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galaxysgal · 4 years

Text

I Know They’ll Love You

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: None

Relationships: Finnpoe

Characters: Finn, Poe Dameron, Shara Bey, Kes Dameron, Original Characters

Additional Tags: Fluff, Meet The Family, Domestic Fluff, Siblings, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Finnpoe week 2020, soft, Cuties

Summary:

They stepped into a little mudroom, equipped with a washer/dryer set, a coat rack, and a bench that served to hold shoes. There was still a door between them and the rest of the house, and Poe bumped their shoulders together affectionately. "You ready?"

"Yeah."

Poe stepped through the door and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Mami! Papi! I'm home!"

Aka: my entry for Finnpoe Week 2020 Day 1: High School au or Meet the Family. I chose meet the family! This is just soft, self indulgent family fluff :)))

Read Here on Ao3

Taglist: @wheeliebinbyers @tinyphantomsalad @stormpilotsrus @kitmarloweki @shibasus @xwings-can-fly @imasunflower00

xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

Finn wrung his hands, looking out the car window at the rows of unique Victorian houses that formed the historic district of Poe's hometown. Kes and Shara, Sebastian, Illiana and…. Shit what was the other sister's name... Eleanor? Elizabeth? Elisa? You can't keep forgetting, dammit.

"Elena," Poe said, jarring Finn from his thoughts.

"How did you-"

"You were muttering a bunch of E names, I guessed from there." He reached over, pulling Finn's hands apart and flitting his eyes between the road and the crescent marks where Finn's fingernails had dug into his skin. "Relax, you're going to be fine."

Finn relaxed, only slightly, the tension in his shoulders easing a bit as Poe brushed his lips against each mark. He closed his eyes and surrendered to his other senses, focusing on the sound of the radio, the smell of the air freshener, the touch of Poe's calloused hands against his. Deep breaths and reassuring thoughts rendered him somewhat more collected than he had been, although the jeering of his insecurities persisted in the depths of his brain. Finn did his best to push them away, looking at the house they were pulling up to.

It was a large Victorian with a quaint front porch, painted pale yellow with accents of rich green and white on the shutters and porch beams, respectively. A large oak tree took up most of the front yard, providing shade for the picnic table there. If Finn closed his eyes he could almost see Poe as a child, swinging on the tire swing attached to one of the sturdier branches, or chasing fireflies around the yard in the dim light of dusk.

Poe pulled into the driveway which sat to the left of the house, following it all the way to the back gate of the white picket fence and parking in the shade of a small storage building. The backyard was just as quaint as the front, a little trellis arch covered with flowering vines sitting just behind the fence gate.

As he went to step out of the car, Finn took one last deep breath in, steadying himself. Poe must have heard him because he reached over to take Finn's hand once more, squeezing it tight.

"They're going to love you," he said, voice sure.

"You don't know that," Finn mumbled, looking down at his shoes.

"Self depreciation isn't a good look on you, honey," Poe said softly, "and I do know, without a doubt in my mind, that they will love you."

"How?"

"Simple," Poe smiled at him, the kind that made the corners of his eyes crinkle just a little. "Because I love you."

"Sap," Finn muttered, but he smiled and leaned over to kiss Poe, deeply touched by his words. He cupped Poe's cheek, stubble tickling at his palm, and whispered, "thank you."

"No problem sweetheart. C'mon, we can leave our bags in the car for now," Poe smiled, hopping out of the car and coming around to lead Finn under the trellis and up the pathway.

"Yeah."

Poe stepped through the door and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Mami! Papi! I'm home!"

Finn found himself in a little sitting room, a foyer of sorts, with a couple of chairs sitting astride a bay window looking out on the little garden in the side yard. A large staircase was straight ahead, with a doorway to the kitchen to its right, and an opening leading to the living room to its left.

"In the kitchen mijo," a woman's voice came from further within the house, but before they could go to check it out Poe's youngest brother came hurtling down the stairs, slamming into him.

"Poe!!" The little boy- Sebastian, six years old he remembered- wore spiderman pajamas and little frog socks, slipping on the hardwood floors.

"Sebastian!" Poe grinned, ruffling his hair and balancing a little tray of finger foods in one hand as Sebastian clung to his legs. "You're getting tall, squirt."

Sebastian nodded, running over to the wall beside the staircase. "I am! See?" he pointed at the little pencil marks.

Another set of footsteps thundered down the stairs, and he saw one of Poe's two sisters- Elena, thirteen, he thought- come into view. She skipped the last two steps and stopped right in front of Poe, taking the tray of finger foods from his hands with a devilish grin. "These look great!" she exclaimed, running off (hopefully to the kitchen) with them.

Finn heard the third and final sibling- Illiana, eighteen, he reminded himself- before he saw her. She was upstairs shouting down to Poe, something about a video game. "Oh my God dude I FINALLY beat that zombie boss dude in Earthbound," she said, prompting a high five from Poe.

Finn stood back, away, off to the side. He felt a little awkward as Poe reunited with his siblings, but he reminded himself to breathe, Poe's words coming back to him. "Simple. Because I love you." It came as a reassurance as he watched them, a small smile on his face. Elena was grinning wide, showing off the new color of her braces, Illiana was recounting the events of the game she had been playing.

Finn felt a sticky little hand tugging at his own and looked down to see Sebastian staring up at him. "I like spiderman," he said, and pointed at Finn's Avengers shirt with one chubby finger. "Who do you like?"

Before he could answer though, Elena noticed him. She gasped loudly, "ohmygosh, is that Finn!?" She looked him up and down in the terrifying way that only a thirteen year old could, her eyes glancing over his worn out converse high tops, cuffed jeans and tee shirt before settling on the leather jacket around his shoulders. "And is that Poe's jacket!?!"

Illiana perked up at that, looking up from her phone, deep brown eyes studying him. It reminded him a lot of Poe. "Oh my god, it totally is!" She knocked her shoulders against Poe's and said something in hurried spanish that made Poe turn as red as the Nikes he was wearing.

"Illiana, I heard that!" A man's voice came from the direction of the living room that Finn got glimpses of, just past the stairs, and now it was Illiana's turn to blush.

"Sorry Papi!"

"Mis queridas," a woman appeared in the doorway that presumably led to the kitchen, dish towel slung over her shoulder. "Leave the poor boy alone, won't you?"

"Mami!" Poe turned and crushed her in a hug.

"Oh, mijo, let me look at you," she said softly, holding Poe at arms length and tipping his chin up. Poe wore a proud smile, standing almost at attention.

Finn watched as her eyes scanned Poe's face, analyzing them. Those eyes, deep brown and filled with kindness, with love. Poe had his mother's eyes. The same gentle expression, the same crinkled corners when she smiled, and oh, that smile. Poe had his mother's smile, proud and just a little mischievous. He had her curls too, and her nose, her posture, her unwavering gaze. Poe was his mother's son through and through.

"And you must be Finn," Shara turned that kind, motherly smile towards Finn, and he suddenly felt very warm.

"Yes ma'am," he nodded, holding out his hand for her to shake.

Shara waved her hand dismissively, instead going in for a hug. "None of that formality mijo, call me Shara."

Oh. He looked briefly at Poe over her shoulders, and he flashed Finn a grin and a thumbs up before Finn gave in to the hug. Shara smelled like Jasmine, sweet and comforting.

When she pulled away she looked Finn up and down as she had dine with Poe. "You are a very handsome young man," she said softly, "and there is kindness in your eyes."

Finn felt himself blush and ducked his head, "thank you."

She gave a short nod, then turned back to her children. "Now go, go," she shooed them out of the foyer, "I have cooking to do."

The living room was large, with a couch, two arm chairs, a coffee table and an entertainment center, along with some end tables and another bay window, facing out towards the front porch. Against one of the open walls sat a long, thin table with tall backed stools, almost like a bar. A man sat on one of the stools, his jaw set in the same determined way Finn often saw on Poe. He was focused on a puzzle, the box propped up against the wall displaying the picture, a bunch of marvel comic book characters from the big names to the lesser known ones.

"Come look!" Sebastian grabbed Finn's hand, pulling him over to the table. He scrambled up to get in the chair beside his father, "papi! Show him the puzzle!

Kes helped boost him up then slid the seat closer to his own. "Alright, alright," he ruffled Sebastian's hair, who was excitedly rattling off the names of all the superheroes he knew.

"That one's spiderman! And that one's Miles, he's spiderman too! And that's Gwen, she's spiderwoman! And there's Captain America and Iron man and Black Widow, and Thor!" He turned back to Finn, a wide smile showing the dimples on his chubby little cheeks.

"That's really cool," Finn said, mirroring the boy's infectious smile.

Kes slipped out of the chair and crushed Poe in a bear hug while Finn studied the puzzle, resisting the urge to fit some of the pieces in. He felt Poe tug at his hand, fitting their fingers together perfectly, and Finn turned around to face them.

"This is my boyfriend Finn," he said, introducing him. "Finn, this is my dad Kes."

Kes smiled, a familiar kindness in his eyes, and reached out to shake Finn's hand. "It's nice to meet you Finn. Do you like puzzles?"

Finn chuckled softly, "do I? Yes, I love them," he replied, glad that talking with Kes felt so easy.

"Good, come help me with this one, it's kicking my ass." Kes returned to his chair, pulling one out for Finn to join him.

Finn turned to Poe, who grinned widely and placed a kiss on his cheek, "love you," he murmured.

"Mm, love you too," he whispered back.

* * * * *

As the evening sun slipped lower in the sky they all sat around the dinner table, chatting over desert.

"So Finn," Illiana started, sitting down her fork, "what are you studying?"

"Illiana," Poe warned, reaching out under the table to take Finn's hand.

"Relax, it's not an interrogation," Illiana smiled, "just a friendly question."

Finn squeezed Poe's hand as if to tell him it's okay, and took a breath. "I'm an art major," he replied. It was terrifying to say it out loud, Finn never knew how people would react.

But Shara smiled, Kes squeezed her shoulder, and Illiana nodded. "Cool man, she's an artist too," she said, nodding to Shara.

"Really?" Finn turned to her, intrigued.

Shara nodded, pointing to a painting that hung on the wall opposite them. "That's one of mine. Do you have any pictures? I'd love to see your work," she said, her kind smile washing away any doubts he had.

Finn took out his phone and opened the camera folder of his art, handing it over to Shara. She squinted at the images for a moment before Kes grabbed her reading glasses from the counter and handed them to her with a kiss on her cheek. Finn watched in anticipation as Shara swiped through the pictures, a gentle smile on her face.

"These are lovely," she remarked. "Your parents must be so proud."

Finn froze, and Poe placed his hand on Finn's knee. It hurt, the thought of his parents, but Finn could get through it. He wouldn't let their opinions dictate his life. "My, uh," he swallowed thickly, "my parents don't exactly approve of my choice to pursue an art career, or my other, um, lifestyle choices for that matter," he said, feeling the tension grow in the air.

Shara reached out over the table, taking his hand. "Oh, mijo, I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," Finn replied, "I've come to terms with it."

Shara nodded, squeezing his hand once before letting go.

That night they headed up to Poe's old bedroom, where they immediately fell into bed.

"It's just a full," Poe said, pulling Finn flush against his chest. "Hope you don't mind."

Finn leaned back into the curve of Poe's body, his hand finding Poe's where it rested on his stomach. "Don't mind at all," he murmured. He felt Poe's lips brush against the nape of his neck in sweet unhurried kisses, breathing in deeply.

"Told you they'd like you," he said, and Finn could feel the slightly smug smile on Poe's lips against his skin.

"Yeah yeah, you were right," Finn admits, turning his head back so he could kiss his boyfriend properly. He reached up to card his fingers through Poe's hair, smiling when he let out a soft, content hum.

"I really think they like you," Poe whispered against his lips.

Finn kissed him a little while longer, happy with the gentle slide of Poe's lips against his. When they pulled away, he reached up to brush curls away from Poe's forehead. "I like them too. They're a little strange, but I like them."

"Strange," Poe chuckled, "yeah, they are. Just wait 'til you meet the rest tomorrow."

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I hope you enjoyed!!!

#finnpoeweek20 #finnpoe #stormpilot #star wars #sw #finnpoe fanfic #stormpilot fanfic #star wars sequel trilogy #star wars sequel trilogy fic #star wars fanfic #finnpoe headcanons #finn (star wars)#poe dameron #shara bey #kes dameron #mags' finnpoe chronicles #mags writes

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cutieunidentifiedremains · 6 years

Text

Blood: It’s What’s Inside Of You!

rating: T pairing: Lelouch/Suzaku status: oneshot word count: 5,898 warnings: vampires, blood-drinking (consensual) summary: When Suzaku goes looking for Arthur in an old abandoned mansion in the woods, he ends up finding a lot more than he bargained for. / Vampire AU. Lelouch/Suzaku.

notes: This oneshot is dedicated to my friend Vela, who likes vampires! Thank you for always being such a positive and supportive presence in my life! I love you!

It's MAY, and it's getting nice and hot outside where I live! Enjoy the totally out-of-season vampires, everybloody! Ψ(｀▽´)Ψ

(P. S., I don't read much vampire fiction— at all, really— so this might be a totally tropealicious cliché-fest. I'm sorry if it is!)

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Suzaku is a good boy who doesn’t trespass. But it’s a cold night in October, and Arthur is missing, and it’s a burned-out house in the middle of the woods.

It’s nailed shut, it’s spraypainted up, it’s wooden boards sagging from the walls; the last time anyone lived here was 1986. It was a stately old Victorian once but after a fire ate it up inside it was abandoned and over the decades it’s sunken to rot, the stained-glass windows knocked out, the garden long overgrown with thick lush horrible weeds, dandelions and tall crabgrass, goosegrass and wild chamomile buzzing with flies and yes, even the odd wild sunflower growing up straight and tall, the golden raintree planted by the edge of the property swollen to leviathan proportions, its tangled, overgrown root system upending the front yard in brown chunks of clay, the front gate rusted through so thoroughly the latch has fallen off and sunk into the ocean of underbrush below, the marble fountain run dry and filled with years of dead leaves, streaks of black dirt tracing tearpaths down the face of the gleeful cherub pirouetting naked from the decoration surrounding the pump, offering up water from an empty ampoule; a carpet of fallen pine needles and detritus of miscellaneous origin paints the slumped-in roofs and shutters the color of rust and dried blood, and the moon lights it up all silver and eerie. The house has become a honeyhive for local vandals, and amateur paintings, poems, and pithy sayings scream from its walls both inside and out. A caricature of the evil eye is smeared above the front door in blue and white.

Suzaku is a good boy who doesn’t trespass. But Arthur shot off through the back gate and into the tree line behind Suzaku’s suburban home after some bird or squirrel half an hour ago, and Suzaku’s worried sick. Despite the fact that it’s a school night, he grabs warm clothes and a flashlight, yells to his mother that he’s leaving to look for the cat, and sets off into the woods calling Arthur’s name and kissing the air. He’s bundled up in a scarf and a thick green coat, and still he feels chilled as he tries to stick to the rough footpath that winds through the dark forest. Leaves crunch under his feet. He doesn’t really go out back here, ever, as the neighborhood park is much better for running, and so he doesn’t know his way around. He’d go home— at their other house Arthur had been an outdoor cat, and he’d disappeared over nights before, only to return home purring the next morning to the cranking of the can opener— but Suzaku and his family moved recently to the area, which is far more rural than Suzaku is used to, and Suzaku can’t stop imagining Arthur snatched up by a hungry hawk or owl this late at night and this far out in the woods. He pulls his coat more snugly around his body. “Arthur,” he calls again. The yellow disc of light from the torch swoops along the path, a rescue helicopter sounding the depths with its searchlight. No response.

Suzaku is a good boy who doesn’t trespass. But ten minutes into his search, when he comes up on the big, old, abandoned house, something tells him Arthur is inside.

If Suzaku had grown up in the area, he would have heard the urban legends that proliferated around the house, ghost girls with dripping eyelashes and ghastly pale bloodmouthed haunts. But this is not the town where he grew up. Suzaku grew up in a town near the sea where it always rained and he played inside every day with a sickly little boy named Lelouch until they were best friends and Suzaku didn’t mind. So he hadn’t even known there was an abandoned house out in the woods behind his home before he finds it there. So he has no context for what it is he’s seeing, none at all.

Suzaku’s love of Arthur will always outweigh his fear of ghosts. But although he’ll never admit it, Suzaku isn’t very good with ghosts, and if Arthur hadn’t been in danger, and Suzaku had known the ghastly tales that children in town whispered at sleepovers about the place, he would have turned right around and resumed his search for Arthur off the property. He would never have turned sideways to slink through a gap in the dilapidated fence and circled around the back of the house to look for a way in, would never have spotted the window over a window-box full of cigarette butts with a fist-sized hole punched through its dust-covered glass. He would never have thrust his hand through to undo the latch from the inside and open it.

His flashlight pours into the room. Except for a single singed armchair that hunches in the corner like a goblin, the room is empty of furniture, all of the good stuff taken in waves long ago, first by flame, then by looters. Char from the antique fire climbs the walls with its memory. Beer and soda cans and popcorn bags cover the ground, and as Suzaku takes his first, hesitant steps into the room, he distinctly sees the silver gleam of a Pop-Tart wrapper. His flashlight beam reflects off two somethings— the eyes of a rat, scurrying away. A big anarchy symbol has been painted in black on a stripped wall, a runnily encircled A. There’s a particularly hard gust of wind, and the hairs stand up on the back of Suzaku’s neck as the rafters swoosh and creak in rhythm overhead. The years have warped the skeleton of the house from the inside out into something deranged, syphilitic.

“Arthur?” Suzaku calls, thinking that he’s going to make sure Arthur isn’t here and then get going. Putting aside how bad he is with the supernatural and approaching things from a clearly rational standpoint, he tells himself, there are likely all sorts of unsavory types squatting here, judging by the fresh garbage and the strange poems sprayed onto the walls. HE HACKS THE PROGRAMS OF THE MATRIX IN ZION, screams one. I AM INVISIBLE THATS WHY is all that remains of another. But the thought of Arthur getting into the hands of a bona fide creep just spurs Suzaku on harder. He can’t let that happen! Finding nothing in the first room, he crosses the grave of garbage and makes his way into what seems to be a sort of central room.

The second floor is visible from the first, ringed with an old balustrade missing several posts, and a hole in the roof lets silver moonlight pool in the center of the floor. It’s not nearly as dark in here as the other room; the moon is full tonight, and Suzaku can almost turn his flashlight off. There’s more writing, this time on the wall directly in front of him, and this one catches Suzaku’s eye because it’s written in... cursive?

There is a scurrying motion from the second floor.

Suzaku’s light swings up like a pendulum. “Hello?” he calls. There’s no way it’s a trick of the dark; he’s certain he just saw someone move. They looked human, too. “Is anyone up there?”

Nothing.

If Suzaku cared more about his own wellbeing and less about his cat’s, he’d leave now. But he presses forward.

Maybe he’s just imagining things. Right now, he has to get a layout of the house so that he knows how to search. He heads for the center of the room— there it is again! A shadow just barely out of Suzaku’s range of sight slips from one room to another in the barely visible second floor.

Well, maybe it’s Arthur. Tightening his checkered scarf around his neck, Suzaku takes off in pursuit, clicking his tongue and calling Arthur’s name. He finds a set of stairs in the northwest corner of the room. They’re patently unsafe, but that doesn’t stop Suzaku, who takes two steps in a bound and soon finds himself safe (or safe enough) on the second story.

The upstairs is silent and dusty. There’s less garbage than the first floor, but more leaves and pine needles. Here, much closer to the hole in the roof, Suzaku can hear an owl hoot from outside, followed by the eerie stillness of the night. Suzaku gazes up at the night sky sprayed with a thick vein of stars, crescent moon hanging in the black like a rib. It’s actually quite beautiful. But he can’t afford to be getting distracted now, so he regains his wits about him and heads for the room he saw the strange figure move into.

Suzaku’s flashlight takes the room from left to right. In the corner, there’s a big, heavy vanity table, covered in multiple layers of dust, with cosmetics and an old wooden hairbrush laid out on it exactly as they had been left so many decades ago. Then there’s a weirdly shaped coathanger. Then a French door with a window, showing that it leads out onto a small balcony, though the balcony appears to have been grown over with trees. In the middle of the room, there’s a table low to the floor, and next to—

Oh. Person. That coathanger was a person.

He freezes, and then in a long, slow sweep the flashlight goes back around. In the interval, the silhouette doesn’t move at all. Suzaku’s heart is pounding, his instincts and common sense for once in chorus, both screaming Get out!, but his body doesn’t listen. The person is turned away from Suzaku, faceless as a chess piece, and Suzaku’s instincts tell him that the person was sleeping standing up, even though that’s... an odd thing to be doing. Or, possibly, waiting to be found.

They’re wearing nice clothes, Suzaku realizes, a sleek-fitting long black coat belted against the autumnal chill of the night. They have their hands in their pockets. When the light lands on them it takes them a moment to react; they visibly tense up as if caught in the middle of something, though they don’t appear to have been doing much of anything at all. It freezes Suzaku’s blood the way the unnatural way they slowly turn their head, almost mechanically, android-like, certainly not human, and so once he can finally see the person’s face, it takes Suzaku a while to process the hollow cheeks, rice-white skin, and... wait. No way.

“Lelouch?”

The person freezes. “Suzaku?”

It’s as if two pins come into place and stick them to the ground, and they’re stuck there staring at each other while in silence something slowly crackles to life between their eyes.

Suzaku’s childhood returns to him: the two of them like catfish on their bellies in Lelouch’s room, thunder rumbling outside, eating mandarin slices off a china plate, the bright shiny fourth-grade mathematics textbook (the one with the illustrations of foxes and lions) spread open on the floor, Lelouch teaching Suzaku how to add fractions. Indoor ice cream cones. Lelouch’s strange, pale family. Nunnally coming in with an origami object she had made to show the boys. A crane or a frog or a heart or a box or a star. Suzaku still holds loose change in a carefully folded blue gingham-printed paper box Nunnally had given him from back then, keeps it on his desk. How when he first met Lelouch, Lelouch didn’t play well with other children, and people didn’t like Suzaku because he was hardheaded and mean, but as outcast comrades they took school by storm.

Lelouch’s red rainboots! The clear umbrella with green froggies that Suzaku carried when he walked down the street to Lelouch and Nunnally’s. How proud of himself he was when he finally became big enough of a boy to go there by himself. He remembers bubble baths from being caught out in the rain. The sleepovers. How they would brave the dark shores of eleven o’ clock, midnight together and feel like they’d mainlined mischief. Lelouch and Nunnally’s au pair, Sayoko, teaching them that you could make ‘smores in the microwave, standing shoulder to shoulder in wonder to watch marshmallows balloon and shrink like blown-up popcorn bags in the square lantern of the radio oven.

Though they were rare in the rainy town where they had lived as boys, there were sunny days, too. But Lelouch’s weak constitution and congenital sensitivity to sunlight meant that he wasn’t quite fit for the rougher outdoor play that Suzaku liked. Which was fine. The fact that there was so much to do without moving your body was knowledge that Suzaku wouldn’t have if he’d never met Lelouch. It felt like a special secret from the world. Suzaku remembers sitting in the cloakroom with Lelouch and Nunnally, tying his running shoes (the cool ones with the neon green stripes), while the siblings slathered sunscreen on each other. Nunnally went to a special school. Lelouch went to the same school as Suzaku, but he couldn’t stay out in the sun too long, or eat certain things, or go certain places, and whenever he visited Suzaku’s house, he always knocked on the door and waited to be invited in, even though his family never locked their doors and made sure he knew he was welcome anytime— which Suzaku’s parents just took as him being polite.

Lelouch would always have some things that made him a little bit different from other people, but Suzaku never considered it any different from being friends with, say, Tony who had asthma, or Cheryl who was deaf, or Blakeley who was allergic to bees. Or Nunnally, who couldn’t walk, or see. Although Suzaku wasn’t supposed to know, although it was supposed to be a secret to everybody, Lelouch once entrusted him with the true nature of his family’s curse after making Suzaku swear he’d never tell.

And that was how Suzaku came to learn that his first and best friend was a vampire, born one into a family of vampires. It didn’t bother him at all. He didn’t understand why Lelouch thought it would. Before anything else, they were still friends.

And then when Suzaku was fourteen, his family had moved away for his father’s work. The three children waited until all the adults were gone, then sat in the living in a circle, held hands, and cried. Lelouch said that he wasn’t crying, but he was.

All of this comes back to Suzaku, dawning like warm, sweet tea in this empty, degenerating house.

He takes a step forward. “No way. It’s really you?”

“The one and only,” Lelouch replies, though there’s something crooked about his stance that’s strangely offputting for Suzaku. For the first time, Suzaku truly takes in how his childhood friend has changed. Lelouch has shot up like a weed; he’s lanky, gaunt, and thin, seeming (though it may be a trick of the setting) even paler than Suzaku remembers, with dark circles underneath his eyes. When he takes a step forward, Lelouch takes a step back. Neither of them acknowledge this verbally.

But Suzaku is still ecstatic. “Are you serious?” He says in the tone of someone who can’t believe his luck. “Oh my God, what are the chances—”

Lelouch half-moon smile, though still forced, widens the thinnest notch with what can only be genuine, helpless fondness, an emotion Suzaku recognizes on Lelouch’s features even now from back then, and he’s caught in the beam of Suzaku’s flashlight with empty hands. Suzaku forgets everything and charges headlong toward him. Lelouch startles into a “Wh— what are you doing—” before he’s rolled up in one genuine Suzaku Kururugi bear hug, arms pinned to his sides as Suzaku squeezes the breath from his lungs. With the limited mobility afforded his hands, he grabs tight onto the hem of Suzaku’s coat and doesn’t let go.

“I missed you,” Suzaku says in almost a whisper, face pressed against Lelouch’s cheek. It sounds raw, it sounds real. The tiniest bit of scruff lines Suzaku’s teenage jaw, just enough to make Lelouch shiver violently as it scrapes against his sensitive skin, and Lelouch stares up at the ceiling to avoid thinking about how Suzaku smells. The flashlight’s beam illuminates a tag on one of the rafters, the word LOVESLAVE in a calligraphic hand with wings and a halo.

“Missed you too.”

“I really, really missed you,” Suzaku says, still not pulling back (please pull back, Suzaku), “so, so much. I wished we’d never moved away.”

“I missed you too,” Lelouch repeats, a puff of laughter against Suzaku’s shoulder. Usually he was the eloquent one, but in this moment, he can’t find another way to say a feeling so simple and pure.

Suzaku lets Lelouch go, holding him out at arm’s length to examine him. Lelouch is skinny. Like, skinny-skinny. Like, maybe he hasn’t been eating enough, skinny.

“How’ve you been?”

“You probably won’t believe me if I tell you ‘same old, same old’, huh?” Lelouch says, managing a watery smirk.

That’s right, Suzaku thinks; Lelouch must be seventeen by now. According to Lelouch, vampires born into his family don’t develop into fully-fledged vampires until around fifteen years of age. Before that, they’re capable of surviving off animal blood— human blood is actually too rich for a fledgeling, raises their cholesterol out the wazoo— their adult fangs haven’t come in yet, and a lot of their supernatural powers haven’t emerged. Suzaku looks at Lelouch’s smile to see if he can see his fangs. It’s difficult, in the lighting.

“How was teething?”

“It sucked,” Lelouch says, bringing his hand up to his jaw as if feeling pain at the mere memory. “I had a fever, I was out cold for days.” Suzaku winces sympathetically.

“What are you even doing here, anyway?” Suzaku asks. Suspicion flashes over his frame. “Wait... Lelouch, you’re not doing graffiti, are you?”

“What? Painting? Who? Me? Never,” says Lelouch. A forced, dry laugh fights its way out of his throat like bat wings. Suzaku’s eyes narrow, and Lelouch resolves to change the subject as quickly as possible. “I had no idea you were in this town— do you live here, now?”

“Yeah,” says Suzaku, and his eyes widen. “Wait, do you live here?”

“My family moved here last month,” says Lelouch, clearly in disbelief himself.

“No way,” says Suzaku, “oh man, that means we both live in the same town again!”

Lelouch’s face softens into something precious. “... Nunnally... will be very glad to see you again.”

They stand there for a while, living in the strange moment.

“I still don’t know why you’re in here in the first place,” Lelouch says. He smiles, and his teeth glint. “Up to some mischief?” “No!” says Suzaku, on the defensive. Then all the color drains out of his face. “Oh, no...” he says. “I was looking for Arthur...” “Arthur?”

“That’s right, you haven’t met him. He’s my cat—”

“Cat?” says Lelouch. “Is he black, with a lighter patch around his eye?”

“You’ve seen him?!”

“Just a few minutes ago. He went that way,” Lelouch says, pointing.

Sure enough, Arthur is there, in an adjacent room on the second floor. Suzaku calls his name in ecstatic relief, gathers him up into his arms. “I’m so glad you’re safe,” he tells him breathlessly, burying his nose in the top of Arthur’s head. Lelouch smiles fondly, watching the pair.

A cold gust of wind rattles the frames of the house. Suzaku jumps, holding Arthur close to his chest.

“Are you afraid?”

“It’s not that I’m afraid,” Suzaku says. “Just... this place seems weird. Haunted. I guess. I’m glad it’s only you.”

Lelouch laughs. “I forgot, you always were bad with ghosts, weren’t you? Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

“Ghosts aren’t real!”

Lelouch’s smile grows dangerously. “Then what about me?”

“You’re different,” says Suzaku, hurt, “you’ve— you’ve always been different. Don’t you know that?” There’s no way Lelouch would ever hurt him.

Lelouch looks away, and there’s an odd, sad little smile on his face. “How I wish I were, Suzaku,” he says.

Suzaku’s about to ask him what he means by that, but Lelouch promptly takes a seat on the floor. Because the movement is sudden and it’s unlike the neatfreak Lelouch to sit down on garbage, Suzaku says “Whoa, are you okay?” and steps towards him. Lelouch starts to shake his head, then nods, his head drooping, his face invisible behind his curtain of hair. He knits his fingers together and rests his forehead atop them.

“I just need to rest,” he says, his voice shaking. “I’ll be fine in a moment.”

“Are you sure?” Suzaku says. His tone of voice makes it clear that he isn’t convinced. He squats down to be on eye level with Lelouch, though Lelouch’s eyes are still hidden from him. “You’re acting weird. Do you need to see a doctor or something? I can take—”

Suzaku stops talking. It’s not a sudden halt, more of a gradual trailing off. This is because at first his brain does not comprehend what it is seeing.

Some kind of veneer has dropped, some kind of facade. Ablaze. Lelouch’s eyes are on fire. Red, redder than anything Suzaku has ever seen, two glowing coals sunk into the night-darkened hollow of his face. Part of Suzaku that remains detached comments on a remembered conversation from years ago, about how vampires’ eyes burn like this when they’re starving. The rest of Suzaku forgets how to breathe.

“This is a bad time,” says Lelouch. For the first time since he met Lelouch again, Suzaku is genuinely scared, not of any ghosts or of Lelouch but for Lelouch, for how breathy and raspy his voice has just become, the way he’s panting out each word. Lelouch squeezes his eyes shut and covers them, turning his face away. “I’m sorry, Suzaku, I’m so goddamn hungry. I don’t trust myself around you right now. Please leave. Come back in—”

Suzaku isn’t leaving. He reaches up to take hold of Lelouch’s wrists and pull them down, but he can’t, and for a moment he’s surprised at how strong Lelouch has become. “Why haven’t you eaten?” Suzaku asks. The question is accusatory, the why haven’t you been taking care of yourself latent beneath the spoken words. Lelouch barks out a bitter laugh as Suzaku lets go of him, frowning.

“Can’t. Our family lost one of our sources of Supply recently,” Lelouch starts to explain, face still hidden in his hands. Suzaku knows from growing up with Lelouch that a Supplier is a human who, for whatever reason— money, usually, but some people seem to genuinely enjoy it— allows vampires to feed off of them. Usually, because the human body cannot produce blood infinitely, there’s an exclusive relationship between the Supplier and one vampire or one small group of vampires, and often a special contract is signed by both parties, usually with carefully structured schedules for feedings and complicated words like “consent” and “restitution”. The contracts can’t be brought into court, obviously, but it’s a ceremony, a symbol of trust and symbiosis between feeder and feed. As one might imagine, relationships like these are hard to come by, so much so that many vampires instead choose to take unwilling victims. “Schneizel drank them dry.”

“What?! Why would he do that?!”

“He said it was an accident—”

“That bastard,” hisses Suzaku, his hands involuntarily tightening on Lelouch’s wrists.

Lelouch laughs again. He’s good at it, this kind of sarcastic, angry laugh that has nothing at all to do with mirth. There’s a long list of reasons why Suzaku never liked Schneizel. “So we only have one person now, and really we need two. It’s either Nunnally or I who gets to drink. Until we find another one, we have to make do.”

“You poor thing,” Suzaku says. He’s taken to idly stroking Lelouch’s wrist with his thumbs. Arthur meows, close enough that Suzaku can tell he isn’t wandering off again. He loves Arthur, but right now his attention is all for Lelouch. “How long have you not been eating properly?”

“A few weeks,” Lelouch croaks. It hangs in the air like a death sentence. Suzaku goes silent as he thinks about what he’s going to do.

When Suzaku releases Lelouch’s hands, Lelouch looks up. Suzaku stands. “I really need you to leave,” Lelouch is saying. “It’s not that I’m not happy to see you again, I truly am, but you’re going to have to wait a while because— what are you doing?”

Suzaku is untying his scarf from around his neck and pulling it off in quick, jerky movements. “You’re hungry, right? You can drink from me. I don’t mind.”

Lelouch is so stunned he’s actually speechless; so many thoughts fight to be voiced all at once they beat each other to death and die in his throat. What Suzaku doesn’t know is how delicious he smells; Lelouch has never smelled anything like it. A vampire’s scent is extremely acute, especially a hungry vampire’s, and Lelouch has had Suzaku’s scent since he entered the building, since he was a hundred meters out. Lelouch was drawn to him. What Suzaku doesn’t know is that Lelouch has been fighting to suppress his hunger since Suzaku walked in, that Lelouch would like nothing more than to rip Suzaku apart and gorge himself, that he’s trembling with the very desire to. But he can’t. Mustn’t. Not Suzaku. Come, Lelouch, you can’t be so hungry you’ve forgotten who your first and best friend is! Suzaku of all people, Suzaku pure and beautiful and good? Suzaku, who as a child you swore to yourself you’d never hurt?

Suzaku, willing and inviting Lelouch to dine on him?

Lelouch’s pink tongue peeks over white fangs, sweeping to the side and hiding again in an almost invisible micromovement, and Suzaku can see him giving in.

“Just a little bit.”

“Yeah,” says Suzaku. Lelouch takes a step toward him. A cold wind blows between them, priming Suzaku’s throat with gooseflesh. Suzaku holds as still as he can, trying not to shiver, not knowing if it’s from the cold or something else. “Just a little.” Lelouch is standing, at long last, in front of him. His hand comes up to hold Suzaku’s jaw, his thumb covering the slightly darkened patch of skin underneath Suzaku’s eye. Lelouch stares at him for a moment in mute wonder.

Lelouch has the most incredible eyes, Suzaku thinks. It’s not just right now, when they’re crimson and ablaze in this dark room of this abandoned house. Suzaku has always thought that. They have the most beautiful color, a true, rare violet that Suzaku’s never seen anywhere else, and in the right light flecks of the iris sparkle like the jagged chunk of fluorite Suzaku once held up to the light in the third grade on a fieldtrip in the giftshop of a gemstone quarry. There’s something about the way Lelouch’s long, dark eyelashes— Marianne always said they were “wasted on a boy”, which Suzaku believes couldn’t be further from the truth— are shaped, how they frame his eyes and cast shadows on his face. As a child, Suzaku never understood these feelings he might have always had for his best friend, but at age seventeen, here, in the dark, peering into Lelouch’s eyes at his most unprotected and raw, something inside Suzaku slides and clicks into place. Or maybe it had always been there.

“It’ll hurt,” Lelouch says, dragging him back from behind his eyes. Suzaku nods, mutely. “There will be pain at first, but a vampire’s saliva—” Lelouch breaks off and cringes at the phrase, as though it’s vulgar, which for some reason makes Suzaku’s heartbeat trip— “contains endorphins which, in humans, act as a heavy analgesic and may also induce a certain euphoria.” While Lelouch is talking, his gaze trails down to Suzaku’s pulse point, then, as soon as he catches himself, flies back up to Suzaku’s eyes. He fidgets uncomfortably. “It lasts for a short time afterward, then wears off.”

Suzaku just nods along with his explanation, not trusting himself to speak.

“Depending on the person,” Lelouch continues, “if you are consistently fed upon by vampires, it’s possible for your body to become dependent on those endorphins. Addicted. I don’t want to...”

Suzaku just shakes his head, and Lelouch trails off. He brings his own hand up to touch Lelouch’s face, stroking the soft skin of his cheek with the inside of his thumb. He never really paid much attention to it when they were kids, but wow, Lelouch’s skin is incredibly soft. He kind of wants to never stop touching it, but that would be awkward. He’s lucky Lelouch is allowing him even this.

Suzaku’s voice is oddly rough when he says “Don’t make me wait.”

There’s an animalistic growl— “Suzaku”— and in the same instant Suzaku’s head is being turned to the side and it’s as if all the resolve Lelouch had to be as slow and gentle as possible vanishes straight into thin air. The pain comes quick, Suzaku cries out, his broken voice quieting Lelouch makes soothing movements across his shoulder with his free hand. Lelouch’s mouth is hot on Suzaku. He feels the pain as Lelouch’s teeth leave him, and whimpers, and Lelouch strokes him again, a tender apology, before he moves on to sucking. Suzaku’s hands grab hold of Lelouch’s shirt and curl into fists as something warm breathes itself to life in the chambers of his gut.

Suzaku can feel Lelouch’s shaky, relieved, full exhale against his skin at the first swallow. Lelouch tilts his head for a better angle, taking his mouth away, pressing his lips to Suzaku’s skin again.

As Lelouch drinks, Suzaku can feel the tension leaving both of their bodies. Once they settle in, it feels like the most natural thing in the world for Suzaku to reach up and gently tangle his fingers in Lelouch’s hair. It’s cold. Lelouch is cold, but somehow, having him close is not unpleasant. The gesture is pure guidance and affection, like helping a puppy to nurse.

“There you go,” Suzaku whispers, stroking Lelouch’s head comfortingly. “Much better, right?” Without taking his mouth from Suzaku’s neck, Lelouch answers with a wordless sob of relief, sucking harder when Suzaku tells him it’s okay.

It feels good. As Lelouch continues to feed, the pain for Suzaku subsides, replaced with a drunk, heady pleasure, a desire to stay and let Lelouch drink from him as long as he wants, maybe forever. Suzaku brings his other arm up to wrap around Lelouch’s middle in a sort of hug, pulling him closer, and to anyone looking in, the two would have looked like a perfectly normal young couple sharing a perfectly normal embrace.

So soft, Suzaku thinks, fingertips in the sleek black hair.

When Lelouch tears himself away and staggers backward, hand pressed over his mouth, his eyes are violet again, dull in comparison in the shifting shades of dark blue that dapple the night. “Oh God,” he says, to himself rather than Suzaku, “oh God, that was good.” He turns around, hands over his mouth, to compose himself.

The enormity of the electricity shooting through Lelouch’s veins even now is inexpressible. Suzaku tastes good, better than anything Lelouch has ever tasted; animalistically, far from his usual fastidiousness, Lelouch smears the bits of Suzaku left on his chin up into his mouth, is unable to keep his voice down as the taste melts and spreads on his tongue. The best he can do is try to muffle the desperate, helpless whimpers of pleasure with his palms as he licks them clean. Then Suzaku’s blood is all inside Lelouch, and there’s nothing left but the memory; he’ll dream of it, he thinks, tasting Suzaku over and over in his sleep.

The chemicals in Lelouch’s spit make Suzaku a little warm and sleepy, and he blinks, taking a moment to realize that Lelouch has left his side. He reaches up to the wound Lelouch left; it’s no longer pulsing blood. He wonders how Lelouch made that work. When Lelouch turns back around, his mouth is wiped and his breathing is even. His eyes are focused and the bags underneath them are gone; overall he looks a thousand times better than he did before Suzaku allowed him to drink. Suzaku walks over to him and nuzzles into his shoulder.

“Wha— what are you doing,” Lelouch says for the second time that night, and if he weren’t a vampire the blood would be rising high in his cheeks. His physiological predilection against blushing had saved him many times as a child. As it is, he merely tenses up with embarrassment, though not so much as to suggest that Suzaku’s touch is unwelcome.

“Warm,” is all Suzaku answers, pulling Lelouch close. Lelouch lets out a puff of breath.

“I’m not warm, idiot. I’m undead,” Lelouch tells him, but he holds still and lets Suzaku stay close to him anyway.

“Mm, you caught me. Just wanna be close to you,” Suzaku says, and Lelouch crinkles his brow and smiles, hopeless and fond.

“That’s the endorphins,” Lelouch says. “It’s called the afterbite effect. It’s meant to encourage bonding and a symbiotic relationship between vampire and human.”

“Okay, it’s the endorphins,” Suzaku says. “Still wanna be close to you.”

“I never said you couldn’t, idiot,” Lelouch murmurs, running his fingers through Suzaku’s hair.

They stand like that for quite some time, the moonlight pouring down onto them as they hold each other. In a corner of the room, Arthur bats around an empty soup can, the metallic rattle like a baby’s echoing throughout the room.

“We should be getting back,” Suzaku mutters after quite some time. “My parents are probably getting worried about me.”

“Mm,” Lelouch says. “I suppose you could say the same for me.” He steps back, denying Suzaku his embrace, and Suzaku puffs up a little, but survives.

“Which direction is your house?” Suzaku asks, and it’s a disappointment when Lelouch points in the opposite direction from his, but in the end it’s okay; there will be plenty of time in the future, to see each other. They have each other again, and this time nothing will take them apart. As casually as anything, they enter each others’ names into their phones, and then, with promises to text each other and arrange another meeting soon, it’s finally time to say goodbye.

“Lelouch,” says Suzaku, stopping in his tracks just a moment after setting off. Lelouch stops, turns his head to show he’s listening. Suzaku gathers Arthur up closer to his chest.

“Until you find another source of Supply,” Suzaku begins. “Until you find another source of Supply, if you get hungry... call me again.”

It’s not blushing, but it’s something like blushing, and if Lelouch weren’t a vampire, he would be blushing.

“I’ll think about it,” he says.

“You’d better,” Suzaku says.

#suzalulu #suzaku kururugi #lelouch lamperouge #i really have no idea why i wrote this aside from i had this one conversation with vela that BRIEFLY mentioned vampire lelouch and my #imagination just derailed from there #i didn't even know i liked vampires wtf #mine.fic #ok to rb /#long post /#blood ment /#IT'S A MASSIVE RELIEF TO FINALLY BE DONE WITH THIS

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accio-ambition · 7 years

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Hello hello hello! Welcome to a new week of @captainswanbigbang chapters and stories. You might notice that the rating on this story has risen. After some guidance from the CSBB mods, I aired on the side of caution. So maybe this gives you a little bit of incentive to see exactly why it's gone up. But it won't happen for a little while still. You know, after Killian shows up. That might count as a spoiler, but, c’mon, you knew it ws coming, didn’t you? Once more, a huge massive thank you to @sotheylived for betaing this mess of words and @shipsxahoy and @queen-icicle-fandom for not only reading through the whole thing but making great art to it. I'm still amazed.

Summary: Bouncing around with her son for the majority of her life, Emma Swan has told herself she’s happy in the city. It’s where the most camera operating jobs are, and that’s how she makes her money. But when an old friend calls her and asks for her help on a new project in small town Maine, Emma finds herself in a place she’s never been with people she doesn’t know filming a profession she knows nothing about. But when the captain of the ship she’s filming begins taking a keen interest in her and her life, she finds herself wondering whether she might just catch something other than fish. Deadliest Catch AU Rating: M Content warning: Character death, some violent situations

FFnet/AO3/Cover art/Snapshot art

Chapter Three

They make it into a road trip, not that they have any other choice. It’s not like she can afford to ship all of their stuff across the country, especially after the down payment she had to make on the house.

(To be fair, if she were to have a dream house, this would be as close as she could get to it. Slightly Victorian, three bedrooms, a view. It really is something else.)

She rents a U-Haul and they load as much furniture and as many boxes as they can into it on a Thursday night right after Henry graduates the fifth grade.

(Even on her deathbed, she will not admit to tearing up at that silly ceremony. He’s moving to middle school, not leaving the house and going to college.

Still, he’s her little boy and he’s growing up far too fast for her liking.)

It takes a lot of time and strength – especially the couch and their mattresses, she has Henry run to their neighbors and ask for their help – but the truck is full and her trusty Bug is hooked to the hitch, all ready for them to set off in the morning.

“How long is it going to take us?” Henry asks that night as they sit on the floor of their empty living room eating pizza.

She shrugs. “Probably closer to a week than not,” she tells him in between bites. “Depends on how much driving we do in a day.”

“You mean you do,” he quips back.

Emma makes a scrunchy face of displeasure. “I expect you to entertain me. No falling asleep for the entire ride.”

Smug smirk intact, Henry chomps on the last bit of his slice. “I promise nothing.”

They both sit in silence for a while, digesting and contemplating their next step in life together. At least on Emma’s part, memories of what’s occurred in this apartment flitter across her mind. Frequently stubbing her toe on that doorjamb, Henry sticking seasonal jellies on that window for the world below to see.

It’s not much, but it’s been a psuedo-home for them.

Henry breaks the quiet by standing up to stretch. “Can we stop at some famous places?” he asks.

Standing up beside him, careful not to spill any of her leftover crumbs on the sleeping bag they’ll sleep in tonight, Emma says, “That’s up to you. You’re going to be my navigator.”

His eyes go wide and he utters yes under his breath. “Perfect for Operation Pirate!”

Emma rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah,” she says through her last bite of pizza. Brushing her hands off, she nudges him toward the sleeping bag that awaits him in what used to be his bedroom. “You’re going to have to get a good night’s sleep to be worthy of my first mate tomorrow.”

(Although how she’ll sleep tonight as the captain of their vessel is up for debate.)

(She’s not going to sleep well at all.)

But still, Emma is taking one last walk through the apartment as the first rays of that hot Arizona sun hit her for the last time. She’s got hot chocolate in one hand and her phone in the other, watching for a reasonable time to wake up Henry and savoring these last moments alone.

And then it’s on the road. Phoenix to Albuquerque, Tulsa to Cincinnati, a brief hop around (and maybe illegally over, whoops) the border at Niagara Falls. It takes them about ten days, with all the stopping Henry has her doing, but it’s well worth it. When else are they going to road trip across the country like this?

When she pulls off the highway exit marked Storybrooke, Emma finally understands what David and Jefferson meant. Not even five minutes’ drive from the highway and they’re surrounded by trees. A couple more minutes and Emma watches as a sign welcoming them to town rolls past the passenger window.

It really is small. Smaller than she thought it would be, but somehow also larger.

(To be fair, she had no idea what she was expecting. She just knew that it wasn’t anything like Phoenix.)

There’s one stoplight at the entrance of town, flashing yellow. There’s the diner, a B&B, what looks like a handful of mom and pop shops. Absentmindedly, Emma wonders where these people get their groceries because Storybrooke doesn’t seem like the sort of place to house a Winn Dixie or a Giant.

She turns right at the next intersection, heading closer to the water. Her foot lets off the gas and the car slows to a crawl as Emma peers at the numbers adorning each house and mailbox.

The house looks just like the pictures, maybe better. The sun is setting behind it when she pushes the gearshift into park on the street. Surprising no one, Henry is conked out, his head leaning up against the window with his jacket balled up in the space between his head and shoulder.

Turning the truck off, Emma’s careful to be quiet getting out. She doesn’t want to wake Henry, number one, but number two, she wants some time to explore her new digs on her own.

The gate squeaks a little bit as she pushes it open. The third step up to the front door creaks when she puts her weight on it. Ms. Shoemaker told her she’d put a key beneath the welcome mat, and when Emma squats down, she finds the key in the exact middle of the dusty outline. Carefully, she inserts the key into the lock, turns it, and gently opens the door.

She’s got a house. A real bonafide house with a fence and a porch and a fucking welcome mat.

For a moment, she allows silent tears to roll down her cheeks, her hand over her mouth to hold sobs in. As a kid, this is all she really wanted: a place to plant roots, somewhere to look forward to coming back to at the end of the day. She had it for a little bit before Neal and now it’s come back to her somehow.

Right now, Storybrooke feels like the right decision.

After wiping her face and cleaning herself up a bit, Emma heads back to the truck and, this time, she doesn’t hesitate slamming doors and talking to herself. Henry’s got to wake up, which he does with a start when she sneezes while grabbing her purse.

“Are we here?” he asks slowly, stumbling over his words and rubbing his eyes.

“Yeah,” she replies quietly. She nods toward the house behind him as she adds, “The house is unlocked if you want to go look at it, but I thought we’d just call it a night.”

His jaw cracks with a yawn. “Good idea,” Henry grumbles, “Which one’s David and Mary Margaret’s?”

“To the right.” Probably. She’s kind of focused on going through her purse to make sure nothing fell out in between pit stops, but even then, when she hears the passenger door groan open, Emma instinctively tells him, “Be polite and knock on the front door. They know we’re coming.”

“Okay.” Emma hears him fumbling around and grabbing his backpack from his foot space before the passenger door slams shut behind him.

She follows suit, finding everything in her purse in its proper place for once, and closes the driver’s door. She inhales deeply, soaking in those last sweet rays of midsummer sun. It had been staring her in the face all day, burning her eyes more often than not, but after a long day of driving, it’s relaxing.

Still, all Emma wants is some food, a shower, and sleep. Lots of it.

Thankfully, living next door to friends makes that easy.

Emma’s pulling her and Henry’s bags from the Bug when she first hears the squeals. She barely has time to turn around before arms wrap around her shoulders and pull her into a tight hug.

“You made it!” Mary Margaret says in her ear, moving them back and forth. “I’ve been worried sick about you.”

Chuckling, Emma drops the bag she’s holding and returns the embrace. “I texted you when we were in Portland.”

“I know, but you’ve been driving for days, so I know it’s probably been tough.” With a contented sigh, Mary Margaret releases her from her grasp and pulls back to observe her. Even when they barely knew each other, Emma always felt like the other woman eyed her up and down like a mother would: made sure her clothes were clean and sturdy, her hair washed, her stomach satisfied. “Are you guys hungry? Do you want to start unpacking?”

“I don’t know about the kid, but I could use some food and a shower.”

Fully embracing that mothering nature of hers, Mary Margaret picks up Henry’s bag and begins to usher her up and into her home. “David’s just finishing up the spare room. I hope Henry doesn’t mind sleeping on a hideaway in the office.”

“He’s ten, his back will recover from it if necessary,” Emma says with a laugh. She heaves her own bag over her shoulder and takes a step away from Mary Margaret to head back to her house. “I’ve got to lock the place back up, but I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that.” The way her friend waves off the idea of safety - although there isn’t anything in the house right now, Emma still doesn’t want people going into it uninvited - appalls her. Mary Margaret glances back at her once she reaches the gate and shakes her head good naturedly. “People in town don’t really do that, especially for buildings they know aren’t lived in.”

Cautiously following her, Emma narrows her eyes. “Do people know that we’re going to live there?”

Mary Margaret nods. “They know someone is. Not you specifically,” she clarifies. She looks back at Emma again, at her raised brows and general air of confusion about her. Mary Margaret shrugs. “It’s a small town.”

“No kidding,” Emma scoffs under her breath.

Opening the front door, Emma is hit with the overwhelming sense of comfort. Before she even takes a complete step into the house, she can smell something delicious wafting out the door. It’s vaguely reminiscent of late night study sessions at the 24-hour diner near campus, of rocking Henry to sleep in his bucket carseat while trying to catch up on what she missed while incarcerated. It’s comforting and a little bit stressing, but overall relaxes Emma.

Actually making her way into the house, she spots the blanket she used to wrap herself in on the few occasions she hung out at Mary Margaret’s over the back of the couch. She recognizes a picture hanging on the wall in the entryway: it’s a picture of David grinning wide at a laughing baby Henry, her son’s eyes squinted closed in pure joy. She remembers taking that picture, one evening while the two of them tried to study for a test. Henry had been crying since they sat down, keeping them from doing anything, and didn’t stop until David picked him up and started making funny faces.

It’s comforting. It’s home. Not hers - her new home is approximately 150 feet to the left - but what she felt was home for the first time in that big city all on her own.

Her moment of reverie comes to a halt when David comes clunking down the stairs to her right. She looks up, smile already across her face in preparation for seeing the man who’s the closest thing she has to a brother in her life.

“Emma!” He wraps her up in a warm hug before he even reaches the bottom step. “Glad to see you made it across the country in one piece.”

“Yeah, there were some close calls there,” she jokes. Nodding toward the second level, she asks, “Where’s Henry?”

“He’s upstairs in the office settling in.”

“Did he ask you for the wifi password?”

“No, but I gave it to him anyways.” David claps her on the back and ushers her toward the kitchen, wrapping his arm around her shoulder as she wraps hers around his waist. “That’s how kids function these days, if Mary Margaret’s to be believed.”

“I’ve got it on good authority,” Mary Margaret interjects, carefully pouring a pot of pasta into a colander in the sink. When the steam clears, she busies herself with checking the sauce on the stove and dressing the salad next to the sink.

She’s so domestic, Emma thinks, settling nicely into the role of Mrs. Nolan. The way that David leaves her side to gather silverware and set up the table without so much as a question shows he’s acclimated to the husband title quite as well.

(She’s happy for them, she really is, but it is a little bit sickening in the way that watching puppies and babies play for too long is nauseating.)

“So dinner’s nothing too fancy, but there’s a lot of it, so we should all have enough for tonight and then I can send you back with leftovers.”

“Oh,” Emma comments, caught off-guard by her friend’s thoughtfulness. “Thanks Mary Margaret.”

She slides the pasta into a serving bowl with a smile in her direction. “That’s what I’m here for.” With the pot of sauce in one hand and a ladle in the other, Mary Margaret points between her and her husband. “We’re here for,” she corrects herself. “Really though. Especially as you guys are getting accustomed to the place and the job. If you need me to watch Henry, that’s fine. I’ll be working at the summer camp soon, but he can come with me.”

All Emma can do is nod and mutter, “Thanks.”

David sneaks up behind her and surprises her with a brotherly kiss to her temple. Emma, unable to help herself, giggles. “And we’ll help you out tomorrow with moving things in,” he offers, walking past her to press a sweet kiss to Mary Margaret’s cheek before taking the salad bowl she’s holding.

Emma sighs in relief. “Great. Henry’s strong for his age, but moving that couch by myself was horrible.”

David laughs as he sets the bowl on the dinner table. “I can’t possibly understand why.”

“Are we ready to eat?” Mary Margaret asks.

“I was born ready.” Chuckling to herself, Emma steps to the bottom of the stairs, shouting up for Henry to wash his hands and make his way down, “or else I’m going to eat your dinner too!”

“Don’t you dare, Mom!” he responds quickly, sounding almost like a baby elephant trying to run for the first time.

Henry stumbles down the stairs soon after, barreling into the only empty chair left at the table. Together, the four of them eat in what soon becomes one of the happiest meals of Emma’s life. Henry and David hit it off immediately, trading smiles identical to the one hanging up only a few feet behind both of them. The Nolans talk about their wedding and subsequent honeymoon in the U.K., staying in castles and being treated like a king and queen. It’s nice to catch up with them. It makes Emma feel like she was privy to something she knows she has no right to be privy to.

The boys scarf down their food - second servings, even, in the case of her son - before quickly washing their dishes and scurrying off to the living room to watch some show David had DVR’d and Henry had been dying to watch.

Meanwhile, Mary Margaret and Emma stay at the table, talking and sipping at their respective glasses of wine until Emma yawns so intensely that it causes her jaw to crack audibly enough for her friend to hear it.

“Oh, I’m sorry for keeping you up,” Mary Margaret swiftly apologizes, her hand coming to rest on Emma’s knee in sympathy. “You must be exhausted.”

“A bit, yeah,” Emma admits. Another yawn surprises her and her one eyelid feels heavy with fatigue.

Standing from her seat, Mary Margaret grabs Emma’s hand to help her rise as well. “Here, let me show you to the guest room.” She leads Emma up the stairs, saying, “I know you’re pressed to move everything in, but don’t worry about getting up early tomorrow. Sleep in, take some time for yourself. We’ll take care of Henry until you get up.”

For some reason, Emma starts to tear up. She’s been on her own raising Henry for a decade that her friend’s simple offer to care for him is too much at this exhaustion level.

“Thank you, Mary Margaret,” she says graciously. Slowly, Emma opens her arms, silently asking for a hug, an offer Mary Margaret is more than happy to take her up on. “I know I’ve said it a million times since I got here, but I mean it.”

“You’re not alone here,” Mary Margaret whispers in her ear, her chin comfortably tucked into her shoulder. “This is the village it takes to raise a child.”

They linger in that embrace for a couple of minutes, Emma taking the time to absorb the warmth and homeyness that Mary Margaret emitted. Those tears from earlier threaten to roll down Emma’s cheek - fat drops that are completely unnecessary for such a happy moment. Sniffing, she finally pulls back and sends her friend a watery grin.

Mary Margaret mimics her smile, patting Emma’s cheek gently. “Sleep well, Emma. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Yeah, see you in the morning,” she mumbles back. Stepping into the guest room, Emma happily falls onto the mattress and sinks into oblivion, traveling clothes and all.

#cs ff #csbb #captain swan big bang #ouat #storytime #my words #and now we say hello to mary margaret and david!#lowkey mom and dad of the story #not at all lowkey #but like #i love their dynamic #and emma missed them a lot

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andwinterfell · 4 years

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"le raison d'être“ characters: Cher Michaels, Darla (Michaels) Matthews, The McCormick Family warnings: implications of parental neglect / emotional abuse / family issues

1981 words originally written 5/26/2017, no edits currently

The small bed and breakfast of Seaside Cove isn't a place most people would find at first glance. It's somewhat off to the side, located on a cliff, it's driveway shielded by trees. One driving through, especially in poor weather, is likely to miss the blue sign that points it's way down that road, or they're more likely to see the yellow diamond that says No Outlet and pass it up completely.

This is what Cher Michaels deals with every time he makes his way into this town. Leaning over the back seat of his Ubers pointing no, no, there it's there… and often sitting back grumbling when they drive past. The small bed and breakfast of Seaside Cove is larger than most houses still. It's old, a tall and skinny Victorian home with with red shutters and a door also painted red. The mailbox is shaped like a large blue whale, and when he steps out of his Uber often his first act is to run his fingers over the details of the metal. Handmade he knows, by the owner's father before he disappeared and became the sort of person who kidnapped rich kids for money. Cher heard he was in jail again last time he talked to his sister. Neither of them knew how to feel about that, all things considered.

There have been a few additions over the years, newly applied paint and a repair of certain parts of the house, a wheelchair ramp and several colorful picnic tables overlooking the sea. The newest thing Cher finds this time is the binoculars sitting at the very edge of the cliff, just before the fence to keep people from falling over. Twenty five cents for a minute, fifty for two. He doesn't know how they keep all this up with prices like that. It's a cheap place to stay too, five open rooms with two beds each at the most and a fee that was far less than most in the area and a house that was hard to find. They get more business in tourist season, but not by much. They have benefactors of sorts, himself semi-included when he can get away with it, but he still can't say if it would be enough. *** Cher Michaels arrives on an off season, bundled up for the cold Friday afternoon after cutting his last class to get here. Accounting, he'd told his sister when she tried to chide him, a class he both hates and excels at so don't sound like such a mother, Darla. “Well, I'm a mother now aren't I?” “You're not mine.” (That phone conversation led to awkward silence, both of them remembering their own mother. Darla makes a sound, probably to ask how Angelique is doing if she's well if she's healthy, but Cher cuts her off before she can. “I'll be there in a bit.”) Now, standing in front of the house, he stuffs his hands into his pockets and shifts awkwardly. He wonders if she's working right now, because he hadn't called her when he got out of class and into the Uber. He wonders if he should have let her ask. *** The small bed and breakfast of Seaside Cove is run by a couple in their late thirties. Junior McCormick and his wife Norelle, their children Andrew and Mia, and Junior's grandfather Reginald. Aside from his sister, they're the only ones who run the house. It's a family business, Norelle had told him, you and your sister are family too. He tries not to think about that. He fails often, it's hard when Norelle McCormick spots you from the window and is suddenly ushering you in, cooing over you like an Aunt you haven't seen in a while even though Cher reminds her it's barely been a month. Darla's not there yet, but his niece and nephew are. Tristan, getting bigger and learning how to walk, chases after Norelle son, a teenager who has the whole angst thing down to a T. Amèlie, nearly five, lays on her stomach at the foot of Reggie's wheelchair, quietly coloring while the old man sleeps. It's hectic as always, and Cher has to thank God that only the bare amount of family is here right now. Thanksgiving had seen this as well as the Winters twins, Junior's half brother with his mother and their childhood friend, and even Junior's father who'd stopped in at the end of the day to cause a commotion and leave again only to be arrested the following month for breaking and entering. “No one else is coming, right?” “Well…” “Other than Darla and Jere.” *** He's playing with Mia and Tristan when Darla finally shows up. It's nearly evening when she comes in with her husband, both of them carrying groceries. She's surprised when she sees him there. “I didn't think you were serious about missing class, Cher.” “When do I lie about that?” “Fine, I hoped you weren't serious.” He shrugs. “I'll make up what I missed over the weekend while you're working.” They both know this isn't true. More likely: Tristan will demand his attention, Norelle will need someone to watch Mia, Amèlie will want him to play her favorite slow piano song a hundred times in an hour, Andrew will need help with math. Cher never considered himself to be good with kids until he found himself with his sister's and Norelle’s crawling all over him. He thinks he likes them now, maybe, sometimes. He thinks he's a decent tutor too, he thinks he's getting better at patience. At least, with children. Wouldn't want one of his own but... well, it's been pointed out he indulges and humors them more than adults, at least. Before that, though, he pulls a few things from his bag. Wrapped in brown paper and again inside a plastic bag. He gives these to Darla. “Fran sent that envelope of money, Jolie sent the champagne God only knows where she got it, the coloring books too. I found that necklace here, in America, it was cheaper than I expected.” (She cries, of course she does. She wraps her arms around his shoulders. She doesn’t ask what about Father and Maman. Cher leans into it.) *** It's Saturday before he sits down with his sister. She's made iced tea, put it in two skinny glasses that she sits between them in the sitting room. He has Mia on his lap, reading some story to her while she points at brightly colored pictures that follow. Darla sweeps her away, depositing her into her great grandfather’s lap before taking a seat next to her brother. “You haven’t even looked at what you missed yet, have you?” Cher slumps back, looking away from her. “I don’t really need to, Darla.” She reaches out, fingers twitching on his sleeve as she tugs his hand closer so she can set her own in it. He lets her, glances at her, tries not to smile. “Have you decided what you’re going to do when you finish school?” she asks, and any semblance of a smile drops from his face completely. She notices, adjusts the question, it’s no better in his mind but at least it’s something he can answer: “How was Tours?” “Same as always.” “Is Maman doing okay?” “... no, I don’t think so.” “... Jolie?” “I can’t tell. She seems happy. I don’t know.” “Francine?” “She and father fought a lot this time, more than usual,” he leans back. “She’s smarter than him. I don’t think he likes that.” Darla can’t hold back a laugh and covers her mouth after, embarrassed. A little shamed. (He knows why, her laughs aren’t very modest anymore. Aren’t pristine, ladylike little giggles. They’re loud, she snorts now. He thinks it’s his fault, because he’s here she laughs just fine when she’s with Jere, when she doesn’t seem to care he’s watching.) “What does she think of everything going on? Have you told her anything you’ve told me?” Cher shrugs. “No, not as much. I think she can tell something’s up, though. I mean, clearly she knows I’m talking to you. I’m sure everyone does, at this point. I haven’t been exactly subtle, but Father--” “Tell me more about Christmas,” she says, cutting him off. When he looks over she has one of those forced smiles on again, pretty and polite, and he wants to sink into the earth when he sees it. It gets easier the more they talk about it, she even laughs a few times at the way Jolie dragged him out at night, hearing he was going out more. He tells her about his classes, his new ones, what he likes and what he doesn’t. He makes her tell him about her Christmas, after he left, the whole motley crew showing up to fill the house, leaving little room for business. “You’re a Scrooge,” she says when he points this out. “I’m practical.” “That’s what a Scrooge would say, Cherie.” “I haven’t been haunted yet.” “Give it time,” she teases, leaning in to pinch his cheek before Norelle calls her away. One couple had found the place, shivering with snow in their hair and grateful for the warmth of a fire. “The fuck do they think they’re trying to do?” Reggie asks Cher when he comes to pick Mia back up. Cher shrugs. “Sounds like they’re sightseeing.” “It’s fucking winter.” “They want to see the natural beauty, not the tourist traps.” “Fucking stupid of them.” Cher laughs, the only sign of his agreement before he leaves the old man to sleep again. *** Sunday evening, just before dinner, Darla sweeps into Cher’s room with her hands on her hips. “You have class tomorrow, don’t you?” He sets down his book, shrugs. “I sent in the homework when I had the free time. I don’t need to be back for anything urgent before one.” “Cher…” “What if I stayed here? What if I didn’t go back?” (And, it always comes down to this. He always backs up the second he sees the look on her face, the worry, the is this my fault the you don’t have to follow my example the we’re still family no matter what he says. It happens again:) “I’m joking,” he lies, and goes back to his book. He only looks up when he feels the mattress shift, sees Darla sitting next to him, leaning over his shoulder. “What’s this one for?” “Accounting, I told you I’d look over it when I had the time.” But, he closes the book and sets it aside when she leans her head on his shoulder. They stay like that until Andrew peeks his head in, rolls his eyes and says, “Hey, dinner’s almost ready and I still need help with this Calc stuff so…” *** What if I stayed here? What if I didn’t go back? He’d be miserable, he thinks. This was his sister’s life, what she chose to do with herself, and he knows very well he’d be unhappy doing this all the time. They’re different, the two of them. She likes to bake and garden and is excited over how rough her hands have gotten over the years, how much less they hurt the more she uses them. He likes the softness of his hands, likes staying inside cool rooms and playing or reading. He doesn’t know how he would survive with no money and a job that barely paid minimum wage, no matter how much he loved the McCormicks. No matter how much he loved his weekends and holidays here. Monday morning, when she’s hugging him goodbye, she says what she always does. “What if you tried something else? What if you found something else you loved to do?” He never tells her that’s impossible he really wants to believe it’s true.

#ch: the mccormicks #ch: darla michaels #ch: cher michaels #source: wtl

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modern-days · 5 years

Text

~ Issue # 25 ~ 3: Paper Dolls ~

PAGE 1, PANEL 1

SPLASH: High P.O.V shot overlooking the rural town of Chatelgugon, with its idyllic surrounding hills and forests, with a pale blue sky above them.

CAPTION: Auvergue Provence, France 1917

CAPTION: The town of Chatelgugon.

PAGE 1, PANEL 2

Page width panel.Wide shot of the exterior of a summer hotel and its front grounds. It’s clearly been requisitioned as a field hospital. There are several field ambulances outside the lobby entrance and on the grounds are VAD nurses, as well as soldiers in uniform and dressing gowns, walking on crutches, heavily bandaged or being pushed in wheelchairs.

PAGE 1, PANEL 3

Two panels on this bottom tier. Wide shot of Solomon and Rufus Dempsy stood near a tree within the grounds with the hotel/ field hospital in the background. Solomon is in the uniform of a British private and Dempsy is wearing a white medical coat over a brown tweed suit. Solomon is smoking a cigarette and Dempsy is filling his pipe.

SOLOMON: You’re doing good work here, Rufus.

DEMPSY: Am I? Perhaps. But it’s not enough, Sol. Every day more of them arrive, more than this place can possible hope to cope with.

PAGE 1, PANEL 4

Head and shoulders semi - profile shot of Solomon. His stare focused, convincing.

SOLOMON: You can’t save them all. You might not feel like you’re doing much, but to them it’s everything.

PAGE 2, PANEL 1

Half page vertical panel. In the foreground is a head and shoulders shot of a soldier in his dressing gown. His head and left eye heavily bandaged, his other eye staring blankly. In the background are Solomon and Dempsy in a full shot facing each other and stood near the tree.

DEMPSY: I’m not sure what everything is to them now. I can aid them, attend to their wounds, but their world has changed beyond all recognition. If they live through this they’ll be returning to a home that will be completely changed.

SOLOMON: Wars have a habit of doing that.

PAGE 2, PANEL 2

Two panels on this vertical tier. Head and shoulders semi - profile shot of Dempsy, his brow furrowed.

DEMPSY: It’s different now though, this war … before it they had …

PAGE 2, PANEL 3

Head and shoulders semi - profile shot of Solomon, his stare still focused.

SOLOMON: They had what? What is it, Rufus?

PAGE 2, PANEL 4

Two panels on this vertical tier. Close up of Dempsy’s hands as he taps at his pipe.

DEMPSY: It’s nothing. It’s just this damned war, the sheer cost of it.

PAGE 2, PANEL 5

Head to waist profile shot of Solomon and Dempsy directly facing each other.

SOLOMON: It’s a whole lot more than that, old friend, but don’t worry, if you don’t want to give any answers I won’t ask any questions.

PAGE 2, PANEL 6

Half page vertical panel. In the foreground is a VAD nurse pushing a uniformed soldier in a wheelchair. In the background are Solomon and Dempsy by the tree. Solomon with his hand on Dempsy’s shoulder.

SOLOMON: Just promise me you’ll tell me the truth some day.

PAGE 3, PANEL 1

INSERT.

Overhead shot of the front of Gabriel’s bookshop and the pavement in front of it.

ARTIST NOTE: Insert is positioned in the top left of panel 2.

CAPTION: London, present day.

LUCY ( O.P ): What are you saying Sol?

SOLOMON ( O.P ): I’m saying someone is systematically killing angels.

SOLOMON ( O.P ): Not just here either. It’s happening all over the world.

PAGE 3, PANEL 2

FULL PAGE SPLASH: Head to chest semi - profile shot of Solomon in the centre, and around him are images of the angels murdered in issue # 24.

ARTIST NOTE: The images could possibly go in a clockwise direction. Maybe we could reuse the images from issue # 24 as a visual recap.

IMAGE 1

Overhead shot of Armando Davos lying face up on the pavement beside his yellow cab, his eyes wide and lifeless, a pool of blood spreading from his head.

IMAGE 2

Overhead shot of Carl Bergin laying dead on the floor, blood pooling from his head, his body bathed in the red light with the lifeless Sadie in the chair.

IMAGE 3

Full shot of a dead Mr Kyota slumped up against a wall in Hong Kong Station.

IMAGE 4

Overhead shot of Gypsy Mcbride laying dead, blood pooling from her stomach into the sand.

IMAGE 5

Full shot of Rufus Dempsy lying on the ground, blood pooling from his stomach.

SOLOMON: Far as I can tell from what I’ve been told they’re all outcasts too. Whoever’s doing this, it’s a fair bet they’re organised and powerful.

SOLOMON: It’s no easy thing tracking down angels living as mortals, trust me, I know.

SOLOMON: It’s been going on for a while too. First one was three months ago. Cab driver in Los Angeles, name of Armando Davos. Then four more were taken out after that, Carl Bergin, Amsterdam, Jin Kyota, Hong Kong, Gypsy Mcbride, New Jersey. Right up to our old friend Rufus a few days ago.

PAGE 4, PANEL 1

Page width panel. Full profile shot of Gabriel and Solomon standing, facing each other, with Lucy sat on the spiral staircase, Mathias asleep behind her.

LUCY: What are we saying here? That other angels are doing this?

SOLOMON: I don’t think so. There’s something about the way they were taken out that feels, well, more mortal I guess.

LUCY: That’s a bit of a jump isn’t it.

PAGE 4, PANEL 2

Two panels on this tier. Head and shoulders semi- profile shot of Solomon.

SOLOMON: Trust me, I’ve been doing this a long time.

PAGE 4, PANEL 3

Close up forehead to chin semi- profile shot of Gabriel, frowning thoughtfully.

GABRIEL: Why would the mortals be killing us?

PAGE 4, PANEL 4

Two panels on this bottom tier. Head and shoulders shot of Gabriel from behind with Solomon facing him.

SOLOMON: Good question. Most people don’t even know you exist. I wish I had an answer for you, but I don’t, not yet.

PAGE 4, PANEL 5

Head to chest shot of Lucy looking up at Solomon, Mathias on the step behind.

LUCY: Well, I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m pretty tired of having more questions than answers.

PAGE 5, PANEL 1

Half page vertical panel. Full shot of Rufus Dempsy’s three storey house in Ashburnham Place, a Victorian terraced street in the Greenwich suburbs, a street of matching gardens, fences and privet hedges.

CAPTION: London, Greenwich. Residence of Professor Rufus Dempsy.

ARTIST NOTE: The Chapter title 3: Paper Dolls is written as if its the painted markings on the tarmac of the street, going from left to right.

QUOTE: See the paper dolls, all in a row. See the paper dolls, see how they go. See how they fall one by one, see how they fall until the deed is done.

KATE ( O.P ): What the hell does that mean?

PAGE 5, PANEL 2

Two panels on this vertical tier. Head and shoulders shot of Lucy staring intensely.

LUCY: It means exactly what it says on the tin. Why exactly are you here?

PAGE 5, PANEL 3

Head and shoulders shot of Kate staring equally as intensely at Lucy in return.

KATE: I’ve as much right to be here as you.

PAGE 5, PANEL 4

Page width panel. Head to waist profile shot of Lucy and Kate squaring up against each other in the old fashioned ground floor living room.

LUCY: Really? And just how long have you been an angel exactly?

KATE: I don’t need to be an angel to see something’s going on that could affect all of us.

KATE: That makes me involved.

PAGE 6, PANEL 1

Two panels on this top tier. Head and shoulders shot of Lucy staring at Kate, her eyes narrowed, sizing her up. There’s no dialogue in this panel.

PAGE 6, PANEL 2

Similar to the previous panel but Lucy is now visibly relaxed, a smirk playing on her lips.

LUCY: She’s got spunk, big bro. I can see why you like her. I just hope she’s good in bed.

PAGE 6, PANEL 3

Two panels on this tier. Head and shoulders shot of Kate moving forward angrily.

KATE: Why you …

PAGE 6, PANEL 4

Head to waist shot of Solomon as he grips Kate’s arm and guides her away.

SOLOMON: Ladies, please, the more eyes on this the better, yes? You, upstairs with me.

PAGE 6, PANEL 5

Page width panel. Full profile shot of Solomon leading Kate out through the door of the living room while Lucy and Gabriel stand watching.

KATE: Ooh, lucky me.

SOLOMON: I heard that.

KATE: You were supposed to.

PAGE 7, PANEL 1

Two panels on this top tier. Head to waist shot of Gabriel stood at Rufus’s desk, searching it, with Lucy in the background searching a bureau. No dialogue.

PAGE 7, PANEL 2

Head to waist shot of Lucy stood at the bureau with Gabriel in the background by the desk.

LUCY: So, are we going to pretend like this is all just one big coincidence?

PAGE 7, PANEL 3

Two panels on this tier. Head to waist shot of Gabriel with Lucy in the background.

GABRIEL: What do you mean?

PAGE 7, PANEL 4

Opposite viewpoint. Head to waist shot of Lucy with Gabriel in the background.

LUCY: Well, the big guy goes AWOL, the gods get all jittery and now angels are getting killed. Call me paranoid, but I don’t get the feeling these things are mutually exclusive.

PAGE 7, PANEL 5

Two panels on this bottom tier. Head and shoulders shot of Gabriel looking down.

GABRIEL: We don’t know anything for sure yet.

PAGE 7, PANEL 6

Head and shoulders shot of Lucy looking down as she finds something interesting.

LUCY: Oh, I think we know enough, big bro. Hello, what’s this?

PAGE 8, PANEL 1

Page width panel. Overhead shot of Gabriel and Lucy at the bureau. Both of them are looking down at a piece of bureau paper Lucy is holding.

LUCY: It looks like he was making a list. He knew what was going on. He must have.

GABRIEL: Yet he didn’t come to us.

PAGE 8, PANEL 2

Two panels on this tier. Close up of Lucy’s hand holding the piece of paper. On it are the names of the deceased fallen angels. All of them have been crossed off except for one, a woman named Taitania Romanov.

LUCY: Look, there’s only one name left on here. Maybe we’re not too late.

PAGE 8, PANEL 3

Head to waist shot of Gabriel walking away from the bureau, with Lucy in the background.

GABRIEL: We can only hope.

PAGE 8, PANEL 4

Two panels on this bottom tier. Head to chest shot of Lucy holding the piece of paper up in the foreground. On its other side is a scribbled address.

LUCY: And look what good ol’ Rufus left us as well.

SOLOMON: ( O.P ) That’s not all he left us…

PAGE 8, PANEL 5

Similar shot of Solomon in the doorway, holding up a business card for the Peppermint Club, with a telephone number on it written in lipstick.

SOLOMON: … By the looks of it he was being a bit of a naughty boy before he bit the big one.

PAGE 9, PANEL 1

Three panels on this top tier. Full shot of Harmony walking along an average London backstreet. Dressed in her rain coat with a glittery handbag.

SOLOMON ( O.P ): Evening, Harm.

PAGE 9, PANEL 2

In the foreground is a head to chest shot of Solomon from behind. Harmony is facing him in a head to waist shot with a tired but warm smile.

HARMONY: Hey Sol. If you’re looking to talk, I’m kinda beat right now.

PAGE 9, PANEL 3

Head to chest profile shot of Solomon and Lucy, with Lucy in the foreground, her eyebrows raised and Solomon looking uncomfortable with this.

SOLOMON: I just need some information.

PAGE 9, PANEL 4

Two panels on this tier. Head to waist profile shot of them facing Harmony.

HARMONY: Oh okay, so what’s up.

SOLOMON: An old friend of mine was murdered recently.

HARMONY: Sorry to hear that, Sol.

SOLOMON: Me too.

HARMONY: So, how can I help?

PAGE 9, PANEL 5

Close up of Solomon’s hand as he holds the Peppermint Club card between his finger and thumb.

SOLOMON: I found this at his place. I was wondering if you knew who’s number this is.

PAGE 9, PANEL 6

Two panels on this bottom tier. Similar profile shot of the three of them.

HARMONY: Is she in trouble?

SOLOMON: I hope not, for her sake.

PAGE 9, PANEL 7

Head to chest shot of Harmony, looking worried, biting her lip thoughtfully.

HARMONY: I don’t know, Sol. Snitching on the other girls ain’t like regular snitching.

PAGE 10, PANEL 1

Two panels on this top tier. Head and shoulders shot of Solomon staring at her.

SOLOMON: Harm, this is big. I wouldn’t ask unless I really had to. I just need to find her, see what she knows, that’s all. Nothing more than that.

PAGE 10, PANEL 2

Similar to page 9, panel 7, but now Harmony is smiling wearily as she writes on the card.

HARMONY: Well okay, I guess, but this didn’t come from me, okay .

PAGE 10, PANEL 3

Page width panel. In the foreground is a head to waist shot of Harmony going on her way. In the background Solomon and Lucy watch her.

SOLOMON: Thanks, Harm.

PAGE 10, PANEL 4

Two panels on this bottom tier. Full shot of Solomon and Lucy walking down the backstreet.

LUCY: Nice girl.

SOLOMON: One of the best.

LUCY: Just a thought, but don’t you pay her for the info she gives you?

PAGE 10, PANEL 5

Full shot of them from behind as they carry on walking down the backstreet.

SOLOMON: No, we have a different kind of arrangement.

LUCY: I see.

SOLOMON: Hmm, I’m not exactly sure you do. Anyway, we got what we came for.

LUCY: We did at that.

PAGE 11, PANEL 1

Two panels on this top tier. Kate is lying on top of a young twenty something man. Something’s going on but we’re not sure what as we can only see them from the chest up.

CAPTION: Shoreditch.

KATE: There’s two ways this can go, honey. You can tell me where Taitania Romanov lives …

PAGE 11, PANEL 2

Head to waist shot of Kate still lying on top of the man, though now we can see she has him pinned to a pool table, a broken pool cue held above his face.

KATE: … or I can slowly insert this where the sun won’t ever shine.

PAGE 11, PANEL 3

Two panels on this tier. Head and shoulders shot of the man from Kate’s P.OV.

POOL SHARK: Jesus, lady, we can work something out, right? … Right?

PAGE 11, PANEL 4

Head and shoulders shot of Kate with a deadly smile from the man’s P.OV.

KATE: I’m waiting.

PAGE 11, PANEL 5

Two panels on this bottom tier. Full shot of Gabriel and Kate leaving the pool hall.

GABRIEL: You have a unique way with people Kate Walker.

KATE: We got her address, didn’t we.

PAGE 11, PANEL 6

Head to waist shot of Gabriel looking at Kate with a hint of admiration.

GABRIEL: We did.

PAGE 12, PANEL 1

Half page vertical panel. Overhead shot of Kings Street in Hammersmith. Gina’s place is a pretty nondescript flat above a run down laundry.

CAPTION: Hammersmith.

GINA ( O.P ): ‘Scuse the mess, I don’t get visitors much.

SOLOMON ( O.P ): You should see my place. So, that’s your writing on the card?

PAGE 12, PANEL 2

Half page vertical panel. Solomon and Lucy are sat on an old sofa in Gina’s cluttered flat. There’s an indoor washing line strung across the room, with undergarments hung from them and Gina is folding yet more clothes. She is dressed skimpily in just her knickers and a tight vest.

GINA: Yeah, sure is, Rufus was a regular, good payer, though he couldn’t always get it up, if you know what I mean, so we’d talk a lot too.

PAGE 12, PANEL 3

Three panels on this bottom tier. Head and shoulders semi- profile shot of Solomon with a pair of knickers dangling from the line behind him.

SOLOMON: Uh, when did you last see him?

GINA ( O.P ): Umm, I think it was last week sometime. He didn’t seem himself though.

PAGE 12, PANEL 4

Gina in full shot in front of the window, holding the pile of clothes. Outside the window are the tops of the shops opposite with the city beyond.

SOLOMON ( O.P ): In what way?

GINA: I don’t know. He was just … well, if I didn’t know better I’d say he was scared.

PAGE 12, PANEL 5

Similar shot to panel 3, but now Solomon’s face is full of a deep concern.

SOLOMON: Scared?

PAGE 13, PANEL 1

Three panels on this top tier. Head to chest semi - profile shot of Gina.

GINA: Yeah, I ain’t never seen him like that. Usually he’s real calm and collected. You know, never shows his feelings, always has that stiff upper lip thing going on, guess that’s why I like him, reminds me of my dad.

PAGE 13, PANEL 2

Similar to previous panel, but now it’s a closer head and shoulders shot.

GINA: He’s real old fashioned, treats me like a lady, a proper gentleman, you know.

PAGE 13, PANEL 3

Head and shoulders semi - profile shot of Solomon now looking wistful.

SOLOMON: I know.

PAGE 13, PANEL 4

Three panels on this bottom tier. Close up forehead to chin shot of Solomon.

SOLOMON: Did he say anything about why he was scared?

PAGE 13, PANEL 5

Close up forehead to chin shot of Gina, looking serious for the first time.

GINA: It was odd, he never said exactly what it was that scared him, but he kept saying his sins was being visited upon him, weird stuff like that. Said he’d been keeping a really big secret for a long while now.

PAGE 13, PANEL 6

Close up of Gina’s heavily made up green eyes as a thought dawns on her.

GINA: I think I saw him properly for the first time that night, I mean really saw him.

PAGE 14, PANEL 1

Page width panel. Full shot of Lucy and Solomon from behind, walking down King’s Road. It’s quiet now, the shoppers have all gone home, and the sky now has a hint of evening orange spreading through it.

SOLOMON: You were pretty quiet in there. Everything okay?

LUCY: I was listening.

SOLOMON: And?

PAGE 14, PANEL 2

Two panels on this tier. Head to chest profile shot of Lucy looking thoughtful.

LUCY: And something she said set my alarm bells a ringing.

PAGE 14, PANEL 3

Full shot of them from behind, mostly in shadows, going through the alleyway that is also the entrance to the famous Dove Pub of Hammersmith.

SOLOMON: The bit about keeping a big secret?

LUCY: Yup.

PAGE 14, PANEL 4

Two panels on this bottom tier. Full profile shot of them passing the rear of 22 St Peters Square.

SOLOMON: I never did believe in coincidences.

LUCY: Me neither.

PAGE 14, PANEL 5

Full shot of them from behind, going down a backstreet, the sky now a full orange.

SOLOMON: Just a pity Rufus was so vague about it.

LUCY: Yeah, he liked to keep things close to his chest.

PAGE 15, PANEL 1

Page width panel. Exterior shot of the front entrance and grounds of The London Hospital. We can clearly see part of the building has bomb damage.

CAPTION: “Always did.”

CAPTION: The London Hospital, Whitechapel.

CAPTION: 1941

DEMPSY ( O.P ): Time to wake up Lady Morningstar.

LUCY: ( O.P ) Uuh, what the f-, oh, Rufus, it’s you.

PAGE 15, PANEL 2

Page width panel. In the foreground is Lucy half sat up in a hospital bed. Rufus Dempsy is stood over her in his white coat. In the background are the other beds of the ward and various medical staff going about their business.

DEMPSY: And a good job too. If anyone else had examined you then you’d be an M.O.D house guest by now. You really should be more careful.

PAGE 15, PANEL 3

Three panels on this bottom tier. Head to chest shot of Lucy in a hospital nightgown. She’s looking sheepishly up at Rufus, very much like a child.

LUCY: Well, I didn’t exactly plan on having a bomb drop on me.

PAGE 15, PANEL 4

Head to chest shot of Dempsy looking down at her, slightly annoyed but with affection.

DEMPSY: No one does. Now why don’t we get you changed out of that nightgown and outside before someone starts asking awkward questions. There’s people who need this bed who can actually die you know.

PAGE 15, PANEL 5

Head to waist shot of both Lucy and Dempsy as he guides her through the ward door.

LUCY: I can die.

DEMPSY: Not as easily as them.

LUCY: Yeah, point taken.

PAGE 16, PANEL 1

Page width panel. Wide shot of Lucy and Dempsy now stood near the hospital’s front entrance, Lucy now dressed in 1940’s clothing. On the grounds in front of them nurses are off loading a patient from an ambulance.

DEMPSY: It never ceases to amaze me, what I see around here, amidst all of this. We had an incendiary bomb hit the old operating theatre last night, straight through the wall, but the bloody thing didn’t go off.

DEMPSY: And do you know what the nurses did while the soldiers were diffusing it. They carried on, by torch light, wearing hard tin hats, they carried on.

PAGE 16, PANEL 2

Two panels on this tier. Head to chest semi - profile shot of Lucy and Dempsy.

DEMPSY: Amazing.

PAGE 16, PANEL 3

Similar to the previous panel. Head to chest semi - profile shot of Lucy and Dempsy.

DEMPSY: Everyday I see something like that. The other night I saw a pretty girl, in her teens I suspect. She’d just dropped off some of the injured and was straight back into that ambulance, driving back into that inferno.

PAGE 16, PANEL 4

Two panels on this bottom tier. Head and shoulders semi - profile shot of Dempsy.

DEMPSY: I haven’t seen her since. I don’t think she came back.

PAGE 16, PANEL 5

Similar to the previous panel, a closer head and shoulders shot.

DEMPSY: And no matter what happens, every night the good women of Whitechapel scrub this place clean.

PAGE 17, PANEL 1

Two panels on this top tier. Head to chest profile shot of Lucy and Dempsy.

LUCY: I thought you got out of all this.

DEMPSY: I did.

LUCY: So what brought you back?

PAGE 17, PANEL 2

Head and shoulders profile shot of Dempsy. His expression heavy, thoughtful.

DEMPSY: A woman. Just a woman.

PAGE 17, PANEL 3

Two panels on this tier. Full shot of Dempsy, long coat, brief case, in a bomb damaged street. In the foreground is the ruins of a bombed house, rubble, masonry, charred wood, and a bloodied hand just in panel. Dempsy is staring at the hand, his eyes transfixed numbly on what he sees.

DEMPSY ( Narration): “I didn’t even know her name. She was lying in the rubble of her house. I’ve seen many people lying in the rubble of many houses …”

PAGE 17, PANEL 4

Head to waist shot of a woman lying face up, half buried by the rubble. Her face lifeless, bloodied and dusty, with her hand on the bump of her stomach.

DEMPSY ( Narration ): “But that day I noticed something else. Her hand was on her stomach. It was barely noticeable, but her last act had been to try and protect her unborn child.”

PAGE 17, PANEL 5

Two panels on this bottom tier. Similar profile shot to panel 1 of Lucy and Dempsy.

DEMPSY: And I knew then I couldn’t turn away, not until this thing is over.

PAGE 17, PANEL 6

Forehead to chin shot of Lucy, filling most of the panel, her eyes full of sadness.

LUCY: I don’t know about you, Rufus, but I’ve seen more than my fair share of bodies in the rubble lately. It’d be nice to remember what life really is.

PAGE 18, PANEL 1

SPLASH: Full shot of Gabriel and Kate walking through Convent Garden Market. It’s a busy panel with stall holders now packing up nearby and in the foreground. What can be seen of the sky is a muted orange.

CAPTION: Convent Garden.

KATE: Tell me if I’m wrong, but back at the house this morning I got the distinct impression your sister doesn’t like me all that much.

GABRIEL: I’m sure she has nothing against you. It’s just sometimes she can be a little …

KATE: … over protective, uh huh, yeah, I get that.

PAGE 18, PANEL 2

Three panels on this bottom tier. Head to waist profile shot of them walking past a shop and a trader who is pulling down the shutter for the day.

GABRIEL: You do?

KATE: Yeah, and something tells me you need looking out for.

PAGE 18, PANEL 3

Similar to the previous panel but now they’re passing a street performer.

GABRIEL: My sister certainly believes that to be true.

KATE: Yeah, I knew it, first time I laid eyes on you. You’re just like me.

GABRIEL: How so?

PAGE 18, PANEL 4

Full shot of them from behind at the far end of the market, framed by its walls.

KATE: You have a singularly unique talent for getting yourself into trouble.

PAGE 19, PANEL 1

Half page vertical panel. Twilight. Head to waist semi - profile shot of Gabriel and Kate at the corner of a street, looking across to a terraced street of houses.

KATE: Well, this is the place. Second floor flat. Look’s pretty quiet. I reckon we should go in now. I’d be surprised if she’s actually there, especially if she’s laying low.

KATE: But if we’re lucky and she left in a hurry she may have left behind something useful.

GABRIEL: Agreed.

PAGE 19, PANEL 2

Two panels on this vertical tier. Full shot of Gabriel and Kate from behind, crossing the road over to the house. In the foreground a figure in a maroon hoodie is secretly observing them from the shadows ( Taitania Romanov )

GABRIEL: I can open doors, but it might not be advisable until it’s fully dark.

KATE: No problem, I’ve learnt one or two little tricks myself over the years.

PAGE 19, PANEL 3

Full shot of Gabriel and Kate entering the second floor flat. Gabriel is entering first with Kate crouching, holding the door open, with a hair pin clutched in her hand. In the foreground we can see the flat has been completely ransacked. Something has clearly been here looking for something.

KATE: Hello …? Oh. I guess we’re not the first here then.

PAGE 19, PANEL 4

Three panels on this bottom tier. In the foreground Kate is crouched by an overturned table and scattered books. Gabriel is looking out of the window.

KATE: Damn, someone really did a number on this place.

GABRIEL: And it appears they may be returning.

PAGE 19, PANEL 5

Head and shoulder semi - profile shot of Kate glancing around, her eyes wide with alarm.

KATE: What? We’d better get out of here.

PAGE 19, PANEL 6

Exterior view of the house. Gabriel is visible through the glass of the second floor window. In the foreground is a car with dark tinted windows and lit by a street light three men in suits dark suits are getting out.

GABRIEL: Too late. They must have been watching us when we arrived ...

PAGE 20, PANEL 1

Two panels on this top tier. Head to waist shot of the men, who are now approaching the front door and slipping guns from under their suits.

CAPTION: “… And they don‘t look friendly.”

PAGE 20, PANEL 2

Overhead shot of the three men coming up the stairs, their guns positioned ready.

CAPTION: “We‘d better think of something pretty damn quick then!”

PAGE 20, PANEL 3

Three panels on this tier. Head and shoulders semi - profile shot of Kate, the sweat literally showing on her forehead. She knows they’re out of time.

KATE: Damn ...

PAGE 20, PANEL 4

Head to chest semi - profile shot of her as she pulls a gun from under her jacket.

KATE: Screw it!

PAGE 20, PANEL 5

Head to chest shot of Gabriel now staring at her, surprised and suspicious.

GABRIEL: What are you doing?

PAGE 20, PANEL 6

Two panels on this bottom tier. Head to waist shot of Kate positioned and ready, aiming her pistol at the door with Gabriel stood just behind her.

KATE: Breaking my cover by the looks of it … bollocks.

GABRIEL: Your cover? What do you mean?

S.FX: Click.

PAGE 20, PANEL 7

A perspective shot. The gun in the foreground and Kate in a head to chest shot.

KATE: I mean if we survive this we’re gonna need to have a long conversation.

S.F.X: Blam! Blam! Blam!

PAGE 21, PANEL 1

Two panels on this top tier. Two of the suited men are hit full in the chest and fall backward. The third, McCallum, fires a defensive shot at the door.

PAGE 21, PANEL 2

Head to waist semi - profile shot of Kate being thrown backwards as the bullet grazes her arm.

KATE: Arrgh!

PAGE 21, PANEL 3

Page width panel. On the right of the panel McCallum is stood in the open doorway, aiming his gun. On the right of the panel Kate is slumped against the wall with Gabriel crouched beside her, holding her arm.

MCCALLUM: Still fighting for the wrong side Agent Walker?

KATE: Maybe if I knew why you started fighting for the other side, McCallum, I’d be able to make a more informed choice.

MCCALLUM: If you knew the truth it would be your only choice.

PAGE 21, PANEL 4

Three panels on this bottom tier. Head to chest shot of Kate slumped against the wall.

KATE: Yeah, so why don’t you tell me.

PAGE 21, PANEL 5

A perspective shot with the gun in the foreground and McCallum in a head to chest shot.

MCCALLUM: No … I don’t think so.

S.F.X: Click.

PAGE 21, PANEL 6

Another perspective shot, though now the gun is filling the whole of the panel.

S.FX: Blam!

PAGE 22, PANEL 1

Two panels on this top tier. Full shot of another suited man standing over the now dead McCalum in the open doorway. He’s speaking into a com device.

AGENT: Situation is clear, sir. Hostiles are down.

PAGE 22, PANEL 2

Full shot of Gabriel and Kate as he helps her to stand. His stare is piercing.

GABRIEL: Agent Walker? He called you Agent Walker? Kate, you need to tell me what’s going on here. You need to tell me now.

KATE: I will, but not here okay.

PAGE 22, PANEL 3

Two panels on this vertical tier. Full shot of Gabriel and Kate. In the foreground is McCallum’s hand with the symbol of the Academy on it. Gabriel is staring at it.

GABRIEL: Now Kate. Are you like them, is that it? Have you been watching me?

PAGE 22, PANEL 4

Head and shoulders semi - profile shot of Gabriel turning around as John March speaks.

MARCH ( O.P ): Yes, she has. We all have …

PAGE 22, PANEL 5

Half page vertical panel. Full shot of John March stood in the open doorway.

MARCH: And, Lord Morningstar, we’ve been doing it for a very long time.

( Taken from Volume Three: Mortal Lives )

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biofunmy · 4 years

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$1.8 Million Homes in California

Redlands | $1.7995 Million

An 1888 Victorian with eight bedrooms and nine bathrooms in two units; a two-bedroom, two-bathroom carriage house; and a one-bedroom, one-bathroom cottage; on a 0.79-acre corner lot

This house, known as Gray Gables, was built in redwood as a private residence. It was later incorporated into the grounds of the Wissahickon Inn, once a stopping place for notables like Gloria Vanderbilt and Eleanor Roosevelt on their way to Palm Springs, 45 miles southeast. (Los Angeles is 66 miles west.) After falling into disrepair and almost being razed, the property was restored, beginning in 2016, as a family complex, with a rebuilt foundation, new mechanicals and antique and period reproduction details. It is in a historic district two miles south of the city center.

Size: 3,600 square feet (in the main house)

Price per square foot: $499

Indoors: A 2,000-square-foot veranda with intricate woodwork based on the original wraps around three sides of the main house. Inside are engineered hardwood floors (as well as sculpted carpet in the first-floor bedroom) and 10-foot ceilings in most rooms.

The living room has eight-foot-high casement windows with bronze bolts and a Victorian reproduction bronze globe chandelier and wall sconces. Down the hall is a dining room with an arched ceiling, acorn chandelier and Dutch door. It opens to an eat-in kitchen with marble-topped bead-board cabinets, a white subway tile backsplash, a cast-iron sink and cast-iron light fixtures. The six-burner gas cooktop and electric convection oven are set in a reproduction antique stove.

The first-floor bedroom suite includes a Victorian chandelier suspended from an 11-foot ceiling and a large closet with custom shelves. The private bathroom, with its open shower, is ADA-compliant.

The original staircase has been stained to match the flooring. Decorated with globe and acorn finials, it is lit by a vintage pendant lamp.

The three upstairs bedrooms include a master suite with cathedral windows offering mountain views and a bathroom with a penny-round-tiled shower, a toilet closet with a bidet and a reproduction Victorian vanity with a double sink and an antique mirror. There is also a guest suite, a bedroom with a gable window, an office with an industrial pendant light and a hall bathroom with a claw-foot tub and an industrial pipe light fixture with Edison bulbs. The second floor contains a laundry room with a gas-dryer hookup, as well.

A second unit of about 1,700 square feet with a private entrance occupies the basement. It has three bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, a living room with French doors that open to a front patio and a kitchen with white Shaker cabinets and granite countertops.

Also on the property are a two-bedroom, two-bathroom carriage house that is approximately 1,100 square feet on two floors and an 800-square-foot cottage with one bedroom and one bathroom.

Outdoor space: Wrought-iron fencing encircles the property and incorporates an electric driveway gate. The grounds are planted with roses, bougainvillea, cypress, lavender bushes and orange, apricot and loquat trees. There are three notable mature specimen trees: a live oak, a pine and a palm. The yard includes statuary and a bocce court.

Taxes: $22,494

Contact: Kristin Staton or David Critchlow, Kristin and David Real Estate Group, Century 21 Lois Lauer, 909-806-0406 or 909-806-0407; kristinanddavid.com

San Francisco | $1.795 Million

A 1916 clapboard cottage with three bedrooms and one bedroom, on a 0.06-acre lot

From the front porch and upper floor of this house on Portrero Hill, you can see downtown San Francisco and the bay. Across the road is a park with a baseball field, playground and recreation center. Schools, shops, restaurants, breweries and groceries are in the immediate neighborhood, as are train and bus service to downtown. Routes 101 to the west and 280 to the east facilitate commuting to Silicon Valley.

Size: 1,457 square feet

Price per square foot: $1,232

Indoors: The main level has hardwood floors and shiplap-paneled walls and ceiling. On the right side, as you face the back, is a living room with a bay window and built-in bookshelves, followed by an open dining area. Both rooms (and the rest of the home) have been freshly painted and include new lighting.

Immediately to the left is a guest bedroom. Beyond it are a staircase (a walk-in closet built under the stairs serves as a pantry) and a U-shaped kitchen with grooved cabinets and white-tile countertops and backsplashes. Finally, there is a room leading out to the back that could be used as a study, guest quarters or music room.

The two upstairs bedrooms include a guest room facing front and a master with French doors opening to a private balcony overlooking the backyard. The single bathroom is on the main floor and has wood-paneled walls and cabinets, red-tile floors, a pedestal sink and a claw-foot tub with a shower head.

The lower level includes a garage with parking for one large car or two small ones and a bonus room, reached from outside, that could be used as a studio or yoga room.

Outdoor space: The backyard includes a concrete seating area and a garden with mature lemon and lime trees and a large Norfolk pine. The driveway offers parking for two additional cars, side by side.

Taxes: $22,438 (estimated)

Contact: Claudia Siegel, Compass, 415-816-2811; potrerobeauty.com

Los Angeles | $1.795 Million

A midcentury-modern house built in 1958, with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, on a 0.3-acre lot

This home is in upper Benedict Canyon, in the Beverly Hills Post Office district (with a 90210 ZIP code). The area is a 16-mile drive from downtown Los Angeles and is fringed with nature and its creatures (owls, coyotes and the occasional bobcat). It is two miles below Mulholland Drive and close to a number of hiking trails.

Size: 1,530 square feet

Price per square foot: $1,173

Indoors: Marvin Beck, a local architect, designed the house for himself and his wife. A later owner opened the kitchen to the living room and installed two sets of accordion-fold glass doors in back to dissolve the boundary between interior and exterior. The current owner renovated the master bathroom last year, using slate tile on the walls and a Carrara marble vanity top.

The front door (reached by an exterior flight of stairs) is clad in tongue-and-groove slats that are echoed inside, starting with a floating closet in the foyer that has no visible hardware and opens with a push.

The living room includes a skylight, a wall of built-in drawers and shelves and a fireplace with a combed-basalt surround and hearth. The millwork is echoed in a low partition wall and in the cabinetry in the adjacent kitchen. The golden color is offset by royal blue Viking appliances, patterned glass backsplash tile and honed black granite countertops.

The master is the only room in the house that does not have direct access to the outdoors. It does have book-matched paneled walls and a mirrored closet extending across the entire length.

The guest bedroom has a slatted closet with invisible hardware that runs the length of one wall; it has use of a bathroom with a clerestory window and a walk-in shower faced in the original buttercup-yellow tile. A third bedroom was converted into an open den. Sliding-glass doors in both guest rooms lead to the backyard.

The lower level includes a one-car garage, laundry area and storage.

Outdoor space: The flat, spacious property (unusual in this hilly area) is landscaped with plants that attract hummingbirds and butterflies. A brick patio beyond the folding-glass doors is partially covered by a latticed canopy. Stone-and-gravel paths lead to seating areas in the terraced gardens.

Taxes: $22,438 (estimated)

Contact: Joe Reichling or Boni Bryant, Compass, 323-395-9084; bryantreichling.com

For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @nytrealestate.

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topbeautifulwomens · 5 years

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#Creating #Ambiance #With #Gardens #altmodel #beautyblog #fentybeauty #green #halfindonesiajapan #kyliejenner #makeupartist #malemodel #modelling #views

Through his forty-yr treatmenter as a backyard garden author and photographer, Derek Fell has developed numerous garden places, a lot of involving his spouse Carolyn. The very best instance of their operate can be considered at their house, historical Cedaridge Farm, in Dollars County, Pennsylvania. There, they’ve designed a lot more than 20 topic locations, introducing shade gardens, sunny perennial borders, tapestry gardens involving trees and shrubs, a cottage garden, herb garden, reducing garden and an formidable drinking water garden.

Derek labored as a expert on garden design to the White House throughout the Gerald Ford Management. Derek designed Ford’s ‘Get’ garden, adhere toing his ‘Win Speech’, advising the nation ten techniques to struggle inflation.

Numerous garden variations by Derek Fell were applied without having analyzing the web site. The wonderful late architect Frank Lloyd Wcorrect designed stunning qualities for his customers, absolutely from photos without the want for a site inspection.

Fell’s garden areas have been highlighted in newspapers, journals, e-publications and way too on tv, including Architectural Digest, Gardens Illustrated, The Garden (the magazine of the Royal Horticultural Modern society), Nation Gardens, HGTV, QVC and PBS.

Derek has authored more than 60 books and garden calendars, including 550 Property Landscaping Thoughts (Simon & Schuster), The Encyclopedia of Garden Style (Firefly Guides), The Entire Garden Getting ready Guidebook (Friedman), Garden Accents (Henry Holt) and Home Landscaping (Simon & Schuster).

Control appeal and atmosphere are critical to brighten up your propoerty or prepare it for sale. Believe cost-free to inquire Derek any garden relevant queries no matter of how large or minor.

SOME GARDEN TYPES

Drinking water Garden. Water is the tunes of character. It can be tricked over stones, cascaded from a great top so its crashes on to rocks. It can drop in a sound sheet or as silver threads. A beautiful water garden with waterfalls and stepping stones can be discovered in sunshine or shade. The water garden revealed here’s located at Cedaridge Farm. It incorporates a pool for dipping, and it attributes both a collection of koi and hardy water lilies. A well-known water garden design features a koi pool fed by a sequence of waterfalls, and the water re-circulated by means of filters to sustain the water distinct.

Sunny Perennial Border. This can be official or casual, sq.}, rectangular, spherical and kidney fashioned, in the form of an island mattress or sponsored in opposition to a attractive hedge, wall or fence. Crops can be decided on to produce a parade of coloration through all the years, or targeted for a specific season. Shade themes can be polychromatic like a rainbow, monochromatic (for example all white – ideal for a marriage ceremony), or it can feature an Impressionist color stability, this sort of as yellow and purple; orange and blue; red, pink and silver; blue, pink and white; even black and white or black and orange (one of Monet’s favorites). A popular perennial garden design is 2 parallel border with a grass course creating a focal point such as a sculpture or gazebo.

Tropical Garden. You do not need to reside in a frost-free area to have a beautiful tropical garden. At Cedaridge Farm we’ve two – one is a tribute to the design philosophy of the late Roberto Burle Marx, who designed spectacular tropical gardens all around Rio. It really is in a frivolously shaded area and features crops that are hardy (like ‘Quantity & Compound’ hosta) but look tropical and tender plants that are tender (like banana trees and tree ferns) that possibly need relocating indoors during wintertime or can be discarded like annuals at the end of the season. Our minute tropical space is a patio with tropical plants developed in packing containers.

Shade Gardens. We design two sorts of shade gardens – one the place the plants provide primarily foliage focus (like ferns, hostas, heuchera and hakone grass), and plants that flower well (like impatiens, coleus, and lilies), or a blend of the two.

Woodland Garden. Whether or not you’ve got current woodland or you need to create a woodland from scratch, the result can be sensational. Decide whether you want deciduous trees that provide fall color or evergreens that remain green all winter, or a mixture. At Cedaridge we manufactured a ‘cathedral’ garden where the existing trees are trimmed higher so the trunks look like the columns of a cathedral, and the branches arch out to fulfill overhead like the vaulted ceiling of a cathedral. Right here, we provide two more levels of interest, at floor stage and the underneath-tale.

Vegetable Garden. We can design you an basic-care garden of elevated beds where veggies are planted in blocks or an edible landscape where edibles are grown for ornamental result. We can provide the plan for a garden that was acknowledged for the White house during the Ford Administration where Derek Fell worked as a garden consultant. Derek Fell’s book, “Veggies – How to Pick, Increase & Adore”, won a best book award from the Garden Writers Affiliation.

Herb Garden. The herb garden at Cedaridge Farm is a ‘quadrant design’, feature in numerous calendars and books, including Derek Fell’s ‘Herb Gardening for Novices.’ We can also provide a cartwheel design or a parterre herb garden for bountiful harvests of refreshing herbs. The Herb Garden can also do double-responsibility as a vegetable garden.

Slicing Garden. The cutting garden at Cedaridge Farm features bulbs such as tulips and daffodils for spring, and ever-blooming annuals to follow the bulbs so armloads of bouquets can be harvested from April through Oct.

Victorian Garden. A garden with passionate overtones! Picture a white gazebo framed by mostly white flowers for a wedding in the loved ones. Or select from in between several color harmonies, such as yellow and blue, red, pink and silver, or blue, pink and white.

Cottage Garden. You are going to not need a cottage to have a cottage garden. Nevertheless if you do, such as a visitor cottage, why not wrap it in shrub roses and climbers, additionally individuals delicious English cottage garden plants like poppies, sunflowers and pinks. We also like to include plants to draw butterflies and hummingbirds.

Flow Garden. Fortunate you if you have an existing circulation to be landscaped. At Cedaridge Farm we have a stream, but after we moved here it was overgrown with poison ivy and brambles. These days it truly is criss-crossed with bridges, and beds of dampure-loving plants like astilbe and water iris. If you don’t have a stream, but needs one, we can create a design where the water is re-circulated alongside one that is man-made but seems organic.

Orchard. You don’t need a good deal of space for a successful orchard. By making the right alternatives, fruit trees can be grown in containers or espaliered against fences and partitions to help save space. Peaches and apples can be educated over arbors. Simply a handful of plants of small end result like strawberries and raspberries can be extremely productive.

Bog Garden. Optimum for soils that tend to remain moist all season, bathroom gardens can be extremely colourful and highly creative, incorporating stepping stones and bridges to cross soaked areas, and developing some of nature’s most different plant family members, such as water iris, Eastern primroses, astilbe and waterlilies.

Japanese Garden. The dilemma with many Japanese gardens is a inclination to use pseudo-Japanese ingredients such as Chinese dragons. Derek Fell has two times traveled to Japan, has prepared award-profitable content about Japanese garden design, and has the confront to design unique-seeking spaces in the Japanese custom making use of elements of Zen or Feng Shui, or a combination of the two disciplines to create a magical space.

Italian Garden. Though Italian gardens can be highly ostentatious, necessitating steep slopes to acquire the best effect, like the Villa d’Este, shut Rome, small spaces can achieve the aura of an Italian garden. Derek Fell hasn’t entirely frequented some of the best Italian Gardens, such as La Mortola on the Italian coastline, and Boboli overlooking Florence, he has toured and photographed the Vatican Gardens.

French Official Garden. The elaborate flavor of Versailles Palace and Vaux le Vicompte, might be outside of your signifies, but elements of French garden design, such as a parterre garden, can be included in small spaces.

Monet’s Garden. This beautiful artist’s garden north of Paris includes more than one hundred particular planting tips to create what Monet regarded as his greatest work of art. In addition, his planting ideas have absolutely impressed more new garden design than any other garden. Monet’s arched bridge, his waterlily pond, his arches leading to the front of his house, and his color harmonies are simply some illustrations of Monet’s innovation that men and women these days like to emulate.

Tapestry Garden (Trees & Shrubs). The great French Impressionist artist, Paul Cezanne’s garden, in Provence, is made up mostly of trees and shrubs, not only as a labor preserving machine, but to provide a tapestry of color from leaf colours, leaf texture and leaf designs. What could be more eye-catching than to look out of a window of your home at a prosperous foliage panorama, including all shades of green from light green to dim-green, plus blue, silver, gold, bronze?

Hillside Garden. Even dry hillsides makes beautiful rock gardens, with paths twisting and turning in a zig-zag to create a visible experience from the prime of the slope to the base. They can be terraced and threaded with streams to create waterfalls and planted with some of nature’s most beautiful plant varieties. Bridges, benches and belvedere are some of the structural elements that can contribute interest to a hillside.

The post Creating Ambiance With Gardens appeared first on Beautiful Women.

source http://topbeautifulwomen.com/creating-ambiance-with-gardens/

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