#she's like. not a good person whatsoever but who am i to say what somebody's pronouns are or should be
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I haven't seen anyone post it so here's Shelby's second statement on Twitter:
[Image ID: Two screenshots of text written by Shubble and posted on @/shelbygraces on Twitter. They read: "I've thought a lot about what I would say when I came back. Firstly I want to say the biggest thank you to everyone showing their support. I have never felt so loved and cared for. And I've never seen so many communities come together to have somebody's back like this. I'm so proud of everyone taking such a powerful stance against these actions. I never could have imagined this response. While I didn't do this for myself, through sharing my story I have healed more parts of myself I had no idea were still pained.
I'd like to address the apology. Quite frankly I've never seen an apology so self centered. It seems to purposely misconstrue the issue I very clearly laid out. My issue was not with being bit. It was with being HURT. And to vaguely apologize for "any hurt" while knowing we needed a safe word because I was being hurt so often on accident, and I continued to be hurt daily, is incredibly disrespectful. But not more disrespectful than not even saying my name. I believe I am referred to as "ex girlfriend" so if you don't know who he's talking about, you might now find out what he did. This is not how you take accountability.
Not only are there no dms whatsoever where it is expressed that I enjoy being hurt by my partner, to imply there was consent in text over an issue that entirely happened in person, where every conversation about it happened in person, is ridiculous. He knows how often I asked him to stop hurting me, that I didn't like it and that I didn't like being covered in bruises all the time. Entirely why he switches to biting my legs, so no one would think I looked abused. But he continued to hurt me. He either didn't take my pleas for it to stop seriously, or he didn't hear them at all.
I felt lost for so long, truly losing myself in this relationship. I abandoned my personal morals, neglected friends and lied for this person. With every time I spoke up being ignored, I shrank. I lost my fight. I stayed locked in a house I had no key for and didn't even try to leave anymore. People ask why we stay, and it's so hard to explain ourselves because we've abandoned all our reasoning. I wasn't safe anymore with this person but I couldn't see that. I loved him and he told me he'd try to stop hurting me.
I'm deeply saddened by how many more friends were hurt by his actions. But I'm so thankful to everyone doing the absolute most in making sure I've been ok over the last few days. Thank you to everyone who's reached out to me. Thank you #ShubbleSupportSquad, every day I read your messages and see your art, and it makes me feel truly like the bravest girl in the world. I think the good that comes out victims sharing their experiences so others can learn and avoid similar pain, or come to terms with ways they were mistreated, is the most important thing in this moment.
You cannot treat people this way without consequence. You cannot pretend you don't know the harm you cause. You cannot pretend going to therapy fixes all past mistakes. All of the love that's been shared for me over the past few days, is for every victim of abuse. Our lives are forever changed by these experiences. I now struggle with memory problems and extreme anxiety. And it may be awhile before I feel fully like myself, whoever she is. But I know I have my spark back. Please remember how brave and how strong you are. We shouldn't be expected to be silent when we are mistreated." End ID]
#areus rambles#tw abuse#tw domestic abuse#tw victim blaming#As a just in case#Shubble#long post#ask to tag
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a blue moon w mat barzal.
insta edit.
Warnings: none !
Word Count: 1.8k+
Not the best, but wanted to get something out. A bit rusty, but hope you enjoy!
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they met at a very grand and very chic new years party, at the plaza hotel in midtown manhattan 3 years ago. she had been swaying to the old 1950’s music, sipping sparingly on the very expensive $600 champagne. she watched as my older sister danced with her newly minted fiance at the time, as the two had just become engaged over the very snowy christmas eve. lucy had originally planned to bring her boyfriend of 6 years to the new years eve party, but he broke up with her a week before christmas day. out of the blue, very sudden, and gave her no clarity whatsoever.
☆
blue moon, you saw me standing alone
without a dream in my heart without a love of my own
☆
but there she was, watching the loved up couples dancing as time winded down to midnight. She peered over her shoulder, towards the balcony and sighed, before making her way over. her newly gifted jimmy choo heals clicked uncomfortably on the marble floor. she felt an instant sigh of relief as the brunette stepped foot outside to the 12-degree, cold. she walked up to the railing and looked out of busy, busy new york, taking in all the sights and sounds, and the stray snow coming down as well. she smiled down at her hand, twisting the glass ever so slightly. she then looked up and to her right, and saw him. a tall, dark haired, mysterious man who leaned against the railing, looking towards the city. smiling, picking up her glass and walkedon over. he heard the heels clicking on the concrete and looked up towards the girl. he was gorgeous. her breath halted ever so slightly, and blushed. “fancy some company?” grinning, sipping her champagne. He watched as she did so, him intoxicated by her sheer presence. he took in all 5’4 of her, black dress and her bruntte hair in perfect waves. “why are you all alone?” he questioned, “no girl like you- should ever be alone.” forward, which she loved. whe smiled, “i could say the same to you shakespeare…” and he looked down ever so quickly.
"my ex broke up with me a month ago…nobody to take to the party. You?” he said shrugging. “ny boyfriend broke up with me..last week.” she said and he then saluted his drink towards her. “i suggest, were gonna need more of that.” he grinned, before alerting a server that they needed two new glasses of champagne. she looked at him with curiosity, as he thanked the server. she took the new glass, clinking her’s with his and swallowed a fine amount.
☆
blue moon, you knew just what i was there for
you heard me saying a prayer for someone I really could care for
☆
the night sky dawned upon them as they spoke outside at the party. the two spoke of who they were, where they come from, their past relationships, and more. the two couldn’t believe how they were so alike, yet very different. two different worlds colliding, so very smoothly. lucy stood there in shock, as mat waited for a response. “so quickly? She questioned and he nodded. “you’d go into a relationship without somebody so quickly after 3 years of dating?” he laughed. the laugh sending electricity and heat up her body. She watched as it traveled throughout his body, seemingly normal. Though, he hadn’t had a good chuckle that good in awhile. “what about you, miss lucy?” he questioned, watching her tug his tux’s jacket closer to her. “I mean, maybe? It would have to be the right person and if it fell right. I want somebody that will be there high and low, and in between. Somebody who will say yes no matter what to my crazy idea or suggestion…” mat cut her off- “which would be?” he grinned. She blushed, “maybe getting joes pizza at 2 am or ice cream at malibu diner..the simple things.” she teased sipping more of her drink. “I wish for that person as well, to stand by me through all the ups and downs of hockey and the chaotic life it brings.” he added and she nodded, placing a hand on his arm. “i do too, mathew.” she smiled, before sliding the jacket off and placing it in his hands. The two’s hands grazed one another’s, and she moved them so slightly, they were nothing longer touching. he looked down at the jacket and back up at her, but she was already on her way back inside. “lucy!” though she slipped right inside as soon as he said her name. he hurried inside to find her, but was too late, the madness had begun as the clock struck 12.
☆
and then there suddenly appeared before me
the only one my arms could ever hold
☆
mat walked into the grand ballroom at the plaza, one year later for the annual new years ever party. he scanned the room for one girl, and one girl only. the girl that had stolen his heart in the 45 minutes he knew her. a girl he had yet to see at joes pizza at 2 am or the malibu diner. anders pulled him further into the room as he spotted him walk in. “come on the guys are waiting.” mat sighed as he walked over towards bo horvat, zach parise, mat martin and beau; who had snuck down for new years from vancouver. anders pushed a vintage, tulip glass. he looked down and realized, he hadn’t had any champagne since last new years. he took a gulp, before the spicy yet sweet sensation tingled his throat. “Im gonna go look at the buffet.” he said and the guys nodded going back to their conversation and food. mat sauntered over to the buffet picking up a small china plate, and digging into the salmon, veggies some lemon rice. mat was about to turn to grab a glass of water when he heard her laugh. he turned so quickly, he bumped into an older gentleman. “oh my god, im so sorry!” he exclaimed bending down to help clean up the ice that spilled from the drink. “Grandpa, are you ok?” he heard her angelic, soft voice. mat looked up from where now the waiter was telling him they had it. He nodded, standing back up. lucy inspected her grandfather, while a man beside her eyed mat. lucy looked past her grandpa, and had a moment of realization. “Mat?” she questioned, and mat ever the dumb-looking mat nodded. “how are you?” she questioned, reaching out to hug him like the two had known one another for years, they pulled apart and thats when he saw it. He saw the vintage, at least 200,000 dollar engagement ring. she saw him look down at it, and she slowly pulled her hand back behind her back, where it had been most of the night. “how are you? who are you here with?” she questioned, as her fiance fell into side with her. “im uh, ive been good! Im here with some of my teammates.” he explained while pointing to the other side of the room. “oh good! glad its more people this time.” she smiled, a soft smile. He nodded, “so are you two?” he questioned putting the clues together. “Yes! We got engaged in July, while we were vacationing in Italy at my family’s estate.” lorenzo explained. mat nodded trying to read the girl’s face, who was trying to look anywhere but his. “hun, may you get me a drink please?” she asked and lorenzo nodded, kissing her temple before walking off.
“Congrats by the way.” mat said, and she nodded. “Yeah…sorry to ambush you.” she said patting down her silver dress. mat shrugs, “i mean how else would i know?” he asked giving an uncomfortable laugh. “Not like it was in the papers or anything.” he stated jokingly, and then he saw her face. “yeah, my family is uh pretty wealthy and uh..yeah.” she said sheepishly and then lorenzo walked back up, with a cosmopolitan in his hand. “thankyou.” she said taking it from his hand and setting it on the table behind them. “i uh should probably be heading back to my friends, im sorry for for your drink sir.” he motioned towards her grandpa, and he waved him off. “im just glad i got another one for our sake.” he laughed, causing mat to laugh as well. lucy smirked, knowing that her grandpa hadn’t had a hearty laugh like that with lorenzo. mat walks away, and lorenzo is in distress.
mat watched from a far for about 45 minutes, a tense conversation between the fiances. he saw lorenzo walk out of the ballroom, and lucy towards the terrace. he followed her about 5 minutes after the door was closed behind her. he walked outside, and she turned around instantly. she had hoped he saw that she walked out. “lucy?” he questioned, pulling off his jacket like he had done last year and draped it over her shoulders, and he wrapped his arms from behind, pulling her into him. she smiled widely, “i had been waiting to..to be held by you once again.” she smiled up at him. he blushed, “you are the only one i want to hold.” he whispered in her ear, staring at the city in front of him.
☆
Iiheard somebody whisper please adore me
and when I looked the moon had turned to gold
☆
she turned around in his arms, looking up at him. “i’ve decided to leave a life i thought was meant for me, and what i wanted but…i dont want that mat. he was never the one, those 45 minutes were the best 45 minutes of my life mat. i havent been able to stop thinking about you since last year. and i dont want him, i want you mat. only you.” she confessed and he smiled, pulling her in as close as possible. “i wanted somebody to adore me…the way i adore them.” she whispered, and he nodded. he drawed her chin towards his, his cool hands sending waves of sensation down her spine, before he kissed the brunette. the rare full moon of new years eve, cascaded down upon them. no longer a ‘blue’ moon but a ‘gold’ one at that.
☆
the two start their first dance as partners, at the very place they met for the first time and three years after they first met. when the two were presented with picking the date, the two looked at one another and instantly knew when and where. and with a little help from her grandpa, the two were to wed on new years eve at one of the most sought-after hotel in nyc. and there plans for after midnight? a 45 minute walk to malibu diner for icecream and pie.
☆
hope you all enjoyed!! pls like and repost, itd mean a lot.
random tags: @matbaerzal @barzysunflower @barzal @rosesvioletshardy @canuckshuggy @bitchinbarzal @andreburakozy @jayda12
#mat barzal#mat barzal x oc#nhl#hockey#nhl imagine#hockey imagine#new York islanders#matt martin#anthony beauvillier#tyson jost#mat barzal imagine#equallyshaw masterlist
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Hii idk if you do daughter reader like where I’m his daughter but if you do can I request a Neymar x daughter reader where Reader feels pressure by her boyfriend to have sex for the first time, not only in their relationship but her entire life. When she says no her boyfriend doesn’t react too well, Neymar finds the reader shaking and crying when he gets home from like the gym or training and goes into protective dad mode
a/n:this is such a good idea hope you will like it!i added like the reader not really doing okay in general too if you don’t mind bye love you <33 the end can be a little traumatic for people who experienced sa please don’t read if you’re uncomfortable⚠️ i love you all <33
Neymar Jr imagines (daughter reader):Cora
The dark circles around her eyes,the big clothes around her,the lack of laugh,of smile Where did my happy daughter go?
It’s 7 am in the morning and you go downstairs where you can see your daughter already awake "Y/n?" "Mhmmm?" She answer her eyes not living the tv "Why are you already awake cora (corazon)?" You ask "I couldn’t sleep anymore" She answer "I have to go training but do you want me to do some food?" You ask "No." "Oh, okay" "If you need anything call me alright" "Sure" You go toward her and kiss her cheek "I love you" "I love you too" She answer and you leave
A few hours later (diner time):
You are eating together while her phone keep ringing "Who’s making blow up your phone like that?" You ask "My boyfriend" She answer without even looking at me "Did he hurt you?" "Did he do something?" "Dad stop!" "I’m just trying to understand you’re not doing okay and i’m worried about you!" "Don’t worry,this is just the beginning" She leave the room and go upstairs You sight in defeat
You go upstairs and knock at her door "I love you,so much you’ll never have any idea" "So please talk to me" "I don’t have the words to say" She answer "Did something happened?It is because i’m away often?I can stop if you want me here i don’t care the only person that i care about is you baby tell me what it is" "I don’t know myself so how could i even explain" "I’m going to sleep goodnight" "I love you" "I love you too papai"
The next day (Y/n’s pov):
It’s like you were out of your body but now you were realizing that he was kissing your neck
"I want you so bad" "No!" "What?" He ask You push him "I don’t wanna do that" You say "I don’t understand" He say "I don’t wanna fucking do that." "Get out." He say "What?" "Get tf out of here." "Leave."
He throws your stuffs at you and you leave the tears in your eyes and the panick in your throat You arrive at your house shaking crying You slide against the wall when your father comes home "Hey hey hey" He come towards you and put your hands in his "What’s going on Cora?" He ask "I- I- can’t- bre- athe." "Okay do like me" You breathe together you calm yourself down and burst into tears. Your dad sit next to you and take you in his arms "What happened Cora?" He ask "You know you can tell me everything" "No you’re gonna be mad." "No i won’t i promise" "But it’s huge so you will" "Did somebody hurt you?" You nod positively "What happened?" He ask.
"I was- I was at y/bf’s house and- and- he wanted to do it with me but i didn’t so when he started kissing my neck i pushed him and he just threw me out like a piece of trash." he breathes nervously "You say you weren’t going to be mad!" "You’re not the person against who i’m mad on the contrary i’m particularly proud of you you stood up for yourself.""But please don’t do anything."You say "You know this is serious it’s a form of sexual assault." "But whatsoever no one will believe me and it won’t be considered like one he just kissed my neck""And if we got see the police tomorrow or in a few days" He say "Okay"
He kiss your forehead "I love you cora" "I love you too"
a/n:english is not my first language
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@wexarethewalkingxdead asked:
Basics. - What was the first muse that you’ve written? //Do you still write your first muse? //How do you describe writing / rp to others? Canon Muses. - Are you happy with how your favorite canon muse was portrayed in canon? OCs. - Who was your first OC? //Do you still write your first OC? Fandoms. - In what fandom did you start? Ships. - Have you ever started to ship a rare-pair? Tumblr. - What are the trends when it comes to writing that you adore? //What are trends when it comes to writing that you dislike? //What’s something you find weird on here?
What was the first muse that you’ve written?
I answered this here, but... I don’t know what came first, it was either writing dogs or writing Sailor Moon. One of those two things! It’s been so many damn years and I honestly barely remember what happened two days ago let alone what occurred like over a decade ago lol. I feel like I want to say the dogs came first... But I have no idea.
Do you still write your first muse?
Nope, well actually... I mean no but yes? Mostly no. I don’t write anime anymore and I likely never will again. But I still occasionally write animal muses, and I do have a dog blog on here.
How do you describe writing / rp to others?
Answered here as well, but because I really don’t talk about roleplaying unless it’s actually with somebody I know who also roleplays... The most I’ll say about it is that it is like writing a story with someone.
I am putting a “see more” thing here for the rest of this ask because it long 👌
Are you happy with how your favorite canon muse was portrayed in canon?
Oof this is such a hard question. Making decisions is impossible and picking one favorite to talk about is so painful. I have so many options... I guess maybe since Bailey is a Last of Us muse, I’ll talk about Ellie from The Last of Us. So in the first game I absolutely love everything about Ellie, zero complaints whatsoever, and she’s obviously a character that helped inspire Bailey. The second game? I was disappointed to be honest. There are some parts that are done very well, but in my personal opinion, I feel like Ellie’s overall character was just... It just didn’t really feel like Ellie? And I do get that she’s a little older now and loss changes people a lot, especially the way that she lost Joel, but regardless, she still just feels more like a stranger to me in the sequel. She doesn’t even pick up the video game system thingy after killing that random lady? Like?? Super tiny detail but still lol, there’s no way Ellie would pass that shit up.
Who was your first OC?
Gosh, I have no idea. She certainly wasn’t my first, but the only OC I can actually remember from way back when is one I named Elena and she was a vampire, I had her on tumblr for an extremely short time, I had never ever written on tumblr prior, it was my first time. I wrote her on some other roleplay site primarily. And no, I did not make a vampire named Elena because of The Vampire Diaries. I came up with the idea before I started watching that show lol.
Do you still write your first OC?
No, I don’t. I wrote her a good while but eventually she fell off the face of the planet and I haven’t looked back since! Honestly, my OCs way back then were very poorly done anyways. Not that I couldn’t develop her better today, but I just have no interest in it.
In what fandom did you start?
Anime, I was obsessed with anime for a HOT ass minute, so I was writing a lot of anime. I don’t anymore, I really don’t even watch anime anymore either.
Have you ever started to ship a rare-pair?
I don’t think so? I mean, I support other people’s rare or unpopular ships, but to be honest I don’t really invest much into shipping. I just don’t pay much attention to it. Like it’s cute and I enjoy seeing the dynamics but I just... I dunno, whatever? If it’s me shipping a muse with someone else’s muse I’ll probably be happily invested but other than that I don’t pay that much attention to shipping.
What are the trends when it comes to writing that you adore?
Err imma be honest I don’t really know what the trends are. Like I know what the word means but also I don’t because my brain 100% fails to comprehend? So I apologize in advance if the next two answers are absolute potatoes... I don’t entirely know what to say. I mean, I guess it’s real nice that most people aren’t so judgy about your writing or how you format? Cause everybody always writes so dang well and I’m just like, meh. I don’t think you’d consider that a trend but whatever I love nice people that’s all I got.
What are trends when it comes to writing that you dislike?
Same concept above my lovely confused brain. I am just going to say a random ass thing I dislike... Like, I guess maybe, a lot of people if you follow them first (and they follow back obviously) they expect you to put in 100% of the effort to interact and everything while they put in, literally, zero, zero effort whatsoever. Again, don’t know if you’ve call that a trend but that’s what I got lol.
What’s something you find weird on here?
This is also answered here, a few things I kinda find a little bit weird but of course people can do whatever they want to. Some people have crazy strict rules, and ridiculously long lists of banned faceclaims — I did not know this was even a thing people did in the rpc until I returned to tumblr this year. People who follow you and then ignore all your interaction attempts, or make zero effort whatsoever to interact. Some people hate it when you message them just to chat, like, ooc chat, I just don’t quite understand why but that’s as someone who really loves chatting ooc. And lastly, people who won’t interact with you if you’re a multimuse of only female or only male muses because it means you are “sexist” and that’s just hella weird, because people write who and what they’re comfortable with and it ain’t that deep. People can write who and what they want.
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i wrote a paper for school about how wild taylor's public perception got in 2015/2016 and when i was researching it and i got to that ary*n princess article/rumor it just felt so out of nowhere? like just cause she was quite about politics (which also... she wasn't she said she voted for obama back in 2010 (?) so she was a progressive democrat) people just went from 0-100 and said she was a white supremist.
the only thing more wild than that however was the fact she didn't respond. i understand that she was deep in hiding at that point and was told not to be bothered by her team by any news whatsoever... but if there's one thing to make an exception for it's a rumor that you're a white supremist the priorities were off.
After giving it much thought, Ifeel like there is no way to answer this ask thouroughly without opening the “how being white affects Taylor’s career” can of worms, which I am not qualified to dive into (party because I am white myself and also not American). What I will say is that in light of both Taylor’s tendency to portray herself as an underdog (justified or not) and the fact that there definitely was a political note to her feud with Kanye, given that it was a dispute between a Black man and a white woman, I am not surprised that, in a time of extreme political divide, she ended up being used for one of the extremes. And while I do understand why she did what she did when it comes to staying silent on her political views, I can also recognize how it made people upset when lives were at stake.
If I were to take a step back and look at this from the perspective of somebody who does not care about celebrities, I may think “what difference would a statement have made in the great scheme of things?” and from that angle I also understand why her team didn’t say anything, because a) it would have been a PR mess either way and b) you do not want to give it more attention. The issue I personally have with it is just this weird divide between how much Taylor/her team care about the way she is perceived when it comes to other things vs. THIS. Apart from PR aspects and all shouldn’t you maybe go “hm the artist I am representing being praised by a hate group is maybe not a good thing and I should do something about it”? I choose to believe Taylor that she was unaware at the time because it was 2016/2017, and she has since spoken out against white supremacy multiple times, and I think that the reaction would be VERY different if it were to happen now, but it’s still a weird spot in her career.
#i have become a bit more 'mh' on celebrity activism in general#but this is an extreme case that was handled badly imo#ask#anonymous#d*n't r*bl*g
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Like I was telling people the other day, why does Julie LIE like that? I’ve been doing DIFFERENT burrs every week. I’ve been practicing. In 3 months time, I will be twice as fast! Why do you lie and say that I take too much time? Clearly, she’s not being honest. Like, I will have a general management degree in a month. I’d be a way better manager than her. PERIOD. Stfu and sit down. Again, as I told people, for the job that I do, it’s not an easy job. We lost Laura, so we don’t have a person. We are short a person. Burrs are not an easy job. Carrie, for example, she was doing AMAZING. She worked for YEARS in production with Ford I think. She still was not able to do the burrs that I do! You’re running around saying how you need me fired ASAP. As this role is necessary, and we are without Laura, without Tiffany, how does this make sense? It doesn’t. No offense. No offense whatsoever, but we literally have no need for Michelle, yet you’re trying to say that MYSELF is the problem? Again, as I said before, she needs retribution for her actions with Jessica. She needs her bonus taken away. PERIOD. How do you go and say that somebody who pushes around and goes in the back to ruin other people’s work is a good employee. THAT IS LIKE AS OF YOU WERE A STORE MANAGER AND DEMANDED WE PUT A THIEF AT THE REGISTER. It’s your fault. There should be retribution. I’ve heard Kim scream at him multiple times to stop bumping her cart. He would bump into her cart MULTIPLE time in a span of 5 minutes. It’s part of your job description to safely carry the items to the furnace, dumba##!!!!! I’ve seen him unnecessarily grab Denise’s wheel with his arms and just shove it. Do not grab her wheel with your dirty arms, you moron. Denise kind of deserves it for not believing me about her day one and continuing to be her friend as I made gestures and faces in her direction. Rene has said that there had been his finger prints all of her cups. Finger prints! Mo effing finger prints! Case closed!!!!!!! Sweetie, in what world do you need to pick up a cup for? The worst is what they do to Alana. Alana is an essential employee. You cannot replace Alana. People cannot replace her. I even took people in the back like, look, this is Alana’s stuff. Jessica’s bf efed some parts up, but as you can see, THE ENTIRE THING IS SUPPOSED TO BE PERFECT. Here is what Jessica does in her fits of speed. Here is her work, done, out in the open for everyone to see. I hope they call and demand they get their work done PROPERLY. Send the crap back. Demand a refund! Alana is an essential employee who people cannot replace. I am an essential employee. What does Julie do? PISS people off and compliment Jessica as she keeps on putting out crap work and costing us serious time and money with the things she ruins. I’m not speaking for me. I sit next to Alana’s work place. Jessica’s girl Michelle is up in the sticker room. One day, Alana has to call the entire team in, because she has a deadline and she has been served tapes that she cannot work with. The next week, Alana’s perfect wheel gets VERY SEVERELY bumped. What does Julie do? Pretty much yells at “slow and imperfect” Alana that she better fix this right now. Alana is telling Oretta, sorry, I can’t. Meanwhile, as they do all this s### to Alana, Jessica is over there yapping to Julie about “the speed” of Alana.
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❤️🔥HARRY STYLES FICS FOR NAUGHTY BITCHES WHO LOVE READING❤️🔥 (aka fic recommendations)
Every single one of the fics/writers listed here have made my life exponentially better. And I would defend them with my life. Welcome to my happy place. They are in no particular order, I stand by all of them equally. Please show these writers all the love they deserve or else 😡 Also! I will be updating this every time I find new favourites + please let me know if you have any recommendations
-SERIES’-
In my feelings - by @harrystylescherry
(Personal review: this series is the series that got me into reading full length fics. Everything about it is absolute perfection. Her writing is unbelievably good. It’s so long and incredibly detailed. I’ve never been more personally attached to two characters in my life. If you want to feel something read this (or really any of her writing). My all time number one fic)
Somebody else - by @harrystylescherry
(Personal review: Again, her writing is top notch. As painful as this story is, every moment in between the pain makes it feel so real. I’m not usually someone who likes reading fics with heavy angst but this one is one that I’ve read time and time again)
Blacking out and breaking hearts - by @dont-call-me-baby-posts
(Personal review: this is one of my newer finds, and it is ongoing. Somehow every chapter feels so complete yet always leaves you wanting more. These characters are very personal to me. I’ve been following it since she posted the first chapter and I’ve been hooked ever since. Beautiful and emotional writing. 10/10)
Dancing with myself - by @givemesomeboobies
(Personal review: I love a good best friends brother trope, and this series does it so well. The smut is great and so is the conflict around all the main characters. I love the readers relationship with Harry and the way they write about mental health. Great great read)
Smooth operator - by @for-fucks-sake-h
(Personal review: What an original concept, I’ve never read anything quite like this and the writer did such a fantastic job at making such a complicated relationship feel so relatable and hot. Very well written smut and dialog)
Jamaica me happy - by @for-fucks-sake-h
(Personal review: I read this one a few months ago and it is the fic that made my fall in love with this writer. Friends-to-lovers is one of my favourite tropes thanks to this series. Honestly can’t say enough good things about the writing. I literally squealed out loud so many times while reading this. No complaints)
To love and be loved - by @watchmegetobsessed
(Personal review: I just finished this about a week ago and i still think about it all the time. This is truly one of the only fics I’ve read that has a single dad Harry that I actually thoroughly enjoyed, it’s not usually my trope of choice but this one is so heartbreakingly good that I couldn’t stop reading it)
Desire - by @watchmegetobsessed
(Personal review: Honestly this series has some of the hottest scenes ever. This writer does sexual tension so well. I adore this concept and was so excited to read it when I first found it, and let me tell you, it doesn’t disappoint whatsoever. All of their writing is very original and creatively impressive)
1923 - by @hrina
(Personal review: Prior to reading this I didn’t think I enjoyed fics that are set in the past but I can not explain how happy I am that I ended up reading this one. Everything about it I am obsessed with. The smut, the love/hate relationships, the wirlwind of emotions, everything. Also one of my favourite dynamics)
The ring - by @hrina
(Personal review: I LOVE a good llh boxer Harry and this series is easily my favourite one. The smut is so hot and the storyline is so effortlessly complete in only three parts)
Daddy issues - by @fkinavocado
(Personal review: Honestly there’s not much I can say about this one, other than oh. My. God!! It’s so perfectly dirty and sweet at the same time. It’s truly reawakened my daddy kink and I’m not mad at it at all. Such a thoughtful storyline and an incredible dynamic between two such emotionally complex characters. I look forward to every update)
Aster - by @moonchildstyles
(Personal review: This is my most recent read and I am so completely in love with these characters. Sometimes I find it hard to imagine Harry as the bad boy prototype but she did such an amazing job making it realistic while including all the things I love about Harry. The character development is unreal)
chiaroscuro - by @moonchildstyles
(Personal review: This is the only vampire!Harry fic that I have read that I liked. Something about the way she writes Harry (in this and all her fics) is so realistic and loveable. Never once did I feel like anything was forced or contrived which is a must for this type of story. Definitely recommend even if you’re not usually into the vampire trope)
-ONE SHOTS-
Oh Anna! - by @stylesloveclub
Roses and Vanilla - by @stylesloveclub
Residue - by @bopbopstyles
Better now - by @bopbopstyles
Behind the bar - by @bopbopstyles
Aubade - by @meetmymouth
Never coming back down - by @for-fucks-sake-h
Hey angel - by @watchmegetobsessed
Kisses - by @hrina
Popsicles and kiwis - by @hrina
The 24-hour bookstore - by @harrystylescherry
Ungodly hour - by @harrystylescherry
Needy - by @harrystylescherry
Pearls - by @moonchildstyles
The boxer - by @moonchildstyles
Stablehand!Harry x Princess!reader - by @angelsanddaisies
I live in the neighbourhood - by @finestoflines
“I am not going to join your band” - by @finestoflines
Quarantine with a view - by @fkinavocado
“You horny fuck” - by @finekisses
Changes - by @sunflowervolvimp3
NFWMB - by @sunflowervolvimp3
42 hours - by @sunflowervolvimp3
Liberation - by @watchmegetobsessed
Cupid’s chokehold - by @meetmymouth
Doctor’s orders - by @havin-a-wee
Needy baby - by @harryforvogue
Tell me you love my cock - by @stellarboystyles
Nervous - by @watchmegetobsessed
Studio session - by @harrygivenchy
Unethical - by @venusstyless
~I only did reviews for the series’ and not the one shots simply because there was much more to say considering the length of the fics. I would rate every single one of the fics listed (both series and one shots) 10/10~
#harry styles x reader#harry styles x fem!reader#hslot21#hshq#hslot#hs tour#hs1#hs2#harry styles x y/n#harry styles x you#harry styles#Harry#writersnetwork#female writers#fan fic#fiction#fanfiction#greatest#harry styles smut#harry x reader#solo harry#harry#harryween#harry update#harry styles fic rec#dad!harry#bestfriend!harry#vampire!harry#enemies to lovers#friends to lovers
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I saw somebody ask for this. Part 2 to this post.
Headcanons about Mother Miranda, Alcina Dimitrescu, Bela Dimitrescu, Cassandra Dimitrescu, Donna Beneviento, Angie, Salvatore Moreau, and Karl Heisenberg going on a road trip. The camping portion.
Warnings: mention of vomiting.
Masterlist here!
Miranda leaves everyone to fend for themselves when it comes to sleeping arrangements.
Salvatore repeatedly offers to help Miranda set up her tent/equipment. She does not accept.
Karl sets up his own tent pretty effortlessly. It’s a conical one that’s so dirty and dusty that looks like it's been in storage since the 1910s. It probably has.
Then, he sits himself down on a log to have a smoke and watch everybody else.
Alcina has special ordered a ridiculously expensive and large tent from the Duke, which she leaves her daughters to set up.
“Dumbass tent!” Cassandra eventually exclaims, throwing a tent pole onto the ground as hard as she can.
Bela lowers the instructions and frowns at her. “If you listened to the instructions, you wouldn’t be getting so frustrated.”
“I am listening, nothing you’re saying makes any sense! You keep going on and on about E poles and F poles, but what’s the difference? They all look the fucking same!”
“There is a clear distinction—!”
“Daughters, keep your voices down,” Alcina chides, offering no help whatsoever. She’s still busy getting twigs out of her hair and surveying the trees, trying to decide which one to put Karl in.
While this is going on, Daniela has managed to get herself tangled in the fabric of the tent to the point where even dissolving into flies isn’t helping. Karl is the only person who notices, and he just sits there quietly snickering.
Salvatore’s tent is fashioned out of sticks, a tarp, and rope. He made it himself!
Daniela eventually makes herself an exit with her sickle.
But then the realization sets in. Sheer panic blossoms across Daniela’s face. “Uh oh. Mother isn’t going to be happy when she sees this hole.”
Karl starts snickering harder.
Donna sets up a small, simple tent. Just big enough for one dollmaker and her sailor-mouthed doll. She finishes pretty quickly and goes back to reading the same book she was reading during the car ride.
Angie decides to start chasing squirrels and any other small animal she can find.
“Donna, I need your help! I made a mistake!”
Donna flinches at the volume of Daniela’s voice when it suddenly sounds from right beside her. If Daniela’s mother and sisters weren’t still so preoccupied, they definitely would have heard.
Donna doesn’t leave her property very often, but if she does, there’s a 50/50 chance she has some sewing materials on her. This is one of those times.
Donna returns the fabric (nicely folded and everything) just in time. Daniela hands it off to her sisters…
And Alcina asks, “Daniela, why does that look like it’s been stitched up?”
“I don’t know, it probably came like that.”
“...I am almost certain that it did not.”
When it starts getting dark, the daughters gather the necessary materials for a fire. Karl lights it.
Salvatore claps his hands together once they’re all seated around it. “We should tell campfire stories!”
“No,” Miranda says before she starts rattling off the reasons she brought everyone with her, what she wants them to do, yada yada…
Angie keeps trying to stick random things into the fire because she wants to watch them burn. Donna has to start keeping her in her lap. Partially to prevent her from setting other people’s property on fire, and partially to prevent her from accidentally setting herself on fire.
The daughters sit closer to the flames than anyone else.
Flies are attracted to heat and light, y’know? They love a good fire. And they love roasting things over it. Preferably fresh kills.
They do roast a kill later. Dinner!
Karl passes on it, instead heating up a can of beans he brought.
Salvatore still has some cheese left over in case anybody wants it.
Nobody does.
Oh well. More for Sal!
When it’s time to sleep, Karl snores loud enough for everyone else to hear.
Salvatore gets up at least twice a night to puke into the bushes, which are partially melted by the time they head back.
He also snores, though much quieter. It sounds vaguely like a frog.
Alcina, used to the plushest beds imaginable, does not bode particularly well with sleeping in a forest. She is very grouchy when morning comes.
The daughters hog all of the extra blankets.
#resident evil 8#resident evil village#re 8#mother miranda#alcina dimitrescu#bela dimitrescu#cassandra dimitrescu#daniela dimitrescu#donna beneviento#angie the doll#salvatore moreau#karl heisenberg#headcanons#resident evil#dimitrescu daughters
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So I decided to make my last post a little more clear
We're going to put the shippings more in depth.
First off, keepsakes
I dont take the keepsakes very seriously due to the fact that's all they are. They were gifted. Nothing fancy just things that are carried along throughout the series. Though Misty's keepsakes were carried throughout plenty more seasons than Ash and May's ribbon. The ribbon was nothing more than a good luck charm to remind May of how much she learned, same as Ash's lure from Misty was a good luck charm for him 🤭
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Whether these were hints towards shippings or not, these were the only personal ones that had Ash and a female companion alone. Though this can be argued I do personally feel as if Pokeshipping and Amourshipping were hinted in these. Nonetheless May and Iris did not get a cameo poster with Ash alone.
Being saved
If you're going to consider one as a hint, then consider all of these as hints. These characters were simply being saved, and each of the falling scenes have a close up of grabbing each others hands. Let it be noted though, that Misty saving Ash, Serena saving Ash, and May saving Drew were the ONLY times the females saved their *crushes* every other time it's just Ash saving and girl. Yes a few of the girls liked Ash but that carries us into our next topic.
Blushing
Somebody said that "blushing doesn't always mean romance" of course. I get that, but not in these scenarios. Each person blushed due to to a romantic gesture. Whether it's embarrassing someone about possible love letters, accusing one of having feelings, accepting feelings, or simply a romantic moment. They say "Oh well Pokemon can't be romantic due to age" yet last time I checked, there is blushing, rose giving, slow dancing, kissing, and people asking if x has a crush on y. Can they go too far? No, but did they give us an idea on who liked who??? Definitely. As shown even Ash blushed, he just didn't blush very often, but them few counted. I understand that Goh blushes at Ash too though but last time I checked we aren't talking about characters being embarrassed, but I do believe if there is a possibility for there to be a LGBTQ relationship with Ash- Gary and Goh are definitely good representations.
Oh, and yes I am aware Ash was sick in the scene with him and Serena, but Pokemon did a pretty *obvious* job of making it a romantic scene regardless. They didn't have to do all that, but they did. "Some" people seem to forget that there's more to a Pokemon shipping than having to fish out romance out of non-romantic scenes due to their ship just being a healthy friendship at best, but if you're here for the obvious, you can easily tell Pokemon did their best to portray some kind of romance in these scenes. The proof was in the blushing. If you don't feel for someone you don't blush. You argue it out or deny it. We have all been in a scenario as kids and young teens where someone asks if you have feelings for someone, and you brush it off or argue about it because it's simply not true. I promise you my face only got red when I actually had feelings for someone. It's natural instinct, Pokemon knows that too. Take some notes from the Pokemon creators because they knew what they were drawing and what was going to be said in these scenes. Also take a look at the few shippings that had no blushing whatsoever. It's a sign, not an argument.
"Look at how they look at each other"
You know, you're only partially right. Look at how Ash looks at EVERY GIRL. Ooooh wow same expression. Pretty last resort thing to fall back on. Which is why there are other hints that help to make SOME of those expressions actually worth digging in to.
Let's face it, when it comes to ships like Contestshipping and Penguinshipping- there's very few episodes that Drew and Kenny are in, so every second counts. Plus the episodes with Angie, Anabel, and Lucy (towards Brock) they made it very clear within the very few episodes that those girls had feelings. Though I do believe Pearlshipping was partially one sided (I do feel like Dawn liked Ash to an extent only with the way she left Kenny to travel with Ash despite his offer) there was 100% proof Kenny DID have feelings for Dawn and it was easily initiated in the actions he made. Contestshipping was not one sided though. I've learned in my 23 years of watching Pokemon if they don't blush, it's not anything to worry about. Luckily May blushed nearly everytime, and Drew did blush but he didn't always need to. After all he was slinging red roses left and right, and if they were for Beautifly- the last one she received would've never been given to her since Beautifly wasn't even in Battle Frontier at all.
Though I am a Pokeshipper, Amourshipper, and half ass Pearlshipper- I stand as an ally when I say that if you're looking for romantic signs in a shipping you're going to have to find it in the Poke'girls actions. Ash doesn't *look* at one girl specifically different than the other. He literally just looks at them. Though the only person he ever blushed with was for Misty, but that doesn't mean the 2,000,000 hints Serena had are dismissed. After all, like I said before, if Pokemon wanted to create hints, they would, and they did. Those hints were soooo out there, that saying "oh look how Ash looks at her" is gonna leave us asking "who?" Because let's face it he looks at all of them pretty normal. That being said there are still hints Ash had. Being jealous of Misty's potential crushes, showing he was attracted to other women, running up to Serena when he was sick and falling into her arms, and looking at Serena when she kissed him and doing nothing but smile, when normally Ash would probably freak the fuck out.
That being said I hope I made myself clear on how to spot a close-to-canon shipping. It's okay to ship people who have litte to no proof of real romance, but don't say a ship with real proof has none. That is where you are wrong.
#contestshipping#pokemon#amourshipping#ash and serena#drew pokemon#may and drew#may pokemon#drew and may#drew shuu#serena pokemon#may and drew pokemon#satoshi and serena#serena x ash#dawn pokemon#ash x serena#ash x misty#pokeshipping#misty pokemon#serena and ash#ash satoshi#ash and misty#pearlshipping#hikari pokemon#Penguinshipping#dawn and kenny#anti Advanceshipping#pokemon girl#pokegirls#pokemon shippings
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Lost in Assistance - Ch. 10
Elizabeth Olsen x Fem!Reader.
GIF: I do not own this GIF.
Summary: Y/n is a professional celebrity's personal assistant in Hollywood got hired with two years contract to be the assistant of the famous and talented Elizabeth Olsen / Lizzie by her manager. Both Y/n and Lizzie hate each other since day one, and they have mutual friend. One is as stubborn as the other, will Y/n stay when Lizzie gives attitudes and tries her best to make her quit before the contract ends?
Warning: fluff, angst, smut (in future chapters), swearing words ( +18 only)
I do not own any pictures, name, brand, song titles or anything that I used in this story.
All chapters
The three of you are finally back at the hotel. As soon as you got there, you went to your room to get ready. So is Lizzie in hers. When you are ready, you go right away to the girls’ room. You knocked on the door, and for some reason you slightly wish that Lizzie’s face would slowly show up as the door is opening but like usual it was Aubrey’s smile the first thing you see. “Hey.” Aubrey moves to the side as she opens the door wider for you to come in. “Hey Aubrey.” You unconsciously smiled in slight disappointment.
You do not mind at all that it's always Aubrey who opens the door for you. She is your good friend, really. You just start to think why is it always Aubrey? Is it just a coincidence or not really? Does she hate you so much that she is avoiding you at all cost? Oh well, why does it matter anyway? Why did you wish it was Lizzie who opens the door for you just now? There’s nothing special to it. The hatred is mutual. You were probably just concerned about her anyway after seeing her cry, you think it’s just a normal nice gesture if you are wondering how she was doing. but again it’s none of your business. Your mind juggling all of those thoughts in such a short time triggers a quick rush in your mind.
Your eyes secretly look for Lizzie. You try to do it in the most subtle way so Aubrey won’t notice while both of you walk to the living room and sit down on the couch. “She is inside, still getting ready, Y/n.” Aubrey told you as if she can read your mind. “Huh?” Surprised with her statement just now, you got caught off guard and that was all you can say. You curse yourself in your mind for being too obvious.
“I know those eyes,y/n. You can’t lie to me. Your eyes’ movement. You were searching for her.” Aubrey teased with a knowing smile. “No, I wasn’t!” You denied instantly. “Yes you were, Y/n.” She convinced you in a playful tone. “No,I wasn’t!” You shout in a whisper. You feel warm on your cheeks and ears. “Okay, y/n. You were not.” She agreed in a playful sarcasm. “Tell that to your blushing cheeks.” She mumbles under her breath and rolls her eyes at the same time.
“What Aubrey?” You asked. “Oh nothing.” She smiled.
Aubrey slouch on the couch yet you sit next to her awkwardly straight up with your hands keep tapping your knees like they are a set of percussion. “So, how is she doing? Do you think she already feels better?” Your voice is almost like a whisper when you ask her as you don’t want Lizzie to hear it.
“Hmm. Care much, are you Ms. Y/L/N?” Once again, She always finds the chance to tease you about Lizzie. “Seriously? I asked just because that’s the right thing to do as a human being towards another.” You lifted an eyebrow as you tackled her tease once more. “You know what? Just forget I asked.” You added with a discomfort tone.
Aubrey giggled. “Geez, I was just joking. I think she’s feeling better but she still hates you.” She answered as she tried to hold a laugh teasing you. “Well, that, I don’t need to ask you, I already know. The whole world knows how much she hates me.” You shook your head. She giggles.
“So you are coming with us right?” You asked the girl next to you. “Nuh-uh. I’m not coming. I need to take a break from both of you and your arguments.” the brunette answers while her eyes locked on the TV. “Ouch. Are we that annoying?” You put your hand on your chest and act like you are hurt by what she said. “You guys are not annoying, I love both of you. You guys are just too funny for me to watch but I can’t say anything yet because both of you are too stubborn to listen to me and that’s annoying.” She said nonchalantly with a small smirk.
“What’s too funny about it? And what can’t you say yet? Tell me.” You jokingly push her shoulder. “Oh nothing. I have my own theory, you’ll know it next time.” She patched a meaningful smile. “Oh yeah? Probably a stupid theory?” You jokingly make fun of her. “Whatever y/n.” She giggles.
“Hey, y/n. I just want to say sorry. Honestly, I was the one who gave Lizzie the idea of giving you hell when you are working with her but I didn’t know it was you until she told me your name. Please don’t hate me.” Aubrey’s face showed remorse. “So, you are the one that makes my life a hell? Wow Aubrey. Thanks.” You said it in a playful tone.
“So you are not mad at me?” Aubrey looks relieved. “Nah,it’s okay. I figured anyway. You are forgiven.” You winked at her. “Gosh, y/n I thought you were serious.” She giggles.
Lizzie comes out to the living room. “What are you giggling about Aubrey?” Then she notices you are there. “Oh.” That was all she said before she went back into the bedroom. A few minutes later, you notice that both of you need to leave not to be late. “Ms. Olsen, we have to go now. We can’t be late.” You told her from the living room. “Gosh y/n, Okay! Okay!.” She let out a harsh breath as she came out. “Bye Aubrey, I’ll see you later.” Lizzie yells as she walks out the suite room. You stand up, wave goodbye at Aubrey, and follow her .
_____
Both sitting on each side of the back seat, the car ride without Aubrey was silent. Just pure silence but you both taking turns on getting caught stealing glances at each other. You really don’t know why you have the urge to ask how she is doing while you know she for sure is not comfortable if you ask her that. You are just her assistant and her personal life is definitely none of your business. Luckily, you both finally arrived at the location.
The photoshoot starts right away after her make up and wardrobe is ready. Everything is going well with the photoshoot until the last session with the last wardrobe, Sophie who is incharge of makeup and wardrobe had to leave early for a family emergency. Thank goodness, it is the last session, Lizzie just has to change to the last dress, do some shots and they can call it a day. Sophie asked if you can help with the last dress as she showed you which one and said you can just hang the dress once Lizzie’s done and you have no problem with it.
You wait for Lizzie outside the changing room to make sure everything is okay. You heard her softly grunts and curse under her breath. “Ms. Olsen, are you okay?” You heard other soft grunts. “I’m okay. Can you call Sophie please?” Lizzie asked, not knowing that the french lady already left. “Um, she left. She’s not here. Do you need help?”
“What do you mean she left?” She asked in surprise and confusion. “Yeah, she has a family emergency.” You explained. “I need help with the dress.” She asked from the other side of the wall. “I can help you.”
“No, not you. Is there somebody else who can help me?” She asked in a slightly irritated tone. “Yes, there’s Stefan, Andre, Antoine, Oh and there’s Claude.” You named all the crews that’s there who happen to be all males. “I meant a female one, y/n.” She opened the door a little, peek through the small open space and asked in annoyance.
“Yes, Her name is y/n. The only female here besides you.” You answered in a flat sarcastic tone, in emotionless face expression. “Like it or not, I'm the only one to help you.” You shrugged your shoulders. “Fine.” She groans and lets you in while trying her best to cover her body shyly.
“Y/n, look the other way. Don't look over here.” She demanded. “How am I gonna help you if I have to look away?” You furrowed your eyebrows. She is in this red see-through sheer dress with some floral laces on some body parts that need to be covered with it but on the upper body part it looks like a beautiful corset. She turned around, her back facing you with the dress unzipped leaving her bareback exposed. You can see from the mirror in front of her, both of her hands crossed in front of her dress covered breast to hold the dress so as not to fall. She lowered her head, her face facing down.
The curve line from the back of her neck to her bareback with no bra straps whatsoever yet slightly covered with some strains of her long blonde hair was visible to you, the zipper slider body was way low on her lowest back, almost to her natural perfect size buttocks with the line of her g-string peeking out a little bit. Her peach-cream with a light hint of tanned skin colors look so flawless. Too perfect that no pores are visible.
You swallow your nervous feeling down, try hard to stop staring before she pulls her head up. No, you definitely don’t want her to notice that. “Okay,so you just need me to zip this up right?” You clear your throat. “Uh y-yeah.” You notice that she sounds nervous.
“Okay. I’ll zip it up. Just pull the rest of your hair up so it won’t get caught in the zipper.” “She nodded, and her right hand grabbed the rest of her hair. The dress is slim-fitted, perfectly designed for her heavenly figure. You tried to pull the zip up by the pull tab but it was a little difficult to do, so you pulled it by the slider body. You tried to get a grip of it, your index finger is between her body and the dress. The tightness of the dress makes the tip of your finger slightly touch her skin. Both of you were surprised by it. You noticed her body jolted even in the very slightest movements when she felt the tip of your finger touch her skin.
You try to ignore the awkward feelings in the air, and you pull the zipper up slowly because you are afraid to ruin the dress. The room fell silent. The silence breaks down all barriers and makes you able to hear her breath hitch softly right when the tip of your finger lands on her bareskin slowly brushes her skin from the lowest part of her back slide up to the bottom of her back neck between her shoulders along her spine. Your eyes follow the zipper up and you lift your head higher to find her reflection in the mirror, her eyes closed and her lips slightly open as she slowly exhales.
“Uh-It’s all zipped up now.” You see her in the mirror standing there beautifully in the dress. She lifts up her head but as soon as her gaze locks with yours, she awkwardly turns her head sideways instantly. Meanwhile you are still hypnotized with the beauty in front of you.
“Take a picture. It will last longer.” Her voice brought you back to your consciousness. “I’m sorry?” You asked as you tried to recall what she was saying, unfortunately you didn’t pay attention at all. “I said, take a picture. It will last longer.” She repeated in annoyance.
“Oh. Uh, N-No, thank you. I’m good.” You answered quickly to hide your nervousness then you realized you picked the worst answer. You internally screamed at yourself for choosing such an answer but oh well, it is what it is. She was chagrined when you answered nonchalantly. She then walked out of the changing room and continued with the photoshoot.
As luck would have it, someone came to cover Sophie and help with the rest so both of you won’t have to deal with another insanely awkward encounter like earlier in the changing room.
______
Both of you are on the way back to the hotel now. After what happened in the changing room, it’s even more awkward to sit with her in the back seat even though there’s enough space in the middle space between you two. You tried to get busy to distract yourself, checking out work related things in your phone or notes and also answered a work call. You are talking french on the phone, Lizzie figured it’s from the magazine company. Lizzie took the chance that was laid in front of her to give yet another glance at you while you weren’t paying attention.
Every single glance she threw seems to move up slowly. From your crossed leg then to your thigh and she noticed you are wearing ripped distressed jeans that show some part of your skin with your right hand on it. She glances again at your slender fingers with your polished short but not too short nails. She then realized she might glance too long (or more like staring). Mercifully, you still don’t notice what she’s doing.
She finally regains control of herself and stops herself from stealing glances at you then turns her head to watch the street of Paris through the window but that doesn’t stop her wondering what is happening with her at this moment. The more she wonders the more she gets irritated because she can’t figure it out.
Ch. 11
Taglist: @madamevirgo , @musicinourlips (Let me know if you want to be added in the tag list.)
#elizabeth olsen#elizabeth olsen x reader#elizabeth olsen x you#elizabeth olsen imagine#elizabeth olsen fanfic#lizzie olsen#lizzie olsen x reader#lizzie olsen x you#lizzie olsen imagine#lizzie olsen fanfic#elizabeth olsen fluff#lizzie olsen fluff#wanda marvel#wanda maximoff#wanda maximoff fanfiction#wanda maximoff fluff#enemies to lovers#enemies to soulmates#enemies to friends to lovers#slow burn
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Rapunzel is not responsible for Cassandra's villain arc
Hello and welcome back to "Rusty avoids studying" talks!
In my last post I talked about how I don't think Rapunzel is not responsible for Varian's villain arc. Lets move on and talk about how she is also not the one to blame (or least not only one to blame) in Cassandra's villain arc
Lets start with the show's point of view.
Just like with Varian, the show gives Cassandra a motive to hate Rapunzel but uses something that can't be held against her. With Varian it was her not coming with him to Old Corona during the storm which is understandable reason enough but she can't really be blamed for that.
With Cassandra the reason was that Gothel abandoned her as a baby and chose Rapunzel instead (she also blames Eugene for, you know, unaliving her)
Well, that's obviously something that can't be held against Rapunzel. She was a baby who was taken from her home, how can she be accused for that? And I can't see her thinking as an adult "ah yes, I definitely wanted to be kidnapped from my parents and be raised by my abusive kidnapper for eighteen years". So, yet again the show makes villains dumb by making them hate Rapunzel for something she has no control over. Rapunzel just is not allowed to make mistakes (but lets save that for another rant)
Now lets go to the real reasons why Cassandra should turn against Rapunzel
Since they met, Rapunzel and Cassandra's relationship has been twisted. Cassandra did not want to be friends with Rapunzel and instead of respecting her wishes, Rapunzel used her power as a royal to force Cassandra hang out with her, manipulated her and guilt-tripped her. When Cassandra admitted she only wanted to go to the Contest of Crowns because she could get a place in Ingvarrian army, Rapunzel should have finally understand that maybe they just weren't fit to be friends. She had right to feel hurt for that slight manipulation but then again, she basically forced Cassandra to join that competition and humiliated her in front of nobles from all seven kingdoms. She lost the moral high ground after that.
During season one, Cassandra falls more and more under Rapunzel's command. She has her own dream to become a guard but still stays in Corona even though her father is very reluctant to give her any guard assignments. At this point Cassandra is around 22-23. That's a good age to leave home and get new experiences instead of staying home with a parent who somehow still seems to see her as a child. Cassandra probably would have left if not feeling like she is somehow responsible for Rapunzel, who in turn has no responsibility of anything whatsoever, especially if it means she has to face consequences for her own actions.
Then, in season two, Rapunzel's problems come into plain sight.
In this picture Rapunzel is expressing frustration for Cassandra not wanting to talk about what happened which would be fair except that their talks have never ended well for Cassandra.
When Rapunzel says "we need to talk about this" she actually means "I want to tell you how mad I am because you are mad at me and I'm actually right and you are wrong so you should feel guilty for being mad at me." It's never "I did a wrong thing" but always "I did a wrong thing, BUT".
So yes, not surprising that Cass doesn't want to talk.
Then this grand talk about destiny.
I don't personally think that this whole Gothel thing had very much to do with Cassandra taking the Moonstone. If she and Rapunzel had a good friendship where they respected each other, I doubt it would have make much difference. They both had probably been horrified how Gothel treated Cassandra and Cass has completely right to be angry to Cap for not telling her about her mom but that's it.
However, the fact that Cassandra is Gothel's daughter probably was the last straw which broke the camel's back. And what's more, finally Cassandra had someone on her side: Zhan Tiri.
You that feeling when somebody is unpolite or treats you badly and you say something about that to your friend and they are horrified? Like perhaps you thought before that maybe it wasn't that bad, maybe they just have a bad day or you did say something wrong but your friends reaction confirms that yes, somebody actually treated you badly.
That's what happens to Cassandra.
Since Rapunzel came back everyone have been on her side: Eugene, the king and queen, everyone Cass has ever known, even her own father. Nobody has told her that "hey, the way she treats you is actually bad, she should stop". The only person who saw something else than lady-in-waiting in Cassandra was driven away by Rapunzel's jealousy and guilt-tripping.
So when Cass takes the Moonstone I don't think it had much to do with the stone itself or that vague thought about destiny or that Gothel thing. It was just because Cassandra was tired of playing a part in Rapunzel's show (quite ironic actually, considering she is literally a side character in Rapunzel's show).
The whole situation is like Rapunzel is a girl who moved to the neighborhood and adults coddle her and scold other children when they are mean to her, not being able to see how she treats her so called "friends". And then one day, Cassandra steals a main role in school play which was of course meant for Rapunzel. Everyone is shocked because they did not see what was boiling underneath.
...Okay, that went a bit sidetracked. Lets get back to the show.
In conclusion: Cassandra did not take the Moonstone because of this stupid "you stole my mom" thing. She took the Moonstone because she was angry how Rapunzel had treated her for almost two years now and finally had someone on her side.
So why I don't think Rapunzel is not responsible for Cassandra's villain arc?
Varian and Cassandra's villain arcs are often compared because they are both Rapunzel's friends turned into villains (which tells a lot about Rapunzel's friendship skills) but the biggest difference between them is that Varian is a child. Cass is an adult.
However, that doesn't mean her father should have not kept an eye on the situation.
The Captain (whose lack for name keeps frustrating me) already knew his daughter was unhappy as a maid. Nobody knows why Cassandra really become Rapunzel's lady-in-waiting (there had other girls close to her age: Faith, for example) but Cap should have thought hard if being princess' lady in-waiting was really something that made his daughter happy, especially when he knew she didn't like to work as a maid.
Then there were Frederic and Arianna.
They are Rapunzel's parents. And even though it was probably very hard for them to adjust the idea that their baby was all grown up when they first met her, they still had responsibility to watch and correct her behavior when it was inappropriate. She is the princess and the way she behaves represents the whole kingdom. Her being rude to foreign nobles means Corona is rude to foreign nobles. Etiquette can actually be important.
I won't even start to talk about Frederic because unfortunately he is abusive as well. No amount of "love" can justice locking his grown-up daughter to the tower. But Arianna, as the one parent who had more than one brain cell in her head, should have seen sooner how unhappy Cass was and how Rapunzel thought friends were made. Or, better yet, because both of them were blinded (quite understandably) because the love for their daughter, they should have given Rapunzel a governess or older lady-in-waiting. Someone who had power over her and who she had to listen to.
The fourth person to blame was of course Gothel.
She was the person who left Cass all alone (though it could be argued that she did see the guards with Cass so she didn't, you know, leave her completely on her own) and she is the person who abused and hurt Rapunzel for years. But what she also did, was to teach Rapunzel that if you really love somebody, you can tease them and walk over them and they should not say anything because that's ungrateful. She also taught her that if you don't constantly fight tooth and nail for your freedom somebody takes it away with clever manipulation.
So, because of lack of supervising in Cass' and Rapunzel's friendship three things happen:
One: Rapunzel is living her fairytale coming true. Everyone thinks she is amazing, how is that not a good thing! And because she has never had anyone to compare herself, she believes it
Two: Rapunzel still lives in this fantasy she had in the tower. And because she is a princess, people are afraid to break said fantasy and she doesn't really learn much about real life
Three: when somebody implies that they don't like Rapunzel, she gets terrified because being disliked used to mean being abandoned by the only person she had in her life. So she does everything in her power to make them like her again (see how much effort she puts just to make one grumpy shopkeeper to like her or how hard she tries to make Cass her friend even though she is clearly reluctant)
Because of these reasons I can't completely keep Rapunzel responsible for Cassandra's villain arc. She played a part, sure, but the real blame falls to people who should have supervised her and kept an eye on her. People usually develop a lot socially in their first eighteen years and the only thing she had was an abusive mother, a couple of books and a chameleon. Then she was thrusted into a life where she was loved and cherished by everyone and given power over somebody she wanted to be her friend. It's not really a miracle that ended badly.
In the end we need to address the fifth person responsible of Cassandra's downfall: Cassandra herself.
Her taking the Moonstone was just as justified as Rapunzel's, Sundrop or not. It was still an article in the foreign kingdom which got stolen, no matter who took it. But then, after taking it, Cassandra hurt several people even though she finally had a chance to leave Rapunzel completely behind and "find her own destiny" like she said. In that time she needed to face consequences.
Then again, there has been lots of talk about Moonstone corrupting people but I'm not going there now. Hope you enjoyed my rant!
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The Widow and the Wolf - Chapter 2
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x dark!exWidow!reader
Summary: After Natasha Romanoff took down the Red Room, the former Widows scattered to the wind. Raised to be a killing machine and released into the world with nothing and no one, you decided to use your newfound autonomy to take down the bad guys of your choosing. But now Natasha is riddled with guilt for leaving you on your own. She wants to recruit you, rehabilitate you, make you part of a team again. But the rest of the squad has reservations, and no one is more against you than Bucky Barnes.
Warnings: Graphic violence; Mentions of domestic violence, rape, pedophilia, human trafficking, child sex trafficking; eventual Dubcon (not Bucky); eventual smut; slow(ish) burn enemies-to-lovers. [More warnings will be added as necessary but these are the Big Bads.] 18+ only, no minors.
If you prefer to read on AO3, you can do so here.
Chapter Two
It’s almost midnight by the time Garcia is officially gator food, but you’re too wired for sleep. You head out, driving the hour and change to Miami, with a stop on the way to clean yourself up a bit in a gas station bathroom. You check in to the swanky South Beach hotel you’ve decided to treat yourself to, because you’ve earned it. The world is a better place without that man in it, the impressionable young girls of Miami are a bit safer tonight, and that’s enough for you. For the moment, it’s enough.
Your next target is a man you’ve been searching for for a long time, and he’s your own personal project, but tonight you aren’t going to think about him. Tonight you’re going to allow yourself a moment to breathe, to celebrate your victories—a party of one, as usual, but satisfying all the same. You don’t have that much time left before last call at the clubs so you get yourself together quickly and hit the spot closest to your hotel. Even at this time of night, there’s a line to get in, but one look at you and the bouncer is opening that velvet rope and beckoning you inside.
The place reeks of sweat and unchecked hormones as you make your way to the bar, the booming bass drowning out any and all thoughts you might have, which is exactly the way you want it tonight. You order a double vodka rocks and you wait to see what kind of man will approach you this evening: angel or devil. Of course, none of them are really angels, not in the club at this time of night, but some are far worse than others.
You have no problem with decent men. There’s nothing wrong with trying to get laid. It’s normal, it’s natural—you know that now. You’ve even learned to enjoy consensual sex with strangers. At first it was difficult for you—your body having belonged to others for your entire life. But it wasn’t long before you started to enjoy the power of choice, of having control over what your body did and who with.
A man approaches you—brown hair, blue eyes, muscular—and you hate that your first thought is of him but you can’t help it. The Winter Soldier had always been the stuff of nightmares—a ghost story to some, but the Widows knew better. He was terrifying, yes, but the few people who had seen the man’s face and lived to tell about it had always remarked on how handsome he was, even with that cold, dead-eyed stare. You’d seen pictures of him after he came out from under all that brainwashing, and they had proven the reports correct, but you’d never seen him in person until tonight. You couldn’t stand the sight of him in some ways, but in others…
You turn to the attractive stranger and smile, waiting to see what he’ll do.
“Can I buy you a drink?” he yells over the music. You raise your nearly full cocktail in his direction and he smiles awkwardly. “That’s the best line I got,” he says, and he introduces himself with a name you don’t commit to memory.
You give him a fake name and he reaches his hand out to shake. He’s got a disarming personality, but that doesn’t mean you trust him. You know better than anyone that there’s no better tactic than to appear non-threatening. Still, he’s incredibly attractive and you’re in the mood for a party of two tonight.
You let him talk for a while—about his job, about his family—and you pepper in a few lies here and there. He hasn’t laid a hand on you or invaded your personal space in any way that isn’t necessary among the crush of people at the bar. When the bartender signals last call, you decide that he’ll do. You’re rarely wrong about people, and even if you are, you could snap his neck like a twig if necessary.
You allow him to walk you out, expecting him to make a move, but he doesn’t. He just stands there with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, rocking a bit awkwardly on his feet.
You smile and tilt your head. “Nightcap?” you ask, and he follows you like a puppy to your hotel room.
You don’t want another drink and neither does he, but he waits for your signal before he tries anything. You try not to make it all seem transactional, but it’s not like your heart is in it. You let him kiss you and touch you, albeit briefly, and you pretend to enjoy it even though that’s not what you want. What you want is to be on top of him, using his body for the pleasure of your own, and it’s not long before you’re doing exactly that. Your beautiful stranger certainly doesn’t mind, not even when you close your eyes and allow yourself to think about someone else inside you—what his face might look like all twisted up and blissed out, what sounds might spill from his pretty lips, what the cold metal might feel like against your hot sweaty skin.
You make yourself cum and then kick him out (kindly). You’re gone by sunrise. You’ve got places to be.
*****
Natasha sits cross-legged on her couch, a pint of ice cream in one hand and scrolling her tablet with the other. After Miami, you’ve been a ghost. None of her usual contacts have been able to give her anything useful. You’ve gone underground, and she knows she won’t find you if you really don’t want to be found. Whoever your next target is, it has to be somebody big if you’ve covered your tracks this well.
She doesn’t regret not taking you in, even though Bucky had complained the entire ride back about how leaving you there was a mistake. But, as she’d told him, you have to want to come in. Trying to force your hand is not only incredibly dangerous, it defeats the purpose. Natasha doesn’t want to retraumatize you; she wants to help you. There’s no point in trading a floating cage for a gilded one.
She doesn’t realize she’s finished the pint until the spoon hits the cardboard. When she goes to pull another one from the freezer, her phone rings.
“What’s up, Rogers?”
Steve’s voice holds a barely contained anger that Natasha knows well. “You need to come in.”
She should have known Bucky would rat her out, but it still pisses her off. “Steve, it’s getting late. Can we do this in the morning?”
“I don’t know,” Steve replies. “Are you gonna steal another jet in the middle of the night?”
“Technically, I didn’t steal-”
“Natasha, please,” he says, and she can picture the set of his jaw on the other end of the line.
She sighs. “Alright, fine. I’m leaving now.”
When she gets to the tower, most of the usual suspects are gathered around the conference table. Steve looks pissed. Tony looks amused. Sam and Wanda look concerned. And while, to anyone else Bucky would be wearing no expression at all, Natasha can tell that he’s feeling a bit guilty—as he should, he gave her his word. He mouths “I’m sorry” when she sits down at the table and she raises an eyebrow at him that he knows to translate as a middle finger.
Steve tries to speak but Natasha cuts him off. “Save me the lecture, Rogers. I’m not going to apologize.”
Steve’s voice is stern but not unkind. “This needs to be a group decision, Natasha, and as of right now, you’re the only person who thinks this is a good idea.”
“That’s not actually true,” she says. “Wanda? Do you want to tell Steve what you told me?”
Wanda looks a little shocked to be called out but she answers, if a bit hesitantly. “It sounds like she needs help, Steve. Like she’s lost. I… I know what that feels like—when everyone thinks you’re a monster.”
Wanda and Nat’s eyes both turn to Bucky, looking for any recognition whatsoever that he, too, knows exactly where they’re coming from, but he’s completely stolid. Underneath his blood is boiling and he feels like he wants to crawl out of his skin, but the surface remains placid.
Tony pops a blueberry into his mouth and swivels in his chair to face Natasha. “So, let me see if I’m understanding this correctly, Romanoff. You want to bring in one of your former compatriots who has spent the last… what?... year or so on a globetrotting murder spree? Am I getting the general idea here, or am I missing something? I have to be missing something, because if I’m not missing something, this is categorically batshit.”
“It’s more complicated than that, Stark. But essentially, yes. That’s exactly what I want to do.”
Tony laughs. “Wow. OK. Well, Rogers—you and I rarely agree on… well… anything, but I gotta say, I’m Team Cap with this one.”
Natasha crosses her arms and huffs her displeasure.
“I’m sorry,” Tony says, looking around and addressing the room, “but don’t we usually catch mass murderers? Isn’t that kind of our thing?”
The longer the conversation goes on, the more uncomfortable Bucky gets. It wasn’t lost on him that Tony’s eyes lingered on him when he threw out the term “mass murderers,” and he’s learned that it’s better to just let Tony go off when he feels the need. Still, he needs to get out of the room. He needs to take a walk, get some air, push all thoughts of you and this whole mess out of his mind, because if he doesn’t, he thinks he might go crazy.
“Are we done here?” Bucky asks.
“No,” Steve replies. “Sam? Anything you want to say?”
Sam takes a minute to gather his thoughts. “Look, Nat, I understand where you’re coming from on this. I really do. And it would be different if she was willing to come in on her own. But it sounds to me like she isn’t interested. She wants to be doing exactly what she’s doing. You can’t rehabilitate that. You just can’t.”
Steve looks apologetically at Natasha. “I’m sorry,” he says, “but it’s a no. I’m not necessarily saying we go after her-”
“I am,” Tony interjects. “I’m saying that. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
Steve glares at Tony and it shuts him up. “Leave it alone, Tony.”
“You’re seriously telling me you want to leave this girl on the streets knowing what we know? Come on, Rogers.”
Everyone starts to raise their voice at once—everyone except Bucky, who is already sneaking out and halfway to the door—when Natasha shouts, “Enough!”
She takes a deep breath and blows it out, speaking softer now. “I’ll find her and I’ll bring her in, whether she wants to come or not. But it stays in this room—no cops, no agents, just the team. When I get her here, I’ll figure out what to do with her.”
“Fine,” Steve says, and the rest of the team assents. “Buck, you go with her.”
Every cell in Bucky’s body is screaming not to do it, but he never could say no to Steve. He grunts his agreement, refusing to even look at Natasha before storming out of the room and out into the humid mid-August evening. He walks all the way from Midtown to Brooklyn, but he still can’t shake the malaise that’s settled over him ever since Natasha first came to him with her plan.
Bucky knows that he should understand—and, in a way, he does—but he just can’t bring himself to feel anything for you except disgust. Natasha sees something in you that he just doesn’t see. All Bucky wanted to do when he finally got free of it all was prove to everyone that he was a good man—that he was not the things that he’d done. It took a lot of work and a lot of time, but he’s finally in a place where he’s separated himself from the Winter Soldier. That isn’t who he is; it never was.
Steve always knew that, and Natasha hadn’t taken much convincing. The others, though—some of them still don’t fully trust him, and if he thinks about it for too long, it cuts deep. So when Bucky thinks of you—free now, but still violent and bloodthirsty and absolutely unrepentant—it makes him sick. After all the work Bucky has done, how can Natasha look at you and him and think that you’re the same?
Not everyone comes out of their traumas unscathed. Sometimes people can’t come back from the things that have happened to them. That’s you. That’s who you are. You’re not good, you never will be, and as sad as it may make him, Bucky truly believes that you are beyond redemption. You don’t need to be saved; you need to be stopped.
Bucky gets a text as he unlocks the door to his Brooklyn Heights apartment. He’s been waiting for it, hoping for it, and now he has it. Natasha doesn’t know where you are yet, but he does. One of his contacts in Bucharest has a line on you, and he’s not going to let you get away this time. Much as it pains him, he doesn’t trust Natasha to keep her word to the team and take you in against your will. No, Bucky is going to handle this himself. You may be a Widow, but you’re no match for the White Wolf.
CHAPTER THREE >>>
#bucky barnes fanfiction#bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes smut#bucky barnes x you#bucky barnes#sebastian stan#dark!fic#dark!reader#the widow and the wolf
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this clip made me feel way too many things at once:
- wtf was that chat last night supposed to be? i am still a bit pissed i let them play me so easily
- at least they were stood up by constantin together and it wasn't sascha waiting alone as it looked like yesterday for a second
- the way ismail said 'MAGNESIUM' in the story was comedy gold as if THAT was the most vile thing about that stuff sascha brewed. honestly i hope the writers made that shit up randomly and it's not someone's irl hangover cure
- constantin's mailbox is revolting. why that burp? why are teenagers?
- i couldn't really read ismail's reaction when finn asked if constantin took lou home. it was slightly off to me but i might be reading too much into it
- sascha! baby! ily! fucking ray of sunshine. the joke about the rollator? the way he still went and solved the situation. icon! hero, really. that insta story was the bare minimum he deserved for saving the day. god i am so afraid for him bc i feel like he will be the inevitable collateral damage for ismail's character development and it pains me because i let him into my heart and he needs to be peotected at all cost now
- can we for a second talk about how cool it is that sascha is a craftsperson? it was about time to also show in a character what they started to bring across with carlos etc: that not everybody needs to have abi to be succesful and accomplished!
- if we stay with the possible interpretation of sascha being in love with ismail for now (and to me that plot thickens i.e. with the way he took way too long to respond after being complimented, one could even say flirted with like that): i lowkey hope ismail doesn't know. bc how they treat sascha right now is bad enough on a friend level. it's quite manipulative to do the doe eyes 'omg you are so smart and pretty and talented pls save me' thing in general, knowing the other person isn't the type to leave you hanging. but doing this being fully aware of the other person's feelings is downright taking advantage and that would be a very heavy thing to add to ismail's already very long list of things they need to work towards redemption of
- 'du liebst mich' yup think so too
- i really hope sascha does not let himself be treated too badly. i would love him actually really standing up for himself telling ismail to fuck off and ultimately make it click for them. but that's sadly not really how his character is written so i am currently assuming somebody else has to open ismail's eyes. and how the story is set up at the moment it lowkey looks like that would be ava. which i don't like. literally she has absolutely no reason to care for ismail whatsoever and that's super fair and dragging her into this making her fix things wouldn't be the best move. this is obviously just a very vague theory but i just hope it's not where this goes
- the bit at the end was hilarious!!! the mention of an accident with a dog. 'go slow i think i have to throw up.' that was too funny to me. deutscher comedy preis is next mark my words.
ultimatley i think it comes down to this: ismail - despite being all confident and cocky at times - is a deeply insecure person who needs to figure out so many things still. like 'what kind of people are good for me' and 'what do i want to be to others' (as in a bad bitch who is maybe admired but also lowkey frowned upon or a loyal, relyable friend) i think they are trying (with fatou last season and also now how they did not stay too long at the party and while not being in the perfect shape showed up to take care of the plant problem) but there are still a shitton of obstacles making it not that easy to figure out. and i think there isn't that much time before someone gets hurt (ismail themselves included)
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Some Ten/Rose domestic fluff for the DoctorRose Fic Marathon, mostly to soothe my mental health but who doesn’t need more Ten/Rose in their lives?
T W E N T Y O N E
SUMMARY: Ten/Rose. It's Rose's twenty-first birthday, and she's invited the Doctor along to a party thrown by her mum. A night of pub celebrations, boisterous friends and family gatherings, quizzes, a little bit of jealousy and some hard truths ahead, the Doctor must grit and bear the domesticity for his best friend — well, the love of his life. If only there was something to make it worthwhile..
TAGS: fluff, domestic, romance, jealousy, pub quizzes, everyone loves Rose Tyler (the Doctor being top of that list), mutual pining, longing, etc etc
Read on AO3: twenty one
***
“See you’ve found a way to pass the time,” she muttered once Laura was out of earshot, slipping her arm out from his and grabbing the napkin from the bar. She looked at it distacefully for a moment, before she passed the napkin to him.
“Enduring terrible flirting and being come on to is just one of the many things I’m voluntarily subjecting myself to to be here with you tonight.”
“How hard that must be for you.”
He couldn’t put his finger on why, exactly, she seemed irritated, and when Laura put the drink in front of her and begrudgingly took the tenner from the Doctor, Rose seemed to only sadden as she swirled her straw around in her drink.
“Just didn’t think you were interested in this sort of stuff, s’all,” she shrugged.
He frowned; he assumed she must have meant flirting. “I’m not.”
Rose looked at her drink for a moment, a pinch in her brow that he couldn’t translate. It wasn’t indifference, it wasn’t even the irritation she was projecting on her voice, but he wasn’t fond of it, he knew that much.
“Only got eyes for you, promise.”
***
It was one of those days, the ones he hadn’t really ever had to subject himself to in his many years of life, and he calls them ‘obligatory domestics’. The kinds of days where he needs to drop Rose off so she can do a bit of ‘life admin’: check in on her grandparents, nip to primark to get some basics, cash her birthday cheques, all that sort of stuff.
And then, of course, there were the days he needed to attend parties.
Now, he wasn’t a party person. Awkward small talk, terrible music — depending on the decade, of course — dreadful finger food, that annoying needless obligation to stay and ‘enjoy yourself’ when all you really wanted to do was leave. This was one of those days where Rose had a party to attend, and had asked him to just drop her off back at home for the night and they could get back to travelling the next day.
The problem was, it was her birthday party.
Now, if it were his birthday — if he even had a birthday — then he wouldn’t exactly call it a mark for celebration. Not even at the turn of a new century, and he most certainly wouldn’t call turning a thousand a celebration, which he was sure was coming up soon. And the funny thing was, Rose didn’t feel the need to celebrate birthdays, either. Well, unless they were somebody else’s; she would go out of her way to make that day astronomically special for them. So when she had turned to him last week, when they were out enjoying a milkshake in a diner on Panvorix, and told him, regrettably, that her mum wanted to throw her a birthday party with her friends and family for her twenty-first, which he was sure meant something to humans, he wondered whether he really needed to be there.
But, and this is where he finds it difficult: he somehow knew she wanted him there. She hadn’t explicitly said so, she had just sort of shrugged and said ‘you can come, too, although I doubt you’ll want to’. But other than that, she had talked about it as though she was going to go, not they. And if he only paid attention to her words and what she was saying, like he thought most humans — and, well, every other species in existence — did, then he would have felt no obligation whatsoever to join her. But these humans, and especially the British, have this odd sort of way of communicating where they would say one thing with words but also without them, and usually, the things they weren’t saying was quite different to the things that they were. And it seemed as though this was the case with Rose. Her lack of eye contact, the slight reddening in her neck, the indifference that he just knew wasn’t as indifferent as she would have liked it to be. She’d slurped her milkshake and changed the subject and that was that — no need to dwell. But once she had gone to bed that night, he wondered. He tinkered away in the control room and tried to interpret all those little things and he just couldn’t, so he gave up and decided to take her for her word. So he told himself, if she brings it up again, if she asks-but-doesn’t-ask him to come, then he’ll go with her. Otherwise, he’ll leave her with her mum for the night and come back for her the next day as she asked.
That was until Jackie called.
“You’re coming,” she had said flatly, and she had said it in such a frighteningly threatening way that he only nodded and agreed.
Rose had seemed most happy when he had said they were getting to her mum’s for midday on Saturday. She had quickly tried to hide it, and once more he got the impression that she was only acting nonchalant. But he wasn't quite sure, so he double checked just to be safe.
“You sure you want me there?”
She had frowned, and again shrugged without looking at him. “Course, you’re my best mate.”
And so here he was. Waiting in the control room for her, in a blue suit this time, while she packed her things in an overnight bag.
Today was her actual birthday. Her mum had called her all excited, wishing her a happy birthday — even though she was about to see her in a couple of hours. The Doctor had made her a cup of tea and said happy birthday, too, but Rose’s cheeks had flushed pink and he took that to mean that was enough making-a-fuss over her birthday for the day. Other than that, he hadn’t seen her all morning, and so when she entered the control room freshly showered and now in her jeans and a hoodie, her backpack slung over her shoulders, she grinned quite sheepishly and said,
“Hello.”
“Hello,” he echoed, a little less nervously. “All packed and ready, then?”
“I am indeed,” she nodded, and skipped over to him with a bit more gusto. “You mentally prepared?”
‘Oh, absolutely not.”
“Me neither,” she chuckled, and tugged on his arm. “You didn’t see mum on my eighteenth — she gets several octaves higher, just to warn you.”
He shuddered. “Well, lucky for you— and me, I suppose— my capacity to detect high pitches gets less and less with each passing century.”
“That’s good to know.”
After they had gone to Nando’s for lunch, Jackie had asked the Doctor to join her and help set up at the pub while Rose got ready back at the flat with a couple of her mates. He hadn’t been in love with the idea — a few hours alone with Jackie filling him in on the gossip of somebody called ‘Bev’ while various 90s pop songs echoed through the room, that was — and she certainly did like to talk when she was excited. They had pinned a few ‘Happy 21st Birthday!’ banners around the room, chucked a lot of small plastic ‘21’s across the floor and the bar, and, by the time Rose called to say she was on her way, the room had filled with quite a lot of people indeed. Some family members he was sure he had met before, little kids of cousins he definitely hadn’t, and a few of Rose’s friends who seemed to know her family quite well. It was the first time that day he had sort of warmed, seeing that Rose had grown up with such a loving group of friends and extended family, and he even loosened just a little as he chatted to a few while they waited for Rose to turn up.
“Everybody, she’s at the bottom of the road!” Jackie called out loudly, when she received a text from Shareen. At that, people picked up nearby birthday poppers and whistles, getting to their feet with excited and anticipatory smiles — the Doctor even had a confetti cannon himself ready to go for when she walked in.
But of course, when she did walk in, he couldn’t do anything at all except look at her.
As people called out excited ‘happy birthday!'s and set off their poppers, the Doctor found himself completely anchored to the spot while the room only burst with colour and into life. He had always found her quite beautiful, especially when she was giggling away or saying something particularly clever, and he had even found himself breathless once or twice to watch her. But tonight, goodness — he wasn’t convinced he had two bloody hearts because neither one was beating and certainly neither of them were supplying oxygen to the rest of his body.
It was her smile, without a doubt. It was different somehow, like an old smile he was sure she must have used before she met him, to see all these familiar faces of her loved ones. That, and her cheeks were dusted a delightful pink, a little shy he knew she must have been to have so many people around her for her. Her hair was wavy for once, and she wore a black dress that the Doctor was momentarily ashamed to find himself looking at; the way it sculpted her curves and defined the most enchanting silhouette, cut mid-thigh and exposing her legs — and he was especially ashamed for his gaze to linger on those, but she was simply so exquisite, everywhere, that he soon felt instead the same overwhelming awe he gets when he studies a painting, ones in which the colours tell a compelling story and the shapes express feelings that words could not completely.
He still hadn’t managed to find his breath by the time she caught his eye, and he found himself desperately trying to cling to coherent thoughts when she nervously made her way over to him.
“Hello,” she said again when she got to him, pausing for a moment before she reached up on her toes to give him a hug. He had just enough semblance of normality to return the gesture, albeit weakly — still trying to process his thoughts as he was.
Tell her!
“Happy birthday,” he whispered instead, and he heard her giggle by his ear before she released him, and there was a moment where he could have told her just how breathtaking she looked, but of course, he didn’t.
Instead, she scratched her arm and looked around the room. “Thanks for helping mum set all this up.”
“Oh, right—” he cleared his throat “— sure, no probs.”
“You’ll have to fill me in on all the gossip later.”
“Don’t worry, I took notes.”
She chuckled, and her eyes softened as she looked at him, taking him in, and they seemed to even darken somehow, which sent an odd sort of sense of affirmation through him — he was right not to shave today, then.
“Listen, er—” she began, her brow creasing in awkwardness, and she started scratching her arm again. He watched her curiously, wondering what she was about to say and feeling strangely nervous, all of a sudden. “Please don’t — I mean, thank you for coming, it— I just wanted to say please don’t stay, if you don’t want to— if you’re feeling awkward or anything just feel free to, you know—”
“Rose, it’s alright,” he grinned, putting his hands in his pockets. “I’ll be alright.”
“I know, I just didn’t want the last of the Time Lords to perish here in this pub in Southwark out of boredom.”
“Yeah, would be a dreadful end to their race I must admit.”
“Not one for the textbooks,” she giggled. “Nor one I’d particularly like on my conscience, either.”
“Blimey, you’re right — lot riding on the entertainment this evening, then.”
“Well in that case, I should remind you that mum planned this party.”
“Oh,” he groaned, and sighed defeatedly while she only continued to chuckle. “It’s just a couple of hours. I can do it.”
He sort of regretted saying that. Well, no, he definitely regretted saying that.
He’d spent the first hour or so meeting Rose’s family, and then after that getting to know five or six of Rose’s friends, sat around in a booth. They were all friendly enough, inviting him in as one of their own and of course, he thought, Rose’s friends would be charming, since they were Rose’s friends after all.
And then there was Callum, he thinks his name was, and at first the Doctor was able to maintain a calm composure despite his irritability when the lad put his arm around Rose, but after twenty minutes or so and he still hadn’t moved, the Doctor started to sincerely regret his decision to come here tonight and wondered whether he could quietly slip away and narrowly avoid some other, less painful end. But then Rose would give him that look, that smile that just seemed to settle him if only for the fact that it was hers. And so he stayed, listening to stories of their school days and joining in with their laughter until it became just a little too much, when Callum started whispering things to Rose when nobody else was paying attention. Rose didn’t seem particularly bothered by him, nor was she giving off any signs that she was uncomfortable, but he certainly seemed to have more of an agenda than she, and just enough that it pissed the Doctor off enough for him to excuse himself to get a drink instead.
“Just a Coke, thanks,” he said as he reached the bar, but the bartender looked back at him apologetically.
“Pepsi alright?” she said.
His shoulders slumped in disappointment because why would he want a Pepsi if he was ordering a Coke—
“Just kidding,” she grinned, reaching down for a glass and picking up a glass bottle of Coke. “Wouldn’t do that to you.”
“Oh,” he only half smiled, and loosened his tie just a little to finally just be able to breathe. “Well, that’s a relief.”
“You look like you could use something stronger, though.”
“Do I?” he frowned, somewhat surprised but not entirely that he must look exhausted to others. It was exhausting, realising that he was far too in love for his own good. But the bartender didn’t look like she thought that, not at all, as she grinned over to him.
“Parties don’t really seem like your sort of thing.”
He shook his head, resting his elbows on the bar. “No, not really.”
“So what is your thing, then?”
Earth wasn’t quite ready for the question to be answered with ‘time travel, mostly’, so he flustered a little in search of an answer more reasonable for the time period. “I tried soap carving, once. That was fun.”
She looked back at him completely confused for a moment, and he only added the admission to the long list of things he was regretting about this evening, before she gave him a friendly smile.
“Not something I would have expected you to say.”
When the Doctor only shook his head in hopeless exasperation, she grinned,
“I’m Laura, by the way.”
“John,” he retorted, as she placed the Coke in front of him.
“Nice to meet you John — this one’s on me.”
It took him a second to realise she had just bought him a drink — of Coke — but a common gesture nonetheless he was sure indicated flirting. “Oh— er, thanks.”
She nodded, but didn’t turn to serve any of the other guests, not that it was all that busy up at the bar, anyway. “So, John. Did you, er, come here with anyone tonight?”
As dreadful to admit as it was, he couldn’t say that he had. And it seemed so odd to him to think about, because he went everywhere with Rose, but he had never been anywhere with her. It wasn’t really something he had ever considered, whether he would like to start going places with Rose as his and he as hers, but now, as he thought about Rose with that slimy little git behind him, he rather wished that he didn’t have to fret. Not about the dreadful moment she tells him tonight that she’s going back to Callum's, and not about any other time in the future she would admit to having fallen in love with somebody else. It wasn’t a possessive thing, he didn’t want for nobody else to want her because she was his, but he wanted to just love her and be free to; no more of this pining and hiding and instead just be able to say that he was so terribly in love with her and that wasn’t going to change, no matter how much he wanted it to. Except he highly doubted she would want that, this nine-bloody-hundred-year-old alien who had murdered and cowered to be hopelessly devoted to her when she didn’t exactly ask for it. So, he swallowed, feeling his hearts sink in defeat as he did.
“No. Just me.”
Laura’s lips curled in triumph, and she leant in a little bit closer. “In that case, what are you doing tonight?”
If he was just that little bit less in love, he might have been tempted, he had to admit. But he was far beyond the point now of needing a distraction to this dreadful torment, he was much too in love with Rose to even be able to be distracted in the first place. Yet, he couldn’t quite find his voice to decline, so he only started to fluster as he broke eye contact, and took a sip of his drink in the meantime.
“Tell you what,” she smirked, taking a napkin from the bar and began to scribble something on it. “I finish at eleven-thirty. Here’s my number, just in case.”
As he helplessly watched her, he felt somebody put their arm through his as they approached the bar from behind, and was somewhat mortified to find Rose appear beside him. She looked quite peculiar indeed, an expression he had seen a couple of times aimed directly at the woman in front of her, and he glanced down in confusion when she placed her other hand on his arm.
“Malibu and Coke, please.”
Laura looked over to her, then down to her arm, then back up with a look that only seemed to mirror Rose’s. “Got any ID?”
Rose scoffed. “This is my party, you know.”
“Can’t serve you unless you’ve got ID.”
“Tell you what—” the Doctor interrupted, reaching into his pocket for the psychic paper as he heard Rose about to counter “—this one’s on me. Can’t have the birthday girl paying for her own drinks.”
Laura only looked back at him in disillusionment, her eyes flickered back to Rose. “Okay, but it was just you I was buying the drink for.”
Rose scoffed incredulously, and wrapped her arms around the Doctor’s only tighter as the two women seemed to be engaging in a fight without actually fighting. Or from what he could tell, anyway.
“See you’ve found a way to pass the time,” she muttered once Laura was out of earshot, slipping her arm out from his and grabbing the napkin from the bar. She looked at it distacefully for a moment, before she passed the napkin to him.
“Enduring terrible flirting and being come on to is just one of the many things I’m voluntarily subjecting myself to to be here with you tonight.”
“How hard that must be for you.”
He couldn’t put his finger on why, exactly, she seemed irritated, and when Laura put the drink in front of her and begrudgingly took the tenner from the Doctor, Rose seemed to only sadden as she swirled her straw around in her drink.
“Just didn’t think you were interested in this sort of stuff, s’all,” she shrugged.
He frowned; he assumed she must have meant flirting. “I’m not.”
Rose looked at her drink for a moment, a pinch in her brow that he couldn’t translate. It wasn’t indifference, it wasn’t even the irritation she was projecting on her voice, but he wasn’t fond of it, he knew that much.
“Only got eyes for you, promise.”
She seemed to only laugh in spite of herself at his words, and seemed to receive his joke — although he couldn’t be certain he had meant it to be one. She looked up at him through those devilishly long eyelashes of hers and he tried desperately to think of just about anything to say to change the subject.
“Having a nice night?”
Rose pulled up a bar stool and hoisted herself up, wiggling about to get comfortable. “S’been nice, yeah. So many mates I haven't seen in forever — not since we all went to get our GCSEs.”
He gazed to the side of her in thought. “Five years ago, that must be now?”
She raised her eyebrow, but didn’t smile. “Yeah. Can’t believe it.”
She started poking at the ice in her drink now, but not consciously. She was distracted, seemingly saddened by the thoughts running through her mind. He watched her hand, her nails recently painted, wearing the ring her mum had got her for her birthday.
“I’m twenty-one,” she almost whimpered.
“Wait till you get to nine-hundred.”
He was relieved to hear her laugh, a real one, and she glanced at him with kind eyes, her eyes, not those strangely woeful ones she looked at her glass with. “Yeah. If ever I’m feeling old, I’ll just think about you instead.”
“There are some benefits to being ancient, then.”
She giggled, and it only seemed to tickle her more until he saw her completely, Rose as he knew her returned back to him. It relieved him, and he realised he had stiffened to see her so glum. She glanced once more down at the napkin and he sighed, unsure exactly what she was thinking, before something told him to lift up her glass and place it underneath instead. She turned to him with a shy smile, her lips thin as she tried to hide whatever emotion was surfacing, and she was unable to hold his gaze for long when she leaned against him to nudge his arm with hers. An apology, he guessed, and he himself tittered in response. She was less saddened certainly, but her silence was not quite unburdened, so he sought,
“What’s on your mind?”
“Hmm?”
“You,” he said softly. “I know you don’t like your birthday, but something’s up.”
She once more gave him one of those thin smiles, a smile he recognised was one she was trying to put on for him but unsuccessfully — he knew her, afterall. She sighed, and shook her head.
“Everyone’s… it’s just so strange. Being back, after having been away. Things have just… happened. Like Charlie’s had a baby, can’t believe it. She’s younger than me.”
So that was it. He felt an odd sense of guilt in the centre of his chest that only sank lower, and he realised she had only been confronted with how much she had missed since travelling with him. How much she was missing out on, and how much he had taken from her while he only wanted to keep her for himself. But he didn’t suppose she needed his self-loathing tonight, so instead, he frowned as he thought.
“Charlie’s your…” he began, trying to remember as he scanned the room.
“Cousin.”
“Right,” he nodded. He was surprised to find her watching him with a gentle smile when he looked back at her. “What?”
“Nothing,” she grinned, sheepishly, looking down briefly as her smile only grew less so and slightly more endeared, might he say, instead. “Just you, trying to learn all my family and friends.”
“Trying being the keyword there — there’s a lot of them.”
“I know, but it’s funny,” she teased, that tongue sticking out of her teeth that he had to quickly avert his gaze from, “You can remember something complex and yet still get lost remembering the names of my family.”
“My mind sadly is not a TARDIS,” he jibed, and she chortled delightfully into her glasses as she took a sip. “Everytime I have to remember one of your cousin’s names, I have to forget about something else. I’ve forgotten Einstein’s special relativity equation to remember you have an Aunt called Jeanette.”
“Well, that's a bummer for relativity, because my Aunt’s called June.”
He frowned at her, momentarily fooled, before he rolled his eyes. “No she’s not.”
Rose scoffed with her mouth agape in shock. “Yes she is!”
As she giggled away, he vaguely recalled meeting a month, before his eyes widened and he blinked in defeat.
“Blimey, right then.”
Rose put her drink back down on the bar and struggled to contain her giggles and, goodness, he simply couldn’t look away. Her eyes scrunched shut, her nose wrinkled and smile so bright, she was impossibly beautiful when she was like this, her laughter sounding so pure and so wonderfully joyous. He wasn’t convinced she was laughing solely at his complete inability to remember anything remotely related to something so important as her family, because he only imagined it to be quite disappointing, but he wasn’t about to step in and stop her, especially not when he felt his own smile begin to grow at seeing her this way. She shook her head and opened her eyes as her giggles subsided but smile remained and she looked at him in the most breathtaking way and he could feel himself falling, needing to physically stop himself from leaning in closer to her.
There was a moment, one terribly long agonising moment, where he thought he might just falter. Despite everything inside him begging him not to, he found himself unable to hear himself when her eyes locked with his in such a way, in fact, the only thing that was able to prevent him from kissing her was knowing how terribly awkward it would be when she pulls back, wondering what on Earth he was thinking to presume she would want him to kiss her. So he swallowed, and looked away, back down at his drink and he took another sip.
Thankfully, before he had a chance to make a fool of himself and try to string a sentence together, he was interrupted by a voice sounding from a microphone behind them. They both turned, and, over at the corner of the pub stood two of Rose’s girlfriends, both of whom he remembered were with them at the table earlier, standing with a few pieces of card in their hands.
“Ahem — can we have everyone’s attention, please?” one of them — he was sure her name was Grace — announced, a smug anticipatory smile donned her slightly flushed face, and the room went quiet a moment before the music turned down, too. “Hi! Good evening, everyone! So, in case you aren’t all aware yet, today is our very own Rosie Tyler’s twenty-first birthday!”
The room broke into applause, a few cheers and the odd wolf whistle as many turned to look at Rose beside him.
He teased quietly only to her, “Rosie?”
“Shut up,” she muttered as she elbowed him, but couldn’t stop grinning despite herself. “Little gits know I hate being called Rosie.”
“So before we get started, a very happy birthday to you!” the other girl — Cara, was it? There goes Euler’s equation, he surrendered — said into the microphone. “We hope you’re having a great night, and we love you—”
“Even if she did nick my GHDs.”
Rose snorted when Grace stuck her tongue out at her. “I did not! I just forgot to give them back to you!”
“Hmm, how convenient— anyway,” Grace stressed, and the room was chuckling to their playful teasing. “We thought we might play a little game, before we start the, er, slideshow in a bit—”
“Oh, god,” Rose muttered under her breath, and the Doctor sniggered quietly.
“— just a quick ‘How well do you know Rose Tyler’ quiz. No teams, no competition, strictly for embarrassment purposes alone.”
“Get me out of here,” Rose whispered to him, but he stayed firmly put.
“Oh, absolutely not. I’m staying for this.”
“Then I’m going to fly your ship myself and leave you here stranded.”
“Fine by me, I want to see all those pictures you’ve been so adamant remain hidden away in a box every time we go round to your mum’s.”
She groaned, and hid her face in her palms.
“So, without further ado: question one.” Grace paused for dramatic effect, reading the words on her paper with a teasing smile. “What was the name of Rose’s first boyfriend?”
“Oh my god, my mum’s here—”
“Jimmy!” one of her friends shouted, and the Doctor felt Rose bury her face against his arm.
“No,” she whispered, about the same time Grace called out,
“Incorrect!”
“Craig David!” a male voice shouted, and Rose groaned loudly as the room went quiet.
“That is correct!”
The Doctor scoffed next to her as the rest of the room erupted into laughter. “Oh, come on.”
“Rose absolutely believed she and Craig David were meant to be back in year six, and told everyone they were boyfriend and girlfriend,” Cara giggled, and the Doctor only chuckled to hear Rose repeatedly whispering ‘Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god’ into his arm.
“Had to get her a poster!” Jackie called with a squeal of delight.
“Get me— you’re a Time Lord for god’s sake, go back in time and stop this from all happening!” Rose urged.
“Not a chance.”
“Question two!” And once more, the room went quiet in anticipation. “And a little less embarrassing, maybe—”
“Thank God,” Rose mumbled. At that point, he couldn’t really stop himself from giving her arm a gentle stroke.
“— Which film was Rose obsessed with at the beginning of secondary school?”
“Easy! Back to the Future!” another one of her friends called out.
The Doctor scoffed, “You’re kidding?”
Rose pulled away, then, unashamed. “Marty Mcfly, hottest fictional character in the world, I stand by it.”
“If I dress up in that puffer vest and the TARDIS gets her act together to disguise as a DeLorean, are we just playing out your secondary school fantasy?”
“Why do you think you had me so hooked with ‘did I mention it also travels in time’?”
“And that is correct!” Grace called, and just on queue, The Power of Love began to play through the speakers. Rose shook her head, and broke into a timid but unabashed smile.
“How many gigawatts to travel in time, Rose?” Grace called.
“One point twenty-one!” she volleyed, unashamed.
“Is that all? I’ll remember that for next time,” the Doctor whispered, and she elbowed him with a smirk.
“Question three — and sorry, Jackie — but why did Rose get two weeks of detention in year eleven?”
“Oh my god no!”
“Two weeks!” The Doctor kept his exclamation hushed, and once more Rose turned back around to face the other side of the bar, but he tugged on her arm to bring her back around, leaving her unable to hide her embarrassment and red hot cheeks.
“For skipping maths to snog Jimmy in the art room!”
“Rose!” Jackie gasped loudly as the room cheered.
“This is the worst thing that has ever happened in my life ever,” she groaned to the Doctor, and he only found her that much more gorgeous as she looked so delightfully mortified.
“That is correct!”
Rose whimpered quietly to the Doctor as the rest of the room erupted into laughter, “Please do that thing again where you make me forget all of my memories.”
“The snog wasn’t that great, then?”
She shuddered. “Far too much tongue.”
“How delightful,” he chuckled, feeling a peculiar sense of victory.
“Question four!” Grace called, and waited for the room to settle. “Which medal did Rose win in the county gymnastics?”
“The bronze!” the Doctor called, surprised but unashamed for calling out himself, and the room roared in cheer and a thunderous applause broke out.
“And quite right!” Cara hailed into the microphone, and Rose bumped arms with the Doctor.
“Was only the bronze,” she mumbled.
“Hey!” he denounced, “The bronze is bloody excellent!”
Her smile was thin and bashful and begged to be attended to; he responded without thinking by pulling her into his side and she wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Okay, okay, our last and final question—” somebody at one of the nearby tables began to perform a drum roll as Grace paused to read the card “— What did Rose do on her eighteenth birthday?”
“Get absolutely hammered?” someone suggested, and by the way Rose only hid herself further into his chest and shook her head, he imagined they were right.
“More detail needed!” Grace called.
“My whole family’s here,” she whimpered quietly.
“How PG are we keeping it?” one of the boys from the table they were all sitting at earlier shouted, and they giggled amongst themselves.
“Oh god, was it that bad?” he whispered to her, but she just kept shaking her head.
“More PG than your eighteenth, Liam,” Cara pointed out, to which Liam held his hands up in his surrender.
“Didn’t you throw up at Tottenham Court Road bus stop?”
“That was not me!” Rose called out, releasing her hold on the Doctor. He folded his arms, now very aware that the rest of the room was looking at them. “That was Shareen!”
Shareen gasped somewhere in the crowd. “You little grass!” She slammed her hand down on the table and stood up. “And for that, I’m breaking my silence — on Rose’s eighteenth birthday, she got drunk and performed ‘Steps, Tragedy’ up on a table on Carnaby Street in front of the entire street with accompanying dance moves — and she fell down at the end.”
“And we have the video to play to you all later!” Cara beamed, just as the room erupted into an excited cheer.
Rose shrieked in protest, her cheeks burning red and the Doctor only cackled at the image of Rose drunkenly bearing her heart and soul out to what he knew was her favourite girl band of the 90s, so he could only imagine how animated that performance must have been. People had got to their feet, cheering and clapping as Rose hid her face in her palms and Tragedy began to blare through the speakers. Some chanted along, some were too lost in their own giggling and retelling of old anecdotes, and some flocked to Rose to give her gleeful hugs and cheer her on. But something about it saddened him all of a sudden, watching as Rose was swallowed up by the love of her friends so fierce and unashamed, a dull and remorseful ache somewhere in his chest that he couldn’t quite place but certainly didn’t like.
He turned back around and spotted Laura, now leaning against the back bar, and he caught her eye.
“I’ll take that stronger drink, now.”
She glanced over at Rose, now completely lost to the crowd, then back at him, and nodded.
He didn’t drink often, not at all, so he insisted only on a single, handing Laura a fiver and telling her to keep the change. He got to his feet, grabbed his jacket, and slipped quietly outside and into the pub garden.
The night was pleasant, the stars for once visible over London, but he imagined most might not catch them so clearly amidst the surrounding light pollution. There were strings of warm fairy lights hanging from the brick wall that surrounded the quite large garden, a few pub benches dotted around with even less people quietly chatting amongst themselves over a beer and the odd cigarette. What encouraged him the most was the quiet, the peacefulness that greeted him as he stepped out of the pub, sitting down on one of the vacant tables just under a tree with yet more fairy lights hanging from it.
He sighed deeply, but he found he wasn’t quite fully able to breathe in all the way, like something caged his chest and prevented it from fully expanding. He took a sip of the — what he discovered was — whiskey and shuddered to feel its heat trickle down his throat, settling something that had been rising in his body all night. He looked down at his hands, quivering now although he was not cold, and swallowed thickly.
He was in love, he had known that for a long time. But tonight he had realised how terribly irrevocable it was, how awfully trapped he had made himself in his dreadful and unavoidable addiction to her, how he had known this was going to be devastating and he was going to regret it but yet hadn’t cared. And now here he sat, alone as he always was and always would be, wondering just how he might survive this in the end.
It wasn’t that he worried about the day she would no longer be with him, although that wasn’t a thought he liked to entertain. It was this horrible ache, a dullness in his bones, a contradiction to the life she inspired within him. It was twisted, it was confusing, and it was devastating.
He looked up at the stars, a universe above him that he knew and yet didn’t. Taking another sip of his whiskey, and following another subsequent involuntary shudder, he closed his eyes to the return of that hollowness in his chest. The vacuum above felt infinitely small in comparison, and he knew there was no fighting it’s torture except to grit and bear it for as long as she stayed with him, and even longer than that.
He didn’t shudder when he took a third sip of his drink.
He had been so lost in his thoughts for so long that he only realised the environment had altered when a figure sat beside him. There were less people now he realised, only one or two at a table a few away from his, but none of that seemed to matter when he saw it was Rose who had sat down next to him.
“You alright?” she asked.
“Hmm?”
She shivered, and looked down at his drink. “Bit too much back in there, yeah?”
He couldn't reply at first, but his lie found his tongue at the time that he swallowed. “Na, it’s been alright. Just needed five outside in the quiet.”
Rose grinned, a warm smile he knew well, and shivered once more. The goosebumps began to line her skin, soft hairs rising on her arms, and he glanced down at her things to see the same pattern emerging there. He unbuttoned his jacket and slipped it off, attentively hanging it over her shoulders and she looked down with a smile, pulling it tighter around her.
“Thanks,” she whispered, a soft sound that settled on the air and he closed his eyes to it, trying to still what it did to his hearts. Once more, he breathed deeply, now that he could as she sat close to him, and when he opened his eyes on his exhale he saw her looking down at the table, mulling over something in her mind.
“Are you alright?” he murmured, and she closed her eyes to that.
“Mmm. Just needed to step out — don’t like havin’ all the attention on me, you know that.”
Funny, he thought, if she knew just how much she claimed all of his attention, his thoughts and dreams, his hopes and longings, even down to his physiology and heartbeat, she would flee.
Her legs had started to bounce — anxiously or because they were cold, he didn’t know — but he found himself looking at a mole on her thigh, one he of course had never seen before. He closed his eyes once more in a desperate plea to try and stop the thoughts from drowning him, of how much he wanted to see every piece of her, to know all her moles and the feel of her skin under his fingers, to learn her and know her in a way nobody else did or ever could possibly again.
“Y’know, I remember the first time you met all my family, when we were huddled in my mum’s living room watching the telly,” she grinned, and her voice encouraged him to avert his gaze, and, thankfully, his thoughts. “Said you didn’t do domestics and all that.”
“I still don’t,” he pointed out, and she sniggered. “I have no idea how I keep finding myself in these situations so often.”
“I think you like them, really.”
“I like you, there’s a difference.”
She chuckled, “So if I’m understanding you correctly, the last of the Time Lords bends to nobody’s will except mine?”
“You understood that correctly, yes.”
Her gleeful hum in response was enough for him to let her believe he was exaggerating. After a minute or two, she spoke again.
“I used to come here all the time. Most Thursdays after work. Sometimes it’d be all of us — it was quite central for where we all worked — and sometimes it’d just be me and Mickey.”
He grimaced as she rubbed salt into the wound unknowingly. He was reluctant to admit to himself just how many hours he had spent thinking about them, of their dates in the park and stolen kisses in her lunch break, of nights spent together and mornings in love. He glanced back down at the mole on her leg and knew of course he wasn’t going to know her as nobody else did, he never could even if he did ever give in to his hearts.
“It’s like a different life,” she sighed. “I always thought this sort of stuff would hit you in your thirties, lookin’ back over your school days and realising how much had changed since then. But I’m twenty-one, and it feels like a completely different me and it was only two years ago!”
He was still while she spoke what was on her mind. He didn’t get the feeling that she regretted it so much, and he was a little relieved at that. But he thought perhaps it was more the speed of time passing that stunned her, her perspective of it all shifting and she wasn’t quite ready for it. As a Time Lord, he so wished he could slow it down for her, make it just that little bit more manageable because, truthfully, it terrified him sometimes, too.
“It’s only that you fill your life with so much that it feels that way,” he tried, and she sniffed in the cold. “It feels a bit like time passed you by because, well, it has. You didn’t even see it go, you were far too busy moving and adapting but it passed, at the same rate it always does. But you didn’t.”
She frowned, and gave him a lopsided smile. “I suppose you would give me some nonsensical explanation of time that oddly makes sense.”
“It’s what I’m here for.”
“Really?” She scrunched her nose. “I thought you were here to protect time.”
“Whoever told you that?”
She rolled her eyes with a more symmetrical smile now, her hands moving to cover her face as she attempted to hide just how funny she found his joke. “If it’s this bad at twenty-one, must be bloody awful for you.”
He inhaled sharply, making her giggle more. “The trick is not to think about it.”
“Take each day as it comes,” she reflected, and he hummed beside her in agreement. “They were right, all those adults. Everytime they said to live each day to the fullest.”
“That they were.”
And then she seemed to sadden again. After a moment, and with a quiver to her voice, she whispered,
“If only it didn’t make time pass faster that way.”
He nodded slowly in agreement, although he protested she be thinking such morose concepts on her twenty-first birthday. She began to pick at the skin around her nails, the nail polish on her thumb had chipped and he knew she must have been doing this all night, then.
“Why don’t you like your own birthdays?” he asked, realising that he never had.
She shrugged. “I used to love my birthdays. Birthday cakes, party bags, trips to the London Fields Lido and all that stuff.”
“Then what changed?”
She hesitated, and frowned. He waited while she thought, but he realised at some point she wasn’t searching for the answer, she was only debating whether to give it to him. Eventually, she swallowed, and spoke flatly,
“I met a Time Lord.”
And there it was. He felt his thoughts click into place, then, that strange sadness about her all day that he hadn’t quite been able to interpret finally making sense. It was, truthfully, his biggest regret, although he should have seen it coming, and he only gritted his teeth at his own negligence.
“Rose—”
“No, but think about it,” she insisted, and for once he found himself wanting to listen to her, to hear her worries about something he considered constantly. She seemed too intent on bearing herself to him here, in this garden, on this night, and he could only let her. “Every day I get older—”
“You’re twenty-one, that’s hardly you getting older—”
“But it is!” she retorted, a strange smile that wasn’t a smile by any means only holding back her tears now and he didn't know how they had got here, but his hearts ached to see her like this nonetheless. Her mouth hung open as if to say something else, but she seemed unable to and only let out a small croak instead.
“Hey,” he murmured, and he took the opportunity to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, curling his fingers as he dared himself to brush her cheek. “I do not want you to miss out on any of this because you’re afraid of getting older next to me.”
“M’not afraid of getting older,” she contended plainly. “I’m afraid of leaving you all alone.”
His breath was uneven as he exhaled, but he didn’t think she would have detected it. He dropped his hand back down to the table, and she sniffed wetly, seemingly annoyed by herself for some reason. She bit down on her bottom lip with her eyes closed before she opened them to find his, holding his gaze firm. He saw all of her, then, the things she didn’t want him to see in her eyes even in this light, and he knew she must be seeing all of him, too.
Because it consumed him to learn that this was how she felt. That she regretted each passing day because it was one less day — not that she got to spend with him, but that he had left to spend with somebody. The dreadful wringing of his chest at that, at knowing how much of her life and how many of her days she was spending in fear for his inevitable loneliness when that was only his worry, his concern. Rose wasn’t supposed to feel any of that, much less break her own heart every day, and he realised he must have been doing a terrible job at keeping those worries and concerns to himself. Rose only ever wanted everybody else to be okay, and now, on her twenty-first birthday, she was furious with her own mortality for getting in the way, stopping somebody she cared for so deeply from hurting.
So he had no alternative, really, when he leaned in to her this time. He just about had enough control to pause, give her the chance to pull away if she so wanted, and it seemed as though time completely stopped as he did. He could hear her breathing shallow, see the goosebumps line her neck and he took that moment, those few seconds, to learn her as he had wanted. His eyes found another mole on her collarbone, and upwards, the pulse in her neck at having him this close to her. A quiet and strained whimper on her lips, a plea, and then the feel of those lips against his.
He had always wondered how she would taste. The time he had kissed her on Satellite Five, he had only done so to take the time vortex from her, and for that his senses were mostly dulled. Now, as time slowly began to resume once more, he couldn’t taste a thing either; all he could do was feel. This overwhelming relief surging through him, his hearts beating as they should to feel this alive, and, for a moment, an assertion that nothing could tamper with his hope.
And then she gasped; her mouth opened and that’s when he could finally taste her. And he did, the tip of his tongue finally tasted home as it explored the texture of hers and everything he was learning about her he already knew. Because she was familiar, she was her, he knew her lips already and running his tongue along them told him nothing new about them but yet wanted more even still, to know how her bottom lip felt between his teeth, and he was a quick learner, picking up on the sensitive spots that would draw her moans and which of them would catch her breath in her throat.
His heightened senses had thus far only proven to be most valuable, until now, because she consumed all of him to a point where it was too much, and he had to break away, just to focus. But she didn’t hesitate to keep going, so keen was she on tasting him too, and she trailed her kisses across his cheek and along his jaw and this was new, feeling her learn him with her own senses, the moans she drew out herself at certain points on his skin.
“Rose,” he breathed, a plea and a promise in itself, and she brought their lips back together once more.
She began to shift without breaking their kiss and he felt her move one of her legs over him, soft chuckles she released onto his lips as she fumbled onto his lap on the most uncomfortable bench he could remember sitting on. But he quickly lost all conscious recognition of the world outside him, outside them, when he felt her hands move to cup his neck before her fingers slowly trailed up and through his hair. Her lips curled when he groaned and a second later so did she when she ran her nails back down. Their kiss was broken when her head rolled back to the feel of his hands on her thighs, sliding up to her waist where they held her hips close to his and in their respite, his lips found her neck and he sucked, just over her pulse, her breath catching in response. He felt her hands loosen as they became less conscious of their actions and more reflexive to her feelings and he felt her pulse drum fervently beneath his lips. With a final nip to her skin, he released her, the darkened bruise forming he could see even under this light, and pride raptured his veins to have finally claimed just a part of her as his. But then the trouble was he wanted to claim all of her as his, if she would let him, and by the way she rocked into his hold when he pulled away only confirmed that she would. As her lips began their descent once more down onto his skin, pressing sweet and messy kisses down the bridge of his nose and to his lips, he realised he couldn’t find the trouble in it at all.
He deftly slipped his jacket off her shoulders and shuddered at the speed in which her goosebumps prickled beneath his fingers, before he dragged them slowly across her shoulders and down her back, as far as her dress would allow. One hand stayed where it was, exploring the planes of her shoulder blades as they contracted with the movement of her hands, and the other travelled south and to the small of her back where he pressed, gently, until she arched into him. That move released another sound from her lips, much lower this time, much deeper and hungrier and his was only lustful in response. She tore her lips from his to bow her head to his shoulder, pausing only to catch her breath with the intent of resuming, so he peppered his kisses this time further down her neck, softening as they pressed across her shoulder until he felt her lips on his neck, her teeth grazing his skin as she matched the mark made on hers. He shivered to know she was doing the same, marking him, and he moaned into her skin as he allowed her to.
“I want you,” she breathed, he was sure she was trying to sound firm but her need strained her request. “But not here.”
He remained still as his surroundings began to settle into their rightful place and he remembered where they were. He was in no way ready to pull back, but he couldn't exactly keep going, so instead he kept his eyes closed as he followed the trail of his hands on her body, slowly tracing the curves and dips of her frame. She didn’t move either, but it seemed she too was focused only on his hands, as she had since stopped exploring him herself. To feel her in this way, to roam freely as he wished while she remained compliant and willing above him, prevented him from asking if she was sure she wanted him, and if was even a little bit more level-headed than he was at the moment, he would ask if she had really thought this through.
But all he could seem to focus on was her words, the sound of her telling him she wanted him. After that, nothing else mattered.
“Doctor,” she whispered again, and he opened his eyes to find that mole on her collarbone beneath him. He swallowed, and with considerable difficulty, and pressed his lips to it before he finally pulled away.
She cleared her throat and started to shift off of him and he spotted the other table glance over in their direction. Right, he thought, scratching the back of his neck and neatning his — he was sure — disheveled hair. Public decency, must remember that one.
Rose was grinning sheepishly by the time she settled down next to him, and for a moment, neither looked at the other. He swallowed, now that he was finally able to, and ran his palms over his trousers to neaten them down just a little. Rose tugged on the hem of her dress to bring it a bit further down her thighs and he swallowed again to see her legs bare, having only very recently felt them beneath his hands, and the tips of his fingers tingled at the memory.
Rose let out a breathy laugh, then, and he glanced over to her just at the time she looked up at him. She drank him in, her eyes flickering across his face, but he couldn’t quite do the same; he found himself transfixed only on her eyes.
“C’mere” she grinned, licking her thumb and rubbing it across his cheek. “You’ve got lipstick all over you.”
He nodded, before he gestured to her. “Funnily enough, so do you.”
She pressed her fingers to the side of her lips and giggled while he fumbled around in his suit pockets for some makeup wipes, and then she brought them down to her neck to press gently into the bruise beginning to form over her pulse.
“Bit more worried about everyone seeing that.”
He raised his eyebrow. “Didn’t hear any complaints from you when I was giving it to you.”
“Nope,” she affirmed smugly. She tugged at the wipes when he pulled them out, taking one and began cleaning up his face. “Think I’ve got some concealer in my bag, anyway.”
“Your bag’s inside.”
“Bugger,” she cursed, and he chuckled. “Reckon you could go and grab it for me before anyone sees?”
He pointed to his neck. “I think we just have to own this one, Rose.”
“It’s a lot easier to own it when everyone doesn’t know you.”
“It’s only you they know.”
“Right,” she beamed, “so you won’t have a problem going and getting my bag then, will you?”
“Bugger,” he cursed, and she chuckled.
He watched her, then, the golden lights shimmering in her eyes as she smiled, her lips still a little swollen and hair messier now. She wasn’t aware of him watching her, he didn’t think, so she was caught off guard when he began to smooth down the strands, running his fingers softly through her hair to bring back a bit of order. As he did, his gaze remained fixed on her, the shy way she kept herself still and allowed him to sort her out, to fix her back up as if she needed fixing in the first place.
“You are…” he tried, but the word was lost on his lips. He had no way of surmising her beauty at that moment, and he supposed that's why people looked to poetry or song in times where words weren’t adequate to suffice.
Perhaps she didn’t need any of that, because she seemed to understand exactly what he was trying to say, or at least the depth of it. She took his hand then, which had since frozen in his quest to articulate just how captivating she was, and brought it to her lips. She kissed each of his fingers deliberately, carefully, attentively, her eyes closed as she spoke the words caught in her throat on his skin and all he could do was listen.
God, she was divine. He felt the way his hearts completely responded to her alone, their slight quickening as her lips brushed his skin and the harder they beat for her when she released him. He was sure they had a song about them, her song, and he could have them converse with her for as long as he lived.
“What are you thinking?” she murmured, and he had been mostly — no, completely — unaware of her watching him. He wasn’t quite ready yet to translate his hearts’ intent, so instead he leaned back into her, touching his lips to the corner of hers to kiss her where he was hesitant to pull back, captured instead by a sweetness that lingered on her skin. When her lips curled beneath his, he finally did pull away; not too far though, just enough for her to hear the words he didn’t speak.
Neither said anything, for a while. Not through their searching for something to say, but simply because this was unlike them to be so close and they were familiarising themselves with it.
He was falling in love with it.
“You know,” she whispered with a smile, “I don’t think I’ve ever known you to say so little.”
“Would you prefer it if I were babbling away instead?”
“God, no,” she chuckled as he pulled away. “Think I can safely say that’s one of my preferred ways you’ve made use of your tongue.”
He raised his eyebrow and her cheeks flushed pink furiously.
“Oh my god, no! I didn’t mean— not that!”
He raised his other eyebrow and, after quickly searching his eyes, she raised hers.
“Wow, okay so maybe that, if you’re—”
He chuckled, and kissed her shoulder before climbing to his feet. “I’m going to go and get your bag.”
“Or—” she grabbed his hand to stop him “— how about we both go back to the TARDIS and pick up where we left off?”
He snorted. “No chance am I missing your drunken Steps performance.”
“Not even for a good shag?”
He stilled to hear her say it, and only then did it occur to him that that was where this was heading. It was sobering, but he couldn’t say in any way it was repellent — not at all — only completely unbelievable.
“Oh god—” she slapped her hands to her face “—you didn’t— that’s not what.. what you— oh my god you didn’t say that’s what you wanted—”
“Rose,” he stressed, although gently, pulling her hand away as he crouched down in front of her. He tried to look at her, peering up from underneath her, but she wouldn’t look back at him. “I don’t think we’d be fooling anybody if I said I didn’t want that, too.”
She nodded firmly, still unable to look him in the eye. He rubbed his thumb over her fingers as they rested firmly in his, still a little nervous was she while he was completely certain.
“But it’s not all I want.”
“Yeah?” she said as she chewed her bottom lip. He nodded, and she paused for a moment, hesitant, before she spoke. “But…”
And then it was lost on her, either the rest of that sentence or her confidence to say it. Her fingers began to fidget in his, and he loosened his hold but not entirely, simply only allowing her the freedom to dwell without letting her drift entirely.
“But what?” he probed.
She looked even further down now, her chin tucked to her chest. “Wither and die, and all that.”
Ah yes, he grimaced. That.
The truth was, of course that’s all he could think about. And he regretted saying that to her every day since he had, because it shouldn’t have been her problem and yet he had made it her problem. By only showing her how much it anguished him, she had taken it upon herself to fix it for him, only to realise that she couldn’t. Nobody could, and for that, she couldn’t simply rest and allow herself to be happy while he only awaited misery. He wondered, then, if that was why she was so hesitant — not because she didn’t want this with all her heart, but because he had given her reason to believe he was petrified for his own survival, for a future of solitude without her but it was specifically that last part that tortured him now.
Without her. How could she possibly begin to resolve her heartache when she worried tirelessly over something she couldn’t control? He had to unburden her, assure her that he wasn’t scared for him, when truthfully he felt sick by his awaited grief. So for that, he bent his head to kiss her knee, and swore to inherit all her anxieties himself and free her of them.
“I know you’re a whole twenty-one-years-old now, but I don’t see you withering anytime soon.”
She didn’t laugh, but he still smiled reassuringly, intent on fulfilling his promise.
“But I will, one day,” she countered, and he fought back a sigh.
“Are you always this miserable on your birthday?”
“Doctor!” she pleaded, but she was beginning to smile despite herself. “This is serious!”
The worst part was that he had had this exact argument with himself, time and time again, only he was normally on her side himself. But it had all changed when he had heard her tell him she wanted him; up until then, those arguments with himself were a response to the very hypothetical situation she might want him, but now that she actually did, he found himself quite unable to see her side now.
“Alright, alright,” he held up his hands in defeat. “You’re right.”
She didn’t exactly bask in it, but he knew he wasn’t about to give up anytime soon. So he perched himself down next to her, the picnic bench groaning as he settled his weight. A silence extended between them and he watched as Rose played with her ring, fiddling about with it in the interlude as she tried to find her words. But as the silence passed and she remained quiet, he realised perhaps she had nothing to say unprompted, so he asked a question he was sure he never would in the hope that she might finally release herself.
“What do you want?” he whispered.
She hesitated even still, before her breath carried her answer in a sigh. “You.”
He could have her say it over and over again and never tire of it; perhaps that serenely restful truth caused the words to tumble from his lips so desperately. “You have me. Christ knows why you want me out of anyone else in the whole bloody universe, but whatever you want is yours.”
Perhaps it was the slight inflection on just the right word, or perhaps it was all of them together, but he felt her somewhat loosen beside him. Determined though he was, he was misplaced to hear himself say it, something he only ever imagined might terrify her now only somehow consoling her.
“This is… mad,” she shuddered with a smile. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted this?”
“I can take an educated guess.”
“And you really want this too?”
He shrugged. “Probably— I don’t know, haven’t really thought it through.”
She whacked his arm with a chuckle she couldn’t quite suppress. “Oh my god—“
“Rose,” he whispered, urged perhaps, and she all but stilled completely to hear him say her name in such a way. He turned to look at her but she had closed her eyes, so he took her hand, small and fragile and soft as it was, and started to settle the ache in his fingers by running them across her skin. So warm, even if she didn’t think so in the cool April chill, and the softness against his, coarse and tired, was sublime.
“Why me?”
“Why you, what?”
“You said I could have anyone in the whole universe, well what about you? You’re a Time Lord,” she breathed the name of his race with such wonderment while he only regretted it, but he kept still. “And you’re the last one! You have literally all of time and space to choose from, why would you choose somebody with such a short life span— somebody who you can’t exactly share the rest of your life with or even a substantial part of it. Sixty years, that’s all I have! That’s all we’ll have!”
“This is a bit like talking about breaking up before you’ve even gotten together,” he pointed out, and she grinned again despite herself at that, and it only seemed to frustrate her that he joked when she searched for an answer much more reassuring. But the fact was, it would seem she had thought about this, and perhaps had even used it to convince herself he didn’t want her in return, which was utterly absurd to him. Joking with her wasn’t seeming to do the trick, lightening the mood in the hopes of lightening her worry was proving to serve no end to her own perceived stalemate, and she wasn’t just taking him at his word and allowing herself this.
So he bent his head to kiss the ball of her shoulder and he lingered there, breathing her in, unable to stop himself from kissing the same spot again. He needed saving from this, he realised, because kissing her seemed entirely unpreventable since he had allowed himself to only minutes ago, and right now she needed his reassurance.
“I’ve seen it all, Rose. Nine hundred years of travelling, I’ve met some spectacular people. But you have something on me that I can’t describe, and I know for a fact it’s irreversibly binding. I know, because I feel it in the way you smile, the sound of your laugh, I know I don’t stand a chance when you say my name as you giggle and I’m a complete lost cause when you touch me in any way. What I’m trying to say is I’ve met so many people in this universe, from so many corners of it across so many ages and none of them have ever given me something so completely tangible to hold on to.” He frowned, realising how he must sound completely bonkers, and he wasn’t exactly the greatest romantic of his time, but he really was limited by his words in describing what she was to him, so he settled instead on one final, simple sentiment. “You’re everything.”
He sniffed, because it sounded so terribly feeble and uninspired, and pulled away. She had been watching him as he spoke his mind, perhaps thinking he was an absolute nutter, but her palm touched his cheek and she leant forwards, brushing her lips to his and only holding on to time, savouring each passing second in this point in time and he felt how overwhelming it was, even to him. All the seconds passed, all the ones following it were immeasurable, literally, and for only a few of them, just one or two, they kissed. When she pulled away, he found himself wondering how he could possibly not chase more of those seconds.
“And don’t even get me started on that,” he breathed, and she giggled delightfully.
“You know, when you told me you were coming tonight, I thought maybe I might be lucky enough to hear you tell me I look beautiful—“
“Which I still haven’t done,” he chastised.
“— I never imagined any of this might happen, not for a second.”
“You didn’t?” he retaliated. “I was spending my day hoping that I could just survive it — and I have to say, there was a moment when your mother was telling me about Bev’s one night stand where I really, honestly, thought I might not.”
“And yet, you stayed,” she grinned, somewhat smugly and a little sweetly. “And you hate domestics!”
“I could get used to them,” he shrugged, and she only looked back at him in surprise. “Well, okay, I could learn how to tolerate them.”
“For me?” she said, still a little in disbelief.
“I told you, anything in the universe, time and space, all of it, is yours,” he assured. “If that includes family gatherings and ‘life admin’ days, then so be it.”
“Christmas dinner?”
“I’m there.”
“Even Mum’s fiftieth birthday bash?”
“Even that.”
“Christenings, baby showers, all that stuff, too?”
“If Charlie pops out any more kids, you bet I’ll be meeting them all.”
Rose scoffed, “Who are you and what have you done to the Doctor!”
“S’what you’ve done to me,” he corrected.
“It’s what domestics have done to you.”
“No, no, it’s definitely you.”
The sound of these giggles in particular, the ones where she was endearingly timid as he all but worshiped her, were entrancing; a new world he had yet to explore lay in their sound and he was a traveller, after all. It was far too tempting, she was far too tempting, and her darkened eyes as she looked at him here and now held a map to a path unknown, a whole universe in itself and he was ready to be lost in this one.
Her eyes flickered to his lips and she licked hers almost straight after, before she met his gaze once more and they were somehow even darker now. He found himself falling before he had even let go; their noses touched and her hand on his thigh sparked, and this was ridiculous, it was completely without sense that it all should feel like this. How many times had he fallen in love, how many moments had passed like this one and yet none of them were like this one, nobody looked as she looked at him, nobody’s touch was as devilishly hypnotic and never before had his hearts drummed so mercilessly for a moment in time to pass and yet remain—
“Rose!”
They both tore away to the sound of her name being called from the door, and all at once it came back: the sounds of merriment inside, the rustle of the leaves above them, the very harsh reminder that they weren’t alone.
“We’ve been looking all over for you, your mum wants to do a speech.”
“Oh, god,” Rose groaned as Shareen trudged over to them. But her steps slowed as she got closer, until she stopped completely just before them, her mouth open as she realised what she had interrupted.
He wished, with everything he had really, to be anywhere else but here.
“Oh my god, are you two—“ she gasped, narrowing her eyes at them before she pointed at their necks. “What! is that a— have you two got hickeys?”
Rose fidgeted excessively, pulling her dress down as much as she could before slapping her hand to her neck. “Shareen— please can you go get my bag?”
She scoffed indignantly and folded her arms. “Concealer ain’t gonna cover that up— what did you do to her!” she teased at the Doctor, and he only hung his head low and desperately willed for this to be over.
“Shareen,” Rose groaned. “Please, c’mon— I got two bloody weeks of detention covering for you when it was both of us skipping science to snog our boyfriends!”
The Doctor scratched his neck and shuddered to realise he was now in a situation akin to snogging his high school girlfriend when he should be in science class. He’d always wanted the human experience but this was not so high up on his list.
“As your mate, it’s my duty to have you completely mortified on your twenty-first — but—“ she insisted, when Rose began to protest “— as your best mate, I’m going to do you this favour and help you cover up the fact that you were out here neckin’ with a bloke none of us have really met before.”
The Doctor leapt to his feet, finally deciding to remove himself from this dreadful situation, but Shareen put her hand on his chest to stop him instead.
“Nope— you stay here, you look even worse than she does,” she smirked, before turning back to Rose with a wicked grin. “Give me two mins, but if your mum finds you in the meantime then I can’t help you.”
“Nobody could,” the Doctor muttered, mostly to himself, but Shareen caught it and giggled in agreement, before she turned to head back into the pub.
“I take it back,” he insisted as Rose got to her feet, too. “None of it, you can have none of it.”
“Nope,” she grinned. She took his tie in her hand and began to fiddle with it, but the look in her eye told him she was doing this deliberately, the little minx, and, worse yet, she knew exactly what it was doing to him. But she released him from it, this torture of being in a very public place when he so very much wished that they weren’t, and stood on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around his neck and pull him down for a chaste kiss, smiling into his lips as she whispered, “No taking it back now, Time Lord.”
And it was worth it, he thought, to see a smile he hadn’t seen before. Well, that and the way she had called him “Time Lord” in a way that sent shivers down his spine. But her smile now was one where she was so completely happy and at ease, and he was quite happy indeed to bear the weight of her concerns if it meant she could enjoy her time alive.
He supposed, then, for her twenty-first birthday, he might have given her time itself.
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let’s talk about elucien
there are so many reasons why I love elain x lucien and why I think these two would not only be amazing together, but also why they belong together. one of those reasons is lucien’s sassy personality, which we already got a glimpse of in acotar (and that I miss terribly btw), and which is, in my opinion, exactly what elain needs in her life. we’re talking about lucien “your eyes are like stars, and your hair like burnished gold” vanserra. we know he’s got quite a big mouth, that’s how we got to know him, but we also know that mouth is exactly what’s gotten him into trouble before. case in point: the eye incident. lucien doesn’t mince his words and yes, that is one of the reasons why elain really needs to spend some more time with him.
she has been coddled by not only her father, nesta, feyre, but also the entire inner circle, which has allowed her to live her life passively. yes, she killed the king of hybern, and good for her, but she did it because nobody else could have done it at that point in time. ever since the war ended, elain has not actively contributed to any plot matters, whether by choice or because someone else took the choice from her. azriel said in acosf, “there is an innate darkness to the dread trove that elain should not be exposed to.” even amren pointed out that elain is capable of defending herself, but for some reason, nobody let her even though elain said she would try to find it: “then I will find it. I might require some time to … reacquaint myself with my powers, but I could start today.” and yet, by the end of the book, elain’s been barely in it and has not contributed at all. (I know some people claim there’s certain things already happening in the background, but honestly, I’m not satisfied with that development happening off page, so I can’t wait to finally go on her journey and actually see her do stuff)
this moment is crucial:
does it look like she is happy with the way the others treat her? not really. when nesta snapped at her, elain started laughing. that signals relief to me because nesta, the one who has always tried to protect elain the most (nesta baby Ilysm), is the one who suddenly lost her patience. elain needs somebody like lucien, somebody with a big mouth and sassy attitude, who can coax her out of that paralysis she’s been stuck in, a bit like nesta in this scene. additionally, the banter would be top tier. I want another “if I offer you the moon on a string, will you give me a kiss, too?” moment, please. god please. (elain blinks. “and where would you like that kiss?” — and lucien just loses his mind.)
another thing that lives in my head rent free is the fact that lucien has travelled almost everywhere and could introduce elain, who wishes to see more of the world (see: “elain had always wanted to visit the continent to study the tulips and other famed flowers”), to the different courts and the continent. I refuse to accept that we will not get to learn more about the other courts, for my sake, but also for elain’s sake. I want her to see the spring court at least once. I want her to go and see those tulips she’s dreamt of. I want her and lucien to discover the day court as a new home, which brings me to the next point.
elain has been craving sunshine for some time now. there’s several quotes that emphasise her connection to sunshine/light, here are a few of my favourites:
I marveled at it, actually — that those years of poverty hadn‘t stripped away that light from elain.
the suite was filled with sunlight. every curtain shoved back as far as it could go, to let in as much sun as possible. as if any bit of darkness was abhorrent.
she had been always so full of light. perhaps that was why she now kept all the curtains open. to fill the void that existed where all of that light had once been. and now nothing remained.
what can I get you, elain? — sunshine.
elain doesn’t belong into the night court. feyre has found her family there, with rhys and the inner circle. nesta has found (or should I say accepted) cassian and found gwyn and emerie, her chosen sisters. but elain?
elain is somewhere in the background hiding with the twins and tending to gardens of the citizens of velaris. you can’t tell me that is satisfactory to you. she is currently ignoring her seer abilities, and the members of the inner circle are basically encouraging her to do so. the only time she’s been confronted lately was during that conversation with nesta and her reaction was not exactly what any of us readers would have expected, was it? that tells me there’s much more about her we don’t know yet, and I’m convinced we won’t know until she finally leaves and finds her own people, finds herself again and start dealing with everything that happened to her. elain must leave the night court, i.e. the darkness, behind in order to grow.
the same goes to lucien: he’s not at a place where he can just jump into a relationship or mating bond. he’s got so much stuff going on. lucien was forced to abandon his home and his abusive family, his “father” killed the fae he loved in front of his eyes, his best friend is an abusive pos who never appreciated him anyway, and neither has anyone in the night court. lucien is used because of his connections and because of the mating bond that ties him to elain, whether he wanted it or not. feyre knows he would never turn away from elain unless she explicitly wishes him to, and so she and rhys and the others use that to their advantage. it is smart, of course, but at the same time, they also keep important information about his own life from him that could change many, many things. so he’s spending his time with mortals in the human lands — a place where he as a fae really does not belong.
lucien being the heir to the day court, well, to me, it feels like sjm is practically screaming it into our face: how could he find a home in the night court, the literal opposite to the day? darkness vs. light. and what about elain “he’d never once in the two years he’d known her found elain to be plain, but wearing black, no matter how much she claimed to be part of this court … it sucked the life from her” archeron? just looking at the symbolism, not only do the quotes from above indicate that the night court cannot possibly be her home, but also very recent quotes from the latest book. elain is a side character in the night court. and so is lucien. they both need to leave in order to become main characters — and it doesn’t even matter that both are already crucial to the further plot of the series because how can they possibly contribute to it in a place where they are both kept down?
mor said in acofas: “stay out of it. she’s not ready, and neither is he, no matter how many presents he brings.” and “let him figure out where he wants to be. who he wants to be. the same goes with her.” mor’s power is “truth”, whatever that means. but there you have it. they’re not ready to be with each other yet, and that’s okay.
[elain and lucien are also connected not only because of the mating bond, but also because of the plot. lucien must know quite a lot about her and her sisters simply because of all the time he spent with their father. the father who made a bargain with koschei. koschei who put a spell on vassa. lucien is therefore tied to both papa archeron as well as koschei and vassa. elain, we know, is a seer, despite her not using her abilities (or is she, and we simply don’t know?). elain is (obviously) connected to her father, but also to koschei and vassa (remember those visions she had).]
now let’s get to the mating bond stuff, and I need to say this loud and clear: elain has always had and will always have one (1) true mate. there’s no such thing as “false mate” or even multiple mates. there has been no indication whatsoever. lucien is the mate the cauldron had given her when she was born. and elain is the mate the cauldron had given him when he was born. even when she was still human, they already belonged together — tied together by strings of fate. absolutely nothing will change this fact. should elain reject the bond, lucien will remain a part of her life/her soul forever. should lucien reject the bond, elain will remain a part of his life/his soul forever.
when she was still human, lucien had already felt a pull between them and tried to save and protect her from hybern. when elain was already fae, when it came to protecting her, azriel clapped cassian’s shoulder and left (is this the true mate they’re all talking about?). it’s unfair to lucien, elain, AND azriel and this comparison alone is enough to disprove this theory.
the thing is, lucien has been nothing but respectful, kind and caring towards elain. when he arrived in velaris in acowar, he could immediately sense what she needed and said, “she needs fresh air” (vs. the response “we’ll judge what she needs”) and “take her to the sea. take her to some garden. but get her out of this house for an hour or two.” (I’m gonna make another post about this because I have a few thoughts on this)
of course, she doesn’t owe him anything, but elain herself doesn’t wish to be treated like a child, she maybe she should start acting like an adult because although she doesn’t owe lucien an apology or explanation, she has to have a conversation with him, like two responsible adults. there is no way feyre or anyone in the inner circle hasn’t told her that she can reject the bond and move on with her life. but just like her powers, this is another thing she chooses to ignore. I’m not blaming her because I know she has to work through her trauma first and heal, but by the end of the series, she has to acknowledge that at least.
in acosf, elain says “I am not a child to be fought over” when they discuss the dread trove. I wonder what she would say about the fact azriel threatens to challenge lucien to the blood duel because of her? based on literally everything we know about lucien, I can say with certainty that he would not physically fight over elain. if she only had a conversation with him and told him to move on and leave her alone, lucien would do just that. he would leave her alone and try to move on as best as he could (which we know is difficult for males). but he would never act as entitled to her as to demand a blood duel and fight to death. it goes against his principles.
to finish this off, sjm summing up everything I just said:
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