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ghouljams · 10 months

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Fae!Soap idea!

It's a life drawing session and, arrogant as he is, Soap's the model and his future Darling's a horror artist.

Although she doesn't have any sort of sight or magic she paints/draws him as the real him like she's picking up on it subconsciously? Maybe to make her immune to his life draining influence she's had health struggles before and so if she notices destructive patterns forming she's quick to correct them and uses routine and self care to pace herself?

Blurb number two! This Darling escapes Soap's clutches before he can get his hooks in them...

Figure drawing is one of your favorite classes. You can turn your brain off and let the charcoal scratching fill your thoughts. There's just something so satisfying about giving your process over to the process and shapes of the human form. You've always heard people complain about figure drawing classes and anatomy, but you find it fascinating. Especially since your professor gave you full permission to add your own spins on your art. As long as the anatomy and gesture is sound.

The guy today is easy on the eyes, easier on the inspiration. One look at his sea glass eyes and you know exactly what you're drawing. He sets himself up in pose, your professor arranges the fabric draping how they want and gives the go ahead.

The scratch of pencil and coal against drafting paper fills the room. The man in the middle, Soap you think is his name, seems in his element. He positively glows under the cold fluorescent lights, eyes darting around the room. You glance around your easel as you lay down the basic shapes of your sketch, tracing the lines of Soap's form to be sure you're getting the anatomy right.

You meet his eyes before you look back at your easel, and he smiles. You feel your heart race, blood pounding in your ears. Electricity sparks in his eyes, and you feel all the more confident in your inspiration.

You spend the next hour getting your sketch plot and shaded. Shying away from Soap's gaze when you meet it. It feels like he's staring at you the whole class. No, you're sure he's staring at you, because when your professor calls time his hand grabs your easel.

"What're you working on there, Bonnie?" Soap asks, smooth and seductive. You keep your eyes on his face and not the loose knot of his robe as he leans to check your work. He stills, his good natured smile falling.

Your paper is dark and smudged, your fingers having been dragged through the charcoal to add extra intrigue to the shadows. Soap's form fills only half the sketch, the rest of it filled with heavy shadow, eyes and spiderwebs. Each lacing thread spinning from Soap and tying the eyes together. You're quite proud of the delicate threads, the way you carved out negative space with your eraser. Your even more proud of the figure in the center of your canvas.

The anatomy is sound, and you haven't changed anything about Soap's look significantly, but there's something sort of sinister about him. Unnerving. It's the look in his eyes.

The same one he gives you now. You don't think anyone has ever looked at you like that, with absolute predatory loathing. It's gone in an instant, so quickly you think you imagined it.

"Spooky," He tells you with a fresh smile.

"Yeah I-" You try to shake yourself from what felt like a stare down with a mountain lion, "I mostly do horror."

"Mostly or only?" Soap hums tearing the sketch from your pad, you don't stop him.

"It's my favorite, uh, that's not-"

"You mind if I keep this?" He rolls up the charcoal drawing with practiced ease, cutting you off from protesting. You hesitate and give half a nod. He gives you a wink in thanks and goes to talk to one of the other students.

You don't see them or Soap in class again.

#Fae!Soap #john soap mactavish #soap modern warfare #johnny soap mactavish #I don't want to tag this as x reader since there's no romance or anything #this was a fun stretch of the old muscles tho #Soap loves the art but he can't have an artist showing the world what he is #that's no fun #he shows the 141 the drawing and they're like “huh yeah that's you alright”#this is why he doesn't like seers

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jomiddlemarch · 10 days

Text

call understanding thy kinswoman

“Here,” Mary said, pushing a steaming mug in front of Rilla after hurrying through the ordinary polite exchanges required of a greeting, even among family. “Drink this first. You look green around the gills and I don’t fancy explaining to Jem why his baby sister ended up in a puddle on our sitting room floor.”

“We’re in the kitchen,” Rilla said, turning her face away from the table. Feeling the nausea rise in her throat, hardly daring to take a deep breath. “I can’t drink your coffee, it’s too strong—”

“It’s ginger tea, silly. And if you faint here, I’ll still tell your brother we were in the sitting room, not at the kitchen table. He’s been at me to get a girl to help and I don’t want one—”

“You’d lie about something like this,” Rilla asked. She reached forward and picked up the mug, inhaled the spicy scent of the ginger tea. She gestured with a little nod of her head at the scene, Mary across from her at the well-scrubbed table, all the pots and pans gleaming copper in the dull, cloudy light of a dull, cloudy afternoon that hadn’t made its mind up yet to rain.

“Of course. If the lie was what was needed. What James— what Jem needed,” Mary said. Rilla recalled Mary called Jem by his Christian name, the only one he’d allow to do so, though he’d given their mother a quelling near-glare when she’d remarked on it. Mary gave Rilla a familiar look, one that sized her up in a moment, though it was fonder than it used to be, an alteration Rilla attributed to Mary’s affection for Jem. “It’s Ken you want to talk about. Go on then.”

“How did you know?” Rilla said. She sipped at the tea, willing it to do something. Ginger was said to help. She’d learned though, that many things people said would help a difficult situation weren’t the least bit helpful and that people, with the possible exception of Una and Rosemary Meredith, had an endless supply of suggestions. Mary most often held her tongue around the Blythe family, but she wouldn’t hold back if you asked her opinion.

“You’d have gone to your mother if you were fussed about morning sickness or having the baby,” Mary said. “It would’ve been a gift, to give her something like that to occupy her. If you wanted some coddling. You’re here instead and it’s certainly not for my shortbread. Nan’s away and Jerry’s crippled because of his back, nothing else. She wouldn’t be much help and you don’t want her pity.”

“Mother’s useless,” Rilla said. Admitted. “And Nan’s a priss and always has been—”

“Finally,” Mary muttered under her breath.

“But it really is that Jerry’s wounds are all just physical. Sometimes I wish, I think, maybe if Ken had lost an arm or needed a cane, it would be better. Easier,” Rilla said.

“Maybe. Or maybe he’d be like he is now only with one arm of his jacket pinned up or walking around like an old man before he’s turned thirty. There aren’t any bargains to be made about this, Rilla. Nor wishes.”

“He came home and he said, he asked me, ‘Are you Rilla-my-Rilla?’ and I said yes,” Rilla said, looking down into the crockery mug. It was sturdy and practical, like her sister-in-law, and her own mother would have blanched to serve a cup of tea in it, let alone her sister. There were no tea leaves to read, so she looked back up and found Mary watching her, a little half-smile on her lips.

“Are you bothered by your answer or his question?”

Rilla laughed in spite of herself.

“Dad says you’re wasted as a doctor’s wife, that you ought to be a barrister.”

Mary smiled and though there was no flush in her cheeks, her expression warmed, her fair hair suddenly seemed richer in tone, more like the narrow gold band on her fourth finger.

“Your father’s twice as fanciful as your mother is and I’ve heard her go on to Bruce Meredith about fairies and mayflowers more than I could ever believe,,” she said. “Being a doctor’s wife suits me fine. Jem will be home in a few hours, though, and I’ve his supper to see to, so if you do want to talk, you might be getting on with it.”

“He’s not himself. Ken. He’s not who he was when he went away. When he asked me to wait. He’s not mine, even if I’m his,” Rilla said, all in a rush. She felt queasy again, unsure why, neither explanation a comfort.

“Couldn’t be, could he? Especially since he came home and others didn’t. Walter,” Mary said. “I think he’d hate it, Walter, how he’s a saint now and Ken and the rest of them, they’ve got to be men all the time and tell us it’s all in the past, it was worth it. Cheerful, determined. I’ve never wondered Shirley won’t come back to the Glen, I’ll tell you that much.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Rilla said.

“There you go. That’s what you needed to get to,” Mary said. It was rare to be praised by her and Rilla was surprised how much she liked it. How much it was a balm. “Can he sleep?”

“Sometimes. Not well. He has dreams, he won’t talk about them,” Rilla said.

“I won’t say anything,” Mary replied. “To anyone. Certainly not your brother. He can’t sleep either. He cries sometimes, without ever waking up. You won’t say anything about that.”

“Oh,” Rilla said. “I didn’t know—”

“He doesn’t want anyone troubled. I’m the only one who won’t let him get away with that. Which is partly why he married me,” Mary said.

“I don’t know why Ken married me,” Rilla said softly.

Mary chuckled, but it had none of the wry mockery of her usual laughter.

“You poor pet. I forget, sometimes, how young you are.”

“I’m only six years younger than you, Mary, not a generation,” Rilla snapped.

“When I was six, my ma hung herself and my pa slit his wrists,” Mary said. “You were always precious. I wasn’t, not to anybody, not ‘til Jem anyway. Ken married you because you were the dream he had that kept him alive in that absolute hell in France. Because you wrote to him and you raised that baby and because you’re the happiness he always thought he wanted. You’re easy on the eyes too, but I’ll grant him that it’s easier to fall in love with a pretty girl than a plain one.”

“You can’t marry a dream,” Rilla said.

“No, you can’t. Nor live with one. They came home, however they did, and for a while, anyway, I suppose it’s up to us to figure out how to be more than that. It’s harder for you, because of your families and how you had that crush on him and he had that memory of you in a party dress in the moonlight to go by. Jem didn’t have any dreams of me to get in the way,” Mary said.

“Is this how you talk to Jem?”

“I’ll thank you to keep your nosy questions to yourself,” Mary retorted.

“I only meant, is this how you help him through?”

“It doesn’t matter. You have to find out how to talk to Ken and I haven’t any advice about that man. Well, I’ve a little. I think he’s got to feel guilty as sin to have come home with just a few scars and everyone expects him to write some masterpiece and he won’t want to let anyone down. I bet it’s hard to have any ideas after the trenches and it’s hard to write when your hands tremble.”

“How did you know?”

“Jem’s do, sometimes. I’ve learned to look for it. Get Ken a typewriter, that’s my advice. Tell him about the baby before you tell your mother. Promise him you won’t call it Walter. Say you want some ordinary name that no one in your family’s gotten all tied up with sentiment and honor. John. Margaret. Maybe Alice, like Alice in Wonderland.”

“My grandfather’s name was John,” Rilla said. Grandfather Blythe, who’d died before she was born.

“Everyone’s grandfather was named John,” Mary said.

“I suppose that’s nearly true,” Rilla said and smiled.

“Nearly true’s good enough more than you’d think,” Mary said. “You should come round for dinner here sometimes. We can let them go sit on the porch while we gossip about Faith Drew while we make some tea to go with the cake you bring. I heard she bobbed her hair and she smokes and Bertie don’t care. ‘Scuse me, she calls him Will, like we all don’t remember him being a holy terror and his ma hollering his name Bertie Shakespeare for him to come home.”

“You’ll serve my cake?” Rilla said. It was the biggest surprise, as Nan had already passed along the gossip about Faith’s hair and her modern ways. Fast, Susan said, frowning and Rilla, who had never thought it possible, had found herself nodding along.

“Susan won’t give me her recipe for plum cake and it’s one of Jem’s favorites. He’ll have two slices, enormous ones, if we’re there for Sunday dinner and she puts it out,” Mary said. “He’s greedy for sweets now, though he hates to admit it.”

“Jem’s greedy?” Rilla said.

“Oh yes. He’s all sorts of vices. I’m sure Ken has his as well. You’d do well to find out which ones,” Mary said.

“To help him overcome them?”

“To love him for them,” Mary said.

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