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boop-le-snoot · 3 years

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masterpost • main masterlist • taglist & faq

previously on...

Chapter 3 is finally here. Sorcerers need their shopping done, too. Beyonce/Wong platonic ship (joking)! And finally some action, more witchy stuff. Bucky whump because I have a saviour complex. Stucky cuteness moment. Some blood/gore in this chapter.

My insides clenched, seeing the yellow and blue notice taped to my door - the building manager rarely left notes, so whatever it was, it wasn't going to be good. I had managed to wind myself up into an anxious frenzy by the time I had gone inside and locked my door behind me, immediately thinking I would have to exhaust myself by turning to magic to keep a roof over my head.

For once, the news turned out to be positive: a neighbor was being evicted and turned in to the police for stealing packages. The building manager urged the tenants to report any missing items and apply for a refund when possible, apologizing for the inconvenience. I wondered what prompted this, basically unheard of in NYC, act of kindness as my altar stared at me with mocking amusement, pointing out the obvious by its mere presence.

Grinning to myself, I texted Odette - predictably, she was happy for me, happy that my protection spell had turned out strong and steady, and added a few tips of her own for my spell to stay that way. It felt like I'd grown invisible wings, those days, with all the possibilities open - and never once did I let myself entertain a thought of getting back at an enemy of the past for longer than five seconds.

Sure, it was perfectly human to consider making the cheating ex go bankrupt or make sure the college professor, that failed a couple of students each semester as a 'reality check', trips and face-plants at least once a day... I mean, who wouldn't experience a malicious sort of joy from petty revenge?

But I found my powers were best applied with a positive result in mind. My friend's cat was the first test rat- I mean, living creature I had practiced my healing spells on. The eleven year old kitty was struggling and both me and my friend loved the critter dearly - so the short, but tiring spell I performed yielded exactly the results I was expecting. Odette said something about genuine love backing up the magic, and- well, Dumbledore much?

On humans, it turned out, it wasn't nearly as simple. I didn't know what I had expected would happen after performing nothing short of a whole improv-performace type of ritual right in front of my very puzzled but hopeful friend with chronic asthma, but it wasn't the sheer exhaustion that ran bone-deep and left me bedridden for a whole day.

Odette visited my dingy apartment with her signature enormous purse full of vials she spoon-fed me and trinkets she strategically placed in and around my immediate sleeping area. "There, there," the woman patted my head as I pitifully moaned at the ear-splitting headache. "The first one is always the most challenging. After all, if it would be easy, everyone would do it."

I understood that. But at the same time, it felt unfair that no good deed went unpunished. I told Odette so, raising my voice to the best of my ability as she rummaged around my kitchen.

"Nothing in this world comes out of thin air, whatever you decide to give has to be taken from somewhere," she explained patiently. "People like us are considered hedge witches. We do solitary work and draw most of our energy from the Earth, from mother Nature. We cannot perform miracles, however, the cost of our spells are very low," I felt an immediate peak of interest at the simple yet effective explaination she gave me. "We remain mostly human. Gaia* is kind and generous to the ones who pay respect," Odette continued over the clatter of pans and pots. "There are other kinds of witches - who take from other people, who take from the dead. But taking something by force always leaves scars and taking something from the dead means bringing a piece of them back to places it should not be."

I pondered the words as Odette brought the kettle to a boil, the whistling shriek piercing through my skull like a sharp projectile. "What about Voodoo practitioners?" I couldn't hold back my curiosity.

Odette cleared her throat. "What is left of them is mostly not human. Their gifts are great but the costs are greater. They can live far, far longer than the average witch but their souls will know no peace, just like the souls of the dead they anchor to themselves over time," Odette entered the room with a bowl of tangy, creamy liquid that smelled like pumpkin soup. "We do not bestow any judgement upon our brothers and sisters but it is our duty to inform the young." She cast a pointed glance towards me, passing me the soup and a wooden spoon I didn't know I had. "This should help you recover. Take tomorrow off if needs be."

She left shortly afterwards and I hadn't much strength than to use the bathroom, wash the rune-engraved spoon and curl up in my bed, only waking up when the meager light shone over my face from the window. Sleepy and fog-tinted, the early morning NYC was damp and windy as I stuck my head out of the window to soak my sleep-heated head in the cool air.

As uneventful as the day at the café was, I still wasn't up to 100% energy-wise, but the long walk from Jeremy's to Odette's was pleasantly invigorating. I didn't find the cold autumn moisture displeasing; the small raindrops kept me awake and alert. Odette nodded in muted pleasure as I clocked in and returned the special spoon back to her. The runes on it were interesting; I had taken a picture of them for research purposes, fully intending to craft myself something similar.

"Odette has taken on an apprentice," Wong's voice had me take in several deep breaths in preparation for the inevitable fuck-fest on my patience. "She has been avoiding me. And the girl is painfully slow."

I didn't hear the answer of Wong's companion over the rustling of the boxes I was hastily shoving in their places before the Asian man's temper grew foul. More foul. Ugh. The sharp ding of the bell had me yelling a, "Just a second please, I'll be right with you," while trying to keep my tone polite.

Wong's sour face and a list of items required greeted me as I flew out of the backrooms, noticing the locked doors of Odette's office on my way out. Wong's companion stood at the far end of the store - his robes quite different from the ones I'd seen people of their kind wear, his lithe, tall figure seeming strangely familiar. I squinted my eyes at his back. "Is this all you need?" I waved the list around, increasing the volume of my voice.

The tall man turned around and I could only gape. He, in turn, also froze, the stern, unfriendly expression losing heat and giving way to perplexed wonder. "I had placed an order, for sorcerer Strange," Tony's boyfriend eyed me somewhat sheepishly under Wong's concerned gaze.

I nodded, eyeing Wong in turn, letting satisfaction nestle a warm ball in my chest. Stephen's look of displeasure had turned onto his... Colleague. By the time I finished retrieving Strange's order and packing up the items on Wong's list, the Asian man had left, leaving Stephen to sheepishly pretend to examine the books on the furthest shelf. I waved the paper bags as he took long strides towards me, his fancy, large necklace glimmering under the lights.

"So, how long have you been working here?" Sorcerer Strange asked after I told him the total.

The cash register beeped loudly, coins clattering on the desk as I counted out his change. "Some time now," I shrugged noncommittally. I felt his magnetic eyes gloss over my adornments, the star necklace, the various rings; I could practically feel him coming to his own conclusions. "Long enough for your colleague to get an attitude with me," I had to make sure he knew I would be taking no bullshit from him - or anyone else, for that matter. Odette's opinion on his kind was firm and I was heavily inclined to agree.

"Hmm, I see," Strange was equally as keen on hiding his curiosity. It was a funny thing, really, that we, being adults that we were, treated this encounter like some sort of a dirty secret. "Don't take it personally. Wong is like that with everyone," The man briefly scratched his beard with a gloved hand before pocketing his change and picking up the bags. "Except Beyoncè, maybe," the wink he threw me was positively mischievous as it caught me off-guard, giving him a fox-like appearance.

I sighed as the door shut behind him. Pretty white boys - the ultimate human disasters.

I had no time to dwell on them, however, as something - or someone, hit downtown with all the malicious intentions to wreak havoc on the innocent civilians calmly going about their day. Mutants and people who knew Odette came in hordes, scrapes and bruises and strange wounds that required imminent healing.

My boss was no rookie, she dutifully accepted each and every single soul, looking worse for wear with each minute. Not being able to withstand seeing her drain herself, I simply took over the simplest tasks - and she said nothing, just gave me a nod, instructed to use whatever I needed and write it down somewhere along with the name of the person who required the healing.

As the battle raged, the crowds thinned but the ones who managed to come to Odette's spouted more serious wounds, obviously a result of them fighting back. Mutants covered head to toe with coats and hats and robes, for me to swallow my shock when they undressed - horns, tails and weird skin textures were on the far end of the normal. I dutifully extracted small pieces of information from each and every person I treated.

Yes, the Avengers were winning. No, there aren't many people hurt, most of the damage is cosmetic. Yes, the villain of the week is as stupid as usual. It was like a mantra. Odette poked her head into the spare room every now and then, her eagle eyes briefly scanning over me to make sure I wasn't exterting myself.

As I applied the healing salve to a tiny, pink-skinned woman, bandaging up her hands, my boss entered and closed the door behind her, setting down on the creaky chair with a loud thud. "Just got the news, the Avengers apprehended the terrorist," she sighed long and slow. "We've done all we could, the next few days I'll be handling house calls so you'll be here on your own. I'll probably see you in a few days, don't hesitate to give me a call if something comes up," Odette seemed to be barely standing up, yet when she tore off a few pieces of her jewelry and chucked them into a big tin can under the sink, the glossy sheen in her eyes melted away.

"Okay," I mumbled under the watchful eyes of the mutant woman. "Will there be more people coming in today?"

"No," the woman in front of me snorted. "SHIELD is prowling the streets. They are not fond of us, they always say we intervene unnecessarily even though we willingly do their dirty work so our children could be safe," the bitter, harsh tone took me off-guard.

I had to admit, there was reason behind her words. "Will you be able to get home safely? I have a puffy coat and a hat you can borrow." Figuring an expensive taxi ride would be a better alternative to something terrible happening to the woman, I offered her my winter clothes.

She smiled at me, razor blade teeth and large, red eyes the kindest I'd ever seen on a person. In the end, she took the clothes, promising to bring them back in a few days and Odette gave me a parka that was too small for her frame - despite it smelling like someone's grandma's attic, I found it to be quite lovely vintage. The puffy knitted scarf she added felt like warmth and safety - she had to have knitted it herself, for I knew, handmade items carried a significant amount of energy in them.

The shop was eerily quiet as I cleaned and scrubbed the stained, dirty floors and disposed of the bloody clothes and bandages in the tiny, odd fireplace in Odette's office - that was a thing most peculiar, it burned everything I put in it, but had no chimney, no place for the smoke to exit. Magic.

Something banged loudly against the entrance door. I let out a startled shriek, broomstick falling out of my hand and adding to the sudden cacophony of noise as the figure behind the stained glass slowly slid down the door, a deep, male voice groaning something incomprehensible loud enough for me to hear.

Grabbing a large serrated knife we used for mincing the bones of small animals, I made quiet steps towards the door, seeing a large, obviously humanoid figure helplessly lean on the door. The man's arm glinted chrome black and gunmetal grey in the low light. "Sargent Barnes? Bucky?" I whisper-shouted, carefully plying open the door.

He lifted his head, blood dripping down from it, his face looked like someone went to town on it with a meat mullet, his eyes were unfocused and couldn't keep a straight line. His flesh arm leaned heavily on the door frame, the prosthetic hanging limply, dragging his whole body to its side. It must've weigh a ton.

"Я должен найти капитана Роджерса," he whispered.

I didn't understand Russian at all but I could make out the name of his boyfriend. Which made sense. Bucky looked severely concussed - I idly wondered what exactly they had been fighting, what could have given a freaking super-soldier such a brain-leaking injury. "Sargent Barnes, follow me," I put on my big girl shoes and used my momma bear voice, towing the man behind me.

He, too, weighed a ton, as I stumbled, helping him into the chair in the spare room that became my healing station for today. The longer I looked at Bucky, the less lucid he grew, eyes falling shut as he murmured something in jagged Russian, slurring his words.

There was no time to think about the consequences of exposure of my witchcraft; mortar and pestle, herbs and salves flying everywhere, I assembled a healing spell and memorized the according ritual in what felt like record time. He was bleeding all over the chair, fresh crimson blood pouring out of his nose and mouth and it was all I could see.

I hadn't known true terror until the blood that poured out turned black. Whatever it was in him, it was poisonous - my protection charms grew hot, scalding as they left marks on my skin; powering through the pain and unable to turn my eyes off the convulsing Barnes, I finished the chant just as the flow of vile, tar-like liquid suddenly ceased. It pooled around his feet, dripped down the armrests and matted his long hair. It reeked, too, of copper and putrid meat.

Bucky had passed out somewhere mid-spell, the slow, steady breathing bringing me my own sense of calm. To say that I was drained would be an understatement - my vision swam and my world spun on it's axis as I unlocked Odette's office to messily rummage through a cabinet for the emergency tonic I knew she kept there. I chugged the vial, an avalanche of almost anxious, jittery energy hit me like a freight train - exactly what I needed.

I bought myself a couple hours of time. Cleaning up the sludge around Bucky's feet and removing the outer parts of his gear was easy as he remained as relaxed as a cooked spaghetti noodle. The amount of weapons he had on him was impressive, but those weren't what I was looking for - his phone. It was dead, so I plugged it in, waiting for the 5% to show and bringing it to his fingertips, hoping he used the print recognition instead of the password option... And I lucked out.

"Hello, this is Star, I found a Bucky. Tell Dr. Strange to come get him, he knows where I am." I texted the "Stevie ❤️" contact, my inner fangirl self squealing at the dorky name of his boyfriend's contact in Bucky's phone. Shortly afterwards, I went ahead and snapped a picture of myself next to sleeping Bucky, figuring out some actual proof wouldn't do any harm in this bizarre situation.

The answer didn't let me wait long. "10 minutes" came the first text, and shortly afterwards - "Is Bucky okay??????". I had to snort at the amount of question marks before honestly replying "He will be ☺️" and putting the phone back in Bucky's pocket. I cleaned up and attempted to lift Bucky up, succeeding in waking him up into a half-lucid state, probably courtesy of decades of training and whatnot, to at least drag him to the front of the store. I wasn't particularly comfortable with strangers seeing the backrooms.

Bucky leaned with his back against the counter, ass flat on the floor and a towel with a cold compress pressed to his head when the doors all but flew open, revealing Captain Rogers, still in uniform and Stephen Strange, arguing with his boyfriend, both still suited up and bloody and grimy.

"Uhh," I blinked owlishly, causing the men to stop bickering and stare first at me, then at Bucky. "I think he hit his head," I offered weakly, backing up slightly at the amount of burning eyes staring at me.

"Shortcake, that you?" Tony's eyebrows rose as he surveyed the bodega, the items on the shelves, the black and red blood stains on my previously pristine, yellow shirt.

"Now is not the time, Tony. Go with Rogers, make sure the medical is prepared for Barnes and disable his arm," Strange barked out authoritatively, shooting me a puzzled but compassionate look. "The portal is open. I'll talk to Star, find out what happened." He advanced towards me as Captain picked up Bucky bridal-style as tenderly as he could while making sure the compress stayed on.

"Keep that tone fo the bedroom," Tony's voice was more than displeased as he shot me and Strange a hurt look, but followed Steve into the golden circle right outside the door before it sparked shut.

"Now, now, what happened here?" The sorcerer's voice lowered into a soothing drawl as I let out the breath I didn't know I was holding. My shoulders sagged, fingers twitching with anxious energy. The man extended a gloved hand, briefly squeezing my shoulder. "It's alright, take your time."

Damn, did I look that bad?

Taglist: @couldntbedamned @mikariell95 @letsby @sleep-i-ness @toomanyrobins @mostly-marvel-musings @persephonehemingway @schemefrenzy @lillsxd @bluecrazedandbeautiful @slothspaghettiwrites

#bun writes #practical alchemy #tony stark x reader x stephen strange #tony stark x reader #Stephen Strange x reader

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endlessly-cursed · 2 years

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The Heart’s Deepest Desires

Author’s Notes

SO, after a whole ass month daydreaming of it, I finally wrote it!! I’m actually proud of how it turned out and I hope y’all are proud too!!

Laurent Yaxley belongs to @slytherindisaster I just borrowed him

English is not my first language, so please forgive any typos/grammar mistakes

Summary: After Lady Gray’s peculiar private performance at the bar, she and Laurent finally have a heart to heart...

Characters: Primrose Gray, Laurent Yaxley, Lord Archibald.

Rating: M (unwanted advances, violence and language)

Word Count: 2031

Primrose rarely performed such risqué performances, but when it came to Laurent Yaxley, she was so sure of it, it was nearly scary. The best kind of scary. The fear that turned into thrill.

Up onto the scenario, her gaze never teared his. She felt seen by him, like he understood the message, like he wanted her as much as she did. She felt the same desire he surely did. That look was the one of desire, of longing.

Primrose has always been guarded with her feelings. She was always weary of whose company she wanted. She picked all of her dormmates, all of her few friends were also by her decision. Yet, the moment she first saw Laurent, all those years ago in that windy morning in 1891. Back then, he was a slim and shy boy of barely eleven who had just mysteriously lost his father. Barely nobody wanted to be near him, but Primrose never saw motive to be away from him. The moment they exchanged words, she felt this magnet towards him, like she could trust him.

They had become partners and together embarked in the mystery of finding the truth about his father’s death, and before the summer holiday was declared, they had solved the mystery. Together, celebrating with a fresh lemonade on their hands and giggling as they remembered shenanigans, they had dreamed to be private detectives together and still solve mysteries together.

Mrs. Yaxley insisted on inviting the young lady to show her gratitude and they both spent a wonderful weekend there, getting to know each other. Eventually, it became tradition to invite each other to their homes, and they became tight friends, Laurent always covering for the young girl who slowly grew into a beautiful woman sneak to her rendezvous with both young heiresses and heirs alike, thing that didn’t seem to startle Laurent.

Little did she knew, that soon her dear friend started to dream about being the one she sneaked up to meet on those rendezvous, and soon she started to dream about him too.

She couldn’t name the day she fell in love with him. For the moment she saw him, she was intrigued, and as time passed, her feelings slowly grew, like a garden. One day, the small seeds had turned into flowers, visible and powerful, like her feelings.

No other human on earth had captivated Lady Primrose Gray’s attention like him. All of her lovers had always remarked how in high regard she held the boy. The moment she turned sixteen, she stopped showing interest in marriage prospects and the scandalous rendezvous with neighbouring nobles and only cared about scribbling about a love that wasn’t likely to be reciprocated.

Now, as she came back to her own clothing, she had prayed that her servant had told Laurent to come see her for a private audience, and when she heard the door open, she turned around in hopes to see the blonde hair she had grown to love, to find something entirely different and unpleasant… Lord Archibald, looking overconfident and like he had no good intentions at all, leering over her like she was his.

“Can I help you, my lord?” She asked politely, but showing the fact that she did not ask for him.

He smiled sinisterly “Indeed you can, my lady.” He tried to grab her hands, but she escaped his grasp “I wanted to say, message received, my lady. I, too, have grown quite fond of you, and you cannot deny that you’ve been dying for this…”

“I think you’re mistaken, my lord. You’re a valuable ally to the family, but—,”

He placed a finger on her lips, shushing her “Hush, beautiful nightingale, you needn’t talk. How about if we leave this bawdy place and… let our affections talk.”

She removed the finger and looked at him sternly “I am humbled, my lord, but I do not—,”

“Oh, do not play coy with me, girl, I know you—,”

Primrose raised her voice “I wasn’t finished, my lord. I said, I am not interested in you that way. Please kindly exit the room.”

His features darkened and pure rage showed on his face “You’d reject me, a firstborn son of a duke?! I am your better—,”

“I do not give a single fuck about your title nor breeding. I said I am not interested in you that way, so please, kindly exit the room before I call my bodyguard to escort you out.”

He lunged towards her and grabbed her chin “You foul-mouthed mangy girl, you should know what to say when addressing someone who could be king if he wished.”

She didn’t tremble and looked at him defiantly in the eyes “And you should know that I am not to be trifled with.” She bit his hand and stepped on his toes, making him scream. She then decided to make a run for it, but the lord was faster and soon grabbed her neck and forced her to be nose-to-nose “You shall be mine or no one else’s, is that understood, girl?”

She gasped for air, his grip only tightening. He was about to force her for a kiss when a strong force tore his grip from her and then found a familiar figure, now with fists clenched and looking as angry as the devil “Get your dirty hands off her, you lecherous arsehole.” Laurent spitted.

“Laurie, get out! You could be in danger!” She cried.

“I will not leave you alone with him, Rose. If he wants you, he’ll have to get through my cold, dead body.” He seethed, his gaze never turning away from the lord.

“Leave us, be, boy. Go on, my lady. Tell this irrelevant bloke how much you wished to be alone with me.”

“I would rather freeze to death than fuck a pig like you.” She spitted “Leave us be before I tell this to my father!”

“If you want me to leave, you’ll have to make me.”

“So be it.”

Before she could stop it, Laurent lunged at Lord Archibald and both of them exchanged a few furious punches and kicks, before Laurent threw a strong, furious punch and the lord backed up, knowing he was humiliated and defeated “This is far from over!”

He ran away, leaving a bleeding and panting Laurent and a concerned Primrose. The moment she saw blood, she rushed to him and inspected the wounds “Laurie, you brave idiot! You—,”

“Now you just saw me. The real me. The monster lurking on me.”

She cupped his face in her hands “All I saw was a brave, honourable man defending me.”

He shook his head, trying to get away, but she ushered him inside, sitting him on the ottoman and asking her maid for a aid kit and started patching him up, sometimes gaining some gasps and seething from him. Lord Archibald had done some damage on his nose, eyebrow and knuckles. Their faces were close and she could hear his heavy breathing, his eyes trying not to look at her. She grabbed gently his chin as she wiped the blood from his nose and when he looked at her, their faces were only inches apart. Primrose gasped and tried not to look at his lips, and he cleared his throat “Rose, I wanted to say that… before, out there, on the scenario… I’m really flattered, but… I am not worthy of you. You don’t want this, you don’t want me—,”

“No.” Primrose said firmly.

“Prim—,”

“Your time for talking is over. I know what you’re doing, and I won’t let you. Yes, I saw you, Laurent, and that made me want you more. My feelings couldn’t be any surer. I want you like I’ve wanted no other. My heart has chosen you, Laurent Yaxley, and I know you feel the same. So please, stop beating yourself up for things beneath your control and let me in. We’ll ge through anything together. Come back to me. Let me in, Laurie.”

Laurie.

Ofttimes, she had used the nickname to tease him, but lately she said it with such endearment and tenderness, his heart melted. He wanted nothing more than surrender to her and let her claim him, let her make him hers, but whatever he could give her, a poor man followed by tragedy and with tangled-up emotions and problems? A man chased by awoken demons that were hellbent on killing him and everything he ever loved. And God, did he love her. Did his heart and soul desire her like no other woman. Did he not want to get lost on her gentle, loving hands and forget the fact that she saw the monster in him? But the truth was out, and neither of them could escape it. It was better this way “Primrose, stop.” He firmly said.

She stopped short, startled by the fact that he used her full name “I know what I said. You do not want me, or this, or anything I could ever give you, apart from pain and misery.”

“The only misery you could ever make me feel is if you ever leave me.”

He shook his head “No, you don’t understand, but one day you’ll thank me. I am not worthy of you and I have never been, it’s better this wa—,”

“Oh, no you don’t!” She exclaimed, pointing a furious finger to him, her eyes now with that fire that enthralled him so “You don’t get to choose who’s worthy of me or not, nor what’s good enough for me or not. That is my choice to make. My heart and soul wants you, and I won’t change my mind because you’re too scared to face the music!” She shouted, getting dangerously close to him, her finger tapping his chest “My future and place of affections is a matter that’s up to me, not you. Not you, not anyone else but me.”

She was about to shove him when he grabbed her forearms and begged her closer to him, now chest to chest, their mouths hovering inches apart from the other. His breath hitched as he observed her eyes looking at him, and how now her hands were on his chest, and how his grip had loosened. Now her hands drew scorched paths, from his chest to his forearms, to his shoulders to the back of his head, where her hands rested on his hair, and his body begged her even closer, their mouths but a small movement away from the other. He was about to break the embrace when his knees buckled with the divan and both fell in it, their minds too fuzzy to even think about anything but the other’s touch.

Her cheeks were red scarlet and her lips were like two fresh apples, tempting and looking delicious. She adjusted herself to the new position and he hummed involuntarily, both their hearts racing as fast as they could, and his hands wandered to her waist, his long fingers dipping on her smooth cloth, drawing a gasp from her. Her hair was now a black cascade that hid their compromising situation, and he looked for any signs for him to stop, but all he could see was signs of pure desire, for him to take it further.

Neither of them spoke, they could even hardly breathe. Primrose knew that if Laurent wished, she’d be all his and she wouldn’t mind one bit. She was drawn to him like any other human, and she desired him with every fibre of her being.

She was about to close the gap when Laurent stood up, gently setting her up to a safe distance and cleared his throat “I’d better go… before any of us does something we might regret.”

“I know I wouldn’t.”

He stopped at the threshold for a moment, and fought back his desire to go back and send everything to hell. But he steadied his feelings and simply said “Enjoy the festivities, Lady Gray.” And left the pub, not looking back, thinking that he was doing right by her.

#hphl fanfic #hogwarts legacy #oc: primrose sabrina gray #laurent yaxley #primrose x laurent #laurose #my writing #tw: language #tw: unwanted advances #tw: violence

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t-o-m-hollands · 4 years

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Locksley Hall - Part II

Summery: Tom doesn’t know quite how it happens, but one moment he’s working as the gardener at Locksley hall, and the next he’s run of to marry the lords daughter, a girl he hates. Set in England, 1920.

Word count: 5500 (sorry...)

Pairing: Tom x OC

A/N: Again, this is heavily inspired by the first part in Atonement – Ian McEwan, but the plot is different.

Music wise: For Madeleine’s parts I listened to Old Money – Lana del Rey and for Tom’s part I listened to NFWMB and Work Song - Hozier.

R E A D P A R T O N E H E R E

Gideon’s cottage - 1920.

Tom is awakened by yet another expensive automobile driving up the road and past his cottage. His brain works slowly, still half asleep, one foot in a dreamland where he’s chasing someone in a labyrinth made out of peonies. Slowly he wakes his body by moving his toes, and then his fingers too, before stretching his arms over his head, letting out a tired groan. His body feels warm and his limbs lethargic and slow, as they do after a particularly long nap. For a long while he lays there, eyes half-closed, staring at the dust aimlessly drifting in the sunlight.

Another car passes by outside.

Downstairs he can hear Mr. Higgins doing the washing up. If he concentrates, he can hear the guests from the ball chatting and laughing up at the manor. If he concentrates further still, he can hear the blood pumping through his system, steady and slow.

The whole world feels slow. Like the air in the room stands still, despite the wide-open window. It is mid-July, and the heat feels oppressively persistent, there is no escaping it. Only now, as the clock is nearing eight in the evening, does the world seem to cool. All morning he’d worked in the garden, preparing the grounds for the ball under the watchful eyes of old Dowager Locksley. When she was finally satisfied that there wasn’t a dead leaf, not a single weed, nor an unwatered rose in sight she’d sent him off, ready to attack the kitchen staff instead. He’d walked down to Locksley bay. There he’d rid himself of his sweaty, earth-stained rags and he’d swam until his body felt cool again before returning to the cottage for a long and well-deserved nap.

He stretches again and groans. He desperately wants a smoke, but his pack of cigarettes along with his lighter is all across the room, thrown on the cluttered desk along with countless of books and an old typewriter that the library had given away. The letter M was irreversibly lost and therefor it had been deemed useless. He’d taken it with great gratitude, glad to have something he’d normally wouldn’t be able to afford. It had amused him, typing long passages without using any word containing the 13th letter of the alphabet. In a strange way it thrilled him, that some words in the dictionary simply became forbidden for him. Suddenly out of reach.Words like magic, monarch, melancholy, magnetic, maddening, maiden,

Madeleine.

Finally he gets up, walks across the room and sits down by his desk. He lights a cigarette. Staring out the window he watches as yet another car makes it up the driveway to join the ball.

The sky outside is lilac, and the first evening breeze makes its way through the grass like a wave in the ocean and he prays it’ll make its way through the window to cool his head. He inhales deeply, but the sinking feeling he’s had in his stomach all day stays where it is.

And half of his mind is still in his dream.

Had he been better at drawing he’d drawn her hands, soft and small compared to his calloused ones. Maybe if he’d draw them, he’d be able to get the picture of them out of his mind. Those hands, gracefully holding a cigarette as her eyes, dark and deep and framed with long lashes, observed him with great disapproval as they’d discussed poetry. She always looked disapproving when she was observing him. She’d worn a evening gown in the finest silk, and his ratty jacket over her shoulders, her normally perfectly pinned hair falling down in cascades over her shoulders. It had felt strangely intimate, seeing her like that, so undone and wearing his jacket

Swearing, he puts out the cigarette. He’d been distracted, not noticing how it’d burnt down to the butt, burning his fingers. He doesn’t light a new one, but leans back in his chair, runs his hand through his hair and tries to calm his breathing.

It hadn’t always been this way.

Once upon a time, they’d been friends, hard as it was to believe now. They’d defied gravity when they’d climbed the great oak three behind the cottage. He’d taught her how to swim in Locksley bay, held her up in the water and told her to fill her lungs with air in order to float. She’d taught him how to read. His teacher in the village school had called him slow, so she’d sneaked out books from the library, and with patience of a saint she’d taught him how to recognise each symbol until he could make sense of the words.

She’d been his first kiss.

It had only been a small peck on his lips, lasting not more than a second, but it counted. He counted it.

She’d find him in the greenhouse, crying over the trashing he’d gotten from Mr. Higgins for attacking Francis Locksley. Silently she’d sat down beside him, her long dark hair in a braid and dressed in her Sunday best, having just been to church. She’d taken his bruised knuckles in her hands and she’d kissed them, before kissing each tear streaked cheek, and then ever so briefly, she’d pressed her lips against his. He had felt like a knight, being awarded by the queen for his brave service. He hadn’t known what to make of it, but she’d held his hand in hers and he’d leaned his head against her shoulder and for the longest time they’d stayed that way until he’d forgotten all about stinging bruises and tears.

He lights another cigarette and another car drives up the driveway.

The sky is now a dark blue, the last evening light turning the leaves in the trees golden. Earlier that day Mr. Higgins had put out lights all along the drive way to the manor house and they now lit up the summer evening.

Against the evening sky he sees a bird shoot up, rising to the sky.

Once when they’d been children they’d found an injured songbird in the woods. He’d watched as Madeleine with the gentlest of fingers picked the bird up. He’d watched as she held the wounded creature in her hands, as she observed its broken wing. She’d looked at him then, her dark eyes sad, and she’d told him they’d have to help it heal.

So they’d gone to Gideon’s cottage and he’d sneaked her in, while Mr. Higgins worked in the garden. She’d placed the songbird on his bed. While she was kneeling in front of it, as if in prayer, he’d taken out bandages. He’d watched as she’d gently wrapped it around the bird’s wing. She’d looked at him, and told him to sing. She’d said that it would make the bird feel safer, that it was what she used to do to baby Beatrix when she was crying. So, he’d sung a song to the poor harmed thing, while Madeleine patted its head.

For seven days the nursed it, making sure the wing healed as it should. It had been their secret. She’d snuck out of classes with her governess and he’d faked being ill until Mr. Higgins let him be home from school and they’d sat in his room, and he’d sing for them. They kept the bird in a box, on the lid of which he’d put air holes in, and she’d placed her cardigan in the bottom of it, making sure it was soft to sleep on. They’d feed t worms Tom had dug up in the garden and Tom would sing to it every night.

In the end the songbird had healed, and they’d released it in the woods again and watched as it flew away, awkwardly at first, nearly toppling towards the ground before it found its strength again, slowly rising until it was only a speck of black in the distance. He’d held her hand, biting down hard on his bottom lip to keep himself from weeping, while she had cried openly, pressing his hand in hers. They’d hid in the labyrinth until late that evening, far away from nanny and Mr. Higgins. He’d sung her songs until she’d stopped weeping.

Tom stands up, puts out his cigarette and stretches out one last time. Then he walks out, leaving his memories in the smoke-filled room, heading towards the pub.

The Wild Boar, the village pub

“You ever think about headin’ out of here?” he asks his friend.

They’re in the village pub, The Wild Boar, throwing back beers. A Victorian pub with murky green wallpaper, beer-stained velvet booths and worn mahogany wooden floors. The atmosphere is always good and someone is always singing. Harrison, who most days works in the bar but is enjoying a rare day off, calls it his home.

“What, go somewhere else to drink, you mean?”

“No, no, I mean like leave Milchwood, go to London or something, head somewhere else you know”.

Harrison gives him a puzzled look and Tom can tell he doesn’t feel the same. They’re both comfortably leaned back on each side of the booth. Around them the other patrons are talking loudly, discussing this and that, enjoying their Saturday night and the unusually warm summer weather.

“No” Harrison answers in the end “no, I mean, it’s home, yeah?” He drowns the last drops of his pint, waving to the bar for another before looking back at Tom, “you feel like leaving?”

“Dunno, maybe, sometimes” he says. “’is just, some days I want nothing more than to head out to Milchwood station and take literally any train away from here.” He takes a long gulp of his own pint.

“Well, why don’t you?”

It takes some time for Tom to answer. He keeps his eyes on the dirty window in front of him. Far away he can just make out the silhouette of Locksley Hall. They are all up there now, the lords and the ladies, having a ball.

“’s just hard to leave you know.” He takes another gulp of beer as the bartender places another pint in front of Harrison. “Spent most of my time in France wishing I was back here and now” he waves his hand in front of him, as if this would explain the strange sinking feeling he’d been walking around with lately. “Now it feels like it all stands still, like I’m just walking around, waiting for something to happen.”

Harrison gives him a worried look “but what’s keeping you here then?”

“Dunno, it’s just, it’s hard to leave”.

He doesn’t have ties to this place the way Harrison does. He has no other family part from Mr. Higgins. Mrs. Higgins had taken him in when he’d been nothing more than a baby, but she’d passed away before his fifth birthday. He hardly remembered her. Mr. Higgins had kept him on, and despite his stern ways he’d been kind to the boy, and taught him all he knew of gardening and thus ensuring that Tom would have a future secured. But Tom knows that Mr. Higgins wouldn’t mind if he took off, that maybe he’d even expect it.

“Yes, we saw ‘em, didn’t we Billy!” Owain Murphy’s loud voice booms from the booth beside theirs.

“Yeah” Billy concurs, nodding his head and staring down into his glass.

“Yeah, we saw ‘em, all ‘em gently folks up at Locksley Hall”.

“Yeah” Billy nods again.

“They say the ‘eir is being married off!” Owain bellows.

Billy is too busy drinking now to agree.

“She looked a vision, didn’t she Billy?”

Something twists uncomfortably in Tom’s stomach. He drowns his beer and nods to his friend. It’s time to leave. The night air is cool and he takes deep breaths of it as he steps outside. They walk and chat for a while, before hitting a fork in the road, saying their goodbyes and promising to meet up for another pint the next day they then part ways, Harrison walking to the house he shares with his parents and little sister, and Tom steers his feet to Gideon’s Cottage and Locksley Hall.

He can see the lights from the building, hear the piano music even from outside. Across the lawn people are taking some fresh air, surely they’ve been dancing for hours. They’re all dressed in their finest clothes, heavily bejeweled. Tom closes in on Gideon’s cottage, and he can’t wait to throw himself on the bed and sleep for a few hours. Tomorrow is Sunday, the day for resting, and he’s free as a bird.

A flash of white moves in the corner of his eye and he looks over.

By the enormous rhododendron bush stands Lady Madeleine Locksley, wearing a silky white gown that somehow plays tricks with his brain; for when he first lays his eyes on her, it looks to him as if she’s wearing nothing more than moonlight, the diamonds from her tiara glistening in the night.

For a moment it feels as if he’s actually gotten the breath knocked out of him. Owain Murphy had been right, she did look a vision.

A man joins her, his hands clasped behind his back. He’s tall and blond and even from this distance he can tell she’s bored with the conversation, but she politely goes along with it.

Tom walks into the cottage, closing the door behind him.

The cliffs of Locksley bay

The Atlantic Ocean spread out in front of her, wide and far and impossibly blue. She’s standing on the cliffs beside Locksley bay. If she were to turn her head to her left, she would see the docks with the boats lined up one after the other, each more impressive than the last. It is summer, and high season for travellers. Would she instead turn her head to her right she would see the bay, and the people playing in the water, lying in the beach and soaking up sun. Enjoying themselves and cooling themselves off in the unusually warm weather.

But she keeps her eyes far ahead.

Out on the water she can see sailing boats slowly drifting over the landscape. It’s not a good day for sailing, not even up here on the cliffs can you feel anything more than a gentle breeze. The heavens are almost violently blue, not a cloud as far as the eye can see. In the sky seagulls fly, screeching as they go and she inhales deep breaths of the ocean air. She feels so far removed from them all, the people on the boats and the ones on the beach.

Her lungs feels tighter, there’s a scream in them that needs to get out.

She takes a step closer to the edge.

A pair of arms grabs hold of her and pulls her in against something hard. “What are you doing?!” A familiar voice inquires angrily in her ear.

He pulls them both a few steps back, away from the edge, before turning her around to face him. Anger clear on his face. His chest, still close to hers, is heaving.

“What are you doing?” She asks, not quite managing to match his level of animosity. His hands are still holding a firm grip around her arms. She pulls herself free and takes a step back, trying to create some distance between them, though she swears she still feels the heat radiating of his body, his scent, which she’d briefly inhaled, surrounding her.

“Were you going to jump?” he asks in a serious tone, his warm brown eyes intensely searching her face for something.

“No” she says, voice firm, and he relaxes somewhat, though he still looks angry. That frown, seemingly permanent on his face whenever she’s around. “But it wouldn’t have killed me if I had, people jump from here all the time”

“Sure, but not young heiresses”. He sounds almost sarcastic and she can feel her blood nearly boiling. Her diamond heart beats faster in her chest.

“Have you?”

He observers her for a heartbeat, like he’s searching for something in her face. The long days spent working in the garden has given him a nice tan. His brown hair looks windswept and he’s not wearing his usual uniform of muddy trousers, suspenders and a dirty white shirt. Instead his clothes look washed and clean; he’s wearing his Sunday best, linen suit trousers, clean white shirt and suspenders that don’t look quite as worn. His arms, well developed from all the hard work, fills out his shirt in a way that makes something inside her flutter, and she hastily looks away.

“Yes” he answers in the end. “Yeah, me and Harrison jumped it last year”.

“Yet you’re so against me doing it?”

He’s silent for a few seconds, and she can tell he’s weighing each word carefully. “I just, I didn’t take you for a thrill-chaser, is all. It surprised me”.

Now he’s avoiding looking at her.

“So, how was the ball?” he asks eventually, having to fill the stale, strange silence.

“Long” she answers and sighs. “Awfully long, and dreary”.

“Poor girl” he teases, but she wonders if there isn’t real malice underneath. “And how is your betrothed?”

She narrows her eyes at him. “James is not my betrothed” she says, trying to keep her voice calm. He’s got his hands in his pockets, an arrogant look on his face and she wants to scream at him.

“Huh” he says, “I heard you were being married off”.

“Well, I’m not. Not yet”

“So, what’s he’s like, this not betrothed man of yours”

He sounds so nonchalant, and it’s making her skin itch with irritation. “He’s nice, actually”.

He scoffs, “nice?”

“Yes! He’s very nice, unlike certain people! And he gave me a book of Wordsworth poetry”

Tom snorts “you hate Wordsworth, you always have”

“How do you know?” She asks, annoyance clear in her tone.

“You told me” he answers, and he sound so certain of himself.

“Yes, when we were children, I might have changed my mind since!”

“You haven’t though”.

“Funny isn’t? All the things you remember?” She tries to sound superior, but she’s not sure she accomplishes anything. He’s still standing there, hands in pockets and a devil-may-care smug smile on his face.

“You find him dull”.

“How do you know if I find James dull or not! You’ve never even met him! Maybe I find it fascinating to talk about dog breeding and horses!” you scream at him.

But he just smiles wider. “I was talking about Wordsworth. You find Wordsworth dull. But clearly I hit a nerve”.

She’s so angry she’s speechless. From the village they hear the church bells ring.

“We should go” he says and nods to the path back.

“No”

“Lady Madeleine, -”

“Stop calling me that!”

“Well, it is your title”.

“Oh, like you give a toss about people’s titles! I’m Madeleine and we used to be friends, or don’t you remember that part?”

“Alright Madeleine” he says slowly, like he’s talking to a particularly petulant child, “we better head home now, they’ll want you back for dinner”.

“I don’t want to” she says stubbornly. “You head back. I’m staying here to watch the sunset”.

“They’ll just sent me out to look for you if you´re not there for dinner, let’s go”.

She takes a deep breath and a step backwards, towards the edge. “You know, I’m so tired of everyone telling me what to do all the time, were to be and what to think, and how to feel”. She takes another step backwards and the smugness on his face is soon replaced with worry.

“I’m so tired of people telling me that I can’t do things when they have no issue doing it themselves”. She takes yet another step back and as he reaches out for her, realising what she’s about to do. She turns around and runs toward the edge.

“No Maddie, don’t!”

But she’s already taken the leap.

Locksley Hall

The next morning she wakes early, though it feels as though she’s hardly slept at all. Memories plays behind her closed eyelids from the day before. The cliffs, Tom’s arms grabbing hold of her, the argument, the jump, the fall, the splash, the sinking, the searching for the surface. And then, a hand grabbing hold of her, pulling her towards the light.

He’d jumped in after her, had thrown himself of the cliff in his Sunday best without any hesitation.

He’d always been the better swimmer, he was the one who had taught her after all, and luckily it hadn’t taken him long to find her beneath the surface.

They’d swam ashore, dragged themselves up in their heavy, wet clothes watched by the bathers who looked at them, some agog and some in chock. (“Is that not lady Madeleine?”)

He’d been furious, practically steaming with anger. It hadn’t mattered how many times she’d tried to talk to him, tried to apologise, he’d only ignored her and kept steering his feet forward to Locksley Hall. Only when she tried to thank him for having saved her did he respond.

“Don��t” he had uttered, his resentment almost palpable.

They had been walking through a path in the woods, sun shining through the canopy, painting the whole world a bright green colour, and she stumbled after him, keeping her eyes on his wet white shirt, his suspenders holding of his soaked beige trousers.

She too had grown angry then. Had tried to argue with him. Tried telling him that he was overreacting, that no one had forced him to jump in as well, that it would have been better if he hadn’t, that they both knew he wished he hadn’t and suddenly -

She’d been pressed up against a tree, his face just centimetres from hers, both their chest heaving with conflicting emotions, his arms on either side of her face, in the most beautiful trap.

Madeleine untangles herself from her many sheets and blankets and walks to the window to pull apart the curtains and let in the morning light. The grounds outside are empty, no one is yet awake. It must be very early indeed, for even Gideon’s cottage seem peacefully quiet.

She opens the leaded window and drags in deep breaths of fresh air, but her lungs still feel too tight. She fishes up a package of cigarettes from one of the pockets of her silk robe and with trembling hands she lights one. Everything is set now. She is to marry Sir James Hatfield, and settle down at Hatfield house in all its ugly Tudor glory. It didn’t matter if she smoked in the house anymore, she wouldn’t stay here much longer.

With picture perfect certainty she imagines married life with Sr Hatfield. Endless conversation of the breeding of horses, hunting and dogs. Her life spent doing things the way they have always been done at Hatfield house, keeping up with the traditions of a family she has no interest in. And then, several blonde little children would come along. All boys, all taking after their father in looks and manners.

Her life would surround around them. She would be Lady Madeline Locksley no more, but instead, Lady Hatfield. She would have to leave Locksley hall, leave Benie,

leave Tom.

The thought startles her, and she gets up from the window ledge, starts walking aimlessly round the cluttered room.

Using her empty tea cup from which she’d drank her evening tea the night before as an ashtray she puts out her cigarette, and with hands trembling more than ever she lights another, before throwing herself back on the bed.

Tom.

Who surely hated her now. The achingly long moments when he’d trapped her against the tree plays again in her head. She’d seen so many emotions on his face, his chest heaving from all of it. First there had been anger, then confusion and then, unless she wasn’t entirely mistaken; because god knows her experience was non-existing in the area,

- lust.

But he’d torn himself free, and marched off, without looking back. And she’d stood leaned against the three, feeling like a planet spinning out of its axis, struggling to remember how to breath again.

When she walked into the great hall she’d been met with her mother, Benie and granny. Upon seeing her, they’d all gone completely silent, the only sound to be heard the water dripping off of her, landing on the newly swapped floors.

“Oh Madeleine!” her mother had eventually burst out “what’s happened?”

She had told them she’d been at the cliffs, and that Tom had come along, but then her granny had interrupted her. “Are you telling me” she’d asked in her superior voice “that you were ‘hanging about’ the cliffs with the junior gardener?” The disapproval in her voice was evident.

“No” Madeleine had answered, trying to keep her voice steady and calm. “I’m saying that I was there, and he was there, he annoyed me, and then I jumped off the cliff”.

Dead silence again.

“You, you did what?”

“I jumped off a cliff. And then he saved me. And now, I really must change, so would you please excuse me”. The wave of emotion that washed over her had surprised her, but suddenly she’d been holding back tears.

““Madeleine, I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, but you need to go and get changed, right now. Sir Hatfield is invited for dinner, and you will behave yourself and you will conduct yourself accordingly” her mother had told her in her sternest voice. So, Madeleine had nodded and walked up the stairs, choking back on tears, her wet clothes leaving a trace of water in her wake.

And she’d changed and Alice had done up her hair and she’d joined the others for dinner. And she’d sat beside James at dinner and listened to him lecturing her on various dog breeds and she’d smiled appropriately. Then, after dinner, he’d taken her aside. Professed in a dry tone his admiration for her and asked for her hand in marriage. He’d told her that he’d already settled things with her father. She had smiled and complied and tried to press down the feeling of nausea in her stomach, tried to ignore to scream growing ever larger in her lungs.

She stands up again, puts out her cigarette, takes one of the many dresses scattering the floor and slides it on. Then she’s out the door. With silent steps, as to not wake anyone, she makes her way down the corridor, and then down the grand staircase and the foyer and out the door. The pressure in her lungs grow tenser and tenser and her feet move faster and faster, until her naked feet are sprinting over the grounds, the dewy grass cold under her soles. When she finally reaches the greenhouse, she’s sobbing.

This had always been her secret place. Not even Tom had known about how she’d used to come here when things became too much, when things would build and build inside of her until she had to let it out. Like it was a living, moving thing in her chest, begging her to set it free. Knowing that the old greenhouse was the only soundproof place in all of Locksley Hall it became her safe place to let it out, she’d always steer her feet here. When she’d been to boarding school, and then in Canada, she’d been forced to try letting the scream free under water, no other place felt safe enough, but it hadn’t felt the same.

She slams the door shut behind her and then she lets it out. Nearly bending over from the force of it she shrieks, for as long and as loud as she can. Her eyes pressed shut and trembling hands in fists. When she finally stops it still seems to echo in her ears, and she feels exhausted. She’s breathing as if she’s just run for miles and miles. Slowly she stands up straight again, unclasping her fists. Opening her shut eyes.

Tom.

Standing in front of her, looking shocked and horrified, hands and shirt muddy. He must have been in here for some early work before the heat gets too intense.

They stand there, for a long time, just staring at one another, her screams still echoing in her mind. And then, like she’s a wild animal, he slowly walks towards her. Taking her hand in his, an arm around her waist, he gently guides them towards the pond, on the side of which he helps her sit down. Bending down in front of her, so that he’s on his knees, he looks up at her, a strand of brown hair falling down, framing his face.

It’s so tender, the way he looks at her. So unbearably tender. His earth-stained hands clasped around hers, placed in her lap, calloused and warm.

“What happened?” He asks, voice soft and low.

She doesn’t know when it started, too distracted by his gentleness perhaps, but she realises then that she’s crying, two tears falling from her cheek and landing on their hands.

“I’m just being silly” she responds, but her voice sounds hoarse and dead even to her own ears.

“I doubt it, what’s wrong?”

“I, I” she begins, her lungs feeling tight again “I have to marry.”

His kind eyes blink up at her, and for a moment she swears he holds on tighter to her hands.

“But you don’t want to.” It’s not a question, it’s a statement. “Why do you have to?” His thumbs stroke her trembling hands and it feel and it is the gentlest thing that’s ever happened to her.

“There’s no male hair. So, if papa dies before I marry, we’ll lose everything”. Her voice is hoarse from screaming and she wonders if he finds her pathetic, but in his eyes she only finds sympathy, and maybe a fair share of pain.

“But you don’t have to marry Hatfield?”

She shakes her head, and more tears fall. “No, but he’s the best option. I can’t afford to wait”.

Silence for a while as he observes you.

Then,

“What if I’ll marry you?” his voice is steady, but his eyes are fixed their clasped hands.

“What?”

“I’ll marry you” he states and looks up at her again. She stares at him in disbelief, for surely, he can’t mean it. He continues. “I know it’s not a good option, but the estate will be safe, and you won’t have to marry Hatfield, you won’t have to leave Locksley Hall.”

When she just keeps staring at him in silent disbelief his cheeks turn pink. “I know I haven’t got anything to offer; you know I don’t. But -”

“Alright”. Her answers comes without her thinking about it and it seems to catch him off guard. “But, are you sure?” she asks, worried that he doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into.

“Yes, Madeleine, I’m sure” he smiles, his hands continuing to gently stroke her hands.

“But, but” she starts, feeling almost dizzy. “But why would you want to marry me?”

“What?”

“Why would you help me? It would change your life forever.” She keeps her voice serious, knows that it’s of utmost importance that he understands the importance of this.

He seems struck silent and for a long while his brown eyes stare up at her in disbelief. “Well I, I mean I would, I” he starts, letting go of her hands and standing up, placing them his pockets instead. It is like he’s trying to look as nonchalant as he usually does.

Turning slightly away from her, eyes fixed on the koi fish in the pond he then continues. “Well, I’d get to live in Locksley Hall, wouldn’t I? I’d be the lord of the manor. No more hard toil in the garden”.

“So, mostly self-interest then?” She says, not knowing whether she feels more relieved or disappointed. More than anything she feels light headed.

“Yeah” he agrees, eyes still fixed on the pond. “It’s self-interest".

Silence spread between them. This is new territory that neither one knows how to tread.

In the end she stands up and he turns to look at her again, something like worry in his expression. “We, well we’ll have to discuss this. If it’s to happen it needs to happen soon.”

“It is to happen” he says, firmly, but then his cheeks turn pink again. “As long as you want it to”.

“Well then” she says, a small but genuine smile on her face. “It can’t happen here; Gretna Green is our only option. We have to come up with some excuse so we can leave for Scotland for a few days”.

He nods, but he too looks more relaxed now. “I’ll think of something”.

“So much to be fixed” she says, mostly to herself. “Wedding dress for example, though the wedding will be so small only something simple will do.”

“Could you” he begins, and he avoids her eyes again. “You could wear that dress you had on at the ball” he asks awkwardly, fidgeting slightly where he stands.

“Oh, yes of course” she says, just as awkward. “If that’s what you want”. She smiles at him, and he smiles back. Its embarrassed, but it’s tender too.

“Meet me at the fountain tonight?” he asks, and that strange fluttering sensation she’d felt when he’d pressed her against the tree makes another appearance. “To discuss how we’ll do this?”

She nods “yes, I’ll see you then. I better get back now, or Alice will notice I’ve left when she brings in breakfast.”

She turns to leave, but changing her mind mid stride she turns back to him. When she reaches him she stands on the tips of her naked, now muddy, feet. She presses a soft kiss to his cheek. “Thank you” she whispers.

***

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dirt-cup-draco · 4 years

Text

Harry x Reader- New Girl

Hey could you do a Harry Potter x reader fic, where reader doesn’t know anything about Harry Potter like the scar or anything but she is still a witch and Harry falls for her because she doesn’t know how famous he is

Your father had been given a promotion, one that had forced you and your family to leave America and buy some sleepy cottage in England that your mother demanded to have. You couldn’t deny that it was beautiful and exciting, yet you were lonely. To all of your fellow students you were an oddity. You spoke strangely, you listened to bizarre music, you ate strange candies and disliked their favorites. You just simply didn’t fit in.

It was easiest to fly under the radar, keep your head down and do well in your studies but even that was hard to do. You often found yourself traveling around the grounds of the school alone, admiring the beautiful castle that you had come to adore in an objective sort of way. There was no doubting that Hogwarts was a magical place.

You just wished you could make a friend.

You kept to the back as people chattered excitedly around you, Dumbledore at the head of the great hall, eyes scanning over his students with pride and amusement at the antics. The first trial of the Triwizard Tournament had just been completed and Hogwarts’ students were full of pride, the contestants being the only source of topic.

“Did you see how Cedric-” One hufflepuff chittered to her friend in excitement as she passed your table, her voice fading into the crowd as she vanished. You took a long sip of pumpkin juice and looked around, taking in the students you still hadn’t gotten to know yet.

Kids in your house weren’t cruel, in fact they were quite helpful, but nobody seemed to want to know you on a more personal level. They had nothing to relate to you with and once that barrier was up, they wouldn’t let it come down.

Even the festivities going on hadn’t been enough of a motive to befriend you and so you watched the tournament from the back of the stands, half paying attention to the two Hogwarts contestants that everyone seemed to go wild over. There was Cedric Diggory, a handsome Hufflepuff you had heard too much about to invest any interest in, and then there was another boy that seemed to be spoken about often. Henry Pots? Harley Peter?

“Harry’s brilliant on a broom!” You caught a Gryffindor exclaim from the seat, shoving a pumpkin pastie in their mouth.

“Potter just got lucky this time around,” A slytherin sneered, their voice floating up from the crowd, jealousy souring their voice.

Harry Potter! That was the boy that nobody got enough of. It seemed he could do no wrong, yet was always in trouble. A fan favorite of the students but a magnet for danger. You had yet to see what curse this boy seemed to drag along with him and you were grateful for it. Your mother had heard of the safety issues involving Hogwarts and it had taken your father a great deal to calm her down. Somehow, you doubted that a single teenager could cause so much strife. You were sure it was all rumors.

You weren’t interested in knowing the top dogs of the school. You didn’t want to be an outcast either, but you simply didn’t care about who you were friends with so long as you had someone. It had been a lonely few months and you grew more exhausted every day with sending cheerful letters to your mother about how great everything was going when in fact you were feeling miserable.

You didn’t need a Harry Potter or a Cedric Diggory. You just wanted to not be alone.

Harry peered into the darkness of his bedroom, fumbling for his glasses as he stepped out of his bed, drawing the curtains closed and tiptoeing to the door after grabbing the invisibility cloak from his chest. His mind was reeling and he needed some fresh air. The first challenge was still fresh in his thoughts and he couldn’t help but smile.

He had been chased by the horntail and come out on top! It was a rush of adrenaline that kept him wide awake during the late hours of the night. Harry was feeling quite proud of himself but he also wondered what the golden egg could possibly mean next for him. Admittedly, he still had a bit of a headache after releasing the clasp at the top. The shrieking from within had rattled his eardrums.

Maybe a walk would help him understand what to do next.

He easily waded through the halls, cloak secured around him, eyes and ears sharp in case someone was patrolling for kids out past curfew. Luckily, he had done this enough times that he could easily come and go without being caught.

Stepping onto the grounds, Harry let the breeze settle over him. The tension left his shoulders and let his feet carry him wherever they wished to go. He stalled however when he saw a figure in the distance, a lighter shadow against the inky sky that had swallowed the moon. It was hard to make out anything specific of this person and Harry felt his stomach twist, his heart thumping painfully.

However, his scar remained unresponsive and he took comfort in that. Nowadays, he felt like he had to look over his shoulder and keep his eyes peeled for any sign of danger. His name being in the goblet had been odd enough and he wasn’t looking forward to any more upsets.

Harry froze as the figure moved, rounding the curve of the black lake and coming nearer to him. He was tempted to keep his cloak on but then he caught sight of a friendly face, a face that he had been meaning to know.

Pulling the cloak from his head, he bunched it in his hands and began walking with a purpose. You, however, didn’t hear him. When he suddenly seemed to materialize out of nowhere, you jumped; a short scream getting stuck in your throat as you recognized him. He was a gryffindor in your year but that was as much as you knew about him. There was something familiar about him but you couldn’t quite put your name on it.

“Jesus Christ!” You hollered, hand flying to your chest as you stared at the teen with unruly hair and crooked glasses. “When did you- How did you-?”

“Been here for ten minutes, invisibility cloak,” The boy explained with an easy smile, holding the patterned cloak in his hand.

“You’re kidding me,” You gasped softly, taking two steps forward as your hands bunched in the material, pulling away quickly as you accidentally squeezed his hand. “Hogwarts makes me feel like I’m new to magic, Ilvermorny never had stuff like this,”

Harry smiled with pride, he had managed to impress you. It was rare that he wasn’t stumbling over his own two feet and wondering how to get someone’s attention. He had been wondering how to befriend you since he’d seen you on the train, whispers of your previous school spreading between students. Harry liked odd, he seemed to attract it, and to everyone else you were the definition of the word.

“Gift from my dad. Sort of.” Harry found himself explaining, eyeing the cloak.

“Sort of?” You asked, head tilted to the side. “So, what? You stole it?” Your voice was teasing and low and you had a mischievous glint to your eye that sparkled in the night.

Harry flushed and shrugged, surprised you didn’t know. “Erm, no. H-he was killed by Voldemort-” You didn’t even flinch, yet he could see your expression start to morph to something full of pity and embarrassment. “-Dumbledore held on to it and gave it to me,”

“I’m so sorry-” You began, eyes sad and bottom lip stuck out in a guilt-ridden pout.

“You didn’t know?” Harry had to ask, scratching the back of his head as you two stood still in the grass, the water of the lake pushed up against the sides of the earth it resided within.

“We haven’t met have we?” You questioned, eyes narrowed. You found this boy to be odd, his surprise at you not knowing his father’s fate was all around surprising. How were you supposed to know of such a tragedy? You were far from friends.

“No, we haven’t,” Harry said easily but understanding dawned on him in the form of a smirk. “You don’t know who I am do I?”

“Is that supposed to make you sound important” You shot back, eyebrow raised.

Harry fought with himself. He got the impression that you wouldn’t take kindly to him saying, “Im sort of a big deal seeing as I defeated the dark lord before i could even speak”. Instead he opted for, “N-No, I just know a lot of people and a lot of people know me. They probably know too much but I thought since you’d been here since the beginning of the year, you’d know too,”

“I don’t get around much,” You explained, shrugging your shoulders as if the weight of loneliness didn’t make it feel as if you were trying to raise cinder blocks up to your ears.

“Well then,” Harry said, fumbling to get his hand from his jean pocket. “I’m Harry, Harry Potter,”

You stuck out your hand, but paused halfway, mouth dropping in recognition. “The triwizard kid!”

Harry laughed. “I’ve been known as worse,”

You shook his hand, a smile on your face that he had never seen before. It was genuine and warm, yet a lot of perpetual surprise lingered- like you couldn’t quite believe you were having a conversation with someone. “It’s nice to meet you,”

“It’s nice to meet you too, Ilvermorny,” Harry teased and you groaned, rolling your eyes.

“I don’t think there is anything worse you could call me,” You grimaced. “Nobody cares to learn my name around here,”

“You didn’t offer it, I didn’t ask,” Harry shrugged and you were finding him quite strange, but no less pleasant. You were starting to understand why others so quickly believed he brought trouble. Yet, you didn’t mind it. He was refreshing and new.

“Y/N, you can call me Y/N,” You supplied. “Can I ask why you’re out here?”

Harry thought for a moment, taking a step forward. You followed his lead, the both of you falling into a comfortable pace as you walked around the grounds- having grown bored standing in place. Harry wanted to be moving and tiring himself out so that he could finally rest. “Mind if I ask first?”

Deciding you didn’t want to chance scaring off the only person you had gotten the chance to speak to thus far, you spoke first. “It’s nice out here. Helps me think when I cant sleep. And to be honest, it’s a bit odd sleeping in a room full of strangers,”

Harry’s eyebrows scrunched to the space between his eyes, his large glasses wiggling around on his nose. “You’ve had the same room since arriving, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” You meant to speak simply but it seemed he was confused. “I-I don’t get along well with the other girls. Well, with anyone if I’m being honest. I’m just the weird Ilvermorny girl, no one wants to know Y/N,”

“I come here to think too,” Harry offered after a moments silence. “And, for what it’s worth, I think Y/N is pretty cool,”

Your cheeks flushed and you couldn’t help the airy giggle that left you. You were certain that that was the first real laugh that anyone had been able to draw from you since the year began. Harry Potter was turning out to be much different than you had believed.

“Maybe next time I’m out here, I’ll run into you again,” You chanced, hoping that you would.

“Chances are good,” Harry smiled at your subtle proposition. “I don’t usually talk to friends when I come out here, but maybe I need to change that,”

Friend. The word rang loud and clear in your head and you couldn’t fight the grin that was present. Not much longer after, Harry said farewell and you returned to your dorm but it would be much longer until you were able to sleep. You were feeling optimistic, and you were quite certain that you had just made your first friend since arriving to Hogwarts.

Harry watched the sun rise from his spot leaning against a tree and even if hours had passed since you had gone to sleep he found that you were still on his mind. He sincerely hoped that you two would happen upon each other again. You were a rare treat in this school. Everyone knew him before he had a chance to know them. If he played his cards right, he’d be able to get to know you without anyone else planting stories in your head.

For the first time since arriving at Hogwarts, you weren’t just the new girl. And for the first time in his life Harry Potter wasn’t just the chosen one. Maybe, just maybe, you two could build a friendship that surpassed judgement and preconceptions. Maybe, you two could have something beautiful.

Tag List: @angelinathebook @thehumanistsdiary

#harry potter x reader #harry potter #harry x reader #ask #request #anon ask #harry x ilvermorny!reader #harry potter x ilvermorny!reader #fluff #the title comes from the fact that my sis started watching new girl again

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narcissasdaffodil · 3 years

Note

"things you said under the stars and in the grass" for marisol and alecto? 🥺👉🏽👈🏽💙

Thanks so much for the ask! @thoracicorchid requested this one too, I hope both of you enjoy this! I find it difficult to keep Marilecto stuff short, so here’s a 1668 word oneshot. This one is definitely in LCBC verse, enjoy x

“It’s like a million little stars spelling out your name.”

Getting some time to properly relax in the Villa appears to be very difficult, especially in terms of alone time. The evenings were still so warm and she sits fiddling with a daisy and spins it in her fingers. She leans against a sun lounger and props up her back. Choosing to sit on the grass was probably weird, but oh well. You don’t mind being weird.

Everyone else is distracted by the party, so no one spots her sneak away. She slides off her leather jacket and looks up at the sky. She sets it safely on the sun lounger and feels the warm air.

Being able to see the stars was a rare occurrence for her. She lives in a tiny flat in London with her cat Sadie, and her flatmate, who moved recently. She’s been meaning to find someone to take her place, rent in London is pretty ridiculous.

She hums softly and traces Andromeda, Pisces and Pegasus in the air. She has learned the stars and constellations through years of self study, along with her twin sister Quinn having a considerable interest in astronomy and astrophysics, she even decided to choose astrophysics as a degree. She’s absorbed a lot of information since.

The rest of her surroundings falls away, she focuses entirely on the night sky above. Her ears pop, and the hustle and bustle of the party floats away, and leaves her in silence. She taps her leg and fills the silence with the soft sound of her own voice.

“Have a seat upon this branch of mine, it’s been a while honey I think I feel fine,” she relaxes into the song and lets it take her over. For so long she would only sing in private so to do this, to let herself free was bigger than most people could guess.

“Oh my my, oh my stars, everything you see is ours. Or it could be if you would try. I wish you would, I wish you might.”

Marisol sets her empty glass down on the counter and scans the group for Alecto. If she was anywhere, she’d be with Hope or Lucas. Marisol stretches on her tiptoes and moves through the crowd as she notices Lucas’ tall frame towards the outskirts. She ducks under someone’s arm, a finger sets her glasses slightly wonky on her face. She stops and adjusts them and mutters under her breath in the direction of a tipsy Bobby. He seriously can’t dance to save his life. It could be the alcohol and quite easily could have been worse. At least your glasses are still safe and on your face.

She makes her way over to Lucas before she can get sidetracked and before she loses the nerve and forgets her mission. Alecto’s so happy with him, she might eventually forget about you. But you want to maintain her friendship, it’s by far one of the healthiest you have had.

She taps Lucas on the arm, and when he turns towards her, she feels a lump in her throat that she has to try to speak past. An awkward silence lasts between them, nothing like the silences she has with Alecto, and Lucas is the one to break it.

“Marisol?” He looks at her quizzically, a question on his lips. She supposes it was strange, her talking to him of all people, but he was usually attached at the hip to Alecto so her first bet for who could find her.

“What do you need? If this is about whether or not I am interested in you, the answer is still very much no.” He continues.

Her cheeks flush red as she has a painful flashback. Of course trying to go for him before would bite you in the arse. Alecto maybe gave you permission, but you made an absolute fool of yourself.

“Um...no, I wasn’t going to ask that. I know you’re with Alecto, and you two are happy together and that’s fine... Completely fine. I was actually wondering if you’d seen where she went, you two are usually so close to one another, you’re practically attached at the hip.” Marisol winces slightly as she trips over her words, her voice wavers as she speaks. Being a mess around everyone you somewhat like is difficult. Especially when they’ve rejected you, twice now.

“My apologies then. I didn’t intend to assume anything, that was wrong of me,”

he winces slightly at his misstep, and gives her a sincere apology. “She just went for some time to herself, but she did tell me that if you come to find her, to let you know that she was by the loungers. So I’m passing that on.” He pats her shoulder awkwardly and looks at her with sympathy.

“Oh, okay. Thank you.” She makes a hasty exit before she can embarrass herself further and starts to make her way over to the sun loungers. She feels hot tears behind her eyes and blinks them back furiously. You’re not going to cry over this. You’re definitely not, you got upset the first time you got rejected by him. He did let you down gently though. You’re just so used to always being the bridesmaid, never the bride.

She hears Alecto before she sees her, and notices her gentle voice. She halts midstep and listens.

“If everything you’ve said to me has been true, then all my stars are leading me to you.”

She watches the song absorb Alecto, her emotions forgotten for a while. She looks really magical now, there in the starlight. And singing a song about stars of all things.

The silence returns to the area as Alecto finishes and Marisol makes her way over. She notices how Alecto sits on the grass and leans her back against the sun lounger, and finds herself questioning why the grass of all things. She sits down on the sun lounger, next to Alecto’s jacket and accidentally sits on Alecto’s spread out hair as she sits with her head leaned back on the sun lounger.

“Oww! Could you please stand up then move my hair out the way? Thank you.” Alecto sounds grumpy which sparks back Marisol’s tears from earlier. Marisol ducks her head as she stands up and gently moves Alecto’s hair aside before perching on the sun lounger. She curls up her legs and rests her chin on her knees and hides her face behind a curtain of hair.

“Hey. Look. If I was harsh earlier, I’m sorry. It just hurt having you sit on my hair.” Alecto sits up and climbs onto the sun lounger. She rests an arm around Marisol’s shoulders.

Marisol bites her lip, silent tears making their way down her cheeks. “It...it’s not your fault. Lucas got the wrong end of the stick earlier and thought I was flirting with him again. He did apologise for his misstep, but it hurt to...to be reminded of my failure there yet again. And Bobby is yet to apologise for the way he treated me during OP Nope, how he thought I’d instantly...risk my friendship with Hope, and with you to risk being the Villa’s most hated again. It was difficult enough the first time. It sounds so stupid...both things I’m upset about. You can laugh, if you like.”

Alecto moves Marisol’s hair from her face and lightly catches hold of her chin. Marisol finds herself unable to turn her head away from Alecto, her warm brown eyes are strangely magnetic.

“Mari, listen to me. I wouldn’t laugh. I’m serious about that. I mean, I just gave Bobby hell for the way he treated you and Hope, and me, but the way he treated me is less important. I have a stable relationship, something which both you and Hope are struggling with. I know being so alone before hurt you, so of course you wouldn’t risk it again. As for Lucas, he apologised for it, which is something positive there. I know that the first rejection hurt you, but you will eventually find someone just for you. Maybe even me. You just need to keep believing. You’ll be okay, I promise, and I’ll stay by your side too. You deserve the world, and I wish I could magic it up just to see you smile.” Alecto’s voice softens, but it still maintains strength. She reaches over and wipes Marisol’s tears with a finger.

“Thank you. You really don’t have to do this.” Marisol protests slightly, unable to believe she deserves Alecto’s kindness.

“Yes, I don’t have to. But I want to. That’s the difference. I don’t need a reason to want to cheer up my best friend, right?” She squeezes Marisol’s hand, and causes Marisol to look up at her. “Look up at the sky, and tell me what you see.”

Marisol tilts her head skywards, and studies the night sky through teary eyes. The tears blur her vision slightly, and she removes her glasses and wipes them, then returns to the sky.

“Stars and constellations. They’re pretty…” her voice turns wavery in wonder as she studies the sky.

“Your blood contains a lot of iron, specifically in the molecules of haemoglobin. The iron is the product of a massive star that blew up 8 billion years ago, which means you have stardust in your veins due to that star exploding. Everything on the Earth originated from stardust, including us. We have it floating through us today, at this very minute. We are made of stardust. Isn’t that magical?” As she speaks, Alecto becomes very animated, as she gestures with her hands as she speaks. Her eyes brighten, and Marisol can see sparks in them, very like stardust.

Marisol is unable to reply, just finds herself staring at Alecto in wonder.

“Which is why I’m so insistent that you’re magical, and wonderful. You contain stars within you, which are definitely magical and wonderful for sure.”

#litg #love island the game #litg marisol #litgs2 #litg fanfic #marisol x mc #fanfic #love can be chosen

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javierpenaspinkshirt · 4 years

Text

Lawful Good

Chapter two

Warnings: nothing explicit, slow burn, little bit of angst, age gap(?), really bad formating (sorry I'm on mobile). The odd swear word and more adult(?) themes beginning.

Words: 2.6K

A/N: thanks for the kind words and messsages after chapter one! I’m afraid this fic is gonna be a slow burner but we’re heading in the right direction in this chapter! Really sorry about the shite formatting, but that’s mobile for you! Enjoy 🖤

Previous chapters: Chapter one

Chapter two

There were a million words you could use to describe Javi… but domestic wasn’t one of them. He’d slipped into your apartment behind you just a few moments ago, a little closer to you than he would have been had someone else been with you. And now he was standing in your kitchen looking bewildered at the gadgets and cookery items that covered your kitchen surfaces.

‘What the hell is this’? Javi smirked pointing at one.

‘It’s a spiraliser… for when vegetables need to be… well spiralised…’ you actually had no idea why you had that but it had been an impulse purchase you defended fiercely against all who took the piss.

Javi cocked his eyebrow and smirked.

‘So you and Steve really spend evenings here spirlalising vegetables and gossiping?’

'Yes, and I’ll have you know, he’s a great spiraliser’

Javier chuckled and you noticed some genuine amusement in his face. He was a difficult man to read. You figured that was deliberate, or at least a subconscious choice due to the nature of his work. Hiding his emotions was a safety mechanism that more than likely kept him alive. The number of times he must have been shot at, the close calls, the near misses, they would be enough to make a civi like you want to retire on the spot. But not him. He’d found a way to cope and the side effect of this was appearing closed off and reclusive. But occasionally he’d let his guard down. And in this moment he had done just that – standing in your kitchen, hands on his waste, laughing at the idea of his partner trying to work out how to make courgette ribbons.

You tilted your head slightly, looking at him, and you smiled.

He caught your gaze and his laugh trailed off and he cleared his throat.

You snapped out of it, realising you had been all but swooning like some Victorian maiden. Vaguely horrified at yourself you clapped your hands gently and asked ‘so, what would you like for dinner?’ tailed by a slightly awkward laugh.

He raised his eyebrow again ‘how about we just order in?’

You did just that. There was a pizza place down the street you (and probably all the DEA agents living in the building) knew well that claimed to make an “All American Pizza”, that in reality was a cheese pizza with a mystery meat topping that claiming to be pepperoni. If you didn’t think too hard about what was actually on it, it was delicious.

It arrived and you both sat on your couch, not bothering with plates to save washing up, just grabbing slices from the box, conversation free flowing. You laughed about the time you’d dropped coffee all down yourself one Monday morning and sulked the whole day, and the time he had an informant turn up at the office to return his signature sunglasses that he had left in her apartment after spending the night to “question her”.

‘I take my work very seriously’ he insisted through laughter ‘I get results don’t I?’

You cackled, a proper belly laugh, pizza slice half eaten in your hand and tears forming in your eyes ‘you do, but she exposed your modus operandi to the whole office’ you wiped a tear that was threatening to roll down your cheek and take your mascara with it, ‘she exposed you after you exposed her!’ you gave him a look and erupted in to laughter again.

The grin stayed plastered across his face but he wasn’t laughing at your poor jokes, he was watching you as you sat next to him, half eaten pizza slice in your hand and tears in your eyes, completely uninhibited and cackling like a witch. He’d always appreciated your openness. You were his opposite in so many ways. You were younger and more optimistic in your outlook. He didn’t particularly know your personal circumstances but he knew you’d come to this country alone as a teenager to study and that you’d accidentally wound up at the DEA. He knew you were good at your job and he appreciated every sticky situation you’d gotten him and Steve out of. And he also noticed that though you and Steve were very close, you didn’t look at Steve the way you looked at him. What he didn’t know, however, was whether you knew you were looking at him that way or whether your beautiful, dark eyes were betraying you.

Javier was no stranger to the female gaze. It would be a very rare evening that he didn’t catch some woman in a bar giving him the eye. Even at his most dishevelled after a long shift or a raid gone bad he still attracted them. He was like a magnet and they were the scrap metal that permanently orbited him. He didn’t mind, he liked the attention but only on his own terms. It was easy for him to separate lust and genuine feeling, that was partly due to his job. You had to be able to separate your feelings from the job at hand. Hell! He would often have days where he retuned home to his quiet apartment having shot several people and been shot at himself. If he couldn’t separate his personal emotions with his actions then he’d have gone over the edge years ago. So he translated this skill into his personal life too.

Sex and love were not often things that went together for him. But occasionally he’d let his guard slip and he’d let someone in. He did that once a long time ago, but that had ended terribly. His fault, he’d been the one to run. Some how she’d had the courage to forgive him and that helped, but he still felt the occasional twinge of guilt. Since her, there had been a few women he’d genuinely connected with. Often they were prostitutes, but that didn’t make them any lesser than him. It always began the same, them offering information in exchange for visas. Sometime he could help, sometimes he couldn’t, and sometimes he’d let them into his life a bit. But it never lasted. He’d scold himself for thinking he was capable of sustaining anything greater than a sexual relationship.

He reminded himself of that while he looked at you. He’d thought about you in that way, who wouldn’t? You were smart, funny, kind, beautiful, and seemingly fearless. Who comes to a city like this with purely good intentions? And who maintains that integrity despite the ugliness of the job? You impressed him no end. Your mind was a thing of wonder to him. How could you think so thoroughly so quickly? You always had the answer. You took the scathing remarks about your age and the sexist comments and ripped them apart with your brilliance. You proved instantly that you deserved your desk in that office. He was in quiet awe of you. But that was as far as he dared take it. His mind would wonder sometimes but he was good at dragging it back. He knew you would never risk your career for him and he was selfish for even considering it a possibility.

But here he was, sat on your couch with you, eating and laughing like you’d been friends your whole lives. If this was as far as your relationship could go then so be it. This was unchartered territory for him anyway. He had a pal relationship with Steve, they’d go out and drink together, grab some food and talk quite often, but he was the only one Javi had that kind of relationship with. He’d chat to his various conquests of a night but they were only there for his help, they weren’t really interested in him. But you? You came across so genuine, like you really did care about him and it sent a small shiver up his spine.

‘Thanks for tonight, Javi’ you smiled ‘This has been the best Monday night I’ve had in ages’.

‘Yeah well now I see how you and Steve spend your evenings maybe I’ll join you occasionally?’ He seemed almost tentative in his question.

‘Of course!’ You blurted ‘the more the merrier! Plus it’ll be nice not to be the only third wheel in Steve and Connie’s marriage’ you chuckled.

He left your apartment not long after that. It was late and you both had to be awake and alert for your drive to work tomorrow. You’d hugged him as he opened the door to leave. It lasted just that half a second too long and you found yourself relishing the feel of his hands against your back. Dangerous territory. But you’d smiled sweetly at him as the embrace ended and you said your good byes.

The rest of the week progressed pretty much as every week did, just without Steve. Javi was in and out of the office, out on raids, off meeting informants, in writing reports, off meeting the ambassador. You were in mostly, at your desk figuring our loopholes to get agents out of trouble with the local authority or trying to bribe your way out of sticky situations slyly.

Thursday afternoon rolled around and you found yourself turning your desk upside down and inside out. Gently huffing and getting frustrated at having lost the one thing you needed right now. You looked up to notice Javi coming back from the ambassador’s office. He was in a suit and he looked good. He had his top button undone and his tie loosened in classic Javi fashion. His little way of sticking it to the man. Respectful enough to wear a suit, but renegade enough to wear it in his own fashion.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ He sat at his desk and unbuttoned his suit jacket. The site of you on your knees searching through your desk drawers making him a little uneasy.

‘I’ve lost a book I need, I swear I had it here but I cant find it anywhere. You haven’t borrowed anything have you?’ You looked up at him, hair a mess from your frantic searching and your heels kicked off in exasperation.

He swallowed at the site of you but kept his cool, ‘I can promise you that the last thing I am going to borrow from your desk is a hefty law book’

You smiled back at him ‘fair point’ you pulled yourself to your feet and slumped back down on your desk chair. ‘Fuck, I need that book. I don’t know what I could have done with it’ you put your head in your hands.

‘Well if it’s a law book then I’m sure there’s a copy in the archives here? They have a law library in the storage archives down the hall’ he responded, sensing the genuine worry in your body.

You shot up in your chair ‘do they?’ Hope returning to your face ‘where?’

He stood up and shrugged off his suit jacket, his shirt was a little damp from the heat and it clung to his torso ever so slightly. You pulled your eyes back to his but he’d caught you looking. He shuffled slightly, had you made him uncomfortable?

‘Come on’ he said, walking towards you ‘I’ll show you the archives’

You smiled gratefully and leapt up to follow him. You had forgone your heels and caught up to him bare foot, a whole lot more comfortable. He noticed and smiled at you, ‘fuck dress codes, ey?’.

You grinned back.

You followed him through winding corridors and down a stairwell towards where they kept some of the evidence from raids and attacks on sicario strong holds. A little further down a dimly lit corridor and he stopped to open a door for you.

‘Here you go, the library’ he held the door open for you and you squeezed passed him. 'Library' was a generous term. It was a small cramped room with a few rows of shelves stacked with books. Some were older than your abuela and about as dusty the streets of the city.

‘Okay, help me look!’ You gave him the title and you set about searching.

He obliged and shut the door behind him, scanning through the books with you. Some of the shelves were too high for you to reach so he stretched up to grab at the abandoned collections on the top shelves. As he stretched his shirt untucked and revealed flashes of skin. Why on earth were you swooning over a strip of belly skin? What was with you? Was it the stifling heat of the windowless room? Was it the Adrenalin of hunting out this bloody book?

Javi set down a box of books on the floor and turned to face you.

‘Not in there’ he frowned.

He was standing just a little too close to you again, like when he had followed you into your apartment on Monday. He was so much taller than you without your heels on, and in the dim light of the small room the shadows angled his face beautifully.

Suddenly he reached out, as if he were going to brush a wayward strand of hair from your face and tuck it behind your ear. You lurched forward and kissed him. You lips connecting to his, warm and slightly salty from the sweat of the heavy lifting. As quickly as you leant forward you pulled away, realising what you had just done. What the fuck had you just done?!

He stood dead still, almost unblinking. His hand was still out stretched right near your face. You stared at him, panic filling your entire body. You went cold, felt sick, what had you done that for?!

Finally he moved, reaching further behind you to the shelf you were leaning against. He pulled a book from the shelf and showed it to you. It was your missing title.

Oh god. Oh Christ. Oh no! He’d been reaching for the book, not for you at all! Dread pooled in your tummy. You had completely and utterly misread that situation. You cursed yourself, every stupid word you could think of running through your mind, all the while staring at him like a rabbit in the head lights. He was still so close to you.

He reached behind him and put the found book down on the box he had retrieved from the top shelf for you. He turned back to face you, putting his hand up again but this time brushing it against your cheek. And then again, the welcome softness of his lips on yours, the taste of salt and the rush of blood to all the wrong places. He kissed you gently, testing the waters. You leant into him, his reciprocation as much a surprise to you as it was to him. His tongue parted your lips and your hands ran up his back, clinging to his shirt. His hands cupped your face, holding you firm as his body pressed yours against the book shelf behind you.

His hands moved to your waist, his finger tips sinking into your soft skin beneath your thin blouse.

He pressed against you, pulling away from the kiss for breath. You panted heavily, the air suddenly feeling a whole lot hotter. His forehead pressed against yours, you would have been happy to stay in that moment forever. That way neither of you would have to face the consequences of your recklessness.

Chapter three

Tag list: @ah-callie

#javier peña x reader #javier peña x you #javier peña fanfic #narcos fanfic #narcos fic #javier peña fic #javi peña #javi #lawful good #javier x reader #javier x you

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astrroloaries · 5 years

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Can you do a post on how each mars signs would try and get/seduce someone they like?

ohhhhhhhhh

aries mars - oh they’re either direct in a sense of directly asking you out, or just wanting to get close to you so they initiate hang outs, they really light up when speaking to that s/o, just their body language and energy is totally noticeable when they like someone, you can sniff it a mile away, they will either defend that person or have debates and arguments on purpose, so they will mentally stimulate their person and awaken that passion when communicating, also other provocations as well lol, we are provoking little shits i must admit but we do it directly lol, also lots of touching and teasing, competitive

taurus mars - mmmmmmm, the sensual, elegant types, they want to take it slow, get to know you first, they will be interested in what you have to say, they will want to bring you in their home, have some tea, just get comfortable and safe around you, their movements are graceful and fluid unlike aries mars, they are patient and they will ask that of you as well, they are persistent so they might be initiating conversations, hang outs, calls, texts and be constant with that

gemini mars - now these guys will want to get to know you for real, they will want your history, they will love making you laugh if they are into you, talk your ear off, knock you off with their best jokes, they will try to create a joyful environment for you, even before having sex they will want to have some connection through communication, the ones that love talking during it or after it, they will love to flirt through words and with you and awaken that side to you as well, you might also feel that nervousness because they like you, even though they talk they talk out of being nervous sometimes

cancer mars - oh the feisty water mars, they guard themselves and their temperament is emotional and over-reactive but protective and nurturing as well, you gotta go through a bit until you get to a place where they will protect you and nurture you and worry about you, but there is where you know they like you, they are the people who always say text/call when you get there, have you eaten today? what dress are you going to wear? those kind of little things that matter and make your day better when someone asks about them, they are seductive and know how to flirt with sensuality but sexuality as well, so sensual but sexy, intense emotions definitely

leo mars - awwwwwwwww my last guy was a leo mars and i will never forget how protected, safe and cared for i felt he also had a leo venus, leo marses and aries marses are not that different, leo marses are the ones who will show off more and give you space to compliment them but also compliment you back and show you off in some sort of a way, they will be very protective of you, tease you maybe, but be warm towards you, they will want to get to know you, excite you as well (if ya know what i mean), their expression is loud, also they know a lot more about romance than aries mars, they will make some gestures that will make you melt even if they seem so confident and strong they still have a spot of creativity that allows them to show it off through sweet gestures, competitive

virgo mars - a complex mars definitely, people who are so reserved with their feelings (as all earth marses) they need more time, they will worry about you, they will care and ask about your day, they will be the first ones who offer help if they like you, but they will have a difficult time being loud about their feelings, they just need more time and more of it, they are fearful and calculating, over-thinking and afraid but they will try to work through it, very productive and hard-working otherwise, very dedicated

libra mars - awwwwwwww the ones who know how to hella flirt and they might flirt with people without even realizing it lol, they will try to communicate a lot, strong verbally, super charming and witty but also the diplomats they will know how to make magic with words, sensual and elegant as well, seductive and charming, they might like cliche things and do cliche things but with their own twist to it, they appreciate that,can become very passive and unreadable when they get insecure

scorpio mars - ahhhhhhh intensity, there is some kind of magnetism there that attracts you, some kind of a puzzle and mystery that pulls you in about them, once they like you they will want to get to know you fully, they will want to achieve intimacy in your soul to soul connection, they are tough and there is a sense of danger attracting you but once they start liking you they will become obsessed with you and you will notice that they become obsessive and possessive and a bit jealous, because they feel emotions so intensely and deeply they feel these negative emotions like that as well and it shows

sagittarius mars - the free-spirited adventurers who will have a lot of short-liveed flings and adventures because they are curious and attracted to new cultures, backgrounds, new philosophies and people who carry all of these things, they are quite blunt and honest which is refreshing and attracting they will want committment without saying the word and putting a label on it, they will bring you joy, make you laugh but let you know they are leaving, if they come back they are yours forever, if you want a person like tbis you will need to understand the concept of complete independence and freedom of self in order to function, because they know how to love hell we all do, but we do it differently, they will be interested in your opinions on things, on your philosophies and will compete with theirs which might become annoying because they are so opinionated so they need people who can take that and are opinionated as well

capricorn mars - wow dedicated, loyal and reliable a mars sign that is a bit traditional, because they love creating traditions and long-lasting relationships/bonds, they will be there for you, they will want something serious if they like you, you might wait for them a little longer (earth marses are like that), which will make them look cold and detached at the beginning, but they just need time to get comfortable and develop serious feelings so they can commit seriously, this is not a joke to them, they are real, they are a rock and will carry you on their arms, they want to enjoy each phase with you and will do so, they have an interesting humor and are dominant, showing that off will definitely let you know they like you

aquarius mars - yeah it is true they will like to start off as friends, at the beginning and at times they will detach themselves more or communicate with you through your mutual friends, they will want group hang outs where they can get to know you better, they will be interested in topics, in your opinions about topics, they will want to share their knowledge with you as well because they have a lot of going on in their head, they want to have you as a friend first definitely, they will be as serious and as cold as an capricorn mars but be talkative as a gemini mars (well not as but close lol), they will have a lot of creative ideas that will want to share with you and do with you, also they can be unpredictable so they might do some gestures that surprise you and that will be a bit too direct for their own good, they love experimenting (if ya know what i mean ;) )

pisces mars - these are caring, supportive and compassionate people, their blushing, caring and support system for you will let you know they like you, but they will rarely do a first step, you supporting them somehow and letting them know will help them blossom and do a lot of things on their own, very creative and will want to know all about you, them being behind your shoulder constantly and helping, supporting your cause and blushing while doing it will let you know

thanks for asking love xxxx

#mars signs #mars #aries mars #taurus mars #gemini mars #cancer mars #leo mars #virgo mars #libra mars #scorpio mars #sagittarius mars #capricorn mars #aquarius mars #pisces mars #astrology #anon #answered

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go--ask--alice · 3 years

Text

Ephemeris

One

Alice Napier.

To say I am merely happy is an insult to the english language and to the emotion in itself. I feel as though I am in a state of euphoric bliss!! Yesterday may be the single most incredible day of my life. The runner up being the first time he said 'I love you' and a close third that night on the rooftop in London.

Being that this is the first entry into my new journal, let me get out as many details as I can, for posterity sake!

This had to be the most traditional non-traditional wedding that has ever taken place in Gotham City. It pains me to even write this but I fear that the man officiating lastnight is probably dead in a ditch somewhere! Otherwise only myself, J, and the ever loyal Frost were in attendance but it was still a lavish affair. Unlike most bride-to-be's I was left in the dark for most of the planning of this wedding. He kept mumbling something about "project: royal wedding.." and "must be perfect!" then scooting off to meet with Johnny. This went on for a good month or so after we got back from overseas, and while I knew it would be a very short engagement I did not expect that by year's end we would be married.

We had returned to Gotham just in time to see the leaves change color. No sooner had the first snow fallen was I informed that we needed to pick a date. After much consideration and bickering it was decided that we would be married on the first day of winter. The snow would be blanketing the earth and there was the perfect little space on the far edge of the property. A small alcove of trees obscured it from any prying eyes that may be keeping tabs on my elusive Joker and it allowed us the privacy that J so desperately strived for.

The one thing I was given control over was my dress. The only soul to see it besides me was the seamstress that created it. J had relinquished this tiny bit of power to me so it could remain a surprise for him until yesterday, you can never say this man isn't a traditionalist! The woman who made the dress has worked for him for years and is responsible for many of his most iconic looks. If anyone has ever come across The Joker when he purposely places himself on display in one of his clubs has seen her exquisite work. My needs for the dress were few; I insisted on pure white in the finest silk available, a (faux) fur capelet, and Chantilly lace imported from England. Beyond that I let her have fun, I trusted the final product would rival anything J was planning to wear. An apprentice of hers was tasked to tailor J's suit for the ceremony as well as both of our shoes which were custom made and imported from Italy.

I woke up yesterday morning at the literal crack of dawn with as much excitement as a kid on Christmas morning. To the best of my knowledge J didn't sleep at all which isn't a surprise but I didn't even hear him come upstairs, he was supposed to be sleeping in the room across the hall for the night while I stayed in our bedroom. I'm sure he was holed up in his office til all hours of the night, my beautiful brooding man.

There was a note slid under the bedroom door from my love. That note will be between these pages forever.

Knowing that I wouldn't be seeing him until the afternoon I had to calm my nerves on my own and resorted to taking an incredibly long bubble bath followed by some tea and lunch in my room. I began the arduous task of getting ready a few hours before I was due to head downstairs. Frost had my dress delivered to the room sometime in the late morning and refused to give me any clues as to what J had in store for us, though he did seem genuinely excited and I even caught a grin on his stoic face.

I am no professional but I think I did a pretty wonderful job with my hair and make up. Dark and classic. My hair left long and flowing just how I know my J likes it. I had it re-dyed not long after we came back state side so the sapphire blue was as vibrant as possible. My make up was a bit harder to pin down, I've learned in our time together that smudge proof is my best friend! A dark smokey eye and deep crimson lips, the lipstick imparticular needed to stay in place as the our night began.

I managed to be ready and downstairs mere minutes before 3:30 and as I descended the stairs I was met with quite the sight. Johnny Frost in the most dapper suit I've ever seen him in was anxiously tapping his foot and checking his watch while peaking out the large stained glass doors. No doubt unsure what to do if I was late coming downstairs. After a few moments I had to put him out of his misery and make my presence know, the look on his face was pure relief. I can only imagine the stress J had put him under to get everything ready, perfectionist is an understatement when discussing The Joker.

Wordlessly I linked my arm through his waiting elbow as he opened the door to the garden. I can only hope to transcribe the magnificence that awaited me on the other side! The sun was low in the afternoon sky, this being the shortest day of the year, and it illuminated the pine trees that bordered the back of the property. On the ground was a path of small blue lights like will-o'-wisps just starting to glow leading through the trees to the small clearing where I knew my love was waiting for me. As we began to walk I was hit with a wave of emotions so strong that I stumbled for a moment and Frost had to steady me. He leaned down and in his gruff voice whispered, "I've never seen Mr. J so excited, he really does loves you Miss Alice." This of course only spurred on my emotional roller coaster and I squeezed his arm as confirmation that I was okay to continue.

Inside I was an absolute wreck. I was literal moments away from marrying the man I had dreamt about for years, obsessed over in the media and in print, the man I isolated myself from the world for. He could have killed me the moment we met yet somehow here I was about to vow my life to him again this time officially. I will never say that I am the woman who fixed The Joker, there is no fixing his tortured soul, but I genuinely believe I have opened his heart and proved that all creatures are deserving of love. That we all have someone that sees we are worthy of that love.

I was so lost in my own thoughts that I almost didn't realize we were only a few steps away from the tree line, I could see his silhouette against a sea of blue roses, the light bouncing off the stone wall making the flowers appear to glow around him. He was speaking very low to a nervous man who was nodding profusely at him with terrified wide eyes. It took only the briefest of moments for him to see me. Frost had silently let go of my arm and was walking around the perimeter of the small clearing til he was at J's side. Our eyes met for the first time all day and time ceased to exist.

There he stood, my Joker, my love, my forever, his shocking green hair slicked back perfectly from his face, his lips a bright cherry red were spread into a toothy smile I had rarely seen. It was hard to pull myself away from his magnetic blue eyes to take in the rest of him. Faintly I could hear music playing and I slowly began to walk towards him. My beautiful Joker had spared no expense on his suit, perfectly tailored to his slim muscular body. The jacket was inky black with a faint brocade pattern in silk thread, the pants were the same luxurious fabric as the jacket only solid. A black silk shirt pulled tight over his slightly heaving chest, I could see the rise and fall as I walked closer to his side. This was one of the few occasions where I have seen J with a proper tie done up correctly, I believe it was a trinity knot, and a gorgeous new tie pin made of black cobalt with onyx stones. The shoes were a favorite of mine, I actually pick them out in a shop in London and they were custom made by a cordwainer based in Italy. And of course in proper Joker style his powerful hands were adorned with all of my favorite rings, the only flashes of gold in his entire outfit, I was giddy with the anticipation of adding a new one to his left hand.

I had chosen to not carry a bouquet down the aisle, instead I wore a single perfect blue rose in my hair. This particular bloom was laying atop my new journal when I found it yesterday morning so it was only fitting to wear it to meet my Joker at the alter.

When I was finally only a few steps away he reached his pale hand out to take mine and pull me close. I could see the restraint plain as day on his face as he let go and took a step back, he gave himself a long moment to look me over and I could see the lust growing in his eyes when they met mine again. The anticipation we both felt in that moment was beyond our imaginations. Later in the night J told me it took all his control not to shoot the officiant between the eyes and send Frost away so he could have me right there on the spot! Dramatic? Yes, but I believed him completely.

The ceremony itself was brief, the man brought in was obviously terrified but did a fine job. I only found out after the fact that preforming this act was in exchange for a large debt that was owed to The Joker. In doing this favor it would clear the debt but also thanks to the man's connections within the local government it legitimized our union and would secretly have the necessary documents sealed and notorized. I swear I heard a muted gun shot not long after we exchanged vows but I am not going to question it.

Our vows were succinct but incredibly powerful. They are the one small piece that I will forever keep to myself. Suffice to say, the love that lives in our hearts is something that will never be broken, not by time, space, or anything the world throws at us. He is my King and I now proudly stand at his side, his Queen and his partner.

As I write this we are currently on a very brief Honeymoon, one of business and pleasure, J had some pressing business to attend to so I am here patiently waiting for him to return to the rarely used penthouse we have been staying in. I still want to record the events that transpired after the actual wedding, hopefully I'll have some time soon to write them down. For now I want to be prepared to greet my husband when he returns, I have not yet had my fill of his devilishly powerful body.

-Alice

#ephemeris #joker x alice #joker #joker fanfiction #go ask alice #joker x oc

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hozierandco · 4 years

Text

G. MacKay x reader / Fluff

Inspired by "Freak in me" sung by Mild Orange. Different timelines attached to this and overall FLUFFY as in VERY FLUFFY. Light cursing. I figured I might as well write the one inspired by Birdy ft. Rhodes that I mentioned earlier.

January 2020

Y/N was a friend of Dean-Charles Chapman for the longest time since they had attended the same primary school. She had decided to change her habits by going out for once as did George. That in itself should have raised doubts about the chance that there was a star up there helping the two of them. They had known enough about love to be careful about it. Misfortune seemed to be printed on their skin by now. Surprisingly, they did not give up on it though. Which turned out pretty well.

"Hey, you made it!", Dean greeted Y/N with a pint in his hand.

"The chance of seeing you getting hammered, come on, I would not have missed it for the world! And it's been ages anyway"

Dean nodded as he gave George a small hug before introducing him to his long-time friend. It was in the very first seconds his eyes crossed Y/N's that he knew she would change his life, whether for good or for bad. He was willing to find out. She had only rarely gotten this feeling that her life could take a hard left, being a game-changer permanently. Of course, she had felt that pulse beating under her skin seeing her friend and his co-star in 1917 but now was different. In a very good way. Dean had probably seen this coming, probably even set up the whole thing as he was perfectly able to. Y/N for once paid no heed for what the next day could bring. She was to celebrate as if it was the last night.

Once again, a sign came in the way as "Freak in me" started resonating in the bar. For days it was the only song Y/N could listen to (or more like, the only song she would willingly listen to on repeat) and now she had a chance to actually dance on it without looking like a maniac in her living-room. After all, Y/N was a hopeless romantic and an indie band would make no exception to it. For a couple of hours before that George and her had talked whereas Dean was getting closer with a waitress. It was all naturally that the actor had an epiphany by gazing at Y/N's angelic features were prancing about with more and more energy to it. He had to make a move.

Lately, I think of you lots 'Cause my mind's in circles for you Please connect the dots

"Would you consider dancing with me?", he innocently asked looking straight into her eyes with all the confidence he could pull.

Y/N looked around at the unshaken crowd glued to the counter. That bar was not famous for being a popular dance hall. Suddenly, self-consciousness kicked in. Her brain could only process questions starting by "What if?" or "What will people think?". Y/N did not even know how to dance and would most probably make a fool out of her, she thought.

"Trust me on that one?", George kindly muttered. Fuck it. What ifs never lead anywhere and that song was way too good not to be danced on. Y/N applied to George's suggestion with a huge smile on her face.

For a moment of bliss, time had stopped. It was just him and her against the rest of the world. Fire and water could get in the way, their bodies close to one another was all that mattered. George went full on with a courtship ritual that he had no power over. It was as if his body lived independantly from his free will, like a magnet, it could not stay too long far from Y/N's.

And bring me, bring me to you 'Cause you bring out the freak in me It's only for you Just you

The parting was as inexorable as violent. Another song soon replaced what they just had experimented as a holy experience, like dying only to knock on Heaven's doors. It was difficult to get back to a proper conversation right after but then again, hours with such a company appeared like seconds to George.

June 2020

George and Y/N had quickly moved in together. Ever since their odd encounter, there was not a single day without them dancing on the song that had made them fall for one another. When George was away, he would call Y/N to sing it to her, whether as she would be on her way to sleep or she had just awoken. Although they had not actually shared their feelings, it was getting obvious that it was more than just another rebound relationship. Their family and friends were the collateral damages of this blooming love as any moment was a good occasion to show the world just how much they cared for each other.

So kiss me There's something in the air And whether it's love or lust Should we care?

In spite of George being prone to grandiloquent acts to show his feelings as he could easily get bashful and needed the whole package not to chicken out, him confessing his love for his beautiful girlfriend came to him as naturally as when he had asked her to dance with him.

Y/N and him had been teasing one another for minutes when Y/N was out of the blue having George right under her body. It would often happen that Y/N and George just teased themselves until arousal would take over. But the angle George was now facing ignited a new feeling. Was it the moon in the sky, was it his thoughts wandering in his brain, he grabbed Y/N by her hand that was carelessly laying on his chest.

"Do you remember when we talked about love a few weeks back?", George seriously stated. Y/N was now all ears. Of course she remembered. She also remembered that she had felt stupid right after for not taking the chance to confess her love.

"Well, I've been thinking about it again lately and love to me is just what I feel every morning when I realize a star struck me by allowing me to wake up besides you. Love is what makes me wonder why on Earth you chose me out of all men and just to enjoy every minute. Love is going to bed at night with you on my mind and what the next day could bring us"

Y/N could now swore her heart was being rejected by her body. Cause of death: an abnormal heart rate increase. She could not express it any different way than by kissing George. Which she religiously proceeded to.

"I love you too, George", she whispered in between two kisses.

December 2020

Well, it was to happen someday. George and Y/N were soulmates despite the fact that they actually banished that kind of vocabulary. But sometimes, stars shine too bright. Or the planets are simply not aligned. They barely argued and in nearly a year, it had never damaged their relationship. Except for this one time.

It was a silly question of schedules. George had forgotten to show up at a date they had planned and when Y/N would most of the time feel no resent, she did not feel like it this time. Things had gone so messy that for the first time since they shared beds, George had found shelter on the couch. He knew he had fucked up but at the same time could not get his mind to make amends. In fact, it had been a whole terrible week during they could simply not find common grounds. That night was just the apex of a hill they had been climbing up all week.

Both of them could not find sleep as anger was inevitably taking over them.

As minutes became hours, George decided to call for some truce. Besides, he could not bear to know that Y/N would be mad at him when it was possibly the very last thing he wanted. He thought that Y/N would be asleep when he came near the threshold leading to their bedroom. He just had to make sure she was doing fine. Not only was he quite surprised to see that Y/N was awake but if he was even more assured that he was doing the right thing. 'Cause you bring out the freak in me It's only for you Just you' Cause you, you bring out the freak in me A side that only you could see

his phone sang the lyrics to their song when he knew he would fail talking for now. He then sat on the edge of the bed and talked the two last lines through, before apologizing.

"You're an arse, George"

"I know"

"But man, do I love you"

"Yeah, I know that too"

June 2026

The house was suspiciously still when Y/N came back from work. It had not been this quiet for quite a long time so it could only lead to further investigation. Little did she know that a gathering was going on in the other side of the house.

"Dancing on that song, aren't you?", she heard George who was now her husband say through the door. "Do you know that's how mom and dad met?"

His husband only had eyes for the tiny human being that was painfully standing on his two feet so it was fairly easy for Y/N to get in without being detected. Their son was trying his best to dance on his own to one very familiar song but for the moment had to rely on his father's help to do so. He was awkwardly moving on his father's feet who occasionally lifted him in the air.

After a few seconds, babblings from their son replaced George's voice singing the lyrics as the baby was now pointing at his mother. George turned around as he took his child in his arms. Making his way towards the woman of his dreams and the mother of his son, he kept on singing:

Lately, I think of you lots' Cause my mind's in circles for you Please connect the dots

#george mackay #imagine #fluff #george mackay fluff #freak in me #mild orange #whoops

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thisuserhasoriginalideas · 4 years

Text

(Still nameless project) Character and Species master post

Soo how some might have noticed I am working on an original Idea for a comic and this will be my Character master post which I will add to whenever I got a new addition for the cast.

The premise of the story basically some aliens going on an adventure to find earth and join a supposed interplanetary peaceful conglomeration because they caught a transmission of an old cheesy and corny scifi series (ala star trek or well early Perry Rhodan when you actually know that novel series you get a free smooch from me)

The Lophorel and the Narlaha

Those are the first Species to be introduced and well the ones where the original three crew members will start off .

For demonstration purposes I include a pic of the parents of the first three bc I still need to make a general species guide for them lol

(From left to right: Shejeren, Noroph'a, Uruphija'l, Charalah I will give some short specific info about them later lol)

Both species share one planet which is the second in their solar system and has three moons orbiting around it.

The Lophorel are native to surface of the planet and usually have a skin color ranging from very light blues to dark purples. They have gem like growths on their heads which is surrounded by a skin covered bone structure which either is build like an ark or a row of lill spikes. They have pointy ears and their bigger eyes have octagonal pupils which form a cross when constricted. Usually their Iris has the same color as their gem and their Sclera is black, in rare cases there can be mutations of color tho. With their eyes they can perceive a wide array of colors and even some elektro magnetic phenomena in their environment but they are pretty much blind in low light situations. They usually wear longer hair (short hair is seen as obscene in their culture) in different braided styles. While white hair is the most common hair color in their species there are also variants of reddish browns that can occur. They aren't very strong however but do to their legs agile and good at jumping. Height wise they can get from 1,60 m (5' 2'')up to 1,90 m (6' 2'') They are generally hermaphrodites and don't have naval due to laying eggs. They use the terms Eren (Seedgiver) and Ophat (shellcarrier) to adresse their parents and it occurs that siblings from the same parent pair use diffrent terms for addressing the same parent. They also number their children with the last sibille of their name so for example having 'rel' at the end of a name means that it is the first hatched child YEP I gonne write a language guid later someday lol . While being omnivore they have developed a distaste to eating meat and as a culture live mostly vegetarian.

The Narlaha are used to live mostly under the surface of the planet and are often called Nipht by the Lophorel which is similar to calling someone and earthworm. In turn the Narlaha call the Lophorel Kar'alarf which literally means stone-head. They are significantly smaller than their surface dwelling neighbors and only get around 1,50 m (4' 9''). They have four arms and are significantly physically stronger. Due to their carnivore nature and history of hunting they have sharp claws and teeth and usually a very dark grey skin completion mixed with red markings which makes them blend in with their stone surroundings. Their four eyes are one tones and most of the time their eye colors range from white grayish to red. They may only see the world in reddish and green tones but they have excellent vision in dark areas. The bone structure on their head helps them sensing vibrations from their surroundings. They are more like us humans when it comes to their genders and sexualities soo no big explanation here. But they don't really have their own names instead a family name is given from the chosen parent to the child with either a 'lah'(born female), 'ren'(born male), 'len' (born intersex) at the end depending on the biological sex they are born with. Also they tend to have brown to black hair only sometimes they mutate blond hair. Also there are albinos I'm the Species

In the history of their species they obviously didn't get along very well most of the time so after a view wars the Lophorel sadly established a trend of enslaving the Narlaha bc the Lophorel (having the advantage of not limited airspace) were technology more advanced than the Narlaha, who due to limited space couldn't build respected deferenses against the most of the time vibration based attacks of the Lophorel. While the violent ages of this planet are now gone both their cultures got so accustomed to the practice of slavery that there are barely any objectors on both sides of the coin. Still during the events of the story there some thing about to be changed lol.

And now off to a few words to the named characters above. They are as stated the Parents to the first three crew members of the story. Noroph'a is a rich space miner that makes his living with deploying mining ships to other planets of their solar system. They married the way less fortunate Uruphija'l due to practicality and the wish to produce taller offspring (They are a little insecure about their height). Both of them are rather strict and caught up in outdated social rules. After they conceived their first egg they bought Shejeren and Charalah bc they also were expecting a child and Noroph'a wanted their offspring to grow up with an always present play buddy bc he also grew up with a Narlaha play mate. After Charalah gave birth to a little baby daughter (Shejelah) She and her husband were kept as bodyguards for the two Lophorels while a third Narlaha took care of Shejelah and the now also hatched Ala'phrel.(Charalah and Shejeren already had a older child Chararen who at this point already worked in a diffrent household [Narlaha children get independent pretty quickly]). In general where the two Narlahas pretty happy to have landed in Noroph'a's household because their new daughter now had the privilege to get the basics of a good high tier education together with Noroph'a's offsprings which would mean that she could later find a home as a home preschool teacher which is considered a honorable position for a Narlaha. Noroph'a and Uruphija’l had one more child (Nirlaph) and even tho Shejeren and Charalah tried to also conceive again Shejelah stayed the only young Narlaha in the household.

On to the important peeps

(From left to right Nirlaph, Ala’phrel, Shejelah)

Growing up together the three established a strong bond and even tho it was planed to send Shejelah away as she got old enough to be sold off again Ala’phrel and Nirlaph both protested against their parents wishes and kept Shejelah around. This is partially because when they were younger and first got to have tech based toys the three of them build a simple signal receiver which accidentally lead them to catch an old transmission of a show called "Captain Jacks search through the stars" which depicted a utopian society without racism and slavery. They didn't understand a word of what was said in the show but the depiction of different races (even tho they were suspiciously similar in general looks) working together seemingly without race hierarchy fascinated the three kids to such an extend that they from there on strived to one-day be able to meet Captain Jack and his Crew and join their ranks. They over time established a translation of the alien language and made it their own. Learned all principles which Captain Jack resided as foundation of the peaceful planets conglomeration and started studying all skills need to actually fly a space ship.

Even tho the three kids treated each other as equals the older they got the more Shejelah had to oblige to the house rules, meaning she had to adapt to the servant clothing, had to learn formal speaking rules and wasn't allowed to speak without spoken to in general. While she did conform to those rules to some degree the suppressed aggression against them lead to her having a very strange relationship with human swear words. She really likes to sprinkling them in when she has the opportunity to speak freely. In general she seem to be a rather reserved individual (despite the swearword occasionally slipping out) but that's just as long as she doesn't trusts you. At times she seems to be just a tad sassy which is a way for her to handel her insecurities about her social status and her struggle to actually come forward with requests regarding herself, bringing her ideas forward or just simply saying ‘no’ to a request. It is very important to her to be able to choose her own clothing and she often will change her outfits as she sees fit just because being forced to wear a unified and dull outfit for most of her life evoked a desire of outward expression of herself in her. So even tho she dawns a version of the uniform they have seen the crew members of captain Jack wear she will take her own spin on them and proudly wears her own creations. She wears an open nose ring to honer her upbringing as slave and symbolize her now found freedom. Shejelah is often called just Jelah by her two friend after seeing the crew members of Jack using Nicknames for each other, while this is a shorter version of her name it also means ‘brain’ in an ancient language of the Lophorel. And indeed a brain she is, not just having the strength of her species Shejelah is quite smart and has a high interests in quantum physics and chemistry. She will often work together with Nirlaph, who has a interests into engineering to invent and upgrade all sorts of gadgets and knickknacks. Speaking of Nirlaph (Nick: Nor translatable with ‘fluffy chicken’) they are non a less brilliant but suffer a severe case of being skittish and uncertain. As the younger sibling they often had to live to the standards the older one leid down first and while they are in many aspects superior to their sibling the stress of being held up to already high standards got to them at a young age. So while they are capable of being brilliant and an absolute genius their anxiety and stage fright often hold them back. So more often then not they tend to overthink decisions and either screw something up in the execution do to the anxiety or just not doing it at all even tho deep down they know they should have. They still don’t hold a grudge against their older sibling to the contrary they heavily rely on the fare more outgoing and intuitive Ala’phrel to pull them for Support and to just pull them against through it. But other than Ala’phrel and Shejelah they prefer to keep to them selves often working in the dead of the night and in secret on their projects to avoid the awkwardness that brings working under the public eye. But also he refuses to give their and Shejelah’s brilliant invention to a society that wouldn’t even acknowledge Shejelah’s part in them which they think is way greater than their part in them. So even if both of their work could have revolutionized the space travel of their society they keep their inventions a secret which will later be to their advantage. But well without Ala’phrel the trio wouldn’t get to the point where they will find them selves. Ala’phrel is bold, charismatic and understands how to get their way. They are the driving force behind the whole story dragging the other two further into the right direction. While lacking the brilliant and deep understanding of the scientific backgrounds their bordering on delusional positive attitude and admiration of the concepts they have seen in the show keeps them all moving forward. Ala’phrel isn’t shy of justifying controversial actions ( like stealing a ship from their parents) with the greater intention behind them which sometimes leads to further trouble they need to deal with together with their friends which more often than not build the perfect contra weight to Ala’phrel ‘s at times insane schemes. They definitely are a bit too much obsessed with captain Jack and his crew and them being real so you could say they are a super fan. But in the end they have good intentions even tho they lack the experience they always try to do the best for their friend and for themselves.

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soveryanon · 5 years

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Reviewing time for MAG157! ;___;

- … I’d been making fun of the fact that The Corruption was the unloved Fear of season 4, since we hadn’t had any statement since MAG103… and consecutively, we got a small talk about Jane Prentiss at the end of MAG152, a Corruption statement in MAG153, and now… another one, which dealt with an identified avatar, and was, I felt, the most gruesome Corruption one we ever had. Somethingsomething about how season 4 is the “be careful what you wish for” season, uh. (Well. You never wish for a Corruption statement, you mostly note that there hasn’t been one for a while.)

Jon was suspecting that Jane Prentiss’s attack on the Institute had been a ritual attempt:

(MAG152) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … It’s all that left of her now. Apart from a… jar of ashes in my desk. Just a circle of rotten stone on an otherwise… unremarkable wall. HELEN: More of a legacy than some people get. ARCHIVIST: … It was meant to be a gate, I think. A hole that she… rotted into The Corruption itself. Maybe the start of a ritual. HELEN: Hm. Not exactly impressive, is it? ARCHIVIST: Less complex, certainly. But I think that’s the thing about– … what did Elias call it… “Filth”. I don’t think it really plans much. It just starts to grow wherever it can get a foothold and… if no one stomps it out in time: Game Over. […] I’ve been wondering what they were doing down here.

And it’s a bit terrifying to think that technically, Jane Prentiss was quite… low scale, in the harm she did during the attack on the Institute, compared to what we saw in “Love Bombing” (a whole cult minus one getting eradicated) and Amherst’s actions (contaminating the entirety of Ivy Meadows, and it probably could have spread through Nicole Baxter if she hadn’t lost/cut her hand, and eradicating the entire population of Klanxbüll):

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “I knew at that moment that there was nothing that could be done to save the town. […] I found the source of this sickness in the Parkplatz opposite the train station. The cars had been pushed to the side, clearly at great cost to the bodies of those that pushed them. And in the centre was a figure from whom the rot clearly flowed. He was sat upon a most dreadful throne, formed from a dozen, two dozen bodies mixed together like putty, eyes staring out like horror-stricken stars twinkling in the night – and their hearts beating for all to see. A moaning came from that awful seat, voices trying to scream through things that weren’t their throat – and it is a sound I shall be glad to leave behind me when I go to my rest.”

What kind of music was Amherst hearing in his dreams, to go for mass-damage like this every few years? Ivy Meadows happened during summer 2011 or 2012 (dates were a bit inconsistent in MAG036 itself, Elias said in June 2017 that it had been “five years” since the death of Melanie’s father), Amherst’s actions in Klanxbüll happened in 2013, that’s… such a short span to cause so much damage… ;; Really hoping that this concrete lasts forever ;;

- Chronology time, regarding Adelard’s actions since we began hearing about him in season 2:

* 06/02/1991 or 06/07/1991: Adelard had left a statement about the “NotThem”, calling it as such. Although it was referenced in MAG077, Jon explained in MAG078 that he had found another statement in the file:

(MAG077) GERTRUDE: Based on the interactions and effects, I suspect this to be the creature that Adelard Dekker refers to as the “NotThem” in statement 9910607. […] Based on Dekker’s statement, it would seem Polaroids are also relatively stable.

(MAG078) ARCHIVIST: I found this in the folder marked 9910602, where Gertrude’s tape had indicated I would find the statement of Dekker himself. There is nothing else in there, but I think it tells me what I need to know. This thing, this… “Not Sasha”… it’s tied to the table.

(… With an inconsistency regarding the month. Either Gertrude messed up (unlikely.), either Jonny messed up, either Jon messed up in his panic and fortunately still found a Not!Them-related statement despite going for the wrong file with the wrong month.)

* Sometime between 1991 and 1996 (since Eric knew Elias but didn’t know he had become Head before his own quitting&getting murdered): Adelard was identifiable as Gertrude’s collaborator and, amongst other things, threw a “screaming box” in the Thames:

(MAG154) ERIC: She never played dumb when I was stalked by bloated, blood-sucking things, or told me I was “imagining it” when I saw your friend Adelard drop a screaming box into the Thames.

* 04/11/1996: Gertrude recorded Lucy Cooper’s statement (given in September 1994) about the Not!Them taking her mother’s place. In her Final Comments, she mentioned a statement previously left by Adelard:

(MAG077) GERTRUDE: Based on the interactions and effects, I suspect this to be the creature that Adelard Dekker refers to as the “NotThem” in statement 9910607. If the pattern of behaviour is consistent with what he establishes, then further follow-up on this case is pointless: the thing has finished with the Cooper family and will not be revisiting them. It rarely seems to stay in the same place or with the same people for long, though it’s hard to guess at its motives. Personally, I suspect it to be an aspect of The Stranger, though that’s entirely conjecture at this point. […] It is at least reassuring to know that magnetic tape seems to escape being overwritten, so if I get changed, you can be sure this is my real voice. Based on Dekker’s statement, it would seem Polaroids are also relatively stable.

* Shortly before 12/06/2001: Lawrence Moore’s statement described Adelard Dekker, binding the Not!Them to the Web table which had previously been in Raymond Fielding’s ownership at Hill Top Road until the 70s. We don’t know how Adelard acquired the table, nor what happened to explain that he left without it and that Breekon&Hope were the ones to retrieve it afterwards:

(MAG078, Lawrence Moore) “He was black, dressed in a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a thin necktie. For a moment I had the idea he might be a Jehovah’s Witness, but one look at his face dispelled that idea immediately. It was hard and stern, set in look of determination, and his short hair was iron grey. He was very thin, with aging skin stretched tight over wiry, corded muscle, and though he was slightly shorter than I was, it seemed like he towered over me. He asked if I knew the man who had left my house earlier that evening. […] At this, the old man’s eyes lit up with excitement, and I took an involuntary step back. If he noticed, he didn’t show it, walking past me into the house and ordering me to get any photos that hadn’t changed. […] He told me his name was Adelard Dekker, and that he was an exorcist, of sorts. […] Adelard Dekker stood in the corner. He was straight and motionless, his lips moving rapidly, though no sound came out of them. In the centre of the room, next to the empty box, stood a table carved from dark wood and wrapped all over with a sprawling, intricate pattern. And in front of that table was the thing that had said it was my cousin. It was long and thin, the tops of it bent against the ceiling and its stick-like limbs flailed from too many joints and elbows. Wrapped around it were thick strands of what I think was spider’s web, stretching back into the table, which I now saw pulsed along its carved channels with a sickly light. The face at the top of that gangly frame was like nothing on earth. […] I didn’t return to my house until the next morning. Dekker’s blue van was gone, and in its place was another one, dirty white. There was something printed on the side, but I couldn’t make it out under the grime. I watched two men in overalls carry that same box out of my house, load it up, and drive away. That was about two months ago, and it was the last time I saw them, the table, Adelard Dekker or the thing that wasn’t my cousin.”

(MAG079) NOT!SASHA: Once upon a time there was a monster, but no one realised. Sometimes someone did and then they were scared, so that was good. But one day a nasty man came along. A nasty man who tricked the monster and wrapped it all in webs and tied it to a table. So the monster got its friends to carry the table all around, and it still got to take faces and scare people.

* 22/01/2006: Adelard sent a letter to Gertrude regarding Garland Hillier’s disappearance in 1867 (the year of Robert Smirke’s death…) and describing Bernadette Delcour’s discovery of his old sealed flat, leading to an encounter with the Inheritors from The Extinction.

(MAG134, Adelard Dekker) “Sorry I can’t be there in person to go over all this with you. I still have a few things to clear off over here, but I thought it would be best to let you know as soon as possible. I am now certain my theory is correct: there is something new emerging. A fifteenth Power. […] Now I know what you’re going to say, Gertrude: odd doors are signs of The Spiral, empty worlds tend towards The Lonely, and eschatology is almost literally the study of The End. But this is different. I feel it. This Fear is new. This is a fear of extinction. Of change. It used to be part of The End, perhaps, when The End of humanity was to be the end of all things; but now, the fear is not of a rapture or a revelation; it is of catastrophic change. A change in our world that will wipe out what it means to be “us”, and leave something else in its place. […] These are new fears, Gertrude, and a new Power is rising to consume them. The Extinction. The Terrible Change. The-Future-Without-Us. […] I know you don’t credit my theories, and I’m sure you’ll have plenty to say on this one, but I’m going to need your help with this at some point – I’m sure of it. I don’t know how you can stop the birth of something that has no life, or mind, or… substance, but if anyone can figure it out, it’s you. I’ve never met anyone so gifted at understanding that… strange, dream logic of the Fears, and if what I suspect about this new Power is true, it could be catastrophic. Until then, I’ll keep searching for evidence, trying to find… instances and manifestations of The Extinction. I’ll keep you updated.”

* October 2008: Dekker had helped Gertrude stop The Flesh’s ritual – suggesting she use explosives? Providing them? Helping her set them up in the gnostic church?

(MAG130) GERTRUDE: When I heard there’d been survivors of “The Last Feast”, I was rather concerned that one of them might be able to positively identify me, [CHUCKLE] which could land me in all sorts of trouble! But she doesn’t seem to remember me at all. […] Dekker really came through with the explosives! It almost felt like cheating. Sad about the loss of history but Miss Wright didn’t seem to think the old Gnostic church got many visitors anyway. […] At least we know for sure that these “grand rituals” can be disrupted by conventional means, though a more… nuanced approach will be needed for some of them, I’m sure. Also… I can’t rely on having this much lead time.

* 04/01/2009: Adelard sent a letter to Gertrude describing an unnamed man’s experience in the Bright Lake amusement park in Colorado, with something Adelard identified as an Extinction occurrence.

(MAG156, Adelard Dekker) “Gertrude; I wanted your opinion on an encounter I’ve had described to me recently, and given your recent dealing with Viscera, I would very much value your input. Good job on that, by the way […]. So: what are your thoughts? I’m keen to hear your own interpretation of this account. My first assumption would have been The Flesh, based on the cannibalism and strangeness of the bodies involved, but… something about this idea of some sort of “famine world”, its location within a made-man ruin, the whole… societal aspect of it… I’d be inclined to chalk this up as a genuine Extinction manifestation. But I don’t know. Am I drawing wild conclusions, trying to fit the account into my own preconceptions? Keen to know your feelings on the matter.”

(* 03/10/2009: Gary Boylan gave his statement to the Institute, about the destruction of his village following a signal he had deciphered. No mention of Adelard Dekker in the notes.)

* Undated letter, likely circa 2012: Adelard sent a statement to Gertrude about an avatar of The End encountered when he was tracking The Extinction (without naming it), through a string of people dying by carbon monoxide poisoning in their sleep. Adelard also mentioned that Gertrude had asked him to move out some plastic explosives (he hadn’t been her provider, Gertrude had got them elsewhere).

(MAG113, Adelard Dekker) “I was pursuing my researches into the new emergence I mentioned earlier. I know you are dismissive of the possibility, but if I’m right, the sudden urgency of these “immediate dangers” you are so focused on could very well be a direct result. But that’s for another day, as this particular instance turned out to be unconnected. The point is, I was alerted to a series of deaths by a coroner friend of mine. […] I don’t know if my little “theoretical” is strong enough yet to start taking avatars, but this one, as you’ve no doubt guessed, turned out to be Terminus.”

* 13/05/2013: Judith O’Neill gave her statement about (mostly) unmoving creatures made of garbage, killing a researcher. Judith had been explicitly sent by Adelard:

(MAG149) MARTIN: There’s… hum, a, a note here as well. [PAPER RUSTLING] Looks like Gertrude’s handwriting? Start of a letter to… Dekker, thanking him for sending Judith to her, though… it doesn’t look like it was ever finished or sent. [PAPER RUSTLING] I assume this is another one he was trying to use to prove The Extinction? It… certainly has something in it. Mankind’s trash giving rise to something terrible. And again, fear of the other, inanimate humanoid figures. That’s all very… Stranger, isn’t it?

* Before August 2013: Adelard had apparently been the one to suggest explosives to disrupt The Unknowing. Gertrude made the following comment on 09/10/2014:

(MAG137) GERTRUDE: Another one to cross off the list. Doesn’t help with The Unknowing, though. [HEAVY SIGH] We still have Dekker’s back-up plan, of course, but… it’s very risky. To be sure, I–I think the detonation would need to happen from within The Unknowing, while it was going on.

* 14/08/2013: Adelard Dekker sent an email to Gertrude regarding his suspicion about an Extinction activity in the town of Klanxbüll, which turned out to be the work of John Amherst, from The Corruption. Adelard was poisoned during the fight, and told Gertrude what had happened and how he was choosing to die, ultimately expressing doubts about the reality or the shape of The Extinction:

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “You must forgive me, Gertrude, for any typing and spelling errors that might be in this message. My hands are shaking quite badly and my fingers… aren’t what they were. […] But I shall not wait for it to putrefy as the rot overtakes me. I have dragged those other afflicted I could find into the Parkplatz, laid them at the feet of that appalling throne, and… taken the last gifts of that… generous construction site: a dozen cans of petrol. I will sit upon that seat, and release these poor souls from their suffering. [INHALE] And hopefully make things simpler, for the ECDC clean-up crews. But it did not seem quite right to leave without letting you know what happened. And… Herr [Becker?] was kind enough to succumb to the sickness without signing out of his computer, so… perhaps you were right about The Extinction. I’ve been hunting it for decades now, and… while I have seen evidence of its influence in other Powers, I have never found anything to genuinely prove its emergence as a true Power of its own. Perhaps it is an existential fear that flows through the others like a vein of ore; or perhaps the birth of such things is longer and more complicated than I believed. For all that though, I cannot regret the time I have spent seeking it. I have done my duty; and none may ask more of me.”

So… although he sounds absolutely dead-dead, I don’t think this is the last we’re hearing from Adelard. I guess it could be possible that he had just left the Web table binding the Not!Them behind him around 2001 (though quite uncharacteristic), but we’re still missing his statement from 1991, and given that Jon had acknowledged that he hadn’t found Dekker’s own statement, I think it’s safe to assume that we could be hearing about it later (in season 5? Or in MAG160, as a “closure” to Dekker’s own story and investigations, since he was quite important through season 4?), in a written statement or through a recording with Gertrude.

- I’m a bit interrogative about the way Adelard mentioned his investigations regarding The Extinction:

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “… perhaps you were right about The Extinction. I’ve been hunting it for decades now, and… while I have seen evidence of its influence in other Powers, I have never found anything to genuinely prove its emergence as a true Power of its own. Perhaps it is an existential fear that flows through the others like a vein of ore; or perhaps the birth of such things is longer and more complicated than I believed. ”

Because the earliest he tried to summarise and essentialise what he felt was the New Power, labelling it “The Extinction”, was in 2006 (MAG134), so only seven years before his death. Was he exaggerating when he said “decades”? Or will we learn more about his genesis, as an addendum, and it was truly a long-time conviction / a dissatisfaction with Smirke’s categorisation? I had already noticed that it was strange (ha) that, although the Not!Them presented itself as a creature from The Stranger (or at least allied to it), the earliest things we know about Adelard was that he was after it… when his description of The Extinction feels very close to some of the Not!Them’s effects (although in lower scales, for the latter); so maybe he had trouble categorising the Not!Them, back then, hence his conviction that a New Power might have been emerging…? Adelard also used some of the names inherited from Smirke’s work:

(MAG113, Adelard Dekker) “There was… an inevitability to his movements, and I think that is when I realised he was simply serving The End, which I won’t pretend wasn’t a disappointment.”

(MAG134, Adelard Dekker) “Now I know what you’re going to say, Gertrude: odd doors are signs of The Spiral, empty worlds tend towards The Lonely, and eschatology is almost literally the study of The End. But this is different. I feel it.”

(MAG156, Adelard Dekker) “So: what are your thoughts? I’m keen to hear your own interpretation of this account. My first assumption would have been The Flesh, based on the cannibalism and strangeness of the bodies involved, but…”

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “I’ve spoken before about how keenly I have watched news of possible pandemics, which is where I suspect The Extinction may pull away from The Corruption during its emergence. […] So, it seemed it was not The Extinction as I had anticipated but simply a new and awful strain of Corruption.”

But he was also occasionally labelling them in unique ways:

(MAG113, Adelard Dekker) “I don’t know if my little “theoretical” is strong enough yet to start taking avatars, but this one, as you’ve no doubt guessed, turned out to be Terminus.”

(MAG156, Adelard Dekker) “I wanted your opinion on an encounter I’ve had described to me recently, and given your recent dealing with Viscera, I would very much value your input.”

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “I have spoken to you before of Christabel, my… contact within the ECDC. She had a run-in with the Crawling Rot some decades ago, and has since then kept me up to date with any incidents they have encountered which display “unusual” properties.”

(Though that last one was also used by Arthur Nolan in MAG145: “Found a mass of the Crawling Rot growing, a while back. Managed to get a hold of the property before it became too big. Gotta wait ‘til it blossoms before we can properly burn it.”)

It is curious that, of all people, we didn’t get Adelard’s story of his first few years, how he came in contact with the Powers, with Gertrude, why/how he came to tracking down avatars, so I think there is a good chance we could get a statement about it, indeed. After all, we keep hearing stories of/from people who have been dead for a while; what I’m curious is when/how it could be done in a way that would “add” something else to the current storyline, if we’re done with The Extinction after the season 4 finale…? (Unless we aren’t.) Or it could be about categorising, or the concept of “Faith” against the Fears, I guess.

- There is something heart-breaking putting together his ways of addressing Gertrude in his messages:

(MAG134, Adelard Dekker) “Gertrude; Sorry I can’t be there in person to go over all this with you. I still have a few things to clear off over here, but I thought it would be best to let you know as soon as possible. […] I’ll keep you updated. Stay safe. Adelard.”

(MAG156, Adelard Dekker) “Gertrude; I wanted your opinion on an encounter I’ve had described to me recently, and given your recent dealing with Viscera, I would very much value your input. Good job on that, by the way; I’m sure the gnostic temple was a great loss culturally speaking, but I can’t help but admire your directness when it comes to dealing with this sort of thing. […] So: what are your thoughts? I’m keen to hear your own interpretation of this account. […] Keen to know your feelings on the matter. […] Oh – one more thing: if you do try to follow up with my source – and I know you have your own ways of finding him should you wish – please be careful. He told me, near the end, that he had recently been worried he was being followed. He keeps catching glimpses of a thin figure in the distance, or disappearing around a corner, and I can’t quite get past the detail that there was no reflection at all in the mirror he used to return. If my suspicions are correct, there’s little either of us could do for him; but do take care, should you make contact.”

(MAG113, Adelard Dekker) “Gertrude; It should all be here, though god knows I was tempted to take a block for myself just in case. […] Anyway, you owe me a favour. And… maybe another one once you read this. It might come to nothing, but it’s something you should probably be aware of. […] I’m sure you can take care of yourself, of course, but I thought it would be worth letting you know. Good luck, Gertrude. And enjoy the fireworks.”

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “You must forgive me, Gertrude, for any typing and spelling errors that might be in this message. […] This is the last time you will hear from me. You must trust me on that and not come looking. Not that you would; I know you’re too smart for sentimentality, especially after what I have to tell you, but I feel it worth saying nonetheless. […] I’ve wondered, Gertrude, whether you are truly as fearless as you seem; or if you are simply a master of disguising your terror…! I suppose I’ll never have a chance to find out. I rather hope it was the former. However much I disagree with some of your methods, it feels good to believe there are people in this world who can stare down the devil without flinching. […] But it did not seem quite right to leave without letting you know what happened. And… Herr [Becker?] was kind enough to succumb to the sickness without signing out of his computer, so… […] I am proud of the work we have done, and it has been an honour to do it alongside you. Goodbye, Gertrude. May you find your rest where no shadows are cast… and no eyes may see you slumber.”

Politely beginning all his letters with “Gertrude”, except for the last one, which began with apologies. Ending each ones with little words of encouragements and concern (“Stay safe”, “do take care”, “good luck”)… up until that “goodbye” in the last one.

Something that MAG157 put into a new perspective, too: in MAG137, Gertrude had mentioned “Adelard’s back-up plan” to thwart The Unknowing. That recording had happened in October 2014; Adelard had been dead for more than a year at this point. When she sighed right before mentioning him, was it only a pragmatic sigh, linked to the fact that she was a bit at a loss to counter The Stranger? Or was it also because she had lost her closest ally, and someone she had been seeing as a friend despite herself, and who wasn’t there anymore…?

(And in the end, Gertrude didn’t have the time to stop The Unknowing and to follow through with Adelard’s plan. Jon, Tim and the others followed in her footsteps and, without knowing, also in Adelard’s, accomplishing the plans of two dead people…)

(- There is still The Mystery Of Gertrude’s Death and thinking again about MAG113 made me realise that, UHOH???

(MAG113, Adelard Dekker) “Anyway, you owe me a favour. And… maybe another one once you read this. It might come to nothing, but it’s something you should probably be aware of. […] I cannot make any guarantees Justin Gough will remain in the state I left him. And it seems that, as he deals in dreams, it may be worth your while to keep an eye on the statements you take, in case he finds his way here. I’m sure you can take care of yourself, of course, but I thought it would be worth letting you know.” […] ARCHIVIST: This was found tucked into a hard case containing… many blocks of plastic explosive, kept by Gertrude Robinson in a storage unit that I can only assume has… extremely lax oversight. It is unclear if she ever read it. […] I know there are more important things to be doing, but I did ask Basira to have a quick search for Justin Gough, see what might have happened to him. There are records of his residence in an East London care facility until 2015, when he disappears from their records. Several deaths among the staff apparently occurred at roughly the same time. And it will come as no surprise that the inquest returned a verdict of carbon monoxide poisoning in each case. I’m not too concerned, to be honest, my dreams are, uh... well, let’s just say I don’t think they're going be letting anyone else in any time soon.

… Adelard had explicitly warned her about an avatar from The End who dealt with dreams, who went loose again in 2015.

… And Jon wasn’t sure that Gertrude had read this message.

… And in March 2015, Oliver, End-touched person, soon to become avatar, had described his own dreams of Gertrude, terrified, being the target of the vines usually announcing people’s death…

We know that Gertrude didn’t die when she should have (she was still alive in April 2015, if she didn’t lie on the date), and Elias confessed to her murder, and she had plain mundane bullets in her body… But it’s actually extreeeemely suspicious that Justin Gough escaped the year she died? Was The End involved in her death a bit more actively than just through Oliver’s visions…? Or was Oliver’s vision the fate awaiting her if Justin had managed to kill her?)

- One Nice Thing (aesthetically) is that I really experienced Adelard’s realisation right along with him? I assumed that the town was under a new Extinction threat, assumed we were on the verge of meeting our first Extinction avatar… and then, as Adelard already introduced the idea that he had been Wrong and began describing the cause of the town’s downfall, I suddenly realised that OH NO, LANKY AND BROWN COAT, IS THAT–

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “No pale spectre in a lab coat, or twisted golem of petri dishes and test tubes. No; he was… lanky, wearing an ill-fitting brown suit and a smile. I’d never previously had the misfortune to meet him, but I knew the description well enough to recognise John Amherst.”

… and it was.

(MAG036, Nicole Baxter) “The door to the reception opened, and a tall man stepped out. He was rail thin and wore a faded brown suit that seemed to have been cut for a much fatter man. His eyes were a watery blue and his dark hair stood on top of his head in an unruly mess. He must have been around forty, but had a nervous sort of energy to him.”

(MAG055) JORDAN: He was tall, maybe 6ft5? But it was hard to be sure of his shape inside the huge, brown suit he was wearing.

(Extra funny thing is that “ill-fitting brown suit” + “a John” also feels really close to how Jon probably looks like from the outside.)

- I’m so sad for Adelard, but also so proud of him in a way?! It’s a really strange feeling because we’ve never heard him live (so far?), but he was still a reassuring figure in some way. I was anticipating that he could have snapped, because I Remember Oliver, but no: although he was giving up pretty fast when it came to saving their potential victims, Adelard was simply someone who would fight what he identified as evil, putting his life on the line when it came to stopping threatening avatars. It’s interesting to compare what we heard of him with Gertrude: Adelard was firm, a bit callous at time, but not keen on sacrificing people to reach his goals, and was personally involving himself in the cases he was investigating… to the cost of his own life, as it happened in MAG157. (So it was not “like Oliver”, it was “like Gerry”. If you like a character, and you feel like they could be helpful/do some good: either they’ve turned into a monster since then, either they’re dead. … Though, now: we… have no Characters Who Are Helping left still alive at the moment – hoping that it could mean that Team Archive will more or less try to go that way but ;; Not very optimistic about it.)

Adelard had expressed that he was afraid of the idea of dying in his sleep:

(MAG113, Adelard Dekker) “I’ll even make it a statement. Give your patron something to keep it satisfied. It’s not like I sleep enough to worry about dreams. […] It’s odd, isn’t it? Sleep. That you can never remember or fully pin down the exact moment you lose consciousness. Just lying there, waiting to find yourself in a dream without the first clue or interest in how or when you got there. Or to find your eyes closed and force them open to sunlight and morning, only realising that sleep has happened in retrospect. I wonder if… death is the same way? No clear dividing line, just… gone, only to realise after it’s happened, except for the fact that there isn’t an after. Is that a comforting thought or a terrifying one? Depends on who you are, I suppose. It bothered me when I was young. If I thought too hard about the concept of sleep, of exactly what it was, I would worry myself, and end up having to turn the light on, and read for an hour or two. Everyone always talks about how they want to die in their sleep, but honestly, I think that’s the death that scares me the most.”

So ;; Best outcome you can hope for really is dying on your own terms, uh. We got it with Tim, and Adelard got to face his own death awake, in a situation he chose to put himself in, also turning it in one last “good” action (putting an end to the suffering of the villagers who… indeed couldn’t be saved at this point):

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “This is the last time you will hear from me. […] Perhaps I’m simply prevaricating, trying to cling on to a few more precious minutes of life – but that’s not me. I know what awaits me, and must have no hesitation in going to my reward. [SCOFF] I know you’ve never had much patience for my faith, but perhaps it will provide you some small peace knowing I face my death gladly, knowing I have done my duty before God. […] For all that though, I cannot regret the time I have spent seeking it. I have done my duty; and none may ask more of me. I am proud of the work we have done, and it has been an honour to do it alongside you.”

“Faith” was present in more than one aspect in his last message: as his religion, which had driven him (and in hindsight, I realised that there had been a few words from that lexical field in his past statements) and in which he found comfort in his last moments; as his belief in Gertrude and their “work” together. And, in parallel, there was also a loss of faith, as he was hypothesising that he may have been wrong all along about The Extinction as a Fifteenth Power:

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “so… perhaps you were right about The Extinction. I’ve been hunting it for decades now, and… while I have seen evidence of its influence in other Powers, I have never found anything to genuinely prove its emergence as a true Power of its own.”

So, it was a bittersweet ending, but one that didn’t feel utterly crushing either. On the one hand, it’s still a death; it’s upsetting that Adelard died while neutralising a dangerous menace who had caused harm to many people, it’s sad that his death was caused from a Corruption avatar while Adelard had been running after The Extinction all this time – he did something brave and amazing in his last actions, but it would have had more meaning, for him, if it had been against The Extinction… and precisely, John Amherst was a tipping point making Adelard lose faith in his theory. But it’s still honourable, and fits Adelard well, as someone who made that world a bit less dark, who was keeping in mind circumstantial victims without always getting lost in the Big Plans and the Big Picture like Gertrude:

(MAG078, Lawrence Moore) “Then he instructed me to go to my bedroom, and not to leave until he told me it was safe. I did protest at that, and I asked him how my locking myself upstairs would help save Carl. There was no sympathy in his voice when he told me my cousin was dead, that nothing would bring him back, and that my best chance to not join him was to stay in the bedroom until everything was over. He did not seem inclined to tell me what he meant by “everything”.”

(MAG134, Adelard Dekker) “I may try to interview her again later, though I have my suspicions she may find herself disappearing. She has that… quality about her, I’m sure you know what I mean, o–of an unfinished meal. And I can only hope that when the second course starts, she can remember her way back to Garland Hillier’s apartment once more.”

(MAG156, Adelard Dekker) “… Anyway, I was following up on a young man who had apparently had a nasty experience whilst exploring the ruins of the Bright Lake amusement park in Colorado. You will forgive me if I withhold his name, as I have all the verification I need to be convinced he’s telling the truth, and I find it hard to believe any follow-up you’d be interested in doing would be beneficial for him. He’s earned his anonymity. […] He keeps catching glimpses of a thin figure in the distance, or disappearing around a corner, and I can’t quite get past the detail that there was no reflection at all in the mirror he used to return. If my suspicions are correct, there’s little either of us could do for him […].”

(MAG113, Adelard Dekker) “I think that is when I realised he was simply serving The End, which I won’t pretend wasn’t a disappointment. But still, I thought if I could deal with him and save a few lives, I might as well. […] I was not quick enough to save the man who lived in that house. Truth be told, I didn’t especially try. I didn’t think I would be able to move quick enough to do so, and was more concerned with being quiet and thorough. […] I knew it wouldn’t kill him, he’s too far from human for me to do so, but I thought that scrambling his brain a bit was probably my best bet. And I was right, as far as it goes. He survived what I did to him, and when the police picked him up after an ‘anonymous tip’ about a break-in, he was barely able to speak, and I very much hope I managed to sever his dreams.”

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “I knew at that moment that there was nothing that could be done to save the town. But I could perhaps identify the cause – and identify it I did. […] So, it seemed it was not The Extinction as I had anticipated but simply a new and awful strain of Corruption. Still. It was not something I felt I could leave to run its course unopposed. […] I have dragged those other afflicted I could find into the Parkplatz, laid them at the feet of that appalling throne, and… taken the last gifts of that… generous construction site: a dozen cans of petrol. I will sit upon that seat, and release these poor souls from their suffering. [INHALE] And hopefully make things simpler, for the ECDC clean-up crews.”

And it’s so soft that his last words were for Gertrude, not berating her, but almost… comforting her?

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “For all that though, I cannot regret the time I have spent seeking it. I have done my duty; and none may ask more of me. I am proud of the work we have done, and it has been an honour to do it alongside you. Goodbye, Gertrude. May you find your rest where no shadows are cast… and no eyes may see you slumber.”

(Wishing her the best, uh. I can read the mention of “shadows” as innocuous, but I also wonder if it might not be a direct reference to something of Gertrude’s personal history with The Dark?)

(- I also mean: gdi, what is it with season 4 and the way it’s offering me New Ships For Gertrude. We got Gertrude/Agnes, a bit of Web/Gertrude, I was wondering if she didn’t used to have some Feelings for Eric, now I’m REALLY digging Gertrude/Adelard, gdi.)

- Adelard died in August 2013, Gerry in late 2014. Gertrude had previously lost Michael sometime after late 2009 (MAG126 mentioned the upcoming “Great Twisting”), although in his case, she had minutely planned his sacrifice. I’m not sure Leitner was a good judge of character (was Leitner good at… anything.), but he had gotten the feeling that she was getting lonely:

(MAG080) LEITNER: I think she was lonely. I didn’t meet her until about six years ago, after she’d lost the last of her own assistants. She would mention them sometimes. I believe she missed having someone to talk to on occasion. ARCHIVIST: I… I didn’t know Gertrude had assistants. LEITNER: Of course. Three of them, each meeting an unpleasant end.

(During her last year, Leitner was apparently her last “ally”. That’s telling how low she was, and how bad the situation was, I guess.)

Those were rough years for Gertrude, uh? I wonder how much Adelard’s death impacted her – if she took it in stride, or if it almost made her crumble; they had been allied for at least twenty years, at this point, and it really sounded like she trusted him; there was a very specific enthusiasm when she mentioned the explosives stopping The Last Feast in MAG130?

… on the less bright side, I wonder if Adelard’s death was what pushed her to try and seek out Gerry? She had promised to find him in August 2008:

(MAG154) ERIC: I want you to find my son. If Mary is… if she’s gone, or worse… I want you to make sure he’s alright. GERTRUDE: [HUFF] I’m not exactly a mother figure. ERIC: You could hardly do worse than her. GERTRUDE: Fine. But I don’t know what growing up with Mary has done to him. If he’s… gone rotten, I can’t promise anything. ERIC: I understand. GERTRUDE: I suppose he might be useful. ERIC: Oh, sentimental as ever.

But we know she didn’t do it right away:

(MAG111) GERRY: In the end it was Gertrude who saved me. She came to me when I was desperate, nowhere to go, and she offered to help. […] I think you know the rest. I joined Gertrude’s work for a few years. Didn’t realise how ill I was until it finally caught up with me. Then I died.

Gerry mentioned that they had worked together for “a few years”, but Mary Keay ~died~ in 2008 according to MAG004 and haunted Gerry for “five years” according to him in MAG111, so that would put Gertrude finding him around 2013 – so, they worked together for a bit less than two years, before Gerry died. It could be that Adelard’s death was the reason why Gertrude finally decided to honour the promise she had made to Eric, and if so, yikes. Still utilitarian until the end, uh.

(Though: did Gerry remind her of Adelard, at least a bit, in the way he was waving his way through the Fears and neutralising supernatural occurrences and/or begrudgingly helping people to get out…?)

(- Adelard wondering about whether or not Gertrude felt fear reminded me of Arthur’s comment about it:

(MAG145) ARTHUR: [SCOFF] Yeah. … But you don’t actually care about Them, do you? […] All your energy is focused down here, on monsters and… murderers, and all the things doing the dirty work for Them Beyond. You know plenty, sure! But you don’t have that obsession, that stupid urge to try and understand and… classify things that use logic and reality like weapons. GERTRUDE: Hm. Per–perhaps. ARTHUR: [CHUCKLE] Always respected you for that. Takes a strong stomach to not give a shit. GERTRUDE: Eh! You’ll forgive me if I’m not overjoyed at the compliment?

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “I’ve wondered, Gertrude, whether you are truly as fearless as you seem; or if you are simply a master of disguising your terror…! I suppose I’ll never have a chance to find out. I rather hope it was the former. However much I disagree with some of your methods, it feels good to believe there are people in this world who can stare down the devil without flinching. [SHORT SNEER]”

And 1°) it obviously puts Georgie to mind, though in her case, her inability to feel fear was inflicted on her, and 2°) … Oliver had seen Gertrude terrorised in his dreams:

(MAG011, “Antonio Blake”) “Getting closer I realised that there was a person sitting at that desk and it was them that all of this scarlet light was flowing into. I could see none of the figure’s body beneath the flesh that enclosed them, but as I moved around I saw the face was uncovered. It was your face and the expression upon it was far more fearful than any I had seen in eight years of wandering this twilight city. That was when I awoke. […] If you do see this in time and read this far, then to be honest I don’t know what else to tell you. Be careful. There is something coming for you and I don’t know what it is, but it is so much worse than anything I can imagine. At the very least you should look into appointing a successor.”

… so I don’t think Gertrude couldn’t feel it, which means she was probably just really good at hiding it. On the other hand, creature and monsters feel fears and are fed by it, so would it even be possible to fool them if she wasn’t truly fearless?)

- ;; Something bittersweet, too, is that… Gertrude apparently Learned from Adelard and took a page from his book when it came to concrete:

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “I can’t deny some pride in my solution, Gertrude. In all our discussions of how to contain a being that we could not destroy… I’m not sure we ever hit on a method quite so neat…! I am no builder but, by the end, I think you would have been hard-pressed to criticise how well that concrete had been laid – and Amherst four feet beneath it.”

(MAG103, Dylan Anderson) “If you hadn’t turned up that evening, I don’t know what I’d have done. I know a monster pig wasn’t what you were looking for, but I do appreciate your advice. When you explained the situation, I hoped you’d have some special trick for dealing with it, but I suppose welding scrap metal around the pen and filling it with cement just about works, even if I do owe Mason a favour for borrowing his mixer. I’d have thought the thing would at least try to break free while I did it, but… thank heaven for small mercies, I suppose. A huge block of solid concrete. What ought to do with it? Some sort of engraving, maybe?”

Monster Pig happened in July 2014, so eleven months after Adelard’s message. And Jon had also noticed that Gertrude’s computer had receipts involving “petrol”:

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “I have dragged those other afflicted I could find into the Parkplatz, laid them at the feet of that appalling throne, and… taken the last gifts of that… generous construction site: a dozen cans of petrol.”

(MAG066) ARCHIVIST: There’s also the matter of the products she was ordering. There were several online orders of petrol, lighter fluid, pesticides, and high-powered torches. They are sporadic, but notable in that she did not drive, smoke or work in pest control.

… So maybe it was also an idea she got from Adelard’s last actions. Utilitarian, and/or an homage, in a way.

- I’m also HUMMMM re:Adelard, because if there is one thing that’s been recurring when he was depicted fighting avatars or monsters, it’s that he tended to notice what he could use in his surroundings and improvise a lot…

(MAG113, Adelard Dekker) “Truth be told, I didn’t especially try. I didn’t think I would be able to move quick enough to do so, and was more concerned with being quiet and thorough. The cutlery drawer was largely empty, but after a minute’s searching I did find what I was after: a long, metal skewer. Did you know there are certain forms of brain injury that cut you off from your ability to dream?”

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “At first, I was struck almost with despair, having nothing to hand with which I might attempt a confrontation with this creature. But upon retreating some ways, and considering my options, I realised I actually had… almost the exact resources to hand that I might need. A few minutes spent scouting the surrounding streets even revealed a small construction site, almost precisely suited to my requirements. I returned to the cordon and took what I needed: a stretcher, as many quarantine sleeves as I could carry, and a syringe. […] I loaded the gear into a wheelbarrow I had taken from the building site along with a thick metal chain, and began to head back towards the Parkplatz, stopping only to fill the syringe from a can of garden pesticide I had noticed during my earlier sweep of the houses. […] I dragged the thing over to the building site, and with the last of my strength threw him into the hole that had been left. By this point, the concrete truck I had turned on earlier had been mixing for some time, and it was a simple matter to open the pump and… pour the contents of its hopper down on top of him.”

And isn’t it a bit like Basira?

(MAG142) MARTIN: Would have thought Basira would’ve had more sense, though. DAISY: When Basira and I were partners, I’d see this happen sometimes. She can read a… situation like no one I know, always seems to know the right move, but for all her research, she never wants to put a plan together. I think she just hates all the unknowns, the… variables. [SIGH] Contingencies. If she spots an advantage, she’ll… grab it, and trust herself to figure out the details as she goes. MARTIN: Hm. DAISY: It’s worked so far.

- Aaaah, so confirmation/a few more things about The Eye’s effect!

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “My hands are shaking quite badly and my fingers… aren’t what they were. Even so, just knowing where this is going, this… statement [CHUCKLE], I can feel The Eye’s power on me, be it ever so slight. Steadying me; helping the words flow. Is it strange that… here… now… that seems almost a comfort…?”

I was wondering if something wasn’t at work in the same way as for live statements since people’s letters were so articulate too – it sounds like just being conscious that you’re sending a message to the Institute and/or an Archivist and/or to an agent of The Eye is enough to put you under The Eye’s spell, because your tale interests it? GOSH, it was so sad that Adelard was aware of it, but also that he was potentially stalling since, as long as he was giving a “statement”, he wouldn’t drop dead or reach a state of too much pain to continue…

I’m curious about the fact that the letters Jonah Magnus was receiving were of the same kind – clear enough to be read as statements. Was it “simply” because his penpals from the XIXth century were quite educated and used to sending long, articulate letters? Or was the fact that they knew they were sending them to Jonah influencing them? If so: was it because he was under The Eye’s effects… or because, specifically, he was an Archivist at the time…? (We still don’t know where Jonah fit, back then, if he was more like Elias, or more like Jon… He was collecting supernatural stories, at least.)

- More on the medium Adelard used to give this statement later, but it was explicitly an email:

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “You must forgive me, Gertrude, for any typing and spelling errors that might be in this message. […] But it did not seem quite right to leave without letting you know what happened. And… Herr [Becker?] was kind enough to succumb to the sickness without signing out of his computer, so…”

1°) It… worked on a computer. It went through. We only know for sure that statements don’t record digitally in audio form but I was wondering about written ones, whether they could be typed down… Not sure if that’s a confirmation that yes, they can; or if there is something wrong with this statement; or if it’s that somehow, “something” (Web?) helped Adelard’s message to go through.

2°) … There was no static at any point of it during Jon’s reading. I don’t know when statement-reading static has happened for the last time during narration, but there were many moments in this statement at which there could have been, when describing supernatural things…? Why didn’t the tape recorder react to anything at all during the statement, even though Adelard described his encounter with a very powerful avatar? There were no quoted words or verbal exchanges, yes, but the tape recorders don’t only go All Staticcy at those. Overall, I realise that Jon’s last readings haven’t produced a lot of static? Iirc, there was nothing since MAG148, except for a few lines in MAG153 (“Love Bombing”), when there were direct quotes. Is there something hidden in the fact that the tape recorders are reacting less lately…?

- Adelard’s death was Sad News, but I’m so glad that we learned that John Amherst was actually neutralised a few years ago… in the same episode in which we got confirmation that Melanie is alright, is not regretting her choice one bit, and that it didn’t go supernaturally “wrong” or anything.

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … No, you’re right, I’m sorry. A–are you alright? MELANIE: Yes! I’m, hum… actually doing okay…! ARCHIVIST: That’s good. MELANIE: [SOFT CHUCKLES] My therapist isn’t happy about it, you know? Uh, unsurprisingly. Tried to have me put away, but they, uh… they let me come here. It’s, it’s been good for me, though! I… I feel alright. I’m, hum… I’m not scared anymore.

I was so afraid that John Amherst would be re-emerging, thus giving Melanie an incentive to go back to business in order to avenge her father? But nop! John Amherst was sealed under concrete five years ago! We’re not safe from him freeing himself, but it’s a hypothetical, not an active threat. Melanie is just free to… enjoy her life. Really free from All That (at least right now), and she… really sounded like she had found peace ;w;

I do also like that it seems like she’s back to the world. The Institute was a closed universe, with its personal rules – only Section 31 officers go when something happens, the Archives team has been isolated (Jon also mentioned that the regular staff didn’t want to talk with him much lately); but now, Melanie is back to another world, with its own rules and workings. Yes, gouging your eyes out is self-mutilation, and means you need help (although in practice, institutionalisation can make things worse); yes, your therapist is going to get worried about it. (The fact that Melanie still said “my” therapist also said, to me, that she was still seeing her? But aouch for the therapist; she must be used to compartmentalising, she must be used to patients self-harming, but probably not to the point of what Melanie did…)

I’m not absolutely sure it was the intended impression, but I reaaally felt that Melanie was currently on painkillers and/or tranquilisers? Her voice sounded almost too relaxed, she sounded like she had just woken up together with The Admiral, and Georgie was insistent on her resting. Nothing negative there – I would find it a bit reassuring for her to be medically handled right now, actually! Doesn’t have to be forever, doesn’t invalidate her words about feeling fine. Just. Melanie is not isolated; she needed help, she sought it, she did something that is understandably perceived as self-harm by society, and she is being tutored to make sure she can relearn to function. (I also wondered, at first, if Georgie was talking to The Admiral or to Melanie because she sounded a bit too cautious rather than tender and concerned, to me? So that would fit, if Melanie’s under treatment right now, and really not needing the extra strain.)

- We lost Tim and he left… so many… Bi babies… in his wake…

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: Look, is she here or not? She–she said she was staying with you. GEORGIE: Yes, she’s here. ARCHIVIST: Really? Where’s all her stuff? GEORGIE: Bedroom, why? ARCHIVIST: … No, I just– [STATIC] Oh. Oh! I’m sor– I didn’t– I didn’t realise you were… to–together… GEORGIE: That’s ‘cause it’s none of your business. Now leave.

(MAG086) MELANIE: Then there are some old cuttings about Robin Patton. […] Hmm, wasn’t bad looking, before… well… that.

(MAG106) MELANIE: I don’t think so; Georgie Barker? She does What the Ghost?. […] Well, she and Jon, they… dated. BASIRA: Yeah? MELANIE: I mean, it was years ago.

(That’s also putting another light of Melanie’s discomfort when she mentioned that Jon&Georgie had dated – I was assuming it was mostly because Urk, Don’t Wanna Think About Jon’s Romantic Life since she was Eww at the concept of thinking about him sleeping with Martin, but. (ALSO, the beauty that in the same breath, we had Melanie talking about Georgie, describing past Jon-Georgie, and mentioning Martin’s ~fussing~ over Jon.))

“What’s the Ghost?” is officially queer culture! ;w;

I’m SUPER GLAD for Georgie to get a girlfriend, very !! but a tiny bit less over Melanie&Georgie being together at the moment – but that’s mostly because 1°) I also REALLY love Deep And Very Important Platonic Relationships, and Melanie&Georgie had been that to me so far with Georgie helping her, and we… don’t have a lot of deep friendships at the moment (quite the contrary, we have a lot of pairs who are (not all confirmed but STILL) romantic in nature: Martin-Jon, Basira-Daisy, now Georgie-Melanie), and personal taste but I would have liked to hear about Melanie re-learning to function outside of the Institute before learning that she’s actually romantically involved with the person who had supported her in her steps towards recovery, 2°) … I’m super concerned about Basira&Daisy because, if one romantic relationship had to be canon-canonised, I was expecting them to get that first, and I’m Still Super Afraid About Daisy’s Chances Of Survival By The End Of The Season, so a bit heartlessly strategical here, but thinking that giving us Georgie/Melanie miiiiight be a way to not… destroy all the wlw romances. If Daisy dies, I’m also losing the only Intense Platonic Friendship we have at the moment (hers with Jon), so, sob.

… But then, Melanie is saying that JON IS A FRIEND

(MAG157) GEORGIE: Melanie, you don’t have to do this… MELANIE: It’s, it’s okay. He’s… welcome. As a friend. But that’s it. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … Right. MELANIE: But you’re not after a friend, are you, Jon?

AND I WAS NOT EXPECTING THIS NEW CHALLENGER!! IT’S SUCH A WILD DEVELOPMENT THINKING BACK TO THEIR FIRST INTERACTIONS…………………

(MAG028) MELANIE: I knew you guys were a bit… slapdash, but this is absurd. ARCHIVIST: No doubt you’re used to a higher calibre of equipment when pretending to see ghosts in old churchyards and mental institutions. MELANIE: People like a show. People like our show. And, even if we do ham it up a bit, even we do add a bit of sparkle, we’re still more respected and evidence-based paranormal investigators than you and your lot. [NERVOUS, DISPARAGING LAUGH] ARCHIVIST: We are not “paranormal investigators”. We are researchers. Scholars. MELANIE: Whatever. […] ARCHIVIST: Hmm. And you’re sure you weren’t… dreaming? MELANIE: Are you serious? ARCHIVIST: I just have to check every possibility. Obviously working in your field, you must have quite a powerful imagination. MELANIE: Great! Great! I should have known this was a complete waste of my time.

(MAG063) MELANIE: You look like hell. ARCHIVIST: It’s been a hard few months. Look, can I help you, because if you’re just after another shouting match… MELANIE: No! I… I actually do need your help. ARCHIVIST: Hm. Interesting. MELANIE: Alright, can you not be an arsehole about it? I just need access to your library. […] I don’t exactly have the “academic credentials” you guys demand. So I apparently need someone to vouch for me. And you’re basically the closest thing I’ve got to a friend here. ARCHIVIST: We’ve spoken once, and we ended up screaming at each other.

So yes, losing a platonic relationship but getting a new friendship in the process ;w;

- I’m not sure the scene actually played this way? But given how The Admiral purred:

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: Ah– [DOOR OPENS] MELANIE: Oh? What’s go–, what’s going on? You… you woke The Admiral… GEORGIE: Hey, hey, easy; it’s–it’s alright, he was just leaving. ARCHIVIST: Melanie, I… MELANIE: Jon…? ARCHIVIST: Yeah, it’s… me. GEORGIE: It’s alright, Melanie. Jon, leave. [ADMIRAL STARTS PURRING] ARCHIVIST: I’m sorry, I just… […] I suppose not… GEORGIE: Okay [ADMIRAL MEOWS IN PROTEST], you’re done. [PURRING CEASES] ARCHIVIST: Yeah. [INHALE] Yeah, I am.

I pictured The Admiral rushing towards Jon as soon as Melanie opened the door, more or less climbing on Jon until Jon secured him in his arms. The Admiral’s purrs were loud, so he had to be close to the tape recorder, right? And given his protest when Georgie cut in, she removed him from a comfy place, so that wasn’t Melanie’s arms.

(So: I pictured it as The Admiral in Jon’s arms AND Melanie petting it, able to find him through his purr. Melanie’s voice sounded like she was doing something else at the same time, to me? So yeah. Very close, very intimate, very comfy.)

(Kudos to Georgie for stepping back once Melanie began to talk about herself, without interrupting! She’s a good! Jon also has learnt his lesson from MAG131 and did not interrupt, listened to her! Sadly, Georgie is losing Awesomeness Points because… she retrieved The Admiral before he was done purring? D: Kitty crime??? Georgie, how could you do that to the cat? D:)

- I found Georgie a bit less harsh about Jon, too: not saying that her stances in season 4 haven’t been valid, far from it! But she’s still fair, and she didn’t blame him for Melanie’s injuries, she only pointed out the sacrifice Melanie had to make in order to flee, and wanted to make sure that Jon wouldn’t undo it, which was… extremely legitimate.

(MAG157) [CLICK–] [MUFFLED SOUNDS OF THE STREET] GEORGIE: No, Jon, you’ve done enough! ARCHIVIST: I just need to talk to her. GEORGIE: What don’t you understand? She mutilated herself to get out of that place, and there is absolutely no way I’m letting you involve her again! ARCHIVIST: Look, is she here or not? She–she said she was staying with you.

(And she was right about Jon threatening to pull Melanie back in, since Jon acknowledged he wasn’t really after a “friend” in current circumstances.)

Since Melanie did acknowledge that it might have been hard for Jon to tell her about Eric’s statement, I wonder if Georgie won’t mellow down about Jon a bit, given that Jon has indeed been trying a bit more, lately…? That will depend on Jon’s state at the end of season 4 (are we “losing” him forever? Or will he still try to not totally give in to The Eye, without cutting their link?), but it could be a possibility…

(I liked what we saw of Jon&Georgie’s friendship in season 3 a lot é_è Jon had remembered their break-up as having been a bad one, and despite it, they were getting along in season 3, and Georgie could be harsh and fair with him, so… I still want to cling to the hope that they’d manage to get back on speaking terms at some point, if Jon doesn’t fall entirely and keeps trying like he has begun to do… Maybe there could still be a way for them to build something again… maybe…)

(- At the same time: yes, Melanie&Georgie are legitimate to want to stay out of the supernatural business and to not participate in it anymore.

… On the other hand: if “bad things are coming” and an apocalypse is launched, and the world is changed, and monsters are let loose into the world because what was left of Team Archive wasn’t powerful/competent/numerous enough to prevent it… they won’t have any right to complain about what happens. But that’s interesting, because still “nobody is right/wrong” in their situations, even when they’re not directly harming anybody; if nobody is there to stop powerful avatars, like Adelard did, or to prevent rituals, then what would happen? More victims, probably. So, at the same time, it feels like it’s nobody’s and everybody’s responsibility to step in when they can.)

- Okay, so Basira&Daisy were unavailable, and Jon didn’t have anyone else, but still SOBBING that “someone I can trust” turned out to be Melanie, because gnnn. After learning about Eric’s statement, they made different choices, but I’m so soft for the fact that Jon still valued Melanie’s opinion and…

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: Melanie, I… MELANIE: Jon…? ARCHIVIST: Yeah, it’s… me. GEORGIE: It’s alright, Melanie. Jon, leave. [ADMIRAL STARTS PURRING] ARCHIVIST: I’m sorry, I just… It’s Martin. MELANIE: Jon… don’t… Please. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … No, you’re right, I’m sorry. A–are you alright? MELANIE: Yes! I’m, hum… actually doing okay…! ARCHIVIST: That’s good.

… wanted to make sure she was fine!!! Even in the midst of urgency, of the fact that Martin was very likely in Big Danger and Not Fine, Jon still took the time to ask Melanie about it!!

- Jon Learned but at the same time, so many poor choices of words…

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: Look, is she here or not? […] Look after yourself. Both of you.

jON… Being an Eye avatar doesn’t mean you have to be insensitive about it…

- ;; Overall: I’m sad that… Jon has indeed learnt. He didn’t dash to the tunnels, trying to find the centre on his own, or to go fight Peter. He immediately understood he needed to think about the broader picture, about who could have wanted him to listen to the tape and read the statement, and his first instinct was to want to talk about it with people he could trust.

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: Am I just hearing what I want to hear? I need a second opinion, but… Basira and Daisy are… “out”, somewhere. […] I need someone I can trust. [LONG SIGH] […] Please, Georgie, it’s not– … I just need to know I’m not overreacting to something, I need an outside perspective.

It’s mostly that, due to circumstances, all his options have been cut. The timing of Daisy&Basira leaving is definitely too suspicious to think that it was unrelated and had nothing to do with getting Jon isolated, worried, and prone to being easily manipulated into doing something… so I’m guessing that the point was that someone/thing (Elias, Peter or Annabelle) is trying to get him to reach the centre. But Jon did try, and indeed, what other options would he have at the moment? Waiting for Basira&Daisy to come back, while Martin could be getting sacrificed? With the current configuration, I can understand that Jon is not keen on risking it… although, yeah. It’s undoing all the “trust” he was forcing himself to give Martin from afar during this season – his understanding that Martin had a plan, and that Jon had to hope Martin knew what he was doing to ensure Martin’s success. Jon made a mistake once when he tried to “Know” about Peter’s plans at the end of MAG139… and is probably doing a new one right now, confused by urgency. (“A tiny… hairline fracture, which destroys everything.”, to quote MAG139 orz)

… and hum. You know what had previously claimed to bank on Jon’s worry for someone to get him to level up a bit more?

(MAG135) ELIAS: Fine. Consider it a test – things are… coming, things that will need Jon to be far stronger and more willing to use his connection to our patron. His performance during The Unknowing was… disappointing. I needed a way to force him to harness his ability more acutely than he had before. The coffin was a useful tool; Daisy an adequate bait. BASIRA: Then you messed up. Way he tells it, he doesn’t know how he got out of there. ELIAS: But he did. And his powers were no small part of it. Even if he required some assistance, they were what saved him. And he’s still achieved what no one – mortal, monster, or anything in-between – has ever been able to. He climbed out of The Buried. BASIRA: [DRY SIGH] What was the point? You won’t be getting your ritual off from in here so, what do you need him for? What’s so important you need him stronger?

Still squinting very hard about The Bastard and the concept that ~no, he’s not getting his ceremony off from his prison~.

- Amongst all the exchanges, this moment was probably my favourite:

(MAG157) MELANIE: It’s, it’s okay. He’s… welcome. As a friend. But that’s it. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … Right. MELANIE: But you’re not after a friend, are you, Jon? ARCHIVIST: I need an ally. MELANIE: Then I can’t help you. [SHORT SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I suppose not…

Because it immediately conveyed that… Jon wasn’t seeking an opinion about whether or not to try to get involved and help Martin – that opinion would have been a “friend’s”. No; at this point, Jon had already decided to go in. And I like that Melanie, of all people, was immediately able to pinpoint that.

- Laughing forever, though, that YESSS, rule of three re:Jon and wlw:

(MAG089) ARCHIVIST: I just… er, you were a friend of Agnes Montague, correct? JUDE: She’s not one of your little stories.

(MAG117) ARCHIVIST: I think Basira is the same, she's coming along to back-up Daisy, or so she says. I–I– I don't quite get those two, I suppose. What they’ve done, seeing what they’ve seen… It’s a hell of a bond.

I can’t believe it took Beholding’s powers for him to realise. (Though, to be honest: he knew Melanie&Georgie were friends, Georgie was going on dates with other people in season 3, we don’t know whether Georgie is poly or not, so it wasn’t a given that they had gotten together sometime before this episode.)

- You know things are dire when, in the last few episodes: 1°) even Jon said “fuck”, 2°) Jon knocked on a door, not only once but twice.

(MAG146) [CLICK–] ARCHIVIST: [BREATHING HEAVILY, FRANTICALLY BANGING ON A DOOR] [A DOOR CREAKS OPEN] [DISTORTION SOUNDS, BRINGING CONSTANT STATIC] HELEN: You rang~?

(MAG157) [CLICK–] [FRANTICALLY BANGING ON A DOOR] [A DOOR CREAKS OPEN] [DISTORTION SOUNDS, BRINGING CONSTANT STATIC] ARCHIVIST: Helen…! HELEN: Jonathan~?

(Well. Banged on a door that wasn’t there.) Reminder that there is few knocking around Jon, and he still diiiiid it, times are… what they are.

(- When was the last time that someone called Jon “Jonathan”? I only remember Georgie’s “Jonathan Sims, are you trying to save the world?” from MAG093, and Elias in his first appearance:

(MAG017) ARCHIVIST: A complaint? I could just as easily complain about her wasting my time! ELIAS: That’s not how it works, Jonathan.

Helen had been generally replying to Jon on the same level when it came to names/designations, so was she just playful, or was this a way to point out that “Helen” is technically as formal as “Jonathan”, and not something someone close to Jon would call him? Even Melanie calls him “Jon”. Why “Jonathan” suddenly? Just for the variety?)

- SAD for Jon that his option as “ally” was… Helen, given what we’ve seen of her lately:

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: I need to know that’s in there, what’s at the centre, it’s–it’s important, Martin… I need to know. HELEN: [CONTAINED TITTER] That’s a shame. Because I’m afraid I’m not going to tell you. ARCHIVIST: What…? Why not? HELEN: Because I have a good enough sense of what’s going on to know that it will be much – more – fun – without – my – involvement…! [HELEN LAUGHS AND LAUGHS, ECHOING] […] ARCHIVIST: Just tell me what’s going on – please! HELEN: Bad things, Archivist. [HELEN LAUGHS AND LAUGHS, ECHOING] Really – bad – things!

It sounds like she’s going full Distortion lately, uh? She seemed comparatively so stable and straightforward, in MAG131…

- AHHAHA, Helen had reminded Jon about her sharpness recently:

(MAG152) ARCHIVIST: Huh? You’ve got hands. HELEN: Sharp enough to pull out worms. Kill a few old men. Maybe stab an overeager Archivist… ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] HELEN: But my physicality is as much an illusion as everything else about me. Think of me… as a bear trap. Not a sword.

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: I don’t have time for this! [STATIC] What is at the centr– [SHARP SOUND AS HELEN GRABS HIM BY THE THROAT] HELEN: No. We are not playing your game now. ARCHIVIST: [PAINED SOUNDS] HELEN: Don’t forget how sharp I can be, Archivist. Perhaps here, now, you’re powerful enough to learn what you want from me. But if you try, I promise you I will resist, and only one of us is going to survive the attempt. [SHARPING SOUND, RETREATING]

“Not a sword”, uh.

And we’re back to Jon getting whumped and threatened by everyone. It’s… interesting that Helen felt that Jon’s compulsion was an actual threat – it had annoyed Jude, too, but Helen directly went for the throat (… apparently, it was actually truly the throat in the script, Anil said). Would getting straight answers from The Distortion cause it harm on an essential level, like it potentially happened with Breekon when Jon “extracted” his statement and got to “know” him?

- Also interesting that Jon’s compulsion is apparently getting stronger? You would think that Jon’s powers would begin to crash and burn since he’s quit taking live statements, especially since Helen advised him to get a victim to replenish himself, but nop. Is it still from the power-boost Jon got when he chose not to die? Is it because of the new Fears he experienced over season 4 (Flesh taking ribs out of him, going and getting out of The Buried, staring at the Dark Sun)? Is it because we’re in 2018, and it’s supposed to be kind of a zenith for Beholding given that it’s the Institute’s anniversary…?

- … I was very scared that Jon might have forced a statement out of someone on the way to Georgie’s, but given how Helen invited him to find one right now, doesn’t seem to be the case!

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: Fine. [PANTING] Can you take me there? To the centre? HELEN: I honestly don’t know. But I’m not inclined to risk it. ARCHIVIST: Damn you! HELEN: Run home, Jon. Find a victim on the way~ Chaos is coming, and I think you’d best be ready.

Which is a relief ;;

I’m… super worried about Basira and Daisy, who left Jon absolutely unsupervised, and with Jon proving that he is able to go outside. Melanie is not there anymore either to check on him, and Jon had told Martin juuust a few episodes ago that:

(MAG154) ARCHIVIST: Honestly: thank you. [EXHALE] It’s been hell, but… I–I did need to hear it. MARTIN: Oh, hum… Uh, g–good. Heh. Are the others… helping? ARCHIVIST: Oh! [DRY CHUCKLE] They’ve been keeping a… very close eye on me…!

… but no, it’s really not the case right now ;; And I’m worried again. What’s the point of Jon getting caught and made to stop in the last third of the season…? I still feel like if he makes new innocent victims, then it’s indeed over for him (there would be nothing to differentiate him from other avatars who feed and prey on innocents to stay alive); is his withdrawal a step towards something else…? Or is it to exemplify that there could have been another option, that Jon didn’t hold to it and crashed himself down in the end…?

- From their point of view, I’m REALLY worried that Daisy&Basira left suddenly, leaving Jon unsupervised and alone because… why would they.

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: Am I just hearing what I want to hear? I need a second opinion, but… Basira and Daisy are… “out”, somewhere. They left in a hurry and didn’t tell me why; now, their phones are going to voicemail. Maybe they’re just… on the Underground, and probably th– … That doesn’t help me now. [SIGH]

The way Jon phrased it, it seems like he saw them leaving (it wasn’t that he couldn’t find them or anything), so? Why would they choose to not tell Jon? What could make them leave together, Daisy included, when Daisy was still “weak”? They could be trapped in Helen’s corridors right now (like Tim&Martin at the end of season 2), or in The Lonely because Peter wanted to get Jon absolutely isolated, but I’m still a bit baffled about why they would leave Jon unsupervised and without telling him anything.

1°) Is it that Basira managed to convince Daisy to Hunt again (nooo, Basira, don’t…), and to go after Trevor&Julia… ;; (Or Julia&Trevor were spotted somewhere, and they left to get them with Daisy trying hard not to Hunt.)

2°) Same thing, but with Annabelle Cane?

3°) Maybe they left for the tunnels on their own because something’s happening down there/Basira found something about it in the Archives, and it was really important to not talk about it (because Elias Watching, or The Web having its many eyes on him) and/or because Jon is still an avatar of The Eye…?

4°) Or plainly: they read Adelard’s statement, were the ones who left it on Jon’s desk, and are trying to stop Peter&Martin. … Would still be very stupid, tho, because OF COURSE Jon would panic about it ;; Unless they read it, hid it, and something else pulled it out to get Jon to panic. Could Martin have contacted them about something they need to do without Jon knowing? Basira knew that Martin was planning to go for a self-sacrifice; if it’s tied to this, it could explain why they didn’t tell Jon anything regarding their departure.

5°) … It would still go back in the “but why not tell Jon!!” category, but I’m really worried that there is something very wrong with Elias’s prison right now, hence why they left in a hurry – that either he has disappeared (and/or was “Peter’s map”, so Peter got him out), either the prison is unresponsive and it turns out it has been under Elias’s control for a looong while. He didn’t seem too upset about the prospect of going in MAG120, the Institute was built with strong ties to the Millbank prison (so it’s not an unfamiliar place for The Eye to thrive), and we still don’t know what he’s “eating” (/how come Elias is fine, as an avatar of The Eye, while Jon is suffering so badly from withdrawal? Is Elias himself really under withdrawal?)…

(MAG120) POLICE OFFICER: By all means, mister Bouchard: why don't you have a look in my head, and see exactly what will happen to you when you mess with me. ELIAS: [GRUNT] There will be no need for that, inspector, I’m sure we’ll get along famously. POLICE OFFICER: Good. ELIAS: Best of luck, Martin. Ah, let the others know I shall be thinking of them. MARTIN: [SIGH]

(MAG127) BASIRA: Can we cut the bullshit? ELIAS: What “bullshit” might that be? BASIRA: The part where you pretend you don’t spend your whole time watching us. ELIAS: … Sometimes I’m eating.

+ There is the fact that Elias spent this entire season in prison, and I have trouble picturing him still inside at the beginning of season 5. He’s getting out before that.

- ;; GODS, Jon listening to Martin&Peter’s exchange was so tense and heartbreaking… we knew that Jon had listened to previous tapes, but it was something else to hear his deep breathing, really heavy and conveying how much he was… upset? Worried? Angry about Peter?

(MAG157) [CLICK–] [VERY SHARP SQUEAL OF DISTORTION] MARTIN’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “… Will I be coming back?” PETER’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “You’re not going to die–” ARCHIVIST: [LONG, SHAKY INHALE] PETER’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “–if that’s what you’re asking–” ARCHIVIST: [EXHALE] PETER’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “–but… no. If all goes well, you won’t be.” ARCHIVIST: [DEEP, SHAKY BREATHES] MARTIN’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “[LONG INHALE, EXHALE]” PETER’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “How does that make you feel?” ARCHIVIST: [EXHALE] MARTIN’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “… Nothing.” ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] MARTIN’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “[SNORT]” ARCHIVIST: [LONG EXHALE] MARTIN’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “Nothing at all…!” PETER’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “Excellent. I’m so proud of you, Martin.” MARTIN’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “I really don’t care.” PETER’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “Perfect.” [CLICK.] ARCHIVIST: [LONG INHALE, EXHALE] This… tape was left on my desk.

1°) I was wondering, but Peter’s voice indeed records on tape!

2°) Complete with the squeal of distortions that are his trademark when we’re hearing him live. So it’s indeed something that tampers with the recording a bit, but not to the point of being inaudible.

3°) It was the worst pre- and post-supplemental to hear when it came to Martin… the one when he sounded the most “lost into the Lonely”…………. And he had said he wasn’t sure whether he still cared about ~Jon hearing his voice~ at the start of it…

And at the same time: given how Martin had been so self-aware of being recorded, of Peter being potentially in the room… the question is still open. Elias did acknowledge that Martin was manipulative:

(MAG138) MARTIN: … What? [HUFF] That’s it? No, no monologue, no mindgames? You love manipulating people! ELIAS: That makes two of us. MARTIN: [HUFF]

And was it only about keeping tapes from Jon behind Peter’s back? How much can we trust of what we heard from Martin during season 4? Even Jon had managed to hide that he had attacked people from his recordings; it took Jess’s complaint and Helen calling Jon out for him to admit what he had done. Does Martin truly not “care”, as Peter was glad to hear, or was Martin feeding Peter what he wanted to hear, too…?

(tl;dr Web!Martin is not dead as long as Martin is still alive :|)

(- I'm Still Not Claiming That It’s Romantic On Jon’s Part Until We Get A Very Explicit Confirmation Because I Wanna Raise The Bar Higher, but: Jon… Jon, you big worried bi…

Urk… The fact that he went “Martin” first, before giving Helen a formulation that she probably wanted to hear (=> Jon as an Eye-avatar Wanting To Know…))

(- Last minute Extinction speculation, but I wonder if Adelard’s most important speculation in his last message wasn’t this one:

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “while I have seen evidence of its influence in other Powers, I have never found anything to genuinely prove its emergence as a true Power of its own. Perhaps it is an existential fear that flows through the others like a vein of ore”

… what if, indeed, The Extinction had never been a Fifteenth Power… but a kind of enhancer? Every time Adelard was prone to label an occurrence as an Extinction one, it felt like it was operating on a big scale. What if The Extinction is indeed something new, but mostly boosting good old Fears into something bigger, scarier, more effective – and a few of them, such as the Corruption, would obviously be more compatible than others?)

- There are indeed so many options about who left the tape and the statements, and why:

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: [LONG INHALE, EXHALE] This… tape was left on my desk. I don’t know by who, but to my mind there are… three options. Martin has left it here, to let me know that… whatever the situation is with Peter Lukas, it is entering its final act and he needs my help. Alternatively, Peter may have left it here to… goad me into action? Or just to gloat, to highlight my helplessness and everything. [SIGH] Or Annabelle Cane is trying to manipulate me into thinking it’s one of the other scenarios. Previously, the Spiders have made their presence clear when they’ve sent me… “hints”, but I can’t take that for granted. I don’t know what to do…! [SIGH] There’s a statement with it. It looks pretty recent – hm! First time in a while I’ve been… wary of reading one. … Still. I guess… [LONG INHALE, EXHALE] [PAPER RUSTLING] […] This, uh… this changes things. I–I think. … If Martin found this, r–read it already, then perhaps he’s having… second thoughts about, about Peter and The Extinction, this… this could be a cry for help, his way of asking me to follow him without Peter knowing, or… [EXHALE] Or what? I don’t understand – Martin’s been quite clear he doesn’t want my help…! Am I just hearing what I want to hear? I need a second opinion, but…

1°) But Jon casually ignored the fact that the statement was a last message, sent to an Archivist, to say goodbye, and that… that could have been what Martin was aiming at. (I’m not really digging that Martin would have done that without leaving a message on his own, though; even if he were to stop caring about Jon, he would still keep in mind that Jon would be prone to doing drastic things to try to save people, or to run into danger. He got a whole discussion with Daisy about it in MAG142, and asked Basira not to tell Jon that he wasn’t planning on coming back just a few episodes ago.)

2°) The tape and the statement have been left by different persons/things, and had different purposes, and/or one of the factions could have subtilized something else to prevent Jon to connecting dots.

3°) A big question is also who was aware of Adelard’s last message (and of his death). I lost my bet that Peter had killed him, but still: it’s extremely suspicious that Peter never mentioned in front of Martin the possibility of getting Adelard’s own help… so he must have known it wasn’t an option. We never heard Martin questioning about it, so… Martin might have found out, or guessed about it, too.

4°) Adelard’s message was explicitly an email:

… And Peter’s not good with computers:

(MAG126) PETER: Anyway, I’m very excited to see this rota you’ve put together. Never had much of a gift for– MARTIN: Okay. PETER: –administration myself; too many variables. Now, this box on the left, that’s the library stuff, yes? MARTIN: What? N–n–no, th–th–that’s, no, those are the dates, I– … Look, are you sure you don’t want me to teach you? It’s, it’s a very simple program– PETER: No. No. Can’t stand computers. Besides! That’s why I have an assistant, isn’t it? MARTIN: [SIGH] Yeah. I guess so.

Unlike Annabelle (who was very interest in the www in MAG123), and unlike Martin. Who printed it out? Gertrude? Or someone else, very recently?

- ;; Is next week Jon trying to reach the centre of the tunnels already (and unknowingly being Peter’s map, being tracked when thinking he was tracking Peter&Martin?), using or not using Leitner’s supernatural copy of The Seven Lamps of Architecture, or going to ask Elias for help because he’s desperate………………… I don’t see many more options for Jon at this point… There is still the Threat of Jon’s inner door looming here:

(MAG127) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] It’s… hard. It’s like there’s a–a–a door, in my mind. And behind it, is… i–is the entire ocean. Before, I didn’t notice it, but now, I know it’s there, and I can’t forget it, and I can feel the pressure of the water on it. I, I, I can keep it closed… but sometimes, when I’m around p–people, or–or places, or… ideas, a drop or two will push through the cracks, at the edges of the door. And I’ll… know something. BASIRA: … What happens, if you open the door? [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: I drown.

… and I’m dreading that yes, he would try to open it to find the centre, in order to find Martin… ;; (And that there is actually no centre; only Jon, with his sea of knowledge, in the middle, thus precipitating the bad things Helen was cackling about.)

- As usual: what are Elias/Annabelle/Peter’s plans and aims, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrgggg

(- Hi, guess who was there at every 38th episode of a season so far:

(MAG038) ARCHIVIST: Urgh. Urgh. [SOUND OF CHAIR SCRAPING] I see you… [THUMP… THEN SOUND OF COLLAPSING SHELVES] [NOISES OF EXCLAMATION] [DOOR OPENS] SASHA: Alright? ARCHIVIST: Ah… Yeah. A… spider. SASHA: A spider? ARCHIVIST: Yeah. I tried to kill it… the shelf collapsed. SASHA: I swear, cheap shelves are… Did you get it? ARCHIVIST: Ah… I hope so. Thinks so. Nasty, bulbous looking thing. SASHA: [CHUCKLES] Well, I won’t tell Martin. ARCHIVIST: Oh, god. I don’t think I could stand another lecture on their importance to the ecosystem.

(MAG078) ARCHIVIST: [WHISPERED] It is remarkably easy to buy an axe in Central London. Harder to sneak it into Artefact Storage but not impossible. I don’t know if destroying this is going to kill that thing… but I am damn sure it’s going to hurt. […] Hollow. Just cobwebs and dust.

(MAG118) DAISY: Shut. Up. BASIRA: It’s just cobwebs. ARCHIVIST: There’s no such thing as just cobwebs! I don’t like it. TIM: Tough.

MmMMmmmMMmmmMMMmm.)

Title for MAG158 is… ouft. F–finally, I guess?

So, hum. Beholding, I guess? (It would be the 5th one this season if we count MAG138 as mostly Eye’s… ;;) And probably tunnels stuff. Depending on how the groups are split, could be Peter&Martin, Basira&Daisy&Elias or Elias&Jon, I guess… I’m mostly expecting no statement and a two-part climax like in season 3, but if there is a statement, I guess it could be read/told by Elias, whether alone or ~in company~ (a letter to/from Jonah Magnus? Another thing from Smirke’s earliest days? Something related to [the title itself]?).

Regarding the… less concrete aspect of the title, it… could be either about Elias (is he really confined.), either about Jon and his powers, I guess……………… could be Jon opening his ~inner door~ to try to find Martin/the centre of the maze, too……………….

#mag157 #tma liveblog #tma season 4 #long post/#5 #tma spoilers #the magnus archives

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