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leapyearkisses · 3 years

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Orbs Are Bad News 2/2 - (m/m) Gerrit/Llewellyn

Part deux wherein they fuck. I have no shame. Happy Sunday.

There are also some feelings.

NSFW, MESS, outdoor sex

I’m glad I decided to reread and repost these lol

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"Are you ever going to stop sneezing?" Remembrance asked. At the same time, Cordes said, "One thousand blessings, Llewellyn, one for each." The two of them were several yards ahead on the road, and only Cordes was looking back over his shoulder. Right now, the four party members were the only travelers on this particular stretch, although as they got closer to civilization, they'd started to pass the odd wanderer, farmers with wagons, even a merchant or two. The woods here were broken up periodically by stretches of arable land, clear-cut several decades ago and now waving with wheat, flax, or various vegetable leaves. The fields were golden in the late sun. Their shadows stretched behind them like taffy, rippling on the cobblestones. The day was vanishing quickly, and Gerrit could sense his companions' impatience to move on even as he stopped again himself, drawing out his handkerchief in a now very familiar motion.

Llewellyn, for his part, could not answer them, face buried in his elbow as he ducked with another reluctant outburst. "Hahktschiu! Hahh- happtsch!"

"Bless," said Gerrit, and he stepped in front of the elf to shield him marginally from view. He laid one warm hand on the back of Llewellyn's neck and lifted the handkerchief with the other, capturing the next sneeze in the flannel folds. He settled his fingers firmly around Llewellyn's nose.

This was an arrangement that had been born out of necessity three days ago when the party had raided a bandit camp's plundered stores. Along with a good stash of gold and gems, they'd found a blue crystal orb, cursed perhaps, that had summarily become attached to both of Llewellyn's hands, rendering the sorcerer unable to do most anything... including take care of his cold on his own.

Llewellyn blew his nose into the handkerchief, wetting the cloth and dampening Gerrit's fingers through it. Originally quite opposed to such a display outside of the most private circumstances, the elf had been forced to put his pride aside and let Gerrit help him. His fever had abated the previous day, but the frequency of his sneezing had increased, as if his body was insistent now on ridding itself of whatever illness remained. It was a horrific prospect to Llewellyn to catch the resulting mess every time in the sleeve of his robes... so he suffered Gerrit to hold the handkerchief, even though they were walking along the road where any might see them.

Despite some initial teasing, Remembrance and Cordes had quickly grown accustomed to the practice and now cared not at all, except to complain. "We're going to have to camp again," grumbled Remembrance. "Five miles from Veigh and we're going to be stuck without a bath!"

"Is there anything I could do for you?" Cordes asked, somewhat exasperated. The priest had made several herbal concoctions for Llewellyn over the past few days, but none had helped the elf's nose much. Cordes's specialty was unfortunately not the curing of disease but the mending of bones and flesh.

"Ndo," Llewellyn growled, as fed up as the rest of them. "I'm beyond heh- help. Hngtschiu!"

"Bless you, arimelda," said Gerrit, trying to keep his voice even. He shifted the handkerchief so that Llewellyn could have a drier spot, trying to ignore a glimpse of slickness on the elf's face. "Remembrance, Cordes, why don't the two of you go on ahead? Find an inn, get a room, take a bath, whatever you want. It might be prudent also to send a message ahead to the Mages Guild about the orb. Will you do that? Llewellyn and I will join you when we arrive."

Cordes nodded. "Yes, I'll draft a letter as soon as- Hey!" Remembrance had grabbed his arm and was rushing ahead already.

"Let's go, man!" she said. "Everyone loves a damn priest; you're my ticket to a good room, so may your god help you if you dawdle." Her pointed tail swished as she practically jogged down the road. Cordes spluttered but could no more stand up to her as to a tornado, so off they went. It was a remarkably short time before the two of them were out of earshot, disappearing around a bend.

Gerrit sighed but turned his attention back to Llewellyn, who was blowing his nose again. The handkerchief was running out of clean corners this late in the day, but the elf leaned back this time when he was finished. "All set?" Gerrit asked.

"Yes." Llewellyn rubbed his eyes on his upper arm, wiping away a spare tear from the effort. "...My apologies." He cleared his throat, refusing to meet Gerrit's gaze. "We may arrive after dark."

"You're ill," said Gerrit, trying to fold the flannel in a way as to avoid his pocket getting wet. "We'd move faster if you let me carry y-"

"No."

"Then I don't mind taking a more leisurely pace." Gerrit smiled. Even after everything, Llewellyn was stubborn. Honestly, since they weren't really in a rush, he didn't really care when they reached Veigh; they'd only detoured here to try and remove the orb. If Llewellyn, the most inconvenienced, didn't want to give up his pride and piggyback on... well, Gerrit found his noble hauteur inexplicably cute.

He also wasn't in a particular hurry because it was awfully uncomfortable to make any sort of time with his arousal pressed flush to his thigh.

Llewellyn coughed into his elbow and then started walking again. Gerrit had pulled back his hood for him in the morning and braided his hair, and the crown of plaits caught the afternoon sunlight like an obsidian. Gerrit tried not to let his eyes linger on the sorcerer's pale nape. Or any other part of him. He and Llewellyn had been travelling together for close to three years, working for their current patron in the capital, and in that time Gerrit had felt himself growing closer to the elf. Wanting to be closer, anyway.

Llewellyn shot a glance at him and caught him looking. Gerrit flushed and turned his gaze back ahead to the road.

"You've been very accommodating during all of this," the elf said, tone carefully neutral.

Gerrit shrugged. "It doesn't bear mentioning. We're comrades."

"Comrades," Llewellyn repeated, an edge to his voice that Gerrit couldn't quite place. "Is that all it is?" He kicked a stick that had fallen to the cobblestones, sending it into the brush. Somewhere to the right, bumblebees droned over a meadow.

Gerrit swallowed. "Yes? You and I, we've helped each other before. I consider you to be a steadfast companion." Eyes on the road. Eyes on the dappled play of shadowed leaves and light on the ground. "Why do you ask?"

"So shy," Llewellyn exclaimed, a tad mockingly. "You've never been shy about taking me to bed, Gerrit." Despite his short height, the elf seemed to find it easy to look down his nose at the much taller fighter. "Has something changed?"

"Changed?" Eyes on the road.

Llewellyn stopped walking. "You called me 'arimelda.' 'Dearest.' Did you think I wouldn't hear you over my sneezing?" He couldn't cross his arms with his hands trapped by the orb, but the set of his jaw was determined and his firm brows were arched. "I wasn't so distracted then as you seem to have thought."

Gerrit shoved his hands in his pockets. He stopped walking but didn't turn. "Apparently not," he muttered. "Look, we can set it aside. Doesn't have to mean anything – doesn't have to change anything. I know a highborn elf like you wouldn't consider an official relationship with a half-elven bastard, and I've known that from the start. For my whole life. So... I care about you. But it can just be as comrades, or whatever you want it to be." Llewellyn was quiet, and after a long minute, Gerrit did turn on his heel, desperate to know what kind of reaction he'd provoked.

He saw Llewellyn standing with his eyes closed and head titled back, lips parted. The elf's nostrils flared as he gasped.

"Are you going to sneeze again??" Gerrit asked. He threw up his hands, then went for his handkerchief once more. They did have an arrangement.

He strode back over to Llewellyn's side and tucked the cloth around his nose again, thumb and forefinger just resting on the elf's nostrils. He started to rub Llewellyn's back. "You have the worst timing, you know? Here I am, spilling my heart to you and everything."

"Sh-hhuh-t up, I jh- just nih-" Llewellyn gasped again and gave in; he had no other choice. "Hahktscht!" He moaned and pressed closer into the handkerchief, thick congestion only aggravating the itch that remained inside. "Hkktschtt! Hngtscht! Hahh- ah-- ankcxttschiu!"

"Easy... it's okay." Gerrit massaged Llewellyn’s nose, tried to soothe the irritation. He guided Llewellyn to the side of the road, and, in a moment of calm, settled him to sit on the grassy bank. He followed, kneeling at the elf's side. Llewellyn was tearing up again and his nose was twitching against the pads of Gerrit's fingers. Gerrit felt electric all over. He found himself wishing the handkerchief was gone so that he might touch the soft, heated skin of Llewellyn's septum, coax the elf to relax and loose his tension, sneeze into Gerrit's palm. The mess didn't bother him; none of it bothered him. He was supremely unbothered. His cock was almost painfully hard.

It took several more minutes punctuated with more urgent expulsions before Llewellyn seemed to trust himself to speak. His eyes were wet with unshed tears, eyelids tender and reddened. His nose was brightly ruddy, running to chapped. He had to take a shaky breath, collecting his thoughts. "Gerrit."

"Yes?" Gerrit lowered the handkerchief, gently pinching as he did to clear any lingering moisture. He wasn't ready to hear a rejection, nor did he feel particularly ready for a lecture or a tirade or even a logical exploration of why a relationship was a bad idea. He wanted, if possible, to keep walking to Veigh, side by side, listening to the bees and dragonflies and songbirds settling in for the evening, feeling the light breeze on his face, replete with the scents of summer.

"Kiss me."

Gerrit blinked, mental caravan bunching to a halt. "What?"

Llewellyn nudged him in the chest with the orb. "Kiss me. You're all worked up." He cleared his throat. "And judging by the state of you, you're not put off by my cold. So?" He tilted his head to the side, gently, closed his eyes. "I want you to kiss me."

Baffled, but feeling as though maybe all was not lost, Gerrit obliged, pressing their lips together. His own eyes slid closed and he cupped Llewellyn's cheek, deepening the kiss, touching their tongues together, trying to convey how he felt. Whatever had changed. The kiss lasted for too short a time; Llewellyn broke away to breathe, eyes half-lidded, but he didn't lean away.

"I'm not going to dismiss you out of hand," he said. "You or your feelings. But I would ask for some time to think." He looked up through his lashes. "Are you feeling better?"

Gerrit could feel his pulse in every extremity. "Not really," he managed, and he kissed Llewellyn again, this time sliding one hand under the elf's head and one at his hip and pressing him back to lay in the grass. He moaned in his throat as Llewellyn kissed back, and when they had to break for breath, he started to kiss at Llewellyn's forehead, jaw, throat, wherever he could touch skin. His hands roamed over the elf's body, smoothing over hip and thigh and belly until he could start to undo the buttons on Llewellyn's close-cut robes.

"Gerrit," gasped Llewellyn. He moved the orb between them, jamming it into Gerrit's sternum. "You are not going to sleep with me on the side of the damn road! Get ahold of yourself!"

Gerrit growled at the quick pain in his chest, then shook his head and leaned back. He flushed deeply and pulled his hands away. "Oh. Oh, fuck, sorry. I-"

"Pick me up." Llewellyn lifted his arms.

"What??" Gerrit's brain was having a hard time keeping up at the moment, all of his blood being elsewhere.

"There was a thicker copse of trees back about thirty feet, on the left." Llewellyn waved the orb at him. "Pick me up. We can lay down there."

So. So Gerrit ducked his head into the circle of Llewellyn’s arms and picked him up, holding him securely and setting off down the road again, back the way they’d come. The elf was right; there, about twenty feet back from the bank, was a thick copse of pines, all grown together with wild geranium and maidenhead ferns. Gerrit pushed through, shoulder first. Despite its proximity to the thoroughfare, the inside of the stand was quiet and shielded completely from view. This would do nicely.

He set Llewellyn back on his feet and made short work of undressing him, first freeing the sorcerer from his pouches and bags, then undoing the silver buttons on his robe from his collarbone to his crotch. The rich fabric fell open appealingly. Next, Gerrit freed the elf from his boots and leggings. A long white shirt, woven from the finest of elven angora, still covered him, but Gerrit pushed the fabric up over Llewellyn’s belly, leaning in to kiss the elf again and touching him intimately.

Llewellyn moaned and nudged Gerrit’s hip with the orb. “Now you,” he said. “I want to see your body.”

Gerrit complied, making quick time shedding his cloak, pack, leather armor, breeches, boots. Two daggers, two short swords, caltrops, a bow and quiver, a glaive, and a spiked whip followed. He pushed them to the side as Llewellyn rolled his eyes.

"You can't possibly have a use for all of those," the elf said, and then Gerrit captured his mouth again.

He laid Llewellyn down on the soft carpet of pine needles, using his cloak to cover the ground and double as a makeshift pillow. The elf was beautiful in the shifting shade, skin flawless. He had the orb resting on his chest and it glowed intermittently in the inconstant sunlight. The gold chain netting that encapsulated both the orb and Llewellyn's fine-boned hands glimmered. "You know," said Gerrit, smoothing a hand down Llewellyn's bare thigh. "You'd look pretty good bound up in gold chain."

"This isn't enough for you?" He scoffed.

Gerrit laughed. "It would be fun to tease you. I love it when you fuss at me. So cute." He dodged Llewellyn's elbow and settled down on his stomach, hooked one of Llewellyn's legs over his shoulder, and nuzzled the base of the elf's cock. "Ready, arimelda?" His own cock was under him, pressed to his stomach in the confines of his shirt. He could feel his pulse in the head of it, quickening with the scent of his lover.

"Yes, you prick," sighed the elf, and he moaned when Gerrit started to kiss him and lave his skin. His fingers flexed on the orb, longing to wind into Gerrit's hair.

Gerrit took Llewellyn into his mouth eagerly, fingers curled over the elf's thighs, fingertips pressing at the sensitive inner surface as he sucked and teased and swallowed. Like this, he could focus on Llewellyn's pleasure. The noises the usually stoic and prideful sorcerer was making were enough to make Gerrit moan, mouth full, and rock his hips. Nothing pleased Gerrit more than seeing Llewellyn undone, seeing the elf flushed and open and undone for him. And he shivered, all over, when he heard the elf's breath catch and his tone go wavery. He thought he could come from this, listening to Llewellyn sneeze while pleasuring him implacably with a heated, well-placed tongue.

"Aa, aa, ahh- ih- Gerrit, I-" Llewellyn drew his knee up, curling, heel drawing along Gerrit's back. "I nih- need to snih- hh-"

Gerrit drew his head back, let Llewellyn's cock free for a moment. He didn't loosen his grip on the elf's legs, though, wound up and desirous. "Okay by me, melda, it's okay. Feel all right? Want me to stop?" He was breathless himself, had to force the words past the distraction of his arousal, but he would abide.

"No, don't stop," Llewellyn groaned, then turned his head to the side. "Hpptscht! Hah- Haktschiu!"

"Bless, bless." Gerrit kissed Llewellyn's thigh tenderly, then nipped it, drew his tongue over the hurt, sucked a bruise to mark its place. He swallowed Llewellyn down again as the elf cried out in pleasure and then bent with another helpless burst. Gerrit wondered if he could make Llewellyn come simultaneously with a sneeze and what that might feel like. The fantasy set him alight. His abdomen was tight, his cock like a brand on his stomach. He redoubled his efforts.

Gerrit felt it first, when Llewellyn came, in the tightening of the elf's thighs and stomach, then tasted the salt of his release. His world narrowed down to taking it in, swallowing, milking with his mouth while Llewellyn cried out, going until the elf was pushing him away, keening, oversensitive. He didn't wait to lift Llewellyn then into his lap, cradling him with one arm and stroking himself with the other hand, desperate to come as well. Llewellyn pressed his face to the junction of Gerrit's neck and shoulder, tightly gripping the cloth of Gerrit's shirt as they rocked together. The elf's nose was gently wet and he was panting, sniffling. Gerrit came with a shout, holding him close, shaking with an overabundance of pleasure. He let go of his cock and embraced Llewellyn fully. He had enough presence of mind not to confess to anything, but he couldn't stop himself from murmuring how beautiful, how soft.

Gradually the world came back. Birdsong, first, and the bees, the sounds of the trees swaying in the light breeze. The lingering heat of the day, dampened by the shade and the growing dusk. The musty smell of pine needles and the sharper hint of sap, the scents of sex, the pressure of Llewellyn astride his lap, the bite of uneven ground against his knees. Llewellyn was touching his cheek, trying to say something sweet, failing because of his cold again.

"Ah- hh- Ttschgktst!"

Wetness against his neck. Gerrit wound his fingers with Llewellyn's and kissed his jaw. "Bless you," he said. "I'll find you a healer in Veigh. We'll get you well again. Right after we free you from the orb." He laid his cheek against the back of Llewellyn's hand tenderly. Then he paused. "Wait." Straightening, he brought his hands between them. The right was laced with Llewellyn's left. "The orb is gone."

Llewellyn straightened also, looking down at his hands. His hands with no orb. He lifted them both, amazed. And then wiped his nose on his wrist, sighing in pleasure. Gerrit tried not to blush despite everything.

"Where did it go?" he asked, looking past the elf's shoulder. "Why did it come off?"

"Who even cares at this point??" Llewellyn had let go of him and was stretching, running his palms over his body, touching his own arms and face and cock, finally able to move and feel again after three days of magical bondage. He wiggled his fingers and then clapped his palms together, raising a small flame with their parting. "I have my freedom back. I can cast spells again. I can-" He smiled brilliantly. "I can touch you, too." He dropped his hands suddenly to Gerrit's lap, nimbly taking Gerrit's cock between them.

Gerrit lost track of the orb immediately.

---

It was dark indeed when the two of them made it to the inn in Veigh, but both were in high spirits. Gerrit had relinquished handkerchief duty back to Llewellyn with a great internal mourning, but he could always fantasize about this again in the future (he did, frequently), and he knew that Llewellyn, despite his best efforts, would catch more colds on the road (he did, more frequently than he would like).

Remembrance and Cordes had only been able to secure one room, it seemed, with two beds. Gerrit resigned himself, going up the stairs, to sleeping on the floor. But... it was apparent upon entering the small space that... well, their priest and thief had ended up taking up only one of the beds, together. Gerrit and Llewellyn traded glances.

"I don't think I want to ask," said Llewellyn, going for the free bed.

"Sounds like a plan to me," Gerrit replied, joining him.

In the morning, Cordes, with great dignity sprung from embarrassment (the cause of which he did not volunteer) informed them that a letter had not been sent to the Mages Guild yet. He was immensely relieved to find that one was no longer needed and quick to congratulate Llewellyn on his newly regained freedom. Remembrance just chuckled from the bed and took her time buckling her armor back on.

Already in Veigh, the party spent some time stocking up on medicines and liquefying some of the heavier treasures they'd liberated from the bandit camp. Gerrit sent a message on to their patron to expect them back in the capital in a couple of weeks, barring disaster. They purchased horses and set out, ready for the next adventure.

---

The orb lay still in the pine thicket, nestled like an egg among the ferns, waiting for the next hapless traveler.

#lyk writes #snz #gerrit truestride #llewellyn mistwalker #gerwellyn

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otonymous · 4 years

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The Taming of the Fox: Lucien’s Firsts (NSFW Headcanon)

Hey Dear Nonnies,

Thank you both for your incredibly kind words and for waiting so patiently for these Lucien headcanons 💕You are absolutely right...I am a total hot mess when it comes to Lucien, and with the King’s birthday coming up on November 15th, I figured now’s the time to finally finish up this WIP that’s been lingering around for months 😂

Warning: NSFW/18+: Explicit/graphic language - reader discretion is advised.

Naughtiness ensues after the cut!

Dark Knights In White Coats: Your Relationship With Lucien:

Things will never be "just comfortable” with Lucien, as he has a knack for keeping you on your toes. He’ll make your heart race with the slightest touch, the briefest of glances…the most lascivious words spoken with the elegant voice of a gentleman

This will be the case regardless of how long you've been together. In a sense, your relationship will never lose that initial spark of excitement

The man is a scorpio and has a lot of traits that typically characterize natives of this sign (according to the numerous astrology websites I’ve combed through in my lifetime LOL - no offence meant to any lovely scorpio readers!): tall, dark and handsome, intense, guarded and mysterious. Full of an effortless sensuality and prone to jealousy

He’s the type of man to whisper sweet nothings in your ear while he’s binding your hands to the bedpost or has you bent over his knee

With Lucien, there is always something new to discover, and there are times when you feel like you will never fully understand the depths and complexities of this man. And like a moth drawn to flame, this will both excite and disconcert you

But one thing will always, always, be crystal clear and unshakeable: the strength and sincerity of his love for you

Lucien is seemingly a man of contradictions, capable of drawing people in with his allure while simultaneously setting them on edge (this is canon)

Get ready to be the envy of all the girls: women are making eyes at Lucien left, right and centre wherever he goes, but he never spares them a single glance — the man only has eyes for you

Lucien is an INTENSE lover in addition to being the perfect gentleman: he will make you feel like the only other person in the world

When he’s with you, you’re the sole focus of his attention: he’s looking you in the eye, nodding his head while you speak, asking the right questions and making appropriate insights. It’s not so much a casual conversation than really connecting with one another, practically spiritual at times. He’s not one for meaningless small talk

Even when you’re not with him, you’re never far from his mind. He’s frequently showering you with gifts for no reason other than the fact that they reminded him of you in some way: a bouquet of your favourite blooms that he saw in the florist’s storefront, a knitted scarf because he remembered the way you pulled up the collar of your coat when he last picked you up from work, a delicate pendant necklace because he can’t get the contours of your collarbones out of his head

He’s kissing your hand, opening doors, pulling out chairs, draping his coat over your shoulders as you walk through the park at dusk on a cool fall evening

He’s tucking stray hairs behind your ear and walking on the outside of the sidewalk to shield you from traffic

He’s also whisking you away into shadowy corners and dark alleyways, kissing you breathless as he presses you up against cool brick — his fervent hand exploring beneath your skirt before he hoists your legs to wrap them about his muscular waist

You’ve never felt this way about any one else before, and you know you never will again

Being in love with Lucien is like riding a roller coaster: exhilarating, and not for the faint of heart

Kiss Me:

Your first kiss with Lucien is as contradictory as the man himself: objectively tame, yet the most sensual kiss you’ve ever received

After inviting you to an evening screening of Hitchcock’s Rear Window at the cinema, he sees you to your door, patiently waiting as you rummage through your purse for your keys

The man is standing so close that the intensity of his gaze on the back of your neck is practically palpable, so much so that you almost drop your keys when you find them

And when you finally manage to open the door, you’re lingering awkwardly at the threshold, trying to think of any reason at all to stave off that awful word, “Goodbye”

Lucien suddenly reaches out a large hand to gently finger an earring before those elegantly tapered tips graze the sensitive skin of your lobe, sending electricity down your spine and goosebumps blooming across your neck and chest

“I’ve never seen this pair on you before. Could it be that you got them especially for our date?”

Embarrassed to be found out and not wanting to own up to how eager you were to see Lucien outside a professional capacity, you avert your gaze, staring intently at the ground as your face flushed red

Leaning in closer, the handsome tease chuckles softly, breath hot against your ear when he whispers: “Would you think me foolish if I told you that makes me very happy?"

You're positive your heart is going to beat its way out of your chest

Then slowly…slowly…Lucien’s lips cross from ear to cheek, torturously close to touch as his breath drags light across the ultra fine hairs of your skin

In the meantime, the professor's hand has travelled to the nape of your neck, thumb drawing gentle circles on your skin even as his other arm wraps around your waist to pull you impossibly close

And when those soft lips hover mere millimetres away from yours, you’ve already fallen so deeply into those dark violet eyes that the press of his mouth on your own is as natural as breathing, your lips parting in a desperate plea for him to deepen the kiss

Then, the tip of his tongue lightly traces the inside of your lips, grazing the edges of your teeth before Lucien pulls away to leave you breathless and wanting as he whispers, “Sweet dreams,” with the most devilish smirk

Forget sweet dreams, sleep itself will prove elusive as you spend the night incredibly pent up, knowing a mere wall is the only thing separating you from your seductive neighbour

Say I Love You:

Note: this portion of the headcanon was heavily inspired by Lucien’s Autumn Blaze date

It will take a while for Lucien to tell you he loves you

But when he does, the force and solemnity of his confession leaves absolutely no doubt that this is no mere lip service, that even if you doubt whether the sun will rise the following day, you cannot doubt that — body, heart and soul — Lucien loves you with every fibre of his being

The professor makes good on his promise to take you to visit the Maple Trail in Canada

And there, the two of you wander through a wooded area, secluded amongst the serenity of maple trees with their lush, crimson foliage

Suddenly, a wind blows, soft but insistent to gently shake the boughs until the bright blue sky is momentarily a blazing blur of red, leaves pulled from branches to float to the ground like tiny dancers, as if you and Lucien were encased within some fantastic snow globe

Completely fascinated, it isn't until you turn to Lucien to point out the swirling colours that you see him already staring intently at you, the yearning and melancholy etched into those dark eyes and handsome face made more poignant by the swirls of red that occasionally cut across your vision of the man standing a short distance away, the afternoon sun filtering through a dwindling canopy to bathe him in dappled brilliance. He never seemed more dignified in his long, black coat as he did amidst a backdrop of vermilion bursts

The man looks almost ethereal. And for a moment, you're afraid to even speak, let alone touch him, for fear his very being might disperse like mist before your eyes

“I love you.”

His voice is so soft and low that you wonder whether you imagined the words, carried away by an unforgiving gust of wind as soon as they formed on the tip of his tongue. And just as you open your mouth to respond, you freeze…a nebulous sense of dread rendering you still and mute

You finally regain your senses at the sound of leaves crunching crisp under the soles of Lucien’s shoes as he approaches, but it isn’t until he says, “You’re cold,” that you realize your hands were shaking at your sides.

The professor swiftly unbuttons his wool coat and gently pulls you to his broad chest before wrapping it around you both. His radiant heat and fresh, clean scent — simultaneously arousing and comforting — stirs up a keen ache from the pit of your stomach that is quieted the further you bury your face into those hard pecs, allowing the steady beat of his heart to calm your own

Wrapping your arms tightly around his waist and willing your touch to transmit the emotions you couldn’t find the words to convey at the moment, the absolute euphoria you felt to hear those words fall from Lucien’s lips frightens you. Because you know, in your heart of hearts, that no matter what happens, you would never love another person the way you loved Lucien.

The First Taste:

As with the professor's confession of love, Lucien isn’t one to rush into sex

When you finally get to doing the deed, it will be passionate, intense, and the closest you'll ever get to a spiritual experience

It will feel like merging physically and emotionally with a soulmate. Like being reunited with someone who has loved you deeply in every single incarnation of your past lives

It will also absolutely ruin you for anyone else

That first night, you are both almost crazed in your passion, swept up in such a frenzy you’re already clawing at each other’s clothes before the door is even closed

It may have something to do with the fact that the two of you have wanted to jump each other��s bones since day one, despite the fact that you have magically managed to hold out till now. The delayed gratification will make the act all the more sweet and intense

Lucien’s large hand has got your wrists pinned together above your head even as he’s kicking the door shut, his body pressing yours insistently against the wall as your legs part around his muscular thigh. Meanwhile, his other hand yanks off his tie, fingers unbuttoning the collar of his dress shirt, which has grown altogether too constrictive, much like the crotch of his pants 😆

The rhythm of his breath is hypnotic as the professor licks the delicate column of your neck in broad strokes before sucking on the tender skin just at the jugular, Lucien deriving indescribable pleasure to feel the minute beat of your pulse against the tip of his tongue

And when he sees the colours that bloom on your flesh as a result of his attentions, he cannot help but smile in admiration at how beautifully marked you are as his woman

You bury your face in the silky strands of Lucien’s ebony hair, surrendering to this man as you drown in his intoxicating scent: the sweetness of freshly-snipped grass and the vitality of rain-drenched earth. And everything about this moment — about you and him together — just feels so natural, kismet. Meant to be.

Then suddenly, the heat that had been simmering beneath your skin flares, and you positively burn for want of his touch on your bare flesh. So when his hands grip the silk of your blouse to rip it open, your chest heaves in relief as you moan into his kiss, prompting Lucien to deepen it by slipping his tongue further into your mouth

At this point, you're tearing at Lucien's dress shirt and shamelessly grinding onto his thigh, seeking even the slightest bit of friction to ease the intense yearning for release

Your knees go weak when Lucien unhooks your bra to gently slide the straps down your arms, a reverent look upon his face as he takes a moment to admire your breasts before bending to suck a nipple into his wet, hot mouth — one hand pinching and rolling the other to a hardened peak as the other reaches down to feel the moisture dripping between your legs, making a mess of his pants even through satin and lace.

His fingers drive you insane, stroking the swell of your folds through the slick fabric before hooking around to touch you directly, the tight circles he drew about your clit making you twitch before you clenched around his index, middle…and then ring fingers, diving deep in unison until the wet sounds compete with your panting breaths in an otherwise silent room

When the professor finally removes his hand from your pussy, he brings those glistening digits to his lips, making a show of licking your arousal from each finger as he remarks in a deep, husky voice about the sweetness of your taste

Finally pulling off his dress shirt to reveal the perfection that is his broad chest, defined torso and muscular arms, Lucien drops to his knees, gently pulling down your skirt and underwear before he drapes your leg over his shoulder, hands steadying you as he tastes you directly, lips pressing soft on the inside of your thighs before his tongue is running greedily along the length of your folds as if he were trying to slake an unquenchable thirst

Just when you’re about to topple over from a shuddering climax, Lucien wraps your legs around his waist and carries you over to the bed, gently laying you down and kissing your forehead before he rises to step out of his pants

You bite back a gasp when you finally see his erection. Sure, you had palmed it many, many times before during countless make-out sessions, but you had never seen the full extent of Lucien’s length and girth.

You secretly thrill at the thought of taking such a well-endowed man within yourself, biting your lip to think of the bittersweetness of pleasure mixed with a hint of pain

Fighting to control the impatient way your hips lift towards the professor as he coats his cock in your juices — his heat searing as it teased about your entrance — you focus instead on the intensity of his eyes, solemnly locked on yours even as his jaw trembled to feel you envelop him, impossibly tight as he began to push into you

Ever the considerate lover, Lucien pushes in gradually, giving you time to accommodate him - every inch by delicious inch - until he is fully sheathed to the hilt, your pussy clenching even as you breathed deep in an attempt to relax and open yourself further for him

Then, when you smile up at him, Lucien begins to move again, hips slow at first to give you a taste of things to come before he builds up speed, throwing your legs over his shoulders to allow himself to plough deeper into you. You can literally feel him at the pit of your stomach.

At this point, the headboard is hitting the wall in time to Lucien’s hard thrusts against your body (you make a mental note to apologize to the neighbours later and say you were hanging pictures in the middle of the night)

When the professor suddenly adjusts his angle and hits that spot, his fingers reach once more between your legs to rub at your clit and you fall apart in the midst of the most intense orgasm you’ve ever experienced in your life

Pressing his mouth to yours in another desperate kiss, Lucien's release follows soon after. And there is something so incredibly satisfying about feeling him spill hot and deep within your body, the man leaving behind a piece of himself like the way he made a home within your heart

And as he pulls you close within a warm embrace, you lay your head against his chest, the gradual descent of his heart rate lulling your pleasantly exhausted body to sleep

“Goodnight, my little butterfly," Lucien whispers, watching your eyelids flutter under the influence of sleep like delicate wings. His heart has never, ever, felt so full.

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You made it to the end! 😆 Thanks so much for reading, and check out more of my work here! 📚

#mlqc #mr love queens choice #love and producer #mlqc smut headcanon #mlqc headcanon #mlqc lucien #mlqc xu mo #mlqc lucien smut #love and producer smut #mlqc firsts #mlqc lucien firsts #my writing #q&a #all request line #anonymous

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crushedbyhyperbole · 4 years

Text

Snowballs in Summer

Summary: Your day goes from bad to worse when Snowball escapes. Luckily for you, retired war hero and newly minted firefighter, Bucky Barnes is on hand to rescue a damsel in distress.

Words: 3.5k

Warnings: Nothing much, just a little bit of sexual tension, a whole bunch of fluff and some vicious cat antics.

A/N: Firefighter cliché - Snowball is a demon cat, Bucky is a babe. Written for @marvelfulxbabes writing challenge, filling the prompt of Firefighter AU. Thank you to @sassy-pelican, @overlordintraining and @s-trawberryv-eins for reading this through for me to make sure I’m not ‘tarding hard

“Come down from there, this instant!” You commanded with a stern tone, more irritated than you had ever been with the white ball of fur that was currently the bane of your existence. “Snowball?!”

The late morning sun filtered through the foliage of the sycamore tree, dappling the shaded grass with a myriad of dancing sunbeams. On any other day you might admire them and take inspiration, but not today. Today it was easily 95 degrees out and you had a job interview at a coffee shop in the city which you were going to miss because of that stupid cat.

You paced the lawn in your heels, pencil skirt and white blouse, the latter had already begun to stick to the damp skin of your lower back on account of the heat; you felt uncomfortable and it added to your annoyance. Curse that damn cat.

Snowball was your sister’s cat, and you were minding her while your sister was away on a month-long vacation. Something about a sabbatical from work, seeing the world, once in a life-time opportunity, yadda yadda yadda. Of course you’d look after her cat. The trouble was that your sister lived up state and you couldn’t be away from your studio, which was essentially your garage, so Snowball had moved in.

You were on day five of being a cat mamma and Snowball had already made you her bitch. She slept on your bed and scratched any unprotected piece of skin if you so much as thought of infringing upon her space. Whatever chair you were on she wanted to be on, when you ate she’d attack your plate, invade your privacy when you peed (yes she could open doors), there were ladders in all of your stockings, white hairs on all of your clothes, she’d even peed in your favourite sneakers.

So, there you were, stood under the tree at the end of your front yard, covered in scratches and fur, begging the vindictive demon of a cat to take pity on you so you could please please attend this job interview before you were so broke you couldn’t make your mortgage payment.

“She doesn’t look very sympathetic to your plight.” A deep but soft voice startled you so much you squeaked.

“Holyfuckingshit!” Your mouth ran as you panicked, hand splayed on your chest.

“Sorry.” The tall brunette with electric blue eyes stepped forward to steady you with a hand on your elbow. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” Breathless and sweaty from running, he looked at you with concern.

He was gorgeous, muscular, lean and fit. Lightly tanned skin on display under a tight white wife beater and some grey jersey shorts. The Polynesian tattoo sleeve that adorned his left arm practically had you panting. You laughed nervously and swayed on your feet, heels digging into the lawn; you’d been on your tiptoes so as not to get your stilettos snagged in the grass. Who wore stilettos to an interview at a coffee shop anyway?

“Can I help at all?” He offered, face softening from worry to the cutest smile you’d ever seen.

“If by some miracle you’re a cat whisperer then, yeah.” You looked up at the demon in question, innocently looking down from high up in the branches. “I don’t rate your chances though, she’s pure evil.”

The man laughed a soft chortle and extended his hand. “Name’s James.” He took your hand but rather than shake it he dipped into a slight bow, pressing his lips to your knuckles softly. “James the cat whisperer, at your service milady.”

You simpered despite your best efforts not to. Sure, James was charming but he’d just walked up to you on the street and you didn’t know him from Adam. What if he was a serial killer or something? He didn’t look like a serial killer though. But then again, they say that neither did Ted Bundy.

You sighed and told him your name, curtseying as well as you could in your tight skirt, keeping up the precedence he had set with his old-world chivalry. “And this is Snowball, bane of my hall and hearth, wound maker, stealer of beds, destroyer of hosiery.”

“Oh no!” James laughed so hard he held his stomach. “I hope you keep your best stockings locked in an iron casket. We can’t have such a beast destroying a good lady’s pretties.”

“Alas they are all gone, fallen prey to claw and callousness.” You feign to swoon and instinctively James grabs your arm, blushing when he realised you weren’t really going to fall. “Seriously though, if you can work some magic and get her down then I might still be able to make my interview,” you glance down at your watch, “scratch that, I’m already late.”

“Give them a call, they might reschedule.” He said as he emptied his pockets onto the grass and unstrapped his phone that was in a running holder on his bicep. “I’ll get your cat down and hopefully you can make the next one.”

You grinned. “You’re a life-saver.”

With a shrug and a smile that said don’t mention it, James looked up into the branches, squinting a little as the dappled light caught his eye. Snowball was alert and deceptively passive as she looked down at her would-be rescuer. You knew different – she was plotting his demise.

The manager of Java Joes wasn’t as understanding as you’d hoped. He said his recruitment team would get back in touch, but you didn’t hold out much hope. You were put out but couldn’t be mad, it was your fault that Snowball had escaped after all. You’d just have to keep looking for work until you could sell some of your artwork.

James was under the tree, eyeing up the lower branches when you returned. He’d been trying to coax Snowball down when you’d been on the phone but that had been about as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

“Stand back.” He said without waiting to find out the verdict from your phone call, and ushers you away from the trunk. “If I fall and crush you then tyrant cats will be the least of your worries.” He licks his lips nervously and readies himself.

“If you fall? What-”

His cheeky wink silenced you right before he bounded towards the tree like he was about to do the high jump. He got two steps up the trunk and rebounded up towards the lowest branch some fifteen feet off the ground. One-handed he latched on swinging precariously but his grip was firm, tendons and muscles corded tight. He took the opportunity to look down at you with a grin before he positioned his right hand and inched towards the thicker end of the branch to pull himself up.

“Very impressive.” You flirted. “Not only are you a cat whisperer but part monkey as well. Is there any end to your talents, sir?”

“Apparently I make crap coffee.” He snorted, remaining focused on his footing as he manoeuvred to the next branch up.

James seemed a little too bulky for parkour, you thought, but he was more agile than any man his size you had seen before (including firefighter Steve, your neighbour on the right). James was strong and pretty; definitely a panty dampener. Your neighbour on the left (divorcee Denise) was already out pretending to trim her bushes, ogling James as he flexed and climbed; that woman had banged her way around the neighbourhood since her husband left her for his secretary. You frowned, already possessive of what little interaction you’ve shared with this hot stranger.

“If you get her down, I’ll make you a cup of the good stuff.” You promised. After all, your morning and afternoon were now devoid of plans.

“If?” He scoffed, scandalised. “I’m offended you doubt my cat rescuing skills.” His sentence was punctuated with a grunt as he jumped for another branch which was precariously far away. Rather than climb through a cluster of smaller, weaker branches, he’d elected to go around. It was more dangerous and with your heart in your throat you watched him leap the distance.

“Please don’t hurt yourself.” You called, fear breaking your voice. You weren’t ready to deal with broken bones, or worse, if he fell.

Up in the tree, Snowball began to back away as James neared just below. She hissed and growled, spat and clawed at him as he reached for her. While her attention was focused on one hand, he snaked his other underneath and grabbed her from behind.

Carnage ensued and the white ball of fur became a dervish of twisting limbs and threatening screeches. At first you thought James would let her go to spare himself from her claws, but he gripped her close, enduring scratches to his neck and chest. When she calmed enough for him to secure her with one hand, he cautiously began the climb down. Your heart was hammering in your chest. How would he get down with one arm rendered useless?

He inched his way awkwardly through the snagging twigs and branches he’d avoided on the way up, which yielded more scratches, picking his way ever so carefully so as not to jostle his passenger. She seemed content enough with the blood she’d drawn and lay still against his chest; the only evidence of her annoyance was the swish of her tail.

“I can’t believe you got her.” You puffed out a relieved breath when James was finally sat on the lowest branch. It was still fifteen feet off the ground, but he could drop the cat down to you and jump down safely.

“If there’s one thing I’m good for, it’s helping a damsel in distress. Right, Snowball?” He petted her and she grumbled. “Though it is pretty cliché.” He muttered almost too quietly for you to hear.

“Here,” you stepped underneath him, your eyes tracing the line of tanned muscle up under the hem of his shorts, his thigh looked smooth and strong, and you swallowed dryly. “I’ll catch her.”

“It’s ok.” He smiled softly. “I got her.” He swung his leg over the branch, holding on with his left hand and letting his legs dangle. Slowly he lowered himself in a reverse one-arm pull-up, until his arm was fully extended. He paused there as Snowball began to struggle once more, pushing and scratching at him to be set free. He dropped, landing with a slight stumble on a tree root or maybe a patch of uneven grass, but he was safe and so was Snowball.

“You stupid moggy. I’m definitely taking my bed back after this, you ungrateful little shit.” You chastise the feline as James handed her over to you, his hands brushed parts of you that you could only dream of him touching otherwise. He seemed to notice and offered an apologetic wince.

“She’s a stubborn little lady, isn’t she?” He said with a wry smile.

“You could say that.” You sighed and he chuckled, bright and warm.

“They say pets take on the personality traits of their owners.” He teased with a cheeky smile. Suddenly the heat of the day was forgotten, the stifling sheen of sweat on your skin a thing of no consequence, damp clothes and discomfort a thought from the past. Now all you felt was a warmth in your gut that tingled, and an effervescent thrill in your chest. The man was stunning, beautiful even. The urge to capture his essence on canvas was almost painful, the urge to touch him was harder still to resist.

You swallow dryly. “If that’s the case then my sister is the right-hand-man of Beelzebub himself.” You deadpanned.

James’s laugh burst forth, the first splutter developing into a slightly goofy chortle that was both genuine and contagious. “Well that explains a lot.” He calmed himself with a sigh. “You didn’t strike me as the virgin sacrificing kind.”

“Can’t think of a better use for them.” You were too distracted by the way his smile transforms his face that you just replied automatically, saying something you’d say to a close friend. “They’re no good for sex, and if it means there’ll be no more pussy problem then I’m game.”

There was a moment where you weren’t sure what had him laughing so hard but the you snorted and let the contagious laughter take over. Snowball’s struggles against your breast were forgotten in the giddy thrill of the moment. It was several minutes until you were both calm enough to talk.

The heat of the day, now unbearable, reasserted its presence. James used the hem of his shirt to mop his brow, displaying toned planes of perfect musculature and smooth skin now adorned by multitudes of angry red scratches.

Guilt flooded in. “I’m so sorry.” You felt terrible. “What a mess.”

“It’s fine. I’ve survived worse.” His smile was meant to be reassuring but there was something sad about it and you felt it too, there was no reason for him to linger, except…

“I owe you a coffee at least, sir cat whisperer.” You bowed your head slightly, resuming the dynamic you’d previously shared. “Will you let me to patch you up? It’s the least I can do.”

“I don’t want to impose,” he seemed unsure, “what about your interview?”

You shook your head with a weary thin-lipped smile. No words were needed, you knew you wouldn’t hear from them so it was back to the drawing board on the job front.

“Sorry about that. I should have been quicker.” He picked his things up from the grass, keys and wallet stuffed back into the pockets of his now slightly grubby shorts, and phone in hand.

“Pfft, the damage was already done thanks to this one.” You gave Snowball’s head a rub and she yowled at you in disgust. There would be tantrums later but she sure as hell wasn’t getting cooked chicken breast for her supper tonight, she was getting regular cat food after that little stunt.

“All right, lead the way.”

==========

The air in your home was so much cooler in contrast to outside that you broke out into goosebumps instantly. James followed you, silently looking around like a tourist. If he was surprised by the eclectic mix of décor he didn’t show it. Instead he wore a pleased smile as you lead him to the kitchen.

With Snowball deposited on the floor, you got your first aid kit out and set the espresso jug on the gas ring to brew later. You didn’t often drink espresso but an americano made with good espresso was infinitely better than the crap that comes out of a jar or standard filter coffee. James watched you as you worked, eyes following you intermittently as he wrote a quick text on his phone.

Hands washed and supplies at the ready; you regarded him, sat on one of your breakfast stools looking delicious if completely scratched up.

“Can I…?” You gestured to his wounds, asking permission to touch him.

“Oh! Sure.” He hesitated for only a moment before stripping his top away, leaving your jaw hanging while you practically eye-fucked him.

This man… God damn!

You focused on cleaning and disinfecting the collection of slashes and gouges on his neck, chest and arms. Stood between his spread knees, you delicately drew the antiseptic soaked cotton ball over each scratch, wiping away the dried blood. You took your time, ensuring each one, even those he could see himself, were cleaned. What better excuse for you to have your hands all over this gorgeous man who you would probably never see again afterwards.

The tension in the air was reflected in the heavy blush on your cheeks as you swab a particularly deep scratch on his throat. He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing under your touch and when your eyes lifted to meet his you found him staring and breathing hard. You were both so close, inches apart but the divide of unfamiliarity too wide to cross.

The more you touched him the warmer you became until you couldn’t meet his gaze for fear of what he might see. You were never very good at hiding your emotions, never able to lie and this would be no different, you wore your attraction to him like a badge. A shamefully red badge all over your face.

His hands twitched on his knees; a stifled urge to touch you, perhaps, or to relieve you of your duty. That moment of unsurety had him searching your downturned face in the silence that lay between you, which was bursting with electricity.

“Y/n?” He said softly and your eyes snapped up to his face. In that moment you saw something in him that spun your world around: adulation.

James laid one hand on your hip tentatively and drew you forward. Forgotten were the scratches and the antiseptic swabs. Forgotten were the thoughts that you were strangers to each other. Forgotten was your hesitancy as you leaned towards him, eyes flitting between his plush lips and his brilliant blue eyes. He reached up to thread his fingers into the hair at your nape-

A knock at the back door startled you both and you jumped back. Your neighbour, Steve, was stood outside peering in through the glass with a goofy smirk on his face.

“I hope you don’t mind,” James said in a rush, “I texted Steve to let him know I was here.”

“You know my neighbour?” You gestured for Steve to come in as James nodded. How had you never seen this man before if he was a friend of Steve and Sharon?

“Hey, y/n.” Steve was always chipper but today he seemed so much more so. “Thanks for keeping this one occupied.” The tall blonde smirked at the state of his friend, topless and scratched up. “What happened to you, huh?”

Was that a micro wink you saw just then?

“I did the cliché firefighter thing.” James said, rolling his eyes at the suggestive nature of Steve’s comment. “I was jogging ‘round the block waiting for you to show up and y/n needed some help with Snowball.”

“First week on the job and you’re rescuing cats.” Steve laughed. He knew all about Snowball, having been there that first day and helped you bring all of her cat ‘furniture’ in from your car. “You’re a brave man.”

“So, you two are good friends?”

“We’ve been inseparable since we were kids. Bucky and me, we-”

“Wait! This is Bucky?” You’d heard all about Army hero Bucky Barnes. Stories from Steve about his childhood, stories from Sharon about Steve’s bachelor party, and other events where the myth of Bucky Barnes was woven into the legend of the perfect friend. Steve loved this man like his own brother, but he was only ever a fable until now. “You’re the guy who made Steve puke all over himself on a rollercoaster? The guy who fell from a moving train and broke his arm to save Steve’s life? The guy who Sharon’s Grandma Maggie wouldn’t stop talking about-”

“Oh god!” Bucky groaned and fixed Steve with a warning stare. “We agreed never to talk about the Maggie thing.”

“I might have told y/n.” Steve winced. “It’s not that bad.”

“Well, I gotta tell you,” you cocked a brow, “the Grandma Maggie story was…hot!” Fanning yourself salaciously, you smirked at him.

Bucky groaned but it wasn’t long before he was laughing and all the tension between you had seeped away. The way his whole face lit up when he smiled, the endearing but nervous swipe of his tongue across his lips when he tried to regain control, and the shining blue fire in his eyes. All of it had you wishing you could see him like this every single day from now on.

The conversation flowed so naturally between you, Steve and his life-long friend, you were sad when you finally finished cleaning up all of James’s cuts and talk turned to their afternoon gym plans. Steve finally excused himself and James trailed after him, dawdling behind to offer you an apologetic smile, but he was still leaving. You panicked.

“So, fireman Bucky?” You called and he turned in the doorway, the sun illuminating his perfect form. “Will I see you again?”

You could just make out his surprise before it was overtaken by his most brilliant smile. “Well, you do owe me that coffee.”

“How about tomorrow?” Your heart was hammering in your chest. Be brave, you told yourself. “I’d love to hear the story of how Sir James tamed vicious Grandma Maggie.”

“How about tonight instead?” His smile tugged at your heart, curling the corners of his mouth coquettishly. “I’d hate to deprive you of my most embarrassing tale.” He picked up the flirt so effortlessly, your selfless knight in topless glory.

“Come by around six?”

James grinned big and, with a chivalrous bow, disappeared in Steve’s wake.

You began to prepare Snowball an early supper; chicken breast. She deserved a big reward after all.

#bucky barnes x reader #MarvelfulxbabesWritingChallenge #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes fanfiction #my writing #cloudy serendipity #cloudy's writing

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wistfulcynic · 5 years

Text

The Very Witching Time (5 / 6)

SO I would like to begin by sharing a snippet of conversation I had with @thisonesatellite when I first told her my plans for this fic. I don’t remember all the details but here’s the gist:

Me: *tells*

Me: “It’ll be four chapters, about 20,000 words.”

Her: “It’s so cute that you think you can write that in 20,000 words.”

Me: “20k. Max.”

HAHAHAHAHAHA so obviously I WAS WRONG. I tragically underestimated the number of words I would need to tell this story. So now there are six chapters. AND THAT WILL BE ALL.

Ahem. ANYWAY.

In this chapter Emma and Killian deal with the aftermath of the curse breaking, there is some bonding and some sexy times and a library that will make you DROOL.

Thanks as always to @cssns for the brilliant event and @gingerchangeling for the gorgeous art.

SUMMARY: Emma Swan is a hereditary witch, last in a long line of wise women who for centuries have guarded the coast of Maine and the small village of Storybrooke with their homemade cures and their ancient magic. She holds the delicate balance between magic and mundane, but now that balance is threatened by a new foe, one capable of bringing an end to everything Emma is and everything she loves. To defeat it she will need all her power, help from her friends and neighbours, and the loyalty of a very unusual dog who answers to the name of Killian.

RATING: M

AO3 | Tumblr: ch1, ch2, ch3, ch4

TAGGING: @thisonesatellite, @stahlop, @mariakov81, @kmomof4, @snowbellewells, @jennjenn615, @resident-of-storybrooke, @teamhook, @thejollyroger-writer, @winterbaby89, @darkcolinodonorgasm, @captainsjedi, @ultraluckycatnd @shireness-says @scientificapricot @tiganasummertree

(if you’d like a tag, please let me know!)

Chapter 5:

Emma was never quite certain how she got home that morning. A soft haze obscured her recollections of the journey, like the delicate lace of frost on a winter windowpane or a particularly tedious Instagram filter. On top of the woozy exhaustion that always plagued her after intense magic use there was also the discovery of Killian’s true nature, the visions with their troubling revelations about Cora and his past, plus breaking a freaking curse, and if that weren’t already more than enough to make her head spin, that kiss… the soft, wet warmth of Killian’s mouth on hers would render her dizzy and faint even if she hadn’t channeled immense amounts of magic mere hours before.

It is therefore, as you will surely agree, unsurprising that all she could ever remember of making her way back to her house was the radiant sunshine dappled by late autumn leaves, the sharp bite of frost the air, and Killian’s hand warm in her own, his arm around her shoulders and his body solid and reassuring as she leaned against him, her head tucked against his shoulder, breathing in the spicy scent of his skin.

He guided her straight upstairs to her bedroom, helping her out of her wrinkled and leaf-strewn gown and into her pajamas before tucking her under her quilt. His fingers traced her cheek with the gentlest touch and she caught his hand, sensing his intent.

“Don’t go,” she murmured. “Stay with me.”

“Are you sure, love?”

Such a simple phrase but she could hear every shade of meaning in the tone of his voice, Emma marvelled. The desire not to leave her warring with hesitation, uncertainty over what exactly his place was in her life now that he no longer wore the guise of a dog. She understood, and she knew there were important conversations they needed to have, but also she was desperate for sleep and certain she wouldn’t manage a wink without him there beside her. She squeezed his hand. “Stay.”

He smiled and nodded and removed his own rumpled shirt and trousers before sliding into bed behind her, snuggling close and wrapping her securely in his arms. Emma sighed and was asleep in an instant.

She awoke in the late afternoon just as the sun was dipping below the horizon, its bending rays bathing the sky in fiery blaze orange and softer coral, shot with streaks of heliotrope and brilliant rose. Only a sunset could make those colours go together, she thought with a smile, but in it they were breathtaking.

Killian was still behind her, the protective curl of his body around hers so achingly familiar despite his altered form. From the cadence of his breathing she knew he was awake, though his only movement was his fingers twisting absently through the ends of her hair.

She turned in his arms and was met by his smile, brighter and more brilliant than any sunset, flooding her racing heart with a wave of warmth and sparks born of a different sort of magic. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Better.” She smiled back at him. “Good. Wonderful, in fact. Starving.”

He laughed. “Shall we have some dinner?” He moved to slide from the bed, halting on a sharp inhale when she laid her hand flat against his bare chest.

“I’m not just hungry for food, Killian,” she said. The tingle in her blood was making her dizzy again but the day of restful sleep had restored her strength and she was buzzing and energised and ravenous.

He caught her meaning instantly and his eyes widened, glazing with answering hunger and heat and a trace of doubt. “Are you—”

“Don’t ask me if I’m sure,” she cut him off. “I am, completely. I’m still not certain how we broke your curse or shared my magic or what any of this is or what it means, but I know that I’ve never felt anything like this connection between us and I really, really want to make it physical. I need to. Is that okay?”

“You will definitely not hear any argument from me, love.”

He gave her another of his impossibly familiar grins and she took a moment to marvel at just how much of the man had been present in the dog without her even noticing and then she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

In common with many witches Emma’s beliefs, in the abstract, were very open about sex. Far from being considered sinful it was seen as a natural and integral part of life, elemental as water and air, earth and fire.

In the abstract. Practically speaking Emma was a shopkeeper in a small town where everyone knew everyone else and people talked. Where the local witch taking up with anyone would be a point of extreme interest to far too many people and there would be expectations and pressure and questions, and all things considered Emma had always found that celibacy was simply easier.

Meaning it had been some considerable time since she’d been touched. And she had never, never used her magic during sex.

Yet when Killian’s mouth opened under hers and his hand caressed her bare skin she found herself overcome, helpless against the rush of power that thrummed through her. Not her power, though. His.

“How…” she gasped when they broke apart for air, unable to form any more complex words but certain he would understand.

He did. “It’s in my hand, I think,” he said. “The magic that healed it. There was so much of it and not all got used. It’s— part of me now.” He stroked her cheek with his left hand and she could feel the vibrations of the magic it held. “And what’s part of me is part of you,” he whispered. “That’s how you feel it too. I think.”

She shook her head. “I’ve never heard of anything like that. It’s— I mean, it shouldn’t—”

“Emma.” His hand slid from her cheek to her hair, his eyes soft and amused and desperate. “I’m sure there’s a fascinating explanation but right now I do not care. Do you?”

“No.” She pulled him back down to her, surrendering completely to the energy that sparked wherever their skin met, and the intensely arousing sensation of someone else’s magic flowing through her.

Why the fuck not? she thought. Nothing about Killian had ever been what she expected, why should sex with him be any different?

He took the lead and she let him, another new departure for her, let him slip the clothing from her body with an infuriating lack of haste as his hands and mouth unerringly sought out every spot that yearned for their touch, heightening her pleasure layer upon layer, higher and higher, impossibly high, until she was sobbing and clawing at him and prepared to beg.

And when he finally —finally— slid inside her, joining their bodies in tandem with their hearts, the magic was an inferno, consuming them as they clung to each other, as they moved together in a rhythm both ancient and uniquely their own until the waves of magic turned to ecstasy and they fell apart, in pieces and more whole than they had ever been.

Emma had no idea how long they lay together, entwined and still joined, but by the time she felt capable of thought and movement the last rays of the sun had faded and the light through her bedroom window was the glow of the pale moon above the treetops.

“Gods, I’m starving,” she said.

“Again? Give a man a chance to recover, love, after you wring him dry like an old flannel.”

She laughed. “This time I’m talking about food.”

“Well thank fuck for that. I could definitely do with some nourishment.”

~~ 🌕 ~~

They raided the kitchen and feasted on whatever they could find that required no cooking: roasted corn and squash left over from the Samhain bonfire that seemed so much more than just a day ago, bread spread thick with butter and honey or generous slices of cheese, apples and slightly stale soul cakes and very hot tea.

Emma was so hungry she’d have eaten anything and cared little for the taste but it was all delicious, spiced by the magic still sparking in the air and the pleasure of eating with Killian, properly this time, with him sitting next to her at the table rather than under it.

“So,” said Emma, once the most demanding of their hunger pangs were quieted. “It feels really weird asking you this, after… well, after everything, but your last name is Jones, right? I remember from the vision.”

“It is.”

Emma’s brow creased as she tried to kick her sluggish brain into gear. “Killian Jones,” she mused. “Why does that name sound so familiar?”

“I’ve no idea. I spent most of my life on the sea or in England, though I have lived in Boston for the past few years—”

“Boston,” she interrupted, as faint bells began to chime in her memory. “Harvard University Press. Was it a book cover? Did you write a book?”

“Aye.”

A very inelegant snort of laughter burst from her.

“What?” Killian grinned at her mirth but his eyes were puzzled.

“Sorry.” She held up her hand as another wave of giggles overcame her. “Sorry. I just don’t think I’ll ever be able to hear you say that without remembering how you used to bark it.” She laughed again and this time he joined her, blue eyes twinkling.

“You might want to get over that,” he teased. “I say ‘aye’ rather a lot. It’s a navy thing.”

“I’ll do my best.” She wiped her eyes and breathed deeply to stifle the giggles. “Anyway, you were saying you wrote a book.”

“Ay— er, yes, I did. A history of the traditions of witchcraft from England to North America.”

“That’s it!” She snapped her fingers triumphantly as the pieces fell into place, then waved her hand in a circular motion ending with it palm up in front of her. Nothing happened. She frowned and waved it again, with more of a flourish this time but the same lack of result. Killian watched her curiously as she stared dumbfounded at her empty hand then rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I’m an idiot,” she said. “I forgot I’m so low on magic. It’s practically zinging through the air but none of it is the kind I can use. It’s a weird feeling. Anyway, I was trying to summon your book from my library but it looks like that’s not happening so I guess we’ll just have to get it the mundane way.” She looked at him, mischief glinting in her eye. “You’re a history professor, right?”

“Ay— I am.”

She grinned. “You’re going to love this.”

Grabbing his hand she pulled him up from the table and along behind her out of the kitchen and through the living room to a door that he had never seen opened for the whole of the time he had lived in her house. Emma opened it and guided him up a narrow and winding set of worn stone stairs, her movements quick and certain despite the darkness.

“Sorry there’s no light,” she said. “I’d put some on, but, you know, no magic.”

“It’s okay—” began Killian and then they arrived at the top of the stairs and the words died in his throat as his mouth fell open and his eyes widened and he gaped with an expression of mute stupefaction that he would have known was comical even if Emma hadn’t burst out laughing at the sight of it.

“Pretty great, huh?” she said.

Killian had been in many extraordinary libraries in his time, from the stately magnificence of the Bodleian at Oxford to the hushed gravity of the Reading Room at the British Museum, from the sprawling glory of the New York Public Library to the actual Vatican Archives, where he hadn’t even been able to enjoy himself for fear of breathing improperly and getting kicked out.

But none of them had prepared him for Emma’s library.

Every inch of the walls was lined with carved wooden shelves, precisely fitted to the graceful curves of the circular room and broken only by the door they’d used to enter and another on the other side, and randomly placed windows of varying sizes and shapes through which pearly moonlight slanted, illuminating the round and sturdy oak table at the centre of the room and the rows upon rows upon rows upon rows of books. These rows curved around and around in the endless arc of a helix, twisting up much farther than his eye could see to the very top of the sharply pointed tower.

Killian swallowed hard and with immense effort found his voice. “Why did we never come in here before?” he croaked.

Emma shrugged. “I usually just summon the books I need. It’s kind of a pain to dig through them by hand so I came up with a spell that sorts them based on the criteria I give it.”

Killian turned his astonished gaze on her. “You have a librarian spell?”

“Yeah.” Emma frowned at him as he began to laugh. “Why is that funny?”

He shook his head. “It’s just my friend Belle would not be happy if she knew that was a thing. You could put her out of a job.” He looked around again, struggling to grasp the extent of her collection. There must be thousands of books, he thought. Hundreds of thousands. “You really have my book in here?” he asked her, ridiculously flattered at the idea.

“Yep.” The room shifted with no apparent motion and a tall, rectangular window that Killian felt certain had been a good ten feet above their heads moments before was right where they stood. Emma pulled a book from the shelf beside it. “Here it is.” She held the book up in the shaft of moonlight from the window so he could see its familiar cover. “I enjoyed it.”

“You read it?”

“Of course. I read everything written about witchcraft. It’s important to know what’s going on in people’s minds. Your book was better than most, though of course there’s a lot missing.”

“Missing?”

“Uh huh. Oh, don’t worry, it’s not your fault,” she hurried to add when she caught his disgruntled look. “Most of the stuff you left out I’d’ve been worried if you’d included. We keep it hidden for a reason.”

“That… makes a lot of sense, actually,” acknowledged Killian, somewhat mollified.

“Mmmm,” agreed Emma. “Um. Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“What made you want to study the history of witchcraft?”

His expression shifted and he gave her an odd look, wondering and tinged with awe. “You did,” he said softly.

“Me?”

“Aye. I didn’t know it was you at the time, of course. I just wanted to find out more about the witch Cora was looking for.”

“But why was she looking for a witch?” asked Emma, voicing the question that had been niggling at her for some time. “For me, I guess?”

Killian blew out a heavy breath and ran a hand through his hair. “Now that is a tale,” he said. “Do you mind if we sit, love, and I’ll tell you all I know?”

“Sure.” Emma returned his book to her shelf and they sat together at the table, in large and ornately carved chairs that were far more comfortable than they looked.

Killian took her hand in his, absently, caressing her knuckles with his thumb as he began his tale. “Cora has practiced witchcraft all her life, taught by her mother as I believe most witches are,” he said, looking to Emma for confirmation. She nodded, and he went on. “She was always fascinated by the High Magic and by the stories of ancient witches who had great power, and she spent quite a lot of time studying those things. During the course of her studies she found a prophecy—” Emma made a disgusted noise “— just fragments of it but it enthralled her to the point of obsession, and from then on she pursued it single-mindedly. Over the years she pieced together more and more of it until she believed what she had was nearly complete.”

“And what exactly was in this prophecy?” spat Emma.

Killian looked startled at her tone but replied easily. “It speaks of a day when dark magic would be driven from this world for good. Of a witch descended from centuries of those who did not have to hide their gifts, with distilled power of her ancestors who would seal the breach. It... speaks also of that witch’s true love, whose aid she would require to complete the task. A man who could be her saving or her undoing.” He lowered his eyes, the flush on his cheekbones obvious even in the moonlight. When Emma remained silent he looked up to see her staring at him in disbelief and building fury, and his embarrassment became consternation.

“What is it?” he asked.

“That’s what this has all been about?” she hissed. “Nearly tearing open the barrier, nearly killing you? All because of that old thing?”

Killian frowned. “What old thing?”

Emma pushed her chair back and stood as the room shifted again. She stomped —there was no other word for it— over to a bookshelf and grabbed a leather-bound book as large as a dinner tray and thick as a club sandwich, then stomped back to the table and dropped it in front of Killian with an echoing thud. Killian’s eyes widened as he caught the title: Viarum Finis Omnium. The end of all roads.

“Bloody hell,” he breathed.

Emma hefted the book open and began ruffling through its pages. “Hmmm?” she said absently.

“Oh, nothing, nothing.” Killian waved his hand in an exaggerated gesture, though she wasn’t looking at him. “It’s just when I was doing my dissertation I’d’ve given my left nut to read this book.”

“Oh.” Emma paused, frowning at the book like she couldn’t fathom why anyone might find it important. “Well, you can read it now if you’d like. But I’ve got others that are loads better.”

“Others…” said Killian faintly as she turned another page and found what she was looking for.

“Here it is,” she said triumphantly, it being apparently the wrinkled and faded and folded piece of parchment she snatched from the book, handling it with a casual indifference that made the historian in Killian want to cry. She snapped it unfolded with an angry flourish and held it out to him.

“Is this the prophecy you mean?”

He took the parchment from her gently, touching only the edges. “This is it!” he exclaimed. “This is the whole thing. But… have you always known it was about you?”

“It’s not about me.”

“What?” He looked up at her and she scowled.

“I mean, it’s not necessarily about me. It could be about anyone in my family. It could be about no one. It could —and I’m gonna be honest, this is my take— be complete bullshit.”

He managed not to roll his eyes. “I know you don’t think much of foretelling, love—”

“That’s the truth.”

“But are you sure there’s never been anything to suggest that this is about you? Cora is not nearly as clever as she thinks she is but she did devote her life to figuring out this prophecy and she did identify us both… and if you and I aren’t the witch and the man it refers to then that leaves rather a lot of odd things unexplained.”

Emma folded her arms across her chest, her expression that of a child who won’t admit it’s bedtime. “Such as?”

“Well, there’s your garden magic,” said Killian. “For a start.”

“What about my garden magic?”

“It recognised me. The first time I stepped into the garden the magic there knew me. It welcomed me like an old friend, and warned me that danger was coming. It told me to protect you.”

“Hmmm,” said Emma, still scowling.

“And your own magic, love,” continued Killian, gentle but relentless. “You shared it with me.”

“I did do that,” Emma unfolded her arms and sighed. “Which shouldn’t be possible. Witches can link their power but to share magic with someone who has never practiced, and so easily… Well, it basically can’t be done.”

“And yet it was done.”

“But not because of a stupid prophecy—”

“And how can you explain my hand?” He held it up. “How did I get my whole hand back, and with added magic?”

Emma shook her head. “I don’t know. You’re right. There’s a lot that’s weird about all of this, though I’m just never going to believe that any of it can be explained by a prophecy. There’s gotta be more to it.”

She took his left hand in hers, examining it closely. “Why did Cora take your hand in the first place? I’m assuming she arranged for it to be damaged.”

“Aye, and then she amputated it with magic. I’m not certain why exactly but I imagine she was Shown something that told her you would need it, or need something I could do with it.”

“Shown,” echoed Emma grimly. “Which means she has the gift of sight,”

“Sight, aye,” Killian agreed, “but interestingly not perception. She found the prophecy but she couldn’t fully understand it, so she turned to her Sight for answers. Which it provided. But I’ve always suspected she misinterprets the things she Sees.”

“And that is why the Sight is next to useless,” scoffed Emma.

“Perhaps, but that doesn’t change the fact that Cora’s Sight what drives her. She asks to be Shown things and then acts decisively on what she Sees. She asked to be Shown the witch from the prophecy but her Sight couldn’t conjure you, so she asked to See the man instead. And was Shown me. This was years ago, when I had just joined the navy. It took her about two years to track me down after that.”

“The first vision,” said Emma. “She— did she really destroy your whole ship?”

“Aye,” said Killian grimly. “A few well-placed blasts of magic and the whole thing went under. It was the worst disaster in modern British naval history, and there was no logical explanation for it. And I was the only survivor.” His hand clenched into a fist on the tabletop. “It was declared an Act of God and afterwards the navy gently suggested that perhaps I wasn’t best suited to a career with them. Gave me an honourable discharge and no option of appeal.”

“Oh, Killian.” Emma covered his fist with her hand and he unclenched it to grip her fingers tightly. “What did you do?” she asked.

“Well, I had no family and no employment and no place to go. And a rash deal with Cora that left me in her debt, which is of course exactly where she wanted me. She came to me in what she claimed was generosity and offered me a job doing her dirty work and I thought why the fuck not? How much worse could my life get? Only it turned out that my life could get considerably worse. Cora was in search of any information she could find about the prophecy, and she, as you saw, did not hesitate to use her magic, and me, as weapons to obtain it.”

“But you stayed with her.”

“Aye, because I felt I had no other option. Exactly as she knew I would. I believe her aim was to corrupt me to the point where I could be used to destroy you. ‘The man can be her undoing,’ remember. Cora interpreted that literally to mean I would be able kill you as she couldn’t.”

“But what stopped her from killing me? Or at least trying to, I’m actually not that easy to kill.”

He chuckled, as she’d hoped he would, and shifted his hold on her hand so their fingers were linked. “Her Sight told her it would be disastrous to attempt it. I can only assume it Showed her the same thing about me.”

“Which is why she cursed you instead of just killing you.”

“Indeed. It was a bit of a gamble, my challenging her like that, but I figured what else could I do? It was either run with my theory that the Sight had instructed her not to kill me or die anyway, either of starvation or wolves.”

Her hand tightened on his, her mouth thinning as she thought of how she had nearly lost him before they’d even met.

“What was on that paper you found? That you threw in the fireplace?”

His mouth twisted wryly. “It said ‘Killian Jones is the man in the prophecy.’ Not much, I grant you, but once I knew that, and realised that she knew it and had likely known it since the beginning, a lot of things that had always struck me as peculiar suddenly fell into place. Like why she needed me, why she would go to so much trouble to get me in her control.”

“But do you think she showed you that deliberately?”

“I do. She must have, she’s not careless enough to leave anything lying around unless she intended me to find it.”

“But why?”

His thumb rubbed absent patterns on the back of her hand as he thought. “This is all just conjecture,” he said after a short pause, “but I believe she realised that I wasn’t fully on board with what she was doing. As awful as the things I did for her were, as much as they ate away at my soul, some small part of me always resisted, found little ways to thwart her. And she needed me fully committed. I believe she thought that if she let me go I would be lost again as I had been after I was discharged from the navy. That I would eventually come back to her of my own volition and then she would have me.”

“But you didn’t. You didn’t go back.”

“No. I was determined not to, no matter what it took. I knew I had to find a way to stop her, and the first step would be to learn as much as I could about that prophecy, and about witchcraft, and about the particular witch she sought.” He smiled at her. “About you. So I became a historian, specialising in the history of witchcraft and the occult.”

“And Cora kept waiting for you to come crawling back,” said Emma, an edge of deep satisfaction in her voice. “But you never did, so she had to come to you. And she found you a successful college professor.”

Killian chuckled. “Aye. She must have hated that.”

Emma thought about everything he’d been through, all he had suffered, and how he had still come through it all and beaten Cora at her own game. Love for him surged in her chest. “You’re amazing,” she sighed.

He flushed bright pink and rubbed at a spot behind his ear, exactly the spot, Emma noted, where he had loved to be scratched when he was a dog. “Ah, I don’t know about that,” he muttered.

“I do.” Emma wanted to crawl into his lap and have her way with him right there in her library, but she suspected he would be horrified by the prospect of fucking anywhere near ancient books so she settled for leaning across the table and kissing him gently.

He returned the kiss but when they broke apart he shook his head. “I’ve done some awful things, Emma. You don’t know—”

“I don’t need to,” she interrupted. “I’ve seen you, Killian, the essence of you. You’re a good man.”

“I’m not—”

“You are. And I love you. All of you.”

“Gods, Emma,” he whispered, leaning close to her again, resting his forehead against hers. “I don’t deserve— I’m not— ah, I love you so much.” He kissed her and she sighed, snuggling as close as she could get. “Let’s go to bed,” he murmured against her lips.

“Why not stay here?” She couldn’t resist teasing him. “We could—”

“On the books?” He pulled back to gape at her, his eyes as horrified as she’d known they would be. She bit her lip to keep from laughing. “Love, I don’t think you fully realise just how valuable, how important these books are—”

“I was kidding,” she soothed him. “We’ll go to bed. And afterwards, I’ll tell you all about my plan for giving Cora what’s coming to her.”

“Mmmm,” he growled. “That might be the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

~~ 🌕 ~~

The next morning they went to the shop together, almost as they always had except that the forest was as warmly welcoming as a frosty collection of trees can be and they walked along the path side by side and hand-in-hand. When they reached the edge of the village Emma could feel Killian tense, but they strolled unimpeded down the streets and no one they encountered reacted in any way to the sight of Emma holding hands with a strange man or stopped to ask her where her dog had gone.

“Hmmm,” said Killian, frowning as Leroy went past them with a gruff nod and no hint of surprise.

When they reached the shop door he kissed her and squeezed her hand before releasing it. “I think I’ll go see if I can find some new clothes, love,” he said. “And discover if my credit cards still work after I’ve been missing for several months. And I really should contact someone and let them know what happened. Er, as much of it as I can tell them, at least.”

Emma nodded. “You can use the computer in the back room if you need to. And there’s a shop at the corner of Main and Oak that sells men’s clothes.”

“Aye, I think I remember it. I’ll be back soon.” He kissed her again, then headed off towards Oak Street. Emma watched him go and tried not to feel bereft.

“Don’t be an idiot, he’s only going two blocks away,” she told herself firmly. But after nearly three months of Killian being constantly at her side even a short separation felt weird, and the shop empty and echoey without him.

Fortunately he returned in less than an hour, dressed in new jeans and a soft blue sweater that brought out his eyes. “This is nice,” she murmured as she snuggled into his chest and rubbed her cheek against it. “Almost as soft as your fur used to be.”

He chuckled. “I thought you’d like it.”

The shop door opened and Mary Margaret entered.

“Hey, Emma,” she said, not looking at them as she rummaged in her bag. “ I have to get to school but I just wanted to be sure you were okay, since you were closed yesterday. And yes I know you’re usually really tired after Samhain but I thought I’d check in anyway. Aha, there they are. Classroom keys, thought I’d left them at home.” She looked up, grinning. “Oh, hey Killian.”

Emma and Killian exchanged a glance and waited.

Mary Margaret’s eyes darted from Emma to Killian and back again and her bright smile began to fade. She opened her mouth then closed it again. Her forehead wrinkled. She began to blink rapidly and pointed at Killian with a shaking finger.

“What… you’re… who…” she stuttered. “You are Killian… aren’t you?”

“Aye,” he replied, short and sharp like a bark, and Mary Margaret’s eyes bugged.

“Oh my god,” said Emma, elbowing him in the ribs. “Do you have to?”

Mary Margaret’s eyes were so wide Emma was afraid she’d lose them. “But you’re… how… what… WHAT?”

Emma took pity on her. “Killian was cursed,” she said.

“Cursed,” repeated Mary Margaret.

“Yep. By Cora, actually.”

“Cora— wait, my stepmother Cora?”

“Mmm hmm. Remember I told you I thought she might be a practitioner.”

“I—” Mary Margaret swayed slightly and Emma darted over to catch her before she could fall. “This is a lot to take in,” she gasped.

“I get it,” said Emma. “Really I do.” She rubbed her friend’s back in a soothing motion as Mary Margaret concentrated on breathing. “And I hate to put pressure on you,” Emma continued, “but actually I’m glad you’re here because Killian and I could really use your help.”

“Well, I mean, of course I’ll help you if I can,” said Mary Margaret, once her shock had passed. “What do you need?”

“Do you think you and David could come to my house tonight?” asked Emma. “We’ll give you dinner. Killian’s promised to cook.”

“Come to your house,” repeated Mary Margaret, eyes bugging again.

“Yep.”

“Your house?”

“Um, yeah?”

“Your house where I’ve never once been because you never invite people there, even though I’ve been your best friend for ten years?”

“Ah. Yes, that’s the one.”

“And you want us to walk there, I suppose?” Mary Margaret had gone into full teacher mode, hands on her hips and eyes shooting daggers. Emma had to make a conscious effort not to squirm, and not to hex Killian who was leaning against the apothecary counter, trying without much success to stifle his laughter.

“You’ll have to really,” she told Mary Margaret. “There’s no road.”

“So you want David and me to walk through the forest? After dark?”

“Yeah, well the forest right now isn’t as scary as it used to be,” began Emma, trailing off when Mary Margaret fixed her with the Look she gave her students when they refused to share their coloured pencils.“But Killian and I will walk with you if it makes you nervous,” she hastened to add.

Mary Margaret took a deep breath, then another. Then she nodded. “I think… we’d like that. The company and the dinner.”

“Great.” Emma sighed in relief and sent a fervent prayer to the goddess that she would never have to see Mary Margaret’s teacher face again. “How about you meet us back here at about six?”

“Okay.”

“And don’t tell Dave about me,” Killian added, with a wicked grin. “I’d like it to be a surprise.”

~~ 🌕 ~~

At ten minutes to six that evening the streets of downtown Storybrooke were largely deserted, which is unfortunate as anyone who had been on them would have been treated to the sight of the town sheriff being dragged down Main Street by the hand, ruthlessly and at breakneck speed, by the fifth grade teacher.

“What is all this about?” David grumbled. “I know you’ve always wanted to see Emma’s house but this is a bit extreme.”

“It’s not about the house,” said Mary Margaret impatiently, then amended. “Well, it is a little bit about the house. But mostly it’s about something I’ve been dying to tell you all day but I promised I wouldn’t and you know how I am with secrets, David, I’ve deleted at least ten texts to you spilling the whole thing and I can’t take it anymore. Would you hurry, we’re nearly there.”

Seconds later she flung open the shop door and pulled him inside, to where Emma was just finishing counting the register.

“Hey, I’m nearly done,” she said, carefully ignoring the buzzing excitement that was emanating from Mary Margaret in almost visible waves.

David looked around, trying to figure out what had his wife in such a tizzy. He didn’t blink when Killian sauntered out of the back room, though he did scowl, as he had every time he’d seen that dog.

Hold up, thought David.

“Mary Margaret,” Killian said, kissing her cheek. “Lovely to see you again.” He nodded at David. “Dave.”

David stared for a moment then his face took on the deeply satisfied expression of one who had guessed right all along. “Well at least you didn’t lick her face,” he said.

“Not anymore, mate,” said Killian.

“KillianwascursedandCoradiditbutEmmabrokehiscursebykissinghimcanyoubelieveit?” said Mary Margaret, all in one breath.

“I always knew there was something off about you,” said David, then his eyes narrowed. “Where did you get those clothes?”

“Shop down the road,” replied Killian. “Thank goodness no one thought to cancel my credit cards.”

“And what exactly were you wearing before you went to the shop down the road?”

“I was dressed when I was cursed and still dressed when I became uncursed,” said Killian with a smirk. “Good bloody thing too as I wouldn’t have fancied a stroll through the forest of a frosty November morning tackle out, as it were.”

David opened his mouth again but Emma interrupted. “Stop interrogating him, David, you’re off duty. And anyway, we’ll tell you the whole story over dinner,” she said. “Let’s get going.”

But Mary Margaret couldn’t wait and she peppered Killian with questions as they walked, and by the time Emma was speaking the words to allow her and David past the garden wards she had pried the entire story from him.

“I just can’t believe it,” she said for the millionth time as she sat with Emma and David on the sofa while Killian prepared dinner. “I mean, I can believe Cora is evil and I can believe Killian has been a man all this time. He wasn’t really that convincing as a dog, was he? Now that I really think about it, I mean.”

“I always suspected,” said David smugly.

“You always suspected he was really a history professor cursed by your stepmother-in-law as part of her attempt to flood this world with dark magic?” said Emma, with admirably restrained sarcasm. “That’s some killer detective work right there.”

David had the grace to look chastened. “Okay, point taken, but I did always think he wasn’t quite right as a dog.”

“Me too,” said Mary Margaret decidedly.

“Well don’t tell him that,” laughed Emma, “He’s very proud of his dog cosplay.”

Killian called to them that dinner was nearly ready, and Emma led her friends into the kitchen where the large table was set for five.

“Are you expecting someone else?” asked David.

“Yeah, I am,” said Emma, looking slightly shifty. “And I’m gonna need you guys to trust me.”

“Trust you?”

“Yeah.” The wards around the garden sounded an alarm, and Emma and Killian exchanged glances. “That’ll be her,” said Emma. “I’ll be right back.”

She returned a few moments later, accompanied by Regina.

David and Mary Margaret gaped.

“Regina is here by my invitation,” said Emma, before they could speak. “She’s going to help us.”

“Help us… how?” asked Mary Margaret.

“Against my mother,” Regina replied. “Miss Swan—” she took a deep breath and started again. “Emma has asked for my assistance in defeating her.”

“I feel like I’m way behind here. Why does she need to be defeated?” asked David. “Didn’t you take care of that on Samhain?”

“We’ll explain everything over dinner,” said Emma. “And our plan. But first, Regina has something else she’d like to say to you.”

She gave Regina an expectant look and the dark haired woman grimaced slightly before turning to Mary Margaret. “I want to apologise,” she said.

“A— what?” said Mary Margaret faintly.

Emma wondered if she should feel guilty for piling yet another shock on Mary Margaret, who had already had quite the day. But she needed her friend to trust Regina.

“For the way I treated you,” Regina elaborated. “When we were growing up, and—” she swallowed hard. “—just before your wedding. I owe you an apology for that as well,” she said, turning to David. “I could make excuses, but I won’t. I was awful, and the reasons why don’t matter. I just— I wanted to say I’m truly sorry, and I am going to do better. In the future.”

The room was dead silent for an uncomfortable moment, the only sound the hissing and bubbling of the food on the stove. Then Mary Margaret stood and approached Regina. Tentatively she put her arms around her stepsister, ignoring the other woman’s flinch. “I accept your apology,” she said.

Regina’s shoulders slumped as the tension drained from her body, and she actually patted Mary Margaret’s back. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Emma smiled and Killian put his arm around her shoulders, kissing her temple. “Well done, love,” he murmured in her ear. “I think the food’s all ready, now. Shall we eat?”

“Yeah. Let’s eat.”

#cssns #cssns19 #magic au #witchcraft au #witches #witchcraft #cursed!Killian #witch!Emma #cs fic #cs ff #csff au #captain swan #gingerchangeling #profdanglaisstuff #the very witching time

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starcunning · 5 years

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21. Crunch

Your other sister and my other soul

For @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast’s FFXIVWrite 2019. [Title] [AO3 mirror]

Even the canopy of the Greatwood could not entirely shield its denizens from the seething sky that shone above. Shafts of light pierced the trees, falling uncaring upon Slitherbough. It seemed brighter still for the darkness from which X’shasi had just emerged. A funeral, of sorts—one of the very few that X’shasi had been allowed to attend, in this violent life she led. Y’shtola would not be long put off from her task, but there were things to be seen to first.

Minfilia’s eyes were turned skyward, a gentler light dappling her cheeks. She should be playing somewhere, X’shasi thought. Then again, by the time Shasi had seen her fourteenth summer herself, the time for play had been behind her.

Still, Shasi had heard more than a little and a bit about the cell—comfortable, but a cell nevertheless—where Minfilia had lived for a decade, never enjoying the simple pleasures of leaves crunching underfoot or delighting in the way a rain puddle reflected the world above in ghostly echo. She should have been carefree; a happy child, and she never really had.

But there were no carefree children on the First. Amh Araeng had taught her that harsh lesson.

“Minfilia,” she said softly. Those eyes—the selfsame blue as Shasi’s own, though far more radiant—turned toward her. “What is it?” she said. “Can I help?” “I’d like a word before we join the others, if you have a moment.” “Of course,” Minfilia said, and Shasi had to restrain herself from the impulse to offer her her hand. Instead they found a quiet niche, its shade softened somewhat by the light of blue candles, and Shasi perched upon a seat, tapping her fingers nervously against the lip. “You’re not her,” Shasi said softly. “Thancred knows that, as do the others.” “I wonder if you do,” Shasi said. “Am I not doing a good job?” Minfilia wondered, her brow wrinkled and lip trembling. “I can train harder—I won’t get hurt next time—” “You are a child,” Shasi said softly. “I was older than you are now before I became an adventurer, and it was later still that anyone thought to call me a hero. Even the woman they want you to be was only a girl at fourteen.” “But there isn’t time to wait,” Minfilia said. “I know I was only ever a poor substitute for you, but I—” “You’re not!” Shasi said, with a force that surprised even herself. She could see the wide-eyed shock on the girl’s face, and she sighed. “You’re not.” It came out more gently the second time. “Forgive me,” Shasi said. Her eyes closed a moment. “I was in your position once,” she admitted. “The first time I met one of the heroes of Carteneau, he got the impression I resented him. And perhaps I did. Certainly I felt like the world might have preferred him to me. I was not wearing my inherited mantle well then.” She opened her eyes. “I am not his shadow, and you are not mine.”

“What would you have me be, then?” Minfilia asked, lifting a hand to tuck back a lock of golden hair. “It isn’t my decision to make,” Shasi said softly. “It would be so much easier if I could just … be her,” Minfilia said. “I wish she were here instead of me, and Thancred does, too.” “He doesn’t—” “He does! There’s no sense in lying. You’re not very good at it, and I have the advantage in sniffing you out. You wish she were here, too.” “All else being equal, yes,” Shasi admitted. “If I could have her here, I would, at least for his sake. But not at the cost of another. She feels the same way.” “How can you know that?” “The Echo does more than render us immune to the corruption of sin eaters and false gods,” Shasi said softly. “It allows us to see the past, and the secrets that lie in the hearts of men. Among other things, it would seem.” “Then you know what he will not tell me.” “He wants to, I think,” Shasi said softly, “but has not the words. That is the way of things, sometimes. Who could say if I would fare better, were I to come across someone in this place that I loved as he loved her?” “What was she to him?” Minfilia asked. “He has told me of her deeds, but …”

Shasi sighed, and watched the way the candles rippled a moment. “She was a girl of ten when her father died,” Shasi said. “I was there, though I knew it not. There was a parade, and one of the beasts meant for the coliseum got loose. Her father was among the casualties, and Thancred blamed himself—perhaps blames himself still; it would not surprise me—for failing to fell the beast before it killed him. He was … sixteen, perhaps, barely a man himself in most parts of our world. It was another bard, F’lhammin, who assumed the role of mother. Thancred, I think, was more an elder brother to her, and her staunchest supporter.” “I’ve never had a brother,” Minfilia said. “Me either,” Shasi admitted. “When I was young I thought I had, and I hated my mother for taking me away from them, but as it turns out perhaps I have always been an only child, and I understand the reasons why she left. Besides, I suppose his role has changed now.” “It does not rest easily with him.”

Shasi looked at the way Minfilia folded her hands in her lap, and some foreign pain surged in her chest. She bit it back, allowed it no outlet; let it cycle through her until it commingled with the abyss that dwelt in her heart—black and red; love and pain.

“Why wouldn’t he just leave me with Urianger?” Minfilia asked, a note of pleading in her voice. “He could just send me the ammunition, or … or something; I know he wanted me ready for the war upon the sin eaters, but he doesn’t want me and I can’t help him.” Those words lanced through Shasi as though physical things; it was a difference of kind and not degree, she could see at once, but the hurt was the same. Perhaps the answer was, too. “He would never forgive himself,” Shasi said softly. “Should anything befall you that he could have forestalled by his presence … much like the goobue at the parade, he would take that burden of responsibility unto himself. Still, better him than you; he is a man grown, in the end.” “What cause has he for such guilt?” “None, so far as I know,” Shasi said. “He is given to such self-recrimination, but there are few people I consider to be as good a person as Thancred, and … most of them are here.” “Have you ever told him so?” Minfilia asked. “I … have not the words,” Shasi said softly. “Nor do I think he would believe me, even were I sure it was my place to speak them.”

Minfilia only looked at her for a long while, and Shasi turned her head rather than face those crystal-blue eyes.

“You must love him very much, to know him so well,” Minfilia said. “Perhaps I did once,” Shasi murmured, and lapsed into silence a moment. She cleared her throat. “So now you know what drives him,” she said. “As best I can tell it to you.” “And what drives you?” Minfilia wondered. “How did you become such a hero?” “I never wanted to be—” Shasi began, and could not help but think of Ardbert. “… to be a Warrior of Light, much less of Darkness. I wanted to help people; to protect the weak and work for the common good, but … until I met Thancred, I never thought I would do great things. Just good ones, where I could. And now …” “And now?”

Shasi leveled her gaze at the girl’s once more. “I don’t know how to speak to you about this,” Shasi said. “I want to protect you, as the child you ought to be allowed to be, but … I wish also to do you the dignity of addressing you as a peer.” “I have little innocence left to spare,” Minfilia said. “Few do here, I’m finding.” Shasi sighed. “The truth is, I barely want this life. Were it given to me to do it all over again … I would, but not because this was my ambition or my desire. There is a part of me—more real than you can know—that wishes to run away from all this. And much of me resents being here.” “But Urianger’s vision—” “Is but one of many futures, or there would be no point to our actions here. Were fate so undeniable, we would not fight so fiercely. I yet believe there would have been another way. We would have known enough to thwart the catalyst of their calamity. Someone … an ally … was working toward that purpose already, ere the Exarch ever called us hence. That sin I will not forgive so easily,” Shasi said, quiet but vehement. “What sin?” “He robbed me,” Shasi said, “not only of those whom I fought so hard to protect, but of my choice. That is unforgivable to me,” Shasi said, “as it would be unforgivable to me should the Minfilia of the Source take your body from you perforce. As it would be to me were you to join this war under duress.” “I don’t understand,” Minfilia said softly. “It is a choice I make, over and over,” Shasi said, “to be their Warrior of Light. Perhaps I could have refused the Exarch, and bid him find another Warrior of Darkness … but I see now who that burden would have fallen to, and I cannot permit that. It must be me, for the same reasons as ever.” “Because you choose it?” Minfilia said. “Because if I choose it,” Shasi said, “no one else has to. Least of all you.”

#ff14 #FFXIVWrite2019 #x'shasi #ryne #original content #starcunning writes

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basilandthym · 5 years

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Thym stepped gingerly over the charred remains of wicker chairs and wooden tables to get a better look at the blackened tree that had, only days before, been so beautiful. It still stretched through the two stories of the keep, its roots remaining integrated into the structure, but the structure itself was in shakey condition. Several fresh planks and sturdy beams had already been built into the lower room to hold up the otherwise compromised integrity of the whole hall.

Wordless for once, Thym only winced as they beheld the extent of the damage. Gingerly, they traced their fingertips over blackened surfaces, and sighed, gaze drifting mindlessly to the center of the room.

Basil thought he saw their hands tremble slightly, but it might have been a trick of the light, dapples of sun filtering through misshapen windowpanes. Standing between darkened walls and ash-coated floors, Thym seemed the only thing in the room to be rendered in full-color, a real person in a black and white photograph. Yet, frozen by their thoughts, Thym might as well have been part of the still image.

A familiar voice, no, a pair of familiar voices, broke them out of their daze.

“It’s not dead.”

Coriander’s voice.

Thym turned and smiled slightly to see the twins. There was a mannerism to the speaker, a certain reserved eccentricity, that clued them in to who was who.

“It’ll take a while to heal.” Parsley continued.

“But it will heal.” Coriander added “Just a dark ring in its history.”

“In the meantime we have a good excuse to update the complex, at least.” Parsley sighed.

“Who managed to put this out?” Thym asked.

“It was a group effort, mostly the guard of course.” Parsley answered, stepping closer to Basil and Thym “But Rosemary and Chive were coordinating the troops. They really know how to keep their heads on them in a tough spot.”

"Mood." Thym muttered.

“We...heard what you two did.” Coriander, yes, they were sure it was Coriander now, grinned “We wanted to throw a party or something-”

“You wanted to…” Parsley interjected.

“To celebrate having alchemy back for our keep, and keeping it safe, you know?”

“But it didn’t really fit the mood of…” Parsley waved their hand around at the damage to their beloved keep.

Basil frowned and grumbled, "A party following a terrorist attack. Yes, I'd think not."

“I'd settle for a good drink!” Thym laughed “You guys must make some nice ciders or something here? On the down-low? Come on.”

The twins winked in sync.

“And we have to have Chive and the lot too.” Thym added.

“It’ll have to be soon then.” Parsley said morosely.

Thym frowned and looked to Basil.

“You guys are leaving soon?”

Basil nodded. “Events here have already delayed the return journey by a few days, but despite the important work left to be done here… some of us have pressing matters to return to at home as well.”

“Right. Well, me too.” Thym shrugged. Their mind screamed ‘About time’, their sensibilities telling them to run to freer spaces and closer futures, but their heart…

“I’ll miss you, believe it or not.”

The twins looked at each other, then at Thym, and then the smaller redhead found themself scooped up into a double embrace. Thym started to resist, but their struggle died where it began as they realized how nice it was, to just be hugged.

“We’ll never forget you Thym!” Parsley promised.

Coriander squeezed tighter “You best visit us! Uptown Ireland is only an hour out so you have no excuse.”

Thym hugged back with their full strength, but refrained from promises.

“Hey, tall boy!”

Basil looked over reluctantly

“I’m gonna miss you too!” Thym all but shouted.

“We will still be departing together.” Basil reminded them.

The twins threatened to pull Basil into the group hug. He stepped back politely and offered an awkward pat on the back to the nearest sibling, the identity of whom he was still a bit uncertain.

He regarded the ginger trio with a half smile. “I won’t miss the stress, the uncertainty, the danger.”

“And that was before the terrorists.” Thym joked.

Basil let out a quaint and awkward laugh, “but, I can’t deny it was good company. We... did a good job.”

“Hell yeah.” Thym replied “We’ll be legends.”

#basil and thym #steampunk #steampunk comic #victorian #original story #webstory #original characters #steampunk oc #illustration #illustrated webstory #sci fi #fantasy #ficlit

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alexbrockart · 7 years

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Gargoyle Process

This painting started from a sketch in 2015 that I didn't touch for a bout a year, then came back to after ruminating on it on and off over that lapse. It's loosely centered around this legend of the walled city of Agartha, and the guarding demons and djinn that would keep the unworthy from entering.

Here I sketched out the environment surrounding the figure and arranged the composition a bit. I wanted the environment to have a sort of Mediterranean feel to it, almost classical ancient Greek/Roman with a little hint of tropical. I ended up changing the perspective quite a bit because I wanted to paint in a lot of texture in the landscape of the background, and also wanted to drive home a feeling of the figure standing on a really high wall far above the ground below. So I raised the horizon line almost to the top of the canvas and redid a lot of the figure to fit in with a more top down perspective.

Here you can see the new perspective and wings, and my attempt at dumping colors all over the place that I felt gave off the feeling I wanted for the piece, which was a sort of bright and sunny warm day in the afternoon, soon approaching the golden hour.

Here's some images that I felt captured the mood and lighting I wanted to portray

Let the render fest begin! As I was painting the torso my power supply for my computer started crapping out and it was pretty terrifying to paint for fear of losing work. I had finished just about the entire torso and arms when it crashed when I tried to save it, and had to do it over, about 5 hours of work. The second version definitely came out better though. I threw in a crazy weird mandala-lever-table-mechanism I thought would be interesting but ended up chucking it for the sake of time and it threw off the composition a bit. It's inspired by this talk I listened to about the physicist Wolfgang Pauli and his therapy sessions with C. G. Jung. From what I remember, through deep trance or in a dream, Pauli saw this mandala that represented perfect rationality and other dimensions or concepts like increments of time integrated into each other. The idea was to sort of have the Gargoyle in control of one of the levers, hinting that your perception of reality may be manipulated or something along those lines. I mostly wanted an excuse to make a shiny 3D object and render it so that I could have perfect shiny reflection in the painting. I got my jollies in that regard with the mace that I replaced this mandala with.

Here's the talk and a picture of the mandala:

Here's some of the references for the skin and torso. In the old master painting with the man pointing toward the sky I really liked the way their skin looked really pale in some parts and very tan or oily/dirty in others and tried to replicate that effect on the figure with a sort of red-grayish green and a more yellow green. I imagine there being less callous spots that would be lighter and more "juicy" like when the skin is stretched it'll lighten up in those areas, kind of like when some plastic bends it gets lighter in those spots that are really stretched out. It's sort of an effect or look that produces a sensation that I wanted to portray and think looks cool and not much more.

Here's about where I had gotten before I lost my file to the dark lords of psd corruption. Lots of rendering and minute fiddling, pulling and pushing forms and moving around muscles underneath the skin. Reference is a lifesaver when it comes to anatomy, or anything really, but especially anatomy because of how complex it is and how easy it is for people (who all have bodies) to recognize when something is off. I remember this is where I really felt like I was going somewhere with the painting and it had some potential.

Got the rest of the human parts nailed down. I almost went fully Egyptian with his undergarments but decided against it. I found out the name for this type of clothing though, "shendyt" if you ever need to know that. Lots of challenging but enjoyable intricacies worked out here. If I could give a tip on picking color it would be to learn how to really feel it out. If you try to do this with only your intellect and calculate every aspect of surface color and lighting and reflection you mostly end up getting in your own way (not that this isn't important). If you can grab a color that feels ok and run with it you're better off than being indecisive and worrying that the color isn't perfectly accurate. Make a choice and observe the result. What happens when you lay that color next to the others, how does it feel deep down in your gut and heart. What does it need more of? It's like tasting pudding, when you put it on your tongue and smack it around in your mouth how does it taste? What would make it taste more like the most perfect pudding you can imagine? You also have to have good taste to make things that taste good.

Focused heavily on the wings and tree here. I took a big leap with the dappled lighting and just went for it. I knew it would be really hard to make it look realistic and it kind of became abstracted, but I learned a lot. After having finished it I've seen multiple images that would have been much better reference for the dappled lighting than what I used, but such is life. In place of accurate lighting effects I had fun making cool shapes and swirlies. I tried to create an effect similar to some sort of vectoring of light blobs where their outer edge sort of merges with the nearby blobs, similar to when you squint your eyes and look at lights out of focus. On the upper/outer edges of the wings I tried to pull of the effect of something being in shadow on a sunny day and heavily reflecting the blue of the sky. Since that surface isn't being blown out by sunlight you can really see other ambient light sources reflecting on it.

I darkened the shindyt loin cloth by plopping a multiply layer over it and touching it up a bit. I though the lightness of the previous color was attracting a little too much attention and contrast. But when I look at it now I almost like it better.

I also tried to get down some of the awesome patterning on eucalyptus trees that I see here around town. They're some of the coolest looking trees in my opinion and really wanted to capture that dramatic contrast of values and colors they have on them along with the smooth swirly lumps. This tree was extremely difficult and I redid it at least once. I still don't think I pulled off the look I was going for with it but I like it in it's own right.

Here's the bottom before and after the redo. I really wanted to pull off a section of surface that's lit evenly but has two different values/surface materials and have it look cohesive. This was a pain but I'm starting to come around to the idea of doing stuff over even if it's really close to what you want or it feels like too much work. It almost always comes out better.

I also had a friend help out and do a paintover to try and tie up the values which explains the darkened corner on the ground. Much more moody and dramatic. He also taught me this technique to strategically adjust the levels with brush strokes using a mask.

Create a levels adjustment layer. Depending on how you want to adjust the levels (lights, darks or midtones) move the sliders around to a spot you like, and this is the awesome part is it doesn't have to affect the whole image, so you can pick an area you want to change the levels of, adjust accordingly, and target that spot. To do this click on the blank white square (red X) and paint bucket it fully black, then go back to the levels adjustments (click on the layer name or graph square) and start painting or lassoing in white in the spot that you wanted changed. This helps a TON.

More progress! I started experiment with texture in the background by making some brushes and messing with them. I was really inspired by the way Craig Mullins can pull off seemingly intricate detail with abstract shapes and textures and wanted to try something similar. Maybe next time lol. I was also inspired by Dean Cornwell and looking at his work for the texture on the ground, trying to make nice big juicy blobs of paint that almost look like clumps of mud or stones. I also really had fun with trying to make a compelling pattern that was still in perspective. For the background I was looking at the Walter Everett painting above a lot, trying to get a beautiful harmony of really light values and colors, having forms be defined with only hue and not much value change at all. It's really hard to pull off.

I went nuts on the background. I replaced the original idea of a golden glittering canyon with a more earthy and gradient filled landscape. I also tweaked the values much brighter, which I think I darkened back down later. I was heavily inspired by Whit Brachna and had at least one of his paintings open the entire time I was working on the background.

These are some of my all time favorite paintings. Just look at them, gotdang.

3D mace! Mostly inspired by spiky black metal aesthetic. I made a very rough (but that's really all I needed) model of the mace in Cinema 4D. The most tedious part was obviously all the spikes. There's probably a way you could pull them out of the sphere in 2 seconds but I'm not versed enough to avoid tediously scooting each individual spike one at a time. I then took it into ZBrush and just scrubbed it over with a cool texture brush that gave it a bunch of amazing details that you can't even see in the painting. I tried to set up a scenario in C4D that was as close to the painting as I could muster to get the lighting right. I copied a bunch of disc tubes to try and replicate leaves and branches. Since the figures hand, and most of his upper body was cast in shadow I tried to strategically place some "leaves" over the top half of the mace.

I messed with a bunch of different surface materials and render settings and ended up going with the shiniest one, heh.

Here it is before and after being painted on, very minute adjustments.

I'd say the rest is pretty straightforward and can't really think of any extraordinary advice except maybe doing more quick studies of your weak spots. I'm realizing I could get a lot of benefit from doing a higher quantity of less elaborate stuff to really improve more.

I really hoped this helped and if there's anything you'd like me to elaborate on or that you felt was left out please don't hesitate to ask!

Here's some meaty juice for you. I made a 2000px tall resolution gif of all the process images which is included in the .zip, containing over 30 of the aforementioned 2000px res process pics, some full resolution (8000px) crops of the final image, and a few other random in progress shots. And finally here's the full resolution (8000px) final .jpg, the final .psd file (2000px), and my brush presets. Enjoy!

I'm not sure how to export your presets as new brushes and you may already need the .abr file for the presets to work, so if you have any tips on that let me know. Most of the brushes I use are straight from other sets or slightly tweaked and saved as a preset.

Anyway, I think this will conclude this massive post. I truly hope it's helpful, or at the very least mildly interesting. Thanks for reading!

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webcricket · 7 years

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Catch a Falling Star

Characters: CastielXReader ft. Sam and Dean Winchester, and special guest, Crowley

Word Count: 2101 (Part 5)

A/N: Part 5 of a Soulmate AU mini-series.

Summary: What if angels didn’t end up just anywhere when they are banished by sigils…what if sometimes they end up exactly where they need to be? Turns out you are Castiel’s grounding stone, and it’s more complicated than either of you realizes. Crowley magnanimously tips the Winchesters off to a brooding danger regarding their feathered cohort. Cas gets a taste of the ordinary life.

Completed series Masterlist:

webcricket.tumblr.com/post/165166387163/catch-a-falling-star-masterlist

“I’m telling you. Stone cold, it was weird,” Dean alleged, six-pack of ice cold lagers clinking as he set them on the library table. Condensation oozed out onto the polished mahogany surface of the wood from the mushy edges of cardboard. “I mean, we both know I’m hilarious and I didn’t get so much as a single giggle out of her.”

“Yeah,” Sam snorted mockingly, “weird.” Dean garnered minimal sympathy from his brother on account of Sam’s long-suffering endurance of Dean’s habitually incessant jocularity as a method to diffuse stress between hunts. The hilarity, with repeated exposure, had devolved into background noise – something akin to the monotonous humming tread of the Impala’s tires on asphalt rather than humor. Sam thought from Dean’s account of his conversation with you that you sounded like a perfectly reasonable and discerning individual and someone whose personality matched well to the angel’s decidedly temperate wit.

Dean snapped the metal cap off one of the bottles, the sharp wet hiss of pressurization bubbling in the air. He continued speculating, “I’d bet you anything…”

The younger Winchester noticed the dapperly dressed figure idling in the alcove of bookshelves first.

“…she’s…,” Dean trailed off, spying his brother’s annoyed glower.

Crowley made no overt attempt to conceal his presence, taking full advantage of Dean’s self-indulgent deliberation to surprise the brothers. Rule one of ruling: You don’t become King of Hell without taking advantage of every opportunity, however quaint, to vaingloriously make an unannounced entrance.

Sam’s scowl deepened into the line of his brow, his eyes trained cagily on the shamelessly shrugging demon.

Dean followed his brother’s irked gaze and proceeded to choke on his beer, sputtering, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Hello boys,” Crowley crooned, a conciliatory smile toying upon his lips. He held up a half-empty carafe of whisky to his nose, disapproval glinting in his piercingly cool mien as he swished the amber liquid around and inhaled. “By the way, where do you keep the good stuff?”

“We don’t,” Dean groused, losing the will to drink his beer.

“Hmm,” Crowley frowned critically, “then how do you expect to entertain your esteemed guests while they wait?”

“We’re not here to provide you with entertainment,” Sam retorted through a clenched jaw, his frustration over their repeatedly failing errand to locate a mysterious all-important treasure chest and deliver it over to the demon boiling his blood.

“I beg to differ, on the whole I find you boys moderately more entertaining than a box of rocks,” Crowley observed smugly, revolving to set the carafe on a side table. “Marginally less intelligent, but you can’t win them all, can you?”

“You leave the door unlocked again?” Dean accused his brother without looking at him.

“No,” Sam’s voice wavered, not actually one-hundred percent certain of his answer, realizing he might have forgotten to lock it after his morning run. They’d exited later from the garage egress so it would have been overlooked. “Maybe?”

“Sammy, how many times do I have to…”

“Kids!” Crowley interrupted. “They grow up so fast, don’t they?” He sauntered into the golden glow of lamplight, burying his hands in his pockets, the glossy sheen of his coat fabric attesting to a keenly refined taste for extravagance. “Speaking of which, I thought you boys could use a cheerful pick-me-up in the form of, well, me. You know, to liven up the empty nest and all.” He flashed an affable grin at the brothers to no avail.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Dean snarled, shooting a chagrinned here-we-go-again glance in Sam’s direction.

Crowley stepped nearer the table, feigning interest in an open book placed thereupon. Leisurely extricating a hand from the deep recess of his overcoat pocket, stretching out the torture of the brothers’ aggravated anticipation of his reply, his tongue grazed the tip of a pointed finger in preparation to leaf through the brittle yellow folio. “Rumor has it your beloved homing pigeon has flown the coop. Got his feathers all ruffled over some pretty dove in New York,” Crowley elucidated casually, persevering in the pretense of studying the text before him while gauging the brothers’ response to this sensational suggestion regarding their stowaway seraph in his peripheral vision.

“And?” Dean rolled his vibrant green eyes, allowing the tenseness seizing his shoulders to relax.

Sam, too, appeared more at ease – alert scowl dissolving into a passive glare.

Crowley cursed internally, not permitting his chagrin at not being the one to deliver the lurid news to the brothers to shroud his debonair disinterested demeanor. “And, if you’ve any hope of retrieving my box and holding up your end of our mutually beneficial little arrangement, you’re going to need your goose and his golden halo to fall back in line.”

“We’ll find your stupid box,” Dean grumbled. “And enough with the bird metaphors already, Hitchcock.”

Crowley sneered impudently at Dean.

“How did you hear about Cas anyway?” Sam quizzically arched an eyebrow.

“A sparrow chirped in my ear just before I broke his neck,” Crowley stated ominously. “Between you and me, I’m afraid I’m not the only one who heard him sing this particular song.”

“Who else– son of a!” Dean swore at the currently empty space previously occupied by the now cheekily decamped demon.

Second rule of ruling: Startling arrivals must be punctuated by inconveniently timed exits. In other words, always leave your audience wanting more.

“Castiel?”

The convalescent angel felt the light tickle of your fingertips trace beneath the tufts of dark waves ringing his forehead, perceiving your whispered prayer as a resonant echo in the stillness of his mind. Hours ago, the consciousness of his vessel had succumbed to the warmth of the dappled late afternoon sun streaming through the treetops, the rhythmic splashing lap of water on the graveled lake shore, the joyful harmony of bird and insect venerating the glorious day, the comfort of the oversized generously stuffed lounge chair, and most of all to the waking dream of you tending to a shaded patch of the garden tucked below the porch railing. Before his marveling eyes, your nurturing hands patiently teased life itself from the barren soil.

“Are you awake?”

A small smile tugged at his mouth. Despite the finally stymied hemorrhage of grace from his shoulder wound and his rapidly recharging vigor, he could not deny an intense fondness for your continued yet wholly unnecessary doting care.

“You’re doing that eyes-closed super-relaxed thing you insist isn’t sleep again,” you noted with a grin, taming the mop of his unruly hair with your fingers, prompting him to open his eyes.

He grasped your dirt-smudged hand, guiding it to his lips to pepper your knuckles with feather-light kisses, appreciating the fact these very same hands that worked tiny miracles in the earth had also sparked something vital in his own heart that bloomed under your tender affection. “Disengaging awareness from my surroundings is the most efficient method by which to expedite my recovery.”

“Uh huh,” you chewed your lower lip skeptically, “it’s uncanny how much that description sounds exactly like sleep.”

Cas’ smile widened, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes, wavering when he spotted his cell phone clutched in your palm.

“It’s Dean,” you offered him the phone, adding, “I don’t think he likes me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” the angel accepted the cell, focus following your retreat back into the yard amidst the rainbow of flourishing flowers. He held the phone up to his ear, an indignant gleam in his expression, “Why don’t you like Y/N?”

“Geez, hello to you too, Cas,” Dean grumbled.

“She thinks you don’t like her,” Cas reiterated, “why?”

“I was under the impression she doesn’t like me.”

“How could she not like you when she doesn’t know you?”

“She doesn’t laugh at my jokes.”

“I don’t laugh at your jokes,” Cas stated matter-of-factly.

After a lapse of silence which prompted the angel to check the screen to ascertain if the call had been dropped, Dean again spoke, “I, uh, yeah, I guess you have a point. And for the record, I never said I didn’t like her. She sounds great Cas, really. Sam and I, we’re both happy for you. I’m glad you took my advice to heart and gave her a chance.”

For friendship’s sake, Cas permitted Dean to believe his drunken anecdote had a smidgeon of influence where it had not, responding, “Me too.” In reality, the angel never had any choice. The stubbornness and insubordination in affront to universal will to delay the inevitable? Certainly. But choice? Never – you were always something that was going to happen to him and he to you.

“So, you, uh, you keeping busy out there?”

“This morning we went to a farmer’s market to purchase seasonal produce. Are you aware there is more than one variety of sweet corn grown for human consumption? There’s silver queen, with pearlescent kernels that are so tender it doesn’t require cooking to render it edible. In the butter and sugar hybrid, the kernels are a mix of white and yellow…”

“Sounds exciting,” Dean’s tone indicated he thought Cas’ bucolic foray sounded like it was the exact opposite of exciting.

“Tonight, Y/N is going to teach me how to make something called some mores.”

“You mean, s’mores?”

“That’s what I said, some mores.”

“No Cas, it’s called a s’more, not some more.” The fleshy smack of a palm striking a forehead sounded in the speaker. Sam could be heard heartily chuckling in the background.

“You’re not making any sense, Dean.” Cas could hear Dean’s eyes sardonically rolling around in their sockets. The disconcerting noise only added to the angel’s bewilderment.

“S. Apostrophe. More,” Sam spelled it out, having seized control of the conversation from his flabbergasted brother.

“Oh,” Cas nodded, “thank you for the clarification, Sam. That explains my inability to find any information regarding them on Google.”

“Anytime, Cas. Have fu…” Sam’s words faded as Dean grabbed the phone again.

“Look, not to rain on the co-ed scout camp jamboree thing you’ve obviously got going on out there, but we thought you should know according to Crowley, who dropped by for a pleasant chat about his stupid freaking box, we’re not the only ones who know about you and Y/N.”

Dean’s warning devastated Cas’ reigning sense of calm, reminding him about the dangerous world lurking beyond your enchanting lakeside realm. Bolting to his feet, he anxiously scanned the garden. Finding you safe and sound stringing a vine up a trellis, he breathed a relieved sigh as he sat on the top stair to better keep a watchful eye on you.

Dean continued, “We got a salt and burn a few states over, then we’re heading your way. So just watch your back until we get there, okay?”

“You don’t have to do that, Dean. You should continue trying to locate Crowley’s box. If he wants it that badly, we can’t let him get ahold of it until we know what it contains.”

“Right,” Dean agreed, “which is why we need your help finding it.”

Cas understood. He understood the Winchesters, his brothers in arms, were coming to take him away from you and that he would go forth willingly by their side as he’d always done. He understood he could stay to defend you within the boundaries of your home, or he could soldier away to better shield your exposure to the gruesome minutiae of the never-ending battle of good versus evil within which he was forever firmly entrenched. “How long until you get here?” he asked Dean, observing your figure meandering up the cobblestone walkway toward him.

“Three days, maybe less if this ghost cooperates,” Dean answered. “You know what, just call it three days. We’ll snag a motel in town if we get there early to stay out of your hair. Enjoy the s’mores.” The call ended.

“Are we expecting visitors?” you bounded up the stairs and settled beside the angel, head dropping to rest on his mended shoulder.

“Sam and Dean will be here in a few days.”

“That’s great!” you beamed, “I can’t wait to meet them. I know how important they are to you.”

Cas wound an arm around your waist, pulling you nearer and planting a kiss on the crown of your head. He inhaled the scent of your hair, honey and lavender riven with the rich loam of the earth and sunshine. For an angel, three days seemed only a slightly longer timeframe than the fleeting span of milliseconds marking the blink of an eye. It’s worth every minute, Dean’s sentiment echoed in his mind.

Part 6:

webcricket.tumblr.com/post/164058430460/catch-a-falling-star

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intro2filmbitterrootcollege · 6 years

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The Most Affecting Films of 2017

I love putting this list together because a.) I’m a film geek and own it, b.) this writing exercise is cheaper than therapy, and c.) it helps me discover previously unrecognized themes shared across my selections. The thread of history runs through these picks, that of nations as well as the complex and messy relationships between parents and children. History is parent to our present, and thus the thematic through line of my favorite movies of 2017. Each title brought me to tears or rented space in my mind for days after the initial viewing, often both, but earned this response through quality of storytelling.

Choosing my top ten was difficult (see the following “Runners Up List” for evidence) because 2017 was a fine year in film. We should celebrate cinema, and the opportunity to do so, as long as it remains this dynamic.

-Matt

Honorable Mention: Their Finest

Directed by Lone Scherfig

Written by Gaby Chappe and Lissa Evans

A movie celebrating storytelling and writing, chronicling the making of a movie about the Dunkirk rescue, set in England during the Blitz, addressing the role women played in the war effort, packed with an embarrassment of Britain’s best character actors, exploring how cinema’s escape can help heal us in times of crisis, and that is also a love story has no right to work. Scherfig’s film defies such limitations and hops between these aspects like a trapeze artist. It’s a crowd-pleaser, a heartbreaker, and a movie celebrating movies, all buoyed by Gemma Arterton in the lead.

10. The Lost City of Z

Written and Directed by James Gray

Cinematography by Darius Khondji

The real Percy Fawcett’s 1925 disappearance in the Brazilian jungle provides an unanswerable question that hangs over Gray’s film as he endeavors to explore mysteries of the egocentric self through immersion in the natural world. Like the protagonist, this seems simultaneously paradoxical and fitting.

Some clever non-linear editing and a final shot of Nina Fawcett, the only actual hero here, walking into the reflected image of a jungle, make for a lingering metaphor on those understandings our hearts are granted, and those we can never attain.

9. Toni Erdmann*

Written and Directed by Maren Arden

When I thought this dark European comedy couldn’t get more surreal or funny, it didn’t, but instead ends with a peerless final beat, then drops The Cure’s “Plainsong” over the credits.

Cut to me radiant with joy at what cinema makes possible.

Hollywood stories of parents and children aren’t ever this delightfully weird, or dappled with scenes that let us find our own insights about economic disparity, sexism, and capitalism’s darker outcomes. Hollywood stories aren’t ever this genuine.

Maren Arden proves herself a visionary, not just among up-and-coming female directors, but all directors, and since her open-ended final scene is perfection, I’ll let the last dialogue in her script finish the same way:

The problem is, [life is] so often about getting things done. And then you still have to do this, or that. And, in the meantime, life just passes by. But how are we supposed to hang on to moments?

* released in 2016 but I had no way to see it until 2017

8. The Big Sick

Directed by Michael Showalter

Written by Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani

Gordon and Nanjiani’s story (based on the origin of their own marriage) took me two viewings across two seasons to relent and finally love it. Now it has my whole heart thanks to an earned emotional response and a script respecting the perspectives of all its characters. Likely the best screenplay of the year that might not be recognized as such, stand up comedy and parents are rarely revealed onscreen with such nuance, and never before in the same film.

7. Five Came Back

Written by Mark Harris (based on his book Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War)

Directed by Laurent Bouzereau

This three-part Netflix documentary chronicles the contributions from five of the top directors in Hollywood during WWII, many of whom gave up lucrative careers to serve the war effort via their craft. We see how filmmaking and storytelling, as the translation of fact and occurrence through moving image, can be a weapon and should be used with care. The stories of these five directors and how their lives and art were impacted by the conflict is engagingly humane. And the talking heads (aka legendary current filmmakers) are so damn insightful. MVP being Guillermo Del Toro.

We celebrate such humanity, and in it our own, flawed and beautiful as both might be. This is best captured in Capra’s final voiceover proposing hope where it is needed.

6. Wind River

Written and Directed by Taylor Sheridan

Sheridan’s crime-as-myth story is most concerned with grief and the ways we numb ourselves to pain at the cost of the memories of loved ones lost. Winter and the West stand in a neo-western backdrop where he colors the idea of how struggle can hollow out even the strongest among us.

We get our genre kicks in the Mexican Standoff shootout (praise to the screenplay-rulebook shredding use of editing and a flashback to set up this reckoning). The patience in ending his film with not one but two conversation scenes shows a preference for empathy over spectacle, and the way the injured souls connect therein haunts me.

5. Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

Written and Directed by Martin McDonagh

I enjoy being challenged by a film. McDonagh’s picture beat the shit out of me then tossed me a lollipop, and I beamed like a lovestruck idiot. An early reference to “A Good Man is Hard to Find” alludes that that there will be no predominant tone to cling to but instead a vacillation of many throughout this winding trip into darkness where any good that exists is a miracle. In the final scene and sublime character change of Sam Rockwell’s Officer Dixon, it does.

4. Blade Runner 2049

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

Cinematography by Roger Deakins

There wasn’t a more thoughtful film this year than Deakins’ visual magnum opus. The intelligence expected of Villeneuve surfaces throughout in beautifully complex questions about life, witnessing, and how we achieve our sense of identity.

The choice of Gosling’s K / Joe as protagonist, his illusory sense of importance as the “one” and what is done with this concept, shows how important it is to value the willingness to make choices, even when they seem tiny and tossed into the void. In Joi, he may have found a facsimile of love, or he may have actually found it. In response, we question our right to declare another’s life or love “artificial”. The Hero’s Journey archetype is so common that it’s almost instinctive. Villeneuve subverts these expectations by stripping heroic action to its purest and leaving us with K / Joe’s not-tears in the ashen snow.

The acting is typically strong because, while he isn’t noticed for it, Villeneuve always gets strong work from his actors. Through one of Harrison Ford’s best performances, the theme of parents, children, and sacrifices made just for the latter’s prospect of a better life is most poignantly rendered in one line: “Sometimes to love someone, you got to be a stranger.” As 2017’s best sympathetic villain, Luv doesn’t possess the freedom of her inferior replicants; she is bound to Wallace, a slave in her programming. Wanting to be special, to be the “best one”. This denied want and inability to make her own choices, to create life and be alive, warp her into a destructive force seeking to stomp out anything that reminds her of her chains. Leto’s megalomaniac Wallace is a god-aspiring big bad in the Greek chorus role, showing up to voice the film’s themes but in a way that avoids ponderousness.

I could write an essay on this film. (Note to self: write more essays on films.)

3. Lady Bird

Written and Directed by Greta Gerwig

Gerwig’s work is so accomplished that my mind boggles when contextualizing it as her first directed film. The movie world exists here as specific enough to leap outside of time and place in that mysterious dynamic of singular-becoming-universal. Coming of age stories with comedy draped around them, or them around it, are usually judgemental of broad supporting characters who get portrayed in one shade only. This film is so balanced and sympathetic to its people, and I say “people” with intention, that we turn from cursing them to pitying to loving as fluidly as we do from laughing to choking up. The final sequence might be the year’s most affecting editing through a use of different characters in essentially the same shot, and shows that car chases have nothing on cross-cutting between drivers in the Sacramento magic hour.

2. Columbus

Written and Directed by Kogonada

Sheila O’Malley in her Rogerebert.com review:

"Columbus" is a movie about the experience of looking, the interior space that opens up when you devote yourself to looking at something, receptive to the messages it might have for you. Movies (the best ones anyway) are the same way. Looking at something in a concentrated way requires a mind-shift. Sometimes it takes time for the work to even reach you, since there's so much mental ballast in the way. The best directors point to things, saying, in essence: "Look." I haven't been able to get "Columbus" out of my mind.

Wholeheartedly agreed. It clung to me. First time director Kogonada gives us an immaculate use of the frame and mise en scene. My eyes wanted desperately to eat the screen, each and every frame a morsel. And my entire being wanted to remain in the film’s world. Sadness and all.

Kogonada’s work isn’t all visual gloss but uses stillness and subdued conversations to belie an emotional tempest inside each of the two characters. This is a romance, but one just as in thrall with life as it is with clean modernist lines and the creation of form through negative space that here symbolizes those unknowable aspects of Jin and Casey (Haley Lu Richardson lights the screen in my favorite performance this year), and by extension those they love. We carry our parents with us just as these buildings carry their histories. Columbus’ characters need to navigate the empty spaces in and around themselves to connect, even if fleetingly.

1. Dunkirk

Written and Directed by Christopher Nolan

Cinematography by Hoyte Van Hoytema

Score by Hans Zimmer

I can rightfully be called a Christopher Nolan fanboy, but there’s no arguing the viscerality of this experiment. Nolan, Hoyte Van Hoytema, Hans Zimmer, and the rest of their collaborators crafted a singular war film that really isn’t a war film. It’s a story more existential. Time is elided, shattered, and edited with an exactitude that comments on history unlike any other movie in this genre.

That audiences responded to a story asking them to participate, emotionally and physically, but learn little of its characters is also fitting for the theme of people choosing to risk their own well being for the betterment of others. The lesson is to put aside your wants and let an experience take you.

The propulsive score, like the tension, never relents. How such induced anxiety can be thrilling is for later study (and this film will be studied for decades hence). It’s the notion, however, that I can be brought to tears by the shot of a Spitfire coasting across sky, out of gas but not fight, by small boats dotting the sea that are referred to as “Home”, and by Mark Rylance simply nodding to his son in acknowledgement that the right thing to do is often an act of empathy running against our in-the-moment emotional surge, that belies an elegance words can represent, but only sound and image can actually invite you to feel.

_______________________________________________________________________

We are born into a box of space and time. We are who and when and what we are and we're going to be that person until we die. But if we remain only that person, we will never grow and we will never change and things will never get better.

Movies are the most powerful empathy machine in all the arts. When I go to a great movie I can live somebody else's life for a while. I can walk in somebody else's shoes. I can see what it feels like to be a member of a different gender, a different race, a different economic class, to live in a different time, to have a different belief.

This is a freeing influence on me. It gives me a broader mind. It helps me to join my family of men and women on this planet. It helps me to identify with them, so I'm not just stuck being myself, day after day.

The great movies enlarge us, they civilize us, they make us more decent people.

-Roger Ebert

_______________________________________________________________________

Promising 2017 releases that I haven’t seen yet and might vie for retroactive inclusion on either this or the “Runners Up” list:

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

The Disaster Artist

Darkest Hour

Mudbound

First They Killed My Father

Spielberg

The Post

Molly’s Game

Phantom Thread

The Shape of Water

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thebest-medicine · 7 years

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Problem Solving

submitted by Negligible!anon:

A/N: N shared some wonderful TRC headcanons earlier, which inspired me to write this… a fic based on completely unrelated headcanons. Anyways, this is how I think the Raven Boys discovered each other’s ticklishness. Warnings for book-related levels of (anticipated) violence.

***

Ronan

Ronan and Gansey have been friends for a couple months now, so Gansey’s been invited to the Barns once or twice. More importantly, he’s met the rest of Ronan’s family, including the charming and roguish Niall Lynch - Niall Lynch, who spends his nights dreaming wonderful horrors into existence and his days embarrassing his kids in front of their friends.

Gansey remembers the incident clearly, mostly because it’s such a stark contrast to Ronan after. Niall reminds Ronan to check on the cows before sundown. Ronan, pulling his Aglionby tie off and shoving it into his pocket, replies sure, I’ll check on Declan later, if he’s not too busy mooing at some girl on his phone. Niall laughs affably, reels him in with a friendly arm around the shoulder, and launches into a devastating tickle attack until Ronan apologizes amid peals of laughter. He’s still giggling as Niall claps him on the back and wanders off, telling the two of them to stay out of trouble.

Gansey tucks the thought that the most contact he’s had with his parents in years is a quick handshake very firmly into the back of his mind and gallantly offers an elbow to Ronan, who shoves him in the shoulder with another laugh and sets off for the barn.

Months later, the unthinkable happens.

Ronan comes to stay in Monmouth, and for two weeks it’s as if he’s doing his best to sink into his mattress and disappear. Seeing how miserable he is, Gansey’s almost inclined to let him. At the end of those two weeks, though, he pries open the door to Ronan’s room and goes in. He can’t just let things go on like this – Ronan’s grief is another problem to solve, and even if he doesn’t know how to do it he doesn’t know how to leave it be either.

His presence sets the entire room in motion; empty beer bottles rolling from where the door pushed them aside, the sound of his bare feet on the floor echoing with each step, light forcing through the doorway. Ronan, however, emanates stillness; he’s flung facedown on his mattress, an empty shell of that laughing boy at the Barns. “Get up, Lynch. We’re going for a drive.”

Ronan’s response is an emphatic middle finger, jabbed unerringly at Gansey’s unprotected ankle. Gansey sighs and uses his foot to prod at Ronan’s side. “Don’t argue,” he says, trying to wedge his toes under Ronan’s body – maybe he can flip him over? “it’ll be fun.”

A muffled sound emanates from the pile of lean limbs on the floor. Gansey’s brain, caught up in wondering how much Ronan weighs and how much of a fight he’ll put up if lifted into a fireman’s hold, belatedly registers it as a yelp.

Ronan rolls over before things go any further. “Fine,” he says, eyes still closed. “I’ll be ready in ten. Now get the hell out.” And that’s that.

Ronan gets better. But his laughter is unmistakably bitter now, and his smile is a hook designed specifically to draw in people as angry at Ronan as Ronan is at the world. Gansey still doesn’t know how to solve that, so he focuses on the smaller things. Getting Ronan to sleep. Convincing him to study for tests. Talking him down from fights.

And, every so often, he tries to get Ronan to smile. Usually under the guise of getting him to do things – “why don’t we compare Latin homework?” accompanied by a series of pokes to Ronan’s side to get his attention, and “don’t sleep on the couch, you’ll hurt your neck,” as he swipes a finger up Ronan’s sole. He never does it in a way that draws attention, never tries to provoke a stronger reaction than what he gets, and never when Ronan’s in one of his more dangerous moods. He’s afraid that if he crosses whatever ragged line he can infer from Ronan’s response, it’ll stop working. But for now, he’s usually rewarded with a squirm, an upward tick of Ronan’s mouth, and in his more optimistic moments he likes to think that it’s enough to remind Ronan that someone cares about him.

Adam

Adam’s been friends with Ronan and Gansey for almost a month when he figures it out.

He’s eating lunch with them on Aglionby grounds, under a lush tree that probably eats up more money in fertilizer and water than Adam spends on clothes in a year. It’s been a long morning in a longer week, and once again Ronan’s decided to say something that turns his dull anger into something sharp and sparking.

Luckily, Gansey’s around to play white knight. Eyebrows furrowed, he leans toward Ronan and says something too quiet for Adam to hear. And then – so fast he almost doesn’t notice – he nudges Ronan in the side.

He’s seen this before. A nudge. A flinch. The flicker of a smile on Ronan’s face, stealing the harshness of his stubbled head and harsh features away for a few precious moments. But here, with the dappled-green sunlight rendering the two boys across from him almost otherworldly, is the first time it really clicks in his head.

Ronan Lynch, pugnacious Aglionby student with no regard for grades or dress codes or other people’s feelings, is ticklish.

He doesn’t plan to do anything with that knowledge. Ronan would probably punch him, and even the thought of that is enough to dissuade him. But somehow, forces beyond his control compel him to do something stupid. As usual.

About a week later, they’re all stuffed into the Pig, headed off on one of Gansey’s day trips. Gansey, as always, is at the wheel. Ronan’s snagged the passenger seat, which leaves Adam and Noah in the back. Unfortunately, this gives Ronan control over the music, and he’s chosen to abuse his power by playing the murder squash song for the fifth time in a row.

Gansey’s already asked Ronan to play something else and drifted off to Glendower-land with a disappointed sigh when his request was refused. Noah’s been staring out the left side window since they left, sun and shadow swirling over the half of his face that Adam can see. So it’s just him, teeth gritting and blood pounding in his ears every time another scream blares over the speakers, and Ronan, arms curled up and around his headrest as he lounges.

He doesn’t want to start a fight for no reason, so he decides to ask Noah first, gently shaking his shoulder to get his attention. “Should I do something?”

Noah turns his head, inscrutable as ever. He eyes Ronan, then Adam, and grins unexpectedly. “Go for it. It’s been a while since Ronan laughed.”

Adam blinks. So Noah knows Ronan’s secret too? Huh.

His crusade justified, he returns to the task at hand. “Lynch. Lynch! Change the song, or I’m going to make you.”

From what he can see in the rearview mirror, Ronan doesn’t even bother to open his eyes. “Yeah, good fucking luck with that.”

Well. Adam shifts forward, takes a deep breath, and makes his move.

Exposed in his tank top, the hollows under Ronan’s arms make for a pretty good initial target. Especially when Ronan shouts, yanks his arms down, and starts laughing so hard that he’s wheezing for breath. There’s a terrifying moment where Gansey starts in surprise and almost swerves the Pig straight off the road, but Adam’s gone too far to stop now and when Gansey’s eyes catch his in the rearview mirror his expression is somewhere between shock and approval.

Ronan isthrashing, long legs hitting the dashboard as he tries to escape his seatbelt and Adam’s torturous fingers. He doesn’t beg – not that Adam expected him to – but the relatively tame curses leaking out amid his cackling are proof that he’s weakening.

“Change the song,” Adam says as firmly as he can through a smile so wide he can feel it stretching his face, “or I’m going to keep using you to drown it out.”

“Fine,” Ronan shouts. Adam pulls his hands away and grimacing, wipes them on his shirt. Ronan slumps back into his seat, reaching out to cut off the murder squash song mid-scream, and for a few moments the Pig is filled with blessed silence.

“Gansey, pull over.”

Gansey’s proud-parent smile disappears. “I’m not going to stop so you can threaten Adam for acting on behalf of the rest of us.”

“Pull over or I’m getting out of the car right now.” Ronan’s hands tighten on his seatbelt buckle and the door handle, and Adam suddenly can’t breathe. This was a mistake.

He wonders, abruptly, if he can shift any of the blame onto Noah for enabling him. But he knows better than anyone that nothing he says will matter here.

Gansey pulls to the shoulder of the road, warning, “Don’t do anything stupid, Ronan. I mean it. He didn’t do anything wrong.”

It’s not like that matters either, Adam thinks miserably, but at least he’s fairly sure that Gansey won’t let Ronan kill him.

Ronan stalks around the front of the car and knocks on Noah’s door. “We’re switching places, Czerny. Don’t play any of that weird pop music shit.”

Noah nods and calmly gets out. He smiles happily at Adam. Adam can’t bring himself to smile back.

Ronan’s gaze meets his for a single instant, and Adam closes his eyes.

Ronan thumps into the seat next to him. Fastens his seatbelt with a scowl. Leans back, eyes fixed firmly on the back of Gansey’s headrest. “You can start driving now. See, nothing stupid.”

“Thank you,” Gansey says, and the Pig sputters back to life. Adam couldn’t be closer to the door on his side if he was welded to it.

Five minutes later, Ronan uncrosses his arms. Adam watches in confusion as his hand comes closer. Ronan’s index finger moves to rest exactly where the seams of his shirt meet under his arm, and he’s too rattled to do anything but watch as Ronan prods at him repeatedly. A giggle escapes, half relief and half actual ticklishness, and as Ronan smirks he knows he’s screwed in an entirely different way than he first expected.

It takes twenty minutes until they reach their destination, and Adam’s breathless with laughter the entire time.

Gansey

It doesn’t change anything. They’re not less likely to snap at each other, they don’t try to tickle each other out of bad moods because neither of them have the kind of problems that a little laughter can cure.

But whenever Ronan’s half-hearted attempts to distract Adam or Gansey from homework get a little too out of hand, Adam doesn’t hesitate to grab whatever limb is nearest, haul Ronan into a rough approximation of a pin, and start wiggling his fingers into sensitive skin. And Ronan makes it a point to unceremoniously wreck him every single time in return, and a few more besides. At least Adam’s stopped looking at him like he’s going to start ripping throats out if anyone so much as pokes him the wrong way.

It’s on one of these occasions, Ronan looming over Adam on Monmouth’s dusty floor, that Adam gets curious. “Hey, wait – wahahait! I don’t understand – how come you never get Gansey back for tickling you?”

Ronan barely pauses, squeezing right below Adam’s ribs and grinning at the resulting yelp. “Gansey’s not ticklish, Parrish. Unfortunately for you.”

“H-how did you figure that out? What did he even say? ‘I appreciate your testing my nervous system, but you can’t possibly think I’m susceptible to your childish weaknesses?’”

It’s a good imitation of what Ronan likes to think of as Gansey’s Dick the Third accent, and it’s only when he tries to answer the question that he realizes he’s overlooked something. “Never actually tried it.”

“Wait, what? You got me back within, like, the first ten minutes.”

Ronan’s always figured that Gansey would never start a fight he could possibly lose. It’s never even crossed his mind that Gansey too could be reduced to a breathless, giggling heap like he and Adam (and Noah, sometimes, though half the time it’s like he’s not ticklish at all). But instead of saying that to Adam, he turns abruptly to Monmouth’s single couch, where Gansey has neatly arranged himself.

He’s on the phone with his sister, ankles neatly crossed and one arm pillowing his head as he nods thoughtfully at something or the other. Ronan gestures watch this at Adam and drapes himself over the back of the couch. “Hey, Dick, I’ve got a question for you.”

Gansey holds up a finger to quiet him, the kind of unintentional imperiousness that makes Ronan really hope that he and Gansey share this particular trait. “It’s a yes-or-no question. You don’t even have to say anything.”

Gansey shrugs and gestures for him to continue. Ronan smirks.

“Are you ticklish?”

Gansey actually flinches. He recovers quickly, shaking his head emphatically and giving Ronan a prohibitive look for good measure, but he really should know better than to think that’s enough to stop Ronan now.

He deploys a single finger to poke at Gansey’s stomach, covered today by an offensively magenta polo shirt. “Oh, good. I’d hate for this to disturb your phone call.”

Gansey bites out a broken stop it as Ronan keeps teasing him, reaching down to catch Ronan’s wrist with his free hand. Over the phone, he can just make out Helen asking a question.

“No, Helen, nothing’s happening-” Ronan raises an eyebrow and waggles his other hand at him tauntingly, and Gansey, blushing, abruptly tells Helen he’ll have to call her back.

Gansey hangs up and opens his mouth to say something, but Ronan’s worked both his hands free now and the only thing that comes out is laughter.

“Rohohonan – whahat – hahahnoho!”

“Thank Adam,” Ronan tells him, rucking up his polo shirt to get better access to Gansey’s torso. It’s lean from rowing practice, but, to Ronan’s delight, that doesn’t make him it any less susceptible to a light scratching that has Gansey in stitches. “He pointed out that I’ve never actually tickled you, which means you have a lot of payback due.”

“That’s not what I said,” calls Adam. He’s grinning, though, happy that Gansey is happy and that he’s not the one under Ronan’s hands today, and Ronan finds his mood rising to match.

Gansey, halfway to hysterics, is an absolute mess. He’s curled up around Ronan’s hands, not that it helps him any, and his golden hair is mussed beyond repair. Still, he hasn’t asked Ronan to stop yet, so Ronan’s not inclined to show him any mercy just yet.

He remembers having brothers. This, somehow, is even better.

#submission #negligible!anon #wow im so sorry it took this long to post this #ive been literally so fucking busy this summer omg #tickle fic #tickling #trc #the raven cycle #adam #ronan #gansey #tickle #fluff #fic #mild #problem solving

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leapyearkisses · 3 years

Text

Director’s Cut Commentary - Orbs Are Bad News Part 2

Second part of me blathering my thoughts all over this old story per the request of a very nice anon! I am still sleep-deprived, so yay~ Sorry, this commentary is probably way less interesting, since this part is just the sexy stuff, but if you have any particular questions, please send me another ask!

Happy to do any of my stories or just answer asks, whatever. I clearly enjoy reading myself talk XD

Comments in bold below the cut! This part is NSFW. Well, it’s all kinky but there’s also sex.

I forgot to mention this in Part 1, but the title of this story is because the homebrew campaign I ran for my friends involved magical evil crystal orbs. Hence they are bad news.

Stick your people in a world. That’s my advice. Don’t have them just floating around in a no man’s land of generic scenery. (Also why I like period/historical snzarios and fantasy stuff, because reading about plain people in an apartment somewhere is boring to me.)

Llewellyn, for his part, could not answer them, face buried in his elbow as he ducked with another reluctant outburst. "Hahktschiu! Hahh- happtsch!"

On the last episode of Orbs Are Bad News...

Is five miles a realistic figure here? No fucking clue! I frequently engage in excessive and specific research for my stories, but I didn’t look up how long one might hike for in D&D. Oh well.

I will take any opportunity to make up an excuse as to why the snz cannot be contained. You’re welcome lol

"Ndo," Llewellyn growled, as fed up as the rest of them. "I'm beyond heh- help. Hngtschiu!"

An elvish word appears! I researched this but not walking.

Cordes nodded. "Yes, I'll draft a letter as soon as- Hey!" Remembrance had grabbed his arm and was rushing ahead already.

And again, removed so that the main characters can bang, lol.

"Yes." Llewellyn rubbed his eyes on his upper arm, wiping away a spare tear from the effort. "...My apologies." He cleared his throat, refusing to meet Gerrit's gaze. "We may arrive after dark."

"You're ill," said Gerrit, trying to fold the flannel in a way as to avoid his pocket getting wet. "We'd move faster if you let me carry y-"

"No."

Me too, buddy. Don’t worry, you can carry your elf later.

He also wasn't in a particular hurry because it was awfully uncomfortable to make any sort of time with his arousal pressed flush to his thigh.

A reminder that sex is usually going to be involved in my stories. The snz is not enough by itself.

Llewellyn shot a glance at him and caught him looking. Gerrit flushed and turned his gaze back ahead to the road.

"You've been very accommodating during all of this," the elf said, tone carefully neutral.

Gerrit shrugged. "It doesn't bear mentioning. We're comrades."

Llewellyn is kind of a asshole and not super great at communicating with any level of affection, although he does get better.

Height difference is also personally sacred to me.

"Changed?" Eyes on the road.

The angst of the half-elven existence! Gerrit is a very typical half-elf in terms of D&D characterization, lol. Despite that, I do find these different-lifestyle pairings interesting, so they keep happening, cliche or not. There is a definite pathos in the elf/human relationship because of the different lifespans, of course - most famously depicted through Arwen and Aragorn, probably, although he’s not the exactly typical human. Anyway, it kind of varies how people like to determine elven and half-elven lifespans in D&D depending on the PHB and your DM’s weary forbearance lol, but Gerrit and Llewellyn will expect to live similar lengths because I’m a sap.

He saw Llewellyn standing with his eyes closed and head titled back, lips parted. The elf's nostrils flared as he gasped.

"Are you going to sneeze again??" Gerrit asked. He threw up his hands, then went for his handkerchief once more. They did have an arrangement.

I laughed writing this part, too. You can’t always let things just be angst.

That sure is a bunch of letters crammed together!

I’m a very visual writer. This kink is extremely visually-based for me. I wish I could draw as well as I want to so I could depict these scenes how I imagine them, but eh.

"Kiss me."

Gerrit blinked, mental caravan bunching to a halt. "What?"

i am so funny omg

An example of the B character not really forcing the admitting of the fetish but just kind of not caring. That is also okay, and I think it’s normal. People don’t just admit to all their kinks immediately upon entering a relationship.

I’ve never kissed anyone, but I consume media. I feel like I am pretty good at depicting things regardless of experience.

"I'm not going to dismiss you out of hand," he said. "You or your feelings. But I would ask for some time to think." He looked up through his lashes. "Are you feeling better?"

Another thing I like in romance, even in kink short stories like this, is a more realistic portrayal of the confession than just “It was obviously meant to be~”

"Gerrit," gasped Llewellyn. He moved the orb between them, jamming it into Gerrit's sternum. "You are not going to sleep with me on the side of the damn road! Get ahold of yourself!"

He has standards!

Gerrit growled at the quick pain in his chest, then shook his head and leaned back. He flushed deeply and pulled his hands away. "Oh. Oh, fuck, sorry. I-"

"Pick me up." Llewellyn lifted his arms.

"What??" Gerrit's brain was having a hard time keeping up at the moment, all of his blood being elsewhere.

"There was a thicker copse of trees back about thirty feet, on the left." Llewellyn waved the orb at him. "Pick me up. We can lay down there."

His standards are NOT that high! But he does have them!

Told you you’d get to carry him soon.

Llewellyn moaned and nudged Gerrit’s hip with the orb. “Now you,” he said. “I want to see your body.”

This is another funny trope lol, like when a hero or assassin or someone has to go through airport security and the metal detector keeps beeping because they’re carrying 18 knives on their person. Fighters are proficient in every weapon, so why not have one of everything?

"You can't possibly have a use for all of those," the elf said, and then Gerrit captured his mouth again.

"This isn't enough for you?" He scoffed.

"Yes, you prick," sighed the elf, and he moaned when Gerrit started to kiss him and lave his skin. His fingers flexed on the orb, longing to wind into Gerrit's hair.

Licking is kind of thing, and I love writing about fellatio so. Yay~

This is also VERY IMPORTANT. Caretaking to the point of like, partner worship idk. It’s good!!

"Aa, aa, ahh- ih- Gerrit, I-" Llewellyn drew his knee up, curling, heel drawing along Gerrit's back. "I nih- need to snih- hh-"

Consent is the sexiest thing.

"No, don't stop," Llewellyn groaned, then turned his head to the side. "Hpptscht! Hah- Haktschiu!"

okay. o__o There’s only so much I can say about writing the porn lol. I write what I want to read.

I tried to write this part so that it would not be immediately obvious to the reader, as it is not to the characters, that the orb is gone.

"Ah- hh- Ttschgktst!"

Me too, buddy.

"Where did it go?" he asked, looking past the elf's shoulder. "Why did it come off?"

Gerrit lost track of the orb immediately.

Me too, buddy.

---

I would love to play a fetish-friendly D&D campaign, but it would be way too embarrassing, probably. My current PC has allergies, but I have never mentioned them in-game and probably never will lol. God help me if my DM ever remembers that I wrote them into my character sheet.

"I don't think I want to ask," said Llewellyn, going for the free bed.

"Sounds like a plan to me," Gerrit replied, joining him.

The untold story, lol

---

The orb lay still in the pine thicket, nestled like an egg among the ferns, waiting for the next hapless traveler.

Faust’s Orb of Rope Bondage. Make a Will saving throw [DC 15] upon touching the orb with any body part, wearing clothes or not. Upon a failure, the orb will find its way to adhere to the hand of the hapless adventurer. If both hands touch the orb, they will both be stuck. If two people fail the save, one of each of their hands will be stuck. The spell can be broken only if each attached party has an orgasm.

I GUESS

#lyk writes #snz #llewellyn mistwalker #gerrit truestride #gerwellyn #director's cut commentary exercise

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souslejaune · 5 years

Text

When I was twelve I met my father’s father, FatherGrandpa...

When I was twelve I met my father’s father, FatherGrandpa, for the third time. He was a man who laughed at his own jokes. After a stint as a bookkeeper with the Governor of the Gold Coast, he became a merchant. No one knows how he amassed the wealth he was famous for, but he claimed to have profited from the Second World War. As a direct result of his trading activities, the Ribeiro Trading Company had children in many major port cities in the world: Monrovia, Liverpool, Port of Spain… He kept a list. He came to visit GeeMaa who had just had a hip operation. It was the first time he had come to our house.

He sat. Raised his long, heavy legs onto a patterned sheepskin cushion on the floor. He reached for the water my mother brought him and drank. Sunlight from the living room window cast slatted streaks across his balding head. My father, mother, Naana and I stood in order of decreasing height in front of him. He repeated an old joke as if it was new.

“Ah, Kojo, I see you inherited my taste for fine women!”

He laughed and slapped his left shoulder with his right hand. The sound of his glee was reminiscent of the gurgle of an emptying bath. We barely smiled, but he carried on.

“Where is the beautiful cripple?”

Our parents sat down in the cane armchairs to FatherGrandpa’s left.

“Go and get GeeMaa,” my father instructed.

Naana and I went to GeeMaa’s room to call her. Because of the newness of the operation she walked with the slant and rhythm of a wink. We heard FatherGrandpa laughing as she approached the living room. We looked at each other, shook our heads, and went to sit under the neem tree in our front yard. The neem tree was familiar territory although I hadn’t been to it for a while. It was where I cut chewing sticks for GeeMaa and myself until I went to boarding school.

I didn’t want to be teased in school for chewing sticks while everyone else used fluoride and toothbrushes, so I stopped chewing the sticks. I had felt no ill effects, but I had been unhappy. GeeMaa’s health had been bad since I left for school and it worried me.

I looked across at Naana and smiled. We were still close even though, as my father put it, she was a woman with a vote now. She passed me a stick of green Wrigley’s chewing gum.

“Thank you.”

The tree filtered a net of sunlight that dappled our faces and we sat ensnared within it.

“I’m glad GeeMaa made our names Oppong-Ribeiro.”

I understood Naana. Plain Ribeiro would mean immediate association with our cavalier grandfather. Naana was studying at the University of Ghana, a place where reputations were made, and her image was important to her. I didn’t care much about image, but I understood.

FatherGrandpa summoned me as he was leaving. He opened his red address book (the one that held details of his children) and gave me an address in Trinidad. The book was indexed by name, age, profession and mother’s name. It was well worn but tidy inside.

“Ebo, I saw one of your photos on the wall. That address is for your uncle Sanjit in Trinidad. He is an artist. He will like it.”

“Thank you.”

His height made me feel humble. Though seventy-seven years old, he held himself like an eager cadet.

“Don't thank me,” he laughed. “You have thirty-three uncles and aunties. You have to start knowing them early!”

As he said that I imagined that Miss Havisham would definitely have had her own child if he had been engaged to her. Then she wouldn’t have had time to wallow in self-pity and become so mean. The thought made me smile.

He slapped my back and made me stumble. Then he laughed harder as he sauntered to his chauffeur-driven Lincoln.

I wrote to Uncle Sanjit the next day; a long letter, written on good blue writing paper from my father’s office. The office was simply a table fitted into one corner of the dining room. In the letter I explained to Uncle Sanjit how I got his address, then drew a family tree to show how we were related. For his mother’s name, I drew a dash. I asked for the meaning of his name and added a selection of the pictures I had taken in the five years since Auntie Dee Dee died.

His reply came in a large flat package that my father drove all the way to my boarding school to show me. My school was the Prince of Wales College in the days when Ghana was still called the Gold Coast, but by the time I got there it was called Achimota School. It was my father’s alma mater.

My father helped me open the package with a screwdriver from his glove compartment. It contained a painting and a short note. I painted the picture I liked. It was a pastel rendering of the hills of Aburi at sunset. I had taken that picture during a school trip to play football with the students of Akosombo Secondary School. P.S. My name means he who is always victorious. Keep in touch.

I stared at his interpretation of my picture. Surely he had smelled the evening mist with me, heard the firm crunch of gravel under the tyres of the school bus, seen the sky change from blue to orange to purple. Uncle Sanjit revealed in his next letter that he had studied Art in London and New York, and now ran a small gallery below his studio in Port of Spain. He thought that I had a very good eye and could become an artist if I chose to. For days, I reread his letter, trying to imagine myself as an artist. I loved reading, and taking photographs was something that had helped channel my confusion after Auntie Dee Dee's death – something I had come to love. In the light and shades of its practice, I had come to better appreciate the travel of thoughts across faces. The extra filter it gave to my visualisation enriched my reading and I had come to value storytelling even more. But I didn't think of photography as art, and I had never thought of myself as an artist. I was entranced. I wrote to Uncle Sanjit every two weeks. He wrote back – about one letter for every four I wrote. They were long letters that described every corner of our separate worlds in delicate detail; the way lizards in Ghana dart around in daytime sun like couriers, how the green of the trees in Trinidad seemed to have blood pumping in them. He told me that his mother was of Indian origin with Hindu roots and ran a food hut by the port. He tried to convey in writing the enchanting singsong rhythm of Trinidadian speech, while I translated and wrote short volleys of Ghanaian proverbs, explaining their origins when I could eke the information out of my parents or Auntie Aba, the waache seller. He ended his letters with quotes from an endless list of luminaries. Benedict Spinoza, Patrice Lumumba, Indira Gandhi. I hadn’t heard of half of them so I found myself spending even more time in the library at school just to keep up. I told him that because he was only twenty-six, I thought of him as my bruncle. I sent Uncle Sanjit hundreds of pictures; insects splattered startled on the windscreen of a truck returned from the countryside, electric pylons straddling rubbish dumps, barefoot children playing with handmade footballs, the fragile-looking wooden shack that was our local corn mill, two-toned sunsets, reeds, flowers and trees caught from unusual angles. It must have taken a lot of his time, but he often replied with short notes and prints of paintings of his favourite shots. I sold some of the prints he sent to my father’s friends, but most of them ended up either on my bedroom wall or with Naana. When GeeMaa died two years after her hip operation, I sent him pictures of the funeral. GeeMaa’s coffin was designed in the traditional Ga manner. Carved and painted as an ambulance to honour her forty years of service as a nurse and midwife. Because she was over seventy years old her funeral was of a light mood.

“She had all her time on earth.”

“She has gone to a better place.”

“God called her.”

“She has gone to help HIM.”

Condolences wore clichéd chrysalids. People came wearing white smiles on dark faces. Clothed in black and white; black to signify the death of a friend, white to celebrate her passing on to a better life. A few of the women had glittering white damask and chiffon with black lace scarves thrown artistically across their shoulders. I took a picture of one of them. Head-shaking guests of all ages came. They came bearing nothing but their empty bellies, which they proceeded to fill with food bought with my father’s hard-earned savings. Some claimed GeeMaa had delivered them as babies. Others claimed she had healed them. Every last person had a story to tell. Piecing these anecdotes together, I tried to construct the parts of GeeMaa's life that she had not told me about. Things she had perhaps considered too mundane to share. One of the second intake of British-trained nurses, she had been the only child – boy or girl – from her fishing community sent to the mission school. As she tuned her ears to the clipped tones of sunburnt priests, her playmates and their parents saved treats that the fishermen gave away from the canoes coming in – eels, didɛ bibii and tsile – and waited; first, to hear stories of peculiar behaviour by the missionaries, then, to listen to her reading and translating from her books. She repaid them, after she had qualified as a nurse-midwife, by treating their sick out of hours and teaching the young to read. By 1935, successful young men, social climbers, emerging business magnates and charlatans were camping outside her father's door, hoping to win the affections of the woman one of her friends called 'the best Charleston dancer in Accra'. As such, there was a collective sigh of dismay when FatherGrandpa went to Korle Bu with a broken finger and walked out with a plaster cast and GeeMaa's heart. These stories floated around on the suspension of grief and remembrance, maintaining a steady hubbub on our courtyard. In every corner, a story; not always believable, but a story nonetheless.

“Oh, she was a great woman. Always smiling…”

“Ei, she was good oh! Better than some of the doctors.”

“I have a photo of her with my Kwame when he was born. Look at him now.” The black and white clad bundle of mothering flesh pulled her boy towards her by the sleeve. “Isn’t he handsome?”

Kwame smiled one of those smiles designed to support the social efforts of preening mothers. Lifting his cheeks slightly as though he were swallowing a bitter pill.

By nine a.m. our courtyard was full of chattering mourners. Our square cream-painted house was like a piece of sponge cake besieged by flies. I took a picture from a distance. On the large veranda that led to our front door, GeeMaa’s body lay in state. As the visitors glided past the neat corpse, they stopped and shook hands with my father and his siblings. Auntie Patience, Auntie Ama and Uncle Tommy had all insisted on a big funeral, yet none of them offered to help with the cost of organising it.

“But she died with you,” they said. As though my father had somehow killed GeeMaa.

I overheard my father telling my mother that they were already arguing about who would inherit GeeMaa’s two houses in Adabraka. Yet they sat there, looking fashionably solemn in matching fabric permutated into different outfits. Matching envelopes of discontent – to be opened after the funeral.

continued >> here <<… | start from beginning? | current projects: The City Will Love You and a collection of poems, The Geez

#niiayikweiparkes #fiction #prose #series #proseseries #novel #novel series

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above--the-fold · 7 years

Text

Unfinished Work (2/?)

Relationship: Jack/Katherine

Katherine understood there were consequences to her privilege but she never expected this as a result.

Katherine Pulitzer had lived her life with impunity. She was fully aware that it was a benefit of wealth that overrode society’s boundaries for her. Most women would never have the chance to dictate to life rather than have it predestined for them. She knew it was a gift and was determined not going to squander it.

It had been over a year since she struck out on her own. At sixteen she had traded a cultured upbringing and a destiny of parties on East 55th for a boarding house for modern ladies—affluent, yes, but modern just the same. She traded a cotillion for a career and never truly looked back. This independence gave her a sense of accomplishment. That and a slightly unhealthy sense of immunity from consequences. And as she fidgeted in the boarding house foyer a new self-awareness of that trait was slowly emerging.

The autumn evening sun had given way on the street outside. Flashes of dappled lamplight began dotting the dimming room. She was caught in that brief moment at dusk where it was finally necessary to seek an alternative light source. Katherine willed herself to comply with the needs of her eyesight but sat immobilized.

For the first time in her life, Katherine Pulitzer was truly scared.

The ticking of the grandfather clock next to did little for her feeling of impending doom. The workday had finished not an hour ago but each second passed without sympathy. Given the knots in her stomach, she thought it was a miracle that she had gotten home at all. She had been dreading this moment for days and could easily have concocted some deadline or catastrophe that needed her attention. None of her ideas had the requisite gravitas to cancel her evening plans.

There was a jostle at the door and a sharp crack as the door knocker was struck repeatedly. She took to her feet but the housemaid was at the door in a flash opening it to reveal one Jack Kelly.

“I got here as quickly as I could,” he broke off with a confused glance to the slight girl unwrapping his scarf and plucking his hat from his hand. “Sure. Thanks. Uh?” He gave Katherine an entreating look.

“Molly,” Katherine supplied.

“Right. Thanks, Molly.” The girl finished divesting him of his coat and dropped a quick curtsy before disappearing down the corridor into the house. Jack’s eyebrows had gotten lost somewhere in the vicinity of his hairline. “She don’t have to do that,” he whispered, pointing after her. “She know she don’t have to be doing that, right?” Katherine thought he looked charming when completely flabbergasted. Though, that could be a byproduct of regularly putting him in such a state personally.

“Leave her be. She only wants to do her best.” Molly wouldn’t have registered Jack as anything less than a gentleman in his work attire. Though he never left behind his newsboy cap with the remains of his past.

Katherine reached for his hand and he took it gladly, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. It briefly quieted her growing panic and she turned to lead him to the parlor. Except he didn’t budge. “Alright, my girl. I’m here,” he drawled. “What was so serious that I had to be here with bells on? Ain’t it against the rules of this place for a gentleman caller to be here at this time of day with no chaperone.” He took their joined hands and twisting to bring hers to his lips briefly. He only winked in response to her impatience.

“It is and you’re not.”

Katherine physically wilted as she heard the parlor occupant announce themselves. She took a moment to garner whatever brashness she had left and presented herself in the high arched corridor leading to the boarding house’s well-appointed sitting room. Jack followed on impulse but stopped abruptly just short of entering. Hopefully others found his befuddlement as charming as she did.

The lone figure was perched in an overstuffed chair that was rendered minuscule in comparison. A commanding presence in an immaculate outfit and intimidating posture. The coloring was all different but based on Jack’s shocked stillness, he had made the connection.

“Jack Kelly, I’d like you to meet my mother.”

He turned to Katherine aware that words had been spoken but with little understanding of their meaning. She winced under the scrutiny promising herself to make it up to him somehow...that is if they both survived until morning. Shaking himself, Jack seemed to have come to and turned back to the other guest. “A pleasure, ma’am. Surely it is.” His hand had no idea what to do with itself as it tried to tip his hat to Mrs. Pulitzer only to remember Molly had absconded and lost its way somewhere near the vicinity of his shoulders.

“I do believe this is the point in the encounter where you join me in the room, rather than haunt about out there, Katherine,” the elder woman instructed. There was no mistaking Katherine’s parentage being in the same room as the stately Kate Davis Pulitzer. Her hair was ashen blond with pale eyes to match. Katherine’s ruddy complexion came from her father. Everything else was genteel Davis breeding. “Bring your gentleman friend as well.”

Katherine could practically hear the expletives bouncing around Jack’s head as she left him still immobile in the entryway to sit on an embroidered settee. He made his way to join her only to jump like a scalded cat at the look on her face. She furtively gestured for him to take the seat opposite her rather than sit together.

They sat in silence hardly breathing to the accompaniment of the popping fireplace, neither wanting to be the first to speak. Kate observed the frozen state of her company with an uptilted chin. “If you haven’t already surmised, I asked Katherine to bring you here so that I could finally meet the fabled Jack Kelly in person. I have to say, I was very curious about who it was that was causing my husband such grief.” To Jack’s credit, the unbidden squeak in response was barely audible.

“Mama had been visiting relatives during the strike and only returned recently,” she explained, nervously trying to fill the silence.

“Quite right. Between her retelling and Joseph’s ravings I was not sure whether to expect a victorious king wielding Excalibur or a demon on cloven hooves.” Kate took the chance to blatantly examine Jack clinically measuring him against her expectations. “I see now that you are just a boy.” Katherine mouthed an ‘I’m so sorry’ to her companion in response.

“That I am, ma’am,” Jack agreed with a forced gentility that didn’t fully materialize.

“Care to recount the tale for me in your own words?”

“Mama!” Katherine groaned. “There is no need to…”

“Would you rather I skip straight to the questions about his intentions with my daughter?” Katherine pressed the bridge of her nose trying to not combust in the steadily warming room. This was a disaster. She should have never acquiesced to her mother’s wish for a ‘spontaneous’ introduction.

“Well, ma’am. My intentions are to honor your daughter for as long as she’ll see fit to have me around.” Katherine peeked through her fingers to find Jack squaring his shoulders under his mother’s scrutiny but his eyes never left her face.

“Good answer, my boy.” Two heads snapped towards the matriarch in unison. “Just what I wanted to hear. Though I wouldn’t mind hearing just how you got under my Joseph’s skin. I’m glad someone took up the charge in my absence.” A refined chuckle filled the space. A twin to Katherine’s own and one very dear to Jack. “She didn’t inherit just my good looks, Mr. Kelly. Our level of stubborn, willful—”

“Mama!”

“—disobedience is gained by inheritance alone. From what I hear you have a healthy dose yourself, Mr. Kelly.” At this point Kate was grinning wide, relishing the shock plastered on the poor boy’s face and her scandalized daughter’s. “I do believe I’ve enjoyed our little chat. We should see each other again soon.” Kate stood and adjusted herself to her full height. Jack had enough sense of decorum to rise as well.

Katherine sat there helplessly confused about the situation and watched her mother lay a gloved hand on his arm. “But for now, consider this my blessing.” A ridiculous smile exploded on Jack’s face as he beamed down at her mother. She could feel one spreading across her own.

Molly manifested herself from nowhere and announced that Mrs. Pulitzer’s carriage had arrived. Kate left Jack and Katherine to retake her long coat and hat from the waiting maid. The two were too absorbed in the moment to notice. Katherine rose to her feet pulled to Jack like a magnet. He idly brushed a curl behind her ear as they just stood there blissfully unaware.

“Jack, my dear?” Kate called from the boarding house entrance. “I do not intend to rush you but I expect to see you exit this door before my carriage departs. We Davis girls may be wild, but only just. Make it count.”

#newsies #newsies fanfiction #newsies fanfic

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