#and I was looking forward to more of her novels | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

toournextadventure · 4 months

Text

a novel life pt.2

Summary: You're trying to make nice with Sam's little sister, for everyone's sake. Maybe it leads to an interrogation. Maybe it leads to more. And maybe you end up sucked into the unusual events that follow Legacies

Word Count: 4.3k Warnings: swearing, distrust, mentions of past trauma, mentions of blood, mentions of Scream typical violence Pairing: Samantha Carpenter x GN!Reader A/N: Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Yule, and whatever holidays y'all all celebrate 🫶 (pt.1) (pt.2) (pt.3) (pt.4)

“Are you sure this is okay?” You asked as you nearly tripped over your feet.

Sam gave you a look that was both sweet and condescending. “Yes, because I said so.”

“That doesn’t seem like solid reasoning,” you mumbled, but nonetheless continued following her up the steps to her apartment.

It was nearing Halloween, with the cooling air finally allowing for the use of jackets. Which you had few of, since Sam had decided to keep them for herself. Not that there was anyone to blame but yourself; it was what you deserved for offering her jackets every time she forgot one. She had simply decided it was rather nice to have an unlimited selection of jackets, both too-large and just right.

In all her wisdom, Sam had suggested the two of you, and Tara and her partner have a movie night. Tara got to choose the movie, and no one could object. All in all it should have been a win for the younger Carpenter; she could make you suffer if she truly wanted, and you couldn’t say a word about it. Which was going to cause the night to be very, very long.

Oh, the things you would do for her.

“Is she going to pick something scary?” You asked before you both approached the door. “Because I don’t like scary.”

“I have no doubt it will be scary,” Sam said with a barely-concealed smile. “I’ll hold your hand to keep you safe.”

“You’re my hero,” you said as you leaned forward to press a chaste kiss to her lips. She tasted strongly of the cigarette she had smoked on the way from your apartment to hers.

You tried to pull away, but she quickly followed, keeping her lips pressed against yours. Every sense was enveloped by her. Her smell, her taste, the feel of her body pressed against yours so tightly it was as if you would float away without her. There was nothing you could have ever wanted more than your Sam.

“We shouldn’t give Tara something to be upset about,” you mumbled against Sam’s lips when she finally pulled back just the slightest distance.

“Tara’s always upset,” she answered before sighing, “but you’re right.”

“Baby steps,” you said with a smile.

“For the big baby.”

“Samantha.”

“I’m kidding,” she tried to argue as she grabbed your hand and started finally moving into the apartment.

You both knew she wasn’t kidding.

“My dude!”

You had barely walked through the door when Tara’s partner called out to you, a genuine, toothy grin visible on their face. They had asked you to call them J, which you had happily agreed to. Sam teased that it was short for Joker - you assumed because of the scars - but the look on Tara’s face told you not to ever bring it up. Ever.

It was a rule you could oblige by.

“It’s a pleasure to see you again,” you said as you hung your coat on the back of one of the chairs at the dining table. It had only taken you dropping your coat once before you realised the Carpenters saw no need for a coat rack.

How utterly uncivilised.

“They think it’s a pleasure to see me,” J said to Tara, who rolled her eyes almost instantly.

You would never say it aloud, but you noticed the small smile she sent their way. So, she wasn’t as heartless as she wanted you to believe. Exactly like her older sister. It would be simple enough to chalk it down to their past experiences with the world; it had taught them nothing but hardness. But maybe they both just needed a safe space to let those walls come down.

“What did you choose?” Sam asked. She very quickly made her way to the couch opposite Tara and J.

“Depends,” they said.

“On?” Sam asked.

J turned to look at you and held something up to their mouth. “What’s your favourite scary movie?” The voice came out almost robotic, sounding similar to… something you possibly recognised? Vaguely?

“That’s not funny,” Sam said quickly.

“Lighten up, Sam,” Tara said even though she pushed J’s hand - and the voice changer - into their lap. “We’re watching Hellraiser.”

“Thought you didn’t like that one,” Sam said. She reached over and grabbed your hand the moment you sat down beside her on the couch.

Tara’s eyes darted to where your hands were joined and lingered. “I don’t.” She looked back up at you with a hard gaze. “I picked it out just for you.”

“Oh,” you said, perking up instantly. “Thank you.”

You turned to look at Sam with a stupid smile on your face, missing the look J sent Tara. Well, this was turning into a lovely evening! Tara had picked out a movie just for you! Surely that was progress to the finest degree, was it not? If all it took was watching a movie with them every month, you were more than happy to do so. This was turning out to be a rather lovely evening.

At least you thought so until the movie started and you realised just exactly why Tara had picked the movie out just for you.

It was… well, it was a movie. Filled with hooks and needles and… blood. Oh gosh, so much blood. There was a singular blessing amongst it all; you hadn’t eaten before coming over. Thankfully the popcorn sat untouched between you and Sam as your stomach twisted and turned and tried its best to embarrass you.

Sam squeezed your hand as you did your best to keep your cool. Not that it was such an easy thing with all the… you couldn’t even think the word without feeling queasy. Surely there was no way they all enjoyed this kind of thing, right? It was grotesque! The creatures on the screen, the inhumanity of it all, how was it an enjoyable movie?

The room started to shrink around you. Oh, that wasn’t good, you didn’t want to feel claustrophobic, you were trying to be tough. You couldn’t let anyone know that you had an, um, aversion to blood. What would they say? They were all horror fans, how could you ever possibly mention that you just… didn’t enjoy it? Quite frankly, it made you sick to your stomach, like all those science experiments you had to do back in grade school.

The credits couldn’t have rolled a moment too soon. If anyone were to ask you what you thought, you wouldn’t have been able to answer. The only thing you were aware of was your heart beating loudly in your ear and the saliva that continued to fill your mouth. Maybe it would actually be better if you didn’t try to answer anyone for a few more moments.

“So, Professor,” Tara asked all too soon. “What did you think?”

“I-”

-You cut yourself short. There was a part, a rather significant part of your mind that said you should lie. Tell Tara it was a wonderful movie, and you would love to see more if it existed. But lying had never gotten you anywhere in the past, had it? It certainly wasn’t going to assist you in winning over Tara, not when she was already sceptical of you. How was a lie going to assist you?

It wasn’t.

“It’s not my cup of tea,” you finally said before swallowing the remaining saliva in your mouth. “I don’t really enjoy scary movies.” You nodded to yourself. “Or blood.”

“Oh my god,” Tara huffed, “why can’t you just lose your shit about something?”

“Tara,” Sam warned.

“No, this is ridiculous,” she continued as she stood up from the couch, ignoring J reaching for her hand. “Why can’t you lose your shit?” She pointed at you. “Nobody is this level-headed about everything.”

“That’s enough,” Sam said as she followed suit, standing up from the couch. Similarly, you reached out for her hand but she moved just far enough away.

“Get out,” Tara said before promptly looking Sam dead in the eyes.

“Excuse me?” Sam asked.

“Get out,” she repeated.

“Hey, T-”

“-You too,” Tara interrupted J, who froze with a comically shocked expression on their face. “Both of you get out so I can talk to them-” she pointed at you “-alone.”

“Absolutely not-”

“-Sounds reasonable,” you interrupted Sam. She looked at you like you had grown a second head. “I would love to talk.”

“Come on, Baby Ghost,” J said as they stood up. You were starting to feel left out by being the only one still sitting. “I’ll buy you a new pack of cigs.”

Sam looked like she wanted to argue, but both you and Tara gave her a look. Differing looks, of course, but still. While Tara seemed to get her a death stare that was almost permanently etched onto her face, you tried to go the more convincing route. If Tara wanted to talk, who were you to tell her no? Talking was key, that’s what your family had always done and it had never ended poorly.

“Fine,” Sam finally said. She seemed resigned. “But you have 15 minutes and that’s it.”

“Deal,” Tara said. “Now get out.”

You stayed as still as a statue when Sam leaned down and pressed a kiss to your lips. A little more forceful than usual, but you wouldn’t complain. Any kiss from her was perfect. A sigh came from behind her, and you both knew who it was from, but she took her time before pulling away and standing back up.

“Don’t let her bully you,” she said.

“Sam,” Tara said forcefully. “Get out.”

“Fine,” Sam said, throwing her hands up. “But I mean it,” she said as she and J walked to the door together. “15 minutes.”

You and Tara both watched your partners leave the apartment, practically abandoning you to the force of nature that was the youngest Carpenter sister. It shamed you to admit you were a little afraid of her. You knew there was something going on deep down that she either wouldn’t or couldn’t accept, and you wouldn’t dare fault her for it. But she let her internal frustrations out in a very external way.

“What’s wrong with you?” Tara asked the moment the door shut behind the two. You stayed silent. “You don’t yell, you don’t scream, you don’t even freak out when I put on a movie I knew you would hate.”

You waited a moment to make sure she was finished. “I was raised by two very… pacifistic parents,” you said, gesturing for her to sit on the couch opposite you. “We talked through our issues, we didn’t yell about them.”

Tara opened her mouth as if she was about to argue, or complain, or something. Slowly, her mouth closed and she pursed her lips. She kept looking at you, but slowly took a seat opposite you. There was something going on behind her eyes, you could see it, but you knew better than to question her just yet. Just like your mom had taught you; let them lead the conversation.

“I don’t trust you,” she said slowly. Her eyes stayed locked with yours. “You’re too understanding and too kind.” You stayed silent. “Sam only ever falls for freaks.”

“Didn’t she date an FBI agent?” You asked. You could vaguely remember what Sam had said about her, but she had seemed nice enough.

“Kirby is cool, I’ve always liked her,” Tara said with a dismissive shake of her head. “But she was attacked by Ghostface twice,” she said, “so she’s a freak by proxy.” She looked back at you. “So what’s your deal?”

You shrugged. “I don’t know,” you said, “ask your questions and maybe you can find out.”

It had initially been your idea, but before Tara could even open her mouth you started to second guess yourself. Perhaps allowing her to ask whatever questions she wanted without any repercussions was… not the smartest idea on your part. You had nothing to hide, but what if she really started to ask unusual questions? What if your answers weren’t what she wanted to hear?

But when you thought of Sam, and being with her, you felt that, without question, it was worth the gamble.

“Have you ever used a knife?” Tara asked quickly. It seemed she wasn’t going to wait.

“Not outside of cooking,” you answered just as quickly.

“How about a gun?” So, it would be a rapid fire interrogation. Game on.

“Never.”

“Ever hurt anybody before?” A tilt of her head.

“Not on purpose.”

“What about animals?”

“No.”

“Not even in science class?”

“I-” you attempted to clear your throat to buy a bit of time “-I fell ill that day.”

Tara paused and narrowed her eyes. “Because of blood.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” you said anyway. “It makes me sick to my stomach.”

“You’re pretty pathetic,” Tara said as she leaned back on the couch. For the first time in… well, ever, you thought you almost saw her smile at you. “That’s exactly Sam’s type.”

“I thought you said it was freaks,” you pointed out.

“Pathetic freaks,” she corrected quickly. That quirk near the corner of her mouth rapidly disappeared. “Why did you choose Sam?”

You paused. It was uncertain what exactly Sam had told Tara about you both meeting. Surely she wouldn’t have overdramatised it, but had she told her the truth? The truth was… well, it was pathetic as well, but you weren’t entirely convinced Tara would approve. Not that it was entirely her place, but the two were the only family each other had. They both had a right to be cautious of anyone new coming into their lives.

But perhaps you could answer the question a little differently.

“She’s kind,” you said with a subconscious nod of your head. “And bold, and intelligent - god she’s intelligent - and brave.” You averted Tara’s eyes. “And she’s really pretty too.”

Tara nodded once. “What are your intentions with her?”

Another question that you believed was potentially a trick. You couldn’t very well say you loved Sam just yet; you hadn’t even told Sam that little piece of information. But there were other intentions with her even if you didn’t necessarily use the word “love.” There were other things that were just as important.

“I don’t want to sound overly self-important,” you started off, looking back up to meet Tara’s eyes. “But I would very much like to be the one by Sam’s side as she continues on this path she’s created for herself.”

Tara looked at you; really looked at you. She was so very difficult for you to read. Unlike Sam, Tara did a better job at hiding her emotions. While Sam would give it away with her facial expressions, Tara did not. No, her feelings came out differently, whether in the slight twitch of her fingers or the impatient tapping of her foot on the rug. You hadn’t been around her long enough to know what exactly those feelings were, you simply acknowledged they were feelings.

“I’ll give you a chance,” Tara finally said, her voice far softer than you had ever heard. At least when it was directed at you. “But if you do anything to hurt her, or upset her, or lie to her, I won’t hesitate to kill you.” You gulped. “I’m not afraid to kill again.”

“I forgot you’ve both killed someone before,” you mumbled to yourself before speaking up louder. “Those are acceptable terms.”

“Good,” she said with a single nod of her head. “But don’t think this means I’ll go easy on you.”

You could both hear the other two finally approaching the door, bickering in a way that mimicked biological siblings.

“I would expect nothing less,” you told Tara as the door opened and the moment ended.

—---

The rest of the semester went by without incident. Tara had stayed true to her word and gave you a fair chance to prove that you could be trusted with her sister’s heart, and it wasn’t something you had taken lightly. You knew how important the both of them were to each other, and you had done your best to prove that not only did you care for Sam, but you cared for Tara too.

She had finally eased up during classes, allowing you to properly teach without an ounce of disdain for you personally. In fact, she had even dared to come to office hours on more than one occasion to discuss certain pieces you had offered as optional readings. The Carpenters were immensely intelligent, no matter what the subject matter was.

You and Sam had fallen into a rather comfortable routine, always going for a date night on Thursdays to whatever new place your colleagues had recommended, and movies with Tara and J on Saturdays. You would spend the night at her place Thursday through Monday morning, and she would stay at yours Monday through Thursday morning. It was comfortable, and you were more than content.

But with school finally over for the semester, you could focus on the real gem; Christmas.

Both Carpenters - and J, for that matter - had been nonchalant with their decorations. A minimal Charlie Brown tree that had, at most, four ornaments on it. It was awfully quaint, and if they hadn’t been so blase about it you would have been content to leave it standing. Nevertheless, they had made it clear they didn’t care if there were any decorations, and you had taken that as a cry for help.

Your own apartment had, of course, been decorated since the day after Thanksgiving. It was a wonderful gift from your mother, learning how to decorate for the holidays, and you weren’t keen on squandering the skills and letting them fall off the wagon, so to speak. Sam had made a few comments, though you hadn’t taken her for a non-believer.

“It’s okay, really,” Sam tried to say when you and J finished bringing in what had to have been the seventh box of decorations from your apartment.

“Oh no, I insist,” you said with a smile. “Besides, my mother would be downright dismayed if she knew the decorations were sitting in my apartment unused.”

“Great,” Tara mumbled as she walked by without even offering to help, “we get to live at the North Pole.”

“Isn’t it exciting?” You said with a smile. “These are more neutral, so you shouldn’t feel too out of place, but they still embody the holiday spirit.”

“Well I think it’ll be fun,” J said with their own smile. “Do I get to hang the ornaments?”

“Why-”

“-the ornaments won’t be the only thing hanging this Christmas,” Tara said, tossing a mini marshmallow into the air and catching it in her mouth. “Especially with those blinding lights.”

You looked down at the ones in your hand and frowned. “I thought they were rather tame.”

“And they’re lovely,” Sam tried to cover, even though you could see the fake smile she had on her face. “You’re doing great,” she continued as she left a simple kiss on your cheek.

The decorating ended up being a one person job, you quickly realised when you discovered J could not, for the life of them, listen to instructions. More than once, the lights had been blown and you had to find the faulty one to fix it. Normally you would chalk it down to bad luck, but when it was only the ones that they were installing? You became a little suspicious.

At least they were all eager to help with the snacks and desserts, and that was something you could live with. Surprisingly, Tara was the one who had the most ideas. You knew you weren’t the best cook; you could follow instructions but that didn’t necessarily mean they would turn out nice. But with Tara at the helm? They were almost as good as your mother’s! Though obviously you would never dare to tell her that.

You also rather quickly discovered that they were not gift giving people. Understandable, you supposed, they had much more important things to worry about in life. It was still unacceptable. The moment you had found out, you had called your parents and told them the tragic news.

Gifts for all three of them - plus a gift each for Mindy, Chad, and Anika - had been delivered to your house within the week. Express shipping to be certain they would arrive before Christmas.

Which led to yet another tragedy; they had no stockings.

“It’s really not worth buying,” Sam attempted to persuade you over the phone on one of the rare nights you two weren’t spending together. “Just stay home tonight.”

“It’s no trouble, Sam,” you argued. “I’m heading out for a bit anyway.”

You didn’t admit you were already at the store, trying to decide which one would fit each person best.

“Just stay safe,” she said. You could hear car horns in the background but thought nothing of it. “I mean it.”

“I’ll be safe,” you insisted, “I always am.”

“Call me when you’re back home,” she said.

“Yes ma’am,” you said with a smile that she couldn’t see.

She hung up first, and you continued your search without any second thoughts. In the end, you had decided on a Santa stocking for J, a reindeer for Tara, and a snowman for Sam. They would look lovely hanging underneath the mounted television in their living room. But with the stockings, you needed things to fill them with.

Santa’s work was never finished.

It was dark by the time you finished buying everything you believed you needed. Stockings, fillers, and some snacks to make for a lovely evening. That should surely be enough to give the three of them a very merry Christmas, would it not? Your mother had already sent their Santa presents, and their other presents were underneath the tree, so as far as you were aware of at the moment, everything was taken care of.

You were still going over your mental checklist when you heard a commotion down one of the alleys on the way home. Every cell in your body told you not to bother looking; people got desperate around the holidays and it would do you no good to go poking your head where it didn’t belong. But if someone was getting hurt, then you needed to attempt to help.

Or at least make enough of a scene that someone else would come help.

“Excuse me?” You called out foolishly as you started down the dark alleyway. “Is everyone alright out there?”

You pulled your coat tighter around you as you continued walking. It hadn’t been raining or snowing recently, and yet something started to soak through your shoes and socks. The shocking cold that normally came from liquids in December wasn’t present; it was warm.

There was another noise. It almost sounded like something solid, but it was overshadowed by something metallic. You did your best to see something in the dark, even as your body continued to tell you to move along. But something didn’t feel right; you were feeling queasy again.

Something hissed in front of you, but it wasn’t a snake. No, you knew what those sounded like and this wasn’t even close. This sounded much more human, though that sound would only ever really happen in dire circumstances like if-

-a large white mask faced you. It was the only thing you could see in the dark, thanks to the lights behind you causing just enough radiance to make the mask almost seem luminescent. You weren’t a movie buff, especially not scary movies, but you weren’t stupid. Everyone knew what that mask was.

Ghostface.

All those cells that had been telling you to run? They were silent. Frozen in fear, just like your mind. The killer wasn’t moving toward you, simply facing you, almost as if it was the very reason you were stationary. Which, it was, but not in the typical way that most would be privy to. You felt like a deer in headlights, and if you moved then you died.

You supposed that was how all the movies went.

“Aren’t you going to run?” Ghostface asked, in that same voicebox that J had had during the movie night.

You swallowed the saliva filling your mouth. “No,” you said in a trembling voice.

“Why not?” He continued. “I like when they run.”

“I’m not very fast,” you said. “You’ll catch me before I get to the street.”

He still didn’t move, and your eyes finally adjusted enough to see the silhouette of a body slumped at his feet. Your throat constricted at the sight; you were going to be sick. The very image started to worm its way into your brain; there was a very simple explanation for what was still soaking through your socks. It wasn’t snow.

“You should get home, Professor,” Ghostface said.

You nodded, even though you weren’t sure if he could see you. “Yes I should.”

“Stay on the sidewalk next time,” he said.

“I- I believe that’s sound advice,” you said with more frantic nods of your head. Your palms were starting to get clammy.

Ghostface lifted up a hand - holding a knife - and waved. “Good night, Professor.”

“Good night,” you said with your own shaky wave.

You walked backwards out of the alley, keeping an eye on the figure until it was completely out of sight. Your feet were frozen on the ground once you were under a street light. There were no more sounds coming from the alley, not even the sound of someone leaving. Wherever Ghostface had gone, he hadn’t followed you.

In an incredibly brave moment, you leaned over and vomited directly into a storm grate before going back home. You called Sam the moment you got back into your apartment.

You couldn’t find the courage to inform her of the night’s mystery encounter.

#samantha carpenter x reader #sam carpenter x reader #samantha carpenter imagine #sam carpenter imagine

625 notes · View notes

xqueen-of-disasterx · 2 months

Note

Hey there could I request G!P professor!nat x shy!quiet!reader where reader goes to the school dance alone and feels like a loser for not having the balls to talk or join in with other people but then nat decides to keep her company because she can’t stand seeing her favorite student all pathetic just standing there like a lost puppy and then they sneak off to do “other” stuff

Favourite

Paring: fem!reader x prof!Nat

Warnings: SMUT, amab!Nat, top!Nat, bottom!reader, age gap (legal), taboo relationship, soft sex, p in v, brief oral, soft!Nat, virgin!reader, gentlewoman!Nat

!Disclaimer English is not my first language so please excuse any grammar or spelling errors. This story is completely fictional. I do not own these characters!

A/N: I’m not dead yet and more active noe

I had always thought in college things would change for girls like me, the quiet ones, with a few friends, who you would only talk to to copy their homework. However it stayed that way or at least for me. I had found my small group of friends but I was far from well socialised in my college. But I wasn’t complaining about it either after all it left more time to study.

Most of the lessons I attended were boring except for one: Russians literature with Professors Romanoff, a tall, athletic woman, with red hair and the greenest eyes you had ever seen. You didn’t mind her talking for hours about poems and novels and what we were supposed to think of them. However you couldn’t care less about the words leaving her mouth when you’re eyes were only fixated on her lips.

Eventually more of the semester passed and soon it was time for the annual ball. Because of your low social status you didn’t even try to find a date opting on going alone instead, it wouldn’t be that bad right?

Once there you where alone, the few friends which you had didn’t bother to attend so you stood alone at the side of the large room your eyes fixated on the ground. You should just go, you thought to yourself. “Good evening, Y/N” you heard the familiar husky voice next to you. You looked up only to be greeted by your smirking professor. She looked gorgeous having picked out a matching suit to her eyes.

“Hi, Ms. Romanoff” she leaned against the wall next to me her eyes darting over my smaller body. “Where’s your date?” “I don’t have one” I answered truthfully, her expression stayed the same it was hard to read her. “And you’re friends?” I sighed she knew the answer to that already. “They didn’t attend.” She chuckled licking her lips like a predator who just found it’s helpless prey. “Poor girl, all alone and needs her professor to keep her company”

I let out a small laugh which sounded incredibly fake. Her words made my cheeks heat and I didn’t even know why. “Could be worse” I looked up in her eyes again “You’re a very pleasant conversation partner” “Am I?” She chuckled “That means a lot to me, hearing my favorite student say something like that” “I’m your favorite?” you stammered out “Trust me bunny a girl like you” Her hand trailed to my hip “You hardly get something like that every ten years. I’m very happy to have you”

Her words made my heart flutter and my head turn. I was special, Romanoff’s girl. “Do you mean that?” My voice was still a bit shaky. “Of course I do. We should go somewhere more private” I nodded her hand intertwined with mine she pulled me with her through the masses into the parking lot. Once seated in her expensive looking her hand never left my thigh before she started the car she leaned over to me our lips inches apart I tried to lean forward but her hands pushed my shoulder back against the car seat.

“Don’t do this to make me happy” She paused her eyes looking sensire “It won’t affect your grade no matter how you decide.” “I want this”

I breathed out our lips immediately finding each other. The kiss was passionate and heated until Nat pulled away to fasten my seat belt.

“I’ll drive to my apartment” She put her own seatbelt on “Is that okay with you or do you want to go to your dorm” “I’d like to join your tonight” Natasha gave you a cheeky grin at the response her plan had worked out perfectly.

Arriving at her apartment she seated you on her leather couch. She paced around her living room having two wine glasses in hand. “Do you want a glass?” I laughed I was extremely nervous but in a good way “Oh, I don’t drink but I’ll have a water instead” She just nodded accepting my preferences.

“You’re the prettiest girl I’ve met” She laughed slipping away from her wine glass. “And I’m not just saying that because of the wine.” She added she was sat next to her hand on your thigh. She had long forgotten about her crumpled up suit jacket on the ground though she normally was so precise about keeping everything organized.

“You don’t look bad either” You laughed she pulled you on her lap forcing you to but your legs on either side her crotch on yours. “Let me kiss you” she mumbled against you wet lips. You lips were pressed together so where your bodies and you could feel a bulge poking you. “Fuck you make me so hard” she breathed out on your lips making you moan out in response.

We were caught in the dance of our tongues when I felt her standing up her arms under my ass supporting my weight. I giggle and tighten my grip around her. “Let me take you to the bedroom”

She laid me out on the bed being careful with every item removed and making sure I was comfortable. She kissed everything inch of my skin paying extra attention to my sweet spots and I never felt so loved before. “Have you done that before” She breathed put against my skin.

“Never” I answer truthfully and suddenly I felt a dang of jealousy in my chest. “Is that- a problem?” My professor moved up again before kissing me “Of course not” She looked me in the eyes with her green eyes. “Will you let me be your first” She was being incredibly cheesy but Iiked that. It made me feel safe. “Yes”

She took one of my nipples in her mouth twisting and turning the other with her trained fingertips. She made me putty in her hands with each lick or flick she brought a new sound from my tongue.

My back arched which only made her increase the speed of her movements. After she seemed it to be enough foreplay she kissed her way down to my pubic bone, pressing her nose against my skin to take in the smell of my sweet arrausel. “Can I bunny?” She smirked and kissed your clit I was already wet but Nat was dying for a taste. She flicked her tongue over my now exposed bud. The pleasure was incredible better than any other toy I ever had and you tried to not lose my mind as she teased you bundle of nerves.

She pulled away shortly after ripping away my release in front of my eyes. I looked at her confused as she was already freeing herself from her boxer. She didn’t have a size to be ashamed of and her bush was well groomed too, like you would’ve suspected. She pumped herself a few times groaning until she was fully hard a little droplet of cum on the redden tip.

“Wait I’ll put a condom on” She reached for the drawer but you stopped her “I’m on the pill” Her lips formed a smirk as she positioned herself between my legs. “It’s not gonna hurt sweetheart” She reassured you kissing my neck.

She pushed inside and I making me scratch down her toned back making her whimper. Fuck her whimpers where hot. She bottomed me out looking down at where our bodies were connected she smiled up at you and you smiled back and after I nodded to her she picked up pace.

She was slow at first making me want more you could tell she being careful with you. “Faster” I moaned out making you hips buckle into her trusts. She moaned like a pornstar panting above me as she increased her speed the bed creaking. She made my back arch and my eyes squeezed shut as I released my quiet prayers for her.

“You close?” She panted and I nod “Fuck, your so tight” I grabbed on her shoulders scratching down as I came all over her shortly after she filled me up too. She pulled out the cum leaking down my legs. She climbed up my body flipping us over so I lay on her chest.

“You’re my favourite” She whispered and kissed my sweaty forehead

#natasha romanoff imagine #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff smut #black widow x female reader #natasha romanoff x you #black widow x reader #natasha x reader #natasha x you #natasha romanoff

1K notes · View notes

daysofyellowroses · 3 months

Text

steak

carmen berzatto x reader | 3.8k | tw: pregnancy, implied smut, general nonsense

“I need a favor.”

“A favor?”

“Yes. A favor.”

You were already beginning to regret asking, watching Carmy swivel in his chair and ponder the request. Or he was staring into space, it wasn't clear.

“Alright,” He nodded after a moment. “What is it?”

You took a deep breath, bracing yourself. It would have been easier to ask him to murder someone than what you were about to.

“It turns out that I am responsible for making 30 cupcakes for this Saturday and I could use some guidance.”

“I see,” Carmy nodded, pointing the spoon in his hand at you. “and what else? Sandwiches, burgers, hot dogs, stop me when I get the right one.”

You let out a sigh.

“And..three trays of sandwiches. And mini quiches, egg rolls, a crudités platter and a cake.”

“Okay,” Carmy sat up a little, lightly tapping the spoon against his cheek. “Just..a couple of questions.”

You walked closer to the desk, leaning against it and giving Carmy a nod. “Fire away.”

“First, why are you responsible for all of that?”

“Because apparently I promised my best friend if she ever got pregnant I would plan the entire baby shower.”

“Uh-huh. Why?”

“Because I was very, very intoxicated at her bachelorette party.”

He smirked a little, and you rolled your eyes with a small smile.

“Noted. Second question,”

“Third,” You interjected, holding up three fingers. “Technically.”

“Third question, is there a theme to this party?”

“No, of course not,” You frowned, folding your arms. “Themes are for kid's birthday parties and epic novels.”

“Hm, I thought so.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It just doesn't seem very..you know,” Carmy set the spoon down in his lap before interlocking his hands. “cohesive, I guess.”

You rested your hand on the desk, lightly tapping your nails on the surface.

“I'm willing to ignore that remark if you help me.”

“Alright, fourth question..why do I have to help you?”

You thought about it for a moment, working out your best angle to get him on board.

“Well..because I love my best friend and I want to give her an amazing experience, it's basically free publicity for the new restaurant, and we're..you know,” You gestured between yourself and Carmy with a grin. “We're friends. We're close. We kissed that time.”

“Yeah, yeah we did,” Carmy nodded, looking down for a moment before looking up with a smile. “When we were like..six? I don't see what that has to do with me adding to my already hectic schedule.”

“I would just really appreciate your help, even just a little guidance,” You smiled, holding your hands up. “What is the point of having a world-class chef as a friend if he doesn't help you out occasionally..”

“I promise to think about it,” Carmy nodded, picking his spoon back up and pointing at you. “Can you cook anything more advanced than french toast?”

“Depends on your definition of advanced,” You shrugged, pushing off the desk. “I look forward to your decision, I know you'll make the right one.”

“Get out of here,” Carmy rolled his eyes with a small smile. “I'll text you.”

You were heading to the front door when you bumped into Richie, who was carrying a box he promptly dropped on the nearest plastic-covered surface when he saw you, wiping his hands.

“Hey. What brings you here?”

“Me?” You gestured to yourself as you walked closer to Richie. “I just..I thought it was time. To declare my undying love for you.”

“Hm,” Richie nodded, rubbing his jaw before stepping closer to you and touching your shoulder. “I gotta be honest, I thought you'd never do it. Vegas wedding?”

“Vegas wedding,” You nodded with a grin. “Bye fuck-face.”

“See you later darling.”

It was the following afternoon when you got a very simple text from Carmy, relief flooding you as you read it.

‘Fine. Address?’

Opening your front door and seeing Carmen Berzatto standing on the other side was something you hadn't experienced for a long time, but it was a welcome return.

“Come on in, everything is set up in the kitchen,” You smiled, holding the door open and frowning slightly as you saw a worn grocery store bag in Carmy's hand. “Did you bring stuff when I told you that you didn't need to?”

“Sure did,” Carmy nodded, gesturing to his shoes. “Off? On?”

“Whatever you're comfortable with,” You waved your hand, gesturing to the bag. “I got everything, you really didn't need to waste your money on..liquid potassium or whatever, the food is not going to be anything too complicated.”

Carmy raised a brow as he slipped off his shoes. “You do know I'm a chef, not a mad scientist, right?”

“Oh shut up,” You sighed as he laughed, leading him into the kitchen.

“The fuck is liquid potassium anyway?”

“Here we are,” You spun around to face Carmy, gesturing to your humble kitchen, the dining table covered in various ingredients, in no particular order. “I really appreciate your help, I know you're busy.”

“It's fine,” Carm nodded, walking over to the table and setting the bag on the floor before picking up things on the table and inspecting them. “I'm not uh..I'm not needed, today.”

“Well I need you,” You grinned, walking over to the table. “The plan is I prepare everything today, then tomorrow I just have to heat up, and serve.”

“Organized, I like it,” Carmy nodded, looking over to you. “Where exactly do I fit in all this?”

“You..are my assistant for the day. Executive assistant, really.”

You gestured to the bag on the floor. “Show me what you got.”

An hour later, your kitchen was a whole lot messier, but progress was going well. Carmy had the patience of a saint, calmly explaining how everything was done. You were surprised how quickly you were picking up what he taught you, usually you got halfway through a YouTube cooking tutorial and gave up, ordering takeout instead.

“Okay, what's next on the list?” You asked, sprinkling herbs onto the egg roll pastry before wiping your hands. “I still can't believe you made me write a fucking list.”

“You needed the list,” Carmy grinned, reaching for the slip of paper. “Trust me. Okay, once you've finished those we can..almost cross off all the savory, just crudités but that's pretty simple. I can show you how to make dips, if you want.”

“Thought you'd never ask,” You grinned, flicking a loose crumb of pastry at him. “the vegetables are in the..”

You looked up for a minute, trying to think.

“Bottom of the fridge,” Carmy supplied, gently touching your back as he passed you to get to the fridge. “got them.”

You rolled up the pastry under your hands, setting it aside with the other egg rolls that had been prepared.

“So how has it been, being back?” You asked, going to rinse your hands. “I feel like I never asked you properly.”

“It's..fine, yeah,” Carmy replied, his head in the fridge when you glanced over to him. “Hasn't changed, much, well..you know. Never thought I'd end up back here.”

“At least you got out,” You shrugged, drying your hands before moving back to the counter. “How was New York? Incredible?”

“Incredible,” Carmy repeated, coming back to join you and reaching for a bowl. “Hand me that cucumber, please?”

“I need to visit one day,” You sighed, reaching for the cucumber and handing it over. “It's like..it's just there, I can go anytime, but I don't..I will, though.”

“Mm,” Carmy nodded. “You can pour greek yogurt into a bowl if you want.”

“On it,” You smiled, going to get a bowl. “I feel like such a domestic goddess right now, I gotta say. I never really cook. Not like this.”

“Are you enjoying it?” Carmy asked, not looking up from cutting up the cucumber. “I know cutting up vegetables isn't exactly an adrenaline rush.”

“I am enjoying it,” You got a bowl and went to set it on the counter, standing by Carmy. “It's relaxing. I'm not thinking about anything except the next step. I don't have to worry about anything except what I add next.”

“Lemon,” Carmy gestured to the yellow fruit over on the table. “Worry over.”

You smiled as you spooned the yogurt into the bowl, glancing over to Carmy. “You wanna know a secret?”

“Is it..that you're actually a serial killer who kills your victims by liquid potassium poisoning?”

“Oh shut the fuck up,” You groaned, going to grab the lemons as Carmy laughed and shook his head.

“Don't worry, your secret is safe with me. What's this other secret?”

“No, I'm not telling you now,” You sighed, taking the lemons back to the counter. “If you're just gonna be an ass.”

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” Carm murmured softly, gently nudging you. “Please tell me.”

“It's a world exclusive secret,” You grinned, walking over to the table and picking up your bag from one of the chairs. “Only three people will now know..”

You reached into your bag, pulling out a clean white envelope.

“Time to see if we need to use the pink or blue food dye.”

“What do you mean?” Carmy looked over to you. “Like a..gender reveal? That's still a thing?”

“I know it's a little cheesy,” You shrugged, looking down at the envelope. “But my best friend is just really excited to have this baby, she wants to know everything she can. So she gave me this,” You held up the envelope. “And I get to whip up some frosting.”

“So, what's it gonna be?” Carmy asked as you walked back over.

“Let's see,” You opened the envelope slowly, feeling Carmy's eyes on you. “Ah..not what I expected.”

You handed the paper over to Carmy as you picked up a lemon. “There's gonna be a little kid running around that looks like her..crazy.”

“Nice, though,” Carmy shrugged, setting the paper aside. “You know, if you..if you're someone that wants that.”

“Mm,” You nodded, taking a knife to cut the lemon. “She has, for a long time. I was so excited for her when she told me. Then I went and agreed to do all this, because..”

“You were drunk?” Carmy supplied.

“Yes, that,” You laughed, shaking your head. “It's not going that bad though, right? Everything is under control.”

“True, but uh..” You looked up as you felt Carmy's hand on your arm, looking down and finding yourself staring at his tattoos.

“You might want to cut the lemons, not your fingers.”

“What? Shit,” You frowned as you looked back to your hands, a trickle of blood appearing. “Spoke too soon.”

“It's okay,” Carmy led you to the sink. “just wash it off, have you got band-aids?”

“Uh..yeah, I think so,” You nodded, running the water. “in the bathroom cabinet.”

“Okay, wait here.”

A few minutes later you were leaning against the counter watching Carmy apply a band-aid to your finger with the precision of a surgeon.

“I can't remember the last time someone put a band-aid on me,” You murmured softly. “Thanks.”

“Don't mention it,” Carm looked up, his hand still holding yours. “I'm an expert at it.”

“So I see,” You smiled, inspecting your finger. “Excellent work. I'll be sure and recommend you.”

“I might need the extra work,” He sighed. “We're getting close to the deadline and it just feels like we're not progressing.”

“Hey,” You gently squeezed his hand. “Stressing out won't change anything except to make everything harder. Just keep going, do what you need to do, and then on the tiny, tiny, chance it doesn't work out you have a career lined up as a professional band-aider. You can patch up my victims.”

Carmy was quiet for a moment before he laughed, really laughed, and you felt a weight slip off your shoulders.

After a moment a comfortable silence fell over the two of you, your eyes held on each other.

“I‐”

“I should actually be going,” Carmy spoke before you could finish. “I just remembered I need to call this guy about the..”

“Okay,” You nodded, clearing your throat. “I can..I can handle the rest. Don't let me keep you if you're in a rush.”

You could see the guilt in Carm’s eyes, choosing to look away.

“I'm sorry to leave you in the middle of all this.”

“Don't be sorry,” You shrugged, looking down to your bandaged finger. “It's my responsibility, I got it. Thank you for your help.”

Carmen gave you a nod and you mustered up a smile in return, watching him leave.

A couple of hours later, the sun had set and your kitchen lights were bright as you flicked some cupcake batter off your fingers. When you heard a knock at the door you looked up, pausing for a minute before grabbing a cloth to wipe your hands.

“Coming, hang on.” You called, setting the cloth aside and heading to the door.

It wasn't a total surprise to see Carmen on the other side.

“Hey,” He said after a moment. “Can I come in?”

“Of course,” You stood aside, holding the door open. “Come on in.”

You watched him as he took a deep breath, hand clutching the zip of his jacket.

“So, about earlier, I-”

“I know,” You smiled, holding up your hand. “It was a lot. It was fun, and..domestic, and kind of intense, and that's a lot. I get it.”

“Yeah,” Carmy breathed, nodding sofly. “But..I'd still like to help you out, if you'll let me.”

“Then get your shoes off and get in the kitchen,” You smiled. “I'm just starting the cupcakes. Assistance is definitely needed.”

Half an hour and a lot of batter later, the cupcakes were in the oven, and the daunting prospect of the cake stood in front of you.

“Do I really need to make a cake and cupcake?” You mused, looking at the messy counter. “It feels excessive.”

“You're making the cake,” Carm nudged you gently. “Show me what you've learned.”

“Prepare to be amazed,” You grinned. “For better or worse.”

You cleared some space on the counter and glanced over to Carmy for a moment with a raised brow. “Hold still, you got batter in your hair.”

You gently moved your hand to carefully remove the fleck of batter.

“Would I be out of line to suggest you might be overdue for a haircut?”

Carmy laughed softly and shook his head, ruffling his messy curls.

“It's on a list, somewhere. I'll get round to it eventually.”

“I could do it,” You suggested, looking back to the counter and taking a clean bowl. “I know my way around a pair of scissors.”

“Really?”

“Really really,” You nodded, reaching for the flour. “you help me with this cake, I'll make you look like a new man.”

“Deal.”

Once the cupcakes were out of the oven and the cake was in, you sent Carmy off to wash his hair in your shower, leaning against the counter when he was gone and taking a deep breath. You reached for the note that your best friend had given you, smiling as you read over it.

When Carm came back into the kitchen, you felt your heart race a little. He was dressed the same of course but his damp hair was slicked back, and he had a warm, clean scent that still had a musk to it that was really doing it for you.

“The cake will be a while, I checked,” You smiled. “Skewered it like a pro. Take a seat, let's get you fixed up.”

“Are you going to skewer me?” Carmy asked, raising a brow as he sat on the chair you'd moved up by the counter. “I'm a little intrigued.”

“You'll see,” You grinned, picking up the blue towel you'd grabbed when Carmy was in the shower. “Be on your best behavior just in case.”

“Yes ma'am.”

“Alright,” You draped the towel around Carmy's shoulders, adjusting it a little before picking up the scissors and a comb. “Let's see what we can do. Head down, please.”

“About earlier,” Carmy began, and you felt a knot twist in your stomach. “I..I just want to apologize, I shouldn't have just left like that.”

“It's okay,” You murmured softly, gently combing his hair and holding the ends between your fingers. “Like I said, I get it.”

“No, it's..it's complicated,” Carmy sighed. “Because..I don't want you to think that I didn't enjoy being domestic and having fun with you, because I did, and I think you're great, I really..I really like you and it just freaked me the fuck out a little.”

“Like when we were six,” You smiled softly, gently snipping his hair. “And I kissed you. You freaked out and left me alone in that treehouse. I was devastated.”

“Hey I didn't expect it,” Carm shrugged. “You didn't give me a heads up.”

“I'm giving you one now,” You grinned, lightly tapping his head with the comb. “Head up, please.”

“Why did you do it?” Carm asked, soft curiosity in his voice.”I mean, why did you..why me?”

“You weren't like the other boys in our class,” You shrugged, gently sweeping the comb through Carmy's hair. “And you weren't like Richie or your brother. You were just..Carmy. I always thought about you. I liked that you were doing your own thing. Tilt your head sideways, please..thanks.”

He stayed quiet while you cut his hair so you kept talking.

“I don't think I really had a crush on you or anything back then, I just liked you. Then as we got older I started seeing you differently but I never acted on it because I didn't think you were interested. We never really hung out much, for all I knew you were a major dick. Then,you were gone and I tried to forget you..head down, please.”

“What do you think now?”

You thought about it for a moment, holding the comb in Carmy's hair.

“I think..you've actually got really great hair.”

“That so?”

“Oh yeah,” You nodded. “I mean usually it looks like a bird should be nesting in it so anything is an improvement.”

He laughed slightly and you felt your shoulders drop a little.

“I also think,” You murmured softly, slowly closing the scissors on the ends of his hair. “Those tattoos on your hands are really doing it for me.”

“Yeah?

“Big time.”

A silence hung over you as you continued the haircut, trying to keep your hands steady.

“Just because I freaked out doesn't mean that I don't..that I haven't been thinking about you.”

“Yeah?” You mused, lightly brushing some hair off the towel.

“Big time. But..” Carmy let out a sigh, clearing his throat. “I'm really not..an expert at the whole relationship thing. I'm not even a novice, I'm like..a nightmare. I can't do the flowers and dates and meeting the parents and all that like..I know I should want all that and maybe I do but..something just stops me and I can't..I can't do it.”

You slowly walked around to stand in front of Carmy, meeting his eyes as you glanced down.

“Head up, please.”

You focused your attention on his hair, feeling the nervous energy radiating from him.

“First of all, you know my parents. So that's not relevant. Second of all..I'm not saying that I want a relationship because I don't even know if I do. But..I wouldn't mind having someone I hang out with, watching movies and talking shit and eating takeout and figuring out if we want to be more but it's okay because we're still good how we are. And I could see you being that person.”

You took a step back, tilting your head slightly.

“All done.”

“Good,” Carmy nodded, standing up and stepping closer to you, his hands reaching out to touch your face and leaning in close til you felt like you couldn't breathe. “You can check the cake.”

You let out a frustrated sigh before laughing and moving your hands to grip the towel around Carmy's shoulders.

“You're definitely a major dick.”

You pulled him in for a kiss, feeling a rush shoot through you. When you pulled back you thought your heart was on fire.

“Wow, you've really improved,” You grinned. “I'm impressed.”

“You don't know the half of it.” Carmy grinned, pulling you back in for another kiss.

He wasn't lying, as you discovered when he put you up on the counter and feasted on you til you cried.

You had wasted no time, pulling him right down onto the kitchen floor to show what you'd learned too.

The next day, when you watched your best friend cut into the cake and scream with joy as layers of pink and blue sponge were revealed, you made a silent vow to volunteer your services more often.

#the bear #the bear fic #the bear 🐻#the bear fics #carmy berzatto x reader #carmy berzatto x you #carmen berzatto x reader #carmen berzatto x you

474 notes · View notes

dribs-and-drabbles · 2 years

Text

God the anxiety is real today.

#too much overwhelming me #I'm fine though #just would rather not deal with it #looking forward to a time when this *she waves around her* is all over #being cryptic on purpose...because I'd end up writing a novel if I tried to explain everything #honestly I'm making it sound way more dramatic than it is #I just... *sigh*

0 notes

lgbtlunaverse · 3 months

Text

What kind of saber is baxia anyway?

I love my bloodthirsty princess of a cursed blade, and in my heart of hearts i am nothing but a sword nerd, so i've been extremely fascinated by Baxia and how we know frustratingly little about what she actually looks like!

I mean, look at bichen, right?

Bichen in the donghua:

Bichen in the drama:

They're clearly not exactly the same. The scabbards are different, and the guards have a different shape. But these are recognizably different iterations on one theme, right? Thin jian with a white grip silver guard, light blue tassel and silver mounting accents on the scabbard.

Now this is baxia in the donghua:

And baxia in the drama:

????????

THAT'S A COMPLTELY DIFFERENT WEAPON

it doesn't stop there either, the audio drama is kind enough to give us ANOTHER COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BAXIA

pretty! But how is that he same sword??

And when we go back to the novel, we get very little information on her appearance other than the fact that her blade is tinted red with all the blood she's absorbed. Which none of these designs incorporate.

This is not a dig on the designs itself, they're all quite gorgeous in their own right and i'm going to spend a while discussing all of them! Because isn't it fascinating how, since we know little about novel baxia beyond "saber" all of these designs ended up so different? What kinds of sabers are these, anyway?

So, a chinese aber, aka a "dao" (刀) just means a sword that has only one cutting side. As opposed to a jian, which has two.

You can see how that leaves a LOT of room for variaton.

I've actually seen some people get confused because Huaisang's saber in the untsmed is thin and quite straight, making it superficially resemble the jian more than drama!baxia, but it is still clearly a saber!

See? only one cutting blade!

This, to me looks a lot like a tang dynasty hengdao

credit to this blog for providing his image and being a great source for all this going forward.

TANGENT: during all this I found out the english wikipedia page for dao is WRONG! Ths is what they about the tang hengdao!

So that sounds like the hengdao was called that during the sui dynasty, but then, after that, started being called a peidao, right?

WRONG

I LOOKED AT THE SOURCE THEY USED AND IT SAYS THIS:

IT WAS CALLED THE PEIDOU UNTIL THE SUI DYNASTY, AT WHICH POINT IT WAS CALLED A HENGDAO. Which would carry over to the Tang dynasty. This was the source wikipedia linked! and it says something else than they say it does!

Anyone know how to edit a wikipedia article?

ANYWAY

BACK TO BAXIA

Since we're already at the drama, let's look at drama baxia: She's also straight! the general term for straight-backed saber is Zhibeidao, but that's a modern collector's term, and doesn't really say anything about which historical kind of saber baxia could be based on. Another meta i found on the drama nie sabers already went on some detail here.

I'm gonna expand on that a little: The kinds of historical straight-backed sabers we see resemble the hengdao a lot more than they do baxia. They don't go to their point as harsly as she does (she's basically a cleaver!) and they're all way skinnier.

No, my personal theory is that instead of being based on any kind of historical sword, drama!baxia is based on a Nandao.

I mean, come on, look at it!

Baxia!

The Nandao... isn't actually a historical sword. It was invented for Wushu forms. There's a really fascinating article about its conception, but that's why the swords in the images look a little thin and flimsy. Wushu swords are very flexible and light, they're dance props, not weapons to fight with. There are actual steel versions of Nandao, but they're recreations of the prop, not the other way around.

So That's one way in which Baxia differes from the Nandao: she's actually a real weapon. The other is that, as you can see above, the nandao has an S-shaped guard. Baxia doesn't. She's also much more elaborately decorated, of course. Because she's a princess.

Now: audio drama baxia!

This is much easier. with that flare at the tip?

Oh baby that's a niuweidao, all the way!

There are more sabers with that kind of curved handle, but the broad tip is really charcteristic of the niuweidao. The Niuweidao is also incredibly poplar in modern media, often portrayed as a historical sword, but it originated i nthe 19th century! And it was actually never used by the military!

That's right, the Niuweidao was pretty much exclusively a civilian weapon! That makes its use here anachronistic, but so is the nandao, and considering that the origin story of the Nie is that they use Dao intead of Jian because their ancestors were butchers, portraying them with a weapon historically reserved for rebels and common people instead of the imperial military is actually very on theme!

Finally, Donghua/Manhua baxia. These two designs are so similar I'm going to treat them as one and the same for now.

Unlike both previous baxias, The long handle makes it clear this baxia is a two-handed weapon, though Nie Mingjue is absolutely strong enough to wield her with one hand anyway. Normal rules don't count for cultivators.

Now, this is where things get tricky, because there are a lot of words for long two-handed sabers. And a lot of them are interchangable! This youtube video about the zhanmadao, one of the possible sabers this baxia could be based on, goes a little into just how confusing this can get. This kind of blade WAS actually in military use for many centuries, making it the most historically accurate of all the baxias. But because of that it also has several names and all of those names can also refer to different kinds of blades depending on what century we're in.

So here's our options: i'm going to dismiss the wodao and miandao, because these were explicitly based on japanese sword design, and as we can see manhua baxia has that very broad tip, so that won't work

(Example of a wodao. According to my sources Miaodao is really just the modern common term for the wodao, and the changdao, and certain kinds of zhanmadao... do you see how quickly this gets confusing?)

Next option: Zhanmadao.

Zhanmadao stands for "horse chopping saber" so... yeah they were anti-cavalry weapons. meant to be able to cut the legs and/or necks of horses. That definitely sounds like a weapon Nie Mingjue would wield. But if you watched that youtube video i linked above, you'll know the standardized Qing dinasty Zhanmadao looked very different from earlier versions. It was inspired by the japanese odachi, and more resembles the miandao than its ealrier heftier counteprarts.

Earlier Ming dynasty Zhanmadao on the other hand were... basically polearms. the great ming military blog spot, another wonderful source, says these are essentially a kind of podao/pudao (朴刀) which looked like this

Now that blade looks a lot like baxia, but the handle is honestly too long. Donghua!baxia straddles the line between sword an polearm a little, but while zhanmadao have been used to refer to both long-handled swords and polerarms, this was undeniably a polearm, not a sword.

If you want to know what researching this was like, I found a picture of this blade on pinterest-- labeled as a "two-handed scimitar"-- and the comment section was filled with people arguing about whether this was a Pudao, Wudao, Zhanmadao, Dadao, Guandao, or a japanese Nagita.

So... that's how it was going. This has kept me up until 2 AM multiple times.

However! Thanks to this article on the great ming military blog I found out there have historically been pudao blades with shorter handles!

Specifically, Ming dynasty military writer Cheng Ziyi created a modified version of the pudao to work with the Dan Fao Fa Xuan technixues-- aka technqiues for a two-handed saber, which would alter heavily influence Miaodao swordmanship-- thereby, as the article points out, essentially merging the cleaver-polearm type Zhanmadao with the later two-handed japanese-inspired design.

This is the illustration for the Wu Bei Yao Lue (武備要略) a Ming dynasty military manual

This blade shape in the illustration doesn't match Baxia exactly, but since it's a lengthened Pudao-like blade and we've seen above that those can match Donghua Baxia's shape, i'm gonna say that calling Baxia a Zhanmadao with a two-handed grip isn't all that innacurate!

However, because all of these terms are so intertwined, there are a dozen other things you could call her that would be about equally correct.

To show that, here's a lightning round of other potential Baxia candidates:

Dadao (大刀)

Which are generally one-handed and too short. However!

Another youtube video i found of someone training with a Zhanmadao that resembles baxia a little also calls it a "shuangshoudai dao" (雙手带刀) shuangshou means two-handed, and while 雙手带 seems to refer to a longer handled weapon, when looking for a shuangshou dao or shuangshou dadao (双手大刀) we find a lot more baxia-resembling blades like here and here

I also found that, while the cleaver-like Dadao is strictly a product of the 20th centuy, since dadao just means big sword or big knife, it has been used to refer to loads of different weapons! Some people could've called the zhanmadao and pudao "dadao" during the Ming dynasty as well.

Another potential baxia candidate that mandarin mansion classifies as similar to the later dadao (though longer, as seen in the illustration below) is the "Kuanren Piandao"

Which piqued my interest because this diagram classifying different tpye of Dao:

Claims that a Kuanrenbiandao (diferent spelling, same sword) is the same as a modern day Zhanmadao.

(So once again, all of these terms are interchangable)

Another opton Is the Chuanmeidao/Chuanweidao (船尾刀) below you can see a diagram, based on the Qing dynasty green standard army regulation, of blades all officially classified as types of "pudao"

The top middle is the Kuanren Piandao, and bottom left is the Chuanweidao.

Both of these have a lot of baxia-like qualities.

So there you go! live action baxia is based on a Nandao, audio drama baxia is based on a Niuweidao, and Manhua/donghua baxia is some kind of two-handed Zhanmadao/Pudao/Dadao depending on how you want to look at it.

I'm honestly surprised no one has made the creative decision to portray Baxia as a Jiuhuandao, aka 9 ringed broadsword yet.

I mean look at it! Incredibly imposing. Would make for a great Baxia imo. (@ upcoming mdzs manga and mobile game: take notes!)

#mdzs #mdzs meta #nie mingjue #baxia #cql #the untamed #long post #I HAVE SO MANY TABS OPEN. FEEL MY SUFFERING #I understand that asking a gigantic region with thousands of years of rich history and many different subcultures #to have one standard naming convention is basically impossible #But could they do it anyway? for me? 🥺#i also want to buy one of these... so bad #or even just a plastic trainer so i can practice the techniques #but i know that once i start buying swords i'm not gonna stop until my money runs out #Being a sword nerd is a very dangerous not phyisically but for your wallet

413 notes · View notes

stellarnightstalk · 4 months

Text

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐖𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐀 𝐃𝐢𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞!

There was a deafening silence around the room, the type of silence where you could even hear a pin drop. The only sound you would hear was the occasional impatient tapping of your foot as you waited with an awkward smile around your face.

The man in front of you held some papers in his hands, more precisely, divorce papers. He was reading them thoroughly and slower than he should be. Your eye twitched in annoyance, you had planned what to do, what to say, and did a whole dramatic entrance just for him to be staring at those damn papers for almost 30 minutes.

You looked at the man who sat in silence before you, Cedric Ironheart, the male lead of the romance fantasy novel you were in. The truth of the matter is that what happened to you wasn't something you could speak about very lightly. Sometimes you couldn't even believe it yourself, it’s not common for you to reincarnate to a romance novel, at least that’s what you think.

Luckily you were spared the memories of your death in the real world, you admit that they were a bit blurry, but it kept you going.

One day you were slouching around your couch, after quitting the job you were clearly being underpaid for, you remember taking numerous sleeping pills to be able to get through the night, the next you were here, in someone else's body entirely. And not just anyone's body, but the body of the main villainess from your favorite novel, “The Forbidden Princess.” A story about a blooming romance between a duke and a “peasant” girl but of course, it wasn’t any normal story. The peasant was revealed to be a secret daughter that the king had, and the Duke was ordered to take custody of the girl in the meantime, and so on.

Cedric was forced into an arranged marriage by the king, which was the main conflict of the story. And the person that he was married to was you, well not you but the villainess, (Y/N, L/N). The stuck-up, childish, and wicked woman who was obsessed with the duke, whose only good aspect was her alluring beauty but was overshadowed by her blackened heart. You were meant to create problems in the story to make the romance progress between the main lovers, like spilling wine onto the protagonist's dress, spreading awful rumors to destroy the protagonists reputation. And more to come.

You knew how the story ended for the villainess, all her plans ended up backfiring which made the couple grow closer, which led to her demise, her death, being killed by the man she loves the most. You never liked her from the start, you find yourself pitying her in some way, but her character was created for a sole purpose, for the plot, but this situation is different. You are quite literally HER, and the preferred ending is not dying, it's all very simple. You don't want to die, so you decide to cut off what is supposed to be the cause of your death. The Duke of the North, your husband. Then maybe go to the countryside, get a job that’ll keep you stable, you've been thinking about getting a cute little cottage.

That WAS originally the plan, but you’ve been stuck here for God knows how long. Does he not know how to read? You’ve taken notice that some groups in medieval times didn’t know how to. You cleared your throat, making his attention go from the papers towards you. You find yourself admiring his looks, no wonder he's a male lead, he's a handsome fella you'll give him that.

“Look, I know you want this and I want it too so let's not dilly-dally, right? All you need to do is sign right here.” You leaned forward, pointing at the empty line on the bottom right of the paper that's supposed to be filled by his signature, “And I'll be gone faster than you could say—”

“No.”

You chuckled, “I was going to say faster than you could say—” Your eyes widened. “Wait what? What do you mean no?!” You stood up from your seat, slamming your hands on the table in front of you in utter shock.

“My decision is final, your proposal of divorce has been denied. Do you need anything else?” He smoothly said, returning the divorce papers to you, crossing his legs.

Your gaze lingered on the blank papers in your hands, mouth agape. You sat down, taking a deep breath to regain your composure. Shaking your head you changed your gaze from the papers to Cedric, “Your grace, I trust that you will reconsider! I am not fit to be a Duchess, you must know where I'm coming from.” You were getting desperate, you weren't about to die here because this asshole decided not to divorce you, he hates the villainess! He doesn't want the marriage, so why is he being so stubborn?

“No, I don’t. I believe you make a great duchess.” He grabbed a cup of tea that was on his left, sipping from it calmly. “Are you perhaps feeling jealous because the king’s daughter is going to be under my watch? I guarantee that you have nothing to worry about.” He placed the finished tea cup on the saucer that was on the table. “I’ll be sure to give you as much attention as you desire.”

You noticed your eye twitching, questioning whether he was bluffing or if he was actually this egotistical. You forced a smile and explained, "I assure you that the king's daughter has no involvement in this matter. It's a decision I've been thinking for some time now and I believe it would be a positive change." That was a lie. Of course you wanted to leave because of the king’s daughter, your life depended on it. A little alteration to the truth won’t do any harm.

You noted how he examined you with a raised eyebrow, but you held your head high.

Cedric let out a sigh. "You may have a point, but it's not up to you to make this decision." He uncrossed his legs and got up from his seat, heading in your direction. He stopped right in front of you.

He leaned down and placed his hand on your chin, making you look up. “Are you perhaps drunk again? I told your personal butler not to bring you as much whiskey anymore. I had to hide a lot of bottles.” Your eyes widened as you felt his hands on your chin, he had rough hands, but a somewhat warm gentle touch to it. Something about it felt possessive, you were confused. You don't remember something like this occurring in the novel.

You stared at him. “I assure you that I'm completely sober. I haven't even seen a bottle of whiskey, let alone drank one. Trust me, you would know,” you answered sarcastically. Cedric let out a rare chuckle at your humorous response and let go of your chin. Your fingers brushed against each other for a moment.

“I suppose you're right. You wouldn't skip an opportunity to drink your heart out, would you?" He crossed his arms and focused his attention on you. "Either way, my answer remains the same. I feel the need to inform you that the king's daughter will be arriving in a week.”

As he walks away from you, he heads towards the door and pushes it open. However, instead of leaving, he stands there for a minute, looking back at you. Suddenly, he realizes what he is doing and quickly exits the room, slamming the door behind him, and leaving an echoing sound. You were left with your thoughts. A week seemed too far away! You needed to leave this place, fast.

But, there is no way to get this done differently, the king's orders are absolute. So, you're kind of out of options here. You close your eyes and sigh, rubbing your temple, this is a massive headache to deal with.

It is best to avoid interfering with the two lovers and let them be. If you don't cause any problems and allow them to fall in love, he'll divorce you to be with the princess. You won't be harmed, and everyone will be able to live happily ever after.

Perhaps you can find an attractive man in the countryside, he may not be as handsome as Cedric, but he will do.

You open your eyes tiredly, and out of the corner of your eye, you see a fancy-looking bottle, which you presume to be the whiskey they've been hiding from the villainess. You stood up from the chair, walked towards the bottle, leaned down, and grabbed it. You examined the bottle, it read “Johnnie Walker, 1820, Old Scotch Whisky.”

You hummed, you'll save that for later, you placed it under your tighter-than-normal corset. It took you a while but it went in, hopefully, nobody will notice.

——

Cedric was sitting on the corner of his bed, he was lost in thought, normally he would think about his duties, the king, or anything else. But tonight he was thinking about you, you were acting different, but not in a bad way. For once, he might even say he felt attracted to you today, which is something he wouldn't be caught alive saying.

The way you spoke, felt somewhat mature. Something he had never experienced you doing before, you had always been childish, and spoiled, always finding new ways to get under his skin.

The moment he laid his eyes on you, he knew you were beautiful. There was no doubt about that, but it wasn't until now that he truly saw it. His heart raced with excitement as he realized the depth of your beauty.

The way you looked up at him as he grabbed your chin, how soft you felt. He loved how you reacted, which caused him to do the things that he did. He had never touched you before, but now, he might be a bit addicted to your touch.

He doesn’t want you to divorce him, not after today. He doesn’t get it either, but he needs you, badly.

When he grabbed your chin, you didn't pull away. Instead, you stayed there, with him. Did you feel it too? You must have.

If you hadn't, you would have pushed him away. At least that's what he thinks. No, that's what he knows.

You have him wrapped around your finger, without any explanation.

He looked at his hand, the warmth of when your fingers brushed against each other lingered. He let out a shaky breath and clenched his fist.

“What kind of spell have you placed on me this time, my dear wife?”

from, your admirer.

credits:

neutral heart + star divider made by @cafekitsune

565 notes · View notes

marvel-ous-m · 11 months

Text

Eddie Munson's Guide for How to Adopt a Jock in Four Easy Steps (1/5)

Part Two

Eddie Munson is many things, but he is not the kind of guy who will kick someone while they’re down.

Call it a hero complex, call it too many hours spent licking his wounds after particularly harsh words from a bully- whatever name you give it, Eddie is vehemently against hurting someone who's clearly already hurting, no matter how much he may hate that individual.

Which is why, in early November of ‘84, Eddie hatches a plan.

It starts in the library, as most of his brilliant ideas do. He’s spending his lunch hour pouring over a borrowed fantasy novel to try and get ideas for NPC’s for his latest campaign with Hellfire, but he gets distracted by a loud thump and a whispered ‘shit’, followed by a sniff. Eddie turns, book still in hand, and proceeds to drop the book onto the carpeted floor of the library in shock.

Because there is Steve Harrington- face beat to hell, hands shakily holding on to a lunch tray, and a salad spewed in all directions at his feet. The librarian- Ms. Boliene (a bitch to everyone other than her outcasts)- began cussing Steve out, demanding he pick up the salad, and Steve got a glossy look in his eye that told Eddie that he was about two seconds from breaking down in tears.

Which- honestly, that was probably the strangest part of this whole ordeal. Steve was King of Hawkins High (and maybe, Eddie theorized, was was the operative word there). Steve had been on a downward slope of popularity since last year when he and Tommy had their falling out. Billy Hargrove (barf) had been getting more and more popular, and, after last weekend, there was a rumor going around that Steve’s girlfriend, Nancy, broke up with him then immediately hooked up with Jonathan Byers.

(Hey, Eddie’s always one to root for the outcasts, he is one, after all- but kinda a dick move, Wheeler. Also, not great of Byers to agree to something like that, especially if he knew about the situation.)

Eddie focused his attention back on the scene in front of him- Steve was now crouching down to pile the wasted salad onto his lunch tray and was blinking rapidly, trying to stave off tears. His head was also doing this thing where it was dipping forward than instantly picking up, like he was trying to even stay awake. Which… huh.

Eddie was sure at this point- this was the lowest he’d ever seen someone get. Even his dad after his mom passed wasn’t like this- at least that bastard could still go out and break shit and get arrested. Steve looked like the only thing he wanted to do at this point was fall apart. Why was he even at school?

Eddie sighed and stood, crossing the room to where Steve was crouching. He gently batted Steve’s hands away and finished cleaning up his lunch, tossing it (and the plastic tray- because fuck this school, honestly) into the large garbage can sitting by the front door of the library. When he turned around Steve was standing, looking a bit shell-shocked. “I… that was my lunch.”

“The floor salad was your lunch? I could believe that before you dropped it, but after? Dude, that’s a low that you cannot reach. I have an extra sandwich in my bag, c’mon.”

Eddie grabbed Steve’s arm, letting go immediately when he felt the whole-body flinch that Harrington gave. Eddie held his hands up, backing up towards the table where he was sitting previously. “I won’t touch you, but you should probably eat, Harrington. I’m extending the metaphorical olive branch in the form of food, I promise that I’m not gonna bite your head off.”

Steve assessed the situation, eyes darting around the library, before he finally nodded and joined Eddie at his table, sitting across from the spot where all of his materials were strewn about. Eddie grabbed his book from the floor and ripped into his backpack, pulling his lunch out and passing it to Steve. (It wasn’t really an extra sandwich, it was his lunch, but it was fine. Jeff always brought snacks to Hellfire and Eddie wasn’t even that hungry today).

Steve stared at the cling-wrapped sandwich in shock, then carefully set to unwrapping it. Eddie noticed a slight tremor in his hands, but decided against commenting on it. “So, uh… what happened?” Fuck, Eddie, abort, abort, that was literally the last goddamn thing you were supposed to ask.

“Um…” Steve finished unwrapping the sandwich, pulling the bread slices apart. “Bologna?”

“Hey, don’t knock it ‘til you try it. I know it probably goes against your rich folk sensibilities, but I promise it’s worth a try.”

“Yeah.” Steve took a bite of the sandwich, then washed it down with the bottle of water Eddie slid his way. “S’not my first time having bologna and it won’t be my last. Not bad, though.” Steve set the sandwich down, licking his lips. “Thank you, by the way. Eddie, right? You played at battle of the bands last year?”

Eddie blinked in surprise. The change in conversation topic made him totally forget his previous question. “Um- yeah, that was me. Me and the boys- Corroded Coffin. Not your thing?”

“No! I liked it, actually. Very ‘stick it to the man’. I can get behind that.”

Eddie raised an eyebrow at Steve, to which he received a responding chuckle. “My dad- he’s an asshole.” oh shit, did Steve’s dad do this?

Eddie’s expression must have shifted, because Steve immediately started rambling. “Shit- no, fuck, I know what you’re thinking, he didn’t do this, my parents have been out of town for like, three months. This was Billy- but it’s fine, really! Like, I can see, and I’m not super dizzy, I’m just a little lacking in coordination which- yeah, the lunch tray. You know what? I’m gonna shut up now.” Steve took another bite of the sandwich and another swig of water, and Eddie noted that Steve’s knee began to bounce up and down.

Eddie decided to push everything aside and deal with it later. Apparently this wound was still fresh (both emotionally and physically), and while Eddie could get into a number of things that Steve just spewed out (his parents have been gone for three months? Billy did this? Steve is halfway to falling over but he’s still at school?!) Eddie elected to change the subject.

“So, Steve, do you know anything about D&D?” Steve’s eyes lit up and he launched into a rant about a couple of kids that he hung around. Eddie listened with a small smirk on his face, eyebrow raised.

Steve was… different than expected. Kind, a little awkward, anxious. There’s only one reason that a jock like him has lunch in the library, and it’s because he didn’t have anyone left to sit with in the Cafeteria. He reminded Eddie of an abandoned dog… specifically a golden retriever with Steve’s eyes and his floppy hair.

Curse Eddie’s big heart and savior complex, but he knew what he had to do. Steve was about to become the newest member of Eddie’s little herd of lost sheep, whether he liked it or not.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I haven’t decided if I’m going to write a part 2- let me know if you’d be interested in one! I’m so glad to be back to writing after a very long semester of school. I should be writing a lot this summer, so drop some prompts in my ask if you want to see something specific!

#steddie #stranger things #Steve Harrington #Eddie munson #pre s4 meeting #<- top 5 favorite steddie tropes #my writing #once again my writing style fluctuates but this is my stream of consciousness so you just have to deal with it #stranger things fic #stranger things ticket #st fic #st ficlet

2K notes · View notes

luveline · 1 year

Text

𝐢𝐟 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐬 | 𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧

You don’t mean to make an enemy of Eddie Munson — he’s handsome, and talented, but he’s the biggest jerk you’ve ever met. Eddie thinks you’re infuriatingly pretty, emphasis on the infuriating. Too bad you just can’t seem to leave each other alone. [13k]

fem!reader, enemies-to-lovers, rival rockstars, mutual pining (and hatred), slight miscommunication, angst, hurt-comfort, eddie has mixed intentions, kissing / heavy petting, hickeys, sexual tension, eventual hate-fucking, some misogyny (not eddie), TW readers bandmate is a bully, TW drugs/alc/smoking, disclaimer: I can’t play an instrument

𓆩❤︎𓆪

Indianapolis International Airport, Indiana, Late 1988.

There's a really sweet-looking boy sitting in the chair across from you. The airport is blotted out by both your headphones —huge chunky cans, the best you could afford— and your sunglasses. He's a shade of sepia from the lenses, dark hair darker still where it's tucked into the hood of his hoodie.

There's no way he could possibly know you're staring at him while you're facing your lap, scribbling lyrics for a song that'll never get made with your body curled inwards, and yet he looks up from the novel in his. He smiles, his cheeks pulled up, and he looks younger. He isn't old by any means but something about his smile is transformative.

You don't mean to give yourself away. You smile back just a little.

He says something. You push your headphones around your neck and break the seal, soft 70's rock replaced by the sounds of the airport, footsteps and clicking and children laughing somewhere behind you.

"I'm sorry," you say, covering the cans of your headphones to cut their weak buzzing, "what did you say?"

"I said you have good taste."

He nods toward your guitar case patterned in overlapping band stickers.

You notice his own case on the seat next to him. It's more conspicuous than your own with only one sticker, a band you've never heard of.

"I wish I could say the same, but I don't know who that is, 'Corroded Coffin'?" you ask, purely curious.

He sits forward, a picture of casual confidence as he drops his face into his palm, elbow digging into the ripped jeans covering his knee. "I'm offended, sweetheart. They're only the best sound to come out of Indiana in the last ten years."

"The Stacey's?" you offer, scandalised by his suggestion. "Doorway to Cooperstown? The Cats?"

He blinks at you. "You know the scene."

"It's my scene," you say.

You don't mean to sound pretentious, and hopefully you don't, but music is your life.

"It's mine, too," he says. He leans forward and scrubs a hand through his hair, scratching absentmindedly. "Where are you going? Must be pretty important to tear you away."

"New York. I'm– I'm a techie for Godless. I will be, once I get there." You sound smug and nervous at the same time.

"Holy shit," he says. He smiles a gorgeous, awful kind of smile, like you've been friends for years, and your good news is his. "No fucking way. Go you."

Godless have been compared to loads of bands but the one you favour is a heavier, feminine The Clash. It's an emerging sound, punk rock stolen, repurposed, and remade. Reborn by girlhood rage. You love their sound (though you have some notes), you love their statement, and you're probably the happiest you've ever been knowing you'll be behind the scenes of a new era of music.

"And you're taking her?" he asks, gesturing to your guitar case.

Inside is a beat up old bass guitar you got for nothing. You're self-taught, you're good, but you don't have any disillusions on what you'll be doing on tour.

"She's worthless," you say, "mostly taking her for company." You reuse his pronouns, though you aren't the type to assign personality to your instruments. "What about you, uh–"

"Eddie," he says, taking his guitar case into two fine hands. Your eyes snag on his ragtag assortment of rings, and he leans over the neck of the case to retake your gaze. "This… is Sweetheart."

—

Hotel Edison, New York, Early 1990.

"We have to go. Why are you guys never ready when I tell you to be?"

You panic slightly. "I need a minute."

"Ananya, could you find, like, a modicum of patience? Fucking annoying."

Sharp, Morgan's unhappiness sounds over the droning drill of your shitty hair dryer. You shift where you're kneeling in front of the floor length mirror to check she isn't talking to you — unusual, but not impossible that her hostility would be aimed at someone who isn't Ananya.

Ananya stands in the middle of the hotel room, thick eyebrows pulled into a familiar scowl.

"Get it together," she says disdainfully, like Morgan's nothing more than a mild inconvenience.

You wish you had her confidence when it comes to Morgan's tantrums. You stand up, clad in nothing more than underwear and a pair of black stockings, your t-shirt in one hand and the hairdryer still humming in the other. You turn it off and let it drop to the floor, worried you're just another rockstar cliche as you take in the state of your room. Your suitcase is open and your clothes are all over the place, laid flat in an attempt to dry your rain-soaked clothes. Your underwear dangle from the lampshade, a mix of pretty lingerie you've yet to wear and full-shaped panties that had made Morgan laugh for a minute, no pauses.

"I can see why you're so desperate," she'd barbed.

You slip your shirt over your head in case you have to act as a human shield. It's honestly not the worst thing they've had you involved in this year.

"You're not wearing that, are you?" Morgan asks.

She's a fascinating creature in that she isn't always talking with thinly veiled passive aggression. You genuinely believe she's looking out for you sometimes, or believe that she believes it, at least. She doesn't say it with malice, simply asks.

She's multi-faceted.

"No," you say, though you'd been meaning to.

"Good, skirts really aren't your thing. You look blocky. I have a pair of flares in my bag, wear them."

And Morgan — Morgan's the lead singer of Godless. You don't really have a choice.

You find the pants she'd instructed you to wear and half tuck your shirt, scrabbling for your shoes as Ananya starts lamenting the time, sat on the small table by the TV.

"They have to wait for us, babe, that's the whole point," Morgan says, fussing over her eye make-up.

"No, they don't. And we really don't need the attention right now."

"That's dramatic."

Ananya leans forward and clicks on the TV with a perfect finger. The screen buzzes to life. She clicks through the channels until she gets to the local news station, and then she slumps over the frame on her elbow.

You giggle behind your hand. Onscreen, images of Morgan are blown up and slated, your bandmate sloppy drunk on the steps of Covey Gold. They've caught you red-handed in the background pretending you aren't with her, but luckily Morgan's too obsessed with herself to notice.

"I really don't see the issue," she says breezily, slipping into her tiny heels one foot at a time. "I look sick."

She looks stunning, easily, but that's not the problem.

"You have a fucking snow trail," Ananya says.

Unfortunately, Morgan's left nostril is crusted with coke.

"It's punk rock!" Morgan's moved onto earrings now, and she's jutting her tiny pointed chin toward the door. "Hello? We're late."

You don't roll your eyes, but you could. You slip your shoes onto your feet and tuck the laces inside without tying them while the news anchor on TV continues to relay current events.

"Fletcher isn't the only rockstar making a mess in New York City this week. Members of up and coming heavy metal band Corroded Coffin were sanctioned by Flume Venues Tuesday night for damaging twenty six thousand dollars worth of equipment when their lead guitarist kicked over an amp and caused a quote unquote 'domino effect.'" The anchor laughs. "Their PR has certainly felt some corrosion."

You look up at the joke and are just in time to catch a picture splayed across the screen of the band. You're so close that their faces are made up of red, blue, and green, more colour than photo. Your skin glows with the image. Your eyes widen, perplexed.

"Do we know those guys?" you ask.

Morgan grabs your hand and drags you up. "They know us," she says. "That's what matters."

Ananya turns off the TV.

You're thrilled at being included in the 'us'. You've been an unofficial official member of Godless for four months now. Each one feels more unreal than the first, and each one brings a solidity. In Ananya's words, you're on 'probation, given you can keep up', but you look at her now, her hopeless expression as she closes your room door behind you, and know she's not hoisting you off the stage anytime soon. She'd have to deal with the world's tallest toddler alone.

Your tour manager and assorted personnel meet you in the hotel's lobby, furious and panicky at your being late. Morgan spouts the same spiel as you get shepherded into cars idling outside of the hotel.

"We're the talent. What were you gonna do, throw the gig without us?"

You're both embarrassed by her and impressed. Morgan is pretty and talented and extremely loud — she's not afraid to stick up for herself, even when she's (nearly always) wrong. She sees each hurdle in her life as an unfair disadvantage. Insanity, in your opinion, considering nearly all of those hurdles have been jumped by means of a favour, rather than any expended effort on her part.

Her bad attitude aside, she's a good singer. She's gorgeous, exactly the kind of face that obliterates mainstream reluctance.

She sits between you and Ananya and kicks her feet out over the console, boots between your driver and your tour manager, Angel.

"You guys can't be late like this. You have half the time you need for sound check now, you realise?"

"I don't need practice," Morgan says.

"It's not practice, Morgan, it's–"

Morgan laughs and bursts into song. She does it whenever she doesn't want to listen to Angel, and she sings an apt tune: Angel by Aerosmith. You look out the window rather than watch, eyes snagging on the wet New York streets and taxis and people, so many people despite the weather, black umbrellas like inverse stars lining the sidewalks.

Morgan has a great voice, raw when she wants it to be and full of life when she doesn't. You can't hear Angel's venue instructions under it and are barely paying attention as a lanyard gets tossed into your lap. It sounds stupid, and a few months ago you wouldn't believe it, but you get used to the motions. Ferried from one place to another, all anybody cares about is technicalities, politics, public image, and how you look on stage. All you care about is the music. Your bass guitar in your hands, that familiar weight, the strings as your pick slides across them, and the sea of the crowd. Its waves and ripples, hands and eyes and mouths like poppies, red-pink tongues and black throats at the centre as they scream. When you throw your pick people want to catch it. They fight over it. You throw a few. There's always more in a box in some poor techies bag.

The cushy car you're in pulls up and parks outside of the venue's main entrance. You climb onto a wet curb and shield the top of your hand with your head, dirty rain splashing down in fat, sparse drops that chill your scalp. Morgan blitzes inside and Ananya tags behind her. You go slower, eyes following down the sidewalk where, in a couple of hours, fans will wait to see you, shivering in the cold.

—

Every breath Gareth takes sucks in Eddie's short sleeved t-shirt. Eddie scowls at the top of his bandmate's head and tries to shift away.

"Seriously, man? There's a whole fucking couch," Eddie grouches.

Gareth sits up with bleary eyes furrowed into a scowl of his own. He's pale and missing his glasses, giving him the appearance of a concerned zombie.

"Shithead."

Eddie has a lot of emotions he wants to express and none he feels he can properly articulate. The injustice of his current situation, for one, is a burning irritant. How the fuck can you get grounded by your manager? And why did his warden have to be the most boring member of the band? Sorry Gareth.

"Can't you sleep in your bed?" Eddie asks.

"You'll sneak out."

Eddie will sneak out. He's a fledgling rockstar in New York. Suddenly, there are a hundred colourful boozy doors wide open to him, and he intends on haunting the threshold of each one accordingly.

But you kick one amp and boom, you're the antichrist.

"You know this is stupid."

Gareth rubs his eyes. "I mean, do I know that?" He reaches behind the couch armrest for the two-litre bottle of soda stashed there, and he talks as he brings the lip to his mouth. "You've been a real pissant lately, Munson."

"You're a pissant, pissant," Eddie says, really scowling now.

Gareth kicks him across the sofa. Eddie kicks back, foot jamming into the side of Gareth's knees. Soda spills in a shoot over the carpet. Gareth is a know-it-all with a predisposition for being as unpleasant as he can possibly be at all times, in Eddie's opinion, and Eddie knows the second the soda lands what he's going to say.

"Nice going, hotshot. This is why you're fucking grounded."

Eddie's halfway across the sofa when the door opens, an unimpressed Jamison standing with the light behind him. He flicks on the main switch and glares, brown skin golden in the resulting yellow light.

"What are you losers doing?"

"I prefer the term 'freak'," Gareth says, glare softening. "I'm fending off Munson's advances, what does it look like? No means no, asshole."

"You're disgusting," Eddie says.

"You look disgusting," Jamison echoes. "I don't know who forgot to tell you, but they invented running water a century ago. Go shower. I'll watch baby boy."

Eddie thinks Jamison is hot in the freaky way — Jamison is conventionally attractive, and Eddie would let him get freaky if he asked. He has a perfect complexion, the most attractive of the band by far, medium brown skin and a broad-shouldered frame. He's the eye-candy, literally; they'd admitted him into the fold based one parts on his talent, two parts his image.

He can play piano, guitar, bass guitar, violin, all that shit. He's a musician, and he's better than Eddie at everything but the guitar.

Nobody's better than Eddie on guitar. At least, not anybody running in his circles.

"I can't shower, I'm watching him."

"I'll watch him," Jamison says, like this is extremely obvious and Gareth is an idiot.

Eddie pulls a couch cushion over his face and drags himself onto his back, whining into the fabric unhappily. "This is fucking bullshit," he mutters

"This is due diligence," Gareth says. Eddie feels his weight lift off the couch and lets his legs slide into the empty space.

"This is fucking bullshit," he repeats.

There's a silence. He sulks. Gareth collects toiletries and the bathroom door clicks open and closed. The shower spray begins to sputter, and then the pillow is being tugged out of Eddie's hands and tossed aside.

"Jame," he protests.

"Shut up." Jamison stares down at Eddie. "Are you done being a child?"

"I already told you, it was an accident. Yeah, I kicked the amp, because my fucking string snapped and nobody would listen to me. I didn't know it was gonna actually move."

"If we go out, can you behave?" Jamison asks quietly.

Eddie sits up ramrod straight. "Absolutely… Why? What's so important?"

"Jeff's asleep, I'm bored, and-" He shrugs offhandedly. "If you got 'em, flaunt 'em?"

Jamison holds up a silver pair of car keys. They clink together, the sound music to Eddie's ears.

—

So you and Eddie meet for the second time like this.

“Does it have to be this loud?” you shout over the music, pleading gaze on Ananya, who shrugs.

She looks better after a show, even drunk. Her lipstick is a pink-red with a darker but incomprehensible outline, leaving her looking kissed sick. Her dark eyebrows are ruffled and thick, their minimal gel sweated off. She has the most heartbreaking expression about her, and you think it isn’t truly fair, how she can look so pretty and be so talented at the same time. A tragedy that other people have time for both. You feel as though you barely have the time for one.

Despite the volume, you love the sound. This is your sound. Small town hatred in a big room — begging to get out and the music proof enough that you did. It’s passionate and anxious, a two-chord progression that’s boggling simplistic but drawing you in anyhow. Wrinkled noses and bored eyes say it’s not to everyone’s taste, but you’d hazard a guess that whoever plugged it into the stereo isn’t the kind of person who worries about public opinion. If Godless worked more on your choices, this is how you’d sound.

“Whose house are we in?” you ask.

“Babe,” Ananya says, “seriously, there’s a whole room of people who want to answer you. Go bother someone.” Else. Go bother someone else.

She dismisses you with little more than that, slinking into the kitchen with a toss of her thick hair. The red of her corset top darkens to a bloodier shade in the mood lighting. She looks as though she’s bleeding out from the back.

You aren’t sure Ananya’s right. You aren’t, in the eyes of the people here, anything impressive. A techie who’s been filling in isn’t anything new, no, you’re only impressive if you get to stay, if you play better than anybody else. You’re never gonna prove that under Morgan’s thumb, and you’ll never prove it without her.

I need a bump, you think. Morgan’s coke nose flashes in your mind and you change your mind. I need something to drink. Something fucking cold, but if Ananya thinks you’ve followed her into the kitchen she’ll throw a pissy fit in front of everybody.

The room is a gaudy yellow, a tobacco stained fingerprint over the lampshade with whorls of dirt in lines, darker patches where shadier reconciliation plays; in one corner, a bag of coke, another something worse. This had been a surprise with age rather than location, the commonplace of cocaine and the bravado of its sufferers from high school and up. You’d die for some of that cocky confidence now, numb gums and a sullen credit card.

I need to get paid.

The heat of a cigarette tip kisses your shoulder. In your ear, the sound of someone taking a long, slow drag, crackling paper. You turn into it slowly, looking up slower, right into the skinny face of your missing-in-action bandmate.

“What’s up?” Morgan asks, blowing her smoke in your face. Your eyes burn.

She’s placing the cigarette between your lips before you can answer. Whether she believes she’s tormenting you or throwing you a life raft, you’re grateful for it, sucking in a blistering breath and wincing as it floods your nose.

You blow it away from her.

“Ashtray?” you ask, pinching the cig between two fingers.

“The floor’s fine.”

You raise your eyebrows, unsurprised at her cavalier suggestion and flick it still smouldering into your cupped palm. The door is perpetually open, guests flicking in and out like the froth of a cresting wave, a rushing entrance and a sluggish recession.

“Can you get me a bag?” you ask her.

“I’m not your daddy,” she murmurs.

“Bored already?”

“I have to be bored?”

To bother bothering you? Yes, Morgan would have to be bored. Bored or wasted, and she doesn’t seem inebriated. You place the cig between your teeth and lean your head back to look at the ceiling rather than give her the attentive watching she desires, the roof of your mouth an uncomfortable heat.

You remove it, blow all your smoke skyward, and drop your head. “How are you gonna fuck with me tonight?” you ask plainly.

You find you aren’t asking Morgan.

In her place stands a much taller, much more handsome face, big eyes set into pale skin. You don't recognise him at first. He wears the uniform well, in company with every other guy in the room, a crumpled shirt you imagine discarded and re-discarded on different floors. Ripped, dark jeans. He could be wearing nothing at all and the air of intimidation surrounding him would survive — there's something behind his eyes that alarms you, a knife's edge. Sweetness bordering cruelty.

"I don't know yet," he says. An insipid smile takes his lips from corner to corner as he eases the cig from your hand. "I'm sure we can think of something… together. Sweetheart."

Boys don't always give you the time of day, not the nice ones, and he doesn't look very nice. He looks like he's trying to calculate what he can get out of you. You're thinking you'll pay just about anything if he can get you a bump of something fun.

He sees your look too, his lips poised to mention it, but you've just realised where you know him from.

"I saw you on TV."

"Yeah? In Madison Square Garden?"

"In court." You give him your best doe eyes, a soft, sweet look, far from mastered and yet effective where it counts. "How much did you have to pay for all the stuff you broke?"

His smile shutters, realigns. A split-second and enough to let you know his cool gaze is nothing more than a parlour trick.

"You look familiar," he says.

You hum. "Rollerboy paid, huh?"

He glares, the idea that his record label might pay for the damages he'd caused laughable and undoubtedly correct. You aren't trying to make enemies, aren't attempting to play someone you're not — you're meek mannered, mollycoddled, too naive to be in the industry for very long. You can see it on his face, exactly what he's thinking, and it's easy to see because everybody else is thinking it too. Even you.

Before you can repair the offence you've caused, he's dropping your stolen cigarette on the ground and grinding out the flame.

"Nice to meet you," he says slowly.

You stare straight ahead and listen to him leave. Smoke tickles your nose. When you look down, the cigarette is smouldering. You squat down, pick up the flattened bud, and drive it into the floor until your fingers are black with soot.

You wrap those same ashy fingers around the neck of a bottle of coke and try not to be too pissy about it. Fucking rockstars and their fucking egos. He did something embarrassing, and you're the villain?

You feel bad halfway through your coke. Maybe he'd had nice intentions, but how could you know? You'd talked for all of two minutes. And even if he was bad news, he likely wouldn't have been any worse than half the jerks here.

He'd have had a handsome face to look up into while said intentions were being acted out, at least.

You frown more. Wishing you'd been nicer to him because you're bored enough to want to get laid isn't strictly kind. Human, maybe.

The feeling worsens when his appearance garners a small crowd. He sits in a nest of dirty couch cushions and a cloud of smoke, the smell of green strong enough to irritate you from here, telling a story with frenetic hands, and despite the cool look he'd given you earlier, he's making a show of it. Cussing, giggling, blunt between his lips as he ushers for a zippo. A pretty girl with surfer curls relights it, an act of flirting in the way she pulls her shoulders in.

He takes the blunt from between his lips and blows the smoke so it misses her completely.

"Thanks, sweetheart," he says, voice rough as hewn stone.

You kick one shoe behind the other and squeeze your tired thighs together. You get this feeling like a matchstick, red powdered head flicking against gritty scratchpad but failing to strike. Something is familiar about the way he speaks, his sticky inflection.

Or you're lying to yourself, and you just like the way he talks

The way he would've spoken, thick fingers braceleting your wrists as he forces your hands into the pillow behind your head, the weight of his body on top of yours, the snugness of a knee between your soft thighs. Your hotel light would've kissed his left side, dividing his curls into strands, the individuals glowing like silver thread as they danced over your cheek and temple, as his breath warmed your lips, as he closed the distance.

Joan, you could hit him.

"That's an unfortunate hand. Are you sober?"

Cheeks full of heat at being caught in a fantasy, you lift your eyes and meet light, almond brown eyes almost entirely shielded by darker eyebrows. A man stands in front of you, a comfortable gap between his nondescript skate shoes and your worn boots. He's tall and pretty and surprising: he's smiling at you like you're something worth smiling at.

"I'm–" You brandish the bottle as if that might explain it but harshly set it aside. "No, not sober. I mean, not willingly. Coke's were out here, so…"

"Oh, right," he says, nodding knowledgeably. "Right, I was sorry to hear about that."

You lick your lips. "'Bout what?"

"They banned beautiful women from the kitchen," he says. "Hadn't you heard?"

"No, that one passed me by."

"I'm Jamison," he says, holding out his free hand.

You take it. You tell him your name.

—

Morgan is crying. Big heaping sobs that she attempts to talk through, creating this ringing whining sound that fills you top to toe with anxiety. You lean back in your hotel bed, wondering what it is in the world that could've happened to her as a kid to make her this unsatisfied now. Ananya blows on her freshly painted nails though they've been dry for hours, knee to knee with you atop the squishy hotel sheets.

"I can't fucking do this," Morgan cries, tears dripping down her bare skinned cheeks.

The three of you have been sworn off of makeup, junk food, and unapproved wash products for the next four to five hours. You're happy for this to continue until the end of time. Morgan, less so.

You're trying to decipher exactly why she's crying, feeling a confusion you'd liken to the first modern day archaeologist that laid eyes on ancient hieroglyphics. All these symbols and colours and stories. No clear translation.

If Ananya were an archaeologist, she's the kind who got to see the Rosetta stone. Morgan's moods make sense to her, and while she often doesn't empathise with her, she at least knows what to say to appease the worst of it.

"It'll be alright, Morgs," she says, her faux sympathy unconvincing.

You feel a little sorry for Morgan and clear your throat. "And you're not by yourself. We're here."

"Fucking amazing help you've been," Morgan says. Her voice does a theatrical peak, pure hysterics.

It irks you how good she looks. You think that, maybe, if you could make your problems pretty the way that she does, you'd be a lot happier overall. You've often lamented that you suffer the kind of unhappiness that makes people uncomfortable and unwilling. You cry ugly, and always alone, hands over your mouth to smother the sounds, and that's when you do cry. Mostly, you bounce around inside yourself and feel very afraid that this feeling is forever.

But, you think presently, that isn't Morgan's fault. Not all of it.

Morgan throws her hands out at you and Ananya and spins on her heel, through the bathroom and into her own separate room.

"At least the backdrop of her breakdown is nice," you murmur, hugging the pillow against your stomach, heels digging into the mattress to keep your knees up.

Ananya snorts and flicks to the next page of her magazine. "Right?" She stretches her naked legs out over your sheets. You know she's decided to ruin your bed with her after-waxing oils rather than her own. "Better here than back home."

"Why's she so upset?" you ask.

Already, your thoughts are starting to drift. You take another peek at the phone across the room and will it into ringing.

"She draws them on everyday anyway," Ananya says agreeably.

You summarise that Morgan's eyebrows are the root of the problem. You don't blame her for wanting to look perfect tomorrow night. Your stomach is a weight every time you think about it, solid as petrified wood. This will be your first TV appearance that isn't a recorded concert, a mid-show performance for the Prover Music Awards, and it should further cement your place in the band. If you look good and people like you, public favour might be enough to keep you around. If they don't, there'll be a couple hundred different audience members with industry links. If you play well, and you're certain you will, you might finally prove to Morgan, Ananya, and the rest of the management team that you're worth choosing.

You want it badly. You want lots of things, and being a real part of Godless could hand them all to you on a studded platter. Recognition of your talent, further experience, the chance to perform and be supported, to be adored, and the money isn't something you'll pretend you don't think about. A rockstar's salary is hardly stable, but a lack of stability is almost always supplemented by the amount. Wouldn't that be nice? To buy your own bass, to buy whatever you liked. To go out and have spa treatments like the one you'd had just this morning whenever you please. To get to feel beautiful and limp as this all the time. More than anything, you want the validation, the poster that comes with it.

If Godless decides to keep you, it's a huge, blinking, neon-lit sign that says you're good enough.

They chose me, and you're stupid for letting me go.

They chose me. I'm something worth something. You didn't see it, but it's there in me.

The subtext isn't important.

You're scared shitless at the reality of performing tonight, knowing any fuck up could follow you, or worse ruin your hopefully budding career in rock for the rest of time. You have this body and this name, and if you want to keep your life you have to be good. It has your fingers itching for your piece-of-shit bass guitar where you know she's hiding under the bed. You should be practising, but this entire week has been practising. The dress rehearsal went well, and you'll give yourself a pass for having certain distractions.

Morgan warbles. You glance at the phone.

"Waiting for someone?" Ananya asks. She misses nothing.

You both wince as Morgan screams and throws something across her bedroom, the eventual clattering smash indicative of a fragile target.

"Think room service will send up a sedative?" she asks.

Room service won't send a sedative, nor will they send the single hashbrown Morgan is apparently craving. You're starting to panic when the solution practically jumps at you.

"Morgan," you say gently, standing in the doorway of her room with a tentative smile, "can't offer you something, can I?"

You hold up your little pouch. Morgan doesn't know you well, but she knows it's where you keep anything interesting. She should know, she pilfers it of anything truly exciting within the day.

"Don't be stupid," she scathes. "My eyes will be bloodshot. You know smoking doesn't agree with me."

You hold in a comment on how she'd literally been smoking out of the window last night.

"It's a brownie. It's a couple days old, but… perfectly edible." You offer her the pouch, dropping it at the end of the bed among her things.

She picks at the brownie, timid princess bites that make you want to roll your eyes. You often think the worst thing about Morgan is that you love her, or you could love her more, if only she felt the same way. She isn't all evil and she never will be, she's just a person. But she takes shit out on you and makes your life harder than it needs to be, so even her most endearing moments fall short.

"This tastes awful."

You laugh and kneel down at her dresser to start putting her thrown jewellery box back together. "It wasn't that nice when I got it," you lie.

You clean her room. Morgan never wants to do anything she knows can be done for her, and you know she won't bother here, not when room service will spend the hour it takes themselves. You think of some poor service worker squaring away the impossible amount of stockings and garters for a sad $3.45 an hour and the task suddenly becomes much more enjoyable.

Morgan doesn't say thank you. You don't insult her intelligence by thinking she isn't aware of what you're doing. She sniffles and blows her nose daintily with a balsam tissue.

"I saw you talking to that guy from Corroded Coffin."

You brush off your knees as you stand. "Which one?"

"Eddie. The rhythm guitarist."

"The loud one."

"He's kind of hot. If he calls, you should go out with him."

"That's not–" who I'm waiting for. You squint at her. "Morgan, that would be terrible."

"Can you get me something from the minibar?"

You kick open her minibar and grab a cold can of seltzer. She slides onto her back and accepts it, pressing it to her eyes with a relaxed smile. Eyebrows forgotten, it seems.

"That would be perfect. He can be the cat to your mouse."

"Your definition of perfect–" You cut yourself off again when she starts to laugh. You don't believe it to be genuine.

She lounges in bed for an hour until she's high, reappearing in you and Ananya's suite with a dizzying smile. You don't mind high Morgan. She's smoked enough in her time to bypass the dizzying, giggly kind of stoner. This Morgan is relaxed, almost easygoing. She sits at the end of your bed and watches you pluck out a bass line proposal for one of their current works in progress, head bobbing.

An hour again and the stylists appear to spray you down with smells and oils and make up, and soon you've been strapped into a short shining dress with a cowl neck, dark black stockings that shine like oil, and heels you can't really walk in. You complain about them politely enough that Mel, the man in charge of your 'costuming', swaps them out for shorter ones.

"This fucking corset is a nightmare," Morgan grumbles.

"Sorry, love, that's all we've got."

The commute is over in a blink. You arrive outside of the venue for the Awards, staring up at its imposing silhouette against the skyline, a dark building in the strange blue night. The sun is unseen but light illuminates the wet streets in blinding patches, so white they glow violet behind your eyes.

There's a modest red carpet where you thankfully don't have to pose for many photos. After all, besides being a temporary member of the stage, you aren't truly in Godless. Most casual fans (the majority of their fan base) only know the faces in the magazines and on TV, and you have yet to be in either until tonight.

After a bundle of shy and regretfully nerve-wracking photos, you're drawn inside the building and away from all the flashing hubbub. You sit in your seats, short rows divided by the occasional table for drinks, and you try not to sink into the carpeted floor. It smells insanely like nothing at all. No bleach, no air conditioning cleanliness. Every now and then another guest walks past your row and you get a whiff of perfume.

A familiar scent pricks your attention.

You look up, slightly over your shoulder, and your eyes meet familiar sticky brown.

He drops down in the seat next to you, and you think, No way.

He holds up the placard that had been under his thigh. His name is typed in clear blocked letters.

It's a strange humiliation to have been read for filth like that. You're you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me expression can be pretty telling, evidently.

"Hey, sweetheart."

Matchstick against the box. You tilt your head and try to place him for the tenth time.

"Have we met before?" you ask.

He actually grins like this is the best thing you could've said. "You met my friend," he says, pointing down the aisle.

Jamison stands talking to a woman who is admittedly gorgeous, and, to your sinking horror, much prettier than you. They kiss each other on the cheek and it's the kind of over friendly to make you sick.

Eddie pouts at you. "Better luck next time, sweet thing." He throws one leg over another. "You look different. New haircut?"

"You look exactly the same," you say.

It's surprising how untouched he is. Sure, he's had some makeup applied and his hairs been tousled into life, but his outfit is remarkable in its simplicity. Surely rockstars can wear suits too? He looks neat and dark and tidy, but he also looks effortless. It's irritating.

This phenomena is not self contained, you find, as his bandmates sit down the row with their managerial chaperones and one date. Jamison sits right at the very end. He doesn't look at you.

You avert your eyes and wonder if it's possible to die from embarrassment.

The venue gets increasingly busy as the bigger names and bands flood inside. Soon, you're sitting amongst legends, people who pretty much spearheaded late 80s glam rock, punk, grunge. People you've only ever seen on TV. And it isn't restricted to alternative sound, there are pop stars and their supermodel girlfriends shaking hands and kissing cheeks in the row behind, while producers with names big enough to make your mouth dry up clap each other on the shoulders in front.

"You'll catch flies."

You turn to Eddie. He doesn't sound entirely cruel. He doesn't sound like much of anything. You could almost believe him to be a friend.

There's a smudge of eyeliner on his cheek.

"You have–" You point at your own cheek, a mirror.

His lightness fades. "Nice."

"No, seriously, you have something. Make up, on your cheek. I have a wipe if you want it."

He scrubs at his cheek ineffectually.

You're reaching out to help before you can stop yourself, witnessing your own actions with a strange out-of-body horror as you wipe the small black line gently. It spreads, and you panic and dab at it until it's an unfortunate grey shadow.

"Let me get the wet wipe," you say. You'd been holding your breath, awkwardness stiff between you, and it sounds too much like a laugh.

Eddie flinches away from your touch and covers his cheek. "I got it," he says stonily.

He leaves, stepping over his bandmates feet like stepping stones, earning a cacophony of protests and disparagments.

Dick, you think. Again, that had been a little bit your fault. Not all of it, he seems to be in a perpetual bad mood that can't be your doing, but you can understand why he might think you were laughing at him, and the defensiveness that comes with it. When he comes back you'll apologise.

Or that's what you tell yourself. The lights go down, the curtains open, and the venue erupts with applause. By the time Eddie takes his seat again you're too afraid of disturbing the quiet.

After half an hour you're ushered backstage. You have to move in front of Eddie and the rest of Corroded Coffin as you go.

He looks up at you in silence. Head tipped back, face barely lit by the lights while you stand in between his legs. His lips part and he's all rockstar, his brown eyes and their edging of straight dark lashes, his pink, pretty lips. He has a distinct line to his nose, a cupid's bow perfectly shaped. His maker must have looked at him and known somebody, somewhere, would want to kiss him right there. His lips twitch.

"Can I help you?" he whispers.

You stammer a response that won't form and Morgan shoves you.

"Fucking move," she says.

His expression flickers.

"Sorry," you say, unsure of who you're talking to. "Sorry." You sound pathetic. A kicked puppy.

You keep your eyes on the floor until you're in the aisle, where a new set of nerves tries to swallow you whole.

—

Eddie knows exactly who you are, and he hates himself for it. He remembers you, the first you, shy and sweet and so excited, sitting pretty in Indianapolis International Airport with your guitar and your huge leaky headphones pounding death metal. While fame has broadened the amount of people who want to sleep with him, it hasn't changed his type, and you'd been a ringer, right there in the middle.

You'd been pretty and maybe you knew it, maybe you didn't, it didn't matter — what he liked most was the way your hands had moved as you spoke, hummingbird thrumming, an energy he'd seen in himself and every other musician desperate for a chance. He loved the passion and your eyelashes and the way you'd smiled as you'd waited for your plane, the two of you destined for New York, where you both seem to have looped back now. Only, he'd been cursed with remembering your every detail, and you either didn't remember him or don't care. Both sting, but he likes the second better. He'll take purposeful cruelty over the casual any day.

Like your thumb pressed to his cheek. The heat, and then your laugh.

"The fuck is this?" Gareth asks, leaning over the space between their two chairs.

Eddie looks up at you on stage and shrugs. While bands made up completely of women aren't new, they aren't as common as bands made up of men, obviously. He likes it, likes your sound, though it's not the kind of thing Corroded Coffin would ever play, and he won't join in on Gareth's doubt. Even if you are, like, a magnanimous shithead. You're good.

"She's hot," he furthers.

"Jesus, Gareth."

"What? She's fucking hot."

He has to squint to see you from this distance, and he can't truly make out many details. Gareth's not wrong. You're pretty, and out of the three members of the band you're the only one who actually looks like they're having a good time.

The lead singer trails around the stage pulling Blond Ambition poses. She can sing well, she has a strong voice that does whatever it is she bends it into, but her propensity to drop the guitar slung around her neck to grab at the microphone stand like it's escaping isn't helping anything.

The girl on drums is arguably given a pass, fighting to keep up with the pace, sweat sticking her thick hair to her neck in glossy spirals and her huge eyes set in concentration. Her messy lipstick sparkles under the stage lights, a party pink that pops against her brown skin.

He thinks you might be trying to cover up the lead singer's sloppy playing. You're good, sure, but it's not the easiest to tell when it's ragtag and rough like this. Only because he's watching does he notice your pick slipping between strings to the floor, and your willingness to strum with the sides of your fingertips. He likes that. The dedication is hot.

"I've never seen a girl on drums who didn't look like a guy," Gareth says. "She's killer. Think I can get her number?"

Eddie groans. "No, you fucking loser."

"I was just asking."

You bounce around and Eddie shifts in his seat, annoyed that he'd assumed you were the one Gareth was talking about.

He claps for you when the song is over and hates how you return to your seat during the break, back in your cute dress and beaming, practically dripping in deodorant and post-show adrenaline.

You apologise again as you step over him, and if there's one thing he doesn't want from you it's a sorry. Twice now you've spoken to him in the last week and twice you've made fun of him like some plaything under your thumb. Eddie isn't in the habit of being under anyone's anything. Apologies feel like salt in the wound, even though he knows you aren't saying sorry for the stuff that's pissing him off.

"What the fuck was that?" Lead girl asks you, sounding about as uptight as she looks as she climbs over your leg. "What were you doing?"

"Morgan, I don't know if you noticed, but you didn't play half of the song," you say defensively, the skirt of your gem-encrusted dress glancing off of his thigh. The gems are tiny, like pinprick stars in country night skies. They shine purple, green, orange.

Morgan holds her hand up for an attendant. When one approaches, she says, "Appletini," and nothing else, waving dismissively. She pulls at her stockings and doesn't notice the ladder she makes near the calf. "You're here to play what you're given."

"I did."

"And only that."

Your silence speaks volumes. What he'd thought to be an edge in Godless' sound may have been an improvisation, something Eddie personally applauds.

"Christ," Morgan says, "you're more trouble than you're worth. I hope you know that."

Eddie believes the sting of her barb to be in the presentation rather than the words themselves, though what she'd said is hardly kind. She looks away from you as she says it, like she's giving instruction far below her station. Factual, concise.

You barely wince. The lights dim, and he watches you contend with how you're feeling from the corner of his eye.

Eddie isn't evil. You may have gotten off on the wrong foot, and he's definitely holding his resentment at being forgotten tight to his chest, but nobody deserves to get shit on like that. You'd played well, you'd had a great time, and that should be commended. What's worse, your lack of a reaction tells him this is a common occurrence.

"I'm gonna go to the bathroom," you say.

Morgan waves you away like she had the waitress. You stand, and you say, "Excuse me," to every person you pass. Eddie put his hand on the back of his chair to follow you up toward the back of the room where the sign for the bathrooms glows green.

He sets his eyes back on the stage and begs himself to stay sitting. Corroded Coffin's nomination for best up and comer has already passed, a loss, and there's no reason he can't nip to the bathroom himself. There's also no reason he should go after you.

Fuck it, he thinks.

What could go wrong? What could go wrong, outside of the women's bathroom, where he has so obviously followed you, where he waits for you like some creeper trying to paw one off on you. He can't hear anything but the running tap. For a moment he thinks you haven't come here to collect yourself after all, you'd needed to pee, which makes his situation that much awkwarder.

Stuck between indecision, he leans against the wall between the women's and men's and digs for a cigarette. His pockets are empty, a precaution for exactly this moment. You can't smoke in the Prover Theatre, pissant.

You appear and blitz past him.

"Hey," he says before you can go too far, "d'you have a card?"

You turn on your heel. Hands already in your purse, you dig out an unopened box of cigarettes and offer it to him. You don't look as though you've been crying or anything like it, but you don't look him head on, so he keeps his theory.

Eddie peels the plastic off of your box and slaps the end against his chest for good measure.

"I don't think you can smoke in here," you say finally. Your voice is tired.

He raises his eyebrows and peers down into the box, pulling a cigarette free and sliding it between his lips. He holds out his hand for a lighter and you give it to him, already waiting with it between two fingers.

He lights it, inhales sharply, and passes you back your carton and lighter with a clouded, "Thanks."

"Yeah."

He's surprised when you don't move. You stand there and watch him smoke, whorls of pearly smoke dissecting the air between you, spider-webs over your pert face. You're waiting for what he doesn't know, so he'll give you something. He's nice.

"She's a piece of work."

You shift uneasily.

"I'm not the feds," he says, pulling the cig from his lips to talk unfettered.

"Forgive me for wondering if you have my best interests at heart."

He beams at you, really smiles, startled and enamoured by your sharp tongue. "Now why wouldn't I?"

You don't say anything, only pull at the neckline of your dress in what's likely a nervous habit. He gets a flash of the top of your chest and looks away. He thinks you're beautiful in a rather understated way, and he doesn't not want to see what it is you're showing, but he knows you don't actually mean to be so forward. He might be an asshole, but he's not like that.

It's quiet here in the foyer, like standing outside the doors of the movie theatre. You can hear the announcement of a new category, the roaring applause. The hallway and the bathrooms feel cordoned off from it in a strange way, an uncanny energy that has him on internal tenterhooks.

"You always let her treat you like that?"

"Like what?"

He steps toward you because the distance feels unnecessary. "Like that. Like you're a dog."

"Fuck you, I do not."

He pouts, the taste of smoke thick on his tongue.

"What would you know?" you ask.

"Besides hearing it all fucking night, nothing. You must like that shit."

Your eyes go wide. He hadn't meant to say it. There's a light behind them now, some life, something to cover up that shitty wounded despondency you'd been wearing. Your hands bunch in the soft skirt of your dress, shaking. He's touched a nerve.

"I must like it," you quote, strained.

"Woof. Do you do any tricks, or is it just the one?"

He doesn't mean for it to happen this way, he wants it on the record. He's a dick, he's a loser, whatever, he hadn't meant to argue but he will. And, you know, there may be a slight possibility that he isn't as sure in himself as he appears, and that there are nerves he keeps too close to the surface, too.

"You can teach me one of yours, if you want," you offer, voice tight with annoyance, "I'm thinking smug asshole picks easy target, but I'm open to other options."

That's funny. He takes another step toward you, another, your cigarette between his lips smouldering at the tip as he inhales through his smirk.

"Yeah, like what?" he asks, smoke licking your cheeks as he breathes out.

"How you get your head through the door might be a good place to start."

He waits for you to explain, knowing the silence will force you to fill it.

"You know, considering you're in the exact same place as me, only one of us performed tonight and it isn't the one acting like God's gift."

"You think they invited you to play because you're good?" he asks, feigning an earnest tone.

"I know exactly why they didn't ask you." You hike the strap of your purse higher up your shoulder, chin lifted in a snooty superiority that makes his heart pound. "Wannabe rookie who had too much smoke blown up his ass and thinks he's somebody. But you're not," you say. "You're a child. They've seen a hundred guys just like you in the Indiana circuit."

"You're a jumped up fucking groupie that got lucky," he says.

The light behind your eyes dims. He takes that last step, the step that's gonna put you shoe to shoe.

He should stop now, he would, but suddenly his anger is real, this isn't strictly fun anymore. He says what he knows is gonna hurt you.

"You're a stand-in, a temp who's already overstayed her welcome." He flicks the tower of ash between your heels. You follow it down, watch as it settles into the fibres of the carpeting. "You're a burnout waiting to happen."

Your breathing is loud in his ears. Slightly too fast.

"You don't know anything," you murmur.

"If it barks like a dog, and it heels like a dog," he says, pausing, words coming out thick and slow, "it's a dog."

Your face flares with hurt. You're gone before he can say anything else.

He's glad for it. Honestly, he's not sure what else he would've said, and later, he'll regret this, regret blowing up at you, regret following you out here and making you feel worse when he'd wanted the opposite. But tonight he's lit up from the inside out, your words a reverberation. A hundred guys just like you.

"Yeah, right," he says to himself, scoffing with a surety he doesn't feel.

—

Donington Park, England, August 1990

"I'd be a little more excited if I knew they weren't desperate this year," Jamison's saying, "that's all."

"They're hardly desperate."

"Last time they had KISS, Iron Maiden, Megadeth." Jamison sighs and falls back into the couch, muttering about the stale smell before continuing, "and this year, what do they have? Poison? Thunder? Who cares."

Eddie thinks he might actually have an opponent for biggest ego right now.

"You know they put Godless bigger on the poster," Jeff says with a bright smile.

"Can we not talk about them for one fucking day?" Eddie pleads.

He's a little disappointed at the lineup too, but that doesn't make this entire festival a bust. Monster of Rock may not be the most prestigious event they've ever attended but it's still impressive to be asked to play here, and this is only Corroded Coffin's third festival. Eddie's a smug bastard and even he knows Jamison sounds like a bitch. Besides that, he's so, so tired of talking about Godless.

"They finally stopped stringing that poor girl along. What was her name?" Jeff asks, clicking his fingers. "Eddie, you know, the one who said she didn't know you in the magazines?"

"What?" Eddie asked. "They cut her?"

Jamison sits up, eyes lit with mirth. "What's it matter to you, heartthrob?"

"It doesn't."

He's not being truthful. His bandmates are all unkind, and none extend the generosity of pretending they believe him.

"Nah, she's not cut, she's official. Writing credits on the new album and everything, 'cordin to Rolling Stone."

"You have it?" Eddie asks.

Jeff laughs at him but digs it out of his suitcase, brandishing it all rolled up.

"Shit better not be sticky," Eddie mutters under his breath.

"... Skip the interview with Kim Gordon."

Eddie gags and flicks through the pages until he finds the article on you, or rather the column.

"All female rock band Godless finally welcomed a new bass player this month after the departure of Millyanna Richardson in '89. Y/N L/N, 24, had been with the band for almost a year under a 'touring only' basis, though she performed live with remaining members Morgan Fletcher and Ananya Roy at the Prover Music Awards in early June. Fans have praised her talent and finesse, and are looking forward to her contributions to the band's next album expected this December. Hopefully she has thicker skin than her predecessor, who branded the band's inner politics as 'gruesome' and 'unlivable'."

There's a grainy photograph of you and your bandmates at the Prover Theatre overtop. You look exactly as you had that night, pretty and glitzy. He scowls at your printed face.

He can't fucking stand you, let it be known, and he thinks your frontman is the most spoilt brat he's ever seen. He hadn't seen the article, but he'd heard via word of mouth that you'd both had something to say about him. His approximation goes as follows:

Interviewer: …and you guys will be performing at the Monster of Rock music festival in England this August, right? Any faces you're excited to see?

Morgan: I think I'm better than everyone despite being in a mildly popular band that didn't qualify as hard rock until, like, three months ago, and I totally shit on our bass player for trying to make the change by the way, so I'm not excited to see anyone besides myself in the mirror.

Interviewer: How sophisticated and mature of you. And you, Y/N, are you excited to see anyone? Photos from the Prover Music Awards show you were sitting beside Corroded Coffin's Eddie Munson, did you two hit it off?

Y/N: Who was that, the guitarist? I'm so sorry, I don't really remember getting a chance to talk to him, but I'm excited for the opportunity to meet more people in the scene right now and to get to play for a new audience. Also I suck and I want Eddie sooooo bad.

"I wish I were asleep." Gareth squints at the ceiling. "Asleep or back home."

"Miss mommy?" Jamison asks him.

"And Cindy."

"Oh, god," Eddie groans, "I don't want to hear it, seriously."

"She always had smooth legs, you know?" Gareth says. "Always shiny, soft. Fuck, I miss her legs. Girls on the road never shave their legs."

"Do you shave your legs?" Eddie asks.

"Fuck off, Teddy, you know you like it better when they shave."

"Do I know that?" Eddie asks.

He turns to Jamison, giving him a much-used 'make him stop' expression. Eyebrows raised, lips parted. When Jamison says nothing, and Gareth starts to talk about hair removal in other places, Eddie scrubs his eyes with both hands and stands up.

He's a guy. He has guy thoughts. Yeah, he thinks about girls, and their legs, and everything else, but he also thinks about them as actual people, something Gareth hasn't quite grasped yet.

"Remember why Cindy said she didn't wanna come with you?" Eddie asks.

"Because she was jealous of my success."

Eddie snorts and shrugs on his jacket where he'd left it thrown over the ratty couch. "Because she was going to beauty school," Eddie corrects. "I'm going out."

"We're miles away from anything interesting," Jeff says, magazine crinkling in his hands.

"I'm sure I'll find something," he says, and doesn't add that it should be easy.

What counts as interesting has taken a sharp turn since arriving in Donington. Which isn't to say it's boring, exactly, there's a rich culture Eddie isn't familiar with, and a fucking castle, but he's so used to loud dives and backroom parties that this has been a stark change. Wending had said to think of it like a vacation to get his head screwed on tight. Paula had said to think of it like a punishment, which had been funny at the time. Now he's wondering if she was serious.

He knows there'd been a convenience store somewhere down the road from the hotel. Or rather, the bed and breakfast, a strange cottage situation where the hosts keep an eye on you under the guise of making your dinner. Eddie's first world problems continue.

He could get weed, possibly. He doesn't know where from, but he knows someone who knows someone who must know someone, right?

Then he starts debating with himself about if he should smoke just to escape boredom. That sounds like a terrible idea, life isn't even bad right now, he's just hungry, and—

Eddie turns the corner, wet sidewalk dark as pitch under his feet, and spots the back of your head as you disappear inside of the convenience store. The corner shop, as Wending had informed. Eddie doesn't understand because it isn't on a corner, but he has bigger fish to fry. He considers waiting for you to leave. What are the chances you'll walk back this way? Pretty likely.

Don't be a bitch, he tells himself.

Light rain spots his neck as he hurries inside, the bell above the door ringing to announce his entrance. He's confused as soon as he looks up, because in front of him is an aisle, and to either side is an aisle, and he can't make out where the cashier is. He takes a tentative step in, eyes tracking muddy footprints down the way to the drinks fridge humming loudly at the back of the room.

Claustrophobic, he makes his way through the aisle and stops in front of the drinks. Because luck isn't ever his friend, you're standing toward the leftmost part, where a second fridge hums, filled to bursting with canned beer and litre bottles of cider. Eddie isn't sure it's really you until you turn to the left slightly and reach out for a colourful glass bottle. He should walk away. He doesn't like you, he has no business watching you, but there's something so sweet about it.

You in the humming chill, a coat pulled tightly around you, your chin hidden by the multicolour of a yarn scarf. You turn the bottle in your hand delicately and blink slow as you read the ingredients. Your hair is frizzy from the wind, flyaways surrounding your face in a little wave. His fingers twitch.

You keep the bottle and pick up a second, nails clinking against glass. Your movement pulls like you're moving through jello, and Eddie turns to the fridge in front of him hurriedly.

He can feel your gaze on the side of his face.

He picks up a couple of drinks without thinking, his face burning with heat. When he chances a glance your way, you've moved. He stares at the rainbow of drinks and the gaps where you've taken what you wanted.

He leaves some time between your departure and follows the way you must've gone down an aisle of more alcohol that's unrefrigerated and pet food, wondering how they organise here, and is confronted with you again at the end.

It's a snug building. You're blocking the way past where you're standing in front of the cashier's desk, a plexiglass shielded cube decked out in hanging sweets and cigarettes.

"Do you have Newports?" you ask mildly.

"Sorry."

"That's okay, uh, I'll just take a carton of whatever you think is best?"

The cashier retrieves a light blue box of cigarettes. "Lambert and Butler blues," he says. "Total, sixteen fifty six, and I'll need to see some ID."

You pull your passport from an already opened purse and offer it to him. While the cashier's checking it over, you peek at Eddie, and you don't smile but you don't not smile, a formal quirk of the lips.

"You're American?" the cashier asks.

"I'm visiting for the festival," you say.

Apparently having passed his test, the cashier hands your passport back and accepts your card.

"Are you paying together?" he asks, nodding at Eddie.

Eddie grins unconsciously, worse when you say quickly, "Oh, no, we're not together."

"Your brevity wounds me," Eddie says.

You snort with a similar geniality. "You don't need me to pay for you, do you? I heard you're rich now."

There has been an improvement in Eddie's finances lately. Your album breaking into the Billboard top 100 does that.

"I thought you didn't know who I was?"

"I thought that was kinder than what I really would've said."

He hates how your snark makes him smile. You're not looking at him, waiting for your change with your eyes forward as the cashier clicks a couple of buttons on the till.

"What were you really gonna say?"

The cashier hands over your change. You slip it into your purse, put your purse in the pocket of your coat, and slide your hand through the weak blue handles of your plastic bag.

"Thank you," you say sincerely. You take a step like you're going to leave, but you pause, and you look Eddie in the eye and say, "I would've said you were mean."

His jaw drops. You look hurt, and you leave with a discomforting frown.

He puts the drinks he's carrying down on the cashier's desk and says, "I'll be right back," before following you out.

You've pulled your hood up to defend against the thickening rain, walking with your face angled down. Eddie beats along the wet pathway.

"Hey! Hey, wait, wait a second, princess."

"You can't be serious."

"I'm so serious," he says.

He weaves in front of you and stops. You look cold as he feels with his red-tipped nose and stiff fingers, your arms drawn together over your chest. You look pretty and he's so sick of thinking it and not saying it.

"You're hot when you're mad."

You glare at him. "I wish I could say the same."

"Hey, hey, okay, we had a spat, but we got off on the wrong foot, you know?"

"I thought that too," you say.

He smiles. "See, we're– you're fucking with me. Nice."

You start laughing, edging around him. He moves in front and you shrug, stepping off of the sidewalk and into the leaf litter clogging the gutter.

"Don't be stupid," he says, hands held up in surrender "get back on the sidewalk." You keep walking. "Come on, don't get hit by a car. That would really put a damper on the festival."

You take a step further into the road, the kind that would make a collision unavoidable. He checks both ways for cars and sees none, knowing you're fucking with him and hating it anyway. The two of you are locked into a stand off, grey skies above you and wet ground underneath, your face partially occluded by your scarf and your hood and the dribbling rain. If he listens, he can hear the small sounds of the festival preparations a half a mile away, guitars hooked up up an insane array of speakers and the pounding of a beat through the floor.

You start walking again. He follows, treading backwards to keep your attention.

"Seriously, come on."

"No."

"No?" he asks.

"No. I don't have to listen to you."

"You're being stupid."

"Eddie, I truly, honestly, don't care."

"Sure." The sound of tires on the road draws his eye. A car appears behind you, approaching fast. "It's your funeral."

"What do you get out of this?"

He bites his top lip, shaking his head from one side to the other. "Out of what?"

"Tormenting me."

"Tormenting you? Sweetheart, we hardly know each other."

"Exactly!" You almost trip over your own shoes. "Exactly, you don't know me, but you thought you could say all those things–"

"You started it."

You laugh again and Eddie would be pissed but the car is still coming, headlights beaming through the light downpour. He huffs and grabs your wrist, tugging you up onto the sidewalk with his second hand on your waist. He doesn't mean to rag you about, feeling especially apologetic when your face knocks into his chin. The car spins close and validates his concern. You have enough sense to realise what's happened, watching over your shoulder as the car beeps and whizzes past. Still, you yank your arm out of his.

"Don't touch me," you say quietly.

He dips his head to force you to meet his eyes. "Next time I'll let you get hit by a car. Great idea."

"I wasn't going to get hit by the fucking car."

You're infuriating.

Infuriating, and yet he feels bad for pulling you around. He lowers his voice, softens his tone. "Sorry," he says. "I don't know why this happens, everytime I see you, I…"

You look intensely uncomfortable. "I have one of those faces, I guess." You shrug away from his reach. "Try to play well tomorrow? I don't want to go on to a dead crowd."

His mouth snaps closed. "If you need me to warm them up for you, just say that."

—

You go to watch Eddie's set because you're awful. You want it to suck. You want Corroded Coffin to bomb it and you want it to be his fault, anything to wipe that pretty smile off of his face, smother the electricity of his bouncing steps as he bounds from one side of the stage to the other. He's entranced by the crowd — it's hard not to be. Ananya had told you on the plane that UK festival audiences are a different kind of enthusiastic, eager and loud, and it's obvious now that she was right, and that Corroded Coffin had more than a few loyalists in the sea of people.

The barrier bends under the force of it, thousands of warm bodies throwing themselves against one another despite the terrible weather, mud to the shins and sliding. You've never seen so many people happy to be covered in dirt.

Neither Morgan nor Ananya had wanted to join you so you stick to the shadows with your lanyard pass. You refuse to think about why you've dressed the way you have, a black, stiff corset type top to cinch your chest, exposing the soft hills of your breasts, and the flare pants Morgan had insisted make your thighs acceptable. You're bedecked in pretty jewellery and your hair looks perfect, and it's all for your show, you swear, all for your set straight after his.

Eddie's dripping with sweat and rain at this point, darker curls wet and slick and sweet around his face. His brows are furrowed like he's in pain, and his thumb has split on the strings, blood like cherry juice running down the body of his guitar, a Warlock NJ Series electric with a red and black tortoise shell design. It shines like mother-of-pearl.

You're impressed by him, and worse, there's a heat stirring in your abdomen you despise. He's attractive, you've always thought him pretty, but on stage he's something else entirely. The passion transforms him, makes him a different person. No trace of agitating smugness about him.

And he's good. You're not a critic, an expert, and your opinion hardly matters, but if he's this good now you'd love to see him at Hammet's age, at Hanneman's. He could be one of the greats.

You're riddled with jealousy. Bass and rhythm guitar are not the same, and they're comparable in some ways, incomparable in others, but you know you're not like he is. You want to be the next Entwistle, the next Ian Hill, but practising You've Got Another Thing Comin' until your fingers bleed is never going to give you what Eddie plainly has.

You hide your bandaid covered fingers in your back pockets and shake your head. You can pinpoint the moment Eddie notices you on the side stage despite the small audience they've attained. His neck snaps to the side, and his eyes bore into yours for a split-second.

You could pretend you aren't here. If he ever calls you out on it, you could lie. You want me so bad you're seeing me places, Munson.

You don't do that.

You wave.

You've never been the prettiest girl. You know you aren't model material, people aren't shy about letting you know that, and so, you're practised in the art of quiet flirtation. Your wrist straight, you wiggle your fingers sweetly, a face of fresh make up and your sweetest smile, like he's a guy across the bar and you're trying to get a ride in his passenger seat.

For a split-second you adore him. It's the meanest thing you can do.

You aren't expecting him to fuck up. His hand slips down the neck and that's it, one missed second of sound. He throws himself back into it and doesn't look your way again, a storm of emotions clouding his handsome face.

Not what you'd meant to do, and yet. There's a cruel satisfaction in knowing you'd had any sort of power over him.

There's a ten minute gap between sets, twenty because of the shitty weather. Morgan and Ananya are nowhere to be seen as Corroded Coffin pour off of the stage and down the short stairwell where you're waiting, picking at your clear nail polish absentminded. You don't look up, and the resulting quiet makes you think they've all left.

A wooden board creaks.

You look up.

"Hey, you–"

Eddie takes your shoulder into his warm, big hand and pushes you back. You wobble and rush to correct your posture, hand clamping around the crook of his elbow. Even though he's soaked through, wet to the skin, his hand is a blistering heat.

Your shoulders collide with the wall under the stairwell. It's a snug fit, dark and out of view.

"What gives?" you seethe, pushing at his chest.

"You fucking–" Eddie tucks a lock of wet hair behind his ear, and his hand stays at that height, hovering between you. "What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me?"

"You want to mess with me, is that it?"

His hand takes to your face, index finger following the line of your cheek, his thumb along your jaw. He isn't kind. He isn't cruel. He's touching you, just touching you, and your mouth is bone dry at the sensation, the stuttering beat of your heart.

"I don't want to do anything to you, Munson."

"We both know that's not true." You've never heard his voice like this. It's scratchy– pleading. It's a desperation.

He's breathing hard. Your proximity means you feel each one as it comes, heat fanning over your lips. You look to his, find them parted, the barest hint of pearly teeth between pink dewy skin. They look soft.

You lift your chin.

I dare you.

His hand slides down. He presses his thumb into your bottom lip and inclines his head. You close your eyes, fine stands of his hair drawing lines of wetness against your face as he boxes you in.

"Are you going to–"

"Shut up," he says, crushing his lips to yours.

It his nose you feel more than anything, the force of it as he moves in, bridge sliding down your own. His hands, and how they tighten, fisted in the slope of your shoulder and clutching at the underside of your jaw like you might slip away. His touch brings you in, his hips force you back, wedging your spine tight to the panelled wall behind you.

You let him kiss you, let his lips work over yours, let him take what it is he wants. Your fingers slide softly up the chilled leather of his jacket, coveting the wet mess of his hair. You weave your fingers into it, their tips pressed to his roots, and pull him away.

You steal the gap between you and try to take control. You don't know how to kiss like he is, you don't know where all that meanness comes from. You force his hand from your face and nip at his bottom lip, imprecise, stammering pecks that reveal too much.

Eddie inhales hard, pulls the breath from your mouth.

"Don't play games," he says.

He presses a firm, hard kiss all lopsided into your lips and pulls away, yanking your hand from his hair and setting it against the line of his waist.

"You like games," you argue.

He tilts your head to one side a millimetre at a time, tilting his own to follow you. A teasing light burns behind his eyes, a playful flare of his lashes that worries and excites at once.

His thumb haunts the column of your throat, pressing, releasing, pressing again. Never enough to hurt.

"Stay still."

You stay still. You aren't expecting him to weave the other way, the hot and unapologetic scratch of his teeth against your pulse. You laugh at the feeling, find it gets all clogged up when he starts to bite. The hand that isn't anchoring your head roams down your shoulder, your back, falling into the small of it as though it were made to be there. His fingers spread and pull and your pelvis pushes hard into his own.

"Is that a–" You cough on your murmuring, chastened by his thumb outside your windpipe. "S'that a micronta quartz in your pocket, or are you just," —you hiss as his hickeying turns brutal, hand pawing ar his waist uselessly— "happy– Happy to see me?"

Your shuddering makes him smile. He lets your bruised skin slip from between his lips only to scandalise you further, kissing and nipping, licking a humiliating stretch until he's under your ear, speaking into it.

"I'm never happy to see you," he murmurs, hand turned, the back of his index knuckle stroking a tender back and forth. His forehead kisses your temple. "You should know that by now."

A picture of composure but you know what you feel. You roll your hips to revel in his subtle groan.

"You want me to mark up the other side?" he asks.

His question sounds so genuine, you almost say yes. He laughs at your silence and kisses wherever he can reach, crescent moons, spit-damp and branding.

He pauses to speak into the corner of your mouth. "Mess me up again during a set and I won't be this nice."

"You're not nice," you say, lashes skimming the skin under your brows as he stands at full height, widening the gap between you to a safe distance again.

"Exactly…" Eddie squeezes your cheek until it aches. His eyes are unreadable. "Have a good set, sweetheart."

Unreadable turns smug. He pats your panging cheek, gaze dancing over the sore stretch of your neck, and turns without a second glance.

You press the heel of your palm to the cold wall behind you and blink. Once. Twice. In that moment you hate him more than you've ever hated him, hate him like you've never hated anyone, because his retreating figure is unaffected, and you're dizzy with the lingering press of his lips.

You have to hand it to him. He's good at the game.

You'll have to be better.

𓆩❤︎𓆪

I wrote the bulk of this really quickly so please forgive any major errors I missed during editing, I’ll go back again in future and make more corrections! Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed, and if you did please consider reblogging or telling me what you thought, I promise it makes a big difference <3 I was super nervous about this one and I still am lol

2K notes · View notes

utterlyotterlyx · 9 days

Text

The Fox and The Fawn

High Lord Eris x Rhys!Sister!Reader x Azriel

Part One

Summary - As the ways of the world shift, you find yourself torn between those who have always cared for you and the life you feel like you were made to live.

Warnings - none right now really, some angst, harmless flirting, tension, slight fluff, mention of wing loss

Hauntingly beautiful was one of the few ways to describe the High Lord Eris Vanserra.

There was a rake-ish look about him, like he belonged in one of Nesta's regency era romance novels that had her eyes widened and bottom lip caught between her teeth. It was rather infuriating.

Tension continued to linger, one of doubtful trust. Rhys wanted to trust Eris, he wanted to trust that the new High Lord of Autumn knew what he was doing, but something was stopping your brother from investing into the change fully and you weren't quite sure what.

Eris sat opposite you in the meeting chamber, eyes trailing down your figure approvingly, a crown of golden leaves dipping to his brow and accentuating those russet eyes that always sought to burn you with their intense glare. It had been strictly forbidden for you to leave Velaris on your own after what had happened to your elder sister at the hands of Tamlin, you understood it of course, Rhys wouldn't survive if he lost you too, his youngest sibling but by far the fiercest creature in all of Prythian's history.

War was scoured into your bones, hellfire raged in your soul, and you were very well known for your tactical prowess and outspoken nature, from your quick wit to your dry humour. Some said that you were the reason that Prythian still stood, you had worked very hard to undermine Amarantha right under her nose, feigning innocence and naivety that she drank from like a fountain of youth, you had been instrumental in the war against Hybern too, and Eris had watched in stoic awe as you wielded your sword like it was an extension of yourself, gracefully cutting down your victims and using your power to decimate hoards of males into ash.

Eris wouldn't admit it, certainly not in front of Rhysand and Cassian who made it his mission to keep Eris as far away from you as possible, but he thought that you were the most incredible thing he had ever witnessed. And as you sat before him, draped in a sheer black dress adorned with white crystals that allowed him to relish at the picture of your full breasts, it was taking him a lot of will power to not fling you on that table and take you right there and then, even if your brother was watching, he didn't care.

The meeting was simple, Rhys wanted to know how the politics between the courts were to improve with Eris now at the helm and steering the Autumn Court ship. Feyre sat to the left of your brother, dressed in her usual ethereal pale blue, another garment made by your mother, but less impressive than the items you owned. You sat to his right with Azriel to your side, Mor, Cassian and Nesta occupied the seats to Feyre's left in that order, and Lucien lingered somewhere between, still on the side of the Night Court, put just an arms length away from his brother.

Eris was stoic and cruel, power radiated from him, but you seemed the be the only one who saw what lingered beneath that façade. The occasional split second glance he would direct to Lucien when he thought no one was watching, one full of regret and sadness. It seemed that there were many more layers to Eris Vanserra than any of you realised.

"How do we know that you won't rule like your father did?" Rhys had craned forward in his seat, his jet black crown glistening in the darkening sunlight that poured down through the domed windows.

Eris' jaw ticked, a clearly sensitive subject for him, your chin dipped in examination and for a moment, he glanced to you, fire in his eyes that mirrored the very faint sphere of orange that curled around pupils, "Would I have bothered to overthrow him to only rule like him?" Eris replied with his own question and you felt Mor scoff from where you sat, your older cousin not enjoying the sentiment one bit.

"Who knows what you males strive for," Mor bit, more like growled, at him, you face remained distant and cold, you didn't remove your gaze from him, everyone knew that they couldn't hide from you, you were too observant.

Guilt had swirled in your gut at the sight of him, under examination by a group of people he longed to be somewhat friendly with, to work with to better the lives of his people, and Velaris was rich in knowledge and power, it was a court that you would want on your side if you walked a second in his shoes.

It wasn't often, if at all, that you would speak at meetings, it was an unspoken rule for you to be seen and not heard, your presence was powerful enough, and you did have the knack for making things worse with your jabbing words, "Raise your hand if your father is a piece of shit," the room fell silent, and Azriel had his head dipped low to conceal his smirk, his knee nudging yours gently in warning.

Slowly you raised your hand and looked to Rhys who rolled his eyes, but didn't raise his own, he didn't want to indulge you. In turn, Cassian raised his hand, Azriel lifted a finger as did Mor, Lucien's hand raised with his elbow still firmly plastered on the arm of his chair, and Eris didn't dare partake, but you all knew his answer already. Counting under your breath at the souls that had answered your call, you relaxed into your seat, "I don't know about you Rhys but I don't think you're anything like our dear old dad. Mor is nothing like hers, nor is Cassian or Azriel or Lucien. If we were all held accountable for the actions of our fathers then we surely would live in the most tyrannical world possible, no?"

Rhys raked down the iron clad walls of your mind and you gave him a pointed look, refusing him entry and smirking at the twitch that pulled at the corner of his lip, "There is no evidence that Eris will be like Beron, and refusing him alliance only makes such possibilities more likely," you picked at an invisible thread of your sheer black garment and feathered your fingers down the bargain tattoo that curled around your upper arm, one that matched the mark Azriel bore in the same place from a stupid bargain you had made what felt like eons ago.

"In simple terms, brother," you fluttered your eyelashes at him, ignoring his clear fury, "Get over yourself and give it a chance. Prythian can't be a land of harmony when males with big egos can't see the opportunity before them."

Feyre had confined herself to looking at the wall, shifting uncomfortably at the colliding forces of power between you and her mate. It was never something she had the courage to stand between, she'd perish if she even tried. Nesta was smirking at you, the only one who would hold Rhys accountable and live to see another day, relishing in the fury of the High Lord.

Another nudge prodded into your thigh and you snapped your gaze to Azriel, "Will you stop nudging me?" You swatted at his thigh, "This world has been through enough already, Amarantha, Hybern, Koschei... It's time that we made a world to be proud of and we can only do that if we work together."

"Who knew that the fawn had a voice?" Eris spoke and you sent him a satisfied grin, Rhys looked to the High Lord and snarled at the name he had dared to direct to you, but quickly composed himself with a warning glace to you that meant he would deal with you later.

Matching is tone, you teased, "Thank you. My campaign for High Lady is imminent," Cassian let out an audible low chuckle, his shoulders shaking next to Nesta who was doing her best to contain the amused smile that fought its way onto her lips.

Typical y/n.

Looking to Rhys, you smiled and waiting expectantly, he seethed out his answer, "Fine," he moved his attention to Eris who was still smirking at you, eyes blazing with curiosity, "We will work with you, Eris. Let's call this the start of a long lasting alliance between our courts," Rhys rose to his feet, "Please feel free to stay the evening and join us for dinner. I will have a room prepared for you."

An olive branch, one that made you avert your gaze to Eris to see him nod in shocked agreement.

Rhys lowered himself so that his head lingered by your ear, his fingers curled around the back of your chair, and he growled, "My office. Now."

A chill slithered down your spine and you smiled thinly at no one in particular before rising from your seat and following Rhys from the room. The pair of you didn't utter a single word as he led you through the halls of the House of Wind, walls that seemed to shrink away from your pulsating energies as he led you to his office and shut the door behind your entrance.

"What in the name of the Mother do you think you're doing?" Rhys seethed as he rounded your smaller figure, towering over you to the point that he shrouded you in the shadow of his figure and flexing wings.

With a raised brow, you spoke calmly, "I highly suggest you take a step back and stop trying to intimidate me," his gaze softened slightly and he obeyed you, stuttering back a couple of feet and tucking his wings out of sight.

"Eris is not someone that we should have an alliance with," he leaned against his desk and watched as you turned around, lifting the heavy glass lid to his whisky decanter and pouring two glasses of the amber liquid before extending one out to him which he took without question.

You waited until he had taken a sip before talking, "Regardless of what you think, you know I'm right," you took the seat opposite the desk and nestled into the deep brown cushions, leaving him standing before you, "Rhys, you wear a mask to the rest of the world, in everywhere other than Velaris. Cauldron, you even make us follow suit. Has it ever entered your limited mind that Eris may do the same, that he too is hiding behind the mask he has created for himself?"

Rhys frowned, "Did you just call me stupid?"

Scoffing, you sipped the amber liquid and enjoyed the delicious burn that sank down your throat, "All you're doing is proving my point."

Rhys threw his head back and inhaled deeply, clenching his eyes closed and pinching the bridge of his nose, "You know that I love you," he lowered his gaze to wash over you, but you didn't falter, you had never faltered under Rhys' glare, you were perhaps the only one who wasn't impacted by it, "You have to understand that I will always do what is right to protect our home, to protect you."

"And you have to understand that I will always do what is right to better the continent, not just our people."

The relationship between you and Rhys was a complicated one. There was a lot of love and respect between you, but his fear of losing you often clouded his mind. His word was law, but your word was the final judgement. The reckoning. There was nothing even he could do to change that.

Many males had attempted to get close to you, but none were good enough to appease the expectations of the High Lord of the Night Court. It wasn't as if you cared. You required an equal, someone who wouldn't diminish your power, and males had the tendency to attempt to control you.

Rhys had even refused your hand to Helion, much to your disappointment, and before the acts that led to the demise of your sister, he had refused to extend a thought to Tamlin who had clearly been besotted with you. Thank the cauldron for that at least.

"You have a strong will, y/n," a backhanded compliment if you had ever heard one, you rose from your seat and placed your empty glass on the bare surface to his left, "It will get you in trouble."

"Good. I can't wait."

Leaving Rhys alone in his office had filled you with far too much smugness and serenity.

The golden tainted pink hue from the sunset poured through the large windows, trickling up the walls and coating your skin in its soft shimmer as you paced before them.

Black fabric chased after your steps from your dress sweeping in the breeze you had created in your movements, you could feel the comfort of your chambers, you could almost taste it as you rounded the corner and entered the room without a second thought.

The familiar skitter of cool kisses swirled around your ankles and you didn't need to look up to see who was splayed across your cream comforter, "I know what you're going to say," you disappeared behind the thin clouded dressing screen and peeled your dress from your body, rifling through the railing full of ornate pieces whilst Azriel examined your silhouette from his place on your bed.

"Then I don't need to tell you how stupid you are," you looked over your shoulder at his words, like he could see your expression which was one of confusion and annoyance, "I swear you get more defiant each day."

Peeking your head around the corner of the screen, displaying your face and shoulder to him, you spoke, "It's the only exciting thing I have to do around here."

Azriel quirked a brow to you, his shadows dancing around his shoulders at the sound of your voice, "That's not true," you scoffed at his words and disappeared back behind the screen, continuing on your quest to find a dress for dinner, "There are plenty of things to keep you entertained in Velaris."

"Azriel," you deadpanned, not stopping your movements in plucking dressed from the railing and holding them up to your body, "Rhys doesn't let me do anything other than train and sit and look pretty and intimidating. I'm Velaris' glorified trophy."

A particular garment caught your eye and you smirked, taking it from its hanger and pulling it up your form. It was a stunning piece, one you rarely wore. An ornate solid gold bodice of blooming roses and ivy that connected to a red wine skirt that possessed a high slit, cream lace poked from the highest point of the slit and kissed your thigh.

"That's not true. He let you fight against Hybern," Azriel told you pointedly, seemingly becoming lost for words when you stepped from the screen and soothed down the skirt of the dress before bending down to secure golden heeled sandals to your feet.

"I fought against Hybern because there was no choice to do anything but that," you hadn't spared the Shadowsinger a glance but smiled softly at the shadows that curled lovingly around your ankles, you held two sets of earrings up to your ears and tilted your head in the mirror, "I'm sure if there was an option to stay home then Rhys would have gladly assigned the position to me."

Azriel rose from the bed, moving behind you and resting his hands on your hips, his hazel eyes boring into your reflection, "He worries about losing you. He couldn't stop what happened to your mother and sister, I think he just wants to be able to stop anything from happening to you," Azriel smiled at you and your orange ringed violet eyes softened at him, "Wear the red ones, they match the skirt."

"Thanks, Az," he hummed in response and took a step back, the place where his hands once lay turning cold and begging for more, "Shall we go to dinner then? What an exciting evening we have ahead of us," Azriel chuckled and offered his arm to you which you gladly took, allowing him to pull you from the room.

There was an unspoken attachment between you and Azriel, like it could be something more if you were both willing to risk your already perfect relationship on the notion of it. You both knew that feelings lingered, but if Rhys ever found out it would surely cause a civil war within your family, and you'd hate to think where everyone would stand in that battle.

The dining room had been beautifully dressed, a black tablecloth and tall golden candles, gold plates and coated silverware, ornate but expensive goblets and an array of blood red and orange flowers, no doubt a nod from Feyre of respect toward Eris.

Azriel left you at your usual seat with a subtle squeeze of the hand before rounding the table and taking his spot opposite you, scuffing the chair against the stone and sitting in it as you did in yours. Family members trailed in one by one, Nesta took her seat beside you and Cassian sat to her left, Mor took the spot beside Azriel and Elain took the other, then Amren entered, then Rhys and Feyre, the former of which nestled into his spot at the head of the table.

Then Lucien and Eris entered, and the High Lord eyed the last two remaining spaces, the one at the head of the table opposite Rhys or the one next to you, and Eris strode beyond his brother to steal that option. He teetered at the edge of it and peered down on you questioningly, "May I?"

Feeling Rhys' eye on you that you didn't dare to acknowledge, you nodded gently, "Of course," he took your answer in the palm of his hand and used it to pull the chair out, his scent of mulled wine, candied orange and pine filling your lungs as he sat.

Eris was dressed well, a red waistcoat adorned with golden swirls, a cream shirt that was tucked into the waistband of his black pants, like he knew to match your own attire, something that not only you noticed.

Idly, decanters of wine floated about the space, pouring themselves into the empty goblets placed at every seat, and food began to appear, dish by dish, on the long table. Platters of roasted vegetables, silver dishes piled with meats, bowls of fresh salads, boats of sauces, and most importantly, towers of desserts that made your eyes glisten, wanting to skip the main course entirely and help yourself to a slice of cake.

Clearing his throat, Rhys raised his goblet, tearing you from your salivating thoughts, "A toast," he smiled thinly at Feyre whose gaze shifted to you and then to the male at your side, "To new alliances."

The room repeated the sentiment before digging in, doing their best to ignore the swirling tension caused by Eris choosing to spend the evening sat beside you. Though, that soon vanished when Cassian started telling his many tales of his escapades throughout the years with the intermittent corrections from Rhys and Azriel.

"I should thank you," a low voice spoke from your right and you craned your head toward Eris, his hypnotising russet orbs were fixated on you, dark and full of wonder as they raked over your face, "For what you said at the meeting. I hope you weren't scolded for helping my cause."

Eris' voice was low, only loud enough for you to hear and you alone, his eyes were soft and stare void of that stoic cold that usually possessed it. He looked like a completely different person, there was actually kindness bubbling within him, genuine sincerity in his words.

"Rhys can scold me all he wants, it'll never change anything," you replied in the same tone, the orange ring in your eyes burning like wildfire, "Anyhow, it's a cause worth supporting."

From the corner of your eye, you caught Lucien watching you with intrigue, his fingers encased with Elain's atop the table with a knowing glitter lingering in his expression, he grinned as his brother spoke and leaned toward Elain to whisper something beyond your realm of hearing, "I can't remember the last time I saw you before Hybern."

Smirking, you asked, "Have you been thinking about me, High Lord?"

"It's not hard to," he replied honestly, watching the faint blush creep up your cheeks, "When was the last time?"

Humming, you thought about it, it wasn't often you actually left the confinements of Velaris thanks to your brother's protective antics, your eyes glazed over slightly, "It was Under The Mountain, at the beginning, after she," you rolled you shoulders, coiling them in the memory of that night.

That's right, the last time he had seen you before the war had been the night after Amarantha had stripped your wings from your body, carving them off with her talons to punish Rhys' reluctance. It had taken everything within Eris to not set her alight on the spot, if he could have, after he had seen your shaking pale form wandering the halls like a ghost.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring it up."

"It's fine," you insisted, sighing deeply, "It's a fading memory now, I've adjusted well."

"I'm glad to hear it," the genuine tone to him was confusing, but you always knew there more to him than what met the eye, and part of you was proud to have been correct about it.

Eris had grown up listening to the stories about you and Rhys, two formidable winged warriors that exuded darkness and power, who held the capacity in their fingers to shatter kingdoms if they so wished it.

It didn't scare him. You had never scared him actually.

"Make the most of this alliance, Eris. It's very rare that I speak up on such matters," you told him, sipping from the wine in your cup and placing it back onto the tabletop under Rhys' watchful gaze.

There was an elegance about you, Eris noticed, the poised shoulders and perfectly slender pointed ears, the violet eyes with the speckles of Autumn orange, the grace laced in your words. It was a spectacular thing to witness up close.

"Then why did you?"

There was a moment of contemplation and you furrowed your brow in thought, "I can't sit by and be part of the reason why people suffer," very unlike Rhys, "Other than that," you trailed off, looking deep into his eyes like your violet pools were drowning in his soul, "I'm not quite sure."

Author's Note

Part one to the series I've been planning for awhile.

Prepare yourselves for a pining, needy slow burn with a hint of forbidden love x

374 notes · View notes

mask131 · 6 months

Text

November is usually my Shining month, and so I want to bring forward again something I have been repeating for a long time now but that I don't see being picked up a lot by people. A detail that is well-hidden inside the Doctor Sleep movie, but that makes the piece even more infinitely appreciable and shows it was made by true Shining fans.

And this detail is... the ghosts of the Overlook Hotel.

Now, when this bunch appeared during the final scene some familiar faces could be spotted. Grady of course, the Injured Guest from the "Great party, isn't it?" scene, the Twins, and of course the Woman of Room 217 -sorry, 237. But there are other faces there - seemingly random people in fancy outfit just for the sake of it. People were confused as to who these people were...

But all you have to do is look at the end credits. And you have a big surprise.

The familiar faces are confirmed to be the ghosts we always thought we were, or to correspond to famous ghosts of the original novel. The twins are confirmed as Grady's two daughters, while the woman in the white dress (not on the picture above but you can her in the scene) is Mrs. Grady. Meaning we have the whole Grady family as ghosts. The woman of room 237 is confirmed to be indeed Mrs. Massey, just like in the book ; as for the Injured Guest (only referred to as "injured guest" in the original scripts of The Shining), the sequel decided to make him Horace Derwent. Meaning he likely can switch between a young/attractive and older/more gruesome form, just like Massey's ghost, since in the original movie Derwent was clearly seen though not named in the scene with the man wearing a dog-bear-like costume (the script confirms it is supposed to be a dog costume though).

Alright, but what of the others? Now this is where things get interesting! The bald man to the right of Grady? That's Vito the Chopper. Yes, the Vito the Chopper from the novel by King, the mafia boss who got his head blown off in the Presidential Suite - as for the two men near him, they are his two bodyguards, Victor T. Boorman and Roger Macassi. Also from the book. These three characters are actually an Easter egg for those who read the book (and we know from the original treatment of Kubrick's movie that the criminal paradise-era of the Overlook and the murders at the Presidential Suite were originally supposed to play a big role in the cinema version of the story too).

But things get even better with the last ghost of the group. He doesn't appear in the picture above either, like Mrs. Grady, but you can notice him during the scene, a large man right behind Mrs. Grady when the ghosts first appear (he is played by Marc Farley). And the ghost's name, as revealed in the credits is... James Parris.

Now, fans of the novel might wonder "Wait... Who's that? I don't recall reading about him". And indeed, you did not! At least if you just read the regular version of the novel! James Parris is however a true character of the Shining, a true victim of the Overlook Hotel, a character written about and invented by Stephen King... But he is part of the deleted prologue of the novel, "Before the Play". You know this prologue that was not part of the published novel but was released in various TV magazines several times, and then finally re-added to the main novel in the collector Cemetery Dance edition of "The Shining"? You must have heard of it - even before the Cemetery Dance release the prologue was going around the Internet, published on small fan websites and discreet literature blogs...

And James Parris was, according to the first part of this prologue (detailling the building and creation of the Overlook... and its first victims) the second owner of the Overlook Hotel. A man that was touched by the same obsession and madness for the hotel that had overtaken Watson's grandfather (the actual builder and first owner of the Hotel), and, if I recall well, ended up dying of a heart attack on the hotel's garden-grounds (near the topiary beasts if I recall well, but I am not too sure, I haven't read the prologue in a while).

So all of that to say - not only did they bother placing an Easter Egg for the fans of King who had read the original book ; but they also placed an Easter Egg for those that knew of or had read the Before the Play prologue, which most regular fans of the novel never even heard about! If this isn't commitment to researching your source material, I don't know what is!

#the shining #shining #doctor sleep #overlook hotel #ghosts #stephen king #stanley kubrick #kubrick's the shining #king's the shining #references #before the play

652 notes · View notes

ladybirdswritings · 3 months

Text

Pride & Prejudice - Coriolanus {Young} Snow x Reader

Summary: Spending more time with the miserable Mr. Snow, against your will, only proves to you exactly why he is a man you have sworn to loathe for all eternity. Steamy Pride & Prejudice retelling with young snow and you! Alternate universe, au!snow <3

Notes: so happy you all loved the first part — so i guess i’m continuing ahaha. as always, thank u for leaving comments and loves as it keeps me motivated! also, feel free to lmk if you’d like to be added to the tag list <3

two

The mist of September’s end and October’s greeting is a thick, heavy blanket in the air. You only scowl at it as you pick up your tiered skirt from where it drags against emerald moss and dirt. A storm is nearby.

You would melt into this very soil if you could. Become one with the lilacs and peonies if it meant you’d never be prevailed upon to marry again by the force of your mother.

Mama is unwell. As always but, with more fervor now. The dance was most successful for Jane. She and Sejanus have been exchanging kind letters with pomegranate stained kisses garnishing the print. Even so, mama is viciously unhappy.

The cherrywood cabinets slam louder when you pass, and her eyes narrow at any mention of the gathering. Perhaps your behavior was a great embarrassment for her. If only you were as divine as Jane.

The house is lively, far too lively for your liking at this settling hour. Sisters here and sisters there. They busy themselves with the grand piano and awful singing. It isn’t long until one of the twins rushes forward with a sealed envelope clasped tightly in hand.

“Mama! It is for Jane!”

You snatch the paper from her palm, worrisome that she will ruin it with how tightly she squeezes. Beyond this, you are most eager to see the development in your own personal romance novel starring your dearest sister. Mama slaps your hand away in turn, tugging it back into a monstrous grasp that nearly shreds it to minuscule little pieces.

You see the breath halt and dwell comfortably in her throat, unwilling to part or falter. This is most important to her, trivial matter as it is.

So long as Jane is happy…

You gaze on at the girl with petal-pink cheeks and bright eyes — her smile is a thing of beauty and joy at the mere idea that Sejanus Plinth could admire her.

“Mama! What does it say!”

Her hands tremble like hummingbirds now, and your frown stitches itself promptly upon your pretty face. Oh no, he is certain to have changed his mind.

At least he was kind and gentleman enough to inform dear Jane by letter.

That joy, excitement and eagerness once swimming within your mother’s eyes has dissipated to sheer horror.

“When did we receive this?” She whispers, a ghastly and terror laced sound.

“This morning!” One of the twins happily offers, twirling her chocolate ringlet tight enough to knot.

Mama cries out a sound of agony, shoving the paper hard against Jane’s chest — enough so that she stumbles. She is a frantic thing, running round your quaint living space like that of a farm animal who has lost its head.

You are fueled by your own confusion, constricting your mind to only wait upon Jane. She shakily reads the crumbled thing — hesitance becoming her. Her eyes shift then; a look of joy, excitement, fear — then dread.

“What is it?” You whisper, watching as mama mutters nonsense and brushes the collection of scattered breadcrumbs from the countertop — eyes wide as the moon aglow at midnight.

“Mr. Plinth and his sister, alongside Mr. Snow and sir Plinth’s dear — rich uncle, have all planned to meet with us this evening. They’ve taken a carriage, and have made arrangements to arrive by sundown.”

Four pairs of eyes, in perfected unison, glance into the grassy plains where the sun has begun to set.

You do not intend to giggle at the irony, perhaps it is a thing fueled by nerves just as your mother. Yet it floats from your sweet lips like a prayer, slender fingers rushing to suffocate it.

It is undeniably numerous, however. How could it be anything but?

The way your dearest blood all melts at the brim for the gaze of three men whom are only important by cold silver is a thing of great mystery to you, something you do not understand. It is not just mama and Jane and the entirety of your own family however. No, it is all of society. You only wonder what it would be like for a woman to reach beyond the horizon line — to be great. To not be forced upon a man of all creatures to be of true importance.

Mama rushes past, so quickly your hair becomes unruly. She presses her palms firmly against your cheeks — your face piecing together like a swift minnow from the nearby fish pond.

“Oh heavens — if you do even the littlest act so to embarrass me, I am certain to die of great illness. My nerves are far too weak, you must behave for me! Be as sweet Jane is. Sir Plinth’s uncle is of the richest gentleman in Newbury, 5,000 a year! You must converse with him, do it for your dearest mother. Oh! And brush that wild hair from your face, girl. He will think you to be a witch — keep guard at the window.”

Her words are a tangled, knotted mess of all the things you despise. Even whilst tucked away into a place where you do not truly listen, you know well she is asking you to be social for gain of a husband.

You frown, grateful when the headless chicken runs off from you again. Your hand fussses with the wisps rested amongst your forehead — and you obey mama’s orders by sauntering to the creaky old chair that faces the fogged front window.

The fog is a veil, a curtain hiding from you only dread. You are grateful for it now, though it does no good for your locks and tresses. Your eyes dart to the torn book beside you — and you consider disobedience as an alternative to this state. You know well what will happen if you stray, so you do not dare it.

It is an awfully timely and punctual arrival — perhaps ten ticks of the grand, tower clock before the stallion’s snouts peek through the fog. Just as the golden halo sets beyond them.

“Mama!”

You call, but she only waves you away with a busy hand as she continues fussing with the knit table mat. You will not bother it again. You shrink, hiding all but curious eyes behind the lace curtain.

Sejanus is grinning, nervously you think. Then the scowling sister, a small, old creature with a sunken gaze — and the miserable one. They approach, you sink further.

“God Sejanus, smile any more for the poor thing and your pockets will start betraying you.” Grace sneers, voice sewn tightly with disgust at the less fortunate situation your family finds themselves in, glancing around at the quaint, pathetic home. It is as if she believes one breath of hers will cause it to collapse to the soil — to her polished feet.

“Please Grace, she is the prettiest girl I have ever seen. Oh, uncle, her eldest sister is very agreeable as well. Don’t you agree, Snow?”

Oh, he’s asked the cold thing who’s far too proud and rich for a humble party. You’re curious.

“Perfectly tolerable, I suppose. But not pretty enough to tempt me.”

Oh…

Your mischievous, sneaky grin melts into that of a hard line — ample with annoyance. How arrogant of him to say. As if his blonde locks and blue eyes make him any different than the handsome officers that pass by now and then. As if he is some prize. You scowl, Grace’s laugh an unpleasant sound.

Four hard knocks and you are quickly up to your feet.

Mama rushes to you immediately, slapping your hand enough so that it stings greatly and fades the color crimson.

“You were meant to watch! Places, take your stance girls!”

It takes beyond the greatest force to drag your feet to stand beside Jane. Mama checks each forced position anxiously before she tugs the door open wide — with a horrible, eager grin.

“Welcome!”

They trail the moss and dirt onto your oak floors, not bothering to wipe it away on the torn cloth you call a carpet. No need, they believe. The house is pathetic already as it stands. No dirt shall make it any less worthy than it already is.

In unison, a curtsy of greeting becomes all of you. Prim and proper and perfect just as mother groomed you all to be. For preparation of husbands.

Good god, the blonde looks even more dreadful now. Cold eyes darting to the old, harmless hound that chews on a racket ball. He winces at the sight of dust and chipped oak wood furniture surrounding. He looks down upon this place as if it is beneath him.

He far from belongs here.

“Sit, please sit! I’ve already prepared us supper!” Mama practically pushes Sejanus with most nervous palms, and his shadows follow suite.

Though you dream of running through the open door and fading into the mist to never be found again — you obey; sauntering into the archway with tired eyes and reluctant feet.

“My lady…”

Oh.

The short man with bushy brows and coal colored, untamed locks pulls your seat back enough so that you may sit upon it. To your dismay, the miserable one takes place in front of you. His eyes are cast downward to the far from fine silverware laid before him.

“Thank you sir.” You whisper, the chair feeling as though it is determined to suffocate you the longer you sit upon it.

“Oh, Jane — everybody, please meet my uncle, Mr. Casca Highbottom of Bristol.”

You only nod at the grinning old man, and mama rushes back like a midnight breeze through the archway — setting plates filled to the brim with but all of the food left for the entire month. Even so, it remains poor to a gazing eye. Though it matters not how little garnishes the porcelain, for when you catch gaze of miserable Snow pushing his few peas around in disgust, you cannot help but narrow your sight.

How can he be so proud? Certainly, if a humble gathering invited you in for a warm meal in this awful mist — you’d be most grateful for even a singular pea on your plate. Let alone twelve.

Grace laughs at the sight of Snow displeased — placing a soft palm against his knee beneath the cherrywood table. He spares her laugh a glance, and his lip twitches in what appears to be an amused smile. They talk lowly to each other, you notice it from where you peer behind your glass. She must be fond of him what with the way she touches him and leans closer with each word he speaks. You cannot possibly imagine why. Perhaps they are just alike. Rich, rude things.

“So — I dare ask if any suitors captured your heart at the party then?” Grace, she speaks to you now. You snort, ready to offer words of disdain and disgust toward the lot of men and their sweaty palms. Your mother’s cold glare silences you.

“No… they did not.” You mutter in quick defeat.

“Hmm, how dreadful…” it is mock sympathy, noticeable to both you and Jane.

Tension thins to a mere string lacing the table together. Silence blanketing even more so than the mist as worn silverware and mama’s embarsssing tangents erupt in painful harmony. You are grateful for Jane who manages to pry her eyes from Sejanus for a single moment so to save you from mama’s disapproving glare at your silence. She is selling you to the short man, it seems. She has been for the entirety of this meal.

“It is not as though gentlemen do not flock to my dear sister…” Jane starts. “It is simply that she is far too preoccupied with her books to notice them. She is an avid reader, adores her novels you see. She possesses great talents because of it!”

You hoped Jane would be so kind as to avert the attention. Yet it remains stable upon you, the available wife — as cattle with clipped ears. You feel as though you are livestock being powdered and pressed for the market. If the short man is buying, you’d rather be butchered.

He is awkward and stout and his jokes are uncomfortable as they are just rude. He is far from a gentleman and all the reason you deny each hand bestowed to you in the first place. For reason of men like him.

“You write?” Snow inquires.

Those cold, devoid eyes are locked upon you — and despite wishing to send him away to never return so you may be free of his arrogance, you only peer up at his gaze through fanned lashes to see them commanding an answer of you. Awaiting one.

“Occasionally, sir.”

His gaze doesn’t falter, nor does the gaze of Mr. Highbottom, even as he presses a boiled potato to his tongue.

“What of?”

What a silly question, you think. What else would a woman of your age and lack quill about?

It baffles you to find him curious. Perhaps he does not wish to seem obviously rude any more so than he simply is — perhaps he is only creating small talk.

“What else, sir? My thoughts and desires, my ideas. Romance — dramatics…”

“Oh but she just despises poetry!” Mama interjects, as if to end the conversation and refocus it upon your eligibility. Even when she speaks, Snow does not spare her a single glance. His eyes, they still rest upon you.

“You do? I thought poetry to be the food of love.”

You dare a snort then, suffocating a fit of laughter with a spoonful of food. You take your time chewing it, only offering more words when you realize that the conversation does not seem to be at its end. No. It cannot be. Not when he looks at you in a such an expectant manner.

“A poet writes of women in the gaze of all men, which I do not believe to be a true show of adoration. Perhaps it is the food of love — if you want to suffocate it. Stone it till it remains no longer.”

His next words come quick, immediately almost. As if he is grasping at the first chance to reply, much to Highbottom’s dismay whom snaps his mouth shut after losing the opportunity. Every eye in attendance is on the both of you.

Do they think you to be an enigma? You wonder…

“What do you recommend then? To encourage affection between two people…”

You do not know why he asks you this, but you can only assume it is because he wishes to embarrass you. Grace’s sharp gaze morphs into that of an amused smirk. Why would he ask the only woman seated what encourages affection when she cannot obtain it on her own?

You are certain then of his intentions. To mock you in front of Plinth’s sister, his uncle. In front of your blood. He does it so subtlety that if you were not bright as you are — you would most certainly miss it. He is a fool, a great fool because miraculously — you can reciprocate.

“Dancing… even if one’s partner is only tolerable.” You almost sneer with a tilt of your head and raise of your sharp brow.

If something truly clicks within him, it is most quickly dissipated. Most tricky to see. Sejanus clears his throat, and Highbottom — rude creature, erupts into a fit of laughter with a mouthful of food. Your mother is nervous, she joins him.

Grace only gasps, and Jane’s soft features are laced with confusion at the thing only you five are lucky enough to understand.

You remain stoic, challenging his eyes and his tense, twitching jaw with proudness.

“Shall I fetch dessert mama?”

Your mother nods through fits of forced laughter, and you take the opportunity to lift upon your feet. The chair scrapes against the creaky panels and nearly topples as you rush into the quaint kitchen and away from him.

It brings you joy knowing that he has nothing further to say.

You are smiling, terribly overflowed with pride as you place canned, sugared peaches upon ten porcelain plates. How proud he must have felt to speak lowly of you, a girl he spared little words to at a party he refrained from dancing at for it was too poor for his liking.

You disliked him then — but a chat with miss Lucy-Gray Baird while passing by in town confirmed all of your prejudice. She claims to have been treated most coldly by him whilst he was courting her. He offered his hand, then fled into midnight when he grew bored of her. Only the next morning.

He is as any other man is. A heartless hound. His behavior in your small home only further proves your prejudice is with more than enough reason.

You take longer than you should selfishly, and when you return — your gaze locks upon Sejanus who is entirely enamored by the sapphire gaze of Jane.

Mama aids you in placing down the plates you juggle. It is a poor dessert, but one that is most delectable.

“Oh well, your daughter is most precious. Funny, too! How uncommon for women.”

“Oh please uncle, we all have our wit. She is just peculiar, I daresay.”

Mama laughs at Grace’s words, and you only offer a polite, tense smile before being seated once again. It is you now that pushes your food around your plate, fading into the mist truly as you remain silent.

They speak of things you care the least bit for — all irrelevant matters to your mind. You are grateful when wine is poured, you nearly inhale it and garner a slap on your hand once again from mama.

You need it to get thought this.

Highbottom and mama speak of you, she tells him lies. How much you wish to be wed, how eager you are to find a lover. All contradictions of Jane’s earlier lick of truth. The rich fool believes her, his eyes cast upon you like poisonous darts. Slowly suffocating you.

Sejanus is preoccupied entirely by Jane — and the miserable one chats lowly with the scowling sister.

“Well, how about some music and dance? Lizzie, off to the piano!”

Your youngest sister lifts — eager to press her hands against the keys. It will be a mediocre melody but one that offers enough sound so to dance. You wish to stay glued to the table as they leave you to the living space — but mama tugs at your braid harshly, you have no choice other than obedience.

Sejanus kindly offers Jane a hand — and you feel as though you will just sink entirely into the floor as Highbottom approaches. Your heel turns you swift as you try and find even a small bit of space in this little home.

A navy vest with a crimson rose tucked into its pocket cages your escape. You never thought to see the day you’d be grateful for the cold blonde who cuts in front. You nearly collide with him.

“Dance with me.” He commands.

How baffling…

You do not notice the tension settled within your features until your brows ease in confusion. Your chin is pointed upwards — enough so that he can be equal to your gaze.

“Are you asking this of me — or ordering sir?”

His jaw ticks once more, but he does not follow up with any more words. The cleared throat of the short man behind you is enough reason to pick the far less uncomfortable poison. You’d rather be fueled by annoyance as opposed to discomfort and dread. One dance is all.

“Fine.” You mutter, sealing your fate and betraying your swear to be far away from the man whom you loathe entirely.

He is a pale thing up close. Birth marks kissing silken skin, soft as the moss kissing your shoes. You are grateful that this dance does not require touch — only the occasional closeness.

You follow him to where Sejanus and Jane stand — his head nearly reaches your ceiling. His palm hovers over yours, eyes downcast on your pretty features. Grace is scowling, again.

Your fingers twitch as Lizzie begins the sonnet, and you follow his lead.

It surprises you greatly, how well he dances. Though his mouth is a hard line, and his eyes are like round lumps of charred coal. He is noiseless.

“Are we to dance in dread and silence, Mr. Snow? I dare comment on this awful weather, now you may follow with a remark about the food. How much you despised it.”

You catch a glimpse of him, a suppressed twitch of his lips. As if the words offended him. Maybe amused him. You step forward and then back, frayed skirt floating against the movement. He follows suite.

“I could comment on how you dance. I am happy to inform you it is more tasteful than how you cook. Please do advise me on what more you want me to say to you.”

You stumble by his words — and his eyes dart to your clumsy feet. They are stable soon enough, circling him like a shark in vicious waters. His words upset you.

“Mama and Jane prepared the meal. I only prepared the peaches; but I do believe that if a family was kind enough to welcome an abrupt attendance with a warm meal — I would not be so complacent about its contents. You see — we are not all so fortunate to have garnered inheritance, Mr. Snow.” A cold melody, but one he would be a fool to ignore. It is all true.

Now it is him that halts. He steps forward, dipping his head low. Your eyes wander to his gloved palm — it clenches then flexes outward; all evidence of his annoyance with your words.

There you both stand, Sejanus and Jane alongside the twins, mama and Highbottom swirling around you. You do not know where Grace lurks.

You both are still, he stands a tower above you. His eyes pour heat into your own, admonishing you — offended with your words. It is as if the room is only filled with the two of you, the lace of connection between you just your anger. Even in your short time being familiar, it is strong.

“Do you imply that my inheritance is all the reason for my success?” He forces through clenched — perfect teeth.

“Perhaps I do sir, miss Baird of Newbury certainly agree—”

The hand that lays against your side is snatched into his own. He squeezes it tight now, eyes wide and swimming with disapproval and frustration. It has been resting at the surface, but bound to crack.

“Oh I’m certain she does. I am sure she told you the many tales of her troubles and woes brought upon by her time spent with me. You won’t speak to her again.”

It is you that steps forward now, so laced with upset that you do not notice your poor and worn shoes are stepping upon his tip toes. Up upon the rich and shined leather. Your chin is pointed upward, your stance tense.

“You command me as if I am wed to you sir, but I am not. You have come here, unannounced and unhappy with your humble plate as if we are all but a quaint inn with poor maids. Just because we gather little and obscure and we do not have pockets as generous and full as yours does not make us beneath you, Mr. Snow.”

The music halts, and your eyes shift quickly to find a concerned Jane gazing on — alongside your horrified mother. How crazed you both must look now. Stepping upon his toes with palms clasped — anger and upset becoming you both.

You release his gloved hand and part your soft lips to dismiss yourself — yet a strike of lightning cracking from above the grayed sky is a gift given, a distraction from beyond. Yet alongside it? A curse.

The horses startle, lifting to their hind legs before running far and fast with the carriage. Grace cries out from where she sulked in the shadows, and Sejanus alongside his uncle run after the wild beasts. Your sisters and mama follow.

“What are we to do!?”

“Grace, please be calm. We will fetch them.”

“We cannot travel in these conditions, boy.”

“You may rest here!”

Dread is a serpent that wraps tight round your throat — making the pounding of your heart halt entirely.

It is all a blur, but by the end of the lively conversation it is decided. They will stay. They will all stay. You bow your head, crossing your arms round the beating at your chest so to protect it.

“Excuse me.” You whisper, so low it is taken with the breeze from the open door before rushing up your dilapidated steps; knowing full well that the hospitality offered by mama, selfish reasoning or not, is the last thing a man like Mr. Snow deserves…

326 notes · View notes