebration supper that you’d nearly forgotten. the evening itself is but a hazy memory, but you think you recall freddie imitating a russian style jig atop a table, and phoebe going into great detail about all the fabulous dress-up parties you’ll be expected to attend now.

one thing you can’t remember is how you ended up in roger’s bed, dressed in one of his oversized t-shirts. your hair is still stiff with sticky hairspray, your legs still encased in a pair of nylon tights, and you don’t feel… sated, for lack of a better word. it’s probably safe to assume that you did not sleep with roger; you merely slept beside him. why you didn’t take up residence in his guest room will be the first question out of your mouth once his day starts.

you might be his wife and he might be your husband, but you don’t want him getting any funny ideas about the nature of your relationship.

this is a job for you. nothing more.

the phone continues ringing and, lest roger wake before he is ready, you move to reach across him for the phone on his bedside table. you speak into the receiver on a whisper, adjusting your fist on the mattress to keep from falling flat on roger’s stomach.

“hello?”

“uh—hi.” there’s a pause, as if the speaker is uncertain how to react to your voice on roger’s line. “is this [y/n]?”

“yes. who is this?”

“it’s brian. we met yesterday.”

you bite your lip to keep from laughing. “yes, i know who you are, brian.”

he chuckles softly. “sorry—i can’t remember much of last evening. it’s probably best i make a second introduction if i can’t recall the first.”

“well then, i’m [y/n] [y/l/n]. [y/n] taylor now, i suppose. pleased to meet you.”

“brian may. the pleasure is all mine. ours, really—me and the guys. what you’re doing is—we appreciate it, truly. you’ve saved the band, in a way.”

“that’s kind of you, brian.” you glance at roger out of the corner of your eye. he hasn’t moved a muscle, and his face is the most serene you’ve ever seen it. saved the band? you doubt it. smoothed a few ruffled feathers? that’s certainly more likely. “it’s no trouble, though. it’s just my job. what was it you called for?”

“roger was supposed to be at the studio an hour ago. we have a recording session today.”

“shit, really?” pressing the receiver to your shoulder, you twist your wrist upwards, but find your watch missing. you scan the unfamiliar room. a digital clock glows red on a built-in bookshelf. “is it really nearly one o’clock?!”

“afraid so.”

“shit, i’m sorry. i only just woke up. yesterday was hectic—to say the very least. i’ll have roger out the door in half an hour.”

“thanks, [y/n]. you’ll find this happens a lot after a night out. but, hey, at least you’re not shouting at me like rog does.”

after passing pleasantries a moment more—brian asks you about ivy, who you are surprised he remembers, and you ask him about his stargazing habits—you reassure brian that roger will be on his way as soon as possible. you drop the receiver on its base with more force than necessary, but the crack of plastic on plastic and the slight ring of the internal bell gets roger moving.

he grunts, twisting his head away from the noise.

you shake his shoulder gently. “wakey wakey, sleeping beauty. the day is already half gone.”

roger yawns as his eyes blink open. he rubs a hand down his face and arches his back like a cat as he stretches. slumping back against his pillows, he stares at you for a moment, his eyes roaming your face.

“are you an angel?”

you laugh at this, and he winces, holding the heel of his hand to his forehead. “no. i’m your wife. are you still drunk?”

“maybe a little.” his eyelashes flutter rapidly as he adjusts to the sunlight streaming through the bedroom window. he waves his hand around your head, and you lean back slightly, away from the exposed skin of his chest and striking collarbones. “you look like an angel with the sun all around your head. ‘s like a halo.”

“that’s kind of you.”

he shrugs, shaking his head. “just sayin’.”

“i think you’re still drunk.”

as if to prove your point, he hiccups then falls to his side on the bed. “maybe.” his cheek is pressed firmly against the mattress, smushing half of his face flat. soft, steady breaths filter in and out of his parted lips, and his eyelids begin to grow heavy as he is dragged back to his dream world. he looks more tired child than grown man, but the sight is endearing. still, your current job is getting him out the door and on his way to the studio. you can’t let him be any later than he already is.

“oh no, you don’t.” grabbing his arm, you pull as you slide from the bed. roger resists your strength and moves to push his entire face against the mattress. he mumbles something against the sheets, but you can’t make out the words. “brian already called. you’re late, pretty boy.”

roger rolls over onto his back, and the movement causes you to lose your grip on his wrist. you stumble backwards then plant your hands on your hips.

“come on, roger. you’ve got to get up.”

“i don’t want to. yesterday was shit, and all i want to do is stay in bed.”

with a sigh, you gather your wedding dress from its heap on the floor. you lay it over your forearm and pull open the closet door. “nice to know you thought our wedding day was shit,” you say.

you mean it only as a joke, but roger sits up fast, swaying slightly with the movement. he catches your eye as you exit the walk-in closet, and you pause, turning the light off slowly, held by his angry stare.

“fuck off,” he says. “i don’t want this. i don’t want you.”

to say his words don’t sting would be a falsehood. no one wants to hear such a thing, least of all from their spouse. the words make your heart clench painfully in your chest, and you wonder what he sees when he looks at you. he doesn’t look at you, though; he cradles his forehead in his hands, his back hunched where he sits on the edge of the bed.

inhaling deeply, you reach up and begin to remove some of the pins lost in your hair. you head for the bedroom door. “well, while you sit and sulk, i’ll pack you a lunch. you’d better shower, though. you reek.”

from your place puttering about the kitchen, you hear the shower start up a few moments later. good—at least he’s moving. you haven’t the foggiest idea where anything is in his kitchen, but you make do with what you can find in the poorly stocked fridge, and pack him a light lunch. you start a pot of coffee, too, and lean against the counter as you wait for the pot to fill.

the ancient coffee pot takes too long, and you can hear roger humming in the shower down the hall.

your nails tap against the counter.

you’re antsy, unsure of what to do with yourself now that the wedding is over. how do you be a wife to someone who doesn’t want a wife? how do you be a friend to someone who doesn’t want a friend?

it’s too big of a problem to solve in the span of time it takes for roger to finish his shower, so you slip into the bedroom and peel off your stockings and his tee-shirt. you put on a sweater, some jeans, and wipe the day-old makeup from your face with a wet-wipe. the movements are tried and true, and they calm your racing thoughts.

you have an entire year to figure out how to live with roger taylor. you don’t need to have it all figured out this morning.

the coffee pot dings, its job complete, just as you and roger both enter the kitchen.

but he hesitates before taking another step, and so do you.

his hair is wet from the shower. a white sweatshirt swallows his torso. part of the hem is tucked into his white-washed jeans, and you’re struck by the narrowness of his hips. the weariness is gone from his face, replaced with a youthful sort of glow and stubborn cheekiness. you aren’t sure how he’s managed it, but he looks well-rested.

you lift a hand to your cheek. you must look a state. it takes a lot longer for you to put yourself back together after a night out.

he stares at you for a moment, then shakes his head and crosses the kitchen to fill a travel mug with hot coffee. gnawing on your lower lip, you lean your hip bones against the kitchen island as he putters about the room, quiet as the grave.

it’s only your first day as husband and wife, and under such unique circumstances, you shouldn’t expect him to—what? make conversation? ask about you and your life?

“so… what do you think you’ll work on today? in the studio, i mean.”

he glances over his shoulder then shrugs. “not sure. probably something related to the rest of the tour.” bending at the waist, he pulls a drawer out from beneath the sink. his ass looks good in those jeans, but you doubt he’d like you staring, so you look away, mouth screwed to the side. “do you know where the sugar packets are?”

you frown and push away from the island, rounding it to stand beside him. “no?” he turns at the sound of your confused voice, and his head jolts backward to see you standing so close. “i don’t live here, remember?”

“well, you do now.” he swivels on his heel and pulls a small white jar across the counter. lifting the lid, he sighs. “i can’t find the sugar.”

“actually, about living here now...” you follow as he starts for the door, grabbing his keys from a small table in the foyer. “the bedroom situation? i figured we’d have separate bedrooms but last night—”

roger opens the front door and silences you with a hard stare. “the only other bedroom is my practice room.”

your shoulders slump. “oh.”

“i wasn’t going to make it a guest room if you’ll be gone in a year.”

“but where will i—”

“fuck it all, [y/n].” he curls his hand around the doorframe, hanging his head. a cold winter breeze sweeps through the hall, and you pull your jumper tight around your waist. “just sleep in my bed, okay? i don’t fuckin’ care.”

you swallow hard, nod. you’d been prepared for some measure of hostility, some measure of resentment. what you hadn’t been prepared for is the way his rebuffs settle like dead weight in your stomach. he alone can be blamed for this; it was his actions that drove management to force you upon him. yet, he seems to look at you with nothing more than dread and disgust. perhaps it is because you are the physical embodiment of his wrongdoing. his antics created you, and he is powerless to wipe you from his eyesight as he might a clump of dirt. you are a permanent stain—at least for the next year.

maybe you can’t begrudge him his disdainful attitude, then.

you come to when a car horn blares outside.

roger is gone, the door open, void of his claustrophobic presence. leaning around the frame, you catch sight of him and his blond hair as he reaches his car parked on the side of the road. spinning on your heel, you grab his sacked lunch from the fridge and race after him.

“roger!”

he looks up from his car door, and you can’t help but note the way his shoulders lift, tensing at the sight of you running barefoot down the sidewalk. the winter air quickens your steps, and you’re out of breath and huffing when you reach his side. white plumes escape your mouth and drift towards the gray sky.

“you forgot this,” you say, pushing the brown paper sack against his chest. you curl your toes against the frigid bricks beneath your feet.

his brow pinches. “what is it?”

“a lunch. you haven’t eaten yet.”

for the first time since meeting him, the ghost of a true smile lifts the corners of his mouth as he stares down at the sacked lunch. he lifts a hand, and you are surprised by its warmth when he covers your knuckles with his palm. his eyes flick upwards, meeting yours.

“thanks, [y/n].” he tilts his head to the side. “i’m sorry i’ve been a prick. this is all… really new for me.”

you slip your hand from his grasp, sure that your smile is somewhere between girlish and shy. a sharp wind whips through the stitching of your sweater, and you shiver.

“we’ll figure it out,” you say, and it’s a message to both him and yourself. you will figure this out.

“yeah.” he slides his key into the slot on the car door. “yeah, we will.”

“oh. rog, wait.” you stop him by putting a hand on his shoulder. when he twists at the waist, you wind your arms around his neck before he has time to react. you squeeze tight, your toes skimming the ground. he feels firm, stiff like a board. “hug me back,” you whisper against his ear. “there’s someone across the street taking photos.”

the sound he makes in your ear—a grumble, a low growl—sends your blood pumping into overdrive. he’s angry, but he dutifully embraces you as any newlywed husband might. his arms are strong around your lower back, and you melt into him.

god, he feels good. you can’t remember the last time you were held like this. he smells like the soap from his shower, and his sweatshirt is soft. his hair brushes against your cheek, and your eyelashes flutter in response. you should pull away; you’ve hugged him long enough to appear the besotted wife, desperate for her husband to stay home the day after their wedding. the paparazzi surely got what they wanted.

so, why is it so hard for you to let go?

you shake yourself free of the feeling, whether it be longing or desire or something else entirely.

sliding your hands across roger’s shoulders, you drop from your raised stance. you press a kiss to the corner of his mouth, quick and without hesitation. just in case.

“go on.” you hurry to step back, to allow him the space the leave. “you don’t want to keep the boys waiting any longer.”

roger’s eyes linger a moment more, his stare somewhere between searching and assessing. then he mumbles an oath beneath his breath, wrenches open his car door, and slips inside. the door slams behind him, and the engine roars to life. you retreat further at the sound, wrapping your arms around your stomach when the car tires squeal against gravel in his haste to get away.

some blissfully wed husband he makes.

biting the inside of your lip, you turn back to the house. the front door remains open wide, and it’s likely the heat has long since left the warmth of the halls. you pause long enough to lift the paper from the front stoop. what you see beneath the fold makes you hesitate all the longer.

there’s a photo of you and roger on the left side of the page beneath the headline, roger taylor marries model. the grainy, black and white image of your wedding day presents you, the smiling bride, and roger, the smiling husband, joined hand-in-hand beneath a heavy wooden cross. to the untrained eye, all is joy in the taylor household. the article describes the ceremony, though the details are patchy and entirely false, as intimate and “drenched with love.”

you scoff before you can stop yourself. clearly, the author of the article has encountered roger taylor under duress.

but it’s not the article which holds you frozen to the front stoop, your exposed toes and fingers sticking like icicles to the newspaper. rather, it’s the smear of red paint slashed over your picture. it’s the word slag scrawled over the article, an arrow pointed in the direction of the wedding photo.

still, in a one-on-one meeting you’d had with jim beach prior to the wedding, he’d warned you of something like this. though all four queen members are undeniably attractive, it is roger who makes the fans go gaga.

maybe it’s his boyish good looks contrasted with his raspy voice. maybe it’s the frenzy with which he plays, his easy charm and sunkissed skin. whatever it is—roger’s fans are a possessive lot.

jim had told you to prepared for a few nasty letters or scathing criticism in the papers. he had told you it wouldn’t last long, just until the initial shock of the marriage wore off, just until roger’s fans accepted the reality that they were not be his lawfully wedded wife.

so, truly, the first incident does not scare you. you just hadn’t realized the scrutiny would begin so soon. if anything, the painted paper makes you chuckle. roger’s fans certainly don’t like to waste time.

you toss the paper in the bin beside the stoop, and it’s forgotten before the day is over.

a week bleeds into a month, and you find yourself falling into some semblance of a life with roger.

you cohabitate for the most part. he does not outright rebuff your attempts at friendship, nor does he accept any olive branch you extend.

conversation is stilted, his contributions terse and monosyllabic. he prefers your home-cooked meals be eaten before the television, and not at the dinner table, where he would be forced to engage with you. he doesn’t even give in when you ask if there’s anything he’d like to rant about. he just shakes his head and bangs on his drums well into the evening, despite having banged on them the whole day at the studio.

yet he sleeps beside you, allows you to sleep beside him.

without fail, he appears more at ease come nightfall. he sheds whatever protective shell he wears throughout the day in favor of something softer, something more tender. you’re not sure what changes him when he walks over the threshold of the bedroom, but something does. perhaps it’s the soft lamplight or the hum of the fan he insists be kept on despite the chill of winter.

there’s a part of you that wonders if it might be your very presence that softens him, but you’ve taken to silencing that part as of late. he’s long-since proven that you hold no sway over him whatsoever, and that’s okay. your job is to be a buffer between his antics and the all-seeing eyes of the public. nothing more.

two months to the day after your wedding, you’re stood in the hallway, slipping on a pair of earrings, and brushing away roger’s hurried attempts to get you through the door. he has one hand on the doorknob, the other wrist tilted to expose his watch face.

“[y/n], please!”

“roger, the party doesn’t start until queen arrives. give me just a minute more.”

tonight, the savoy hotel, the first music industry party you’ll attend by roger’s side as his wife.

you’re nervous.

your hands shake as you press the earrings into your ears, and you rub your lips back and forth, feeling the slick lipstick rub over the flesh. you’re thankful the dress you chose is a gauzy sort of chiffon. if you sweat, no one will be able to tell, thanks to the pale blue of the fabric.

impatient as ever, roger drags himself from the door to stand behind you, as though prepared to throw you over his shoulder. however, a smirk pulls at your mouth when he pauses in his frustration long enough to primp and preen his hair in the mirror. you catch his eye, your fingers paused in snapping your clutch closed. he sees your smirk, and his own lips pull on a wry smile.

the moment hangs in the air, thick with—what? tension? no. something else. camaraderie comes to mind.

your eyes remain locked with his, and his grin spreads until he is shaking his head with amusement. he pushes your shoulder, but the touch is friendly, almost brotherly in nature.

“come on,” he says. “i don’t want to miss all the good wine.”

nodding, you start for the door, trailing behind him to flick the lights off. darkness engulfs the house, the only light the white glow of the moon spilling through the window above the kitchen sink and a night light plugged in along the hallway baseboard.

but then the phone rings.

roger stamps his foot against the floor, the door already half-open. “fuckin’ hell!”

“let me get it.” you’re halfway down the hall before he can stop you. “i’ll tell them to buzz off. hold on!”

“i’m going to get the car started,” he says. his voice echoes through the hall to meet you where the phone hangs in the kitchen. “you have two minutes, [y/n]. two minutes!”

lifting the phone from the receiver, you press it against your ear. “hello?”

at first, you hear nothing on the other end.

but you’re sure you heard the phone ring, so you lean closer to the receiver and plug your opposite ear in a piss poor attempt to hear better. “hello? this is [y/n] taylor speaking.”

the sound of heavy breathing—deep inhales, hard exhales—meets your ear. deep inhale, hard exhale. over and over and over.

your throat tightens, but you push past the lump. “hello? who’s there?”

a stuttering of breath on the inhale, a shaky exhale. a croak, voice poised to speak.

only you slam the phone back on the receiver before the person on the other end can say a word.

for a moment, you stand still, eyes glued to the phone, mouth parted in shock.

but then roger honks the car horn, and you shake yourself free of the unsettling feeling. a missed connection, you tell yourself. a wrong number. a mistake. that’s all it was—a mistake.

still, you are shaking when you slide into the passenger seat of roger’s car. he glances at you before pulling into the busy street.

“are you cold?” he asks. he turns the heat up, blasting the air against your face. “you’re shaking.”

“no,” you say, and, truly, you aren’t. he loaned you an ostentatious fur coat for the occasion, lined with a smooth brown fabric, and you are comfortably warm beneath the heavy material. “just nervous.”

roger snorts, his eyes sliding to you. “nervous? surely you’ve been to parties before. you’re a model, for god’s sake.”

“i’m not sure what kind of model you think i was, rog. i did mostly print, never runway. parties were never a part of my nine-to-five.”

“oh.” his mouth screws to the side. “i guess—well, to be honest, i kinda thought models all did the same kind of work.”

“most people do. that’s in the past now, though.” you shift, glance out the window, and watch the streetlights blur in a hazy streak of orange and yellow. he’s driving fast, and you grip the side of the door, willing your heart to stop racing.

the car slows to a stop beneath a red light. roger taps his fingers on the steering wheel, and the silence in the car is deafening.

you should strike up a conversation. he seems willing tonight, and maybe that’s due to the cramped nature of the car, but it’s an opportunity nonetheless.

only you can’t stop thinking about the phone call, about the heavy breathing and the unanswered questions. you shut your eyes and find yourself mirroring the caller’s breathing patterns.

deep inhale, hard exhale.

“so, you’re done with modeling?”

you open your eyes and turn to look at his profile. why he insists on wearing sunglasses in the dead of night you will never understand, but the sight alone makes you smirk. he knows he’s attractive; you have to give him credit for embracing it.

“that’s why i married you,” you say.

roger laughs—and you realize it’s probably the first time you’ve heard the sound. his laugh aligns with the light timbre of his voice, and the anxiety in your chest eases to hear him sound something other than malcontent.

“i knew you were a gold digger!” it’s a joke—you can tell by the quirk of his mouth and the lines around his eyes—but you rush to defend yourself all the same.

“no, i’m not!” you hesitate before shrugging with a rueful chuckle. “well… maybe a little. i won’t deny that the money i get from this arrangement really helps. i was looking for a way out of modeling, anyway.”

“really?” roger’s eyebrow arches, and, as the car turns into the savoy, the wrap-around drive clogged with limousines, sport cars, and photographers jostling for a good spot, you catch a glimpse of admiration on his face. “what do you want to do now?”

“i’m not sure. go back to school. i’ve got a head for maths, so maybe accounting or something.”

roger twists his head to meet your eyes, and his smile is earnest. it steals the breath from your lungs.

deep inhale, hard exhale.

“you don’t strike me as an accountant, dove.”

“why not?”

“accountants are stuffy, greasy men. you’re… you know…” he waves a hand, inches the car forward as the line moves. camera bulbs flash in the world outside, but within the car, all you can focus on is roger and his next words.

“i’m…?” you’re fishing, but this is the first time he’s given you more than the time of day, and you’re eager to get something, anything, out of your husband.

he shrugs, and his hands curl around the steering wheel. a muscle in his jaw ticks. “you’re too nice.”

you look away. “ah—nice.” not what you’d been expecting him to say.

he pulls the car to a stop along the hotel’s entrance, and a sharply dressed attendant opens the door. sliding out after roger, you instinctively reach for his hand. he spares you a short glance and squeezes your fingers together in a gesture of encouragement.

a black—not red—carpet lines the walkway from the drive to the open hotel doors. velvet ropes hold back the crowd of photographers, reporters, and fans lucky enough to have squeezed their way to such a prime viewing spot. camera flashes paint the inside of your eyelids with bright, white spots. despite the chill of winter, the air is hot, heady with glitz and glamor. it’s hard to distinguish any one voice over the plethora of people vying for attention, and your head swims in the chaos of it all.

roger moves easily from one side of the rope to another. he is in his element, grinning for the cameras and joking with reporters who grab him long enough for a quote. his moments with the press are short, few and far between. he much prefers the fans—their simpering smiles, tear-stained cheeks, and waving slips of paper begging for a signature. you don’t blame him. who could ever resist such unfettered adoration?

near the end of the carpet, a reporter snags roger’s attention with his waving arm. palm still clasped in roger’s, you trail behind your husband, hovering just behind his shoulder. the cool smile you perfected in your modeling days remains fixed on your face, even as the reporter acknowledges you with a tilt of his head.

“is this your wife, roger?”

the reporter has to shout to be heard over the sudden surge of excitement as a new celebrity takes their first step on the carpet. it’s kate bush, if you aren’t mistaken. you could be wrong, though. the reporter’s query pricks your ears, dividing your focus between the cacophony around you and the question at hand. thus far, you’ve remained nameless by roger’s side. no one—fan or press alike—has asked after you, and you’re happy for it.

roger turns to look at you, and his grin spreads. he goes so far as to slip his arm around your waist, tugging you against his side, keeping his gaze on your profile. a sudden rush of blood floods your cheeks, and you duck your head beneath his watchful eyes. yet you find your own smile widening. the action is not one you have to force or fake, though. it’s easy to smile when roger is smiling.

“yes, this is my bride,” roger says. “[y/n].”

the hand he’s placed on your waist squeezes the flesh of your hip, pushing you further against him. to keep from tripping over your own legs, you press a hand against his chest to steady yourself. you can feel his heartbeat beneath your fingers; his heart pulses to a steady rhythm. your own heart beats twice as fast.

the reporter checks something on his small pad of paper. “is it true that you used to be a model, [y/n]? there are rumors that this marriage is a publicity stunt.” he hesitates, glancing over his shoulder as someone bumps his back, pushing him against the velvet rope. once righted, he continues. “there are rumors that you were hired to get the press to stop talking negatively about the montreal incident.”

you open your mouth to speak, but roger jumps in before you can utter a single syllable.

“are you joking?” he tosses his head back in an easy laugh and pulls you even tighter against his side. you’re afraid if he draws you any nearer you will absorb into him completely. but with the way the lights dance off his eyelashes and his hair looks perfectly tousled and his body feels strong against yours, you aren’t sure that would be a bad thing.

“i’m crazy about my wife!” he says, and the words go straight to your heart like a wildfire. “you should get yourself one, mate.” he playfully slaps the reporter’s upper arm. “they’re great fun!”

the reporter arches an eyebrow. “it’s just that i know you’ve gone on record as not exactly believing in marriage and—”

“what do you want me to do? kiss ‘er? would that make you happy?” a shit-eating grin rises on his face, indignant and cocky all at once. he shoots you a look out of the corner of his eye; you bite your lip. “will that get you off my back?”

“that’s not really—”

“here.” he taps the wrist of a bystanding photographer then points to you, twisting his body so that you stand face to face. “put this in your bloody paper!”

grabbing either side of your face, roger dips his head to capture your lips with his. for a moment, you remain unsure. you hold fast to his wrists, your mouth unmoving. the blood in your veins stands frozen in shock, and your heart presses painfully against your ribcage. somewhere in the back of your mind, your conscious screams for you to react, to play along, but it’s not until roger slides one hand from your cheek to the small of your back that you register what part you must play.

thank god it’s not a difficult role.

with a tilt of your head, you wrap your arms around his neck and hold tight. he tastes faintly of cigarettes and the mints he uses to freshen his breath. his lips are soft, softer than you’d anticipated. you can hear the clicking of cameras, feel the blinding light of flashbulbs pierce your eyelids, sense the growing interest in your display of affection, but none of it penetrates the bubble—the bubble of you and roger, of his lips and your lips, of his arms holding you close, his very air becoming yours.

he pulls away entirely too soon, and his smile is all the more cheeky. you press your fingertips to your lips, lower your face, and draw in a sharp breath.

“there! that could enough for you?”

roger steers you away from the reporters and into the sanctuary of the hotel at last. a rush of cool air meets you and, though it is mid-winter, you sweat beneath roger’s fur coat. the gentle whoosh of air-conditioning is a blessing against your hot skin.

as you enter the ballroom transformed for the event, roger lowers his mouth to your ear. “sorry about that, poppet.” the low register of his voice and the feeling of his breath against the back of your neck sends a shiver down your spine. “i’ve dealt with that tosser before, and he really grinds my gears.”

“‘s fine, roger,” you manage to say through your tight throat. “it’s what i’m here for, yeah?”

he stops walking, and his hand moves from your back to your wrist. his eyes drift over your face, calculating, searching. you let him look. you aren’t sure what he’s looking for, but you get the feeling that he’s truly seeing you for the first time. even in the manufactured blue light of the room, even with the myriad of tables surrounded by producers and singers and agents alike, his face visibly softens and his hand curls around your wrist.

“roger! [y/n]! over here!”

three tables away, freddie waves his hand, beckoning you over. roger drags you along, his fingers intertwining with yours as you sidestep people already lounging at their seats. once at the table set aside for queen and guests, roger pulls out your chair, and you sit, smoothing your hands over your skirt. he sits beside you and leans to his side to whisper something to john. on your right sits chrissie may, and you offer her a smile in greeting.

the function—a charity benefit organized to bring awareness to the falklands disagreement—comes and goes without issue. the dinner is bland, but the wine is good. chrissie is pleasant, and it’s your first chance to speak to another band member’s wife since the wedding. you appreciate her advice, laugh at her stories, and enjoy yourself without restraint. it doesn’t hurt that as roger drinks more, he more pays attention to you. you really shouldn’t encourage him, but when he slings an arm around your chair and pulls you closer, when he turns his head to whisper a joke in your ear at brian’s expense, when he plays with a loose lock of your hair, twirling it around his finger, it’s all you can do not to melt like the ice-sculpture in the center of the room.

come the end of the event, you find yourself walking between chrissie and veronica, your steps slow as the boys stumble through the hall. roger and john cannot stop laughing, though no one has said anything remotely funny for the last few minutes. they cling to one another like koalas to trees, as though the other might drop to the ground if released. brian and freddie aren’t any better. they sing off-key, their voices bouncing off the empty walls and laminate floors. you aren’t sure what part of the hotel you’ve wound up in, but it’s certainly less plush than the ballroom. still, you smile when roger slides his sunglasses over his eyes and snorts at one of john’s inane comments.

your smile falters when the sound of veronica’s labored breathing, pregnant as she is, reaches your ears.

deep inhale, hard exhale.

in the flurry of the evening—amidst the kiss and the dinner and the joking and the drinking—you’d forgotten about the phone call.

chrissie reaches out to grab your arm when your steps stutter. “are you okay?” she asks.

you stop walking. if the boys get into trouble around the corner, you’ll surely hear it.

meeting chrissie’s wide eyes, you frown. you hate the put a damper on the evening’s chipper mood, but the memory of the phone call crashes to the surface, bringing with it anxiety and unease. roger doesn’t need to know, but perhaps the other wives experienced a similar phenomenon. perhaps it’s all in your head. either way, you’d like a second opinion.

“this is going to sound weird, but… have either of you ever gotten a strange phone call?”

“phone call?” veronica rubs a hand over her swollen stomach. “what do you mean?”

you explain the events prior to your departure earlier in the evening, and the concerned looks that settle on chrissie and veronica’s faces stir the uncertainty in your stomach.

“that doesn’t sound good, [y/n],” chrissie says.

you gnaw at your lower lip. “no, i suppose it doesn’t.”

“have you told rog?”

you shake your head. “i don’t want to trouble him. not if it’s just some practical joke. it very well could be our kid neighbor having a lark.”

another memory drifts to the surface: the newspaper, the red paint dripping across your photograph. slag, they’d written.

you’d forgotten about that too.

veronica pulls you back to the present with her even tone. “i think you should tell him. if someone is harassing you, even if it’s just the once, don’t you think he should know?”

“i guess but—”

“hey, party people!” john sticks his head around the corner, breaking the conversation with his over-loud voice. “guess what we found?”

“judging by your wet trousers, i’d say a pool.”

john trips down the hall to grab veronica’s arm. “have i ever told you that you’re brilliant?” he presses a noisy kiss to her cheek, and even veronica isn’t capable of remaining firm under such affection.

like a child who has found an interesting twig, john crooks his arm in a follow-me motion, tugging his wife toward the pool. “come on. come see!”

veronica follows john around the corner, but before you can follow, chrissie presses her palm to your shoulder.

“you should tell roger,” she says. “before it gets serious.”

you nod, promise her you will, then make your way to the indoor swimming pool, knowing full well roger won’t hear a word of the incident.

the savoy’s pool room is understated in comparison with the rest of the hotel. though the ceiling stretches high, skylights allowing moonlight to shimmer over the undisturbed water, the room is just as hot, just as stuffy, as any other hotel pool. you drop your coat and rog’s to a plastic lounge chair as soon as you enter, swamped as you are by the thick air.

all nerves, all worries about the phone call, fade away as you slip your shoes off and watch roger and john’s poor poolside rendition of abbott and costello’s “who’s on first” routine. roger can’t keep up with john no matter how hard he tries, but their combined effort is valiant.

laughing, you clap as they take their theatrical bows and only laugh harder when john trips over the edge of the pool mid-bow. he lands belly-first in the clear water, rising a sputtering, drenched mess, his hair and clothes sodden to the bone, though his eyes are bright with mischief. he swims to where veronica sits with her ankles in the water and, before she can sternly admonish him, has her pulled into the churning pool beside him.

brian is next in. he cannonballs in the deep end, and chrissie follows of her own volition. the impact of their jump launches a tidal wave of water in your direction, and you screech, nearly falling in your attempt to avoid getting wet.

but then a pair of arms wrap around your waist, lifting you from the cool, albeit slippery, floor.

“roger, no!” you twist in his tight hold. “no, roger, don’t!”

your voice echoes in the room, bouncing off the windows and walls; yet roger ignores your pleas for release. he shuffles to the edge of the pool at the behest and cheering of his friends, each treading water, watching as you struggle to break free.

the water beneath your feet rises and falls, sloshing this way and that. you can see the bottom of the pool from where roger holds you, and there’s a delicate, inlaid design of a turtle twelve feet down on the pool’s stone foundation.

you curl your nails in roger’s arm. “roger, i can’t—”

he tosses you in before you can finish the sentence.

you fall through the air with a scream, land on your back, and sink beneath the surface of the water. chemically-laced water fills your mouth, your nose, and your lungs scream for air.

for a moment, fear grips you, not unlike the way it gripped you in the hallway of your own home, the phone cradled against your ear. only this time, you know exactly what will happen if you don’t get help.

this is not a battle you can win yourself.

kicking to the top, you break through the water and cough, shaking your head. tears cloud your vision when you open your eyes, but the liquid that’s caught in your eyelashes disguises them, and for that you’re thankful. roger bobs beside you, a grin on his face, looking much too pleased with himself and his antics. without a second thought, you reach for him.

“roger, i can’t swim,” you say.

his face falls. “oh.” he blinks then, realization striking as you grab onto his shoulders. “fuck, [y/n]. i’m sorry.”

clinging to him, you wrap your arms around his chest, your legs around his waist. you rest your cheek against the back of his neck and sigh, inhaling deeply. “i tried to tell you,” you whisper.

beneath the water, his hand curls around the skin of your ankle. he squeezes, and it’s all the apology you need.

the band stays in the pool for entirely too long. freddie starts talking about the next album, and the other boys chime in, clamoring for their opinions to be heard over the others. despite their drunken state, music brings a sense of clarity to their speech and thought. it’s their life’s work and something about which they care deeply. there’s no denying that. even when brian tries his hand at a backwards flip and freddie challenges john to a diving contest, they are always thinking, always working, toward their next goal. you admire them for that.

roger remains steady where he stands. you cling to him like a barnacle, even though you just as easily could remove yourself and find a place where your feet touch solid ground. he feels nice, though. his body is a comfort against yours, and as the business talk continues, your head lolls to the side on his shoulder, a gentle smile on your lips.

you could get used to this.

at some point, veronica complains about her aching back and drags john from the pool. they are the first to leave, but brian and chrissie soon follow. you aren’t sure if you want to go, if you want the evening to end. if it means roger will go back to ignoring you, shoving you aside, you think you could stay in this pool until your skin wilted and dripped off your bones.

“we’d better go, love,” roger whispers.

you know he’s right.

“yeah.” you try to keep the disappointment from your voice.

he moves to the side of the pool, and you heave yourself over the edge. your dress is heavy, weighed down by the absorbed water. you wring out the skirt as best you can, but until you can give it a proper wash and dry, it’s really no use. gooseflesh breaks out on your arms where the cool air hits, and you shiver.

roger appears behind you, turns you gently with a hand to the shoulder, and lifts a fluffy white towel. “here. i found these.”

“oh!” you move to take the towel from his grasp. “thank you.”

“i’ve got it.” with a smile—a boyish, gentle sort of smile—roger unfurls the towel and wraps it around your shoulders. he tugs the corners beneath your chin and laughs through a short breath. “comfy?”

you nod, pressing your face against the warm fabric.

“you look like a marshmallow.”

lifting your mouth from behind the towel, you tilt your head with an impish grin. “you once told me i looked like an angel. so, which is it? angel or marshmallow?”

“oh, angel for sure.” he thumbs a finger over the end of your nose. “you always look like an angel.”

you roll your eyes and hope the action does not expose the sudden flutter in your chest. “you’re just saying that ‘cause you’re drunk.”

he shakes his head. “no. i mean it.”

he looks at you for a long time. you look at him for just as long. the unease cadence of your breath, the way his breath whistles through his nose, the lap of the pool against the tiled walls—it all sounds so loud to your ears, though nothing can compare to the beating of your heart. it fills your entire body: bump bump, bump bump, bump bump. your cheeks feel hot with blush, and you finally look away, casting your eyes to the floor. you wiggle your bare feet against the tiled floor; roger wiggles his toes back.

“we should go home,” you say.

“yeah.”

roger pays an attendant to ferry you home, and the drive leaves your entire body close to overheating.

the back seat of his car feels strangely intimate compared to the front seat, but that might just be your imagination. surely, roger didn’t sit so close to you on purpose. surely, his hand isn’t pressed against your leg because he wants it to be. his car is just… cramped.

“did you have fun tonight?” you break the silence, but when you do, your voice sounds strange—slightly strangled, nervous, earthy—and you wish you’d remained quiet. you continue toying with a loose thread on your coat, ignoring the way roger’s eyes traverse your profile.

“mhm. did you?”

you nod, but don’t look up.

from the driver’s seat, the attendant coughs, and your gaze shifts.

deep inhale, hard exhale.

chrissie’s words of earlier surface in your mind: you should tell him about the phone call. it’s only right.

twisting, you look to your right, meet roger’s eyes, and promptly lose all sense of direction. his face is so near, his mouth parted, eyes hooded, cheeks flushed. your throat runs dry, but you can’t look away.

“roger–”

“hmm?” his lips tighten, but his smile is just as sly as it had been the moment before he kissed you in front of the reporters. the touch still lingers on your mouth, but you will the memory away.

“there’s something i should—”

his fingers sift through a lock of your hair, and he moves his head almost in a nuzzling sort of gesture. you swallow hard. “i was wrong about you,” he whispers. when did his voice get so raspy?

“what?”

“i was wrong to judge you,” he says. his hand moves from your hair to the side of your neck, one long finger tracing the lines of your skin. “to be honest, i thought you were some cheap girl looking for a way into my bed, but i was wrong. you’re more than that.”

“what—” deep inhale. “what am i, then?”

his lips quirk upward. “my wife.”

hard exhale.

his mouth claims yours, and you don’t fight him. you melt against him, his chest pressed against yours in the narrow space of the car. you’re vaguely aware that a driver sits not two feet away, more than able to hear the way roger pulls a soft whimper from behind your lips and the rustle of clothes as you both scrabble for any exposed skin. but you don’t really care. you’re drunk off of roger, and have been since you met him. it’s his looks, yes, but tonight—tonight you saw him in his element. you heard him laugh and saw him smile and preened under his attention. you would go to hades and back to live in a world shaped just like tonight, every bit of it.

roger can’t keep his hands off you as you make your way from the sidewalk to the front stoop. his hands roam your body, skimming every inch, squeezing the parts he seems to like most. you giggle like young lovers experiencing one another for the first time, and maybe that’s because you are.

when you drop the front door key because you’re too focused on returning roger’s eager kiss, it doesn’t seem to matter. you just stand on the stoop and kiss beneath the light of the moon a little longer.

when you finally get the door open and his palm hits your ass at the same time, you squeal, and he dissolves into laughter.

when he fumbles with the hallway light because he’s too focused on getting your coat off, you tell him to forget it. you don’t need the light anyway.

halfway down the hall, limbs and lips tangled, the phone rings.

you laugh as you peel yourself from his grasp. he puckers his lower lip in protest.

“i’ll be just a minute,” you say, lifting the phone from the receiver. he sticks his tongue out, but then sheds his shirt, leaving it on the kitchen floor as he slips into the bedroom. you bite the edge of your thumb as you watch him go, your head as muddled as creamy soup.

someone clears their throat on the other end of the line.

“oh, sorry. hello?”

“what’s it like to kiss roger taylor?”

cold dread extinguishes any joy lingering in your chest at the sound of the sickeningly smooth voice.

your fingers curl tight around the phone. “who is this?”

“what’s it like to kiss roger taylor?”

angry tears spring to your eyes as you scoot to stare out the window over the sink. nothing but darkness meets your eyes, but still you try in vain to search for an answer in the inky blackness. “i said: who is this?” your voice cracks, but you push forward. “how did you get this number?”

“what’s it like to kiss roger taylor?”

“i swear i calling the fucking police if you keep this up!”

a beat of hesitation then: “what’s it like to kiss roger taylor?”

with a helpless groan, you slam the phone down for the second time in one day. your fingers creak as you let go and step back, chest heaving. your skin feels slimy—slimy with roger’s lingering touch, slimy with the possibility that someone had been watching you kiss your husband, slimy with the possibility that someone could be watching you now.

you don’t stop and admire roger, clad only in his boxers, as you make your way to the en suite bathroom. you can’t stand to look at him, to know that somewhere someone cares for him so much they would take to harassing you. god, it makes you want to vomit.

you don’t bother with the bathroom door so intent are you at getting in the shower and scrubbing your slimy skin raw. you struggle with the zipper at the top of your spine, the tears hovering over your eyes threatening to spill over if you can’t be rid of your soaked clothing. you stamp your foot with a grunt and drop your hands, hanging your head in defeat.

roger’s soft chuckle sounds from the doorway. you don’t turn to look at him.

your back stiffens when he undoes the zipper, the pads of his fingers pressing along your shoulder blades, your ribs, the small of your back.

“that eager, huh?” he presses a wet kiss to the curve of your shoulder.

you want him; you really do. there’s some part of you that wants to drag him into the shower and work out your fears with the aid of his body against yours. but you won’t do that. you won’t use him, not when he confessed he thinks you better than that.

you twist to face him, holding the dress against your chest. “rog, i…” you place your hand on his smooth chest, feel the small hairs peppering his collarbone. “you’re drunk,” you finally say. “you’re drunk and you should go to bed.”

he smirks and pushes his hips against yours. “so? you’re drunk too.”

you shake your head. “no, not anymore.” you push him away gently. “believe me, roger, i want nothing more than to go to bed with you but—”

he plays with a lock of hair beside your face, and your desire to resist him weakens. “but?”

“i won’t do it while you’re drunk. besides, you’ll be over this by morning. you’ll go back to not wanting me. so i won’t do it—not while you’re drunk.”

with a huff, he lets you go, but not without kissing you once more. a traitorous tear slides down your cheek, and your throat seizes with emotion. somewhere in the back of your clouded mind, you wonder if you love him. or, if at least you are on the edge of loving him.

but it doesn’t matter. you’ll be gone in a year, and he will move on to someone else, someone strong enough to withstand his rabid fans.

he pulls away first and kisses your temple. “goodnight, angel,” he whispers.

you wrap your arms around your stomach and, once stood beneath the hot water of the shower, let the sound of the creaking pipes drown out the sound of your crying.

roger is gone before you wake the next morning.

he leaves you a note on the kitchen island, scrawled in his plain script: “angel, i’m hungover now, not drunk. i’d still like you in my bed. – rog”

the note should send a thrill to your stomach, but it manifests itself in a ball of dread instead.

what’s it like to kiss roger taylor?

it’s heaven, but the price is hell.

you crumple the note and toss it in the bin, jumping when the phone rings. you hesitate, your gaze locked on the inanimate object that has come to haunt your dreams.

eventually, the phone stops ringing, but the shrill sound echoes in your head as you go about the day.

after the second phone call, tension becomes your constant companion. the days pass, and you withdraw into yourself, scared by the slightest sound, the never-ending line of cars outside the front window, and roger’s growing interest.

he seems to like you now that he knows you. he makes you laugh, asks you questions, even goes so far as to help you research university entrance exams.

but when he comes home from the studio, your stomach takes to twisting with apprehension as you wonder if your faceless friend watched him drive home and wonder further if your faceless friend can see roger kiss the side of your neck.

you try not to push him away. his attention is what you’ve wanted all along, and, though the romantic turn of events was certainly unplanned, he does make your knees weak and your head giddy like a schoolgirl’s.

still, the phone calls persist. it’s not every night and every day. you can’t trace the caller’s pattern because there is none. you never know who will be on the other end of the line. it could be roger calling during his lunch break as he is wont to do; it could be the university to which you’ve applied; or it could be them, the phantom who chills the blood in your veins.

there’s a pad of paper tucked beneath your side of the bed. the words of your faceless friend are scrawled across the page in frenzied handwriting, the handwriting of a madwoman.

what’s it like to kiss roger taylor?

did he buy you those earrings?

will he ask john to help you study for the maths entrance exam?

you should stop answering the phone; you know you should. but each time the phone rings, you respond like a pavlovian dog. you rush to answer, to frantically write down the day’s comment just in case there’s some sliver of information that might shed light on your faceless friend’s identity.

the caller is a woman; that much you know. her voice is deep and gravelly, but she’d referenced herself as the better woman for roger before. she seems to cling to the idea that you will leave him and the position of roger taylor’s wife will fall to her. if only to spite her, you will remain married to roger until your dying day.

you should tell roger too; you know you should.

but he’s happy.

when you first met him, he was sullen, dragging his tail between his legs like a scolded pup after the montreal debacle. it took a while, but you see him now for his true self. he’s carefree in a grounded sort of way, sold out for his music and the lifestyle it affords him. he’s gentle and kind and surprisingly considerate. he picks up the groceries when you ask it of him; he cleans the dishes from supper without complaint. he doesn’t pressure you for anything more than a make-out session on the couch when the lights are low and a record spins on the turntable. you would go further, but you can’t—not right now. he doesn’t ask any questions.

it would break you to tell him about the phone calls, and you can’t bring yourself to do it. each morning, you imagine his crestfallen face. you imagine the anger and the shouting and him calling the authorities and—

it’s easier for him—for everybody—if you just stay quiet.

besides, you’ll be gone in six months.

one evening, after dinner at an expensive restaurant, you let roger to take you to bed. he’d looked so pretty in the candlelight, and he’d listened to you talk about your hopes and dreams for the future. you think you fall in love with him when he drags you onto the bed and whispers sweet praises in your ear the whole night long.

when you wake the next morning, he is still there, and you snuggle into his chest. you breathe him in, and it’s bar soap from the shower and dried sweat and lingering cologne. his arms circle your back, squeezing you tighter.

“mornin’, angel,” he mumbles.

for a moment, you don’t respond. you keep your eyes closed and think back to yesterday.

there’d been no phone call. a blessed reprieve from three days in a row of randomly timed messages. roger had held you, and he holds you still. he is a comfort amidst your turbulent sea.

you should tell him. he can handle it. you’re tired of running from him.

rising to your palm, you meet roger’s gaze. he stares at you through his lashes, a sleepy smile on his mouth. he lifts a hand to cradle your face, and his thumb skims your cheekbone.

“how come you get a halo every morning and i don’t?”

you ignore his compliment before the bravery rushing through your veins dissipates. “rog, there’s something i haven’t told you.”

“yeah? is it about the freckle by your left ass-check?”

gasping, you slap roger’s chest. though he laughs, a red handprint remains in the center of his sternum, and he clutches his skin in pain. once settled, he apologizes and promises to behave.

deep inhale.

“about a month or two ago, i started—”

the phone on the bedside table cuts you off with its sharp bell-like ring.

your stomach plummets to your feet.

your eyes widen as roger holds up a finger and reaches for the earpiece.

he lifts it to his ear. “hello?”

some part of you hopes it’s your faceless friend. roger could deal with her himself. the other part of you prays it’s just a wrong number or john or—

“yes, fred, i know.”

hard exhale.

you slump to the side, leaning your weight against roger’s hip. thank heaven.

roger’s eyes slide to you, and he grins, winking. he squeezes the point of your chin between his forefinger and thumb, his eyes locked on yours as he nods and hums in response to freddie on the other end of the line.

“no, we won’t be late,” roger says. “yes, she’s coming. i promise i won’t forget.” he leans closer to the bedside table in his effort to end the conversation. “okay, fred. yes, i will.” finally, he heaves a sigh. “oh, for fuck’s sake, fuck off! i’m trying to woo my wife, so scram!”

“now,” he says, once the earpiece is on the base. “where were we?”

tugging on the back of your neck, he closes the distance between his mouth and yours. even with a hint of morning breath, you dissolve in his capable hands. he kisses you earnestly, and you struggle to remember what it was you wanted to tell him. he has this way with his mouth and his tongue and his hands that makes you forget everything but the feeling of him.

pulling back a moment later, he mumbles against your mouth: “what was it you wanted to tell me?”

you blink rapidly. “i—” damn, he looks so happy, glowing with youth and perhaps an inkling of love. you press your palm to his cheek then shake your head. “never mind. it can wait.”

he cocks his head to the side. “you sure?”

“mhm.”

“you remember the movie thing tonight, right?” he asks as he slides from the bed, drawing up his sweats from the floor and padding to the window. “that’s what fred called about.”

he throws the curtains open. the morning sun shines through, piercing every hidden corner, and your heart trips in your chest. your hands shake as you lift one of the bed sheets to cover your naked chest.

someone could be watching.

roger grimaces. “oh, shit, sorry, angel.” he tosses you his shirt from the floor, which you gratefully tug over your head. “anyway, tron, you know? we’re supposed to go to the premiere. something about flash gordon and—”

“i remember.”

“good. wear something nice because i don’t give a fuck about this movie, and i’d rather be looking at you anyway.” he smirks as he presses his palms against the mattress and leans in for another kiss.

you oblige him without hesitation.

“gotta go,” he says, pulling away only to firmly kiss you once more. “be ready by six, okay?”

you nod, and he leaves.

the majority of the day, you putter about the house. there’s chores to do—laundry and bills to catch up on and research for university admissions. it’s domestic work, mind-numbingly dull and repetitive. it leaves far too much space for your thoughts to run wild.

you admonish yourself for once more failing to tell roger of your faceless friend. you’d had the moment, and you’d blown it. with his unreliable schedule, there is no telling when you’ll have the chance to sit him down for a serious conversation again. you consider going to jim beach for help, but know once roger hears wind of it, he will fly off the handle because you didn’t come to him first. perhaps rightfully so, too.

you resolve that until you can find another peaceful moment, you will continue to suffer through it. it’s a step in the right direction, though. at least now, you have plans to tell him.

by five-forty-five, you are ready for the event. you sit in the living room, gnawing at your lower-lip as your leg bounces in anticipation. you haven’t gone anywhere with roger since the charity function earlier in the year. your faceless friend will surely be watching tonight, and already you feel sweat gather along your underarms.

roger unlocks the door and sticks his head into the living room upon his arrival. “car’s running. ready to go?”

you lift your handbag from the floor, nodding as you make your way to his side. roger stops you with a flat hand against your stomach. he bends to catch your eyes.

“you okay?”

“yes,” you say, but your voice sounds too rushed and eager even to your own ears.

he doesn’t hassle you for a more illuminative response. he just leads you to the car, opens your door, and makes his way to the theater, foot hard on the gas pedal.

as soon as you see the carpet—red this time—stretched along the sidewalk leading to the movie theater, bile rises in your throat. you reach for roger’s arm and squeeze tight. his head whips to the side.

“roger, i don’t think i can do this,” you breathe.

he frowns. “what do you mean?”

“it’s just that i’ve been—”

he pulls the car to the side. an usher opens the door, sound and light and chaos breaking the comforting quiet of the ride. your eyes flutter shut; you grit your teeth.

“[y/n], what is it?” roger’s voice is low, on the edge of irritation.

this is not the time. yet why do you feel like you’re going to pass out if you don’t—

“mr. taylor?” the usher prompts.

purging the emotions clawing at the front of your mind, you push roger’s shoulder and avoid his searching gaze. “nothing. go on! i’m right behind you.”

roger huffs as he slides from the car, but he dutifully offers his hand to aid you onto the red carpet. as he did before, he leads you toward the theater doors, stopping at the appropriate moments to pose for photographs. you hold on to the back of his jacket so tightly your knuckles crack. your eyes scan the crowd in search of your faceless friend. you will know her when you see her. she is a part of you now, like a demon on your shoulder.

roger rubs his hand up and down your back in a comforting gesture and leans to whisper in your ear. “you feel a stiff as a board,” he says. “what is it?”

you shake your head and nudge him further down the carpet. “we can talk about it later.”

“is it something i’ve—”

“no, roger. it’s not you.”

he studies your face a moment longer before nodding and returning his smile to the crowd.

near the entrance to the theater, a gaggle of girls wave their hands in an attempt to grab roger’s attention. he glances at you, and you nod, backing away to allow him one of the moments he so enjoys.

but one of the girls calls out your name. you lift your eyes to stop tracing the intricate weaving of the red carpet and stare at the girl in question until roger has to drag you over with a laugh. the girl shoves a newspaper in your face, your wedding announcement crinkled with affectionate wear-and-tear. she asks for your autograph, and you chuckle, feeling rather ridiculous as you scrawl your name across the page with a fat green marker.

it happens before you have time to react.

your head is bent as you sign the girl’s newspaper, your attention diverted from scanning the crowd for your faceless friend. but you feel her when she arrives, sense her eyes on your neck, and her fingers reaching for the sleeve of your dress. you have time enough to turn and catch sight of her long fingernails descending upon your cheek, but not time enough to stop her.

you scream more out of fear than pain as her nails scrape your face. truly, it does not hurt, though blood does begin to trickle down your chin and along the column of your throat.

it’s just that she’s there, before your very eyes, and she’s much smaller than you imagined. yet her eyes are dark with envy, and her nails are sharp. you recognize her labored breathing—deep inhale, sharp exhale—as she tries to move backwards and disappear within the crowd before she can be seen. you cannot look away from her, even when roger grabs your shoulders and wrenches you away from the iron gate. he’s shouting in your ear, cradling your uninjured cheek, but everything sounds like you’re underwater.

her face—round and childlike in its innocence—does not match the picture you’d created of her in your mind. she does not resemble the evil witch of your childhood fairy tales. she’s just a child, a little girl with a heart full of love for someone she cannot have.

your faceless friend is pointed out by the girl with the newspaper, and someone—maybe theater security, maybe queen security, maybe a good samaritan—drags her away.

roger grips your chin harder than he should considering the circumstances, but it brings your attention back to him. his eyes are ablaze with fury, and you suddenly feel the urge to cry.

“are you all right?” he demands. “are you hurt anywhere else?”

only my pride, you think.

“no,” you manage with a shake of your head. “no.”

“come on.” he slips his arm around your waist and pushes your head into the curve of his neck, away from prying eyes and flashing cameras. “we’re going home.”

the trip home is silent. your head moves back and forth across the passenger window, in time with the bumps and dips and curves of the road. there’s a fast-food napkin pressed against your cheek to stem the blood. you aren’t sure if it helps. roger keeps his hand firm on your thigh.

once inside the house, he forces you to sit in the middle of the bed as he scurries to retrieve the first aid kit. while he roots around in the bathroom, muttering to himself when he can’t find what he’s looking for fast enough, you strip yourself of your dress and return his old t-shirt over your head. you lift the collar to your nose and inhale his scent. when you draw the collar away, crimson blood and fresh tears stain the fabric. you sigh.

“fuckin’ hell.” roger drops to sit in front of you, his legs skewed to the side. a white, plastic box sits in his lap, and when he opens it, the contexts spill onto the bed sheets. “i’ve had this thing for ages. i think brian got it for me when i moved in.”

his hand returns to your chin; only his touch is gentle now. he looks over your wound, frowning at the sight.

“this is gonna sting, angel,” he warns.

it does. the antiseptic hurts, and you wince, but he keeps you from drawing away, his grip on your chin firm. he unwraps a butterfly bandage and presses it over the shallow scratch on your face. then he shakes his head, his face drawn tight.

“what is it you weren’t telling me?”

“there is—was this girl… and she kept calling, saying things.” you twist and unearth the pad of paper from under the bed. rubbing your eye, you hand it to him and watch his face darken as he reads the words.

he looks up, and you can’t bear to see the anger—the anger directed at you—in his gaze. “why didn’t you tell me?”

your first instinct is to shrug, to obfuscate, but he deserves the truth.

“you never wanted a wife,” you say. “you certainly didn’t want a wife who brought a stalker into the house. i figured—” deep inhale. “i figured i could live with it until our year was up.”

“oh, baby.” roger presses his forehead to yours. he cups your untainted cheek. “fucking up in montreal was the best thing that ever happened to me. it brought you to me, didn’t it?”

“you’re just saying that ‘cause—”

“no.” he draws back and grabs both shoulders in his hands. “i mean it. i never was one for marriage. didn’t make sense. but i get it now. it’s about partnership, yeah, but it’s about more than that. it’s about trust, too.” he smiles softly, pressing his thumb against your lip. “it’s about affection.”

he goes quiet then removes his hands from your shoulders.

“i wish you would have trusted me.”

“i’m—”

“don’t apologize. this whole arrangement is weird, and i don’t blame you for keeping quiet. i just wish you would have told me so i could help you.”

you sigh, dropping your head. “what do you want, roger?”

he lifts your chin, and you are struck by the love so firmly etched in his eyes. it knocks the wind from your lungs, leaves you breathless.

“i want you to keep my last name,” he says.

“what?”

“you heard me: i want you keep my last name.”

tears flood your vision, but not for fear or worry or regret.

you begin to smile, but the skin of your cheek pulls tight, and you wince, touching your injury. “ow,” you mutter.

roger laughs and pulls your fingers away from the bandage. he kisses each knuckle then rubs the wedding band along your ring finger. “can we give each other another chance?” he asks. “can we forget all the assumptions and just be us? i think we started on the wrong foot and somewhere along the way we switched—”

“yes.”

he stops mid-sentence, his brows drawing together in confusion. “what?”

“i said yes. i’ll keep your last name. i want your last name, roger taylor.”

he grins, and the happiness in every line on his face outshines even the sun’s rays. “god, you’re perfect.” he kisses you hard, and you laugh as you drop against the pillows, pulling him with you. he stops attacking your neck with his lips long enough to prop himself up and stare down at you. “but don’t you ever pull something like that again! if someone starts nagging you, tell me first thing. promise?”

you nod, stunned by his firm tone.

“say it.”

“i promise.”

he smooths the hair on your forehead, and your stomach somersaults to watch him examine you so openly “good girl,” he mumbles before lowering his mouth to yours again.

you lose yourself in him. he loses himself in you. somewhere along the way, you find one another, and all is bliss.

in the morning, legs tangled in the sheets and steady rain pelting the window, roger adjusts his hold on your waist. he’s still asleep, his chest rising and falling in time with his gentle breath. you pull his arm tight around you and smile into your pillow.

your cheek is still sore, and you’re sure there’s some poor nun who remains scarred for life after witnessing roger’s montreal incident.

but this morning you cannot find it within yourself to feel bothered by your faceless friend, nor by the scarred nun. indeed, you think, you should write them each a thank you card, because in a funny sort of way, they brought you to your husband. in a funny sort of way, they gave you love of your life. and for that, you are indebted to them.

you twist at the sound of roger’s yawn. taking his face in your hands, you smile at him. “good morning, husband,” you whisper.

he grins back. “good morning, wife.”

now this—this you could get used to.

taglist (italicized handles wouldn’t work): @im-an-adult-ish @bluewillowmom @deakygurl @aprilaady @dancingdiscofloof @six-bloodyminutes

#roger taylor #roger taylor x reader #queen #queen fic #j writes

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